Page 33 of The Baron’s Reluctant Bride (Marriage Mart Scandals #4)
It was remarkable, really, how swiftly a room could change.
Only hours earlier, the ballroom had been ablaze with candlelight and conversation, filled with the flutter of silk skirts and the warbling trill of violins.
Now, it stood empty save for the two of them—Gemma in her evening gown with one pearl earring slightly askew, and Jameson with his cravat crooked, as though propriety itself had grown weary and gone to bed.
They stood near the fireplace, its embers long cooled, though the space between them now burned with something far more volatile than coal.
Gemma exhaled slowly, her arms folded tightly across her chest—whether to protect her heart or restrain it, she couldn't say. Jameson, no longer quite so rigid in posture, regarded her with the faintest trace of vulnerability breaking through his otherwise maddeningly composed facade.
"I must confess," he said at length, his voice low, "I did not expect to be found out so thoroughly by my own wife."
Gemma arched a brow. "I must confess, I did not expect my husband to have such a flair for secrecy. Or such theatrical taste in moonlit revelations."
His mouth curved—half smile, half something softer. "If you wish to critique my delivery, I shall endeavour to be more forthcoming next time I reveal state secrets."
"Please don't. I rather liked the drama." She paused. "Though I could've done without the business about ruining the family name."
He stepped closer—just a little. "You're handling it exceptionally."
She tilted her chin. "I'm excellent under pressure."
"I had noticed."
There it was again—that quiet shift in the air. The same one she'd felt on the dance floor. A sensation of standing on the edge of something... not perilous, but irreversible.
Jameson's gaze moved over her face with uncharacteristic openness, as though seeing her for the first time—not just the polished figure she presented to the world, but the woman who had pieced together his carefully guarded truths with sharp intellect and a steady heart.
"You are extraordinary, Gemma," he said, as if startled by the realisation.
She blinked. "Well. That is rather sudden."
"It oughtn't be." He stepped nearer. "But it is."
Gemma's heart stuttered and she thought it would be wise to say something clever now. Or distant. Or safe.
But instead, she stood still as his hand rose—slowly, carefully—to brush a curl away from her cheek.
"May I?" he asked, his voice barely a whisper.
She nodded, because words had become too unruly to trust.
Then he kissed her softly, as if unsure whether the world might allow it.
It was not at all what she'd imagined. Not that she had imagined it often—well, not frequently—but she had assumed a kiss from Jameson Brookfield would be something practiced. Polished. Precisely delivered, like his arguments in Parliament.
Instead, it was gentle, it was so tender that it quite undid her.
Gemma, daughter of viscounts, mistress of fine conversation, keeper of composure in silk and lace, was stunned to discover that a proper kiss could feel…
unmooring. As though her bones no longer obeyed her spine.
As though the world, for one scandalous moment, spun entirely on the axis of his mouth against hers.
She made a faint noise—half surprise, half surrender—and felt Jameson smile just slightly into the kiss before pulling back, breathless.
They stood close, foreheads nearly touching. Jameson's hand came up to cup her face, his thumb brushing just beneath her cheekbone. His eyes searched hers, wonderingly.
"I don't know when it happened," he said softly, "but I do believe I've begun to trust again."
Gemma could hardly breathe. "And I… I believe I understand now why women write sonnets about these sorts of things."
He laughed—a warm, surprised sound, rare and unguarded. "Do you plan to compose one? Something rhyming with 'Baron of Broken Trust'?"
She narrowed her eyes, smiling despite herself. "Not unless I'm allowed a rhyming couplet involving 'indelicate forehead.'"
His thumb lingered along her jaw. "I rather like that you challenge me. It's infuriating."
"Good," she whispered.
Another pause. Not awkward—only full.
This was what it meant, she realised, to be kissed by a man. A proper man. Not a boy fumbling at a garden party, not a rogue with flattering lines, but someone who saw you, admired you, and still chose to be gentle.
This was not flirtation, but rather a beginning that Jameson had dreamed of. When he had offered her an alliance that day in the cellar, he could not even gather the audacity to hope for this much, but today, he had it. A real bond with his wife.
