“Your clothes won’t be dry yet.”
“No, but they won’t get any wetter at this point either, and the last thing I’d want is for Edward to come looking for me and find me here like this with you. He doesn’t deserve that.”
“I know.”
Jack’s words settled heavily on her shoulders. He would not thwart the rules of Society for her, would not stand up to his parents and tell them he would marry her no matter what. It was what she ought to expect, yet it still crushed her heart and numbed her soul. “I’ll get dressed then and be on my way.”
Jack wanted to howl at the injustice of it all. He wanted to drive his fist into something hard until his knuckles bled. Because focusing on that pain would be so much easier than dealing with the shredded remains of his heart.
She was gone.
Without a trace.
He glanced around at the shed’s sparse interior where his clothes still hung to dry. It was almost as if she’d never been there at all – as if their glorious kiss had never happened. Only the fire still burning in the stove served as proof of her recent presence. She’d lit that while he’d seen to Star.
Lord help him, he was an idiot of the worst kind. Instead of correcting the misplaced assumption she’d made about him saying mistress rather than wife, he’d let her think the worst.
Why?
Why hadn’t he told her of his father’s threat or that he’d worked to release himself from it? Why hadn’t he let her know that he was now free to marry the woman of his own choosing?
Because of Edward and because it was simpler. Because breaking off an engagement had consequences. To promise her the moon and the stars when he’d no idea if he could provide them would be unfair. Better then to let her hate him a little longer while he tried to figure things out.
Feeling drained, he forced himself into action. Star would need to be cared for and Jack himself would require a large glass of brandy after what he’d just been through. So he grabbed his still-damp shirt and flung it over his head. A shudder raked through him as cold linen met his warm skin. He moved closer to the stove and put the rest of his clothes on there, then snuffed the flames, removing all lingering evidence of this afternoon’s secret encounter.
“What on earth happened to you?” Felicity asked when he traipsed through the foyer more than one hour later after making sure Star would be cared for by competent stable hands. His boots squelched with every step he took. “Did you fall into the river?”
“No,” Jack grumbled. He walked straight past her and started up the stairs.
“I trust you’ll dry off and return downstairs so you can help entertain our guests?”
“They’re here to see you, not me,” he told her over his shoulder without breaking his stride. Reaching the landing, he took a sharp turn, reached his bedchamber, and disappeared inside. All he wanted right now was to be alone.
Of course, that was impossible with a house full of guests. Especially since the reason he’d returned to Eastgate in the first place was to help entertain them. As he discovered, playing cards and billiards with them actually helped. They were all good sports, entertaining him and his sisters with stories, quelling the ache in his chest enough for him to feel somewhat normal.
“There’s something I need to ask you,” he told Felicity the next day while Kaitlin went for a stroll in the garden with Madsen and Irving. The rest of the gentlemen who’d risen later still sat over breakfast, allowing Jack a rare opportunity to catch his sister alone.
“Yes?” Felicity angled her head with interest. They were in the music room where she’d been practicing one of her favorite pieces as she often did in the mornings.
Jack sat beside her on the bench in front of the piano. “Are you at all interested in any of these men courting you?”
Her lips parted. She blinked a few times. “What a strange question.”
“I simply wonder if there might be someone else, another man who may have caught your interest. Because if there is, I’d hate to see you settle for someone you do not care for.”
Felicity held his gaze a moment, then dipped her chin and gave her attention to the keys. She traced a few of them with her fingers. “Why would you suppose there’s anyone else?”
Unwilling to reveal Sophia’s suggestion there might be, he said, “You just don’t seem as interested in our guests as I thought you would be. Right now, three of them are in the dining room and yet you are here. Alone.”
“You know I always play in the morning.”
“I do.”
“And I am a person of habit, Jack.”
“Agreed.”
When he said nothing further, she eventually told him, “We cannot always have what we want. Can we?”
