Page 27 of An Engagement with the Enemy

Jessica glanced once more at James, and he tipped his head in a subtle salute.

She narrowed his eyes at him, then whispered quietly, “Kissing gate. We need to talk.”

He raised his eyebrows and glanced over his shoulder to ensure no one else was within hearing distance. “Tomorrow. At ten?”

Jessica nodded, satisfied, and went into the house.

They had done it. Her first summer suitor wouldn’t linger, nor take a request of courtship to her father. A flutter of guilt stirred as he realized he had deliberately misled the other gentleman, who seemed a good sort, all things considered. But the end justified the means, he told himself.

He and Jessica were both quite safe from courtship and matrimony for at least another week.

CHAPTER TEN

With a gloved finger, Jessica tapped the stone wall separating her father’s property from the baron’s grounds, where James would soon appear. Staying on her side of the boundary wall seemed best. Jessica’s irritation at James simmered just below the surface, held in check only by years of practice. Jessica wanted nothing more than to throttle him at that moment.

Even after spending hours in Lord Frederick’s company, the best thing he could think of to make Jessica a less than ideal marital candidate was to say she pretended to have headaches?

Perhaps she could tell the next unmarried lady that James belched uncontrollably whenever he found a conversation dull. It would serve him right to have to perform such a rude action in front of others.

Though, she supposed, it would be somewhat of an escalation on her part. At least headaches produced no shameful sights or sounds. Still. He needed to know there were better ways to chase off men as patronizing to ladies as someone like Lord Frederick.

A dog yipped, and Jessica looked across the stone wall to find a little white terrier with black spots charging toward her. The animal barked happily again, then pranced on his side of the wall.

“If it isn’t Ottis.” She leaned over the wall and grinned at him as he sat, like the very best of dogs, grinning up at her with his tongue lolling outside his mouth. “What are you doing all the way out here?”

“I thought he would appreciate a change of scenery,” James’s voice called as he appeared, jogging and grinning at her. “The old boy hasn’t had his run of the place since he was granted retirement in the kitchens.”

Ottis, a handsome terrier nearing fourteen years of age, yipped again. Directly at Jessica. She sighed and went to the gate, making her way through it with cares to avoid catching her skirt. The dog met her the instant she was on his side, both front paws tapping happily on the ground until she crouched down to rub him behind the ears. She crooned to him, as one must to such a delightful animal, then looked up at James.

He’d leaned against the wall, crossing his boots at the ankles, and appeared quite smug.

“You brought him because you knew he would weaken my irritation with you. Didn’t you?”

His eyes gleamed with laughter, but he shrugged. “I haven’t any notion what you could mean. Ottis caught an especially terrifying mouse yesterday, according to the kitchen maids, so I thought a jaunt through the trees a suitable reward. Given that he’s a pensioner, and the cat ought to have been on mouse patrol, he went above and beyond his duty.”

“He likely misses all the rabbit hunts from his youth.” Jessica removed her gloves the better to lavish affection on the dog, who promptly rolled onto his back and wriggled happily beneath her attention.

“You mean the actual hunts, or the pretended ones you sent him on?” James’s smile softened as he shook his head. “I still haven’t determined how you made him, made my dog, run about the house like a beast possessed, barking at shadows and driving everyone mad. And who took the blame?”

Arranging her features into those of a wide-eyed innocent, she glanced up at him to ask, “Who?”

He glowered at her. “Me. I did, Jessica. And the lectures I received—yes, plural. There was more than one. They were long and awful. How did you recruit Ottis into your service so handily?”

She bit her lip and avoided looking at him. “I haven’t any idea what you could mean. Everyone thought you’d trained him to cause a ruckus anytime you felt the least bit bored.”

“Like you. With your headaches.”

Her gaze came up and she gasped. “Is that how you came up with the idea? Instead of a barking dog to save me from tedium, I have headaches?”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “How did you turn Ottis against me, Jess?”

A little thrill went through her, from the top of her spine all the way to her toes. Not because he called her Jess, of course. That would be silly. But because he’d finally acknowledged a time when she’d bested him.

That had been a marvelous autumn for her, nearly ten years previous. James had been home, taking time away from his studies at Cambridge. Jessica, fifteen years of age, had found herself uncertain how to treat him. Surely, they were both too old for pranks. And she’d caught herself glancing at him rather too often. Every time she visited Catherine, her gaze would linger on James.

She’d almost found him charming.

Then he’d put an alarming amount of cayenne pepper in her teacup. And anyone who knew Jessica knew that ruining her tea would incur her ire. Tea was soothing, and quite sacred.