The Earl of Winchester had paid attention, rapt attention, to all three Jamison sisters when they’d glided down the aisle. Every man present had been enthralled by their graceful beauty, but Richard, having already known them as the prettiest girls in the village, considered their transformation into the most self-assured ladies in the city doubly stunning.
Becca’s new-found wealth had allowed these butterflies to emerge from their country cocoon to climb and circle above their elegantly-coiffed but empty-headed peers. The difficult climb from near-destitution to modest affluence would have worn any other girls to exhaustion, yet until Michael and Jonathon were educated and full-grown, these three invincible ladies carried the burden for their continuing prosperity.
Richard understood only too well the consequence of the trio practicing non-traditional female roles, rather than gossip-and-stitch. Knew he could never marry a woman of their ilk, intelligent and confident. His future countess would be their complete opposite.
He silently scoffed at himself. If his obsessive interest in the trio was due entirely to the novelty of their unusually shrewd minds, why had his stimulated blood immediately chilled when he’d observed the gaze of every man under eighty fix on one place?
Correction, two yellow-clad places. The softly swaying rear ends of Laura and Lottie, as they’d swished and swirled in an attempt to stay two paces behind the bride, Lady Rebecca Jamison. Swathed in creamy lace and with a smile as radiant as the sun outside, Becca had rushed with indecent haste towards the altar and an equally impatient Sherywn, the love-match between the duke and his now-duchess a rarity amidst the calculated unions of the ton.
From the rear at least, Laura and Lottie had appeared as similar as twins. Lottie, admired for her classic beauty and sweet nature, had already refused several offers of marriage; though considered by some to be headed down the path to spinsterhood, the young lady believed herself far too young for marriage at twenty. By year’s end, she’d be consoling more desolate suitors, while following her sisters’ examples and delaying marriage until she’d mastered her currently preferred science.
Privately, Richard considered phrenology ludicrous. Despite enjoying, three or four times, Lottie’s experiments where she’d run her fingers through his hair and traced his head bumps, supposedly to reveal his soul’s deepest secrets. And despite his friends, their brothers, issuing repeated warnings to the girls to never be alone with a man when they tested their scientific theories.
Richard agreed whole-heartedly. Sisters were precious. His own weren’t allowed within ten feet of most of his friends who were, to an elder brother’s view, all rogues, rakes, or scoundrels. The type of men who attended balls as guardians but strolled the perimeters with an eye to securing their next mistress. Men like him.
So why had such honorable convictions not stopped his dishonorable thoughts when Laura had floated past his pew, gown billowing like a hot-air balloon? Every man with a heartbeat had prayed a nor'easter would whirl down the aisle and lift Laura’s skirts. And he’d prayed hardest. Convictions had warred with sheer unadulterated lust, and he’d wrapped his hands around the Order of Service, squeezing the engraved parchment to within an inch of its life as an alternative to throttling every man who lecherously leaned into the aisle to follow every movement of Laura’s lemon-frothy hips.
If he could bring himself to renounce his vow to his sisters, sworn during the first wretched week after their parents’ death, those long legs of Laura’s and the hundred fantasies they stirred could be his. All his. He’d begin at her toes, nibble, lick, and work his way upwards, not stopping until he’d tasted forbidden fruit and…
He groaned. Heaven save him for lust had addled his wits. Contrarily, if he’d read similar thoughts on the face of any drooling young pup, he’d have leapt across the pews and planted him a facer. Embarrassed himself, and Laura, with his possessiveness. The gossips would squeal with delight to see him break his own rules and behave like an obsessed suitor.
Far better onlookers saw the relationship between him and Laura as sparring siblings because, in private, his indifference was becoming harder and harder to maintain. More so, when Laura studied him surreptitiously, or so she thought, and compared him to other men. When she recorded his suitability as her mate as part of her quest to ensure the survival of the human species. Blast the woman and her speculating eyes, because no matter how sexually innocent her assessments of his anatomy might be, his body leapt to readiness faster than any seasoned street walker lifted her skirts.
And damn his randy thoughts for creating so many pictures of them cavorting in his bed. In that arena, if nowhere else, he was certain their passionate natures would prove a perfect match. He clenched his fist at the thought of giving up something else. The intelligent and strong children their couplings would produce. Because if he had Laura’s body under him once, he’d be old and wizened before he tired of her.
