“His loss and your gain,” Evie said dismissively as she twisted the braid into a bun and secured it with pins. “It is not as if he is titled, or even exceedingly wealthy. You can do far better. There. All finished.”
“Thank you.” Wincing, Joanna stood up. Now that her anger was beginning to subside, her aches and pains from being thrown to the ground were starting to catch up to her.
In like a lion, out like a lamb, was how their father used to describe his eldest daughter’s temper. While Evie could brood for hours (sometimes even days) when riled, Joanna rarely stayed mad for more than five minutes. It was both a blessing and a curse, for anger allowed her to ignore her emotions. Releasing it forced her to confront them. And she wasn’t ready to accept Kincaid was capable of treating her with such callousness. Because it meant she was wrong. It meant she’d been wrong all along.
There wasn’t anything between them.
There’d never been anything between them.
And shewasjust his secretary.
“Are you all right?” Evie asked when Joanna limped to the old wooden dresser they were both forced to share. Evie had claimed the vast majority of space, but Joanna had managed to retain the top drawer. In it, she kept an extra pair of gloves, stockings with the heels rubbed bare, a handkerchief painstakingly embroidered with her initials (the patience and attention to detail sewing required had always proven to be a challenge), a vial of perfume, two spare buttons, and a bar of chocolate wrapped in wax paper that she’d brought with her all the way across the Atlantic.
“Yes,” she replied as she snapped off a tiny piece of chocolate and popped it in her mouth. It was deliciously sweet, with undertones of black cherry. Precisely the treat she needed to help restore her spirits. “Only a tad sore.”
If she were home, she would have drawn a hot bath. But as they were only allotted a certain amount of water per day courtesy of Mrs. Privet’s draconian rules (and none of it was particularly hot), she would have to make do with some mild stretching and rainwater.
She was leaning down to touch the scuffed toes of her leather ankle boots when there was a loud, staccato knock at the door.
“Is rent due again already?” she asked Evie, who shook her head.
“Not for another three days. It’s probably Mrs. Benedict.” But when Evie opened the door, it wasn’t their kindly neighbor standing on the other side of it.
“Hello,” came Kincaid’s deep, somber voice. “You must be Miss Thorncroft’s sister.”
Her heart in her throat, Joanna jerked upright.
“And you must be Kincaid,” Evie said with all the warmth of a snowstorm in the middle of February. “Come to check on Joanna after you abandoned her in the street, have we?”
Kincaid’s piercing stare shot past Evie and landed squarely on Joanna. Behind the clear lenses of his spectacles, his eyes were as dark as coffee and, above them, his brows were drawn together in a taut line. “Are you all right?”
Why did everyone keep asking her that?
She’d taken a tumble, not fallen off a bridge.
And the pain she felt in her body was nothing compared to the aching in her heart.
“I am fine.” She pursed her lips. “Not thatyoucare.”
“I do care, Miss Thorncroft,” he said roughly. “I care too damned much.”
Evie’s gaze darted between them. “If you need me, I’ll be, ah, down the hall.”
Off she dashed, leaving Joanna and Kincaid to stare at each other across the room.
“What do you really want?” she asked. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to make sure you made it back.”
She wrapped her arms around herself. “You mean after you stormed off and left me.”
“Yes, I…” His Adam’s apple bobbed in a hard swallow. “I have no excuse, Miss Thorncroft. No reason to do what I did. It was wrong, and I apologize. If I could go back and change my behavior, I would have escorted you to the boarding house as any gentleman should.”
Her eyebrow lifted. “You’re no gentleman, Thomas Kincaid.”
The hint of a smile broke the severe line of his mouth. “Not around you, at any rate.”
“Is that a compliment or a complaint?” she said coyly.
