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She eyed him and relented. “Very well.” She gave him her hand, allowing him to help her out of the carriage.
Rodrigo was all too aware of the fact that she was behaving oddly towards him. He felt a chill. Why? Was it because he had avoided her for days? It seemed more than that, and there was the fact she had been kissing the puppy! She had told him she and Pauly were only friends.
He had attempted to make love to her in the confines of a carriage and had managed to stop himself. Was she a tease? Did she tease Pauly into kissing her? What was her game? He was beyond reason as jealousy took over and green fire lit in his eyes. He dryly said, “I can understand your preference for the coach, my lady, when one thinks of its—snug comforts.”
The viscount made an inarticulate objection to this. No doubt Rodrigo had witnessed him kissing Jess, but that had only been a show of affection, an effort to make her smile. He felt the blush enter his cheeks, and he said on a hard note, “You overstep, Don Rodrigo.”
“Do I?” Rodrigo snapped, one brow up. “Perhaps then felicitations are in order?”
Jessica saw red. She reacted with fury, her hands on her hips. “How dare you?” She saw the viscount meant to intercede, and she put out a hand to stall him. “No, Pauly, do not bother to answer this...this unfeeling cad of a man.” Her chin was well up. “I take leave to tell you, Don Rodrigo, that you are beneath my contempt, and wish you will quit my company immediately.”
The viscount was aghast. How had things gone this far? “Jessica!” he objected strongly.
Rodrigo was rigid. He glared at Jessie and sneered as he said, “It is my wish always to surrender to your will, Lady Jessica.” With a curt nod at the viscount, he turned on his heel and left them.
Jessie wanted to scream, to cry, to run after Rodrigo and slap his face. Her heart pumped in her chest. Her mind filled with bees buzzing incessantly. She couldn’t think. She did hear Pauly begin to lecture her and snapped, “No, no, Pauly...please just see me home. I don’t want to hear a word, not a word about the scoundrel.”
Quietly, he said, “No, I don’t suppose you do.” In silence, he took her home, and in solemnity bade her goodnight.
Jessie ran to her room, and for a few moments paced wildly, clenching and unclenching her fists as her hands came together and pressed themselves to her chin. “Faith, he is the devil of a man, and I should never have trusted him,” she told her bed. “A devil!”
Astounding how love, the best of all emotions, can arouse the very worst when that love is thwarted. Had she not fallen in love with Rodrigo, she would not now be driven to such misery, and she knew this all too well!
~ Sixteen ~
ONE WEEK HAD PASSED SINCE the incident in June Keenen’s dressing room. The young viscount, Pauly Bellamy, eyed the missive he had in his hand. His youthful features were drawn in a frown, and he was hit with an awful feeling.
It read:
Dearest Pauly,
Aunt Charlie says a change of scene is all I need to swish away my blue-devils. Perhaps she is right. At any rate, we leave for her New Forest manor home this afternoon.
I feel wretched and cowardly doing this. I know the answer to my problem does not lie in running, but run I suppose I must.
Have you seen to that matter we came across in the Keenen’s dressing room? Please visit me in the New Forest, Pauly, and we shall ride the wild country together.
When I was a child, all I wanted was to come of age, and now...now all I want is to be a child once more.
As ever,
Jessie
Pauly had received the letter the previous day, but he was still undetermined how to handle the matter of the actress, June Keenen. Clearly, Jess expected him to keep his promise and administer to the actress’s financial problems...if she had any. At the time, he felt inclined to do so, but now, he was not so sure.
How did one, after all, take care of another man’s mistress? It was most awkward. Sticky as well. On the one hand, there was the actress who was with child. On the other, there was Don Rodrigo, who he still had a very difficult time believing would just abandon a woman who carried his own child. He liked Rodrigo and thought he had come to know him. In fact, he had spoken to a great many members of the beau monde, and Rodrigo was universally respected.
Thus, had Rodrigo actually left the actress to her own devices? Had he been ungallant, ungentlemanly, dishonorable, and heartless to boot? Pauly could not reconcile such despicable behavior with the man he knew. No...none of this made sense to him, and he was beginning to think something didn’t feel right. The Keenen knew he and Jessie were there in the doorway, listening to everything she told Sir Warren. Why had she done that?
A knock sounded at his study door, and his butler opened it wide to announce the viscount’s youthful crony. “Francis Crabtree.”
Pauly looked up absently and nodded as he put aside Jessie’s letter. “Oh, hallo, Crabby.”
“You have forgotten, haven’t you?” the chubby fellow with the shock of orange hair and freckled face said. “We are promised to Crawford’s for the afternoon...cockfight, you know.” He hesitated, for the viscount did not appear to be dressed for an evening’s entertainment in one of London’s more questionable quarters.
The viscount eyed his friend and said, “Don’t like cockfights...don’t know why I accepted to go to one. Poor creatures. Know what, Crabby...you go on. I’ll meet you afterwards for a drink.”
“Deuce take you, Pauly. What do you mean to go on about? Don’t like cockfights...” He frowned. “Aye, does seem savage when you think about it.”
