Chapter Five #2
Lilianna and Samuel bickered a good deal over a saddle, which Jessica tried not to smile at, and Thomas went racing past them on a steed a little while later, which made Frank and Gwen wonder just what name they would give the child when it was here.
All in all, there was enough noise and chaos to give Jessica a momentary reprieve from the intensity of Lord Llyne’s looks—that was, until Uncle John called the gaggle to order.
“Come on, then!” he called out with a wink from his steed. “Those birds won’t put themselves in the kitchen!”
General laughter mingled with the sound of horses’ hooves as the seven of them trotted out of the stable yard and toward Stanphrey Lacey Forest, where the pheasants for today’s shooting would be.
Jessica filled her lungs with fresh September air and started to immediately feel better. This was more like it. The skies open above her and the forest drawing her in, the movement of her mare, the renewed air, the freedom—
“I hope we can shoot together,” came a low, honeyed voice.
Jessica almost dropped her gun.
She had not noticed how close Lord Llyne had moved toward her, and neither had she noticed just how quickly her family had disappeared into different directions. Samuel and Frank had gone to the left with Uncle William, and Lilianna and Gwen had disappeared to their right.
That left herself and Lord Llyne…ostensibly alone.
Oh, bother.
“Of course we can shoot together,” said Jessica brusquely.
Lord Llyne smiled.
“In silence,” she added.
His smile disappeared.
Well, what did he expect? This was a…a marriage of convenience, she supposed, though she was not sure why it was convenient, or whose convenience it was for.
Who was doing whom the favor? She was a Chance, but he had a title.
She was a wallflower, but he wished to—how had he put it? Make an excellent match?
“I don’t want to waste time with a matchmaker and I… I thought you would accept my offer.”
What precisely had he meant by that, anyway?
And despite Jessica’s certainty that every time she attempted to warm this man up, she would only be cooling him down, she made a decision that the wallflower within her did not like.
She was going to talk to her betrothed.
“Lord Llyne,” she said quietly as they rode along the path.
“Miss Chance,” he returned with a winning grin.
Damn him, why did he have to be so good at this? “Lord Llyne, why did you propose to me?”
Jessica would have missed it if she had not been paying close attention. She would not have noticed the flicker of his pulse, the tension tightening then loosening in his jaw.
Small signs, perhaps, but signs of something. Signs that the man did not want to tell her the truth.
So when Lord Llyne said, “Why, I have already told you,” Jessica was ready for her retort.
“You said you did not wish to waste money on a matchmaker,” she replied, reminding the man of his own words. “But this—this marriage of convenience—”
“Is that what you wish to call it?” Lord Llyne returned softly.
Jessica swallowed. What she wanted to call it was a marriage of devotion and desire. She wanted the man to look at her and see her, truly her, not just a wallflower who was so desperate to be wed that she would accept just about anyone who asked.
Even if technically, that was true.
The cool air of the forest thankfully prevented her from reddening too much as she said, “I do not think it is a difficult question.”
“I do not think my answer is insufficient,” came the swift yet calm quip from Lord Llyne. “Do you and your family gain much excellent hunting in these woods?”
“Yes, we—” Jessica caught herself just in time. As she glanced over to Lord Llyne, it was to see him clamping down on his lips.
Oh, he thought he was so clever, didn’t he?
“Well, I almost had you distracted.” The man who would be her husband in less than a month grinned.
“Well, you do not have me yet,” Jessica replied before she could think.
His lopsided grin was all too knowing, and it was a good thing that her riding habit hid her décolletage because it would undoubtedly be burning red if anyone could see it. No one could, obviously, but Jessica could feel it, and it was most uncomfortable.
“I do not know why you are avoiding this question,” she said quietly as they rode along.
“And I do not know why it matters so much to you,” he returned jovially.
“Because—” Jessica bit back her words.
Because, she wanted to say, this marriage of convenience… It’s not how my family does it. We are Chances, and everyone who weds in this family has done so for love. Thomas, Lilianna, Evelyn, Leopold—even my parents! Eventually.
Everyone married for love.
And here I am, unable to convince a single man to even dance with me, let alone fall in love with me, and I’ve…
Well, Jessica wasn’t going to say it aloud, but she could say it in the privacy of her own mind.
She was so unlovable that she would have to accept a marriage of convenience or not marry at all.
“I chose you, and we will be married within a month,” Lord Llyne said shortly—not unkindly, but without any sort of warmth.
