The Sweet and Spicy Regency Collection Page 23

She whimpered.

  “Now, now,” he said, drawing his finger along her tingling lips. “Don’t you swoon on me. I was only teasing about your sins. I’m sure you’re as irritatingly proper as ever.”

  He tilted her chin up with his thumb. In place of his usual dazzling smile sat a deep frown. His brows creased with visible distress.

  He’d left her lips quivering, longing for a kiss. Instead of breathing a sigh of relief, she only felt an odd sort of empty disappointment twisted in her belly.

  “You aren’t planning to seduce me?” she asked.

  He set her away from him with lightning speed. “Seduce you?” Color drained from his cheeks. “Lady Iona? I-I—” He dragged a hand through his hair.

  “Surely you understand. The rumors—” she began.

  “I expected more from you.”

  “But-but your reputation—”

  “I can’t listen to this right now.” He spun on his heel. “Accepting your father’s invitation was undoubtedly a mistake. Good day, my lady.”

  A fresh wave of embarrassment rose up her cheeks. She pressed the palms of her hands to her face.

  “Oh dear.”

  “Iona?” Her mama, a vision of brown, silky hair and a smooth, youthful face, opened the parlor door and stepped out into the hall. “Wherever have you been?”

  “I-I—” She stammered, just like when Lord Nathan had questioned her. What was the matter with her? She never stammered. “I was about to enter.”

  The Duchess’s cool gaze settled upon Iona’s heated face after taking a critical survey of the pale blue promenade dress Iona was wearing with a royal blue silk sash tied just beneath her breasts.

  The Duchess gave a quick nod of approval. “You are late,” she said stiffly, using her rounded, regal tone. “And your father had requested you meet him in his study over an hour ago. You will simply have to forgo the tea and attend to him straightaway.”

  “Yes, Mama.” Iona grimaced as she bowed her head. How foolish of her to have forgotten. Rarely did such important matters slip her mind.

  Papa had requested the meeting just that morning as she nibbled on toast smeared with a sugary strawberry jam. She’d readily agreed of course and apparently just as readily let the appointment slip from her mind.

  What better time to inform her father of her new plans than now?

  Oh dear!

  She would stand her ground and finally tell him that she would not marry. She would instead become an independent woman. A sculptress, perhaps.

  He would understand…wouldn’t he?

  She pushed the door open after giving two quick knocks.

  “Ah, there you are, poppet,” her father said. He waved away Iona’s rushed apologies and motioned to a leather chair near the fireplace. He turned back to the sideboard and poured a glass of brandy.

  After running her fingers along her father’s smooth green marble sculpture of a wild horse leaping in the air, she sat with her hands neatly folded on her lap and fought an urge to fidget with the pearly ribbons hanging from her gown. Her stomach twisted. Her nerves were still all jangled from her surprise encounter with Lord Nathan, and now this.

  She feared she already knew the purpose for her father’s attention. She wasn’t a ninny, of course she knew. Still, somehow she managed to hold onto her naturally placid composure—at least on the outside.

  “You will see, Iona, this is for the best,” her father said, his smile tightened. He hadn’t taken his usual place in the empty burgundy chair across from her. They often sat face-to-face next to the fire to speak on…well, trifling matters.

  “The best,” she whispered. Her head turned colder than the wettest, chilliest winter’s day London could ever have offered.

  Summer was well upon them. The Newbury family moved from London to their Bath townhouse every summer so Mama’s health could benefit from the water’s restorative properties.

  They had barely unpacked.

  “You are three-and-twenty,” her father said and paused. His pale robin-egg blue eyes settled on her and a smile creased the corners of his lips. “Three-and-twenty.”

  Her father, the rather austere Duke of Newbury, was tall, lean and very blond. Her aunt had often commented—with a deep sigh—how his three daughters were naught but female versions of his handsome self.

  His quiet adoration filled Iona’s heart, making what she wished to tell him all the more difficult. A young lady was expected to marry. And the daughter of this Duke was expected to marry a titled gentleman of considerable standing.

