Page 84 of The Governess and the Rogue

Jack rose from his chair, resting his weight on his cane. “If you’ll excuse me?” he said to the doctor and his daughter. “I’ve just spied my intended.”

Taking his leave from them, he crossed the floor to meet Bea halfway.

Bea opened her fan as he approached, wafting her heated face. “It’s rather close in here.”

“Shall we repair to the terrace?” Jack asked. “Hannah’s had the torches lit.”

“That would be lovely,” Bea said.

He offered her his arm and she took it. Together they made their way through the crowds toward the row of glass doors that led onto the ballroom terrace. Jack caught sight of his parents as they passed, along with James and Hannah. His mother and father had a knowing look in their eyes, and James was wearing the same smug smile he’d sported in the hall.

Jack’s stomach coiled into a knot. Did all of his family know how he felt? What he intended? Was he that transparent?

Or perhaps it was only that James had learned where in the village Jack had gone today on his mysterious errand. And told the others too by the looks of it.

Yet, Bea didn’t appear to have any inkling whatsoever. She walked through the terrace door ahead of him when he opened it for her, going straight to the stone rail. The rose gardens lay below, the winding paths through the beds lit with torches of their own. And above…

“An excessively starry night,” Bea murmured.

Jack came to stand at her side. It was a cool evening, the darkness kept at bay by the flickering light of the torches that had been placed at opposite ends of the terrace. “More than the skies we saw from the Pera?”

“The stars seem brighter here.”

“Everything does,” he said. “I’d say our visit has been a success.”

“Yes.” She set her hands on the rail. A painted fan dangled from one slim wrist. Her bare shoulders rose and fell on a sigh. “But all good things must end eventually.”

Jack didn’t believe it. Not this good thing, anyway. “Meaning?”

“We have our amicable breakup to consider.” She turned to him, one hand still resting on the stone railing. Her face was solemn in the torchlight. “We could do it publicly.”

Jack wrinkled his brow, affecting to give the matter his due consideration. “A public breakup? Here?”

The strains of a waltz drifted from the ballroom.

“A quarrel or something,” Bea said.

“What would you and I have to quarrel over?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I suppose I could accuse you of meddling with village girls like you used to do.”

Jack stifled a smile. He had mentioned that, hadn’t he? It had been that day by the stream. He’d marked her reaction, albeit after the fact. “You’d have a difficult case to make.”

“Would I?”

“They were meaningless stolen kisses,” he said. “The last one I pilfered was from the blacksmith’s daughter when I was one and twenty. There’s been nothing since.”

“Oh.” Bea’s forehead creased. “In that case⁠—”

“You could claim indifference,” Jack said.

An unidentifiable emotion crossed her face. “What?”

“You know, say you’ve fallen out of love with me. Or—even better—that you never loved me in the first place.”

Bea’s gaze slid from his. She resumed looking at the sky, her lips pressed in a frown. “I wonder,” she said quietly, “how many more lies I must tell before all this is over?”

Jack’s chest tightened. It was a lie, was it? To say she never loved him? That she didn’t love him still? “Where is the lie in that?” he asked.