Poetic Justice Read Free Page B

reached out his hand to hers, and drew her to sit beside him. "As far as your uncle is concerned, you were meant to marry his son. His son's best friend is no substitute. And neither, I wager, is anyone else."
    As he spoke this home truth, he regarded her sympathetically and opened his arms in invitation. But with her uncle just across the hall, she didn't take advantage of this to seek comfort, instead rising again to pace, her stockinged feet sliding across the oak floor. Comfort wasn't what she wanted, at any rate. She wanted control. Control over her life, her fate, her inheritance.
    "It isn't fair."
    "What isn't fair is that you deny yourself to suit him."
    "I am not denying myself to suit him. It is in my father's will, that I must marry with his consent, or lose my inheritance."
    "Jessica, what is it you want, me or the inheritance?"
    It was too obvious to say aloud. But Damien was waiting, sitting up, leaning forward, as if he didn't know the answer.
    "Both."
    "Both? Both? Equally?"
    No, she almost said. It was not the answer he wanted. But it was the only one she had. And, she thought with renewed anger, he should accept that. "I have lived all my life thinking—knowing—that I was to have the Parham Collection. I am not going to give it up, not while I still have a chance."
    "And if you marry me now, without your uncle's consent, you will lose it forever."
    Relieved that he understood, she nodded.
    But Damien was Damien, and she should have known that whatever else he understood, it wasn't the value of the Parham Collection. "Well, love is worth the sacrifice of it, I think. And you should think so too."
    A sacrifice for love. It was a poetic sentiment, and with half her heart she longed for the sort of man who made it. The other half, however, was reserved for the collection her parents had left her, or would have left her, had they known how much she would sacrifice for it.
    Damien observed her stubborn silence for a moment, then rose, his jaw taut but his hand open and extended towards her. "I can promise you a pleasant, worthy life, in recompense for giving up the collection. You won't have the old books, but you will be my helpmeet as I write new books." When she only frowned and looked at his hand, he withdrew it and bowed. "I shan't try to persuade you, but my offer remains open. If you decide you want to marry me, you may send a note to my lodge in the Cotswolds. I am preparing a book of pastorals, and need more of nature than I find here in London."
    As he departed, Jessica considered suggesting that he might sacrifice his communing with nature to help her change her uncle's mind. But she knew she wouldn't be able to strip the sarcasm from her voice. Indeed, even the careful "Do have a good holiday" she called after him fairly dripped with irony.
    She watched over the staircase till Damien was almost out the door, and then called after him, "I hope the flies are biting and the fish aren't!"
    Men. They were so eloquent in calling for sacrifice, as long as the sacrifice was being done for them and not by them. Uncle Emory was just the same, expecting her to sacrifice both marriage and the collection—and for what? To ease his conscience, that was all.
    She retrieved her shoes from under the hall settee, but by the time she had slipped them back on she was still too angry to confront her uncle. So she had to wait outside his study door, breathing deep until the passion seeped away. Only then could she greet him with a level voice and the polite inquiry, "Have you a moment to talk, Uncle?"
    Lord Parham looked up from the papers at his desk. His eyes still held a martial light from the battle, not that Damien had put up much of a fight. She took the seat across from him, and took a moment to compose her angry thoughts into civil words. Her aunt and uncle were kindly people, but they expected filial deference, especially from the niece they had raised these last half-dozen years. She would earn no points by