  She had no desire to disappoint him. Yet—she took a deep breath—she also had no desire to marry any man. She opened her mouth to explain her decision when he cleared his throat again.

  “Yes,” he said and set to pacing, “three-and-twenty years. A woman grown.”

  “And nearly firmly set on the shelf,” Iona’s mother said from the doorway. She slipped into the study and closed the door behind her with a snap.

  Several silent, tense glances flew between the Duke and Duchess.

  “I have a right to be present,” the Duchess said finally. The Duke gave a sharp nod and turned away.

  Iona’s clasped hands tightened, her nails digging into her skin.

  Had Papa not noticed how she’d visited the British Museum to sketch the marvelous assortment of marble figures nearly every day of this past social season in London? Had he not seen how she’d become ever more restless in her current life?

  Certainly there was no need for her toes to be quaking in her leather kid boots as she watched her mother stride toward her and settle into the empty chair generally reserved for her father while he remained on the other side of the room to splash another goodly amount of brandy into his finely cut crystal glass.

  He took a sip. His frown deepened. “This past season in London nine very eligible and well-bred gentlemen each paid me a visit. Each begged for your hand in marriage. I would have been pleased to call any one of them son-in-law.”

  Iona’s chest tightened. Her father had never appeared bothered when she’d refused the many offers of marriage presented to her. In fact, she’d sensed he’d been pleased by her stubbornness. Why the change in manner now?

  “I fear for your happiness,” he said.

  “You are fast gaining a reputation as an emerging spinster,” the Duchess said. “It is most embarrassing.”

  Her father sighed. “As much as I wish it, you cannot remain my dear, little poppet forever. Like a baby bird, you have to leave the nest in order to learn how to fly.”

  “I agree, Papa,” Iona said. Now was the time. She would tell him all about her newfound love of sculpture. He would understand her decision to move into a modest London cottage and study with one of the local artisans, for her father loved her and truly wanted her happiness. And she would be happy, for she would have her independence and, at the same time, never be too far from her family. “I believe I should—”

  He held up his hand. “I know what is best,” he said briskly. He flicked a sharp gaze toward the Duchess before hurrying on. “And I have made a decision that will serve our family’s interests as well as provide you with a stable future.”

  “Yes?” Iona asked in the long silence that followed. Her voice wavered. “A-a stable future?”

  “Don’t look so worried, poppet. I’m not about to sell you to the highest bidder.” The smile that grew on his lips didn’t go anywhere near his worried eyes. “I’ve contacted Lovington and he’s most agreeable to the match.”

  “The match?”

  “You and Byron will marry at the end of this summer,” the Duchess said.

  Her father waved his hand in a large arc over the expanse of the heavy oak-paneled room. “Lovington will one day inherit all this. And more importantly, you will become the next Duchess of Newbury.”

  The light in the room grew willowy white, too bright for her buzzing mind to handle. She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes and was very glad to be seated.

&
nbsp; “I shouldn’t be surprised,” she muttered. Such matches occurred all the time. They were expected. They made perfect sense. And she loved her cousin, Lord Byron Lovington. But it was a sisterly kind of love. No spark of passion—not at all the kind of heartrending love portrayed in the romantic paintings and statues she’d studied—had ever flared between them. They’d been practically raised together.

  Of course, since both of Iona’s brothers had died during the first years of her life, Byron Lovington was legally her father’s heir. The ducal title and estates were destined to one day go to him.

  “Lovington is quite busy dealing with his shipping company. What, with Napoleon’s defeat last month, he has had his hands full dealing with all the changes in the import business. He won’t be able to join us here in Bath for a fortnight.” Her father’s comforting hand stroked her back. “We will hold off making the official announcement of your engagement until he has arrived. That should give you ample time to become accustomed to the idea.”

  “Of course,” she said, stiffening her spine.

  She managed to raise her head from her hands and blink away much of the blurriness. This marriage was what her father wanted. As his daughter, it was her place to obey his wishes. She was the good daughter, the obedient one.

