Page 90 of Gentleman Jim

He was more than capable of handling Frederick Burton-Smythe. Didn’t Maggie know that? Or did she think him still a boy—a servant lad who was in danger of falling victim to a thrashing? Someone she must protect at all costs?

“When will your guests return?” Allendale asked.

“Not for several hours, I expect,” she said.

St. Clare folded his arms. The stitches in his bullet wound tightened painfully. “Perhaps we’ll wait for them.”

Maggie’s smile dimmed. “If you like. Or you could postpone the pleasure until tomorrow evening.”

His brows lifted. “Burton-Smythe will be here?”

“He will,” Maggie said. “And Sir Roderick, as well. They’re coming for dinner. I hope you and Lord Allendale will be at liberty to join us.”

A dinner party, attended by Fred and his father. It would mean arriving after dark to dine in a room illuminated only by flickering candles. A setting almost guaranteed to disguise any hints of his true identity.

“An excellent notion,” Allendale said.

“And Fred has approved of this?” St. Clare asked. “He knows I’ve arrived in Somerset?”

“He does not,” Maggie admitted. “If he had, he wouldn’t have been so willing to leave me unattended this afternoon.”

“Thereby letting a fox loose into the henhouse.”

Maggie’s lips compressed. “A metaphor that flatters neither of us.”

Yet an apt one, St. Clare felt. “When do you plan to tell him?”

“I won’t have to tell him. He’ll learn of your visit all on his own. There’s always someone about watching and reporting back to him.”

“This Burton-Smythe fellow,” Allendale said. “Treats your home like his own, does he?”

She didn’t deny it. “He’s had the running of the estate since my father died. It’s not ideal, but—”

“It’s far from ideal,” St. Clare said. “And it’s not just her home he has the running of. It’s the rest of her life as well.”

“Really,” she objected. “I’m certain Lord Allendale doesn’t want to hear—”

“I’m certain he does.” St. Clare turned back to his grandfather. “Burton-Smythe must approve her marriage, else she forfeits her claim on her father’s estate. A legal device employed by Squire Honeywell to force her to marry the man of his choosing.”

“And why shouldn’t she?” Allendale asked. “If that’s what her father wished?”

“Because she’s marrying me,” St. Clare said. “I proposed to her this morning.”

His words were greeted with a sudden and very obvious silence. Indeed, had a pin fallen at that moment, he was confident he would have heard it drop.

Both Maggie and Allendale stared at him, but before either of them could muster a word in response, the silence was broken by the arrival of the tea tray. It was carried in by a footman—different from the one who had opened the front door, and equally unrecognizable. He put the tray down on a low table near the scrolled-arm sofa where Maggie sat.

“That will be all, Salter,” she said. And then, her blue eyes still throwing sparks over St. Clare’s abrupt announcement, she asked, quite civilly, “Tea, anyone?”

They waited to speak as she poured them each a cup. As if the polite ritual held them in thrall. It was only after she’d returned the porcelain teapot to the silver tea tray, that Allendale finally responded.

“So,” he said, “my grandson has proposed marriage to you, has he?”

“He has.”

“And you’ve accepted, I gather?”

Maggie raised her teacup to her lips. “I have, my lord.” There was a hint of a challenge in her voice.