Chapter Six #2
FOR THE SECOND MORNING in a row, Carina waved her father off with Lord Durward.
Papa had been self-consciously sober and clearly very tired when he had come home last night, and he had fallen into bed almost immediately after dinner.
If he wasn’t exactly cheerful in the morning, he at least got up in time and went. Carina was happy with that.
As she went about the mundane business of her morning, she began to look forward to seeing Durward again, not with silly expectations or self-righteous outrage but with understanding.
The man was a flirt. A rake. It was his nature, and just for a moment, he had forgotten that Carina was his friend.
That was what had confused him, had made him draw back.
If she was angry with either of them it was with herself for being silly and wanting what she could not have. Yet again, he had looked after her.
He would not, could not, stay. Unless his duelling opponent recovered, an outcome for which she prayed for both their sakes. But she would happily bask in what time she had with him. Because she rather thought she loved him. Foolishly, deliriously, even knowing that it was hopeless.
So, she sang as she washed the dishes and cleaned the house, living for the day, and yet surrounded by hope, for him and for her father.
It was after midday when a knock sounded at the door.
Her heartbeat quickened and she felt a blush rise to her face.
Surely it would be Durward—Travis—calling to take her for a drive or a stroll.
.. She wished she had changed her old gown.
She checked quickly that her hair was not escaping its pins and hoped there were no dust smudges on her nose.
She opened the door, the beginnings of a smile already tugging at her lips.
Not Durward. Lady Mansel.
“My lady,” she managed. “What an unexpected pleasure. Please come in... May I take your pelisse?”
“No, I can’t stop,” Lady Mansel said regally.
Of course not. The surprise was to be summoned in person. Carina led her into the parlour, where Lady Mansel looked about her and sniffed. Carina found herself glad she had just cleaned it, so that even if the room was faded and a little bare, it was spotless.
Lady Mansel sat before she was invited, perching on Papa’s favourite chair with her back rigidly straight.
“Is there something I can help you with?” Carina asked. She really did not want to go to Mansel Manor again, but beggars could not be choosers.
“Not today. In fact, I have come to help you before it is too late. I saw you yesterday.”
“You did?”
“With Lord Durward. In his curricle.”
Carina felt her face begin to burn and willed the flush to rise no further. “Oh?” she said carelessly. “I’m sorry. I did not see you. His lordship kindly brought me home from the market.”
“So I believe. My dear child, you have been seen in his company several times. I am aware you have no mama and no friend to advise you on the ways of the world so as your employer I feel it my duty to warn you.”
“Warn me of what?” Carina asked stiffly.
“Durward. I realize you probably misunderstood my intention to entertain my friends with his doings, but my dear for a young woman in your position, he is poison. You have enough problems without risking what is left of your reputation by intimacy with a rakehell bound for perdition if not the hangman. He killed his man in a duel, you know.”
“Oh no! He is dead?”
Lady Mansel blinked at her. “As good as,” she said impatiently. “That is not the point. Intimacy with Durward—”
“There is no intimacy with Lord Durward,” Carina interrupted, suddenly furious.
“Of course there is not. Yet. But you are na?ve if you imagine his intentions are honourable. Rakes pursue women for one reason only and Durward is both charming and plausible.”
“He has been kind to my father, especially when he was ill!”
Lady Mansel curled her lip. “Of course he was. To make you trust him.” She rose to her feet.
“Have a care, Miss Jasper. You are not wise in the ways of his world and mine, and you have no one to protect you. He will know that. And the whole town is talking about you already. Draw back before it is too late. Apart from anything else, I could not possibly continue to employ a fallen woman. Good morning, Miss Jasper.”
Closing the door behind Lady Mansel, Carina turned and walked slowly back to the parlour, where she sank into the nearest chair.
As her bewilderment began to clear, she realized her anger with Lady Mansel’s insulting interference was due largely to the pricking of her euphoric bubble.
The woman had ruined her beautiful fantasy of unexpected love.
Carina should be grateful, only she wasn’t. She wanted that feeling back, but it wouldn’t come.
She was na?ve. She wasn’t familiar with polite society. Her only experience of rakes was discouraging Lady Mansel’s own disgusting husband, and he was nothing like Lord Durward.
Or was he?
