Julie Anne Long - [Pennyroyal Green 08] Read online

  Not her, of course.

  She liked a little wariness. The rest of the men were so bloody predictable. And there was something about Jonathan Redmond that felt like the first breath of air drawn after you leave a crowded smoky room. She liked him. She supposed it wasn’t more complicated than that.

  “It’s a gift you share with your mother, my dear,” the Countess of Mirabeau told her. “Men like themselves better when they’re around you, it’s just that simple. And Carolina, rest your dear mother’s soul, attracted a duke for a reason. Perhaps you’ll do the same.”

  As it turned out, the genteelly poor countess—who repaid a good turn done her by Tommy’s mother by taking in hand the fiercely clever, vivacious, half-feral scrap of a girl she’d been after her mother died, and done her best to polish her—had been right. Tommy had rapidly become the chief attraction at the countess’s Wednesday salons near Hanover Square. And it wasn’t as though Tommy didn’t enjoy the salons and all the male attention. And it wasn’t as though she’d never occasionally indulged her sensual curiosity and hot blood. But when she lost her virginity to a gorgeous boy who had promptly disappeared, Tommy’s native pragmatism—surely she hadn’t inherited that from her mother—put a stop to further indulgence. It was terrifyingly easy to be swept up in a current of desire. And she wasn’t about to live the way her mother had lived, or suffer her mother’s fate.

  And yet the money from the occasional, modest, serendipitous win at a hand of cards, and the shilling or two the countess occasionally pressed into her palm dwindled quickly. And though she was accustomed to challenge, the challenge to survive was ceaseless and wearing.

  And then the gift of pearls had arrived. Another way in which she was in just a bit over her head. They could very well represent the answer to all of her troubles. They most definitely represented another decision she would have to make. And soon. It wasn’t one she relished making.

  She shied away from it for the moment.

  Because thanks to something Jonathan Redmond had said, she’d just realized there might be another option.

  She stared down at the little charcoal letters and reread them, and the bands of muscle in her stomach tightened, and an additional beat seemed to join the rhythm of her heart.

  Ah, bloody hell. She was going to do it. There was no question that it was what she was born to do. That she couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t.

  She was forced to admit, however, that for the first time since it had all started . . . she was a little afraid.

  The problem was, she’d begun to think about it. And once you did that, you were sunk, she knew. Once when she was very little, she’d been able to walk the narrow stair rail in this very building, one tiny foot carefully placed in front of the other, arms outflung for balance like a circus performer. The very moment she’d begun to exult in her achievement, to really think about it, was the moment she toppled and cracked her chin. She still sported a tiny scar.

  Not that she didn’t enjoy the thrill that followed surviving peril. It was just that, as nearly everything in her life so far, she could easily imagine it eventually crescendoing into a disaster from which she barely escaped.

  She lay down the scrap of paper and took up the medal.

  “You commanded a whole battalion,” she said to the medal. “Were likely shot at dozens if not hundreds of times. What if you could help me? I know you could help. Or would you think I was mad and ought to be locked away?”

  She’d had numerous conversations with that medal over the years. Sometimes she’d harangued it, sometimes she’d simply told it about her day. Each time she imagined the medal was loving and regretful and sentimental, all of which she knew deep down was probably very unlikely. And yet, where was the harm in laying down the burden of her pragmatism for just one moment? It was an indulgence, one of her very, very few.

  “Thanks for listening . . .” She breathed in. “. . . Papa.”

  No matter how many times she said the word, she never felt entitled to it.

  THE GYPSIES, BEING Gypsies, had a tendency to roam, so they couldn’t always be found camped on the outskirts of Pennyroyal Green, and were often as difficult to pin down as quicksilver, particularly when it came time for the Cambridge Horse Fair. But Jonathan had seen the smoke from the cook fire at a distance, and so after a great show of reluctance, he decided that Violet would get her wish before he returned to London. The following morning they packed her up like blown glass, and transported her in a well-sprung carriage, hauled by four horses driven with great delicacy, as though they were arthritic and lame.

