Jack looked at Sally again. She was pale and her face was set. ‘My tiresome scruples,’ she said. ‘Yes, they have always been such a trial to you, have they not, Connie?’ Again, she met Jack’s eyes for a brief moment, but there was no triumph in her own to have been vindicated. She looked hurt and regretful, and Jack felt a sudden fury that Sally could care so much for other people when Connie clearly cared nothing at all for her sister’s feelings.
‘Well, you cannot help yourself, I suppose,’ Connie said, smiling blithely. ‘You always were prim and principled. It was fortunate that I had Bertie to conspire with instead!’
Bertie flushed bright red. ‘I say, old thing,’ he protested, ‘it was not really like that! All we did was plan to raise a bit of cash.’
Jack turned to his cousin.
‘Congratulations on a stunning piece of duplicity,’ he said icily, and watched Bertie wither beneath his contempt. ‘You have nearly driven your own father to his grave with your blackmail, leaving aside the anxiety you have both caused Miss Bowes.’
‘Only wanted enough money to get married, what,’ Bertie said plaintively. ‘Papa wouldn’t countenance it, don’t you know, so Con and I had to think of something.’
‘I’m glad to see that in the end a shortage of funds didn’t stand in the way of true love,’ Jack said bitingly.
‘Papa will probably stop my allowance now it’s happened,’ Bertie said gloomily, ‘but he can’t disinherit me because of the entail.’
‘And his health is poor—’ Connie started to say, then stopped as Bertie shot her a look and Jack realised that even Connie Bowes did not quite have the brass neck to come out with the bald statement that she was merely waiting for her father-in-law to die.
‘I do apologise,’ Sally said, turning to Charley and Stephen, who had been standing watching the exchange in fascinated horror. Jack was not sure whether she was apologising for her sister’s behaviour or Connie’s very existence.
Charley shook her head and gave Sally a squeeze of the hand, which seemed to convey sympathy and support together, then stepped forward hospitably to smooth things over, offering breakfast and to show the newcomers to their room.
‘For if you have travelled from London this morning you must have set off extremely early and be very hungry …’
‘Oh, we stayed in Oxford last night,’ Connie said airily, ‘at the Randolph, you know. Nothing but the best.’
‘She’ll ruin you within a month,’ Jack said to his cousin in an undertone.
Lady Ottoline’s querulous tones, floating from the breakfast room and demanding to know what was going on, put an end to further discussion. Connie picked up a small bag from the floor and thrust it into Sally’s arms. From inside peeped the smallest and most bad-tempered-looking dog that Jack had ever seen.
‘You are far better with dogs that I am, Sally darling,’ she said. ‘Could you take him to the kitchens and feed him? And whilst you are there, would you secure me the services of a personal maid as well? I simply cannot manage on my own.’ Her face brightened. ‘Oh! But since you are here, perhaps you could attend to me yourself?’
Jack felt his temper snap comprehensively. ‘Out of the question,’ he said. He grabbed the bag with the dog in it and handed it to the butler, who recoiled with a look of horror on his face. ‘Keep him away from the Labradors,’ Jack said. ‘They’ll think he is a rabbit.’ He took Sally’s hand in his.
‘Your sister is here as my fiancée, Mrs Basset,’ he said, ‘so you will have to make shift for yourself.’ And he pulled Sally’s hand through his arm and marched her back into the breakfast parlour, with Connie’s indignant voice rising and falling like a siren behind him.
Sally’s head was aching by the time that breakfast was over. Connie had chattered non-stop about her wedding and about how utterly marvellous it was to be Mrs Bertie Basset now. Lady Ottoline had sat in ominous silence, her sharp gaze going from Connie’s animated face to Bertie’s embarrassed one and back again. After the meal she had announced that she wished to speak with Bertie and when Connie had tried to accompany them into the drawing room had uttered the chilling words, ‘Alone, if you please!’
Connie had looked mutinous, but Charley had persuaded her to go and inspect her bedchamber instead and they had disappeared upstairs with Connie’s fluting tones floating back down to Sally as she commented on the dowdiness of Charley’s colour schemes.
