“Whatever you like.”
Her lips parted and he knew that she would blister him, more from habit than genuine anger with his suggestion. Then she closed them again. Her brow twitched.
“No,” she said firmly. “I shall meet you outside the Black Lion. But I can spare only half an hour.”
“Me too,” he said, and strolled away to the sound of her surprised laughter.
On a tide of euphoria, he could have left the house singing. Instead, he walked into the parlour and pulled up a chair opposite the captain who sat hunched over the folded newspaper. He eyed Durward with a kind of wary hostility.
“I knew there was a reason we got along so well,” Durward remarked. “We’re both utterly selfish bastards.”
Jasper sat up, straightening his shoulders. “Young man, I don’t appreciate your manners or your language.”
Durward shrugged. “I don’t appreciate dragging you out of the sea and all but carrying you home because you were so drunk you couldn’t stand. I’m damned sure your daughter doesn’t appreciate being worried sick every night and digging you out of taprooms she shouldn’t even see, let alone enter. I doubt she appreciates starving because you’ve drunk the housekeepingmoney and are too idle to get out of bed in time to get any work. She must hate seeing what’s become of you.”
Jasper half-lunged out of his chair with a spurt of fury—the first sign of spirit Durward had seen in him that morning. But then he fell back, even paler than before. “Ihate it.”
Durward understood that. Some of it was the inevitable remorse of too much alcohol. Some of it was a glimpse into a person you did not like and did not want to think about, let alone be.
“Then stop it. Will you teach me to sail your little boat?”
“What?”
“Teach Carina too. I think she’d like it. You’re still the captain.” Durward stood up. “Tomorrow, then. It’s past time, captain. You know it is.”
He left the house, closing the door behind him, and saluting the shadowy face behind the net curtain next door.
CARINA ALMOST DIDN’Tgo to the Black Lion. She couldn’t think why she had agreed in the first place, except that meeting in public seemed safest. Only, she shouldn’t be meeting him at all. The last thing she needed was more gossip.
And then there was the fact that she was afraid to leave her father in case he sloped off to the alehouse as soon as she was out of sight.
But then, Papa spoke to her at luncheon.
“I’m sorry,” he said abruptly. “I don’t know how you’ve put up with me. I’m going to do better.”
She had heard it before, of course, but surely there was new sincerity, new determination in his voice this time. “I know you will, Papa.”
“I gave you a fright last night. I finally frightened myself. No more, Carina. I promise. Tell, you what, if the weather is finetomorrow, and I’m feeling up to it, I’ll take you out on the boat. Providing I’m not at work.”
She hung on to that new sincerity, deciding to trust him. She wondered what Lord Durward had said to him in the parlour that morning, and if that was what had made the difference. Curiosity and eagerness to impart such good news to Durward combined with a sense of well-being that was only partly due to her father’s change of heart.
And so she walked out with her basket, as though shopping, and walked casually past the Black Lion Inn. She only half-expected him to be there, and she had no intention of going inside to inquire for him. It made no difference to her life. And yet there he was.
Leaning one shoulder negligently against the gatepost, his tall beaver hat tipped at a rakish angle, he stood in the glow of the afternoon sunshine. He looked handsome, elegant, and slightly dangerous, as though a part of Bond Street had been somehow transported to a busy working port and blended with it. Inevitably, he drew the eyes of passers-by. Several women of varying classes ogled him from both sides of the road, some openly, others more covertly.
He seemed oblivious, until he saw Carina and smiled, easing his shoulder off the post and raising his hat as he came to meet her.
“Miss Jasper. Allow me.” Taking the basket from her, he offered her his arm.
It was a long time since anyone had treated her as a lady. She placed her hand gingerly, almost experimentally, on his sleeve and suddenly felt as though she were basking in his sunshine.
“Whatever you said to my father this morning,” she said at once, “he is promising to turn over a new leaf.”
“Good.”
“Did you ask me to come this afternoon to see if he would stay in?”
To her surprise, he seemed to think about that. “No,” he replied at last, almost ruefully. “It was an entirely selfish request.” He stopped by a flower seller’s barrow, and picked out the loveliest of posies, which he presented to her.
