Gambling on a Gentleman: A Sweet Romantic Comedy (ABCs of Love) Read online

  She let her hand fall to his shoulder, and he leaned his cheek to her palm. “I know, Mum,” he whispered. “I’m trying.”

  “I know, dear.” She pulled her hand away. “Now go dress for dinner.”

  Geoffrey nodded and pushed himself up from the sofa, schooling his face to hide any disappointment. He’d had years of practice pretending not to care when his father’s promises fell through, but the concern written on his mother’s face told him he still couldn’t fool her. She forced a smile as he passed her and raised her hand like she wanted to touch him, then lowered it.

  He meant to go to his bedroom, but he found his way to the kitchen instead. He felt far more at home helping Gertrude prepare supper than he did putting on the suit he knew his mother had asked to be laid out for him.

  “What are you doing down here, love?” Gertrude asked before slapping his hand away from the trifle he was about to dip his finger into.

  “I came to help.” He sat down on the barstool she kept nearby for when her feet gave out.

  “How’re you going to help me while sitting on your arse?”

  Geoffrey broke into laughter, feeling completely at home for the first time since he’d walked through the doors of Binchley Hall. “I’m going to be your taste tester. That’s the only thing I’ve ever been truly good at.”

  “If that ain’t God’s truth,” Gertrude said just gruffly enough for Geoffrey to know she thought the opposite, then passed him one of the warm buns she’d taken from the oven.

  “You feeling the sting of those reviews?” she asked after he’d put butter and jam on the bread.

  The comfort the bun brought him gave him the courage to nod.

  “What about the praise of the good ones? Are you letting yourself feel those?”

  “I hadn’t noticed there were any good ones.”

  “Course you didn’t. But I did, so you’ll just have to take my word for it. They said exactly what I’ve been saying all these years. You’ve got a gift. Only they said it better. You’re just letting the bad ones take up more space than the good ones.” Gertrude went about preparing dinner while she talked, only partially conscious of what she was doing for Geoffrey. Her encouragement meant more to him than she knew.

  He listened as Gertrude quoted the American reviewer who’d called his work “genius” and “groundbreaking,” before scolding him for focusing on the negative. “Time to pick yourself up and get back to doing the thing you love. Not everyone has that opportunity.”

  Geoffrey put the last bit of bread in his mouth, still enjoying the taste, but more aware that what he’d really needed was the emotional nourishment Gertrude offered.

  “I’m afraid I might have to marry Clarissa Barclay in order to keep sculpting and painting.” He eyed her carefully, not sure how much she knew about his family’s financial predicament.

  “Pshh. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want; you just have to learn to live without all the things you think you need.”

  Geoffrey considered what she’d said then stood to leave. “Wise words indeed, Gertrude.” He threw an arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head, then stole another bun before she could swat his hand away.

  Feeling rejuvenated, he quickly made his way to his room where the expected suit was waiting for him. His mother did have good taste, and he did like Clarissa. It would be nice to see her in person after so many months apart, communicating mostly by email and text. The time difference had definitely taken a toll on their relationship. Or perhaps, if their relationship couldn’t survive six months and an eight-hour time difference, it hadn’t been that strong to begin with.

  Clarissa had been very supportive about his decision to pursue his art more seriously in LA, but he had the sense that what she really felt she was supporting was Geoffrey having a last hurrah before settling down to marriage, family, and a real career. When the reviews of his work had come in after his first big show, he thought she was probably right. It was time to move on. In fact, he’d been thinking that more and more.

  Right up until the moment of Alice’s presentation.

  She liked his art. She understood it. She believed in him. Not him, him, per se, but in the artist he wanted to be. Even though he’d had to tell her no when it came to showing his work, her admiration of it had renewed his confidence. Between Alice and Gertrude, Geoffrey felt he could go on. After all, how many artists were never appreciated during their lifetimes? William Blake, Van Gogh, Vermeer. If he never got the recognition he wanted, he’d be in good company.

  Geoffrey dressed in his suit feeling more ready to face Clarissa than he’d felt five minutes before. They did make a great looking couple, and there was so much to admire about her. He could certainly give their relationship another try.

  And he’d quit thinking about Alice. She was an interesting distraction, but with Clarissa, he had history.

  He straightened his tie, trying again to push Alice out of his head, but even the long walk to the dining room didn’t take long enough for him to forget how her eyes shone when she’d talked about his art.

  When Geoffrey reached the dining room, Clarissa was already seated next to his mother chatting. She rose when she saw him—but not with the excitement he’d expected from a woman he hadn’t seen in six months—walking to him with a careful smile.

  “Hello, Clarissa.”

  “Hello, darling.” She took his hands and kissed each of his cheeks, not quite touching him with her lips. He missed America. He could go a few days without seeing someone, and they still wouldn’t hesitate to give him a hug when they met next.

  Clarissa slipped her arm through his and led him to the table, sitting him next to her. She smelled nice, and the long, slender fingers she laid on his leg were beautifully manicured. There was nothing not to love about her. But he liked art that was unique and original. Art that didn’t look like everything else around it.

  The same could be said about what kind of woman he was attracted to.

