This man—
Sabine did not answer, and she wouldn’t answer. She wouldn’t look at him, or make excuses, or thank him, despite the fact that he deserved her gratitude. And she certainly would not marry him. The advertisement had been her friends’ mad scheme. Sabine had gone along because she’d never thought it would come to anything.
She turned and began to weave through the furniture to the parlor door.
“Is there somewhere we can go?” he called after her. “To speak?”
Sabine picked up speed. She darted through the door, bustling down the corridor.
Bustling? No, she wasfleeing,and Sabine never fled. Her face burned with fresh shame. Was it not enough to suffer the humiliation of being beaten by a tyrant uncle and released from captivity in her own home? Must she also be chased?
“I’d like to speak with you,” Jon Stoker called, striding behind her. “About the advert.”
Sabine missed a step but kept moving.
The advert, the advert. Sabine swore in her head.
Her friend Willow had proposed the advertisement on a day like today, when Sabine harbored a broken rib and her future with Sir Dryden had seemed like certain death. Sabine had acquiesced, and now someone named Jon Stoker was here, witnessing one of the greatest humiliations of her life, and unbelievably, she did not hate him. Yet.
“I am interested in the advertised... arrangement?” Jon Stoker said from behind her. It came out like a question. “The offer is still on, I presume?”
Sabine stopped short and grabbed the wall to keep from pitching forward.
She glanced over her shoulder at the tall, dark man. She thought,He must be as desperate as I am.
Jon Stoker asked, “You are captive to this man? He is your father?”
If ever there was a statement to draw her out, it was this. “Absolutely not,” she said. “Sir Dryden is my uncle.”
“Where is your father?”
“Dead. Six months. Sir Dryden is his elder brother. His less accomplished, avaricious, cruel, and petty elder brother.”
“Your father’s will stipulated that control should go to this brother?”
“There was no proper will. My father died unexpectedly. His heart seized up, they say.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yes. We are all very sorry.”
“How many family members remain here?”
“My mother, myself, a handful of devoted servants who refuse to leave us. However, Sir Dryden’s rages are reserved only for me.”
“For how long?”
Now Sabine paused. She was not in the habit of answering personal questions from strange men. As a rule, she did not answer personal questions from anyone or speak to strange men at all. But Jon Stoker was so incredibly matter-of-fact, so level. She could not have tolerated hysteria or bluster. Sabine thrived on calm, and Jon Stoker appeared the very soul of calmness.
And, best of all, he didn’t ask why.
Whydid he lock you in the cupboard?
What did you doto invite a blackened eye or a bloody lip?
He did not ask.
The answer was, she’d refused to serve Dryden’s cream tea. He’d proclaimed that a proper lady should serve the master of her house, and she’d said,Pour your own bloody tea. And off they went. To blows. To the cupboard.
