Page 26 of The Baron's Reluctant Bride
“Diligent?” Belinda gave a light laugh. “Yes. He had to be. His father died when he was sixteen, and his brother not a year after. There was no time to be a boy after that. He took on everything—business, estate, responsibilities. Grief doesn’t wait for adulthood to arrive.”
Gemma lowered her toast, suddenly more cautious. “I didn’t realise…”
“Few do,” Belinda said gently. “Jameson doesn’t care to speak of it. He learned to bear things quietly. But it changed him. Hardened him, perhaps, though not entirely. He had a fewwild years in his youth—London parties, endless invitations, fast friends.”
Gemma suppressed a scoff. His mother seemed unaware that he was still known as a rake. Of course he had wild years. He was the type. Tall, confident, with that careless sort of charm women fell over themselves to catch. The opposite of her person actually .She, who had been raised to avoid scandal the way one avoided rats in the pantry. She’d never so much as been kissed, never dared linger too long in any gentleman’s gaze. Reputation was everything. She’d guarded hers as if it were spun glass.
“And then,” Belinda continued with a more subdued tone, “came Lady Caroline.”
Ah. The mysterious specter. Therehadto be one. She tried not to be bitter.
“She was his fiancée?” Gemma asked delicately.
“Nearly. It was assumed. But she left him quite spectacularly. No warning. No reason. Just a note, and a wedding that was broken off.” Belinda’s expression was unreadable. “He does not speak of her, either. But he’s been… closed ever since.”
Gemma, unsure of how to respond, gave a small nod and busied herself with buttering toast she no longer wanted. What was she supposed to do with that? Be understanding? Sympathetic? Set herself apart from Lady Caroline by being dazzlingly charming and deeply unthreatening?
Before she could arrive at any solution, the door opened.
Jameson entered, every bit the portrait of masculine ease. His coat was perfectly tailored, his hair artfully tousled, and not a trace of fatigue showed—except, perhaps, in the way his gaze lingered for a beat too long on her before flicking away.
“Ladies,” he greeted with a polite bow.
“We were just speaking of you,” Belinda said with cheerful treachery.
“Should I be concerned?” he asked, amused.
Gemma, without looking up, replied, “Not unless you’ve given us cause.”
The words left her lips before she could call them back. Heaven above. Shehadto stop doing that.
Jameson raised his eyebrow. “Duly noted, madam.”
He reached for his gloves on the sideboard. “I shan’t linger—I’ve an appointment near the docks. Some matter involving shipping ledgers and self-important men.”
“How thrilling,” Gemma said blandly, surprising herself again.
“I shall try to survive the ordeal.”
With a final nod, he departed, leaving Gemma in quiet contemplation, her fingers gripping her teacup, her thoughts far from the offered toast; he possessed a charming and easy demeanor, almost too polished to be entirely genuine, yet beneath that smooth exterior lay something elusive that sparked not fear, but a compelling curiosity she was determined to satisfy, come what may.
***
That afternoon, Gemma sought refuge in the library.
The drawing room was too stifling, filled with the ghosts of half-finished conversations and faint perfume from unfamiliar upholstery. The garden, though charming, felt exposed—too open for a woman with a hundred unvoiced questions and no inclination to answer any.
But the library, ah, the library was a balm. Silent, warm, and sweetly perfumed with old paper and beeswax. Here, one might pretend the world outside did not exist, or at the very least, that it could be postponed.
She wandered along the shelves like a monk at vespers, trailing her gloved fingertips across leather-bound titles.Aristotle, Byron, Locke. Her hand paused uponParadise Lost, a heavy selection, yes, but somehow fitting to the moment. Was she not, in her own small way, cast out from the life she had known?
She carried it to the window seat and folded herself into it, tucking her legs primly beneath her skirts, the book open across her lap.
Yet no matter how she tried, the words refused to anchor. Her eyes slid over the lines.Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven, and there she stopped.
Her thoughts, traitorous things, wandered instead to her husband.Her husband.A title still strange to wear.
His voice echoed in her mind—low, smooth, threaded with some quiet amusement. “Ladies,” he had said that morning, with the easy confidence of a man quite accustomed to his effect upon a room.
