‘Which doesn’t mean to say that you haven’t very cleverly dissected her and put the pieces neatly together again,’ James drawled but his eyes were not on his godmother, they were on Jenna, and she could almost believe there was a hint of anxiety in them, as though he were truly concerned that Lady Carmichael might have upset her. It set up a tremulous reaction in the pit of her stomach, a kind of achy, nervous weakness she wasn’t at all used to.
‘I see that Jenna has no engagement ring,’ Lady Carmichael commented in a disapproving voice.
Jenna was just about to tell her that she hadn’t wanted one when James forestalled her. ‘An omission I intended to rectify this weekend, but you’ve pre-empted me somewhat.’ He reached into his pocket and withdrew a small jeweller’s box with one hand, taking hold of Jenna’s with his other. Her fingers trembled slightly beneath the warm contact with his and for some strange reason when her eyes met his, she couldn’t look away.
She heard the tiny snap of the box being opened, and then felt the cool slide of metal on to her finger.
‘You can look now!’ James sounded faintly amused, and that amusement broke the spell holding her in thrall. She looked down at her left hand, went cold and then hot, and couldn’t prevent the small gasp of pleasure leaving her lips as the ornate gold setting and green fire of the Regency betrothal ring glowed back at her.
‘James! You shouldn’t have!’ she protested huskily. ‘It was so expensive!’
She heard Lady Carmichael snort derisively and mutter. ‘What’s that to say to anything? God knows, he’s rich enough to cover you from head to foot in diamonds without breaking the bank. Let me look.’ She studied Jenna’s trembling hand and said, “Mmm, very attractive. You have excellent taste, child. It’s very pretty.’
To describe the priceless antique she was wearing on her finger as ‘very pretty’, struck Jenna as achingly funny. She wanted to laugh very badly. Hysteria, she recognised wryly, and no wonder.
‘James…’ She wanted to tell him the ring was far too valuable for her to wear, but he had moved closer to her than she realised and when she turned her head her face brushed the cool silk of his shirt. The warm male smell of his body engulfed her, promoting an aura of intimacy between them that provoked the strangest reaction in the pit of her stomach. She started to move away, but James’s hand against her throat stopped her. His thumb lifted her chin so that she was forced to meet his eyes. He bent his head towards her; wicked lights dancing blatantly in his eyes. ‘I’m glad you like it.’ He whispered the words against her mouth, the sensation of his breath stroking her lips, making the sensitive skin quiver faintly.
His thumb left her chin and pressed lightly on her bottom lip. Instinctively she opened her mouth slightly and was stunned by the heart-jerking swiftness with which the warmth of James’s mouth covered her own.
It was only the lightest of kisses, brief and quickly over, but long after he had stepped back from her, her lips tingled in memory of the heat of his against them. Even without closing her eyes she could far too easily sense the firm pressure of his thumb against her lower lip. He had not kissed her with any force or passion but the memory of the feeling of his mouth against her own stirred feelings inside her she found it hard to dismiss or even rationalise. All she did know was that they caused her alarm and apprehension, a feathering sensation of panic coiling along her nerves more frightening because for the first time she was experiencing the fear without the adrenalin-surging boost of anger.
The main topic of conversation over dinner was the wedding. James had arranged for them both to see the vicar in the morning and Jenna had an irrational impulse to tell him that things were moving too fast, that she wasn’t ready yet to commit herself so totally. What did she want? An old-fashioned courtship? Hardly! After all, there was nothing personal between them. Their marriage was to be a business arrangement and one from which she had already gained in the material sense. Her bank manager was highly delighted about it; the suppliers she had ordered from since the news of the engagement had broken had offered her very generous credit terms without her even having to ask. Jenna was no fool; she was fully aware that being James’s wife would bring an added lustre to her reputation, and that any number of rich and thrusting social climbers would be only too pleased to pay for the privilege of boasting that James Allingham’s wife had done their décor—and they would be prompt payers. With a little hard-headed shrewdness she could use James’s reputation and her own standing as his wife to treble her business at least, but she had little desire to do so. The business world had lost its savour for her some time ago, she admitted to herself as she listened to James and his godmother talking. The impetus had been gone for some time.
