From the stables, Sam growled at the dark clouds rolling in to eclipse the red-tinted sunset. His guests were supposed to be busy later, enjoying a fireworks spectacle. But the coming storm had obliterated his plans for the evening.
Thankfully, Holt and Hollander One and Two had helped him gather up the fireworks display before they could get wet, while Lord Stapleton played host in Sam’s absence. So at least there was a chance to see this through tomorrow. But waiting another night felt like an eternity.
“Well, that should just about do it,” One announced from the outer corner of the empty horse stall. He released the crate early, nearly causing his younger twin to drop the other end, and dusted his hands together.
“Watch it, you!” Two shouted as he shuffled back, keeping his boot-clad feet out of harm’s way.
The elder brother raked a careless hand over his widow’s peak of sandy brown hair, ignoring the outburst, a wicked gleam in his jade green eyes. “I managed to pack up the fireworks and carry them back down the hill.”
“Standing with your arms crossed, nitpicking the placement of every cylinder is hardly doing the work yourself,” Two said, pantomiming with comical exaggeration, earning a tight-lipped sneer from his twin. “Additionally, I’m the one who carried the brunt of the weight since your arms are nothing more than spindly twigs beneath your shirtsleeves.”
One absently brushed a piece of straw from shirtsleeves. “I am the elder brother, ergo the overseer.”
“The quarter hour that separates us does not make you my lord and master.”
“Of course not. Superiority in every other way does that for me.”
Two’s face split into a slow grin. “Well, at least I’m not the one who just stepped in horse shite.”
The elder Hollander looked down and cursed.
With a shake of his head, Sam moved to the open doors where Holt was smoking a cheroot, his back resting against the weathered fieldstone wall. He took a long drag before flicking his ash in the water bucket at his feet.
“I suppose tonight will be cards again,” Sam said without any interest. “I don’t think I could stand another round of charades with Lady Tillmanshire and her shouting as if every puzzle were a horse race.”
Holt chuckled. “I imagine it is a race to her. Rumor has it that the money her husband inherited—the same money that purchased his title and their home—is all but gone. Now, she is in desperate straits to find a well-situated husband for her daughter before anyone learns of their altered circumstances.”
“Truly?” Sam wondered if that was the reason for their near frantic attempts to claim his attention. “Quite honestly, I took pity on them. I thought that since they’d been labeled as new money, they were not being received properly within the ton. I wanted to give them a fair chance.”
“A lesson for us all is to be wary of a woman in need of a fortune and a good name to save her,” Holt said wryly. “Thankfully, I shall never have that problem. You, however, will have terrifying creatures to contend with until you finally marry.”
Sam clenched his teeth and eyed his friend shrewdly. “I hope you are only referring to Lady Tillmanshire and Miss Ashbury with that comment.”
“Of course. Who else would I—” Holt frowned, his cheroot paused midlift. “Ah. You thought I might also be referring to a certain Miss Desmond, whose ‘surname is that of a criminal’s.’ It must be difficult to know that her father is very like the men who nearly took your father’s life.”
Sam’s fists tightened. “Tread carefully, my friend. She is not like her father.”
Unconsciously, his mind conjured an image of Gemma wearing a dark cloak, the lower half of her face hidden by a highwayman’s scarf. A tormented shudder washed through him.
Quickly, he shook off the unsettling image. Gemma was no more of a thief and deceiver than he was, he assured himself.
Holt appraised him with an arched brow, then turned his attention to the sky. Drawing on his cheroot, he slowly released a thin, curling stream of smoke. “Does it bother you—her need of a good name to wipe the tarnish off her own?”
“No, what bothers me is the mean and unfounded censure she has endured.”
“And as a result,” Holt added, “she might assume that any offer of marriage she received would be out of sympathy and not realize you were already half in love with her.”
Sam’s fists relaxed in an instant. He drew in a deep breath sweetly scented with rain and tobacco. Like Gemma, Holt knew how to read people effectively. It was a trait Sam envied, now more than ever. “Yes, perhaps that too.”
“And does she share your feelings?”
“You know very well that I’ve failed miserably in gauging a woman’s interest before,” Sam said, frustrated. “I would do better to ask you.”
Holt flicked his ashes into the bucket. “While Miss Desmond looks at you as much you do her, she is rather cautious about revealing her thoughts in her expressions. So, from an outsider’s perspective, it is difficult to tell. Though surely her kiss has told you all you need to know.”
A sardonic laugh rumbled in Sam’s throat. “That was the whole reason for the fireworks this evening.”
He looked up to the house, a fireball sun reflected in the glass of Gemma’s bedchamber window. Having her here, beneath his roof, should have made it much easier to spend time with her. And of course, he saw her far more frequently than he would have if they were in town. In their stolen moments, he’d come to know her better within the space of a week than he’d known any of the debutantes during the entire London Season.
Yet the problem was, he wanted to be alone with Gemma, talking without interruption, touching without the need to hide, and kissing without reason to stop.
He needed to know if he was foolishly risking his heart.
“You haven’t kissed her yet? I’ve spent agonizing minutes in Lady Tillmanshire’s and her daughter’s company every night after dinner, solely to give you time alone in the library with Miss Desmond, and all for naught?”
“Perhaps if you’d told me of your plan to keep Lady Tillmanshire and her daughter occupied, we would not be having this discussion.” Sam glared at his friend. “Besides, a man simply does not walk up to a woman and begin kissing her without a word.”
“Not true. Some women happen to like that.”
“Well, Gemma deserves more. She deserves respect and honor. From what I know of her life, she has seldom been asked what she would choose, and I would never forgive myself if I put my own desires above hers.”
Though he had to confess, every moment he could get away with it, he touched her, stood close to her. She never once balked. In fact, she seemed receptive, enthrallingly so, her hand curling around his with the combined pleasure of new awareness and the ease of long-time intimacy. And that’s exactly what he wanted—long, endless hours of intimacy. He was beginning to go mad with yearning. Even watching her from across the room—or a few blankets over in the apple orchard—and he’d become unbearably aroused.
“You are such a romantic,” Holt said with combined pity and disgust. His cheroot dropped with a sizzle and a plunk as it hit the water. “Tell me, were you planning to embrace her beneath a shower of sparks for all your guests to see? Or were you naively hoping that no one would notice your absence while you wooed your possible bride-to-be?”
Sam swallowed. “The latter.”
“And what? Were you going to trust the twins not to fire them off all at once and have the entire spectacle over in less than five minutes?” He clucked his tongue, looking over his shoulder to where One and Two were fencing with hayforks.
Hmm . . . that would pose a problem. “You have a point.”
Holt faced him and clutched his shoulder. “We are going to need a grand production, my friend. Something to span at least . . . oh . . . thirty minutes. You need utter certainty, after all.”
Until this moment, Sam never knew how indispensable a good friend could be.