  It was a long trip. For Jonathan, anyway.

  Leonora Heron emerged from her tent at the encampment when she heard the carriage wheels, wiping her hands on her apron, smiling a greeting, then curtsying.

  Her aspiring tart of a daughter—if Gypsies could be said to be tarts—peeked out from behind her, and her round harvest moon-colored eyes widened. Her habitual pout transformed into a sultry one, and she twined a strand of curly black hair round one finger.

  Jonathan studiously avoided her gaze.

  “Dukker fer ye, brother?” she said anyway, offering to use the tarot to read his fortune.

  “I’m simply an escort to my sister. So bat your eyelashes in another direction if you will, please.”

  “Jonathan!” Violet scolded.

  “Martha!” Leonora Heron scolded. To no avail, in both cases.

  “But it’s why we came today, Mrs. Heron. If you would be so kind as to read the tea leaves for the countess?” he asked pointedly to Mrs. Heron.

  “I would be pleased to do it.” Mrs. Heron gestured for them to enter. Inside the tent they were assailed by the usual clean, pungent smell of herbs. Mrs. Heron clucked and found a chair that would safely accommodate Violet, and they all helped get her settled into it. Martha stood against the back of the tent, her arms crossed over her chest in such a way that her bosom was lifted nearly to her collarbone.

  She brewed the tea for Violet, who drank a sip. And then Leonora swirled it about, tipped the rest gently onto a saucer, and finally peered into them, scrying with the leaves floating over the bottom.

  “I see the leaves have formed the shape of a harp. This means harmony and happiness for you.” Leonora looked up, smiling. “I am pleased to tell you this.”

  Violet had just begun to beam when, “She will break hearts!” Martha suddenly blurted, sounding startled. Her eyes were wide, as if someone else had borrowed her mouth without permission.

  Violet swiveled to look at her. “She? Do you think I’m having a girl? Am I having a girl?”

  Martha shrugged with one shoulder.

  Violet’s face suffused with pleasure, and it was wonderful to see. Jonathan enjoyed it. And then she predictably turned an “I told you so!” expression upon Jonathan.

  “She will break hearts,” Martha repeated, as if she were in a trance. She wasn’t. She was simply enjoying the dramatic reception of her prediction. Meanwhile, she’d traced the outline of Jonathan’s entire body with her big round eyes so thoroughly he could hardly fail to notice, and when he did, she touched a tongue coyly to her lips.

  Jonathan was perilously close to scowling at her. He settled for a mere frown, and returned his attention to Violet.

  “Well . . .” Violet took in this information. “That stands to reason, doesn’t it? The breaking hearts bit? It’s what Redmonds do.”

  “Well, it wasn’t so much that you broke hearts, as enslaved and terrified them before you married. Isn’t that true, Violet?”

  “Shhh,” she said, entirely unperturbed. “And is that all you see in the leaves, Mrs. Heron?”

  Martha whirled on Jonathan then, who, much to his later chagrin, for Violet would go on to imitate it for the pleasure and hilarity of their brother Miles and her husband the earl, threw his arms defensively across his face. As if he could prevent her from peering into his soul that way.

  “You . . . children everywhere.” Martha s
ounded astounded. And then made a big swooping circle with her arms, in case the word “everywhere” didn’t illustrate it horrifyingly enough.

  Jonathan turned his head slowly and sent a sizzling “I told you so” look to his sister. “She’s not helping in the least. Shall we depart?”

  “Jonathan, wait.” Violet wasn’t satisfied. “Allow me to help. How many children, Martha?”

  “Maybe ten. Maybe one hundred.” The girl shrugged indifferently.

  He rolled his eyes. “Can you even count?”

  “Martha, how many is this?” Violet flashed ten fingers. “Will he have this many children? Or mayhap this many?” She flashed them again.

  “I think more like this many.” And Martha flashed her fingers a good dozen times.

  “Stop it! Stop it at once!” Jonathan demanded, aghast.

  And when Violet burst into laughter, Martha, feeling encouraged, continued to do it, delighted to be so amusing. Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty . . .

  Jonathan flung a shilling into the empty teacup, where it spun round a few times and then clinked resoundingly, and stormed from the tent, gulping draughts of air, Gypsy laughter ringing in his ears.

  Then he remembered his sister couldn’t rise without assistance, which rather ruined his exit, but he stormed back in, gently helped her up off the chair, and led her at a stately pace from the tent before he began to yell at her.

  “Thank you!” she sang on her way out.

  Jonathan leaned against the carriage and folded his arms across his body, and turned on her. “Why is my distress so amusing to you?”

  “Jonathan . . . it’s just . . . why are you so distressed? One day you will need to care about something. Why not children?”

  He stared at her, genuinely struck dumb. He opened his mouth. A dry squeaking noise emerged.

  And when he was finally able to form words, they were all hoarse.

  “I need to . . . care? I need to care? Does anyone bloody know me? Do you really think I don’t care about things, as you say?”

  Violet winced. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Good heavens! I’m sorry! Hush! I didn’t mean to give you apoplexy. Pregnancy has addled my brain.”

  He stopped and blew out a breath, yanked off his hat, pushed his fingers through his hair, and jammed it back on.

  “You’re going to miss having that as an excuse for every little thing,” he said darkly, finally.

  “I’ll find another excuse,” she replied placidly.

  “And I’m sorry to bellow,” he added stiffly, and then bent over and spoke to her stomach: “And my apologies to you, too. I’m allegedly the cheerful Redmond. Your Uncle Jonathan. Ask anyone.”

  “It’s just . . . you can’t go on like this forever, Jonathan. Gaming, balls, hunts, races, that disreputable salon you’ve been attending. Endless frivolity. Do you really find it satisfying?”

  He turned a look on her that was rich with incredulity. “Why the bloody hell not? And yes, I find it ‘satisfying!’ I’m not doing any harm—”

  “I suppose that depends on who you ask. Marianne Linley, for instance.”

  “—I’m still young. I like things the way they are. It’s just that simple. And I don’t see any great marital happiness going on around me. Do you think mother and father are happy? Lyon actually bloody disappeared over a love affair. I see a good deal of upheaval and battle and struggle all in the name of love. And Marianne Linley misinterpreted two conversations and two dances—on separate occasions, mind you—as some sort of passionate attachment. But primarily she saw me dancing with Lady Grace Worthington an equal number of times, and you know how all the young women think of Lady Grace. I assure you, there was no attachment, and I implied nothing.”

  “Perhaps you underestimate your powers of appeal.”

  Jonathan was taken aback. “Was that . . . actually a compliment?”

  “I suspect I meant it as more of a warning.”

  “I’m really more interested in Lady Grace Worthington, if you must know.”

  “Isn’t everybody this season? Aren’t you supposed to be?”

  Jonathan paused, and then half smiled. I know I’m supposed to, is what Jonathan had said to Tommy outside of the Duke’s big windows—almost but not quite entirely out of deviltry—when he’d told her he hadn’t decided whether he found her attractive. She’d been shocked, then genuinely amused. By God, he’d liked that. Whoever the devil she might be, she was comfortable in her skin, and it was one of his favorite qualities in any human

  “Everyone is interested in Lady Grace with good cause. She’s the girl against whom all the other girls compare themselves. She’s turned each of them into competitors, even the meek ones.”

  There was always a girl like that. Every season.

  Violet shrugged. “If you like that sort of thing.”

  That sort of thing being blue eyes, golden hair, and a face like a cameo.

  He shot her a dry look.

  “Why are you so full of shouting and swearing today, by the way?”

  He hesitated. “I may as well tell you. Father has denied me my allowance.”

  A silence.

  “Oh, no.” Violet was appropriately shocked.

  “It gets worse. I’m to marry within six months—or at least become engaged—or he’ll cut off all funds forever. Marry appropriately, mind you.”

  “Oh, no.” Now she was horrified.

  He basked for a moment in Violet’s very real sympathy. Though it probably contained a shred of glee, for she did love a controversy.