  Her parents hadn’t even asked her opinion. They simply expected she’d abide by their decision.

  She forced a smile to her lips. “Of course,” she repeated. “This will keep the ducal title within our immediate family.”

  “And you will be happy.” Her father clapped his hands together with that announcement. “I almost forgot, poppet. There was something you wished to tell me?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. Her dreams of independence drained away like water from a leaky bucket. For a brief moment, Lord Nathan’s face flashed in her memory. There was a rogue brave enough to live as he pleased.

  And he was as different from her as night was from day. The thought of what her steadfast obedience had wrought threatened to make her ill. Her fist clenched and unclenched in her lap as her mind raced with agitated thoughts that urged her, nay, compelled her to—

  In a blind panic, she snatched a colorful oriental vase from the tiny table beside her chair and smashed it along with its purple lilies against the fire grate. Her mother gasped.

  “No, Papa! I will not agree to this.” Iona leapt up from her chair and planted her fists on her hips, echoing a stance her younger sister often favored when disagreeable. “I will not be led to the altar like a lamb. I am your daughter! I deserve better!”

  Stark silence answered her. Her father had drawn back, his expression empty. The Duchess steepled her fingers in front of her lips and fluttered her eyelashes.

  “Why, Iona, where has this come from, child?” she said at last.

  Tears flooded Iona’s eyes. Her heart beat a sickly tattoo against her throat. “Papa, I have made plans to use my dowry and move to a small London cottage, to—”

  He held up his regal hand. His lips tightened into a grim line as he swallowed deeply. “I daresay you should go to your bedchamber and compose yourself. You have two weeks to become accustomed to the marriage. You will be happy with Lovington.” The last sounded like a royal decree.

  “But Papa—”

  “This is for the best.” He turned away from her. The discussion was over. She knew from watching him deal with her sister’s tantrums that no amount of tears or pleading would be able to pry another word from her father’s lips.

  Head bowed, she crept from the room. There was truly no hope for it—she’d simply have to pack her dreams away. That was what any obedient daughter would do, dash it all.

  But still, there had to be another way…

  * * * *

  “Let me help you,” Nathan shouted. His stubborn father, the Marquess of Portfry, should—at the very least—lean on his shoulder as they prepared to make their way from the carriage and across the pavement toward the elegant Bath townhouse. The townhouse was one of thirty identical stone terrace houses—the Newbury household being one of them—that formed the exclusive Royal Crescent. Nathan’s father, whose major concern was making a proper impression, had meticulously picked this particular home to rent for the summer.

  Nathan had arrived in Bath several days earlier to ensure that all was ready. And despite all his father’s foul grumbling, Nathan truly wanted to help.

  His father’s skin appeared shockingly pasty after the long carriage ride. He shouldn’t have been up and walking.

  Where had Edward disappeared to? Their father needed all the assistance he could get. He was still much too ill, too weak to be trudging across the sidewalk, much less up a flight of stairs without an army’s worth of assistance.

  Though not so weak that he didn’t have all the footmen quaking in their boots and keeping a good arm’s distance away. The Marquess’s voice boomed violently as he countermanded Nathan’s order directing the footmen to lift the Marquess from the carriage and carry him in their arms into the townhouse.

  Though the servants might be cowed by his father’s bluster, Nathan wasn’t. His determination remained firm. He had to protect his father from a relapse, even if he had to haul the stubborn goat inside and up the steps alone.

  “Leave off, you insolent pup. Do stop tugging on me.” It was the kindest thing the Marquess had said to Nathan since his homecoming. He couldn’t help but smile as he looped his arm around his father’s back. He used sheer force to make the old codger accept his assistance as they stepped away from the carriage.

  “Blast it, you are the bane of this family!” the Marquess shouted in front of the gaping servants not two steps later. And in front of three ladies—their faces hidden behind outrageously wide bonnets—who had the misfortune to be strolling on the wide sidewalk in front of the townhouse at that very moment. One lady, dressed in a peacock blue gown, paused and lifted her head. Her small mouth formed a moue. A feeling of recognition kicked low in Nathan’s gut as his gaze brushed hers.

