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“But,” she added in a tone that brooked no contradiction, “that does not mean I will surrender my sister to you without a fight.”
Ewan considered for a moment. “It doesn’t mean I’ll give her up without a fight, either.”
Strangely, the prospect of such a battle of wits and wills with Claire Talbot fired his blood.
Chapter Three
“Come now, Tessa, be sensible, dearest,” Claire begged her sister. “You can’t mean to jilt poor Spencer over a man you barely know.”
A few days after the Fortescues’ ball, they sat in the morning room of Lydiard House. Claire occupied an armchair opposite a matching settee that held Tessa and her mother. A tea tray rested on the low table between them.
This was the first time in the three years since her father’s death that Claire had paid a call on Lydiard House.
“I wish you wouldn’t use an awful word like jilt!” Tessa thrust out her full lower lip in a pretty pout. “It sounds perfectly heartless!”
Lady Lydiard set down her cup of tea, for once in complete agreement with her stepdaughter. “It is a rather heartless thing to do, dear, no matter what you call it. Especially considering how long poor Spencer has waited for you.”
“That’s part of the problem, isn’t it?” Tessa’s splendid eyes flashed with more green than blue, a sure sign of rough sailing for anyone foolish enough to oppose her. “If Spencer had been truly eager to marry me, I cannot believe he would have stood for so many delays.”
After the forbearance he’d shown her sister, Claire would not tolerate hearing Spencer Stanton abused. Not even by his own fiancée.
“Delays that were your idea, may I remind you! Spencer has only wanted to give you time to be certain of your feelings. Would you rather he’d blustered and bullied you to get his own way, like some men?”
“Of course not.” Tessa sighed. “Spencer’s been perfectly sensible and selfless, as always, and I feel ghastly about—” she hesitated over the word, then steeled herself and spat it out “—jilting the dear fellow. But I cannot go through with the wedding when I’m head over heels in love with another man, now, can I?”
It made a sort of topsy-turvy sense, though not a kind Claire could have much sympathy with. If she had given her word, and the gentleman in question had done nothing to make her change her mind, she could not have brought herself to break her promise.
“If you ask me, head over heels does not sound like a very balanced frame of mind in which to make such an important decision.” Claire reached across the low tea table to rest her hand on top of her sister’s. “For Spencer’s sake and especially for your own, please do not act in haste. How much do you really know about Ewan Geddes, after all?”
His name came far too readily to her tongue, curse him! It gave her a ridiculous little rush of pleasure to wrap her lips around it. And to hear it spoken by her own voice…as if that granted her some secret sense of ownership.
Worse yet, the sound of it conjured up a vivid image of the man, and a disturbingly intense memory of how it had felt to whirl around the dance floor in his arms, his voice beguiling her more deeply with every word. It was bad enough she hadn’t been able to get him out of her thoughts last night. If he was going to plague her during the day, as well, how would she get anything done?
“Claire’s right, dear,” Lady Lydiard chimed in, speaking those words for the first time her stepdaughter could recall. “I disapproved of this man when I believed he was simply a stranger from America. But when Claire informed me he was one of our servants…Such an alliance would be out of the question, even if you weren’t already engaged! Really, you might have told me.”
“I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d fuss. And why should it be out of the question, Mama? You always say what marvelous servants we have.”
Lady Lydiard’s patrician countenance took on a look of horror, like a fastidious clergyman listening to heresy. “Marvelous in their proper places, dear.”
“Proper places—tush!” Tessa sprang from her spot on the settee and began to pace the morning room, her delicate hands gesturing wildly as she spoke. “You know I have no patience with that kind of thinking. People are people.”
Where had Tessa picked up her egalitarian notions? Claire wondered. From reading Mrs. Trollope’s novels at an impressionable age? From the handsome but radical-minded tutor their father had dismissed after discovering just how revolutionary some of the young man’s views were? Or was it a natural expression of the rebellious streak her younger sister had displayed as far back as their nursery days?
“Besides…” Tessa made a dramatic sweeping gesture that almost spelled disaster for an Oriental vase perched too close to the edge of the mantelpiece. “Ewan Geddes is nobody’s servant anymore. He is a perfectly respectable man of business in a place called Pittsburgh. And quite prosperous, I dare say. He was able to afford a holiday in London, after all, and his clothes are very well tailored.”
The exchange between her sister and stepmother had given Claire a chance to rally her composure. Now Tessa’s words reminded her of something else.
“I’ve made inquiries about Mr. Geddes, as it happens.”
Tessa’s mouth fell open. “What gives you the right to pry—”
Lady Lydiard interrupted her daughter. “Do be quiet, dear, and listen to what your sister has to say. What did you find out, Claire?”
For the first time in her life, Claire wavered a little under her sister’s indignant glare. It was for Tessa’s good, she reminded herself, and Brancasters’. Yet, somehow, her own foolish partiality for the man tainted her sisterly concern.
“He’s staying at the Carleton, for one thing. A rather expensive hotel for a man who lists his occupation as ‘marine engineer,’ wouldn’t you say?”
Her sister did not seem to draw the same conclusions as Claire had. Perhaps because Tessa had not been forced to guard herself against fortune hunters for so many years.
“How dare you set spies on Mr. Geddes, just because he and I are friends?”
“I’d call it a good deal more than friends,” Claire snapped back, “if you are thinking of jilting your fiancé for the man. I’ve also discovered that he is employed by the firm Liberty Marine Works.”
The significance of her sister’s words seemed lost on Tessa. She lifted her gracefully arched brows in an unspoken question.
“Liberty Marine Works is a shipbuilding firm.” A sinking sensation had gripped Claire when she’d first heard this incriminating piece of information from Mr. Hutt. Now it returned. “Like Brancasters.”
Leaning on one arm of the settee, Tessa brought her face close to Claire’s. “Then you and Ewan should have plenty to talk about at dinner parties, after he and I are married.”
“Teresa Veronica Talbot!” her mother thundered. “Don’t be impertinent!”
“Impertinent?” Tessa pointed an accusing finger at Claire. “Why don’t you lecture her about the impertinence of spying on a man who’s committed no crime other than once having been in our employ?”
Claire rose from the chair, gathering her self-control around her as a buffer against her sister’s passionate outrage.
She was not proud of what she’d done, but she’d had no choice. Now her sister must face the unpleasant truth about Ewan Geddes, just as she had.
“Don’t you see, dearest? A man who lives beyond his means that way can’t be up to any good. Has it never occurred to you that he may be after your fortune?”
“What fortune