“Heavens, no!” Amy smiled condescendingly. “She’d never go near them. She’d go to Geoffrey, I suppose.”
George saw Jack’s face and leapt in with, “Who’s Geoffrey?”
Amy blinked. “Her cousin, of course. Geoffrey Cranmer.”
The sudden easing of Jack’s shoulders was dramatic enough to be visible. “Thank God for small mercies. Where does Geoffrey Cranmer live?”
Frowning, Amy took another sip of tea. “I think,” she began, then stopped, her frown deepening. “Does Jermyn Street sound right?”
George dropped his head back and closed his eyes. “Oh, God.”
“It sounds all too right.” His jaw ominously set, Jack picked up his gloves. “My thanks, Amy.”
George swung about as Jack made for the door. “For God’s sake, Jack, don’t do anything you’ll regret.”
Jack paused at the door, a look of long suffering on his face. “Never fear. Aside from giving her a good shaking, and one or two other physical treatments, I intend to spend a long, long time explaining things-a whole host of things-to my wife.”
At five o’clock, Geoffrey studied the elegant timepiece on his mantel and wondered what he could do to fill the time until dinner. He’d yet to come to a conclusion when the knocker on his door was plied with the ruthless determination he’d been expecting for the last three days.
“Lord Hendon, sir.”
Hemmings had barely got the words out before Jonathon Hendon was in the room. His sharp and distinctly irritated grey gaze swept the furniture before settling with unnerving calm on Geoffrey’s face.
Geoffrey remained outwardly unmoved, rising to greet his wholly expected guest. Inwardly, he conceded several of the points Kit had attempted to explain to him. The man standing in the middle of his parlor, stripping riding gloves off a pair of large hands and returning his welcoming nod with brusque civility, didn’t look the sort to be easily brought to the negotiating table. Now he could understand why Kit had felt it necessary to flee her home purely to gain her husband’s attention.
His knowledge of Jonathon Hendon was primarily based on rumor-not, he was the first to admit, a thoroughly reliable source. Hendon was a number of years his senior; socially, their paths had crossed infrequently. But Jack Hendon’s reputation as a soldier and a rake was close to legendary. Undoubtedly, had the country not been at war, he and Kit would have met much sooner. But how his slip of a cousin coped with the powerful male force currently making itself felt in all sorts of subtle ways in his parlor was beyond Geoffrey’s ability to guess.
“I believe, Cranmer, you have something of mine.”
The steel encased in the deep velvety tones brought Geoffrey’s well-honed defense mechanisms into play. Angry husbands had never been his cup of tea. “She’s not here.” Best to get that out as soon as possible.
Arrested, the grey gaze trapped him. Some of the tension left the large frame. “Where is she?”
Despite Kit’s instruction to tell her husband precisely where she was as soon as he appeared, Geoffrey found himself too intrigued to let the information go quite so easily. He waved his guest to a seat, an invitation that was reluctantly accepted. Smoothly, Geoffrey grasped a decanter and poured two glasses of wine, handing one to his guest before taking the other back to his armchair. “I’ve been expecting you for the past three days.”
To his surprise, a slight flush rose under his guest’s tanned skin.
“I thought the damned woman was at Cranmer. I went to fetch her this morning, only to find Spencer hadn’t seen her. It took some hours to uncover her trail. If it hadn’t been for Amy Gresham remembering you, I’d still be chasing my arse in Norfolk.”
Hearing exasperation ring behind the clipped accents, Geoffrey kept his expression serious. “You know,” he said, “I don’t think Kit intended that.”
“I know she didn’t.” Jack fastened his gaze on Geoffrey’s face. “So where is she?”
The commanding tones were difficult to resist but still Geoffrey hesitated. “Er…I don’t suppose you’d consider allaying my cousinly fears with an assurance or two?”
For a moment, Jack stared, incredulous, until the sincerity in Geoffrey’s eyes struck him. Here was another who, while recognizing Kit’s wildness, had learned to overlook the fact. With a grimace, Jack conceded: “I’ve no intention of harming a single red hair. However,” he added, his voice regaining its sternness, “beyond that, I make no promises. I intend taking my wife back to Castle Hendon as soon as possible.”
The strength in that reply should have reassured Geoffrey. Instead, the implication revealed a glaring gap in Kit’s plan. “I’m sure she has no other intention than to return with you.” Geoffrey frowned. Had Kit explained to her intimidating spouse why she’d taken to her heels as she had? “In fact, I was under the distinct impression she was waiting for you to arrive to take her home momentarily.”
Jack frowned, not a little confused. If she didn’t want to bargain with him, her return against his promises, what was this all about? Admitting she wished to return with him would leave her no leverage to wring promises from him.
His bewilderment must have shown, for Geoffrey was also frowning. “I don’t know that I’ve got this entirely straight-with women one never knows. But Kit led me to understand that her…er, trip was solely designed to make you sit up and take notice.”
Jack stared at Geoffrey, his gaze abstracted. Was she wild enough to do such a thing-simply to make him acknowledge her feelings? To force him to do nothing more than admit he understood? The answer was obvious. As the memory of the sheer worry he’d endured for the past four days washed through him, Jack groaned. He leaned his brow on one palm, then glanced up in time to catch the grin on Geoffrey’s face. “Has anyone warned you, Cranmer, against marriage?”
Jack stretched his long legs to the comfort of the fire blazing in Geoffrey Cranmer’s parlor. Kit’s cousin had invited him to dine and then, when Jack had confessed he’d yet to seek lodgings, Hendon House being let for the Season, had offered him a bed. By now at ease with both Geoffrey and the younger Julian, who’d joined them over dinner, he’d accepted. Both he and Geoffrey had been entertained by the conversion of Julian from guarded civility to hero worship. Aside from the ease of an evening spent with kindred spirits, Jack doubted Kit would find support from these two the next time she made a dash for town.
Not, of course, that there’d be a next time.
Before leaving with Julian for a night about town, Geoffrey had filled Jack in on Jenny MacKillop and her relationship to the Cranmer family. Julian had painted a reassuring picture of a genteel household in one of the better streets of Southampton. Kit was safe. Jack knew where he could lay his hand on her red head whenever he wished. He wished right now. But experience was at last taking root. This time, he would take the time to think before he tangled with his loving, devoted, and dutiful wife.
His record in paying sufficient attention to her words was not particularly good. He’d ignored her requests to be told about the spies because it had suited him to do so. He’d not listened as carefully as he should have to her warning about Belville, oblique though it had been, too engrossed in delighting in her body to pay due interest to the fruits of her brain. And he’d put off fetching her from Cranmer, knowing it would involve him in a discussion of topics he had not wished to discuss.
Uneasily, Jack shifted in the chair. Admitting to such failures and vowing to do better was not going to come naturally.
It would have to come, of course. He knew he loved the damned woman. And that she loved him. She’d never said so, but she proclaimed it to his senses every time she took him into her body. Even when she’d offered herself to him that night in the cottage, he hadn’t imagined she’d done so lightly; that was what had made the moment so special. For her, and now for him, although it hadn’t been so in the past, love and desire were two halves of the same whole-fused, never to be split asunder.