Chapter 3
“I am sure his lordship did not mean to upset you, lamb,” Lady Gwendoline soothed, rubbing Jocey’s back as she lay on her front, sobbing into her pillow. The elderly lady had been waiting for Jocey in her bedchamber when she burst into the room a few minutes ago before throwing herself onto the bed.
“Oh, but he did. He most certainly did,” she repeated emphatically as she recalled Jericho’s cold behavior.
She had been looking forward to seeing him again for weeks, and this was the welcome she received.
Being threatened with a spanking she was far too old to receive, before being sent to her room, which again Jocey believed herself to be far too old for. She was almost one and twenty, not the nine-year-old Jericho had alluded to wanting to spank.
To add to her misery, Jocey found it most disturbing that the imagining of that spanking had made her feel warm and tingling in parts of her body Cousin Gwendoline had told her were not to be touched except to wash with a cloth when she bathed, and certainly never thought about. Namely, her breasts and between her thighs.
Jocey turned fully until she lay on her back to stare up at the ornate ceiling above her white four-poster bed. “Why is he so cross, do you suppose?”
Lady Gwendoline straightened. “Never having married, I have absolutely no idea what a gentleman might think or why he behaves in a certain manner. But, from what I have observed, something as simple as a tough piece of beef for luncheon can affect a gentleman’s temper,” she added ruefully.
Then perhaps Jocey should follow her chaperone’s example and remain unmarried?
Although she knew from conversations with the elderly lady that Lady Gwendoline had not intended for her life to be this way, and that she had fully intended to marry. Unfortunately, her beau had been killed thirty years ago in a duel, only weeks before their wedding was to take place. Lady Gwendoline had never found another man she could love or who loved her.
But Jocey knew it had not been an easy or comfortable life for that unmarried lady once the other woman’s parents died. Lady Gwendoline had then been shunted from one relative to another, first as a nanny to their children and then as companion and chaperone to the daughters of the house. Jocey knew she was the last in a long line of charges whom Lady Gwendoline had nurtured and loved before they married and discarded her.
Well, Jocey would not discard her, considered Lady Gwendoline to be her friend as well as her companion and chaperone.
“Perhaps you are right.” Jocey brightened. “And Jer—his lordship,” she corrected with a self-conscious glance at the older woman, instantly reassured when Lady Gwendoline did not seem to take offence at the familiarity, “merely ate something at luncheon which disagreed with him.” An excuse for Jericho’s earlier harsh behavior that did not lessen Jocey’s disappointment in the slightest.
She and Lady Gwendoline had spent a week in London upon their return from France, recovering from the journey. Lady Gwendoline was not a good sailor and had needed to lay abed for several days to recuperate. Jocey had filled her time by taking a maid with her when she visited friends who had not yet left London to spend winter on their country estates. But during all that time, she had been able to think of only one thing: seeing Jericho again.
She had dressed with such care this morning after bathing at the last of the coaching inns before they reached Wessex Manor. She’d worn her favorite blue silk gown bought in Paris. It added a bluish hue to what Jocey thought of as her unremarkable gray eyes, and revealed a creamy expanse of her burgeoning breasts.
All in the hope Jericho might finally see her as a grown and desirable woman.
Well, he had seen her, but not in the way Jocey had hoped and dreamed of. Instead of finally seeing her as an attractive woman, the marquis had made it clear he disapproved of everything about her, from the fashionable gown to the way she behaved and the words she spoke.
She jumped up from the bed and hurried across to her wardrobe. “Come and help me choose a suitable gown to dine with my guardian this evening.” She might still be able to redeem herself in the marquis’s eyes, even if she had to subdue some of her exuberance for life and wear one of the older and less fashionable gowns she had left here last winter.
This evening, she would ensure she did absolutely nothing to bring that look of displeasure to Jericho’s face or cause herself to be on the receiving end of his sharp-edged tongue.
“I thought every young lady knew how to at least be entertaining at the dinner table.” Jericho scowled at Jocey as she sat opposite him in the small family dining room. They had reached the main course of the meal without exchanging a single word of conversation, a meal served to them by Taylor, Jericho’s butler.
Jericho knew the reason for his own silence.
Jocey’s appearance this evening indicated she had taken his earlier remarks to heart. The dark gray silk gown she wore was buttoned up to her throat and had long sleeves. Gray lace gloves covered her hands. Not an inch of bare flesh was visible anywhere. Her hair was also less flamboyantly styled, with only a loose curl at each temple and her nape.
The whole of which succeeded in doing the opposite of what Jericho had intended.