  Lady Iona.

  “Untamed. Unschooled. My deepest shame, boy. I rue the day you were born. I rue it!”

  Nathan tightened his jaw and turned away from Lady Iona, staring instead at the Royal Crescent’s façade of giant Ionic columns. His reputation was already so battered he doubted his father’s ravings could do much harm. Even so, a shudder of shame coursed through him.

  He’d considered Lady Iona a friend once. But now, like all the other proper ladies of the ton, she apparently felt compelled to guard her virtue against a rogue like him.

  More’s the pity.

  He trudged across the sidewalk and into the townhouse with his father leaning ever heavier on his arm.

  It had been a long year, watching his father struggle with his illness. The Marquess had simply been too cross, too stubborn to let the Angel of Death haul him off that late spring day a little more than a year ago.

  Nathan couldn’t have been more relieved. His father’s recovery had handed him a second chance, of sorts. Not that his homecoming had been an easy one.

  “So you’ve come,” his older brother, Edward, had said with a curled lip the evening Nathan had finally returned home to Callaway Abbey. He’d met Nathan in the front foyer with his legs braced and arms held tightly across his chest. “You’re not welcome here. I don’t know whether to bash you into the ground with my bare hands or have a footman do the deed for me.”

  Edward had done neither. Hadn’t had a chance, really. For the very next moment a maid had sobbed loudly, sending both Edward and Nathan charging up the stairs, taking two steps at a time and dashing into the Marquess’s bedchamber.

  Their father thrashed in the middle of his giant canopy bed. Displaying a ghastly shade of greenish-gray, he gasped a weak breath that appeared to be his last and had become very still. His eyelids dropped open to let his cloudy eyes stare fixedly at the ceiling.

  A death stare.

  Nathan curled his hands into fists, thinking he’d
arrived too late. Minutes late but late all the same.

  His mother was kneeling beside the bed, keening softly. Her cheeks stained from a steady flow of tears.

  So the old codger was to leave the world, Nathan thought, just like that, without even a word of goodbye or a plea for forgiveness. What a great joke. Had his father ever even tried to love him, the younger son? Was there truly nothing left over after heaping all that affection on his firstborn?

  “Damn you,” he spat out. The curse left Nathan’s lips without thought. After a moment’s consideration, he repeated it, louder and with much more conviction.

  “Damn you!”

  The Marquess’ seemingly dead eyes shifted.

  “You…dare…curse…me?” Like a death rattle, the words rumbled from the Marquess’s thin lips. He drew a ragged breath.

  Time seemed to stop and wait. The Marquess drew another breath, deeper and steadier than the first. Nathan’s mother pressed her hands to her lips. Edward’s jaw dropped.

  The Marquess lifted a shaky finger and pointed it toward Nathan. “A bitter disappointment.” Color flooded his wan cheeks. “I’m ashamed to claim you as my seed.”

  His eyes fluttered closed then and the old man slept. He slept through the night, waking the next morning in a terrible temper. But alive.

  Too angry with his youngest son to die, Nathan supposed.

  Now, more than a year later, Nathan was only too glad to help his father settle in Bath for the summer. He lowered his panting father, who’d quite literally wasted his breath with his fussing, into an overstuffed brocade chair in the townhouse’s front parlor. One servant rushed off to fetch a pot of tea and another in search of a lap blanket.

  Nathan’s mother, Lady Portfry, and Edward’s wife, Maryanne, arrived in the second carriage. They swept into the brightly decorated cream-and-red-striped front parlor and immediately took over the Marquess’s care. Maryanne literally pushed Nathan out into the hallway.

  “Go find Edward,” she ordered. “He should be here with our father, not you. Lord knows what you must have said to my husband to run him off like this.”

  Satisfied he was leaving his father in good hands, Nathan offered his sister-in-law a brisk nod. With a sunny smile, he scooped up his hat from a mahogany side table and escaped into the bright afternoon sun. Edward was a smart cove. He could find his own way home.