“Wait, Jem.” Too forward, that. Addressing her by her given name, but she’d been Jem and he Jules for over a decade before their paths separated.
She hesitated, her pretty blue-eyed gaze probing his.
A swift glance to the mantel confirmed he might spare a minute or two more. He’d told Sabrina he’d be home no later than half past ten. Odd that he should be this happy to see Jemmah. But they were old friends, and as such, once together again, it was as if they’d never been apart.
After all, he’d known her since, as a pixyish imp with eyes too big for her thin face and wild straw-colored hair, she’d tried to hide beneath the same table as he when Lord Lockhart, his godfather had passed.
They’d seen each other intermittently over the years, but seldom traveled in the same social circles. Her father had died—heart attack in his mistress’s arms if the dark rumors were true—a year before Jules’s elder brother and sister-in-law were killed in the carriage accident that disabled Sabrina.
Jules and Jemmah had much in common.
Both had known grief and loss, endured the disdain of an uncaring mother, and lived in the shadow of an adored older child. But discovering her sequestered here, self-conscious about her unfashionable gown with salty dried tear trails upon her creamy cheeks, roused the same protective instincts he had for his niece.
What you feel for Jemmah isn’t the least paternal.
Sensation and sentiments long since dormant—so long in fact, he thought they’d died— slowly, and ever so cautiously raised their bowed heads to peek about.
Jules stepped ’round to the settee’s front and offered her a sympathetic smile.
She must’ve noticed his speculation, because she turned away and swiped at her face, erasing the evidence of her unhappiness.
“I must go. I’ll be missed.”
No. She wouldn’t.
Other than, perhaps, by Theo.
He doubted her mother or sister had given her a single thought the entire evening. Probably forgot she’d accompanied them altogether, so insignificant was she to them.
That weird spasm behind his breastbone pinged again.
Jemmah’s pale azure gaze—he couldn’t quite find anything to compare the delicate, yet arresting shade to—caught his, and she captured her plump lower lip between her teeth before shifting her focus to the frilly settee pillows.
Her shoulders lifted as she pulled in a substantial breath and notched her pert chin higher, while something akin to defiance emphasized the delicate angles and curves of her face. The earlier light he’d glimpsed in her eyes faded to a resigned melancholy. When she spoke, a kind of weary, beleaguered desperation shadowed her gentle words.
“No one, Your Grace, appreciates being the object of another’s pity.”
At Jemmah’s frank pronouncement, Dandridge’s deep set amber eyes widened a fraction, immediately followed by a contemplative glint. He probably wasn’t accustomed to such candor, but in her limited experience, artifice seldom ended well.
“Say what you mean and mean what you say,” Papa had always advocated. “Speak honestly, my precious Jem. But temper your words with kindness and gentleness so they’re diamonds, not toads. One is welcomed, even appreciated. The other detested and often feared.”
Lord, how she missed her father’s jovial smile, perpetually rumpled hair and clothing, and his tender kisses upon her crown. Missed the fairytales he used to tell her as she sat upon his knee. “Toads and Diamonds,” “The Sleeping Beauty,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” and so many more.
Tears stung behind her eyelids, but she resolutely blinked them away. She must continue to be strong. But at times—times like these when humiliation and shame sluiced her—it was so very hard. And she was so very weary and discouraged despite the cheerful mien she presented.
A whisper of a sigh escaped her.
Pshaw.
Enough wallowing in self-pity. Imprudent and pointless.
Perhaps recalling Papa’s counsel hadn’t been the best example for bolstering her courage, especially since he had died in his lover’s bed.
Most mothers would’ve kept that tawdry detail from their children, but Mama used the ugliness to regularly and viciously besmirch Papa’s character to her daughters.
Jemmah in particular.
One didn’t have to think overly long and hard to understand why he’d sought another woman’s comfort. Not that Jemmah excused his infidelity, but neither could she deny he’d been miserable for most of her life.
So had she, and she longed for the day she might finally, somehow, escape and know joy and peace, not constant ridicule and criticism.
Her emotions once more under control, she returned Dandridge’s acute assessment, determined to show her lack of cowardice, and that she wasn’t a weak, pathetic creature deserving of his—or anyone else’s—pity or sympathy.
Well? Have you nothing to say?
The laurel wreath diamond cravat pin gracing his snowy waterfall of a neckcloth cheekily winked at her, and as if he’d heard her silent challenge, and with an unidentifiable gleam crinkling his eyes’ outer corners, the edges of his strong mouth twitched upward.
She’d risked voicing her innermost thoughts, and the handsome knave laughed at her?
Chagrin trotted a spiky path from her chest to her hairline, no doubt leaving a ribbon of ugly, ruddy blotches. No soft flare of flattering, pinkish color accompanied her blushes, but rather ugly splotches mottled her skin, very much resembling an angry sunburn or severe rash.
Papa had attributed the tendency to their Irish heritage.
If that were true, then why didn’t Adelinda with her coppery hair suffer the affliction?
Jemmah knew full well why.
Because in that, as was true of everything else, Adelinda took after Mama.
Jemmah’s looking glass revealed daily, and objectively, that her light coloring and unremarkable features paled in comparison to her mother’s and sister’s flamboyant looks with their rich ginger hair and dark exotic eyes. Neither did she possess their high-strung temperaments nor delicate constitutions. All of which Mama contended a lady must possess in order to become a haut ton favorite.
As if Jemmah cared a whit about any of that fiddle-faddle.
People mattered far more than titles or positions.
Her rather ordinary appearance, robust health, and kindly nature were more suited for docile cattle or sheep, and as such, frequently served to vex and disappoint her mother.
Indeed, how many times since Papa’s death had Mama admonished—her voice arctic and condemning—“You look and behave just like your father, Jemmah. I can scarcely bear to look upon you. You’ll disgrace us one day, too. Just you wait and see.”
I shall not.
If anyone brought more shame on the Daments, it would be Adelinda. She’d become so bold in her clandestine rendezvous, someone was sure to come upon her and one of her numerous unsuitable beaux.
Naturally, Mama knew nothing of Adelinda’s fast behavior.