‘You didn’t tell me,’ Jack said in her ear, ‘just how unlike you your sister is.’
‘Connie was not always this way,’ Sally said, sighing. ‘Before her broken love affair with John Pettifer she was a sweet girl.’ She looked at him. ‘I did try to tell you about that, Mr Kestrel, but, as I recall, you were not interested in listening.’
‘Touché,’ Jack said. ‘I think we have rather a lot to talk about, Miss Bowes.’ He gestured towards the door. ‘Shall we walk for a little?’
‘I do not wish to discuss matters with you,’ Sally said coldly. She wanted nothing more than a bit of peace and a corner in which to hide away from Connie’s presence. She supposed dully that she should be grateful to her sister, whose artless prattle had confirmed so comprehensively that all the things she had told Jack were true, but she was too heart sore and too miserable to appreciate it.
Jack tucked her hand through his arm and steered her out on to the terrace. ‘Too bad, my love,’ he drawled, ‘for I need to talk to you urgently.’
They did not speak again until they were well away from the house, across the moat and in the arboretum, where the huge pines and redwoods spread their shade and the sharp and sweet scent of the pine needles was all around them. It was warm and tranquil, but Sally did not feel very peaceful. Connie was no doubt wreaking havoc even as they spoke, Lady Ottoline would probably have a heart attack and Jack was looking so unyielding that she quailed to see it.
‘I think,’ he said mildly, ‘that you owe me an explanation.’
Sally’s overtaxed nerves snapped. ‘Oh, do you!’ she said. ‘Well, I think that you owe me an apology!’
Jack nodded. ‘That too,’ he said pleasantly. He drove both hands into the pockets of his trousers and faced her directly. Sally’s heart started to pound.
‘First,’ he said, ‘I want to know why you did not tell me that you wanted the two hundred pounds for your sister Nell. You let me think you were selling your own virtue—’
‘I let you think nothing,’ Sally interrupted. She was incensed that instead of a polite apology he was trying to blame her for his own misjudgements. ‘You chose to think that I was venal and grasping because you had already decided to believe it,’ she said. ‘I tried hard enough to tell you that you had your facts wrong, but you chose not to listen.’
Jack raked his hand through his hair. ‘But if you had told me the truth I could have helped you.’
‘You were in no mood to help,’ Sally said. ‘Have you forgotten how severely we had quarrelled, Mr Kestrel? Besides, I barely knew you. I was not going to ask for a loan from a man I had met only two days before.’
‘You knew me well enough to sleep with me when we had met only two days before,’ Jack said. His gaze was hard and narrow. ‘So instead of requesting a loan you let me think you a grasping harpy who had sold her virginity.’
Sally shrugged, trying to pretend she did not care. ‘You offered the money.’
‘So you took it.’
‘I did not think it would make a whit of difference to your opinion of me, given that it was already so low.’
Jack shook his head in exasperation. ‘What did Nell need two hundred pounds for?’
Sally turned away to hide the naked emotion in her face. She had been hurt too badly by him to want to reveal the depth of her feelings and explain how desperately she had needed to help her sister.
‘She needed food and rent and money for medicine,’ she said. ‘The fines have crippled her financially and many of her friends are in gaol so she cares for their children too. They are
all sick with a fever—’ Her voice broke and she put her hands up briefly to her face, letting them fall so she could look at him with defiant eyes. ‘That is why.’
‘So you sent the money to her directly before we left London?’ Jack asked.
‘I …’ Sally hesitated, but she knew there was no point in further prevarication. ‘Yes, I did.’
Jack cursed softly. ‘I knew it! I saw you give it to Alfred to deliver. But when I asked you and you denied it, I thought …’ he shrugged ‘… well, I assumed it was for some pressing debt.’
‘Nell’s debts were pressing. As I said, her children were sick and near starving.’
‘And once again,’ Jack said, ‘you took responsibility for helping your sisters.’
Sally did not answer. Taking care of Nell and Connie was something she had always done.
There was a silence. ‘And Connie,’ Jack said. ‘She plotted this whole elopement scheme with Bertie’s help, not yours, didn’t she?’
