“Zanzibar?” Mr. Rath guessed, lowering her hand with a respectful, little bow. “I have heard tell of that island.”
“Close,” she said with a fast smile, “and only half in size. In fact, I realized after meeting your family some days past, that I spoke my native pidgin French to them, rather than the proper sort.Je suis désoléefor any confusion, my dear Mrs. Templeton-Rath. You must think me a common peasant.”
“I hadn’t noticed at all,” their hostess replied graciously.
Jasper didn’t know if that was true. But he did knowhehadn’t noticed anything amiss about her French. And that he was still staring.
“What is your island called?” Miss Templeton-Rath asked, tilting her head curiously to the side. “Your home city?”
Libba turned her smile onto her. “I do not know if your people have named it yet,” she said with a giggle and a shrug. “But we simply call it ‘Bayt.’ That is our pidgin word for ‘home.’”
“Bayt,” repeated the young heiress, blinking. “That is lovely.”
“Yes, it is,” Libba agreed. “Where are your fine creatures this evening? I expected to see one on your lap, Miss Templeton-Rath.”
“Banished,” her father said as Miss Templeton-Rath opened her mouth to answer. “The orange one isn’t allowed within tenfeet of the kitchen or dining room and the white one can’t be trusted anywhere. So, for tonight, they are above stairs.”
“A shame,” said Libba, fluttering her lashes at him. “They aretrès charmants.Adorable littlenabobs, yes? Was there not a third? Mutiny?”
Miss Templeton-Rath blinked, a smile ticking at the corners of her pale lips. “That’s right! How astute you are. She won’t come off the tug, though. She spent the whole voyage trying to disembark directly into the Atlantic, and now that we’re here, she’s suddenly sentimental for the berth.”
“She will develop a keen interest in Brighton once we have decided to depart,” Mr. Rath put in knowingly.
“Yes, likely.” Miss Templeton-Rath sighed, as though talking about a dear friend and not a poorly behaved cat. “What bringsyouto Brighton, Princess Xandine? Is it common for you to travel alone?”
“I am not alone,” Libba said with a flash of her teeth. “I am with Lem. And now Mr. Townsend as well.”
“Ah, indeed,” said Jasper, clearing his throat and trying to swallow down the heat threatening to creep up his airway. “I have been getting to know the princess in the wake of our earlier meeting. She is a fascinating creature.”
Libba finally met his eye, a glint of something dangerous and sharp playing behind the bright, firelit brown of her irises. “Yes,” she said. “He has been instrumental in teaching me the ways of this place. I now only need him to accept my offer.”
“Oh?” said Mrs. Templeton-Rath, watching as Libba glided across the room toward Jasper and wedged herself into the narrow seat next to him, her shining, sharp fingernails grazing over his knee so suddenly, he almost jumped out of his skin. “What offer is that, my dear?”
Libba paused, lifting the fingers she’d been using to molest him in front of them as though admiring an imaginary ring.
“Why,” she said sweetly. “The offer of my hand, of course. I have asked Mr. Townsend to become my consort.”
Jasper stared at her, his mind wiped blank. He did not sigh or frown, to his credit, but only because, if a sound was to be made in the wake ofthatannouncement, it would have been a scream.
Chapter Fifteen
Libba had timedher reveal with intention, waiting to deliver that final line until the footman had passed into view with the dinner bell already aloft between his fingers.
That way, she was able to enjoy the full experience of feeling Jasper Townsend’s soul leaving his bodyandpreventing him from having to answer in any coherent way with immediacy. The smile she wore as she accepted Paul Rath’s hand to help her to her feet en route to the dinner table was a sincere one.
It also had provided the unintended benefit of giving her a moment of recovery after the scent of that damned cologne had hit her, once she’d squeezed into the seat next to him. She hadn’t accounted for being smacked with that again, and as much as she wanted to pin him to the cushions and take several more long sniffs, she had to keep her wits about her.
So yes, aside fromthat, she was delighted with how this was unfolding so far.
It had been Hattie’s idea, some days past, when they’d been running through a few final details to smooth over the languagefaux pasLibba had committed on the wharf.
“Do you remember how Elias looked when Willa’s final wishes were read aloud and he realized he’d been trapped into marrying me?” Hattie had asked serenely, stroking her pregnant belly as though she were not at all offended at her husband’s one-time horror. “It is a pity that you began this ruse with Jasperutterly willing. A forced marriage or an inescapable proposal might be more effective at gathering the approval of this family, rather than staging a pitted rivalry between two women. If it appears you’re overpowering poor Jasper into an arrangement he does not wish for, he will be especially endearing.”
“Yes, what a sympathetic man, forced to couple with the likes of me,” Libba had returned tartly, only to get a brilliant smile from Hattie.
“Precisely! You will be beautiful and powerful and he will still be bruised and bumbling. It is the easier gambit, I would think.”
Surveying the faces in the room and their sidelong stolen glances in Jasper’s direction, Libba had to admit that she had been correct. After all, if Jasper was to find a way to work with these people, he’d still need to free himself from the fictional Xandine, and they were too far into the muck for that to happen without explanation.
