“Why?”
“Because much as your reputation may suffer from being with me, I didn’t punch that man merely so another could assault you.” His tone was very slightly bored, and she peeked into his face to get an idea of his expression. Blank.
So, he wouldn’t consent to marrying her—which was both a relief and a travesty—but he was insisting on escorting her. She couldn’t quite work him out. It seemed he had a trace of conscience, after all.
A thought that seemed to plague him as much as it did her, by the brief flash of irritation across his face as he led her back into the crowd.
“Never mind a knight,” he muttered, more to himself, it seemed, than her. “I’m an upstanding bloody saint.”
Chapter Ten
Jacob didn’t like Annabelle.
That was what he told himself after he delivered her to her party, disappearing into the crowd before any of said party could see him. He didn’t like her and he had absolutely no intention of being married to her. Not even to save her reputation.
She was bookish. She had been Cecil’s first choice, and he had become involved with Cecil’s choice before—and look how well that had turned out. All excellent reasons he had made the right choice in refusing to honour this ridiculous engagement. Who had done this, anyway?
Maybe it was her mother after all. Someone with a stake in matters surely had to be responsible.
Regardless, it was better for them all if he remained uninvolved. Madeline would have been better off if she had stayed away from him, and Annabelle was no different.
He reminded himself of this—apparently it transpired he still had a kernel of conscience left, and it was exclusively directed at young, unmarried women in danger of ruination—as he left his lodgings in Albany shortly before noon the next day.
And there, opposite him, was Annabelle, emerging from Hatchards with packages in her hands. There was a footman, similarly loaded down, just behind her, and her face was pale and pinched, a line between her brows.
The rush of anger and desire hit him like a boot to the gut.
She glanced up, seeing him, and the colour fled from her cheeks. One of her books tumbled from her arms onto the pavement, and she bent to pick it up, scarlet replacing the unnatural white.
“Lord Sunderland,” she said breathlessly, retrieving her book. He briefly entertained the idea of walking away. “I was hoping we would see each other today.”
“You were?” He raised an eyebrow. The first time he’d seen her, in Cecil’s arms, she hadn’t struck him as being especially pretty. Too small and pale for his liking. But that had been before he had kissed her, and before he had been tempted to kiss her again on multiple occasions.
Lust was an emotion easily overcome, in his experience, but only if one stopped encountering the object of their lust in dark, private spaces.
The thought irritated him still more, so he gave her a sensual smile. “I can only imagine for what, seeing as I expressly told you I would not be marrying you.”
The irritation in her sigh matched his. “How many times must I tell you, I have no desire to be married?”
“Then we are done here.”
“No, my lord, we are not.”
This was bold for a lady who could not look at a gentleman without blushing. “Ah, so youareintrigued by what I can do for you?”
“It must be trialling, I know, but I do ask that you at leasttrynot to be obnoxious.”
He raised his eyebrows. “But I’m so good at it?”
Annabelle clicked her tongue, her little mouth pursing as she looked at him. There didn’t seem to be any admiration in her gaze, which was frankly unusual for a woman who looked him up and down. Perhaps she really did hate him, after all.
Well, it would make throwing her to the wolves more palatable.
Until he remembered Madeline. Echoes of grief, mindless in its intensity, pounded in his head.
Hehad been the reason she had died. Because of him, she had been ruined, and she lost everything. If he abandoned this lady to her fate, would it be the same? Would the rumours spread in the same way they had with Madeline?
Would he ruin her as thoroughly?