‘It seems so,’ Sally said. ‘I did not realise that Bertie was involved.’
‘I am sorry that I doubted you,’ Jack said.
Sally smiled bitterly. He sounded as though the words were sticking in his throat, but she knew that any sort of apology was a major concession from Jack. Perhaps in time she would be able to accept it, when her feelings were not so raw.
‘Thank you,’ she said politely.
‘The evidence about Chavenage and Pettifer seemed so strong,’ Jack continued. ‘I read the court papers.’
‘It is true that the Chavenage family tried to pay me off, but I would not accept a penny,’ Sally said. ‘Whoever gave you that information had their facts quite wrong, Mr Kestrel. As for John Pettifer, Connie loved him. You may find that hard to believe—I do myself when I see her now—but I think he was the only man she has ever truly loved. He used her very badly and when he jilted her it seemed only fair to sue him for breach of promise, to make the world see what a cad he was rather than to extract any money from him.’
‘The judge agreed with you,’ Jack said.
‘Yes. But in the end it was a hollow victory because Connie had been badly let down,’ Sally said. ‘I am sure it was then that she turned cynical towards men. She had always been flighty, but there was an innocence in her too. Now, though …’ Sally sighed ‘… she is as hard as nails.’
‘Your sister,’ Jack said grimly, ‘is the most conniving little piece it has ever been my misfortune to meet and she does not deserve your love and support.’
Sally shot him a startled look. He sounded so grim, and his mouth was set in an angry line. She supposed that his fury was no great surprise. He had maintained all along that Connie was an adventuress and now they had all seen and heard the proof of it. Connie had been out to make an advantageous match and had no respect for Bertie, who had only been the means to an ambitious end.
‘At least we are saved the trouble of travelling to Gretna,’ Sally said, sighing. ‘I might have known that we would be too late.’ She shook her head slightly. ‘It always was too late to talk sense into Connie. She always did do exactly want she wanted.’
‘And now,’ Jack said, ‘they are married—’
‘Thereby removing the necessity for us to be engaged,’ Sally said. This, she thought, was the end between them, and it had come sooner than she had thought. ‘I think I shall go back to London,’ she said. She looked at him. ‘If you would be so good as to convey me to the nearest station, Mr Kestrel? I think it is the least that you could do under the circumstances.’
Jack did not answer immediately. ‘I am not really minded to let you go so easily,’ he said.
Sally stared at him, her thoughts in a sudden spin. ‘Whatever do you mean by that?’ she demanded.
‘Exactly what I say.’ Jack sounded maddeningly arrogant. ‘I wish to keep you here at Dauntsey with me as my fiancée.’
‘Well,’ Sally said, her temper flaring abruptly again at this further display of high-handedness, ‘I do not think that you are in a position to make any further demands upon me, Mr Kestrel.’
‘I accept that you have a right to be angry with me—’ Jack conceded, but Sally did not let him finish. It felt good to let all her indignation and anger and pain at last have free rein.
‘Oh, you accept that, do you?’ she said. She put her hands on her hips. ‘You drag me here on what turns out to be a wild goose chase, you insult me by suggesting I am in league with my sister to fleece your family, you calmly announce that we are engaged, and you think I have a right to be angry with you! Well, thank you for that!’
‘I have said that the fleecing accusation was a mistake,’ Jack said. Infuriatingly, he looked amused rather than annoyed at her show of temper and Sally realised with a sudden pang that it was because he was still supremely confident, still utterly sure that he could persuade her to his point of view. She wished desperately that she were not so vulnerable to him. But she was strong too. She had no intention of succumbing to his practised charm ever again, not when it was accompanied by no deep emotion.
‘It is handsome of you to admit it,’ she said, her eyes flashing. ‘You can trust your own judgement, but you cannot trust my word! And what did your “evidence” amount to anyway? Some trumped-up report from your lawyer? You did not even give me a chance to defend myself!’
‘No,’ Jack said slowly, ‘I did not.’
