Page 1 of Her Notorious Rake
Chapter 1
“Gemma! Gemma, where are you?”
Iris Hayesworth’s voice rang out across the meadow, startling Gemma from her perch on the low tree branch and sending the two kittens on her lap scattering.
“Here, Mama,” she closed her book,The Castle of Otranto,with a sigh and swung her legs over the branch, sliding off it into the dew-sparkling grass. Isabella had just fled the wealthy Manfred with the help of a handsome peasant, Theodore, and Gemma could hardly read fast enough. But she had been avoiding the inevitable all morning. Cleaning the house.
Her mother appeared in the garden gate that led to their little cottage, her lips pursed with exasperation. “Gemma, come.” As Gemma hurried up, Iris added, “I’ve just made some biscuits, far too many of them I’m afraid. Once we’ve finished tidying about the house, we ought to take some of the excess over to the vicarage.”
Gemma barely refrained from rolling her eyes. Lovely. Another afternoon of Iris striving to make a very ill-suited match between the young vicar and her, Joseph Jennings. There was nothing particularly wrong with Vicar Jennings, but he was culpable of one very grave sin. Dullness.
Gemma followed Iris inside. The cottage was but an eight of the size of their London house, and yet, in the past four years, Gemma had come to love every inch of it, from the sun-soaked parlor to the kitchen that always smelled of baked bread, to the garden path where so many cats sunbathed every day. She’d come to adore the garden, the bowers of ivy and jasmine and honeysuckle that on a spring morning smelled like heaven.
“Gemma!”
“Yes, Mama?”
“Did you hear a thing I said?”
Gemma ducked her head sheepishly. “No, Mama.”
Iris huffed. “I was saying that that dreadful Eliza Gardiner is bent upon mortifying herself, trying to set that daughter of hers up with Vicar Jennings. He is a grave man, and I can’t imagine him finding anything particularly…becoming about Margaret Gardiner.” She glanced around as if Margaret and Eliza Gardiner might be just around the corner, ready to spring out.
“On the contrary, Mama. I think that Margaret would be precisely the sort of girl who would suit the vicar.”
Iris stared at her, aghast. “I hardly think so,” she sniffed. “Now, why don’t you run along and make the beds, and I shall sweep in the kitchen—it’s in dreadful need of it. And then we can set off on our walk.”
“Yes, Mama,” Gemma clenched her jaw but forced a cheery smile before hurrying up the stairs to tidy her and her mother’s respective bedrooms. The one thing she missed about the London house was the library, and the telescope that Father bought her for her sixteenth birthday. But of course, the telescope had been sold along with everything else, and Gemma’s heart still ached to think of it. She set her book down on her bed and scurried to and fro, making the beds, stepping over kittens, and becoming distracted with peering out her bedroom window. It afforded a perfect look at the stars on a summer night.
“Gemma?” Iris’s voice rang through the little cottage. “Are you ready? It’s near half-past eleven and I’d prefer if we made it home for tea.”
“Coming, Mama,” Gemma called back. She paused to scratch little Udolpho under his black furry chin, and darted downstairs.
“Good heavens, my dear. You would think we live in theAmerican colonies, the way you run about so.”
“They aren’t colonies anymore, Mama.”
Iris waved her hand, scoffing. “All the same, some days I fear you’ve utterly forgotten your upbringing. Come now, let us be off.”
Every time they left the cottage, Gemma could see the flicker of disappointment in her mother’s eyes when nary a footman appeared to open the doors and draw a carriage to await them. It had been four years, and Iris Hayworth remained bent upon pretending that they were only here in Willow Grove for but a temporary stay, that any day now, the carriages would return to take them home to London, and that it had all been a terrible dream.
Iris straightened her shoulders, settling a basket of excess biscuits on her arm, and together, she and Gemma set off towards the vicarage. Gemma’s dread mounted with every step, until she’d come to a complete stop at the turn of the road that led to Vicar Jennings’ abode.
“Gemma, come!” Iris cried.
Gemma took in a deep breath and began to walk again, until they could see the vicar himself working in the garden in front of his cottage. He was tall and tow-headed, with a beak for a nose and perpetually pursed lips.
He could be some sort of praying mantis, stooped over in the dirt, tending his beloved Lady’s Glove flower bed. Gemma did not fault anyone for adoring flowers and plants—hardly. She enjoyed a singular passion for the stars and spent night after night gazing up at them. But Vicar Jennings’ mind revolved around his garden, much in the way the sun turned about the earth year after year.
Or perhaps, it was the way he ate, spraying crumbs this way and that. Perhaps Gemma should have brought her coat. Most of all, it was the way that the vicar declared novel reading a gravesin every chance he was afforded. And expected her to find this charming.
“Good day, Vicar Jennings!” Iris smiled brightly at the man kneeling in his flower bed.
“A pleasure to see you, Mrs. Hayesworth,” He reached up to wipe away the sweat off his brow. His eyes landed on Gemma and his smile broadened. “Miss Hayesworth.”
Iris turned her head ever so slightly, sending Gemma a glance that read, “Do be cordial. Or I shall toss your belovedCastle of Otrantointo the pond.”
“Good day, Vicar Jennings,” Gemma chirped sweetly, twisting her hands behind her back.
