Page 2 of The Gentleman's Confession
A basic recipe for love but hardly easy to agree to. With her grandmother’s heart as her focus and the rest of the matter in her own purview, disagreeing seemed impossible. She forced a consoling gaze through blurry tears. “Very well, dearest,schemingGrandmother,” Jemma teased, hoping to see one last smile. “I will marry for love if you promise you’ll watch from heaven.”
Grandmother squeezed her hand with what seemed to be the last of her strength. “I wouldn’t miss it.” A soft, peaceful smile touched Grandmother’s lips, and sleep washed over her once more.
Not two hours later, Grandmother’s spirit slipped away from her frail body at Fielding Manor and was reunited with her dearest love and Jemma’s angel parents.
Through heavy tears of grief, Jemma cried away the remaining hours of the day. When the sun began to set, dragging with it all the light and color of the world, Jemma resolidified the promise she made to Grandmother. Witnessing the fragile moment between life and death had changed her. Loneliness had always been a stranger to her, but now it clung, its soulless fingers wrapping her with darkness. But when she rememberedthe peace that accompanied Grandmother from this world, it renewed her hope. Humanity, while not always kind, offered a companionship that made the heartaches worth enduring. She would mourn first, as was proper, and then she would seek out the Matchmaking Mamas of Brookeside to request that they find her a husband. The local, not-so-secretive society had proven to be extremely meddlesome in the past, but they had also produced ideal matches for several of her friends.
Whomever they chose, she would make herself love.
CHAPTER 2
Six Months Later
Brookeside, England—May 1822
What did it mean thatVicar Miles Jackson received more romantic confessions than he did confessions of a sinful nature? The women of Brookeside were desperately lonely. He’d received three declarations of affection just this week. Two had been made by young ladies he had already politely rejected in the near past. The third was delivered by Mrs. Fortescue, a seventy-five-year-old woman—fifty years his senior. All three had hinted heavily for a proposal of marriage.
However, Jemma Fielding’s entering the chapel just now wasnot, he was absolutely certain, a quest to confess her love.
A shame, that.
Her intelligent eyes gleamed when they met his, and her brunette locks bounced with her purposeful steps. She was easily the prettiest woman of his acquaintance as well as the boldest.
“Miss Fielding.” Miles tipped his head, his black curls falling into his eyes for the briefest of moments. “What can I do for you?” The formal address was necessary since the elderly Mrs. Fortescue was still within listening distance, though he was beginning to think the older woman hard of hearing. He had rejected her confession in a firm but kind voice four times in the last quarter hour, and even now, she lingered.
“Mr. Jackson,” Jemma greeted with equal formality, a businesslike posture in place. When she reached him, she whispered through a smile. “I have come to make a confession.”
Amusement teased his mouth. One did not smile in preparation for the humbling practice of admitting one’s trespasses. Miles lowered his voice and leaned toward her. “I doubt you have done anything serious enough to warrant speaking to me.” He knew Jemma better than just about anyone in the world. They had spent nearly every summer together. She was fiery on occasion but harmless. “Besides, you don’t even attend church. There’s no sacramental rite I can offer anyway.”
“I attend occasionally, and I never miss Christmas and Easter.” She pinched her delightfully shaped lips together. “And Ihavedone something serious—dreadfully serious. I insist on speaking to you in private and clearing my conscience.”
He chuckled under his breath. There was no putting Jemma off. She generally persisted until she got her way. Whatever it was she had to say, it would be far better than waiting for Mrs. Fortescue to vacate the chapel. “Forgive me, Mrs. Fortescue, my attention is needed elsewhere. I hope you do not mind seeing yourself out?”
“What?” Mrs. Fortescue leaned sideways and cupped her ear.
He repeated the words carefully, with practiced patience. Even so, Mrs. Fortescue’s pout went so deep it was nearly lost in her wrinkles.
“Good day, Mrs. Fortescue.” He dipped his head and turned back to Jemma. “Just this way, Miss Fielding.” He waved her into his small office, with enough room for a small oak desk, two sturdy, plain chairs, and a very narrow bookshelf below an oblong window. It was cramped, but Jemma had seen it before and wouldn’t mind. He noticed at the last moment the freshly printed book on the shelf and quickly snatched it up and shoved it into his desk drawer.
“What was that?” Jemma frowned, her eyes darting from the shelf to the desk to him.
“Just tidying up,” he answered, hoping she would leave the matter be. “Please, sit.”
Once they were settled in their respective chairs across his desk from each other, Jemma’s smile returned. Whatever she had done, she held no remorse. “Go ahead. Tell me what you did that was so dreadful.”
“Well, it isn’t a sin exactly.”
Miles folded his arms across his chest, feigning impatience. “I gathered as much. Then, if not a sin, tell me what is so important you had to corner me here?” During her summers in Brookeside, she always came running to him whenever something bothered her, and while he did his best not to encourage it, he wouldn’t want it any other way.
“I’m not cornering you.” Jemma crossed her legs while her mouth formed a straight, stubborn line of pink—a look that often both exasperated and enthralled him. “This was the only way I could speak with you alone without your lady entourage jumping to conclusions about us.”
He smirked. “Mrs. Fortescue is hardly part of any lady entourage. Her husband died this time last year, and she misses him. And I happen to remind her of him.”
“You remind her of an eighty-year-old man?”
It was a bit of a stretch but far easier than explaining how Mrs. Fortescue found him attractive. He cleared his throat. “At any rate, Jemma, we could have met at the Dome.” They had not had reason to gather together at their mutual friend Ian’s Grecian temple for a secret meeting in some time; it was usually the place their friends discussed anything urgent or serious, and with the way Jemma was acting, Miles guessed this was just such a matter. It would have been more appropriate to speak there about whatever Jemma had on her mind than in his clerical office.
“Heavens, no. I am not ready to tell the other Rebels about what I have done.”
