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“Not acknowledged by the family?” Jemima frowned, a faint suspicion gathering.
“I’m the daughter of his father’s sister but...” Miss Bridges’ smile faltered as she began to fidget with the pillow she’d been plumping up. She seemed to be weighing up her words. When she met Jemima’s gaze, the light had disappeared from her expression. “For the last twenty years, I’ve been moldering in the country after an…” she lowered her eyes “…indiscretion with a married man in my first season out. Miles was the only one to ever visit me regularly, and now he has repaid me by facilitating a little adventure at this late stage in my life.”
Jemima rested by the table and pressed her lips together. “So he’s told you about me, then?” She ran her hands down her drab clothing before fingering the brooch at her neck. “Everything? For I want you to know what I…really am. I would hate that you attended me on false pretenses.”
“I know that you are a woman who has been wronged.” Miss Bridges placed the pillow carefully upon the bed and took a step forward, almost as if she would take Jemima’s hands. “Miles is full of remorse. He knows his actions were the cause of your fall from respectability.”
“So he did tell you…everything?”
“Including the fact that he loves you.”
Feeling powered through Jemima. Then she shrugged. “Loves me, desires me, it’s all the same thing.” She felt deflated suddenly. Defeated. Pushing back her shoulders, she added fiercely, “Regardless of my feelings I will not act upon them and be what I was before.”
Miss Bridges sent her an inquiring look. “And what were you before, my dear?”
“A possession, a plaything…and entirely vulnerable. I will not risk being cast aside and losing my heart on top of everything else.”
Miss Bridges nodded. “I understand you, Miss Mordaunt. I would add, however, that Miles admitted his feelings to me many months ago and they’ve only got stronger. He told me he’d met a heavenly creature at his friend, Madame Plumb’s salon, only she was married to a man called Graves. That was you, was it not? He said he would marry you if he could.”
“But that was then,” Jemima whispered. “Before I became…a commodity. A plaything men could barter. I’m well aware a man in Lord Ruthcot’s position could never marry a woman like me. Regardless of how much he loves me. Besides, he told me quite plainly he would never marry me.”
“What if he’s changed his mind?”
Jemima shook her head, a sense of helpless anger taking root in her heart. “He can’t, he won’t and he’s not here. Besides, I would not sink my pride to ally myself with a man who only wed me through guilt.”
“But you love him.”
Jemima sighed and went to the window. “Yes, I love him. I shall think of him when I go away to seek my fortune. If I’m lucky, I will become a woman of independent means. That’s what I want more than anything else.”
“What do you want more than anything else, Jemima?” B
oth women turned at the loud but jovial voice that cut into their conversation as the door was thrust open upon. “Yes, no need to look so surprised to see me. Or concerned. I came back but not to stop you from doing what you have to do.”
Now Miles was striding across the room, bearing something carefully in his hands. When he saw the curiosity on Jemima’s face—though he seemed unaware of the mad tumult his arrival had created in her heart—he put the object down upon the table and sent her a triumphant look. “Not a ring, that’ll come later, for you know, I will persuade you, regardless of your mistrust of my motives now. But I hope I have here something you really want. Something that, I accept, you consider far more important than my love right at this moment—though you have that in spade loads, I promise. This, however, is something I believe you could use in your attempts to be as you say you want to be—a woman of independent fortune. I rode all night to retrieve it.” Looking enormously pleased with himself, he pulled away the covering to reveal a gray, three-sided stone.
Jemima gasped and hurried toward it, excitement making her hands tremble, and replacing the churning emotion she’d felt upon Miles’s entrance.
She glanced over her shoulder to see him smiling down at her and he moved forward, as if to put a hand on her sleeve before clearly reconsidering. “It’s the stone my brother had in his collection.” His eyes glowed with warmth and an excitement that matched hers. “I’ve searched for two days to find it for I remember once, a long time ago, he made mention of it. I thought it had only two texts, but you see—there is a single line of a third text. You have the rubbing of the Rosetta Stone, but I feared that may not be sufficient. With this, too, perhaps you have what you need to unravel the mystery of the treasure you seek.”
Jemima could barely believe her eyes. “This? Why, my father spoke of it, but I didn’t know you had the stone. Or rather, that your brother did although he grew rather excited at how he thought he might be able to help me.” Her breath came in short quick gasps as she ran her fingers over the paragraphs of text. Suddenly she felt as if she were swimming in a sea of possibilities. “This is…wonderful.”
She swung round to look at him, only just resisting the impulse to throw her arms about him. “Oh, Lord Ruthcot, you are right! This, together with the tablet I have, are all we need to show us the location of the hidden chests of gold. I don’t need to enlist the help of my father’s colleague, whom I’ll admit I never warmed to and who may not even be trustworthy.” She hesitated as she chewed her lip. “How can I repay you for this?” A thousand warring emotions flooded her. She glanced at Miss Bridges, who was pretending disinterest in their conversation, but who now announced she would be leaving for a short while to gather further information on their departure time, and Jemima was left with the handsome, charming man who had unwittingly caused her fall from grace, and whose presence thrilled her alarmingly.
When he gathered her in his arms and tipped her face up to kiss her gently on the lips, she knew all her good intentions would soon come to naught. The potent cocktail of lustful desires was gathering pace, and she sighed as his roaming hands gently contoured her curves.
“Yes, Lord Ruthcot, I am prepared to accede to your desires. It’s a fair trade.”
He’d been about to deepen the kiss but he stopped and drew back. “You’ll be my wife?” There was surprise in his tone, and excitement, too. Jemima wasn’t sure if he’d deliberately misinterpreted her response.
Before she could reply, he brushed a strand of hair back from her face, saying hurriedly,“Of course, legal undertakings must be put in place to ensure that the proceeds from our little adventure are yours alone. A fine irony it would be that respectable matrimony would win me a wife and the fortune she had striven to secure, once we were married.”
“Married?” She hadn’t believed he’d meant those words when he’d first said them.
“You would rather be my mistress? Do you truly not trust me?” Drawing her to the window he indicated the darkness outside. “If you wish to venture forth alone, I won’t stop you. It’s your life, your decision, Jemima.” He spoke haltingly before adding in a rush, “But I swear to you that I am nothing like Graves or Deveril. My word is my honour. Yes, I want to make you my wife and if you agree, I assure you that before entering into a legal union, we would execute all legal aspects regarding your fortune so that it would belong to you—alone. Indeed, I’ve spoken with my lawyer who is not for and can draw up a document before we leave. For, yes, I want to accompany you, regardless of what your answer to my earlier question is, though I have hope, Jemima. You say you love me. You wished, once, that I would make you my wife but I, fool that I was, and to my shame, dismissed that as impossible.”
Jemima swayed at the enormity of what she was hearing and Miles put out a hand to steady her. “Jemima? You’re overwhelmed. With joy I hope.” Then, at her expression, his face fell. “Please, what is it, my dearest?”
Miserably she replied, “How do you think I feel, knowing guilt is what prompts you to lower yourself to make me an offer? You’ll never make an honest woman of me. How can you? Everyone will know who I am; what I am. Ruined. I will not be received. You’ll come to resent me. No, I can’t marry you.”