  Which brought him back to thoughts of Alice. He couldn’t think of another woman who had ever stood her ground with him the way Alice had. He couldn’t think of another woman who had captured his interest as quickly as she had. And his interest wasn’t driven by curiosity, but by a hunger he hadn’t realized he had. A hunger he hadn’t experienced before.

  Basically, he couldn’t think of another woman besides Alice, even as Clarissa talked to him.

  Conversation swirled around him, sometimes sweeping him in, but for the most part he stayed on the edges, only dipping his toes in when he absolutely had to. Most of the time, Clarissa had to drag him in, and with each time she had to redirect his attention from the serviette he was folding over and over, she grew more cross, until finally she snapped.

  “Are we not as entertaining as your American friends?” She gently squeezed his hand until he dropped the serviette. Her tight smile that followed was more warning than warm.

  “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I’m a bit jet-lagged.” He stood and excused himself from the table, then laid a gentle kiss on the top of Clarissa’s head. It was a bit like licking a can of hair lacquer, and the moment he got back to his room he brushed his teeth to wash the taste away. While brushing, he checked his voicemail and saw there was a message from Alice.

  He spat out the toothpaste, glad to be rid of the taste of Clarissa’s hair, then listened to the message from Alice.

  “Hi, Lord Chats—Grey—Geoffrey . . . Geoff. I’m sorry, I still don’t know what to call you.”

  “Geoff,” he said aloud, even though he wasn’t talking to her. But he liked the way it sounded when she said it.

  “At the risk of losing my dream job, I have to say again how perfect I think Re-Collecting would be. I’ll keep looking for something else, but I can’t imagine finding anything that’s as perfect as that piece. I swear I’m trying, but, in the meantime . . . could you think about reconsidering? Okay. Bye . . . oh, and thanks again for the job.”

  Ge
offrey looked at his phone, then pressed play again, smiling as he listened to her voice. He wouldn’t let her talk him into using the piece she wanted, but he did love listening to her try. And he loved that she’d had the courage to ask again. He trusted people more when they challenged him rather than acquiescing because he was Lord Grey.

  After listening to the message again and having to stop himself from pressing play a third time, he realized how stupid he was being.

  Why should he listen to a voice message over and over when she’d given him the perfect reason to call and talk to her in person?

  Chapter Six

  Alice climbed into the most comfortable-looking bed she’d ever seen at the most expensive hotel she’d ever stayed in, exhausted from the red-eye flight and the time change, but still wired from the excitement of having landed the Grey job. She had just closed her eyes when her phone buzzed. Her first instinct was to cover her head with a pillow and ignore the call, but the most likely person calling was her mom, and Alice couldn’t ignore a call from her. Even if she hadn’t figured out how to break the news about her new job.

  She grabbed the phone from her bedside table, more than a little surprised to see Geoffrey’s number on her screen rather than her mother’s. She blinked, but when she opened her eyes and saw the name still there, she answered.

  “Hello?” she said tentatively.

  “Alice?” It was definitely Geoffrey’s voice. She’d recognize the music of it anywhere: the high-born British lilt combined with a warm openness that reminded her of California springs when the desert bloomed with wildflowers. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “No, not at all,” she answered quickly, then had to wait long seconds for him to speak.

  “How is the hotel? Are you comfortable?”

  “It’s beautiful. Thank you so much for making the arrangements.” She sat up straighter and rearranged the pillows behind her back. If it were up to her, she’d never leave.

  There was a pause, and she wondered if they’d been disconnected, but then he spoke again. “I got your voicemail.”

  “Yes, that,” she said to fill the space his silence left behind. She knew she was right about showing Re-Collecting, but she questioned whether she’d been right to tell him that over voicemail. Was he calling to fire her? “I probably shouldn’t have called. I just feel so passionately that your collection needs that piece. I know I’m putting myself at risk pushing so hard for this, but—”

  “I love your passion.”

  Alice stopped. He loved her passion? She didn’t know how to respond to that. Certainly not in a way that would give away the fact that if his voice had called her pulse to the starting block, his words were the starter’s gun that had set it racing.

  “I hope you don’t mind my saying so.” He cleared his throat. “Perhaps I shouldn’t let on how happy I am to have you on our team. Maybe I should keep you on your toes,” he joked.

  “No, no, that’s okay. I appreciate the compliment and won’t let it go to my head.” She settled into her pillows, clutching the phone to her ear and smiling.

  “Where does that passion come from?”

  His question made her smile more. This wasn’t a work call. “I don’t know. I suppose my mom always found a way for me to pour myself into anything I loved. She worked all the time, so she pointed me toward something I could do while home alone, then found a way to get whatever I needed to throw myself into it.” Alice stopped. There were more words she wanted to say about only being stopped by money and opportunity, but a man like Geoffrey wouldn’t understand that. He didn’t know what it was to want something so badly, to have it within reach but not have the means to grab it.

  “The only part of California I’ve been to is Los Angeles. Is Bakersfield near there?”

  “It’s a couple hundred miles and another planet away from LA It’s more about farming than movies.” People outside of California never realized how much of the state was devoted to agriculture, even if they loved the oranges, strawberries, almonds, and dozens of other foods that were grown there.