Across dinner tables over the last few weeks, he’d displayed nothing more than mischievous teasing when he’d questioned Laura about her evolutionary beliefs. He’d lifted his nose in an exaggerated scoff over her year-long trials as she waited to catch whiff of her perfect olfactory match dancing past her in a ballroom.
Fool that he was, he’d stood by, still as a block of marble, while the woman who could be his soul-mate sucked in long pulls of scent. Or rather, she’d inhaled and analyzed the odor of a man’s sweaty body after he had romped after up and down a ballroom in a quadrille. And though he might tease, he’d neither interfered nor objected to her unfounded beliefs. Not even when she’d waxed lyrical upon being uncovered from cataloguing some unsuitable fop’s sweat-dotted skin.
Twelve more weeks would strain his honor, his good intentions, and his self-control to the limit. After every ball, he’d see the women home in his carriage, and Laura would fill his ears with her latest findings, or the latest swain on whom she’d pin her hopes for future happiness. Night after night, Richard would smother his irritation at Laura’s eagerness to wave him goodbye, knowing she would rush to her garden workroom and, while in the throes of euphoria, enter her reactions to her would-be-lover in her log books. Several more encounters with the same gentleman would be arranged and Laura would happily record her comparisons of the man’s scent under different conditions.
Meanwhile, he’d console himself by adding a name or two to his own suitable-spouse list: a catalogue of his friends, daughters and nieces, sweet girls ready to make their come-out in two or three years, charming chits who’d fit into his schedule and his mold. Yes, keeping a dozen or so society misses under his scrutiny would take his mind off Laura’s husband list.
He shuddered. Suddenly, the idea of stretching his rules and taking a wife earlier than planned seemed like an extraordinarily good idea. He glanced at Laura. The main spoke in his carefully-planned wheel stood with him, mouth open as normal, about to either amuse him or abuse him. Either way, he looked forward to it. So how the hell would he survive future years in the company of Laura and her perfect-match of a husband?
He copied her and kicked at the step in frustration. Good God, he was a master of self-assurance. He’d ignore the inquisitive and assessing looks she gave him when she thought he wouldn’t notice. He sighed. To his misfortune, he noticed everything she did or said.
But he’d school himself to play the role of mentor with such brilliance, her brothers and sisters would applaud his aptitude for match-making. He’d find Laura’s perfect husband as quickly as possible. And at those long and interminable dinners, he’d prove his own unsuitability by arguing until their fellow diners rolled their eyes and closed their ears to another of their battles of wit.
When their companions’ eyes glazed over and they turned to more interesting conversation, he’d be free to let his eyes roam and his senses feast on Laura as she raved about the wonders of evolutionary science.
It was more likely that he’d need to dig his fingers into the elegant carvings on his chair to stop himself leaping across the table like a lunatic and shocking everyone at the sixty-seat table. He’d been in control of himself and his minor kingdom since he’d turned eighteen. So, for pity’s sake, why did being within thirty yards of Laura turn him into a wet-behind-the ears randy youth?
After her olfactory tests had proved he wasn’t her ideal mate, he should feel relieved, not affronted. And rather than reveling in a bachelor’s escape from the clutches of another would-be countess, Laura’s rejection had prompted him to childishly extol his own virtues. For an earl who also held minor titles and controlled several estates, being categorized as ‘Examined and Disregarded’ was as abnormal as it was lowering.
“Laura,” he said, dodging lace frills. “Picture my brutalized face if Michael and Jonathon caught me, the one man able to resist your charms and ignore your demands, composing appalling odes to the length of your lashes like your other fawning fops.”
“Is that why Sherwyn needed to coerce you into acting as my keeper?”
Ah yes, trust Laura to demand to know the reason he complied with his cousin’s wishes.
“I was the only able-bodied male available for the time required.” He shrugged, feigning ignorance. “Perhaps Sherwyn realizes I’m not as gullible as those pitiable sods you flirt with simply to lean close enough to sniff their cologne. And catalogue the ingredients.”
“You’re insulting those gentlemen. They’re all very sweet. I cannot stop them composing poetry to me. Besides, not all odes are appalling. Monsieur Lamarck’s odes to evolution were –”
“Stop, please.” He held up a hand. “No evolutionary theories this morning.”
