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“Why not?” Jack believed she enjoyed the annual gathering, though he’d usually been too busy celebrating and making merry to notice whether Aubriella did or didn’t. Guilt kicked him in the ribs.
She licked her lower lip and, after casting a swift glance toward her mother, leaned toward him. Once more, her fragrance tickled his senses.
“You know I’m hopeless at those sorts of gatherings, Jack. I stick out like a lame goose among graceful swans. I never know what to say or do and inevitably embarrass myself.”
Trying not to appear too smug because she’d addressed him by his given name and because she’d confided in him, Jack gave the back of her hand a fleeting, comforting touch even as his ribs cramped with compassion.
He hated how she disparaged herself.
“What if I promise to stay by your side the entire time?” The words formed of their own volition before passing through his mind. Now he’d have to make sure he attended.
“Surely, not the entire time.” Mirth twinkled in Aubriella’s eyes. She rarely indulged in witticisms, but he took her meaning.
“Yes. Quite,” Jack agreed with an answering upward sweep of his mouth.
A servant interrupted to refill their wine glasses, and Jack continued once the footman had stepped away. “I meant that I shan’t leave you alone during any planned events or public gatherings. You can depend on me to help you through every situation.”
Wonder and suspicion shadowed her mesmerizing hazel eyes. “Why would you do that?”
Why, indeed?
“Because that’s what friends do.” Jack had never had female friends, so he wasn’t certain that was entirely true.
Oh, he flirted and bantered incessantly.
What harm was there in making a woman feel pretty or appreciated?
He’d even pried an ardent female or several off his person, but the truth was, Jack was a virgin. A wholly unpopular state amongst his randy peers and a secret no one but his brother knew, and he meant to keep it that way.
A small furrow appeared on Aubriella’s forehead as she skated her glance over his face.
Laughter rang out from the head of the table, momentarily gaining Jack’s attention.
“Friends.” She murmured the word as if she had tasted something foreign for the first time. “You and me…friends.”
“Is that such a hard prospect to consider?” he asked.
Once more, servants collected their plates, forcing him to wait as they placed the wild game and meats on the pristine linen. Across the table, Robyn Fitzlloyd caught his eye and raised a hawkish eyebrow in silent question when he swung his focus to Danforth.
Ah, he also wondered why the bounder dined with them.
Hopefully, Danforth wouldn’t attend the house party. His presence was as unwelcome as maggots and would surely put a damper on the festivities as well as put every woman under sixty at risk of ruin.
“It won’t inconvenience you?” Aubriella’s softly spoken question brought Jack back to the present. “Keep you from other more exciting and invigorating—ah—activities?”
Jack almost choked on his mouthful.
Surely she didn’t imply…?
He raised his shoulder an inch in response. “No, it’s not an inconvenience.”
Jack’s pulse accelerated at the prospect of spending amiable time with Aubriella without conflict, barbed and cutting ripostes, and darkling looks. It would also spare him the unwanted and unsolicited attention of devious vixens such as Francine Willoughby and her ilk.
“I should count it a great honor, Aubrie.” Giving her a naughty grin, he wiggled his eyebrows. “Imagine the tongue wagging it will cause. The speculation.”
As he’d expected, Aubriella rolled her eyes ceilingward and bent her full mouth into a droll smile. “I don’t relish being the object of gossip, and you shouldn’t either, though I’m certain you’re quite accustomed to it.”
Jack canted his head. There was an unspoken message in her words, but bugger him if he had any idea what it was. “I try to refrain from activities that give chinwags fuel for fodder.”
