“You make me want to kick you sometimes,” she told him in a fury.
He stared at her a moment, then threw back his head and shouted with laughter. She pressed her lips closed and stomped past him toward the carriage. She was going to ask Sir Richard if he could have Hercule chase Lord Boor out of town. If Hercule tore a large hole in the seat of his trousers, she would applaud the dog.
Tristan ran after her. “Joan, wait!” She whirled around, seething, when he touched her elbow, and he put up both hands in a gesture of surrender. “I was wrong.” She raised one eyebrow and waited. He adopted a penitent expression and placed one hand over his heart. “My dear Miss Bennet, I’d no idea my presence and demeanor were so disturbing to you. My humblest apologies.”
“Very well.” She glared at him. “Just don’t talk to me of women removing their pantalets for you.”
“Never again,” he said at once. “The word shall never cross my lips.”
“Nor any other unmentionables,” she added. “Not stockings, or petticoats, or stays, or shifts or bodices or garters or anything a woman might wear.” Douglas was a master at finding ways to circumvent promises, and Joan had learned to pin him down very closely. The last thing she wanted to hear was how another woman had let Tristan Burke unlace her stays.
His lips twitched, but he nodded somberly. “As you wish. I shan’t speak of anything more indelicate than a handkerchief, ever again. May I escort you home before you are irrevocably corrupted by my polluting influence?”
She eyed him warily, but finally put her hand on his offered arm. “You may.”
For the trip back into London, Tristan behaved with as much decorum as Joan could have wished; as much, even, as Mother could have wished. He apologized for driving too quickly over the cobbles. He commented upon the weather, but nothing more controversial. He called her Miss Bennet without fail. He ignored the furtive, skeptical glances she gave him from time to time. And Joan found, to her complete dismay, that she was thoroughly bored. He was behaving just as a gentleman ought to, and she didn’t enjoy it at all. She tried to tell herself it was because she knew it was all a facade, but deep down she feared it was because she liked him better as a rogue. Rogues were interesting and exciting, even if sometimes infuriating, and perhaps she’d been too hasty. What if he kept up this gentlemanly act, just to torment her?
In South Audley Street he maneuvered the curricle right up to her steps and jumped down. He helped her down from the carriage and waited while she adjusted her bonnet. Then he took her hand and bowed very properly over it. “Thank you for the pleasure of your company, Miss Bennet.” He clasped her hand in both of his and gave her a smile. “I enjoyed it immensely.” But as he released her hand, he pushed something under the edge of her glove.
Her eyes widened at the feel of cold metal against her skin. “What—?”
“Your winnings,” he murmured, giving her the sly look that never failed to make her heart skip a beat. “After all, you’re going to need that shilling ... later.”
And he jumped back into his curricle and left her standing there, speechless and blushing, his shilling held tight in her fist.
Chapter 19
Evangeline was pacing the hall when Joan came into the house. “Oh, Joan!” she exclaimed, stopping short at her entrance. “There you are!”
It dawned on Joan that she’d been gone a long time—and that Evangeline had been worried. She untied her bonnet and handed it to Smythe. “Yes, at last! I’ve no idea how the time got away from us.”
Her aunt’s mouth tightened. “Indeed.” Mustering a patently false smile, she held out her arm. “It must have been an exceedingly pleasant drive. Come tell me all about it. Smythe, ring for tea, please.”
The butler, who wore his usual stony face, bowed. Joan chewed her lip as she followed her aunt to the drawing room. Oh, dear. She’d got used to her aunt’s more permissive attitude, and gone too far. She thought of what Mother would say if she were here, and felt a little nauseated.
“Well?” Evangeline closed the drawing room door behind her.
“You’ll never guess—we went ballooning!” Joan put on a wide smile and prayed for the best. “It was such a complete surprise to me, but I shall never forget it!”
Her aunt’s lips parted. “Ballooning? Up in theair?”
“Oh, yes, and it was brilliant!” she enthused, remembering the view. “We didn’t go very high, but could still see ever so far—the city looked like a trifling little huddle of buildings along the river, visible all the way from St. Paul’s to Chelsea and even further! I never dreamt of such things!”
“Nor did I!” said her aunt with no trace of delight—rather the opposite, in fact. “When you were gone so long, I feared—well, never mind. But Lord Burke asked to take youdriving. On the ground.”
“We did drive—to Parliament Hill, where the balloon was.”
“Parliament Hill?” Evangeline blanched. “All the way out of town?”
“Mm-hm.” Joan nodded with a bright smile, trying to maintain the illusion that the outing had been utterly normal, completely respectable, and unworthy of further comment. She hadn’t really thought about her aunt’s reaction when Tristan urged her to give it a go. Somehow she hadn’t thought about Evangeline, or Mother or Papa, at all. “You ought to try it. I’m sure Sir Richard would accompany you, if you asked.”
Her aunt’s mouth closed with a snap. “Sir Richard is a grown man. If he wants to allow himself to get blown away in a balloon, that is his choice.”
“We couldn’t get blown away,” Joan tried to say. “There were men holding the ropes.”
“And if those ropes had broken, where would you be?” exclaimed her aunt. “Still drifting over England, I expect! Or worse. I remember a balloonist who fell to his death when his balloon deflated suddenly. What would I have told your parents?”
Joan bit her lip. “That I was a grown woman able to choose my own fate?”