The demure gown hinted enticingly at the full curves hidden beneath it. The same with the lace gloves now covering the elegance of her long-fingered, slender hands. And the more severe hairstyle only served to emphasize the unusual beauty of her dark-lashed eyes.
Jericho’s rebellious cock had leaped to attention the moment Jocey entered the dining room in a swirl of skirts amid the scent of pine trees and apples. A scent that appeared to belong exclusively to Jocey.
The situation was not helped by the fact Cousin Gwendoline had decided to have a dinner tray delivered to her bedchamber, having excused herself from joining them on the grounds of tiredness after her days of travel.
Jocey now turned to him attentively. “I had assumed, as you are silent yourself, that you would prefer I remain so too.”
That told him the reason for Jocey’s previous silence was not anger with him over their earlier disagreement.
His mouth tightened. “My advice to you is not to assume anything where I am concerned.”
Her lashes lowered. “What would you like me to talk about, my lord?”
His mouth thinned. “I believe I indicated you should entertain me, not the other way about.”
A blush darkened her cheeks, but her gaze remained fixed on the gloved hands resting in her lap. “I am unsure as to what subject to choose that would not…incite further rebuke from you.”
He bared his teeth in a humorless smile. “Then I suggest you try one and see.”
“Very well.” Jocey straightened, ensuring her spine was the required few inches away from the back of the chair; she had no wish to give the marquis further reason for chastising her or her behavior.
Bad enough she was all of a jitter because of how magnificent Jericho looked this evening in his black evening clothes and snowy-white linen. His hair seemed almost black in the candlelight, his chiseled features cast into shadows of dark and light and appearing all the more devilishly handsome because of it.
Jocey desperately searched her mind for something she might talk about that would not incur the marquis’s wrath. She brightened as one finally occurred to her. “I chanced to see two of your friends during the week Lady Gwendoline and I spent in London recuperating after traveling from France.”
“Indeed?” he prompted, hooded lids lowered to hide the expression in his eyes. “And which two friends might that be?”
“Lord Worthington and Viscount Romney,” she announced lightly, knowing those two gentlemen were two more of The Sinners, Jericho’s closest friends, and surely a safe topic of conversation. “I was enjoying afternoon tea with the Germaine sisters, and those two gentlemen called upon them whilst I was there.”
If anything, the marquis’s expression became even harsher. “You decided to have tea with them, or you were invited?”
Jocey frowned, sure she was about to be reprimanded again, although she had no idea why. “Lady Gwendoline was indisposed, but I took a maid from Pomeroy House with me. Admittedly, Prudence and Priscilla did not invite me on that specific day, but I am great friends with both of them and have an open invitation to call upon them whenever I wish,” she added for good measure. Jericho was obviously still slightly out of sorts, and she did not know him well enough to be aware of what subject might cause his temper to flare.
“So you were the initiator of the visit?”
“Well. Yes. But I assure you,” she added hastily as Jericho’s frown became a scowl, “Prudence and Priscilla were more than happy to see me.”
“And were they happy to see Worthington and Romney too?”
She laughed. “As they are two of the most handsome single gentlemen in London, of course the twins were happy to see them.”
Blue eyes glittered like the jewels they resembled. “Did you know Worthington and Romney would be there too?”
A guilty blush warmed her cheeks. “Prudence and Priscilla might have sent me a note telling me that those two gentlemen were being rather attentive to them.”
“I see.”
“What do you see?” Jocey was becoming more and more confused by how intense this conversation had become when she had believed it to be a safe topic.
The marquis gave no reply but glanced toward the butler. “Leave us, Taylor, please. I will ring when I wish you to return.”
Jocey waited to speak again until she was alone in the dining room with her guardian. “I do not understand. I merely thought to amuse you with the knowledge two of your friends appear to be paying court to the Germaine sisters.”
Jericho rose abruptly from the table, then walked over to look down to where a fire crackled merrily in the marble fireplace. “I somehow doubt that.”
“Really?” Jocey frowned her puzzlement. “What other reason could they have for showing Priscilla and Prudence such marked attention?”
As far as Jericho was concerned, the past hour had been nothing but an exercise in self-torture. He had spent every excruciating second of it fighting the increasing desire he felt to throw up his ward’s skirts, pull down her drawers, and fuck her over the most convenient piece of furniture. Possibly the dining table they were sitting at.
A desire that was wholly unacceptable. Not because he considered her too young. Jocey had not been a child at the start of his guardianship of her, and most young ladies in Society of one and twenty were already married with a babe or two in the nursery.
