She sighed. “Go on as I am. Your advice may be sound—I don’t know. But I cannot leave my father in this state.”
He seemed to hesitate, but at least the blackness seemed to have gone from his eyes, leaving them concerned as he gazed at her. “Mansel is serious in his pursuit of you. Too many people know about it for him to give up. Your refusal, your virtue, is nothing to him beside that.”
“You can’t know this.”
“I heard him in the taproom, and I asked around. I believe he set those ruffians on you the other night. He was supposed to rescue you and earn your undying gratitude. He hadn’t bargained on me being there to steal his glory. Neither had his pet thugs.”
“But that’s ridiculous! He cannot care that much! I am simplythere.”
“I daresay your refusal piqued his interest into obsession. Some men are like that. And you are very beautiful.”
She waved that aside impatiently. “Areyoulike that?” she demanded, more to shoot down his argument than anything else.
“I can be obsessive,” he admitted. “But I take my rejections like a gentleman.”
“I don’t suppose you get many.”
“Ah well, women like a wicked man.”
“No, they don’t,” she retorted. “Or I’d be madly in love with Sir Hugh Mansel.”
He laughed, and this time she allowed herself to smile in response. He took her breath away. And it came to her that he, not Mansel, was the true danger to her.
Almost in desperation, she changed the subject, asking about his family. He spoke amusingly, with warmth and humour, of an older sister, Bethany, and a younger brother at school, and from there the conversation moved onto other things—plays and books, war and politics, and the plight of the poor. He was surprisingly knowledgeable in all these subjects, and yet he never tried to lecture or force his opinion on her. Instead, he actuallylistenedto her.
She was curiously disappointed as they drove into Harwich. She asked him to let her down at the market, where he halted the horses, and came round to hand her down.
He bowed over her hand with perfect courtesy and released her. “I count myself fortunate to have met you, Miss Jasper. My sister is Mrs. Baldeston, should you receive a letter from her. My compliments to your father. Goodbye.”
They were in a public place, full of people of all kinds, many of whom knew her. She should not gaze at him as he leapt backup to his curricle seat, all lean, agile grace, so she smiled and turned away, feeling dazed and stupidly happy, even while regret echoed around her head.
I’ll never see him again. I’ll never see him again.
Chapter Four
Durward drove on to the Black Lion, sardonically aware of life’s ironies. If he had not shot Foster, he would never have met Carina Jasper. If he had not shot Foster, he need have had no compunction about pursuing her.
He might, indeed, have behaved as abominably in his own way as Mansel had. As it was, he could not, in all conscience, seduce her and leave her alone to bear the consequences. And yet, after their surprisingly open conversation on the way back to town, he found he could well understand Mansel’s obsession. She was...different. Funny, vital, brave and honest, even while almost at breaking point over her father and how to survive. She had not been born to poverty, so it would be doubly hard for her.
The house was Jasper’s own, apparently, so he could not be evicted. But without the means to eat, they could be forced to sell and from there, it was a slippery slope to the bottom. He could not bear that for her. She needed to be away from him, from the mess her father had created for her. Jasper should be the one protecting her, from poverty, from the insults of men like Mansel—and Durward.
Leaving his horses in the capable hands of the ostler, he hurried into the inn.
“There’s a letter for you, my lord!” the innkeeper called, hurrying after him to the stairs. “Came with the London mail.”
Durward paused to take the letter from him, his stomach twisting painfully. He could not bring himself to look at it ashe stuffed it into his coat, paid the innkeeper, and continued upstairs to his room.
There, he almost tore off his cravat, and tossed it onto the bed, along with his coat. Glaring at the coat as though daring it to upset him further, he bent and retrieved the letter from his pocket.
Not Calton’s writing, he saw with relief. It was his sister’s all but indecipherable scrawl. Throwing himself onto the hard chair by the table, he broke the seal and began to read. To his surprise, it made him smile, for Bethany wrote as chaotically as she spoke, bouncing from one subject to the next and assuming everyone could follow her unique connections to understand what she meant. To make things harder, it was a long letter, written vertically as well as horizontally to avoid using a second sheet.
He gathered she had heard of the Foster duel and refused to waste her breath on scolding him for his latest idiocy. She did not mention Foster’s health but said she had got her brother’s address from Lord Calton and demanded Durward write before leaving Harwich. In between, was a bizarre collection of family news that made it sound as if her husband was teething and her eldest had bought a new horse who cried most of the night. Having adjusted that to a more likely meaning in his head, he gathered their brother was again in trouble at school.
Well, there wasn’t much Durward could do about that when his ship sailed with tomorrow’s tide. Bethany and Baldeston, her husband, were better at sorting things out with the school in any case.
He skimmed the rest, something to do with a cat, a dog and a baby, though who any of them belonged to, he had no idea.
He reached for his own writing materials.My dear Bethany, by the time you read this, I shall have sailed but will indeed keep you informed of my whereabouts.He thought of adding that should Foster recover, he would, of course, come home, buthe didn’t want to tempt an already fickle fate, and he already knew in his heart that both Foster and himself were done for.
