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“I must go. Beatrice languishes in this climate. I must take her home.” He and Rodrigo shook hands. “Adiós. Return home soon.”
“Vaya con dios, Simon,” Rodrigo said as he got to his feet. “I won’t be far behind you. My vessel awaits my word in Southampton. In fact, I don’t even know why I tarry.”
Simon laughed. “I have a notion why. There is an English flower who holds your interest more than you like...her hair the color of a copper lit flame. Ah yes, I see you don’t like me to say so, but I know the truth. Time was you did, too.”
Rodrigo stiffened. He had spent the last few days determined to forget his English flower. He would not discuss the matter, even with Simon. “There are many English flowers, but none to keep me from home.”
Simon shook his head and made his way out of the club. Rodrigo watched him go and frowned. Jessie came unbidden into his head. He had found that staying away from her had not served the purpose. He still could not dismiss the way he felt about her, and that put him in a constant state of frustration.
He was a sophisticated and experienced man. He believed time would diminish his feelings for her. He would dive into the work at his ranch, yet, oddly enough, the notion of forgetting her greatly, strangely, disturbed him.
~ Fifteen ~
JUNE KEENEN BELIEVED, LIKE SHAKESPEARE, that all the world was, indeed, a stage, and she meant to enact the next scene with all the skill and training at her disposal. It would not win Don Rodrigo back, but it would certainly serve to satisfy her need for revenge.
She heard the knock at her dressing room door and immediately dissolved into tears, putting her elegant head of yellow curls upon her folded arms resting on the vanity table before her. An open letter written in what she believed was a fair copy of Rodrigo’s hand was spread out on that same table. Her stage was set!
Sir Warren opened the door a crack when she failed to answer, as was prearranged, he called, “June?”
She released a sob. At the sound of her distress, he opened the door and stepped boldly within. “My dear, whatever is wrong?”
Jessie and Pauly were left in dubious confusion within the framework of the open door, but Jess was able to see the woman was crying. She looked at Pauly and whispered, “Should we leave?”
“Od’s life, there isn’t anything I’d like to do more, but don’t know if we should. Might be in trouble, you know, and we can’t leave a lady in distress, can we?” Pauly answered with a frown.
“To be sure, one must not lose to the dragon by default,” Jessie said, her sense of humor tickled by Pauly’s gallantry.
“Oh, Warren, Warren dear, please forgive me,” June cried out in an obvious attempt to hold back her tears.
He put a comforting arm around her shoulders. “Only tell me what is wrong, or I promise you, I shan’t forgive you.”
She patted his arms and released a long, heavy sigh. “We are such old friends that I am very nearly tempted.” She then, apparently, for the first time, seemed to notice two interested individuals standing in her doorway.
“Warren...I—I am so ashamed,” she sobbed, and put a handkerchief to her eyes.
“Nonsense,” he said in a bolstering manner, and seemingly had forgotten that both Jessie and Pauly stood uncomfortably still in the doorway. He picked up a letter from the lady’s vanity. “What is towards, June? Has it something to do with this?” He waved the letter at her.
“I have made an utter fool of myself,” she said, with her eyes now downcast.
Warren held the letter up, and both Pauly and Jessie could see it had been signed by Don Rodrigo. “Does it have to do with him?”
She nodded her head. “He...he never loved me. He wants me to...see someone and put an end...to lose...the child I carry...his child.”
Warren made a show of reading the letter and yelled, “Scoundrel!”
June Keenen fell into his arms when he turned to the sound of Pauly calling out, “Jess...Jess ole girl. Steady on.”
Pauly had his arms around Jessie as he held her up and led her away. “I must see to Lady Jess,” he shot back at Sir Warren.
Clearly, both he and Jessie heard Warren contemptuously shout as they moved into the hallway, “Damn the devil! Fiend Rodrigo for an unfeeling rakehell!”
“Do you feel faint, Jess?” Pauly asked. “I know it was an awful thing to hear...but you are too sensitive by half. It isn’t our business, you know.”
“I...I know...but I did not think Rodrigo could be so cruel. Pauly...I am rather tired.”
He patted her shoulder. “Of course you are. I’ll hail a hack and get you home at once.”
It didn’t take long for him to pack her into a hackney and position himself beside her. One quick look at her face told him something more than sensitivity was going on inside her busy head. She looked glum and blue-deviled all at once. He tried to draw her out of herself and said, “Sorry affair, that.”