When they finally stepped apart, it was with the knowledge that nothing would ever be the same. It was true that their matrimony had begun in convenience and caution but it now it trembled at the threshold of something far more complex.
And far, far more real.
***
The morning after, early light crept gently through the muslin curtains, casting pale gold across the embroidered coverlet. Gemma stirred beneath it, her eyes fluttering open slowly, reluctantly, as though her mind needed time to reassemble all it had felt the night before.
The kiss and his arms, his words, half-truth and half-tenderness, unfolded like a letter written in careful ink.
It all came back at once, the ballroom, the overheard whispers, the fragile honesty that had broken through the careful walls between them. She pressed her hand to her chest, as though the memory alone had stirred her heart back into a gallop.
For several moments, Gemma lay perfectly still, allowing the sensations to wash over her anew.
The warmth of Jameson's lips against hers, the surprising gentleness in his touch, the vulnerability in his eyes when they had finally parted.
It had been nothing like she'd imagined a kiss with Lord Brokeshire would be, not practiced or calculated, but something far more genuine.
Far more dangerous to her carefully guarded heart.
She traced her fingertips lightly over her lips, reliving the moment.
How strange that such a simple act could feel so profound, so utterly transformative.
It was as though the world had reordered itself around that single moment, and she now inhabited a reality where everything—their matrimony, their home, their very existence, had taken on new meaning.
"Foolish," she whispered to the empty room, though without conviction.
She had promised herself upon entering this matrimony that she would not fall prey to romantic notions.
That she would maintain a level head and practical heart.
That she would be a wife in name only, providing the respectability Jameson required while preserving her own independence.
Now, with the morning light illuminating the bedchamber they had never shared, she wondered if such promises had been doomed from the start.
The night had begun ordinarily enough—another lavish ball, another evening of practiced smiles and polite conversation.
She had danced with all the appropriate partners, exchanged pleasantries with the expected acquaintances, and performed her role as Lady Brokeshire with the grace society had come to expect of her.
She had confronted Jameson immediately, pulling him away from a group of gentlemen into an adjacent, empty drawing room.
The resulting confrontation had begun as an argument—her demand for answers met with his practiced evasion—until something had broken between them.
The mask had slipped, and for the first time since their wedding day, Jameson had been entirely honest with her.
Not completely forthcoming, perhaps, but honest enough that she had glimpsed the man beneath the careful facade—a man burdened by responsibilities and haunted by past betrayals, yet still possessing an unexpected core of integrity.
And then, in the dying light of the ballroom's candles, with both of them disheveled from the long evening and raw from their confrontation, he had kissed her.
Gemma sighed and pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. The memory was almost too vivid, too consuming. How was she to face him this morning with any semblance of dignity? What did one say to a husband who had gone from polite stranger to... to what, exactly?
She tossed back the covers and rang for her lady's maid. There was no use in dwelling on it. Today would be what it would be, and she would face it with the same composure she had cultivated throughout her life.
An hour later, dressed in a pale morning gown of soft lavender lawn with delicate white embroidery at the cuffs and collar, her hair arranged in a simple but elegant knot at the nape of her neck, Gemma descended to the drawing room.
The door had been left ajar, and inside, voices floated like polished crystal.
She paused outside, her hand resting lightly on the doorframe.
Her heart, which had only just settled into a reasonable rhythm, quickened once more at the sound of Jameson's voice—lower, richer somehow than it had seemed before.
She took a moment to collect herself, smoothing invisible wrinkles from her skirts and taking a steadying breath.
Jameson was seated near the hearth, cravat retied but hair slightly mussed, as though he had run his fingers through it in a rare moment of agitation.
Across from him, Lady Belinda held court in her usual manner—upright, alert, and faintly suspicious of anything too quiet.
The elderly woman, Jameson's great-aunt and their current houseguest, had taken it upon herself to act as chaperone during the early days of their matrimony.
Though the role had become largely unnecessary given the separate lives they had led, Belinda had remained, her sharp eyes missing nothing.