Love and Scandal, page 27
The responsibility is mine and mine alone. Because of my actions a very talented young lady, Miss Collette Jardiniere, has been tainted by scandal and forced to claim her rightful place as the author just to stop scurrilous rumors. I am sorry. I have nothing to plead but ‘guilty’. I was guilty of jealousy, and then, when confronted by the owner of that talent, I did not believe her until it was too late to do anything about it.
To the public I apologize, but though you have been misled, you have not been harmed as much as Miss Jardiniere, and to her I extend my deepest expression of regret.
Charles Stonehampton Jameson
Twenty-Three
Melancholia had a firm grip on Collette, and she sat reading in the dim pool of light cast by a single lamp. She was leaving London in the morning—London, dear to her as the scene of so many revelations—and though she might come back again, she would never come back as the same person. The girl she was when she left Listerwood-on-Sea had been replaced by a woman who now knew what it was to love.
She recognized it, even as it disturbed her. She had fallen in love with Charles Jameson. While she was angry at him she could ignore it, but most of her anger had been dissipated by the article, and she had had hours to contemplate what he had done. It was an act of honor, an apology and an acknowledgment that he had been wrong. It spoke well of the man he really was underneath the rakish reputation. But no matter how hard she tried she could not make it into a declaration of love.
When she read it she had been proud of him, proud that he would offer himself up to be the butt of jokes, as he surely would be until some other scandal came along to titillate London society anew. He had even handed the reading public a great line to use, calling his letter “The Last Days of a Fake”. He had done what was right when he could easily have let it alone, or just left London until the furor died down.
She had tried to analyze her feelings toward Jameson, when first she realized that she had fallen in love with him. How had it happened when they had been bonded in an adversarial relationship for most of their acquaintance? What did she love about him, apart from his obvious attractions of looks and urbanity?
She loved how she felt in his presence, how he made her feel. It was joy that had overwhelmed her, and a sweet sense of being important to someone. He had led her gently down sensuous paths, had imagined a life together—even if it was not a married life—and all that knowing she was a novelist. Since their last night together she had begun to wonder if the question she had posed to him, of whether he would still want to be with her if she was not a writer, and her flight into the dark night shortly thereafter, had reintroduced his doubt that she truly was Colin Jenkins. If it had, who could blame him? It was enough that his public apology had been abject and thorough.
She might never know the exact moment when she had fallen in love with him. Perhaps there wasn’t one particular moment, but simply a growing sweet regard that then took you by surprise when you finally acknowledged it.
She stared down at the book in front of her. It was a copy of The Warden, Mr. Trollope’s latest novel—that wonderful gentleman had sent it when he learned where she was staying—and she had been looking forward to reading it, but she had not made her way past page one. Her friends were out walking. Collette had a feeling Marian had sensed her need for solitude and had chosen to leave her in peace for a while. It was a true friend who knew what you needed when you didn’t even know yourself.
Collette sighed and stared down at the book again, but she did not see the words in front of her. Instead, her mind returned to the one subject that had raced through it all day. She loved Charles Jameson. Marian, when in that same position had, after much soul-searching, been forthright in her love. Should Collette follow her friend’s lead and tell Jamie her feelings?
But no; her and Marian’s positions were very different, in truth. Collette was leaving the next morning to go home. It was where she belonged. If she had had some notion that he loved her too, confessing her love might have been worth the risk, but even then… They were such very different creatures, Jameson and herself, and lived such different lives. He was a Londoner through and through: sophisticated, worldly, urbane. She existed best in the countryside. She needed the quietude and serenity of country life to freely create. They would not suit, no matter how much she felt for him.
She needed a man like George Lewes, someone who could support her ambitions, who could love her enough to just leave her alone sometimes. Maybe someday men would recognize women as equal beings with just as much intellectual, spiritual and animal fire as they possessed. Despite Jameson’s respect for her ability, she still was not sure he wholly approved of a woman with a “male” need to express herself on paper.
And she would never stop writing. When her Aunt Nettie had been sick and Collette had had to devote all her time to nursing her—without resentment because she loved her aunt with all her heart—she had felt like she was disintegrating, losing little bits of herself. Until she had been able to sit back down at her desk and write, she had not felt whole. She was a woman, and she was a writer. The two halves of her could not be split and leave her sane and happy.
The door to the sitting room squeaked open behind her.
Not turning in her seat, Collette said, “I think I shall retire, Marian. I will be leaving early, and it’s a long trip.” She closed the novel in front of her, took her spectacles off and laid them on the book, and turned away from the table.
There by the sitting room door, hat in hand, stood Charles Jameson.
“What are you doing here?” Collette gasped, standing and staring. The low light darkened his slate eyes until they looked obsidian, and his mustache shadowed his mouth. He had an easy grace that still attracted her. The inner voice that spoke to her most richly in his presence was the voice of her own desires and had nothing whatever to do with literature or writing. Like all life experience it was rich material, but it was not some secret writerly part of her that she needed to depend on. Once she had admitted how much she loved him and longed for him, that whisper in her head had disappeared. Her writing would henceforth be conscious and deliberate.