‘So that’s settled then! Lovely.’
Jenna came out of her reverie at the tail end of the conversation, not quite sure what had been said until Lady Carmichael said to her, ‘James is leaving you behind when he goes to collect Lucy tomorrow, Jenna. We’ll be able to have a long chat.’
‘I thought another long car ride might be too much for Sarah,’ he explained to Jenna. ‘When she and Lucy come down here to stay I’ll make arrangements for a private nurse to attend her daily, but for this weekend…’
‘I’m quite happy to look after her, James,’ Jenna told him quietly. She remembered Sarah’s complaints about her back and a gleam of excitement illuminated her eyes. ‘I forgot to tell you,’ without realising what she was doing Jenna curled her fingers into the fine wool of his suit jacket, ‘Sarah was complaining of some discomfort in her back this evening. Surely that must mean she has some feeling there?’
For a moment he didn’t respond. Beneath her fingers his arm felt curiously tense and as she looked up at him Jenna realised he wasn’t looking at her, but at her hand on his arm. The curious rigidity she could sense in his body increased, and then as he looked up and found her watching him, subsided. He looked different, but she could not have said why exactly.
‘James?’
He caught the uncertainty in her voice and said levelly, ‘Yes, I think you could well be right.’
‘I thought you might mention it at the hospital on her next visit.’
‘Yes, yes I shall.’ He spoke with his usual cool decisiveness, but Jenna had the strangest feeling that his mind was on something else. Lady Carmichael asked a question about the accident—James replied, and the strange moment was gone.
After dinner they had coffee and at ten-thirty Lady Carmichael announced that she was going to bed. ‘I think I’ll go up too.’ Jenna stood up to follow her from the room. James opened the door for them, and as she walked past him she thought for a moment that he looked almost…lonely. But she dismissed the notion as being ridiculous. Men like James were never lonely—they might be solitary upon occasion by choice, but lonely? Never!
* * *
‘Ah, there you are, my dear. Do you mind if I join you?’ asked Lady Carmichael. Jenna was lazing beneath a shady tree in the lodge garden, the book she was supposed to be reading open across her lap. James had left just after lunch to collect Lucy, and Sarah had gone upstairs for her afternoon rest. A bee hummed soothingly among the tall hollyhocks and the beneficent warmth of the June sun lulled her into a pleasant state of drowsiness.
‘Not at all. After all, it is your garden. It’s lovely,’ Jenna praised. ‘You must spend an awful lot of time on it.’
‘I did, but now I find my rheumatism puts anything more arduous than a little gentle weeding out of my scope. We’re lucky enough to have a devoted gardener who comes round three times a week. James was telling me that the gardens at the old Hall need a good deal of attention.
‘Yes, they do,’ Jenna agreed. ‘The whole place does.’
‘Has James told you anything about why the old Hall is so important to him?’
‘He did say that an ancestor of his had originally lived there.’ Briefly, Jenna thought of the face in the portrait and a tiny shiver raised goosebumps on her skin. In her mind’s eye that dark face bent towards her, the indolent, aristocratic hand lifting to her face, touching her mouth as James had done last night. Stop it, stop it, she cautioned herself, trying instead to concentrate on what her hostess was telling her.
‘Well, that is part of it,’ Lady Carmichael conceded, ‘although to be competely accurate James’s ancestor was never really a member of the Deveril family. His mother was married to one of them, but his father was not her husband. There was a suggestion at the time that his father had Stuart blood in his veins and certainly, there is a degree of resemblance, but that, of course, is all mere speculation. However, that is not what really motivates James in his desire to acquire the old Hall.