Jack did not return the bow.
“Good night, my lord,” he said distinctly.
“Good night, your grace,” Carily returned in some amusement.
Jack waited, giving her time to flee if she wished.That she didn’t, hurt him unbearably.But it was Carily who was impatient, as though he couldn’t understand why Jack lingered.
For her own sake, Jack willed her to go.
Carily seemed to finally understand that Jack was waiting for him to close his bedchamber door, for he let out a mocking little laugh.
Then Tabitha moved.She turned so that she was facing Carily once more.And took Jack’s arm.Jack strolled on, as though it was just what he had expected.Behind them, Carily’s door slammed.
“Take me outside,” she said, low.“To where the air is clean.”
***
THE WORDS SPILLED OUTas she thought them.Utter madness.He would escort her stiffly to her bedchamber door and leave her there with all the contempt she deserved.
He didn’t.He kept walking until they reached the east staircase and turned down it with her.
She felt as though she were suffocating.She needed the cool, fresh air, though she could and should have gone alone.It was what she had intended.Only despite her shame in being discovered in such a position, by him of all people, his presence somehow soothed both her anger and her fears.
She had stayed with the Hawthorns several times.She knew the way out.She guided him to the side door, unlocked it and led him along the paths less visible from the house.Although the outside lanterns had been extinguished, there was enough light from the almost full moon to see their way easily.
“I have done you no favour,” she said abruptly.“I have made you his enemy.”
“I seem to have always been that,” he mused.She gave his arm an irritated little shake and he glanced at her in surprise.“I’m not afraid of him.”
“Perhaps you should be!Have you ever been in a fight in your life?”
“Oh, no.I am, sadly, protected by my rank.”
“Sadly?”she repeated, startled.
“I find myself with an unprecedented itch to knock him down and hurt him.”
Quite suddenly, all the tension seemed to leave her.She even sagged against him, holding tighter to his arm.“Then you do not believe I encouraged him?”
“I believe he assaulted you.”
Even to herself, she had not called it that.Stupidly, her eyes prickled.“I had left Lily preparing for bed and was on my way to visit Louisa—Lady Hawthorn—I had something particular to say to her in private.Carily leapt out of his room as though he had been waiting for me and tried to embrace me.Apart from anything else, he startled me witless, so I boxed his ears.Unladylike behaviour, I know but he should not jump out at one.”
“No,” Jack said grimly.“He should not.”
Her lips tightened again.“He seemed to think it was funny, and that he had only to kiss me to get me into his room, and I would submit as I really always wanted to.”
“Did you?”
She frowned.“Did I what?Submit?”
“Always want to.”
She rubbed her fingers hard across her forehead where a headache was threatening.“I thought about it,” she said dully.“In Brighton.I found him attractive then, and I was so confoundedly bored.But something always prevented me—perhaps that he expected it.Or perhaps I was tired of the whole thing.”
“What thing?”
She shrugged impatiently.“Being the wicked widow.Lovers.There was no love involved in any of my...flings, and I had finally recognized it.A little attraction, a little affection, but not love.It wasn’t enough and never had been.I cared more about bringing Lily out respectably.He wasn’t even supposed to be here, but he persuaded Louisa to invite him with the lie that he was madly in love with me.”
