“Baron Ross.” She didn’t try to disguise the bitterness.
“Yes—the bankrupt son of a wastrel father, but yes, Baron Ross.”
“Were you a major?”
“Yes. I always told you the truth. I just didn’t tell you all of it. I was a better major than I will ever be a baron.”
The carriage stopped with a jolt, and hands flung open the doors. Casa Beaumont. Servants in livery looked on in anticipation, ready to help Nora climb down. He moved to the door first. As one foot struck the pavement, a glimpse of bouncing black curls in the window caught his eye. Isabella.
Jamie couldn’t let himself be caught in the web of family yet. Unless Nora wanted him, all of him, with the entire truth out in the open, he couldn’t stay. He had to leave before his little princess caught him.
Nora took his hand and stepped out of the carriage. He leaned over and kissed her hand, savoring the lavender scent of her.
“Signor Salvia comes tomorrow at one to finish up the guardianship business. I will join you then, if you wish it. We will settle things.” He prayed she would say yes.
“Of course, yes. But what things?” she asked.
The carriage pulled away before she could demand an answer. Jamie watched her until they pulled around the corner out of sightand turned toward the river, back to another dreary little room in Trastevere.
He wondered if he had lost her and thought it likely. No matter the outcome, she had given him life. He wouldn’t throw that gift away. He would live on with half his soul, but he wouldn’t throw it away.
Tomorrow he would lay the entire truth at her feet, and he would know.
Where the devil is he?He said he would come.Nora detested waiting. One detail haunted her; he said he wrote to her.One more mischief to lay at Archie Campbell’s feet?
She tossed her needlework aside and paced to the foyer.
And ‘things.He said we needed to settle things.What does the infuriating man mean by ‘things?’
She paced back to fidget in the drawing room. She encircled the courtyard and back to the tiled entrance. Staring at the door didn’t help. She turned away.
A knock at the massive front door came at five past one. She slid into the foyer to see Wat Jones admit Signor Salvia. Her eyes flew past him to Jamie who followed right behind and handed his hat to Wat with a wink. If Salvia thought Jamie’s arrival odd, he didn’t say.
Jamie took her arm with exaggerated formality, and she let herself be led to her little office. Salvia droned on. Papers appeared, and she signed them. Words were exchanged. She heard none of it. Her mind swirled over and over with one question: what did Jamie need to “settle?” She knew it didn’t involve Salvia.
Jamie took her hand and kissed it with exaggerated care, one eye on Signor Salvia, before suggesting she wait for him in the courtyard. The wretch took his time seeing the man out. Nora reached a boiling point just before he stepped out into the sun.
Sun gave Jamie’s hair a golden glow. She noticed for thefirst time how his fashionable new cut flattered the lean lines of his face. The air of health and peace looked new also, new and yet fitting. Only his eyes showed concern, an old wariness creeping in.
“What are these ‘things’ we need to settle?” she demanded.
“You asked yesterday who I am,” he said, moving her to a bench beneath the bougainvillea. “Most of it you know.”
“You’re a major.”
“Was. A wild hell-for-nothing cavalry major who by rights should have died in the Peninsula, if not at least at Waterloo.”
“After that a baron?”
“After that a care for nothing. I especially cared nothing for the barony. My father—” he paused, and she let him choose his words “—cared nothing at all for his estate, his responsibility, his family. He died drunk in a gambling hell.”
“You aren’t like him,” she state emphatically.
He laughed bitterly. “I wanted to think so. When he died, I had been drifting, living on the charity of friends.”
“The Duke of Sudbury?” she guessed.
“Yes, and Andrew and others. Left with a mother and sister to care for, an estate to rescue, I had an opportunity to redeem myself,” he told her.
