Sweet Surrender (21 page)

The notion of Jackson being in charge was galling, and she was furious that Edward had put her in such fiscal jeopardy.

Well, she’d captivated Jackson once, and she could do it again.  He was thirty and still a bachelor.  Wasn’t it time he settled down?  Who would be a better wife for him than Susan?

She’d known him since they were children, and she was mother to his ward and nephew.  A union between them was the ideal solution for all concerned.

She left her room and headed downstairs.  Her maid had been out spying, had reported to Susan that Jackson was in the library.  Alone.  The house was in the quiet phase of late afternoon, with the servants’ daily chores mostly completed and their having tea prior to beginning the preparations for supper.

She’d have a chance to speak to Jackson without interruption, and he’d remember why he’d previously been so mad for her.

As she reached the foyer, the front door suddenly opened, and Duncan Dane waltzed in.  They’d hated each other for years, and they both bristled with distaste. 

Even as a boy, he’d been rude and condescending.  He simply didn’t like her and never had.  On her end, there were definite reasons for her hatred.  He was astute and sneaky, and he seemed to have guessed that she had secrets she could never reveal. 

He was the only person who had ever overtly commented to Susan about Percival’s red hair and plain features.  He was the only person who had ever mentioned the rampant gossip, but he never alluded to it when Edward was present. 

He always waited until he and Susan were by themselves, as if he enjoyed tormenting her and was on the verge of blackmail.  He was just the low sort of fellow who would swindle a female, and if he’d threatened to whisper venom to Edward, Susan wasn’t certain how she’d have reacted.  Luckily, matters had never progressed that far.

"Darling Susan," he sarcastically oozed, "I had heard you were here.  How lovely to bump into you."

"Well, I hadn’t heard that
you
were here.  If I’d been informed there were vermin lurking in the halls, I’d have called in the rat catchers before I arrived."

"Still your charming self, I see."

"Still your obnoxious self, I see."

He assessed her, studying her expensive gown, her best sapphire jewelry.  It was obvious she wasn’t coming down for tea and cakes.

He smirked.  "Let me guess:  You and Beatrice have hatched some plan that involves your seducing Jackson."

How had he figured out her scheme?  Was the blasted oaf a mind reader?

"I have no idea what you’re talking about," she haughtily insisted.

"Don’t you?"

"No."

"It will never work.  He loathes you, and after his first go around with you and his mother, he’s smart enough to know better."

She should have denied his allegations, but he was so smug, and she was anxious to put him in his place.

"We’ll eventually discover who’s right, won’t we?" she seethed. 

"Yes,
we
will."

"When I’m in charge again, you won’t be welcome here.  Your days of leeching off this family will be over."

"When you’re in
charge
again
?
  Will you be Jackson’s blushing bride?  With your son,
Percival
, as the earl?"  He laughed as he sneered Percival’s name.

"If you think I can’t bring about that conclusion, you’ve vastly underestimated me.  But then, you always were a dolt." 

"Have you conferred with Jackson beyond your initial hello?"

"No, why?"

"He’s got an interesting story to tell you."  He winked.  "It’s about Percival."

She blanched.  The way he leaned in, the way he was preening and scoffing, raised her hackles but terrified her, too.  What on earth could he mean? 

"What kind of story?" she demanded.

"It has to do with a woman named Georgina and her son Michael.  Jackson will explain."  He nodded down the hall.  "I believe he’s in the library.  Find me after the two of you are finished.  I’d like to know how it went."

He strolled off, chuckling with glee.  The horse’s ass!  How she detested him! 

And he’d ruined her grand entrance, too.  When she approached Jackson, she wanted to appear alluring and composed.  Instead, she was fuming and sweating, her temper out of control.

She took several deep breaths, calming herself, then she glided down the hall.  She knocked and hurried in without being invited.

As she’d hoped, Jackson was seated at the desk, his back to her.  He was sipping a brandy and staring out the window.

She hastened over as he glanced around.  There was anticipation in his gaze, as if he was expecting someone else.

"Oh, Susan."  He frowned, his disappointment clear.  "It’s you."

"Hello, my dear Jackson," she gushed.  "We got off to such a bad start this morning.  How can I mend things between us?"

"There is no need for any mending."

"Yes, there is!  Years ago, we parted on such awful terms, and you’ve been away for so long.  Must we quarrel?" 

She sauntered over until she was standing next to him.  She balanced her hips on the edge of the desk and bent forward, giving him a spectacular view of her magnificent cleavage.

Beatrice kept pointing out that he was a man—with a man’s affinities and tastes.  For a delicious moment, they froze, and he definitely looked at what she was eager for him to see.  There was no question he was intrigued.

Perhaps Beatrice knew of what she spoke.  Perhaps Susan could seduce him again.  It didn’t seem out of the realm of possibilities. 

"I hate that we’re enemies now."  She traced her tongue across her bottom lip, instantly capturing his hot attention.  "Wouldn’t you rather we were friends?"

"I have plenty of friends."

"There’s always room for one more."

He continued to study her bosom, and she suffered a thrill of exultation.  They were perched on the edge of a magical encounter.  If he moved just a little closer, they could embrace.

She waited, on tenterhooks, then abruptly, he pushed to his feet and stood.

"What do you want, Susan?" he snapped.

"What do you imagine I want?"

"You’re sending a loud message, and I’m receiving it.  You’re keen to take up where we left off."

"Would that be so horrid?  We were in love."