He looked down at Laura’s bizarre bonnet, recognizing her great aunt’s outlandish taste and comprehending why, as a devoted niece, she’d wear such an unsuitable hat.
She laughed at herself and her heightened senses, made jests about following her nose to uncover people’s deepest secrets. In truth, her heightened sense of smell was a startling gift which allowed her insights into people’s wants and needs. Yet once she’d sensed a person’s greatest joys or worst fears, her compassionate nature stopped her using the knowledge in a hurtful way. He hoped his face never displayed his true feelings. Prayed his many and varied licentious imaginings of Laura, partly clothed or entirely naked, were hidden from her family.
He’d tried, often without success, to conceal the exaggerated stories about strings of courtesans or wild romps with bored ladies of title from innocent ears—including Laura’s—as being regarded as a cad, or having well-bred ladies avoid his company, grated on his innately honorable nature. How the gossip columnists imagined he found the time or energy, he’d no idea. Managing estates, escorting sisters and accounting for a sheaf of investment portfolios kept him running from one dawn till the next.
According to his plan, he had another three years before he needed to choose a bride, when his youngest sister would whirl her way through London ballrooms for her first season and, he prayed, the others would be married. Until all four were comfortably situated, they remained his primary consideration. After which he’d select a bride, a quiet and biddable chit, who was the opposite in every way to his passionate mother and his exhausting sisters.
A sensible young lady, who wouldn’t turn his hair grey or disrupt any facet of his life, business or personal. He intended passing his days with a woman of sedate charm and his nights with a placid bedfellow. Not a passionate woman who’d embrace the pleasures of sex and demand to be taken, night after night, in every place and position she desired.
Enthusiastic games would be reserved for the bedchamber of his mistress. He’d sworn to never watch another well-bred lady, one as exciting and intelligent as his mother, miscarry babe after babe because she stirred her husband’s baser instincts. Because her husband was so enraptured with his wife that he had no control over his rutting nature.
Laura stared at him, no doubt trying to read his thoughts. Her famed perception stood tall between them, the main reason he would never weaken, succumb, or beg this remarkable young lady to become his countess.
If he invited this termagant into his household, she’d unravel the secret he’d taken pains to hide since his first day at boarding school. Pity might become the only chain keeping Laura with him, and though during some lonely nights he thought he could suffer anything if only Laura lay beside him, a marriage based on nothing more than sympathy and compassion would kill him.
“Your male relations understand my stance on marriage. I abhor marriages based on notions of romantic ideology, and I believe love matches create more unhappiness than joy. My convictions exclude me as a suitable suitor for you and make me the safest choice of escort, especially compared to the fortune hunters and rakes I’ve seen sniffing around your skirts recently.” Under her intense scrutiny, he shifted his feet. “For a woman as passionate and exciting as you, I’d prove very poor husband material.”
He realized how his words might be interpreted when she said, “Are you complementing me for my passion? Or lamenting that I’m not the milk-pudding-miss you profess to require as your bride?”
He stiffened. “My countess will not be as bland as you imagine. She’ll be admired by everyone, including me of course, for her competency in running several large households.”
“Of course.” She rolled her eyes. “Because sewing and pianoforte and menu-planning and…reciting the bible…. are vital for any woman’s sanity. Mind you, your countess will need some distraction during the long boring months waiting to deliver your heir. And, of course, a possible spare or two. Stitching handkerchiefs may be the most excitement she experiences if her marriage to you is as boring as it sounds. I don’t believe you’re stupid enough to settle for a young girl who completely lacks wit.” Her gaze met his, confronting and demanding. “A chit with whom you’ve nothing in common, malleable enough to bend to your will and willing to be held at an emotional distance.”
He stared straight ahead, unable to meet her eyes. Laura, and this damnable conversation, would strip his long-held convictions regarding marriage from his bones.
“It’s the way of our world, Laura. Men of rank list their requirements and choose the wife who best meets their needs. My countess needs to have enough spine to act as my hostess, yet be biddable and undemonstrative.”
“Poor, poor girl. Selected like a horse from Tattersall’s to carry on your breeding program, and then ignored for the remainder of her marriage. No doubt you’ll desert her in favor of your latest mistress.”
“You’ve no right to scoff at my rationale. Not after you’ve terrified every bachelor in London by scribbling notes about them in your little books. Only giving the poor sods a tick of approval if they have a pleasing aroma. You’re selecting your husband the same way I intend finding my wife. By examining their credentials. Your scientific theorizing degrades their worth as men far more than my plans for my countess. At least I’m choosing her for her … ah…gentler traits.”
