AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 16
Lucas and Lavinia had scarcelyentered the house when one of the servants informed them that his lord and ladyship were awaiting them in the drawing room. When they arrived there, they saw that Isaac had returned, and he had James in tow. Thomas and Isobel and Clara, Susan, and Rebecca were there as well.
“Look who I discovered on the way back here,” Isaac said cheerily. “Told him it was too late to change his mind and turn around now that I’d spotted him.”
“I had no intention of turning around, not when I had your assurance that our wayward brother had actually shown his face at Alderwood this time. Hello, Lucas,” James said, shaking Lucas’s hand before pulling him into his arms for a brotherly embrace. “Welcome home.”
“It’s good to be home,” Lucas said. Lavinia was standing quietly to the side, and he drew her next to him, feeling more than a trifle possessive after theirtête-à-têtein the garden just moments before. “Allow me to present my future bride, Miss Lavinia Fernley of Primrose Farm. Lavinia, my brother James.”
James bowed elegantly over her hand, his eyes fixed on Lavinia’s face, as smitten as any man who encountered Lavinia for the first time. “A pleasure indeed, Miss Fernley. Perhaps you can be persuaded to forget this old warhorse and be induced into matrimony with a different Jennings brother.”
Lavinia smiled at James’s flirtatious comment. Lucas, by contrast, felt poised for battle.
“I see no ‘old warhorse,’ Mr. Jennings, but only the most honorable man I have ever met,” Lavinia replied. “Any efforts on your part to direct my interest elsewhere would be utterly in vain.”
“High praise, Lucas. You are a fortunate man. Alas, my heart is broken.” He threw a hand dramatically over his heart.
“I’m sure it will mend,” Lavinia said with a twinkle in her eye.
“But certainly you must be tired from standing, Miss Fernley,” James continued with a smoothness that he must have honed as a barrister speaking before judges.
James extended his arm for Lavinia and led her to a spot on the settee next to Rebecca, then took a seat on the chair next to her. Lucas wandered over and stood by the fireplace, resting his shoulder against the mantel, trying to act as indifferent as he could when his instincts were yelling, “Get away from her; she’s mine” at top volume. James was a handsome devil; some—like their outspoken sister Susan—might even say he was the most handsome of all the Jennings brothers—not that what a sister said about such things typically counted for much.
Except that right at this moment, it did.
James was speaking softly to Lavinia, Lavinia chuckling in response, and Lucas strained to catch bits of the conversation, even though he knew he was behaving like a jealous boor. James must have said something witty, blast his brother to Hades and back.
In the first place, Lucas thought grumpily, one would think a brother one hadn’t seen for seven years would rate higher than the said brother’s betrothed—however dazzling she may be. In the second place, one might also think said betrothed, however fictitious the betrothal might be, would be a little more . . . clingy, for sake of a better word, following a half hour of highly enjoyable kissing with said faux-betrothed.
Susan wandered over. “Lucas, you won’t believe what I’ve just seen. Come with me over to the window, and I’ll show you. It’s quite remarkable.”
He was deuced unwilling to be that far from Lavinia while she was still in the clutches of his brother, but he begrudgingly pried himself away from his sentry post and followed Susan over to the window. She gazed out at the formal gardens, so he followed suit.
“I don’t see anything I haven’t seen a thousand times before,” he grumbled.
“That’s because you’re not looking in the right direction,” she said.
“Then why don’t you tell me more specifically where it is you wish me to look?” he snapped. His mother turned and glanced at him with alarm. “Apologies, Mama,” he said. Thankfully his voice had been low enough not to register on anyone else.
“Oh, Lucas, you are in such a bad way,” Susan said with a knowing smile on her face. “I have seen the most incredible thing—you have only to look inwardlyto see it yourself. I see a brother who suffered so much from unrequited lovehe could not see past his feelings toward a happy future. And now—finally—that brother is in love with someone else. I believe I can stop worrying about you now. I was more concerned about that than your ability to survive on thePeninsula, although I would never have said such a thing to Mama.”
“In love?” He was barely willing to entertain such a thought, especially after what had happened with Isobel. Attracted to Lavinia, yes. Cared for her, yes. A bit possessive at present . . . But in love?
“And she loves you too,” Susan said. “But of course she does, or why else would she have agreed to marry you? You have little to offer a bride beyond your charming self.”
He stared at her.
“And,” she continued, “if you were being observant at the moment rather than jealous and petulant, you would have seen that your fair bride’s back has straightened, her chin has lifted, and her airs have become all genteel perfection. She has not looked so proper and untouchable since the day she and her friends arrived here with you, before she knew any of us. I daresay she is tolerating James’s attention, but that is all.”
“Tolerating?”
“Justlook, Lucas.”
He turned so he could discreetly watch the two of them converse. James was thoroughly entranced by Lavinia; Lucas could see it in his face. Lavinia, however—
Devil take him for a fool.
Lavinia was precisely as Susan had said. The changes in her demeanor wouldn’t be apparent to anyone who didn’t know her well, but Susan was clever and observant, so she had seen it too, and it had taken her to shake him loose from his jealous reaction—and fear.
