God save him if Crossings discovered he was the person to assist her flight.
“I didn’t plan it,” she murmured. “But I just… couldn’t.” And then, “God in heaven! What have I done?”
But before she could collapse this time, Jasper leaned forward and pulled her off the floor. It was one thing for her to sit at his feet while hiding, but with a decent distance between her and St. George’s, she needn’t remain like that any longer.
She startled at first, but once she realized his intent, sat up straight beside him, knees together with her hands in her lap.
Jasper didn’t release her immediately, however, choosing to keep one arm around her. Following her harrowing experience, it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine her fainting. Whereby he’d have no choice but to carry her into his residence, almost like a groom would carry a bride.
Which, if witnessed by even his own servants, could make his situation worse.
She turned, surprising him, and lifted her chin. “I’m afraid we have not been introduced. I am Lady Gardenia Hathaway.”
“The pleasure is mine, my lady,” Jasper responded. “I am Jasper Perry, Baron Westcott, at your service.” He winked. “But my friends call me West.”
Into the fire?
Baron Westcott.
Of course, Nia would never address him as West.
Lord Rupert, her former fiancé, had pointed the baron out to her once—before the tragic fire that had taken his and several others’ lives.
That had been last spring, and they’d been attending the Willoughby Ball. And even as the major-domo announced Lord Westcott’s presence, she’d watched a cloud of debutantes and eager mamas swarm the too-handsome gentleman.
“He’s known as the Piccadilly Player—a rogue of the worst kind,” Lord Rupert had whispered the warning. “You’ll do well to avoid the likes of him, my dear Gardenia.”
And later, when her mother caught Nia watching the bevy of females vying for his attention, the duchess had placed one bejeweled but firm hand on her arm, and drawn her away. “He is wealthy and rather handsome, I’ll give you that,” her mother had explained. “But he is only a baron.”
Her parents had only allowed the betrothal to Lord Rupert, heir to an earldom, because the duke had maintained a longstanding acquaintance with the old Earl of Standish.
And now she was seated beside him—a gentleman well-known for being a rogue, unaccompanied in his carriage. Quite unchaperoned and quite uninvited.
And the irony was that being alone with a man such as him was the least of her troubles. After running out of her own wedding, she, and she alone, had ruined her reputation beyond repair.
And nearly as worrisome, with her sister absent from London, Nia had nowhere to turn. Nowhere to go. Like a leaf in the wind, she was untethered, but also without refuge.
By not considering that her sister and Lord Standish might be away, she very well may have jumped out of the proverbial frying pan into the fire.
No. She had not.
Marrying Dewberry would be worse.
Far worse.
But she needed to think this through. She couldn’t rely on the baron indefinitely.
“Do you know how long Goldie—how long my sister and the earl will be away?” she asked.
“A month,” he bit out. “Perhaps longer.”
A month? When Nia’s mother informed her that her younger sister had eloped, Nia had been genuinely happy for her. But… her sister wasn’t the sort to travel. This was most unexpected. “Surely not?”
His answer was a stern glance.
Nia had nowhere to go but her father’s home—but she could not!
The realization hit her like a brick wall. Defying her father wasn’t something she had planned so, of course, she’d not considered any of the actual details involved in making an escape.
