One Night With You (The Derrings #3)(16)

"Indeed," Jane returned. "I often remember you bemoaning your carroty hair as a girl. It has deepened into a handsome auburn now."

Julianne gasped. "Truly? No one has told me that." In her enthusiasm, she turned to her brother,

"Do you think so, Seth?"

A strange tightness closed his throat at his sister's delighted expression. Such a small thing to bring about a smile, but he had not thought to comment on what he too had observed. Only another sign that his sister needed a lady's attention in her life. "Indeed, it has."

"Oh, Jane," Julianne chirped. "I've missed you these years. Now that we've crossed paths, I hope we shall not become strangers again."

Jane darted a nervous look at Seth, her voice a trembling thread on the air as she said, "That would be my wish as well."

Seth swallowed down the sudden sour taste to fill his mouth. His sister and Jane had been close once—almost as close as he and Jane. Until his father cloistered Julianne away, treating her like an invalid.

"Perhaps you could join us for tea?" Julianne suggested.

Jane stared at him, her pretty lips parting but saying nothing.

"Yes," he invited, even as he wondered what possibly motivated him to extend such an offer.

"Do call."

He might have put the past behind him, but that did not mean he wanted to revisit friendships best left buried. Especially when the friend in question happened to be a married lady and he could not stop agonizing over her mouth, over those plump lips closing around him, drawing his pleasure deep into her mouth…

Locking his jaw, he shoved the coarse thoughts from his mind and reminded himself that his wishes meant nothing. Only his sister's happiness mattered. She'd had very little joy in life. If Jane's company brought pleasure to his sister, then so be it. He would not deny her something so simple. Harmless, really.

"Thank you, but I'm afraid Jane cannot accept," the bold-eyed eldest girl volunteered with decided relish. "She is in mourning, and Papa says she cannot go about."

"Oh, Jane," Julianne murmured. "I had not heard. I'm dreadfully sorry." Seth looked Jane over, noting the flush of color creeping up her neck to stain her cheeks. Even as he told himself to resist, he evaluated her in new estimation. As a woman unwed. A widow. Widows, he had always considered ripe for dalliance. Only not this one. No matter that the sight of her spiked his desire, filling him with a burning urge to peel off her prim, high-necked gown and discover precisely how far that blush crept.

"Thank you, but it has been over a year now," Jane explained, darting a narrow look to her niece.

"I am quite ready to rejoin Society."

Her niece's lips thinned until they all but disappeared.

"Oh," Julianne murmured in a hopeful voice. "Then tea one afternoon this week would not be remiss."

"Tea would be lovely," Jane agreed even as her nieces glowered beside her.

"What about us? What about our lessons?" Bryony, the youngest, demanded in a squeak, her nostrils flaring with indignation.

Seth reassessed the girls in their frilly, beribboned gowns, allowing that although his experience with children was limited, this gaggle of young womanhood reminded him of a motley bunch of pirates he had once faced.

"You'll make do for one afternoon." Jane glared down at the girls as though daring them to object. Her gaze lifted then, locking with his. With her lovely mouth compressing into a tight smile, she stared down the slim line of her nose at him.

"I shall look most forward to it," Julianne trilled.

"As I," Jane murmured.

Seth's gaze raked her, sitting so cool and composed in her carriage, a marble statute, nothing like he remembered. No hint of the exuberant, shrieking wild girl who had swum the lake with him, climbed trees in his family's orchard, and gathered holly at Christmas. He continued to stare after her as she drove away, deciding that that girl of his youth had gone, disappeared. If she ever existed at all.





Chapter 9


Adjusting her careful grip on a fragile Wedgwood teacup, Jane struggled to follow Lady Julianne's animated chatter.

Murmuring and commenting at appropriate intervals, she struggled to understand why she risked the wrath of her relations to sit in the Earl of St. Claire's townhouse. If Desmond or Chloris returned home and discovered Anna tending to the girls instead of her, they would have a great deal to say on the matter. Her fingers plucked at the arm of her chair and she shoved the prospect from her mind.

She looked up quickly at the sound of the door opening. A maid entered, bearing another tray of biscuits. Rebecca, Julianne's companion, rose to take the tray.

Sighing, Jane leaned back on the sofa feeling an odd mixture of relief and disappointment. And she had her answer. The one she had been avoiding.

With a small shake of her head, she took a sip of hot tea. No matter how she had hid from it, the truth reared its head. She sat in the St. Claire townhouse because she wished to see Seth again. Craved to see him. If only a glimpse. Even if he looked on her as he did in the park. With that same remote stare. As if he stared through her and did not see her at all. Even so, she still longed for the sight of him, recalling him as he'd been at Madame Fleur's. His eyes had gleamed, burned. Burned for her. Jane gave her head a small shake. Not her. He would never burn for her.