No, it was not Jocey’s age that troubled him, but who and what she was.
She was one of the young and single marriage-inclined women of Society he avoided like the plague.
Who and what she might be.
A traitor to her country and her Regent.
Jericho should not, in all conscience, even be imagining fucking either the single woman of Society or the traitor.
He studied her now through narrowed lids. Was Jocey the traitor? Her actions in London, in visiting the Germaine sisters, two other women suspected of treason, certainly seemed suspect. The Sinners had been in pursuit of their quarry for three months now, quite long enough for the guilty woman to have become suspicious of their motives in singling out certain ladies in Society.
But was Jocey’s visit to the Germaine twins while she was in London, in the knowledge Romney and Worthington might be there too, enough upon which to damn her as being guilty of a crime as heinous as treason?
Jericho did not believe so.
He needed more.
More information.
More proof.
From Jocey herself?
If she was the traitor, then it was doubtful she would tell him the truth if he asked.
How, then, did he go about getting her to tell him that truth?
“Have I said or done something else to offend you, my lord?” she now broached tentatively.
Jericho straightened. “Tell me, have you always been called Jocey as opposed to your full name?”
She frowned her puzzlement at this change of subject. “My lord?”
He shrugged. “Jocey is the name for a young girl still in the nursery. Jocelyn is that of a grown woman. Are you a girl or a woman grown?”
Jocey bristled at the marquis even needing to ask her such a question when she had been doing everything within her power since her arrival this afternoon to ensure Jericho saw her as a desirable woman. Efforts he had earlier made it clear he heartily disapproved of. Men really were the most contrary of creatures. Jericho in particular, it seemed.
She maintained her dignity as she answered him evenly. “You may call me Jocelyn, if you wish.”
His eyes narrowed to dark slits. “How many other gentlemen have you given that same permission, I wonder?”
Dignity be damned! “Why do I have the feeling that you are not going to approve of anything I do or say this evening either,” she accused irritably.
Dark brows rose. “I beg your pardon?”
Jocey was far too annoyed to heed the warning in the marquis’s cold expression. “You have not approved of anything I have said or done since my arrival.”
“Perhaps that is because, as I have already stated, your behavior has been unacceptable as a young lady of Society.”
“Why has it?” Jocey stood with a noisy scrape of the chair legs on the wooden floor. “What have I done that is so wrong except wear the latest fashion and greet my guardian warmly after not having seen him for almost six months?”
A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. “You will not take that defiant tone with me.”
She huffed in a breath. “You are allowed to criticize and complain about me, but I am not allowed to defend myself?”
His mouth thinned. “Not when it borders on rudeness toward me, no.”
Her chin tilted at a defiant angle, all her earlier good intentions completely forgotten. “You are the one who has been nothing but rude to me from the moment I arrived at Wessex Manor.”
Jericho knew the criticism was merited. He had been alternately rude and dictatorial to Jocey since her arrival this afternoon.
Because after that absence of six months, he found her far too beautiful.
Too desirable.
Too much the lady he could never allow himself to ever become physically involved with.
Too much his ward.
Even if he could break his iron-clad rule and allow himself to enter into an arrangement with a woman of Society, he could never forget Jocey—Jocelyn—was his own ward and an unmarried lady.
He breathed slowly in an effort to retain control of his raging libido. “If that is truly the case, then I apologize.” He bowed stiffly. “Now, if you will excuse me? I do not require anything more to eat, and I have some work in my study in need of my attention.” He strode across the room.
“Jericho!”
He came to an abrupt halt before turning slowly, lids lowered to hide his surprised gaze. Jocey had occasionally addressed him as Jericho in the past, but never with that imperious and yet somehow pleading tone.
Her delicate throat moved as she swallowed before speaking. “Can we not be friends again?”
Friends? Had they ever been that to each other?
Jocey had been in need of attention and affection after her years under his father’s disinterested guardianship, and Jericho had done his best to provide her with both. Mainly by bringing Cousin Gwendoline into his household as Jocey’s companion and chaperone. He had even troubled himself to introduce her to the Prince Regent and then into Society, and afterward escorted her to the occasional ball or soiree. But he did not believe the two of them had ever known each other well enough to have become friends.
Jericho knew now, from his earlier physical response to her and the continuous painful throbbing of his cock this evening, that he could never think of Jocelyn as merely a friend. In his experience, friends did not want to fuck you while you screamed their name over and over again until you were hoarse.
As he now wished to do to Jocey—Jocelyn.
“I already have more than enough friends.” He ignored the tears glistening on her lashes as he continued out of the room.