nursed a slight anyway and after this visit they would not meet other than by chance or at the odd dutiful occasion. She had seven brothers and sisters and he had five first cousins—four if you excluded Rich—and a legion of more distant connections, so there would be christenings and engagement balls in common with the Duke and Duchess of Dettingham, but Miss Pendle, the maiden aunt, could fade into the background until the great left the good to their celebrations.
Of course she pitied whichever deluded girl let herself be blinded by the allure of the handsome Duke of Dettingham to the true Jack Seaborne underneath. He had a tyrannical will and an unbending determination to run the lives of those around him for their own good. No doubt he would make the poor child a very uncomfortable husband, but watching him court his bride would not be an ordeal, more another duty to get through before she could retire to the country and breed pigs, or maybe finance canals and steam engines and make a name for herself as an eccentric lady of means.
‘What more could a mother ask than your promise to try to be civil for a whole two weeks?’ Lady Pendle mused ironically and Jessica shifted uncomfortably on the well-upholstered cushions as she reviewed her behaviour over the last hour or so. ‘And you are not to play the old maid at Ashburton when the family will expect you to enjoy yourself as usual. I know the place is lovely at any time of year, but I have always found it especially so during high summer,’ her mother offered, as if the natural and contrived beauty of the setting ought to console Jessica for renouncing the right to be rude to her host whenever the fancy took her.
‘I always enjoy visiting Aunt Melissa and the children,’ Jessica said.
‘Indeed, it will be almost like old times,’ Lady Pendle went on happily.
‘Almost,’ Jessica murmured, recalling those days when she had adored Jack so devotedly she had wanted to follow him about like a yipping puppy.
Then she had never doubted they would be friends for ever and maybe even more and had put him in place of the hero when she’d dreamt of fairytale marriages and happy ever afters, before she’d raced off into the chaos of a summer storm one day on her father’s favourite hunter and lamed them both for ever. Best not to recall past follies, she told herself and concluded she and Jack would have been the worst-matched pair in the turbulent history of the Seabornes. A summer visit to Ashburton would make a pleasant interlude before she found her true purpose in life, but it would prove no more significant than tonight’s ball or any other social occasion she had attended and then forgotten of late.
Chapter Two
When she saw Jack strolling in the Park the next day, Jessica suddenly realised why she felt so uneasy about this projected house party of his. She caught sight of him long before he spotted the Pendle barouche and idly wondered at her ability to pick the Duke of Dettingham out from the crowd. He looked so alone, despite the chattering crowds and cheerful hails of his cronies. She marvelled at how many eager, beckoning looks the society beauties sent him in the hope of catching his notoriously discerning eye, despite the scurrilous stories they went on whispering about him behind their fans and their débutante sisters simply sat and simpered in the prescribed fashion.
It occurred to her that he looked solitary, although he could hardly be more at ease with himself, because she expected Richard to be nearby whenever she encountered Jack even now. The cousins had been inseparable as boys and so often together as young men she had come to think of them as brothers in arms. Jess suddenly realised why Jack intended to marry and gave a shocked gasp that she had to turn into a sneeze to disguise. He hoped his scapegrace heir would come home once he realised Jack was wed and there was little risk of him inheriting the family strawberry leaves. A worse reason for marriage evaded her and she wanted to scream denial over the chatter of the assembled throng.
‘Idiot,’ she muttered under her breath, as her gaze dwelt broodingly on the manly form ambling towards them as if her dark thoughts had drawn him to them as inevitably as north drew a compass needle.
‘Dettingham,’ her father greeted him genially.
‘Your Grace,’ her mother said as she held out a hand in public greeting to the latest butt of scandal to confound the tabbies.
‘Jack,’ Jessica managed flatly and in calling him by his given name overstepped the mark once again in her attempt not to bluntly ask him what on earth he thought he was doing by thinking up such a cold-blooded method of flushing out his errant cousin.
‘Really, Jessica, I know I asked you to be civil to him, but that’s going much too far in public,’ Lady Pendle scolded distractedly while she discreetly aimed an admonishing kick at her husband’s ankle to remind him not to grin at the pair of them as if he could imagine nothing better than his daughter and the Duke of Dettingham being overfamiliar with each other.
‘And did you promise to obey your mama in such a testing quest, Princess?’ Jack asked with that almost-open smile that always threatened to do strange things to her insides if she let it.
‘If I did, then I’m fated to make a liar of myself almost as quickly as you have, your Grace,’ she told him with a reproachful look for the determined use of that hated nickname once again.
He bowed with such mocking elegance she had to bite back a chuckle. The last thing she wanted at the moment was a truce between them, considering she had a very large bone to pick with him the moment they were alone.
‘I apologise for my lapse, Miss Pendle, but your best regal look always has a weakening effect on my already ragged manners,’ he told her a little too meekly.
‘If I went about making that sort of excuse for my follies, I would be banned from every drawing room in Mayfair,’ she informed him sternly.
‘Then I must try it whenever possible from now on, since I can imagine no fate more perfect than being forbidden the sticklers’ company, preferably for ever.’
Jessica’s father laughed out loud and drew the interested attention of all those straining to hear every word that fell from Jack’s lips. ‘Might put that one into effect myself, my boy,’ Lord Pendle confided, seeming oblivious of all the sharp looks and eager speculation around him on the subject of their conversation.
‘You won’t if you wish to share any of the rooms in your London home with your wife during the next year or so,’ she heard her mother murmur for what she thought was her husband’s ears only.
From Jack’s carefully blank expression he had caught that muttered threat as well and Jessica marvelled at the cat-like sharpness of his senses even as she reminded herself to keep a still tongue between her teeth in his company.
‘Should you like to take a drive with me, Pr—Miss Pendle?’ he asked with such an air of bland innocence that Jessica gave him a sharp look. ‘Well, you can’t say I’m not trying,’ he told her with a cheerful shrug and a smile that had her rising to her feet in response before she’d even thought how he used that look to charm the birds out of the trees when she wasn’t around to waste it on.
‘In what, pray?’ she asked as she plumped back down again against the comfortable squabs of the family barouche.
‘My imaginary curricle?’ he said with raised eyebrows and a boyish grin she truly did find irresistible this time.
‘Oh, well, that’s all right then,’ she said and looked down at him with laughter in her eyes and a smile tugging at her lips.
‘Is it, Princess?’ he asked with an oddly twisted smile and a look in