Durward had understood that Mansel had hired the men in the alley so that he could save her and win her trust. Durward had known what he was about at the manor and followed him into the morning room. Because these tactics were familiar to Durward? Or did he just want to get to her first?
She cringed inwardly, everything in her revolting against such calculation.
And for what? So that he could locate and nurse her father?
It was a lot of trouble to go to. He had even missed his ship.
.. Though it would be a mistake to imagine he had missed it deliberately for the sake of her own beaux yeux.
She had been so lost in falling in love that she hadn’t truly considered things from his point of view.
That he sought her out was not necessarily because he liked her.
Yet she could not believe he was behaving like the unspeakable Sir Hugh.
There was too much kindness in him, behind the banter, and she could not help believing it was beneath him to use the tragedy of his duel just to ruin a young woman of no account.
She was of account to him. She remembered yet again that moment he had almost kissed her and then drew back—not for lack of the desire, for she had seen that hunger in his eyes, in the heat of his quickened breath.
To a rake, surely, a kiss was nothing, a mere step, and yet it was a line he would not cross.
Was she just looking desperately for reasons to believe in him?
No. She did believe in him, in his goodness and kindness.
But at the same time, she would do well to heed Lady Mansel’s warning to some degree.
The man was not in love with her, and he was fleeing from the law.
She could not cross that invisible line either.
So it was as well he had not come today.
She needed time to draw back from her silly fantasy of love, for there could be no happy ending.
“PUT ON YOUR CLOAK AND bonnet,” Papa said cheerfully, breezing past her into the house. “We’re going sailing!”
She caught no whiff of alcohol from him. “No work today?”
“Just the one job, but I have two for tomorrow. Ran into young Durward on the way home, and we hatched the sailing plan. He’s bringing a meal, I’m bringing you.”
And just like that, the tarnish Lady Mansel had left on her feelings for Durward vanished, and they shone once more.
There was no time to change her dress, for Papa was eager to be off.
They met Durward at the Queen Marie’s modest berth. He carried a hamper big enough to feed a large family, and in the business of getting it and themselves aboard, she managed not to look at him until she was used to his presence again.
Papa was brisk, issuing instructions and fiddling with ropes and sails before he untied from the berth and jumped aboard again.
The weather was fine and warm, with just enough breeze to keep them cool. Once clear of the harbour areas, Papa stood on the deck gazing toward the horizon.
“I think he misses his old voyaging days,” Durward murmured.
Carina, unsure if that was a good thing or a bad one—no one would be eager just yet to entrust a ship to a man who had been sober a mere few days—nodded and turned her head to look at him. “I know what you’re doing, and I’m grateful.”
He turned his gaze on her, his expression lightly humorous. “What am I doing?”
“Distracting him from the bottle,” she said frankly. “Giving him alternatives that he enjoys.”
“Well, I’m enjoying this alternative, so it pleases us both. All, I hope.”
She swallowed, then said in a rush, “Lady Mansel came to see me today.”
He frowned at once. “She isn’t blaming you for her husband’s pursuit, is she?”
“Oh no, I don’t think she’s even aware of it. She came to warn me about you.”
“Sound advice. What in particular?”
“Apparently we have been seen together, and you are such a rake that I am in danger of ruin.”
She expected him to be angry or at least insulted, but he only shrugged. “She has a point. We should both be aware of it. That’s why it has to be said.”
“What has to be said?”
“That I would never hurt you in that way. Or in any other. But I have that reputation for a reason. I am a shocking hedonist and impulsive to boot.”
She didn’t want to think of the pleasures he’d pursued with other women, so she blurted. “You duel on impulse?”
He shrugged, looking out to sea again. “Pretty much. It’s my temper.”
“And then you won’t back down? Even when you’re in the wrong?”
“If I was in the wrong, I would delope.”
She knew that deloping meant firing in the air, by which means a duellist could apologise without leaving himself open to accusations of cowardice. “Have you ever done such a thing?”
“No.”
“Then you are always right? How many duels have you fought?”
“Too many. And yes, I am usually in the right. But the right is trivial and not worth killing for.”
“But it’s worth dying for?”
“I’m not dead.”
She sat forward suddenly, leaning around, and caught the breath-taking bleakness in his eyes just before it vanished into a smile.
“Rejoice,” he said.
I do. God, I do. But that was the bigger mystery. Why didn’t he?