When she scowled, he clasped a hand to his chest in a dramatic fashion and gave her a wide-eyed look. “Consider your lack of traditional female skills arts as providential. Instead of wasting your time testing me as a potential husband, you can treat me as an older and wiser financial advisor, as well as a loyal sentinel.”
She frowned. “Once again, I can’t decide if I should be insulted or relieved.”
He searched for a non-committal response, but couldn’t reassure her without revealing his thoughts. A fast change of subject would be better.
“You realize that if you were a man, I’d call you out for insinuating I might steal from you.”
“Then treat me as if I’m a man.”
He looked down, his gaze lingering at the dip in her fashionably-cut neckline. “Hard to think of you as a man when you dress like that. Perhaps knowing I’m a better shot than London’s weak-kneed dandies frightens you.” To make her want to check she was covered, drifted up again. “Curses to Sherywn for teaching you girls how to shoot. He bolstered your self-confidence at far too early an age.”
“We needed to protect ourselves. Our father is…” She shrugged. “Well, if an archaeological dig opens, he disappears for most of the year. The boys are studying.”
“Still, young girls shouldn’t have been left to run wild.”
“Stop acting high-and-mighty. You loved our tomboyish company.”
“It was different as children. But once girls leave the schoolroom, things change.”
“Hypocrite. Chastising me for reveling in my bit of freedom. Choosing a simpering miss when it’s time to set up your nursery.” She narrowed her gaze. “Yet I’ve seen the women, or rather, the wanton females you take to bed.”
“Are you going to remind me, every time we meet, of the countess holding a conversation with me at Featherstone’s ball?”
“That woman did not converse with you. She devoured you, gobbled you up. I feared there’d be only the heels of your shoes protruding from her bosom. I was ready to summon footmen to grasp your legs and retrieve you. If her efforts to entice you back to her bed had become any more heated, you’d have burst into flames.”
As he turned back to watch the street, he heard her reciting botanical names and, despite summer warmth and a melting-sun dress, he felt her shiver. “This morning,” he said, giving her hand a pat, “I rose before dawn to organize the arrival, on time and suitably dressed, of four capricious ladies. Being the target of your ill-tempered barbs is a stroll in the park by comparison. I believe your washed-out appearance and uncharacteristic churlishness are due to your worry about Lady Hetherington. Imagining that lunatic gathering more men gives us all nightmares. So I sympathize, I really do. But–”
When she started to interrupt, he held up a finger. “Be warned. If you’re about to weep all over my new coat, in front of the worst gossips in London, I shall turn tail and run.”
She looked down, kicked the step. “I-I never weep.”
“Liar. Your eyes were red when you left the church.”
He meant no offense, knowing her behavior was out of character, but she stiffened her spine, lifted her face and glared. The swift return of Laura’s fighting spirit pleased him, though he covered his mouth to hide his satisfied grin. Then he covered her hand with his, securing it on his sleeve with what he hoped was a light and reassuring touch. What he’d prefer to do was bundle her in his carriage and drive her out of London to somewhere safer. With Lottie and their aunt, of course.
“There’s no shame in accepting assistance.” He dipped to see her face beneath the brim. Damn! Her eyes were moist, with those tears she’d denied shedding. “From a….a… friend.”
“Friend?” She swiped at her face with a gloved fist. “Everyone believes us to be sworn enemies.”
He shrugged. “Let others think what they like. Despite our bickering—” He gave her a small smile. “Which I’m certain you do to irritate me—”
Her own lips twitched. “And to stop your head from swelling any larger. Saving you from having to purchase new hats.”
He chuckled. “But on a more serious note, I expect you to be sensible. To yield some ground. Let me deal with your finances.”
“No, blast your arrogant hide.” She tried to tug her arm free. “This is my chance to prove to you—” She sucked in a sharp breath. “To everyone that I’m more than the middle Jamison sister. More than the uncivilized one who tinkers with medicines and perfumes and such.”
Richard’s ears pricked at an odd sound. Comprehension struck like a fist to his gut.
He wrapped his arms around Laura, who was shouting, “Gun! Gun.”
Michael yelled from behind them, “Run. Take cover. Someone’s shooting.”