Chapter 3 #3
She did strike him as intelligent. Her eyes held a lively sparkle and an unusual blend of color, streaks of green and gold standing out among the darker brown.
While her hair was powdered gray, her black brows and lashes were dark against her slightly olive skin.
In poor-fitting gowns she could in no way be mistaken for a leader of fashion, but in the right dress, she could be.
She had the bearing to carry off almost anything.
“I suppose none of us are as good as we could be,” she said calmly, starting another passé before it was time. Gently he steered her back into the correct figure.
She was not inclined to about-face and grovel at his feet. Her deepening scowl said she would carry her point to the last and die upon it. Of all the people in this room, only his friends cared enough to challenge Jem on his pretensions. He couldn’t hide his delight.
“Shall we call a truce? A peace between our peoples. I will stop Ashley complaining about your friends, and we will not allow people to refer to you as—” He almost said Gorgons. That would not go over well. “As anything less than a set of delightful young ladies.”
“I do not think a truce is possible, milord,” she said in a flat tone.
Alarm jumped in his chest. Her epigram had been clever. And gossips loved clever. If her remark were taken up and repeated everywhere—as remarks so easily were—she could lead others to decide that Smart Jeremy was another pompous, useless dandy.
The turn back to society’s disapproval would be swift and devastating. He would lose custom from the upper class, so ready to sneer at him, and the ambitious middle classes followed where their betters led.
And without the barrier of wealth, he would have nothing with which to protect Judith and the others. His title offered flimsy protection, his father, none. Lady Clara’s barbed probes had made that clear.
Jem set his teeth. “You cannot forgive me for caring about the folds of my cravat, I see. Or that I behave as if it were a grand accomplishment to look well?”
“I cannot forgive you for not lessening burdens where you may,” she answered.
“You do not think it a service to help people turn out at their best? Or perhaps you think, with my business, I should be doing more to help the less fortunate.” In fact he contributed to several charitable causes, but no one in this room cared to look past surfaces far enough to see that.
“I do not think you consider the effect of your words.” Her tone was low and serious, and she looked him straight in the eye. “Any more than I did. Yet one should be judged not by appearance, but by actions. You have helped me see that, so I thank you. Milord.”
A hot, white bolt of fury scorched a path through his body, as if he had been stung by some giant scorpion.
Jem clenched his teeth. She knew nothing about him, had no basis for fair judgment, and yet her contempt was palpable.
If she mocked him for his hypocrisy, for hating this social world even as he tried to use it to his advantage, how much harder would her scorn fall on Judith, about whom she would find even more to disdain?
She was the cruel one, with her petty insults and mockery. He was not out to damage but to correct. She and the Gorgons would be the first to flay Judith if he ever made the grave error of presenting her in these circles.
She shook off his hand, making him aware that his grip on her had tightened, that for some reason he was pulling her closer to him. He let go instantly.
“I do not have the power you grant me,” he said, the words grating through his teeth.
The admission went against his ingrained reserve, every defense Jem had built against his father and his father’s world. Why he would expose his vulnerability to this woman, Jem had no idea. It was an act of madness.
Her eyes narrowed, gold gleaming within the dark brown. “I think you mistake that, too.”
The music ended and the crowd around them finished the dance, making Rudyard aware that they’d been standing, locked in battle, in the middle of the room, exposed to all eyes. He took her arm and led her back to her friends.
“Miss Lithwick,” he said with a brief bow. “I strive not to give ear to the gossip of idle tongues. But I do hope I might prove, at least, I am better than you think me.”
He wanted her good opinion, and hated himself for currying to anybody. But the Frotheringale fortune would be good custom for his shop. He must make himself stoop, again and again, because his wealth was Judith’s shield.
Miss Lithwick drew away from him and took her cousin’s hand as the Major returned. As if she feared Jem would set upon the girl despite her warnings.
“Good evening, sir,” she said, and the Gorgons closed ranks about her.
Jem headed for Lady Clara, holding forth with a set of merry widows who were doing their best to become as dashing and influential as she had made herself.
He nodded and smiled, a plan of revenge forming in his head.
It was perfect, really. Like a Greek tragedy, the hero’s destruction brought about through his own fatal flaw.
Lucasta Lithwick thought him at best useless and, at his worst, vain and petty.
And yet she must know she was about to suffer the same rise as he had, vaulting from a poor vicar’s daughter to an heiress.
She would see what it was like to walk the hot coals of society’s approval, every part of her life subjected to ruthless interrogation, whether she wanted it seen or not.
He would simply give her a nudge onto the pedestal. If, indeed, Smart Jeremy had the power to bring someone into fashion, then he would do so for her.
And if she toppled from the pedestal—if she shrank from the cold scrutiny, crumpled before the relentless gossip, bled from a thousand tiny cuts of disdain—well, it was no better than Judith could ever expect, no worse than many a debutante before her had endured, and none of his doing.
“By my word, Rudyard dancing! And in my parlor. I am quite overcome with triumph.” Lady Clara swatted Jem with her fan. “And with none other than Miss Lithwick. What was it you called her again? A Gorgon? I hope she did not turn you to stone over Miss Pevensey, who is quite a taking little thing.”
“I danced with Miss Lithwick on her own merits,” Jem said with a lazy smile. “And as for a Gorgon, I cannot think of an epithet less fitting.”
“You called her Medusa,” said Clara, with a quick, sharp look. Her companions tittered, and Jem knew how the barb had already reached Lucasta Lithwick’s ears. One more reason for her to spite him as she had.
He would return the favor. “If I have been transfixed,” Jem said in his smoothest voice, “then it is with awe. Miss Lucasta Lithwick is the most clever, the most interesting, the most fascinating woman I have ever met.”