“I spoke to your parents when you were resting yesterday, explained I was a baron—it is true I was not forthcoming with that at first, to my regret—and they seem to have given their blessing. I thought you would be pleased.”
Jessica almost snorted. Oh, yes, she was certain that her parents were delighted at the thought that they would be able to marry her off, and to a title, too. It would allow Irene to be more in Society, perhaps even Teddy to come out into Society fully.
Yes, this marriage was an excellent idea for the Chance family.
But what was it going to be like for her? Secrets? Lies? Her husband deciding that the truth was too much trouble to share with her?
Well, she’d had enough.
Slowly, Jessica slipped from her mare’s back and stepped onto the leaf-strewn path.
“Miss Chance?”
“I am going to walk back to the house,” she said quietly.
“You are?”
If she were not being so delusional today, Jessica would almost have said that Lord Llyne sounded disappointed. But that was surely because she was hopeful. Foolishly hopeful.
Heavy thumps—Lord Llyne had dismounted too. “Miss Chance?”
“If you don’t want to speak to me, I have no wish to press my conversation upon an unwilling participant,” Jessica said, hating that she had to explain herself. Wallflowers didn’t have to explain themselves. They rarely had anyone to speak to. “So I will see you at luncheon.”
“Wait.”
It was not his word that stilled her, though that could almost have been enough. No, it was the hand on her shoulder.
Jessica stared at it, then the man to whom it belonged.
Lord Llyne was staring with an expression of…hope? Concern? Interest?
It was so difficult to tell. She had never been that good at understanding the expressions of others. Oh, feelings, feelings she endured deeply and could well comprehend the overpowering need to feel that others surely also experienced.
But telling what that emotion was, on the outside of another person’s face? How was she supposed to do that?
Lord Llyne removed his hand, but only momentarily. Instead of grabbing her shoulder, he had now taken her hand in his and was pulling her off the path, away from the horses—oh, Lord.
Jessica gasped as the man who had proposed marriage to her just days before pushed her up against a tree. This cannot be happening. Is this happening?
“Miss Chance, you ask fair questions,” Lord Llyne said in a low murmur that thrummed through Jessica’s whole body. “And I wish to give you fair answers, but…but I cannot.”
“You cannot?” she breathed.
His gaze locked on to hers and a heat she had never known burned through her. There was such an intensity within that look, such a desperate wish to be open—or was she wrong? It disappeared before she could truly examine it.
“I have told you the truth, and only the truth, and I will always do that throughout our lives,” Lord Llyne said quietly, making Jessica’s knees quiver. “I want respectability, I want—I need respectability for my estate. There is no family so respectable as the Chances.”
Jessica had to laugh at that. “You do know that my father is an illegitimate Chance, don’t you?”
His eyes bore into her. “You think that matters?”
Her gasp caught in her throat. “No.”
This was madness—they couldn’t stand here like this, her back against a tree trunk and Lord Llyne standing there so…so delicious!
“And you are beautiful,” Lord Llyne whispered.
“No,” Jessica repeated in a whisper before she could stop herself.
His chuckle seemed to reach down into a deep part of her and pull desire from her, uncontrolled, unfathomable. “You are, if I say you are.”
And before she could reply, before she could stop him, before she knew what he was doing or she was doing or whether any member of her family could walk over to them at any moment—
Baron Llyne was kissing her.
And not the gentle and genteel kiss on the back of the hand that Jessica had seen her parents share, oh, no. This was far more—more than anything.
His mouth crushed on hers and she gasped, parting her lips and letting him in as though he had been invited. Lord Llyne did not wait for a better invitation; his questioning tongue was delving into the warmth of her mouth and sizzling heat and pleasure in equal measure down her spine.
Oh, this was… This was…
Jessica grasped the lapels of his riding jacket, but though she had done so to push him away, to her great surprise, she found herself clinging to him all the more.
She was moaning, whimpering as the sweet decadence of his kisses stirred her, and somehow, his hands were around her waist and his mouth was—
A cracked twig. A footstep. “Jessica?”
As though it had never happened, as though they had never touched each other in their lives, Lord Llyne was somehow five feet from her and waving. “We’re over here!”
Jessica hastily brought a hand to her mouth as though she would need to cover the evidence. Would anyone know—could anyone tell what they had been, what he had been…
What they had shared?
“I said you are beautiful, and I meant it.” For some reason, Lord Llyne’s voice was cracked, his breathing irregular. “Now, shall we join your family?”
Jessica nodded, words impossible as her head span. Join her family? How could she possibly face anyone after…after what she and Lord Llyne had shared?