"Is that how you remember it?"  He raised a condemning brow.  "
I
loved you, yes.  I admit it.  What should we call your sentiment?  Faked?  Duplicitous?  However you wish to paint it, I don’t recollect that things ended too well for me."

"I was so young."

"So was I."

"I’ve missed you," she claimed but immediately saw that it was the wrong comment.

"Really?"  He snorted with disdain.

"I have, Jackson!  You don’t know what it was like after you ran away."

"If you’re about to wax on about how Edward was a terrible husband, how the two of you had a ghastly marriage, I’m not in the mood to listen."

"He
was
a terrible husband," she vehemently declared.  "You told me he would be, but I refused to heed your warning."  She pursed her lips in a fetching pout.  "Can’t you forgive me?"

She stepped in so her body was touching his all the way down.  He didn’t attempt to deflect her advance, so she snuggled herself even nearer, letting him feel her breasts, her thighs.

"You desired me in the past," she whispered, her blue eyes wide and searching.  "You could want me again." 

"You actually suppose I could?"

"Kiss me, Jackson.  Just once—for old time’s sake."

She slackened her knees, so she collapsed against him.  It was a coquette’s trick, and he had to catch her lest she fall to the floor.  One hand was on her waist, the other on her bottom.  She grinned, daring him, urging him to recklessness.

Any wild thing might have occurred, but from across the room, someone gasped.

Together, they glanced over.

A woman was hovered in the doorway, watching them.  She was petite and pretty, but she was attired in gray, covered from chin to toe in a conservative dress such as an underpaid governess or nanny might wear.

Jackson tried to move away, but Susan wrapped her arms around him and held on for dear life. 

Let the other woman stare and wonder.  She was obviously a servant, and Susan was aware of how the staff liked to gossip.  When the woman left, she’d race down to the kitchen and tattle about what she’d witnessed.

Word would quickly spread that Jackson and Susan had been observed in a compromising situation.  Speculation would begin, rumors circulating that they were involved.

If Jackson had shoved her onto the sofa and made passionate love to her, she couldn’t have orchestrated a better ending.

"Dammit," Jackson muttered.

"Excuse me," the woman mumbled in reply, looking as if she might faint.  "I apologize for interrupting."

She spun and flitted away so swiftly that she might not have ever been there, at all.

"Dammit!" Jackson cursed again as he pried at Susan’s fingers.  "Release me, you interfering shrew."

"Who was that?" Susan asked as he fought to slip from her grasp.

"You’ll find out soon enough," he ominously threatened.

"Let’s don’t bother about her.  Before she barged in, we were having such a pleasant conversation."

"No, we weren’t."

"We were.  Don’t deny it." 

She smiled enticingly, hoping to rekindle the intimate moment, but the spell had been broken.  He appeared angry and irked.

With a particularly vicious yank, he pulled on her hands and stepped away.

"Don’t try to seduce me, Susan," he said.  "It’s humorous to watch you flaunting yourself, but it annoys me."

"Seduce you!  I wasn’t doing anything of the sort," she felt compelled to claim.  "I was simply reminding you of our previous friendship."

"Despite what you suppose, I’m not interested in you."

"You could be."

"No, and I would never want you after you’ve been with my brother.  Doesn’t a relationship between us seem a bit sordid—even to your twisted sensibilities?"

She saw her fiscal security fading away, as if it was rolling down a steep hill and she couldn’t run fast enough to catch it.

"We could be so good together," she persisted.

"In what universe?"

"You once loved me so intensely.  That emotion can’t have fled entirely."

"If you need money, Susan, you won’t get it by throwing yourself at me."

"I wasn’t!" she insisted again.

"You’ll have to make a case for it as my mother will have to do.  We can have a meeting in the morning.  Write out a list of your expenses, and I’ll consider an allowance."

He headed toward the door, and she stomped her foot like a petulant toddler. 

"Jackson!"

"What?"

"Let’s have supper.  Just the two of us—in my room.  Please?"

He grimaced with distaste.  "Don’t beg, Susan.  It’s beneath you."

Then he sauntered out, and she was left to fret and stew all alone.

DC

Grace raced into the garden.  Blindly, she hurried down the paths, not really seeing where she was going.

Like a silly schoolgirl, she’d been yearning to be with Jackson Scott all day.

They’d engaged in marital fornication, and she’d assumed she could participate methodically and technically, that she could remain detached.  Yet she’d been so wrong!

She was all jumbled on the inside, insanely happy, glad and stunned, but sad and weepy, too.

While she looked exactly the same, it seemed as if she’d been altered into someone new, someone different from boring, stalwart Grace Bennett.  She felt connected to him now, as if she was his and they could never be separated.

At least she’d felt that way until she’d stumbled on him in the library.

For reasons she didn’t understand, she’d been confined to her bedchamber for hours, having received his curt and unhelpful note that she shouldn’t leave it until he sent for her. 

She’d been insulted and furious, chafing at his edict and desperate to confront him, while recognizing that she was an unwanted guest, and he could treat her however he wished.

When the maid had knocked and told her that he was awaiting her, she’d been giddy with relief.  She’d rushed down the stairs, as if floating with elation.  But he’d been busy.  With another woman.

Who was she?  From her hair, clothing, and sparkling jewels, it was obvious she was everything that Grace was not.  They’d been a handsome couple, wealthy and attractive and perfectly suited.

Grace was sick with envy and hurt.  Why had he invited Grace to meet with him?  Why deliberately break her heart?