  “Tell me what it’s like being a child in Bakersfield. What did you do while home alone?”

  She pictured him in an overstuffed armchair—something very comfortable and very expensive—with his feet up on an ottoman and a fire burning in the fireplace. He was smoking a pipe—she wiped that image from her mind. The idea that Geoffrey smoked a pipe wasn’t any more accurate than the picture of her childhood being idyllic.

  “I spent a lot of time painting, actually. That was my passion as a teenager.” She left out the part about cleaning houses and chicken coops and anything else she could find in order to buy her oil paints. Bob Ross was her teacher, but only when the wi-fi worked.

  “Is that right?” He sounded genuinely interested. “I’ve dabbled in art a little myself.”

  “You mean beyond studying one of the greatest collections I’ve ever seen, which happens to be housed in your own home?”

  Geoffrey chuckled. “Yes. I’ve had some other experiences with art that don’t involve my mother’s collection.”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, no, we’re not making this conversation about me. You can find a silly magazine article that will answer all your questions. Let’s talk about you and your art. Did you pursue it? What made you put down your paintbrush and take up curating?”

  Alice would have rather kept the conversation about him. “I found curating was better suited to my talents than painting.”

  How was she supposed to tell him that she would have loved to be an artist, but the odds of her being a starving one were too high? She knew what it was to be hungry, and she couldn’t afford it. So, she pursued art in a way that would provide a steady paycheck. Her artistic talent could only take her so far, but curating was a talent she could continue to develop until she was the best at it.

  “What about you? Did you ever want to pursue art as more than the man in charge of it?”

  He took his time before answering. “I wasn’t very good.”

  She couldn’t put her finger on why she didn’t believe him, but she didn’t. Maybe it was the self-deprecating humor the British were famous for, or their tendency to deflect praise, but more likely it was the sadness that had crept into his voice when he said it. Like giving up art had been the hardest thing he’d ever had to do.

  Alice knew how that sadness felt, so she was an expert at recognizing it in others. Everyone had to give up a dream at some point, but for those who said goodbye to their hearts in the process, that was a mourning that never ended.

  “I’ll bet you were better than you thought you were,” she said softly, and then with more encouragement she added, “Why don’t you pick it up again? You’re a man of leisure, aren’t you? What with the Grey fortune . . .” she let the thought hang heavy in the air, recognizing how very American she sounded talking about money.

  “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” Alice had a knack for letting her mouth run—at least that’s what her mother said—especially when she was tired.

  “I may not be quite the man of leisure I’m made out to be. Aristocrats don’t open their homes to tourists without reason.” As open as his words were, there was a guardedness in his tone that hadn’t been there before.

  “I’ve never thought about that. I mean, except when I watched Downton Abbey.” Alice wanted him to trust her. He was confiding something in her, but she needed him to know the information wouldn’t go further than her. “I had to move a lot after my dad left and my mom couldn’t pay rent, so when I see people living in big houses with every luxury, I assume they don’t have any financial worries. But maybe they just have money problems on a much bigger scale.”

  “That may be true, but that scale usually still tips in their favor, which is a bit unfair . . .” His words trailed off. “Despite our debt, we’ll be able to keep our estate by opening up the house. That’s a small sacrifice to make.”

  Geoffrey sounded very
nonchalant, and she wondered if money worried him more than he was letting on.

  “That’s a nice way to think about things.” She wished her mom had had the same kind of access to money. She doubted many aristocrats recognize that money problems generally have a more negative impact on those who are already poor than on those who have lost wealth.

  She tried to stifle a yawn, but it came out as a squeak.

  “Alice?”

  “Yes?”

  “Are you falling asleep on me?”

  She laughed. “Maybe just a little.”

  “I’ve enjoyed talking to you.”

  “Same here,” she said carefully.

  “Would you like to have dinner with me tomorrow? I could come down to London. I’d love to have an excuse to go back to my flat.”

  His question shocked her. Was he asking as her boss? Or something else?

  When she didn’t answer right away, Geoffrey quickly added, “We still need to go over the details of your contract, and we could talk about what you’ve come up with in place of Re-Collecting.”

  “Th-thank you. I’d love to.”

  “Perfect. I’ll pick you up around eighteen hundred—six o’clock, I mean.”

  “Great. I’m looking forward to it.” She balled her hand into a fist, just to feel her nails in her palm. She smiled when she did because it meant the conversation wasn’t a dream. She’d done the same thing as a child whenever something good happened.

  Alice hung up her phone and laid it carefully on the side table, staring into the darkness left behind with her phone off. She ran her fingertips along the insides of her palms, trying to feel the light marks her nails had left behind, still needing confirmation that Lord Geoffrey Grey-Chatsworth had asked her to dinner.

  * * * * *

  The next day went slowly as she researched every possible avenue looking for replacements for Re-Collecting. Usually when researching, Alice would get so deeply engrossed in her topic that nothing could distract her from it. That didn’t hold true when it came to Geoffrey. Not even the important task at hand could keep her mind off of the dinner she’d be having with him that night.