Page 20 of The Governess and the Rogue

Jack’s fleeting smile was transformed into a wince. Bloody hell. On top of everything else, she was an orphan?

Miss Layton—or Bea—didn’t seem to register his reaction. “May I ask you something personal?” she inquired. She didn’t wait for his reply. “Why don’t you wish to marry Miss Faraday?”

“I don’t wish to marry anyone,” he said.

She examined his face in the lamplight. “You object to the institution?”

“On the contrary,” Jack said. “I think marriage a fine thing. My parents are deliriously happy in theirs. My siblings are too, or so they claim. They’ve all entered into love matches. It’s the Beresford way, to marry for some grand passion. Makes one rather reluctant to settle for anything less.”

“I didn’t know gentlemen considered such things.”

“I can’t speak for all gentlemen,” he said. “Only myself.”

“And you don’t believe you could feel such a passion for Miss Farraday? But why not? She’s lovely to look at. And she’s surprisingly kind. She helped me with Miss Dimsdale today when I was struggling with her. Few ladies would have done the same.”

Jack was unmoved by recitations of Miss Farraday’s finer qualities. “I don’t care to be chased.”

“And now you will be, thanks to me.” Bea’s expression took on another layer of anguish. She hung her head. “Oh, but this is all my fault!”

Jack raked a hand through his hair. “Aren’t we a fine pair? Two desperate souls stuck on this blasted ship, at the mercy of everyone else.” He exhaled a heavy sigh. “Our lives are going to look very different tomorrow if things develop in the way we expect.”

“Yes, they will,” Bea acknowledged bleakly.

“Perhaps we might revisit jumping overboard?” Jack suggested, only half in jest.

“You needn’t do so. The worst that could happen to you is an entanglement with an exceptionally beautiful young lady. While I—” There was a pitiful catch in her voice. “I may not have forfeited my position, but I’m certain to have forfeited my reference. Who in England will ever hire me now? I’m as likely to starve in the street as to find respectable employment. The only hope I have is to throw myself on Mrs. Dimsdale’s mercy. A slim hope at best, for she has no mercy that I’ve ever seen.”

Jack regarded Bea in the shadows cast from the softly swaying lamp above. She was an orphan, with no friends and no family, soon to be sacked from the very position that was ensuring her passage home.

While he⁠—

He could no longer walk unaided, let alone run. Until such time as he healed from his latest surgery, he was completely reliant on his cane. Without it, he’d be something worse than an injured fox. He’d be a sitting duck.

Unless…

An idea entered his head.

A reckless idea.

Jack’s pulse leapt. It had been far too long since he’d had such a wild notion. He’d begun to fear he never would again. But there it was, as clear as day, firing his senses and burning in his blood.

And really, Jack told himself, the idea wasn’t entirely foolhardy. When looked at in the right light, it was downright sensible.

“I think I may have struck on a solution,” he said as it began to take shape in his mind.

Bea raised her head. “For you or for me?”

“For both of us,” Jack said. “All it requires is that we engage in a very small act of subterfuge.”

A doubtful frown darkened her gaze.

Jack plunged ahead. “Tell me,” he said. “Would you be at all opposed to pretending that we’re engaged?”

Chapter Seven

Bea stared at him, stunned. “That’s what you call ‘a very small act of subterfuge?’”

“You must admit,” Jack said. “It would do the trick.”