“That’s quite an expectation from a simple hat,” Harry pointed out feebly. He wished he could somehow justify his early foibles, but they had been nothing but the posturings of a spoiled lad. Jessie had apparently received the brunt of them.
“Granville always hurried off as if he were too important to have anything to do with such a drab as me.”
He tried to reply to that, but she was in full sail.
Resting her elbow on the table, she gestured grandly. “All I wanted was a little attention, just someone to think I was pretty instead of a short
, pudgy, yellow-haired schoolgirl with spots. How was I supposed to know that that branch would break right when Lord Granville was standing beneath it, and how was I to know he was attempting a seduction of Miss Jones? It was just a broken nose, but the way he carried on you’d think I had ruined a classic countenance, which I assure he did not have!”
Harry stiffened. Now he remembered! At the house party at his estate, to celebrate his successes at Oxford. The little girl, Jessica, had come with her father, and she had mooned after him until he was ready to roar. She followed him everywhere—in the library, on the horses—and he just back from university and believing himself a man of the world. Then, just as he had finally lured the delectable Miss Jones into the apple orchard and taken her into his arms to press an ardent kiss on her luscious lips…Jessica had fallen out of the tree above, right between them, and broken his nose.
He took a long breath. He definitely remembered the ramshackle girl Jessie had been.
Looking across the table, he scrutinized the woman she had become. Once again, a little more softly, he said, “Damn you, Mother.” For his mother knew him only too well. She had known he would be intrigued by the adult Jessie just as he had been annoyed by the adolescent Jessica. Mother had set the trap well.
Forcibly he brought his attention back to the young lady sitting across from him who confessed in quivering indignation, “He was bleeding into that stupid goatee, and I tried to help him, and he…he cursed me. He yelled at me! And told me I was a nasty girl who deserved a hiding. Then Miss Jones, who had been passing him handkerchiefs and cooing in a most nauseating way, got irked with him for talking to me so and escorted me to the house, and Papa took me away—”
“—And you have never seen Lord Granville again.”
“No.” Jessie shuddered. “Blessedly, I have not. He’s always gallivanting about in foreign countries, seeking God knows what kind of dissipations and leaving his poor mother bound to care for his estates and fortune.”
“Who told you that?” As if he didn’t know.
“His mother.”
“You’re close?”
“She was so kind as to seek me out.”
“Kind.” It sounded like agreement. It was not.
“So you can imagine my distress at the thought…at the idea…at the mere mention of union with the despicable Lord Granville.”
“Dreadful.” Yet Jessie had kissed him easily enough, and with such fulsome enthusiasm he could scarcely bear not to tell her the truth. “I’m surprised you’ve borne up so well.”
She smiled at him, but her lips were trembling. “I wouldn’t have but for you, dearest Harry.”
Staring at her grimly, he stroked the bump on his nose. The one he hadn’t had until she broke it.
Oblivious, she confessed, “In fact, do you know I have never told anyone the complete story of that humiliating time? Cruel people remind me of it, of course, and Miss Jones is still a most dear friend—”
“That figures,” he muttered. Only Jessie could make friends with the female he had so signally failed with.
“—but I’ve never been able to admit how much I loved Lord Granville and how dreadfully his indifference—indeed, his cruelty—hurt me.”
“You really loved him?” Stupid to feel flattered.
“Of course. Why else would I have followed him?”
“Yet you described him as being absurd.”
A smile softened her lips. “I like absurdity.”
Now there was a compliment to treasure! If ever he had cherished the idea he had not been ridiculous, she had demolished it. When she had fallen, he had been a nasty blackguard. Nasty and supercilious and, yes, cruel. He’d had his reasons. His friends had already teased him mercilessly about Jessie’s infatuation, and he knew they would give him no quarter about his broken nose. Because of Jessie, he had gone abroad, served his country, learned maturity and responsibility. He should thank her, not scowl at her.
But when he remembered that dreadful house party…
Yet when he looked at her now… oh, who gave a damn about old dignities trampled? She was beautiful, and engaging, and she offered herself to him. He could keep her safe from his past. He would keep her safe—and ignorant of all the things he had done in the name of patriotism. Taking her hand, he took a ridiculous pleasure in caressing the narrow fingers. “I’m glad you told me. I’m honored you told me.”