Chapter Thirteen
Jessica knotted her fingers together again and sighed heavily as she looked out of the window.
Rain was pouring down the glass panes, the whole of Stanphrey Lacey covered by the torrential downpour all morning.
It was so dark in the drawing room that Nicholls had been forced to send in footmen about an hour ago to light the lamps.
She sighed again.
“If you sigh for a third time,” said her cousin Samuel’s pleasant voice, “I shall set Frank on you.”
“What did you say?”
“I’m just saying,” Jessica’s cousin said hastily under the irate look of his sister Frank, who had a pencil in her mouth and was staring into the distance again. “What on earth has gotten into you, Jessica?”
What, indeed.
It was not as though she could quite put her finger on it. Something was wrong, wrong with Reginald, and she could not understand what it was that she had done wrong.
The plan had seemed so simple. Make Lord Llyne fall in love with her.
How hard could it be? People fell in love with her cousin Lilianna all the time. A few gentlemen had even had the misfortune to fall in love with her sister Irene, which had only ever ended in tears. The gentlemen’s tears, that was.
Jessica had been certain that it could not be that difficult to make a gentleman fall in love with her.
He’d already asked her for marriage, which was more than any man had, so she thought she’d have an easier time of it than she otherwise would have.
His attention had already been focused her way.
She had been pleasant to Reginald, she had bared herself—that was, she amended hastily in the privacy of her own mind, she had been open and honest with him, which was more than she had ever done for anyone else, including some members of her own family.
She had even kissed him. Multiple times.
Her toes curled in her satin shoes. Several kisses, each of them fantastically wonderful and utterly unforgettable.
And then he went around saying things like he had on their ride.
“I leave for Town tomorrow.”
Evidently, she had missed something.
Jessica cast a curious glance at her cousin Lilianna, who was focused on the book in her hands and seemed unaware that she was being observed.
Exactly how did ladies like Lilianna do it? How did they captivate the attentions of young men, often accidentally, it seemed?
Was it mere beauty? Or was it something more?
And the worst of it was—though now she’d thought that, there were several worse things—was that she felt an uncomfortable need to be close to Reginald at all times.
Just sitting here in the drawing room and not knowing where he was…
It was infuriating. It was like an itch she could not scratch, a deep-seated hunger that she could not sate.
Not without going to find him, at least. And what sort of reception would she gain?
“Jessica?”
Because it was she who was always drawn to him, wasn’t it?
Jessica was the one with this gnawing, aching feeling in her whenever she was apart from him.
She was the one who had had a quiet word in her cousin Victoria’s ear and ensured that she would always be seated beside Reginald at dinner.
She was the one who watched him whenever he moved around a room, tracing his steps as though she were a prowling tiger. She was the one who—
“Jessica!”
Jessica started. Whether it was the shouted name or the click of the fingers just before her eyes, she was not sure.
Her cousin Samuel was glaring. “You’ve not been listening to a word I’ve been saying, have you?”
It would have been easy to lie. Lying was wrong, but it was extremely tempting in this moment.
“No,” said Jessica awkwardly, her shoulders slumping. “No, I have not.”
How could she, when her thoughts were trailing a man who seemed utterly confusing, a man who would be marrying her in a few weeks—just one more banns needed to be read before they could—and yet he did not seem to wish to discuss the wedding at all?
She swallowed hard. It was not a good sign.
He… He was going to follow through on this marriage, wasn’t he? Surely, Reginald, Lord Llyne, would not do the unthinkable and actually decide to…break this engagement?
“You look a little tired,” said Samuel quietly. “It’s not like you to be so inattentive. Quiet, yes, but I thought those keen eyes silently took in everything.”
Jessica pounced upon the excuse with relief. “Yes—yes, I do feel warm.”
Well, it was not exactly a lie.
“Perhaps you should go and lie down,” suggested her cousin. “And rest.”
The thoughts that spun into Jessica’s mind had a lot to do with lying down—and very little to do with resting.
Dear Lord, what had gotten into her! It could not simply be blamed on Reginald’s intoxicating presence, could it? The poor man had no idea that she was so brazen in the privacy of her thoughts.
And it would have to stay that way. The very idea of him finding out… No.
“Jessica?”
