“Welcome, Mr. Townsend!” came the jovial voice of the master of the house, who entered the little salon next to the dining room with his daughter on his arm. “I’m so pleased you’ve joined us. Oh, and you’re healing up nicely!”
“Papa,” chided the young woman. “Welcome to our home, Mr. Townsend.”
Jasper forced himself to look at her.
She was still… yes, still a woman. Her hair was still brown. Her eyes were too.
She was very, very pale, he thought. And overly thin. She looked a little sickly, truth be told. But her gown was very fine, in a celebratory periwinkle.
“Mr. Templeton-Rath,” he said, standing and looking about for somewhere to put his empty glass. “And Miss… I… Damn it.”
“I’ll take it,” said the young woman, chuckling softly as she came forward to take the glass, as though it were a perfectly natural thing for monied ladies to handle their own drink service rather than calling for a maid. “I hear you’ve already greeted Hubris again.”
“Oh,” he said wearily. “On the daily.”
That made John Templeton-Rath laugh, his gloved hand coming up to rub over his lips.
Miss Templeton-Rath nodded in understanding. “She has been trying to escape onto the beach since the day we arrived. One might think she doesn’t recall falling into the sea, but I expect she remembers it perfectly well and now believes herself immune to the depths.”
“She is well named,” put in her father. “All my daughter’s pets are.”
“I thought they were ship cats,” Jasper confessed, his shoulders easing a little as his drink was refreshed and pushed back into his palm. “Ratters for the voyage.”
“They were,” said Mr. Templeton-Rath. “The genesis of every pet my child adopts. I’m just happy she stopped trying to adopt the rats themselves.”
“Rats are terribly clever,” said the heiress, her eyes warming at her father. “They just don’t live very long, and I’m horribly sentimental about my dear ones.”
“Yes, never mind the diseases and so on,” said the import magnate with a chuckle. “Where are your mother and Ayo? Where is your Uncle Paul?”
“I do not know, Father,” she said gently. “I’ve been with you.”
He gave her a mocking frown. “Yes, fine. You still usually know.”
Miss Templeton-Rath shook her head and accepted her own flute of a bubbling liquid from a servant who had soundlessly glided into the room. She thanked the servant and took her first sip, moving to sit across from Jasper on a settee. “Do you have any pets, Mr. Townsend?”
Jasper blinked, forgetting he was, in fact, there to speak about himself. “Not presently,” he admitted. “I had a darling terrier when I was a lad, though. And my best mate’s family has a pet pig.”
“‘A pig’!” she exclaimed, touching her cheeks. “Oh, that’s unusual. Is it well behaved?”
“Is it humongous?” Mr. Templeton-Rath put in, stirring his own drink and lingering behind the sofa. “And smelly?”
Jasper shook his head, chuckling. “She was the runt of a litter and doesn’t seem to be getting much larger, though she’s still young,” he said. “She does tricks: can sit on command, shake your hand, and jump over obstacles. She’s good a good nature to her.”
“I have heard they are intelligent,” said Miss Templeton-Rath thoughtfully, tilting her head, “but I wouldn’t have thought to that degree. I would very much like to meet this pig.”
Jasper took a quick sip of his drink, cursing himself internally.
This woman could never set foot in Starling’s Rest. It would bring the entire ruse crumbling down within seconds if she spoke to a single Starling or any of their orbiting intimates.
“I’ll see if I can arrange it,” he managed to lie.
She opened her mouth to respond but was cut short by the rest of the family appearing in the room. The lady of the house was flanked on either side by her niece, and a tall, dark-skinned man who must have been Miss Rath’s father.
“Ah,” said Mr. Templeton-Rath. “This is my brother, Paul Rath. He is our steward.”
“Your brother,” Jasper repeated, stupidly.
The tall, dark-skinned man grinned widely. “We have different mothers,” he provided. “But I think the resemblance is there.”