Sally’s temper flickered again. She warmed to her theme. ‘You have been intolerably rude to me, you tried to break the bank at my casino, you threatened to destroy my business, you seduced me—’
‘Please, Sally …’ Jack put out a hand towards her as a nervous-looking gardener’s boy came through the trees pushing a wheelbarrow and went swiftly into reverse on hearing the word ‘seduced’.
‘And now you decide that you are not minded to let me go!’ Sally finished. ‘You are intolerable!’
‘Given the disparity in our experience, as a gentleman I must take responsibility for what has happened between us,’ Jack said. ‘Therefore you remain as my fiancée.’
‘Oh, no, I don’t!’ Sally said furiously. ‘Just because you have exonerated me of blame you do not need to take responsibility for my actions! I knew what I was doing even if—’ She stopped, embarrassed, as the heated memories swamped her mind again.
‘Even if you were a virgin,’ Jack said softly. ‘Which we both know that you were.’ He took her hand and drew her into the shelter of one of the trees. His touch was warm and insistent. She could feel her resistance to him melting and tried desperately not to weaken. He was standing close to her and she could smell the fresh scent of his cologne. She felt a little light-headed.
‘I … This …’ Sally struggled to regain her self-control. ‘This is nothing to the purpose,’ she said. ‘The point is that now Connie and Bertie are married we no longer need to pretend to be engaged and, as I said, I would like to go back to London.’
‘I cannot allow it,’ Jack said, with every appearance of regret. ‘I want you to stay here with me.’
Sally stared at him. ‘You want me to stay here? Just what is it that you are suggesting, Mr Kestrel?’
‘I am proposing marriage.’ Jack thrust his hands moodily into his pockets. ‘I dislike the idea of your silly little sister having precedence over you just because she is married and you are not.’
Despite herself, Sally laughed. ‘A lamentably bad reason for marriage, Mr Kestrel. I assure you that even if Connie insists on entering every drawing room in London before me, which no doubt she shall, I can still deal with her.’ She shook her head. ‘And I have to say that that is without a doubt the worst proposal of marriage that I have every heard.’
‘No doubt you have heard a few.’ Now Jack sounded even more bad-tempered.
‘Certainly enough to know that yours was extraordinarily inept.’
‘I suppose that Gregory Holt was more proficient?’
‘He said some very pretty things,’ Sally conceded, ‘but I still re
fused him. As I do you, Mr Kestrel. The idea is absurd.’
‘If we call off our engagement now, Aunt Ottoline will be extremely disappointed,’ Jack said.
Sally raised her brows. She found that in spite of everything, she was starting to enjoy this litany of the worst possible reasons to wed. ‘Another poor basis for marriage,’ she said. ‘I like your aunt, but I am not tying the knot with you simply to oblige her.’
‘If you go now, I will sue you for breach of contract.’
‘That,’ Sally said ruefully, ‘sounds much more like you, Mr Kestrel.’
Jack smiled at her. ‘Have you noticed,’ he said conversationally, ‘that when you are trying to keep me at arm’s length, you always call me Mr Kestrel?’
Sally’s heart skipped a beat at the intimacy of his tone. ‘You are at arm’s length,’ she said. ‘You are practically a stranger to me.’
‘Rubbish.’ Jack straightened. ‘You have met my family. You have slept with me.’
‘Yet another bad reason for marriage.’
Jack took her hand and pulled her to him. ‘Sally,’ he said, ‘we were both a little carried away these past two nights, and as a result I have a need to protect you and your reputation—’
‘Nonsense!’ Sally said. She spoke abruptly to quell the little quiver of feeling that his words aroused in her. ‘I can look after myself.’ She took a deep breath. ‘You said it yourself, Mr Kestrel. I am a widow, I was almost a divorcée, I own a nightclub, and I have a scandalous reputation already. It was one of the reasons why you—’ She stopped.
‘Why I took you to bed,’ Jack said helpfully.
The gardener’s boy, who had stuck his head around the tree again to see if the coast was clear, disappeared with a strangled squeak.
The colour flooded Sally’s face. ‘You thought me experienced,’ she whispered.
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