Read Online Regency 09 - Redemption by Jaimey Grant - Free Book Online

if that is what you
wish. However, it was not your actions that made me take greater
liberties than was offered.”
    “How stuffy you sound,” she
mused, smiling faintly. “I am astonished you failed to realize
exactly what was being offered. Did you not receive my
note?”
    He moved a step closer,
suddenly needing to see her eyes better. “I did. Why did you send
it?”
    “I would have thought that
was plainly obvious.”
    His eyes widened. She
couldn’t possibly be suggesting…
    Of course she could. She
was Lady Genevieve Northwicke, insatiably curious, headstrong,
willful Lady Genevieve Northwicke.
    His temper flared. “Are you
out of your mind? You asked for an assignation to…dear God, woman,
you are insane!”
    “No,” she snapped right
back. “I’m not insane. I’m lonely!”
    That shut him up proper. He
stared, unable to fathom the idea that the rich, cosseted blond
beauty before him was lonely. People like her didn’t get lonely.
They surrounded themselves with other people just like them and
talked about their money and possessions, never letting ordinary
cares touch their sparkling existence.
    “I thought…” she sighed
deeply. “I just thought…you were, too.”
    “Oh, Jenny-love,” he
whispered, feeling her pain tear a hole in his chest, “that’s no
reason to indulge in something you should only share with your
husband.”
    Their gazes met, held. Both
were darkened by moonlight and bitter thoughts. Hers shimmered with
repressed tears. He would not have been surprised if his did as
well.
    He wanted to take her in
his arms, comfort her, but he knew if he touched so much as a
strand of her honey-gold hair, his tenuous control would slip. He’d
wanted her since he first met her and he suspected he always would.
When a single tear slipped down her pale ivory cheek, he stepped
forward, his control be damned.
    Jenny, horrified at her
confession, doubly horrified at her shattered pride, and triply
horrified at her loss of control, fled.

    The blasted ball continued
on interminably. Dare finally grew weary of standing around,
waiting for Jenny to reappear again. She’d left the ballroom
several minutes ago, after what had appeared to be a heated
argument with her brother and sister.
    He hadn’t liked the look on
her face. In his experience, when someone’s face took on that
particular cast, said person was teetering on the brink of total
breakdown.
    And Jenny, sweet,
charismatic, effervescent Jenny, was lonely.
    He turned
and walked in the direction she’d gone without really making the
conscious decision to do so. He kept an eye out for her
overprotective brother, not wanting to tangle with him, and another
out for his own brother, knowing, without a doubt, that Miles would
not approve .
    After a few minutes of
searching, Dare finally found Jenny, huddled up on a broad settee
in what appeared to be an unused antechamber in the Riesley house.
Everything was under Holland covers. Jenny had thrown back the one
covering her perch.
    Dare closed the door,
locking it against unwelcome intruders, and approached her much the
way one would a wounded deer.
    He stood beside the sofa.
“Jenny-love,” he whispered. She looked up at him with such misery
that he gasped. “Oh, Jenny. What could possibly be so bad to
warrant such misery?”
    A fresh torrent answered
his question and she buried her face in her folded arms, shoulders
shaking with the force of her sobs.
    Dare could no longer keep
his distance. Jenny was hurting and that was something he wouldn’t
stand for.
    He eased down beside her,
gently taking her in his arms. Smoothing his hands over her back,
he asked, “Tell me what it is, Jenny-love. I’ll make everything
better.”
    She sniffled, lifted her
head slightly and accepted the handkerchief he held out to her.
After wiping her face—amazingly unmarked by her grief—she sniffled
again.
    “Con says I mustn’t speak
with you,” she admitted after a long moment. “Gwen agrees. I