Despite the innate grace of his stance, he looked absurdly unsure of himself, standing alone in the shadows.
“I bribed the landlady to let me in unannounced. I wasn’t sure you would see me.”
“You did not need to go to such lengths. I am done with hiding of any kind.” Her heart thudded, and she could not move from her spot, holding the back of the chair, staring across the room at him.
“I came to apologize in person.”
“I saw the article. You didn’t need to ask forgiveness from me. You have done everything you could be expected to do and more.”
He moved toward her and Collette scrambled to think what she should be doing, what she should say. Where were Marian and George? She felt awkward since it was not her place and she could not really treat him like a guest, and yet—
“It was my fault,” he said. “I could have stopped things from getting out of hand with a very simple statement. Whether it was believed or not, it would have been the right thing to do.”
He stood before her now, and she had to look up into the shadowed depths of his eyes. There was something in those eyes, some expression that made her feel shy and afraid. She had thought she was through with such feelings, even as she acknowledged her love for him, but it seemed Jameson in the abstract and Jameson in the flesh were two very different beings. She ached for him and she wanted to run away, all at the same moment.
“Also,” he continued, “I wanted to apologize because my actions forced you into a position where you felt the need to tell the world about your nom de plume. It took away from you the right to choose your moment.”
Collette’s chin went up. “Don’t be sorry about that, Mr. Jameson. You did me a favor, even if I didn’t recognize it as such until very recently. Until women speak for themselves, how can men know what is in their hearts and minds? I was hiding, allowing society to dictate to me even when I affected to despise society’s rules. Now I’m free to succeed or fail as a woman and as a writer.”
“I admire you more than I can say.” Jameson gazed down at her. “I have had so much thinking to do lately, and I don’t think I am all the way through yet, but I have begun to see how vastly I underestimated you and any number of other intelligent women. Including your friends Philoxia Bertrand and…” He glanced around the room. “And Miss Evans. I think I have an apology to make to her, too. I was used to thinking women were parroting the ideas and beliefs of their male friends or partners, but I have since seen how presumptuous a belief that was.”
Collette stepped away from him. She was in danger of becoming as mindless as he had thought all women if she stayed any longer in his magnetic pull. Her brain did not work as well when she was near him. She needed distance literally and figuratively. She smiled at him mischievously. Harkening back to their first flirtatious conversation on the train, she asked, “And now are you willing to admit women are the superior creatures?”
He chuckled and moved toward her again, tossing his hat on the table. “I did not say that, did I?”
“No, but I thought it was clearly implied.”
“I see you have as much to learn as before about the logic of debate.”
She realized they were slowly moving toward the sofa that sat in the corner of the shabby, comfortable room, so she changed direction, and with quick steps hastened toward the window. She flicked the curtain aside, but there was no sign of George or Marian coming back from their evening walk.
She felt his warmth behind her before she saw his shadow fall on the curtain. She turned swiftly and looked up at him. His eyes, so dark, flamed with a look she well remembered and cherished from their night of passionate abandon, and yet his expression was hesitant.
She had pledged herself to honesty in everything, word and deed. “I am truly free now, Jamie. I have come so far in these past few weeks. The final step was when I read your article in the paper and I understood for the first time how complicated we humans are. Looking back, I feel the change I created in Lankin was wooden, not real somehow.”
Jameson looked puzzled and then thoughtful. “Perhaps,” he said, “it is because he never seems quite clear himself why he changes. Perhaps…” He stopped and shook his head ruefully. “But I have no right to criticize your writing.”
“No, go on,” Collette said, her gaze riveted on his eyes.
“Perhaps if you had shown his inner struggle to take responsibility for his actions it would have seemed more truthful. I have just come to realize how that simple act changes one for all time.”
Collette felt a shock go through her. That he had hit on a very real flaw in the novel was not as surprising as the fact that they stood there discussing her book, just as she had with Marian and George. Could it be that in Jameson she had found a man who understood writing and writers, who understood that part of her? She shook her head and stared down at her ink-stained hands twisting around each other.
She looked up into his eyes again and stepped closer to him. His expression, thoughtful before, became alert and watchful. “What I started to say was that I am free now. I have pledged myself to honesty. And so…” She reached up and put her arms around his neck, standing on the tips of her toes, and planted a kiss on Jameson’s sensual mouth, savoring the firm, yet soft texture.
Jameson, astounded by the current turn of events, closed his eyes and let a wash of feeling sweep over him at the sweet taste of Collette’s lips. He had come to see her merely to apologize in person, with no expectation that she could ever return the feelings he was only beginning to understand, but now—
He shut down all rational thought in the turbulent rush of sensual delight and the heady swelling of love. He adored her. He could admit it now, recognizing the fear that had held him back for so long. There was no room for fear in his heart now. It was all taken up with love for Collette. He folded her into his arms, feeling hers tighten around his neck. Her slender curves fit against his hard body, and as he ran his hands down over her waist, to the gentle swell of her hips, he felt her shiver against him. His intimate knowledge of her and her capacity for passion only escalated his desire.