  “What prompted this, Jonathan?”

  He considered telling her about the Mercury Club, and about Klaus Liebman and the color printing press, and maybe even Tommy de Ballesteros, but he strongly suspected her eyes would glaze, at least over all but the last.

  And the last, in particular, for some reason, he wanted to keep all to himself.

  “I suspect he’s trying to forestall any ideas I might have about . . . marrying for love.” He gave a humorless laugh. “One dalliance with a widow—which, I might add, strikes me as my business only—and he thinks I’m on the road to perdition.”

  There had been other dalliances with other widows, but he wasn’t about to tally them for Violet.

  “You know, you’d think father would learn. He’s always forbidding things or making rulings, and everyone ends up doing precisely the opposite of his wishes, or at least not acquiescing to them.”

  “A lifetime, Violet. Marriage is supposed to be for a lifetime. You may be happy now. Miles may be happy now. And I’m happy now. And I intend to live a good long while. I don’t need a wife, let alone ten children. I honestly fail to see how it will contribute to my happiness.”

  “Children seldom happen all at once, unless you’re a barn cat.”

  Jonathan snorted.

  “And you do understand that you were once a child?”

  “Yes, but I had the good sense to grow up into the magnificent specimen of manhood I am today.”

  She rolled her eyes. “And you do understand that I will be having a child.”

  “I will endeavor to tolerate it.”

  She smiled, knowing she could substitute the words “dote upon” for “tolerate,” and it would be closer to the truth. “How do you know you’re happy, Jonathan? Before I married, I wasn’t happy, Jonathan. I didn’t even know it. I could scarcely put a finger on why. It only felt like . . .”

  She stopped.

  “Go on.”

  “Like I would go mad from the constraints of being me. And of forever being watched. Sorry, that includes you watching me! Jonathan, you should know that I’m happy now and never knew this kind of happiness was even possible. And, granted, a portion of that happiness has to do with imagining the expression on Father’s face when Asher asked permission to marry me. But I am. And I think I fell in love with him the moment I saw him.”

  “My guess is you would have needed to marry him whether or not he was right for you.”
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br />   Her silence was truly of the aghast variety. Complete with a dropped jaw.

  “You do get away with saying the most outrageous things! Perhaps mama has indulged you too much.”

  They both noticed she didn’t deny it, however. And maybe it was the mauve crescents beneath her eyes, but he refrained from prying further about how she had come to know the earl, and whether she’d learned anything about Lyon being a pirate, of all things. Because being a pirate seemed the antithesis of everything Olivia Eversea, that embracer of causes, would want in a man, though of course that could be the reason. And besides, if Violet had learned anything about Lyon, Jonathan doubted she’d be able to keep quiet about it. The temptation to gloat about being right would have proved her undoing.

  So he said nothing.

  “All I’m saying, Jonathan, is . . . you’ll know the difference when you truly care.”

  He was genuinely regretful. “Forgive me, Violet. That was a bit beyond the pale, even for me. Maybe Father is right. Maybe I do need reigning in. I’m glad you’re happy. I suppose I could experience a coup de foudre within Father’s time frame. Because destiny is always just that accommodating.”

  “No, Father’s wrong,” she said irritably. “I shouldn’t like you to change. I don’t like change any more than you do. I like you as you are. And I wish you could stay here in Pennyroyal Green longer. Will you?”

  It was alarming, this sudden display of sentimentality and need in Violet. But then she had pregnancy as an excuse.

  “Of course you like me. How could you not like me? I wish I could stay, but I have to go admit a failure to a Bavarian. I’ll return as soon as I can.”

  He kissed her on the cheek and to her surprise, was just able to get his arms around her in a hug. And he didn’t even have pregnancy to blame for that.

  Chapter 5

  TOMMY HAD FOUND HIM quickly: the duke of course stood near the racetrack rail, cushioned from the rest of the cheerfully boisterous crowd by a few Weston-clad acolytes, who intermittently nodded solemnly or threw back their heads and laughed, apparently depending upon what His Grace uttered.