“I beg your pardon?” Jessica said hastily, blinking twice in an attempt to focus her mind.
It focused on a very concerned Samuel. “Right, off to bed with you.”
“I don’t need—”
“Then go and find something to do. Sitting here, doing nothing while it rains outside, no wonder you cannot keep focused on one thing for a full minute together,” said her cousin determinedly. “I don’t know…just go somewhere and do something.”
Jessica swallowed. “Yes. Right.”
It was only when she had risen and stepped halfway to the door that she realized that her cousin’s recommendation had not included doing anything outrageous with a certain young man, which was a pity. Still, it had not been forbidden.
So, where was Reginald?
It took her almost ten minutes to find him—which, given the large size of Stanphrey Lacey, was actually quite quick. He wasn’t in the music room, the library was full of Frank and one of her inventions, and the gun room was of course empty. None of the Chances could go hunting in this weather.
And so it was a rather obvious conclusion when she opened the door to the billiards room that she would find him here. And she had. All she had to do was make some light conversation.
“There you are.”
Jessica had not intended to speak in such a sultry voice. Had it sounded sultry? Really, she was hoarse, her breath completely taken away by the sight of Reginald in tight trousers leaning over a billiards table.
It would be too much to fan herself, wouldn’t it?
Before she could decide what to do, he had turned around, a vague smile on his face. “Jessica.”
“Don’t tell me, you want to take him away for a romantic horse ride,” quipped another one of her cousins, stepping around the table with a sardonic expression. “Samuel told me all about it.”
“Be quiet, Zander,” Jessica said hurriedly.
Her cousin smirked. There was a particular type of smirk, she decided, that was somehow only created by men, and created only to distract and irritate their relatives. How did the pest do it?
“Once the rain has let up, I would not be adverse to a ride. But only after I have finished trouncing your cousin,” Reginald said conversationally, a wicked grin of his own spread across his face.
Jessica stifled a giggle as her cousin said hotly, “You are not trouncing me—don’t tell her that! We’re neck and neck, and at any moment—”
“Yes, yes, at any moment, you will suddenly find the form that you have never demonstrated,” jested Reginald with a snort.
Stepping into the room, Jessica glanced at the score. “It doesn’t look neck and neck to me.”
“That is because I always bring my brilliance for the second half of the game,” retorted Zander, his face flushed and his color high. “Besides, you’re distracting me. If you’ve only come to distract me, please go.”
“Believe it or not, I did not come here looking for you, Zander,” Jessica said sweetly. “I came looking for Reginald.”
She caught his gaze and wondered how it was legal for her to spend any time in his presence with other people. Surely, anyone could sense the heat in the air?
Perhaps that was what chaperones were for. To make sure the heat stayed in the air between a couple tempted to take the steam to new heights with physical contact.
Apparently, at least one person picked up on it. “And that is the unspoken request that I leave—just do not tell my mother,” Zander said forebodingly. “The last thing I need is for her to know that I left the two of you unchaperoned.”
“Oh,” Jessica said disappointingly. “Perhaps, then, you best stay.”
“It would be a problem if she found out, but as she’s never going to find out, it’s not a problem,” said her cousin with a grin as he handed Jessica his billiard’s cue. “To be continued, Llyne?”
“Yes, I’ll be happy to trounce you later,” said Reginald with a grin.
Something twisted, molten hot, in Jessica’s stomach as the men exchanged polite nods. The door shut, which was the noise that informed her that her cousin had left the room.
All her attention was fixed on her betrothed.
It was all so…strange. Some days, Reginald looked at her with blazing heat, and it was all she could do not to launch herself into his arms and beg him to take her. Not that she would ever do that, of course. That would be ridiculous.
And some days he looked at her with… Well. Aloofness. As though they were mere acquaintances who had bumped into each other in a coffee house after both attending a house party of a mutual acquaintance five years ago.
It was most odd, and not something she had yet managed to untangle. Perhaps she could now.
“The wedding approaches,” she said in a bright voice. “One more Sunday of the banns, and then we’re free to set a date.”
The response was more than a little underwhelming. “Yes, I suppose we are.”
“And… And preparations will need to be made.” Why couldn’t she just ask him outright? What was holding her back?