Sweet Collette! He lifted her bodily off the ground and swung her up into his arms, carrying her over to the shabby sofa that took up one dim corner of the room.
“Jamie…oh, Jamie,” Collette whispered in his ear.
Her warm breath sent a thrill of desire racing through him and he sat on the sofa with her in his arms. “Yes, my heart’s delight,” he said, gazing at the glowing perfection of her pale skin in the pale light cast by the lamp across the room. It was no time for words. It was time for action, time to kiss and touch and caress.
And yet—He had seduced many women in his day, but he recognized some difference in his intentions and his desires this time. Skill could reduce her to mindless languor. He knew he was capable of that with such a passionate creature as his Collette, but he did not want her mindless. He wanted her aware and responsive. He wanted her to feel for him all he felt for her, but he wasn’t secure in that yet. What did she feel? He searched her gorgeous green eyes, the light gleaming from the golden flecks like gold inclusions in rock. Maybe there were some words for this moment. Hesitantly, he said, touching her cheek with his free hand, “Collette, I have wanted you for so long, wanted you without even realizing I did. Do you want me too? And I mean more than just the delicious lovemaking. We have had…something beyond even that.”
She looked up at him, her eyes wide. “I…I think I do, but I am not sure.”
“Let me make you sure.” He laid her back on the sofa and covered her body with his own, feeling her move under him in a delectably tantalizing manner. Her form cradled him comfortably as he sunk down.
He gazed down into her sparkling eyes in the dim, flickering lamplight and brushed his lips across hers gently. With a soft oh of delight, she pulled his head down again and kissed him deeply, her tongue darting out to flick his lips. Delighting in her passionate aggression, he took her in a deeper kiss, thrusting into her moist mouth with urgent, demanding strokes in an intimate imitation of sexual intercourse.
He ran his hands up her body as they kissed and felt her shiver as he touched her perfectly shaped breasts, rubbing his thumb across one nipple until it hardened under the fabric into a tight peak. Almost drugged with passion, he groaned and pushed against her, instinctively seeking relief from the rush of desire.
“Jamie, oh, Jamie,” she murmured, running her hands up under his jacket and kneading the muscles of his shoulders and back.
“My sweet, I have wanted you for as long as I have known you,” he whispered in her ear.
“Mmm,” she breathed.
He took a deep shuddering breath. He lifted her froth of skirts and stroked her stockinged leg, up her calf, her knee, and then above her tied garter to bare flesh. She did not wear that new fashion, pantaloons, but had delightfully bare skin, soft and smooth. She moved her knee and he settled between her legs on the sofa. One more move and she would feel him again, would begin to know his intentions—
God, no! This was not what he had intended when first he kissed her. He had a reason for kissing her, but he had not wanted her so drugged with passion when he asked her an important question. He was just pulling himself out of his hazy dream world when a voice at the door called out.
“Collette! The landlady said you had a caller…”
Both looked up to find Marian standing at the door, bonnet in hand, gazing at them in consternation. Her sallow cheeks were reddening at a quick pace. “Have I inter… Well, of course I have interrupted! Foolish question. I apologize most profusely…”
“Oh, Marian, do not apologize,” Collette said, scrambling from underneath Jameson and straightening her mussed clothing and tousled hair. She blushed, too. “This is your home. We should be apologizing.”
Marian gazed steadily, first at Jameson, who felt his own face joining the other two in warm color—he had thought himself past the callow age of blushing—and then at Collette.
“So, you two will be getting married,” Marian said, turning the bonnet around and around.
Collette’s eyes widened, and she gave a quick, shocked look at Jameson. He had stood, too, despite a little difficulty in rising with any degree of comfort, and glanced from Marian to Collette. “No, Marian, you have misunderstood,” she said. “We are not… That is, this was not…”
Marian sighed at their silence and glared at Jameson. “I had begun to think better of you after that article. But do you mean to say you have not even asked her yet? And you were…” She made a sweeping gesture toward the couch. “Tsk! Fool. I suppose I will just have to leave the room again. Think of something to say, Mr. Jameson!”
She exited, closing the door firmly behind her.
“Marian has been so kind to me,” Collette said wistfully, turning back to Jameson. “I suppose she only thought we were going to… I mean, I wish she and George could ma—”
Jameson stopped her with a kiss, his lips melting every thought from her mind. With her new, more intimate knowledge of his body, and the understanding of how delicious hers felt when his was close, she clung to him, dizzy from his passionate, wet kisses.
“Those two, George and Marian, must solve their own lives,” he rasped, as he pulled away from her. “I think they have done all they possibly can to attain happiness, in committing themselves to each other, even though they cannot make their vows in front of the public.”
She moved away from him. “Did you always feel thus? I admit that at first I was shocked by their unorthodox relationship.”
“Ah, but I am a man of the world, my sweet, remember? A rake, a wastrel.” He prowled after her and took her into his arms again. “I was attempting to say something serious. Don’t interrupt me again or I shall completely lose my train of thought.”
