There were so many angry retorts she could have made to that, and yet what burst out was, “I have no choice!”
He raised one eyebrow.
She blinked furiously. “I haven’t. He’s my father and I can’t let himdrown. I don’twantto let him drown.”
He was silent a moment, his reckless eyes not laughing or mocking. “Give him an ultimatum. He must stop drinking and work, or you will leave. And if he won’t do it, leave.”
She stared at him. “And go where? Pick one of my rich and kind relatives?”
“From which I gather you don’t have any.” He was scowling now. “Before I sail, I’ll write to inquire of my sister and a few friends. I’m sure whatever you do for Lady Mansel would be more lucrative in London. You are educated and ladylike. Just don’t tell them to bugger off.”
She didn’t mean to, but a sudden laugh burst between her shaky lips. It won her a dazzling smile.
“I apologise for my language,” she said. “I was angry and I had to get him home before he fell over. I thought it was the quickest way to be rid of you.”
“And you assumed I was like Hugh Mansel?”
She nodded, dragging her gaze free.
“I am,” he said unexpectedly. “Except that I take hints better. I wouldn’t have noticed your difficulty if you weren’t so beautiful.”
She sighed. “Just when I was beginning to like you.”
“A lady should always accept a compliment.”
“Even though it’s worthless when a gentleman feels obliged to give it. Society’s rules are ridiculous and pointless.”
“I have often said so.”
She regarded him once more. The recklessness was back in his smile. “As an excuse to ignore them?” she suggested.
“Generally.”
“Because men get away with flouting the rules, where women do not. Especially rich young, over-indulged noblemen. That is what you are, isn’t it?”
His eyebrows flew up. “Straight for the jugular! Mercy, Miss Jasper.”
She tilted her chin, refusing to be cowed and yet aware she didn’t want to quarrel with him. “You are notMr. Durward, are you? You areLordDurward, who is fleeing the consequences of a duel. And yet the Mansels are desperate to profit from the slightest association with you.”
“Are they?” He sounded startled, although his hands remained steady on the reins, guiding his horses around the worst of a large rut in the road, and along the right-hand fork in the path that led to the town. “I don’t know what profit they imagine there will be, unless they seek notoriety.”
“Oh, her letters will be filled for months with how you found the time to call upon them on your way to exile.” She shook her head. “And now I am the one who sounds waspish. Do you ever find yourself hating everyone?”
“Not really,” he said. “I am subject to tempers, but then I’m just as likely to love my enemy again. I don’t have the staying power for concentrated hatred.”
“Did you hate the man you killed?”
Something changed in his eyes, something unutterably bleak and hopeless that chilled her blood. And then it was gone, like a cloud in a sunny sky. “He is not dead, though he’s likely to be. And no, I never hated him, though he has every reason to hate me.”
She searched his face. “Why did you do it?”
There was a pause. “I don’t know. Because I’m a fool. He shouldn’t have to pay for that. And it seems I can’t.”
She opened her mouth to probe further, more in sympathy than in judgement, for she sensed some deep, terrible regret in him. She didn’t understand it, and wanted instinctively to help, but the intensity of that darkness frightened her into silence.
After a moment, she said instead, “What will you do in Portugal?”
“Take ship somewhere else, I suppose. What will you do here?”
