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The crowd of women was beginning to drift from the churchyard. No doubt they were intent on finding out why Sir Mark had just dumped a man in the horse trough.
“I know what it is,” Parret said, a sudden note of jealousy infecting his voice. “You have had a better offer from someone else, no matter what…what I said. That other reporter has offered you a cut. What was it? Ten percent? Fifteen percent?” He dropped his voice. “I can better it. I will. I promise.”
“I’m not interested in your promises.” Mark could not make himself focus on any of the people who were coming this way. None of them, that was, except one. Jessica. Mrs. Farleigh was there. She was not a calming influence; she never had been. But his attention focused on her.
“You think you’re more powerful than me,” Parret spat. “That your run of popularity is your own doing. I made you, Sir Mark. I could break you, if I chose. You owe me your success.”
Mark shook his head and turned away. “I don’t owe you a thing,” he said. “And I’m only going to warn you once. Get out of here. Leave town.”
Parret scrambled out of the slick trough, doing his best to invest the clumsy exit with a sullen dignity. “Someday,” he said formally, “you will regret this.”
“Interview me in London,” Mark said with a wave of his hand, “and I’ll tell you precisely how much I regret it.”
JESSICA HAD WANTED to see Sir Mark again but not now. Not like this. Not with the letter from her solicitor folded in her skirt pocket, with its precise measurement of her freedom—or lack thereof.
Over the past few weeks in this small town, she’d found some sense of peace. She had begun to reclaim herself. But the first paper from her solicitor laid out her debts—too many—and her assets—too few. Rent on a flat in London, the amounts she’d spent here… In three weeks’ time, when the quarterly bills came due, she’d find herself at the end of her savings.
The other paper, enclosed by her solicitor, had come from Weston.
Sir Mark’s decision is expected in the next few weeks, the man had written. Seduction is of no use to me if it comes too late. Finish it now.
Weston had not said “or else.” He’d not needed to. Without his promised money, she would have no way to survive except to find another protector.
And even that would only stave off the darkness for a little while. Once that man left her, she’d need another, and another, and another. Each time, she’d lose a little corner of herself. She had to do this. She hated to do this, to Sir Mark least of all. She liked him. But he looked up, away from—was that Mr. Parret he’d tossed in the water trough? Yes. Good. He saw her. His gaze fixed on her, and he strode forward until he stood before her.
“Sir Mark,” said a woman next to her. “Did my son James invite you to our shooting competition next week? I know that—”
Mark didn’t even look at Mrs. Tolliver. “He did,” he replied shortly.
“And will you be there?”
“As I told your son, I’ll be there so long as Mrs. Farleigh is invited, as well.”
Jessica’s breath sucked in.
“She…she was invited.” Mrs. Tolliver didn’t look in Jessica’s direction. “And…and she’s very welcome indeed. But can we be of help?”
Whatever emotion had prompted Sir Mark to dunk a man in water, it had left him angry. “In fact,” Sir Mark continued, “I had promised to see Mrs. Farleigh home earlier and never did make good on that promise.”
She didn’t want to like him more, didn’t want to bring him that much closer to his downfall. She didn’t want to think of George Weston, waiting for the lascivious details he expected her to divulge. “I don’t need—”
He glanced at her. “I know you don’t need the accompaniment. But I do.”
He was going to create a scandal, speaking to her like that. Scandal was precisely what she was supposed to want him to cause. The women watched him turn and leave, and Jessica gave them one last unapologetic shrug before hurrying after his retreating form.
“What are you doing?” she demanded. “Do you have any idea how…how much those women are going to talk?”
“Let them.” His shoulders were taut. “What are they going to do? Talk to Parret?”
Sir Mark made no attempt to moderate his steps to match hers, and Jessica found herself half running to keep up with his long stride. In the hot sun, she was overheated within several streets. Still, he kept the pace through the heart of town, past the point where the paving stones gave way to dust. Sir Mark stared fixedly at the horizon as he walked. It wasn’t until five minutes had passed that he addressed her again.
“I was rather too unfair. I’m not much company right now.” Droplets from the horse trough had splashed him all over; the darker spots that the water had left across his coat had almost faded.
Jessica didn’t say anything.
“In truth,” he said, “I’m in a bit of a temper.”
“I could never have guessed.”
He did look at her then—a slow, sidelong glance. His eyes fairly snapped with intensity. And her insides sparked with the fierceness of his gaze.
“You’re formidable when you’re angry,” she said. He jerked his head toward the front once more, and she breathed again.
Formidable didn’t quite cover it. She couldn’t imagine crossing him in this mood. She wouldn’t have known how to seduce him from it. There was something about the way he walked, the way he held himself—he seemed larger and more lethal than he usually did. As if his anger had stripped away some civilizing influence and left this version of him: less voluble and more vicious.
She should have been wary.
“I don’t trust myself when I’m angry,” he said, as if hearing her thoughts.
“Well,” Jessica said slowly, “I do. So that’s all right then.”
“Hardly reassuring. You’ve no familiarity with my temper.” Little clouds of dust rose up from the ground with his every footfall. He walked so quickly, he could have kept time with the beat of her own heart.
“I try not to lose my temper,” he said gravely, “because it is so very, very bad when I do. Even today, I nearly slammed that unfortunate scribbler into a wall. I only recalled myself at the last moment.”
“Consider me shocked.”
“I like balance,” he said. “I like quiet. I like calm.”
“You must hate me, then.”
“Hardly.” Sir Mark snorted. “When I was younger, I…I picked a fight with a distant cousin, Edmund Dalrymple. He’d been making some remarks about me, about my mother. I broke his arm in two places. The incident precipitated a rift between our two families. It took years to heal, simply because I couldn’t keep hold of my temper.”
“I’m stunned,” Jessica returned. “Boys, fighting? How outrageous. How abnormal.”
“Actually,” he said, “it was. Now my brother’s married to his sister—and doesn’t that make for the cheeriest of gatherings? Edmund and I still have not had a cordial conversation. By now, I suppose it will never happen.” Mark trailed off. “It’s more complicated than that. My elder brother, Smite, was once friends with Edmund’s elder brother, Richard. But after we fought, they argued. Now Richard won’t come to Parford Manor if Smite is there, and the same holds true in reverse. So, yes. I don’t trust my temper. When I truly lose it…”
“Smite,” Jessica said. “Your brother’s name is Smite?”
He let out a great sigh. “You see what happens when I’m in a temper? I can’t keep my mouth shut. He’ll hate that I mentioned that. These days, I’m Sir Mark, and Ash, of course, is Parford. Smite goes by Turner—just Turner. He hates his name, for reasons I am sure you can imagine.”
“Your eldest brother is named Ash? That’s an…odd name. How did your brothers come to be named Ash and Smite, and you were lucky enough to be called Mark?”
The ruddy flush of his co
mplexion had faded. Now he blushed—ever so faintly, back to his quiet, slighter self. “Listen here, Mrs. Farleigh. This conversation is going rather far afield. And I’ve just talked to a newspaper reporter, who reminds me that every one of these details would be worth a fortune to the right man.”
“And yet I am the soul of discretion.”
He cast her an unreadable look. “My brothers and I all have Bible verses for names. Mark, Ash—those are just shorter versions of our real names.”
“What is your name, then?”
“Soul of discretion or no, I’m not stupid enough to tell you that.” He looked up at her again. “It’s not the sort of thing one discloses to a woman when one is trying to impress her.”
