Talk of the Ton (Free Fellows League 5)

Chapter Six

Miles was in the middle of a sentence when he saw Jenny rushing through the throng of guests. He watched her take a short hallway to the rear of the house. Pausing outside a door, she glanced around rather furtively and disappeared inside the room.

With a muttered excuse to his companions, he set off after her, not questioning the urge that put him in motion.

He located the door she had used and listened for a moment before opening it. It was a private, informal withdrawing room used for casual company and family evenings, dark and empty this night with only one lamp lit and no fire in the grate. The air was noticeably cooler in here. Jenny stood in the middle of the room. When she heard him click the door shut, she turned.

“What do you want?” she demanded in a voice quite unlike her.

His eyes moved, taking in the shadows. There was no one else here. He had experienced a piercing jealousy at the thought that she might be meeting someone.

Seeing she was alone, his mood eased. “Don’t you know girls lose their good reputations when they skulk off to dark rooms?”

She let out a small cry and turned her back to him. To his amazement, she buried her face in her hands and appeared . . . Good God. She appeared to be weeping!

For an uncertain moment, he considered retreat. He detested female hysterics. Marianne had used them like emotional blackmail, and in their early days together, it had been effective in getting him to do whatever she wished. He’d grown immune quickly enough, even disdainful whenever a woman was moved to tears. But he couldn’t summon the appropriate amount of distaste for Jenny’s distress.

Taking out his handkerchief, he approached her and held it out, keepin

g his distance. “What did I say?” he asked gruffly.

“M-m-my . . . you said . . . my reputation!”

He pulled her hands away from her face and shoved the handkerchief at her. “I can’t hear a word you are saying. What is this about your reputation?”

She raised a mutinous look to him. “I thought you couldn’t hear me.”

“I could hear you. I can hear you better now, however.” She wasn’t using the handkerchief, so he took it from her and dabbed the corners of her eyes. “Now tell me what is the matter.”

She looked at him with heart-stopping misery. “I thought it was because I was plain. I n-never really wanted to frighten any of them away. It was Cassandra’s season, not mine. You see that, don’t you?”

None of this made any sense to him, but he said, “Of course.”

“How could she be jealous of me? What am I to do now? My aunt and my cousin are the only family I have.”

He still wasn’t sure what had happened, but he could guess. The words, the look of her, the broken, stammering voice brought on a surge of protective fury. He didn’t like it, but he couldn’t seem to turn it away.

There was inside him the most undeniable instinct to wrap her in his arms. It was a dangerous idea. However, even as he thought sensible, ordered thoughts about the folly of such a thing, he gave in to it and pulled her close.

She leaned against him, taking his strength, without so much as peep of resistance.

“Hush,” he said. He could think of nothing else. It seemed inadequate, and yet it stilled her. He held her like that until she fell quiet. It seemed the right thing to do.

He stroked her hair and murmured, “Don’t you see how you outshine her?”

She shook her head, a childlike gesture that made him smile. He was acutely aware that she was not a child.

His thickening blood was clouding his reason. It was dangerous to hold her this way, but he could no more let her go than cut off a limb.

Reaching down, he gently pulled her chin up so he could see her face. Her eyes swam in moist pools of pale blue behind her eyeglasses. Her pert nose was red on the tip, and her mouth was parted slightly.

“These spectacles are no good,” he said, and he pinched the middle piece resting on her nose and drew them off. “You remain blind despite them.”

There she was. So incredibly lovely, like a flower. Pretty and honest and untainted. She blinked back at him, those gorgeous pools of blue as wide and as deep as any ocean. A man could drown in them. A man could crave it.

Before he could stop himself, he kissed her. It was to be a gentle, quick kiss before he sent her away, a selfish indulgence that had no place in his comforting her but one he could not resist. But he was so hungry for her, and once he tasted her, he couldn’t stop.

Tilting her head back, he opened her mouth to him and stroked her tongue with his. He felt her respond, heard her small moan of helplessness, and his gut twisted like a cinched rope. His mind went blank, and heat crawled over his skin.