Chapter 31 #2
A horrible, hot dread filled him. Did she feel she had to? Had he pushed her to this despite leaving the final decision in her hands?
“I will marry you. But just now, I wish to be alone.” Without waiting for a response, Julia turned on her heel, her back stiff and her chin high. She’d disappeared into the house before any of them spoke.
Jennings stuck out his hand, his easy grin back on his face.
Could he not see how little Julia wanted the engagement?
He looked like a man who’d just won a small fortune.
When Henry did not take the offered hand, Jennings let it drop, but his smile remained.
“I will write to my man in London and have him start the wedding contracts.”
Henry did not trust himself to speak when all he wished to do was rail at the man for treating his sister’s reputation so carelessly. To rail at himself for allowing this to happen. But he was honor bound to say one thing, even still.
“Julia has no dowry.”
Jennings waved him off. “I hardly care. I’m rich enough for the both of us.”
That was a knife to the gut.
“I hope you are rich enough to win Julia’s respect, not just her agreement,” Henry ground out.
“That will be easy enough.” Without a proper farewell, Jennings traced Julia’s path into the house.
Henry’s anger rose with each step the man took. How dare he treat Julia so flippantly. How dare he grin like that when he’d just taken Julia’s future from her! Henry should have called the man out instead and taken Carruthers up on his offer of being his second.
“What just happened?” Alice asked, shock coloring her voice.
Henry ran his hands through his hair. “I do not even know. He was kissing her, Alice. And guests and servants saw, and then . . . then . . . ”
“Julia said she would marry him,” she finished.
He jerked his chin up and down, confirming it. “Did I do this? Did I push her to think that she had to marry the man despite how he was treating her? Is this my fault?”
“No, no, she made her own decision. You cannot take that on.”
Henry felt nearly crazed and had to put energy into motion.
He paced to the maze, and Alice kept step with him.
He should tell her everything. She would not feel so generous toward him if she knew of his debts.
Of his real reason for being here. But selfishly, he held back.
The bubble he’d allowed himself to live in for weeks now, falling for Alice and thinking he could save himself and Julia from ruin, popped.
He hated himself. Hated what he’d become. And Alice would too. He was sure of it.
“What do you know of him?” he asked. He forced out the words, made them run over the ones that confessed how terrible a person he, Henry, was. “I feel I know hardly anything. Only where he lives, what his title is.”
“Not a great deal, I admit. He was not a personal acquaintance of mine, but of my husband’s. I thought you knew him?”
Henry reeled back. “I’ve never met the man.”
Her brows raised. “It was my mother who recommended you . . . but Lord Jennings told me the first night that he was glad you and your sister were here. He had long wanted to improve his acquaintance with you.”
Henry froze. His heart continued pounding. What? Henry would swear he’d never met the man. Heard his name in circles maybe, but nothing more. No acquaintance to improve upon.
It hardly signified.
“What else?” he asked desperately. Was he seeking a reason to like Jennings or a reason to break the engagement? He hadn’t a clue.
She watched him closely. “Well, he is in his thirty-third year. His mother is evidently overbearing . . . He enjoys hunting.”
“I feel as if he’s hunted Julia down, and I was too busy to notice. Gads, but I’ve failed her, Alice. I have failed my last relative.”
Her hand, light and warm, suddenly snaked around his wrist, entwining her fingers with his and pulling him to a stop between the walls of the hedgerows. “Breathe, Henry,” she coaxed.
His eyes locked on hers, steadying him. He pulled a ragged breath in. Then another.
“We will learn what we can of Lord Jennings to ensure he is worthy of your sister.”
He clung to her calm certainty like a lifeline in a storm. “I need to speak with him, during a time he cannot just weasel away. Cards or something of the like. Where we can have a prolonged conversation.”
“Yes. Perfect.”
He pulled in another breath. “And her. I have to ensure she knows she need not marry him. I . . . I need to do that, at least.”
“That is good,” she said, her hand still holding his.
“You are incredible, you know that?” he asked Alice, peering down into her face. Prolonging the inevitable. He knew what he had to do.
Hated himself even more for it.
She shook her head a little, eyes turned from his. “Hardly.”
He wished he could hold her and make her see his sincerity.
But he’d already blurred too many lines on his stay here.
He had treated this woman abominably, not informing her of his real reasons for attending her party.
Not informing her of his past. He cared for her in spades.
Gads but he was falling for Alice Seymour, and he had to stop himself before it was too late.
Because he was doing the same thing to her that he’d done to Julia. He was putting her in danger because of an association with him. Physically and emotionally.
“I mean it. You are the most amazing woman I have ever met, Mrs. Seymour.”
Her eyes darted up at that. At the formal use of her name.
“And because of that, I have to be honest with you. I have to tell you the truth.” It was the only way to get her to stay away from him. If their relationship were severed, the note-sender might leave her be.
She released his hand, hers falling against her skirt. Wariness had entered her expression, and he hated to see it.
But this was long overdue. He’d known from the beginning that time with Mrs. Seymour was dangerous, and yet he’d fallen anyway.
It was a mistake. He could not drag another innocent soul into the pit of failure that was Henry Ainsley.
And he would not allow the Gentleman Pirate to take another loved one.
It was time to cut her free.
“What?” she asked, her voice hushed, her eyes flicking between both of his.
He swallowed, balling his hands and forcing them to relax.
“I am more at fault with Julia than you understand. I made it clear to her that I wished her married.”
Her head shook a little. Side to side. “Many a man desires his female relatives to be married.”
And there she was, trying to absolve him even still. He had to be clear. As clear as he could without telling her of the Gentleman Pirate. There were too many unknowns there, and he would not embroil her in the potentially dangerous scheme.
“No. I need her married. I cannot afford her any longer.”
“I’d never have expected you to be so mercenary about your own sister, in truth, but I am sure if you spoke to her she would curb her spending habits.”
Henry guffawed. So loud it blanketed the flowering hedges around them but so hollow it hardly sounded like a laugh at all.
“That is not what I mean. I mean once I return to London I am apt to be thrown in debtor’s prison for fleeing my responsibility to a high-ranking lord.
I needed her taken care of because I cannot do it any longer. ”
Alice stilled. He saw the flit of emotions across her face before she shuttered them. “I did not know it was so terrible.”
“Good. Then my facade has been working.” He gave a weak smile.
She didn’t return it.
He swallowed, jaw tense. “I thought I could fix it all, but I am hardly any closer. And now this.” A groan escaped him, product of nervous energy filling him with no outlet.
His hands flexed again. “I am sorry, I hate to tell you all of this.” He hated to watch her withdraw from him. She’d even taken a small step away.
“I am glad you are.” But the words were flat. Emotionless.
“I should have told you before now. Before . . . before I kissed you.”
“Yes. You should have.”
Gads but this hurt. Like a heavy load on his chest, being laid brick by brick, the pile growing higher though he was already past the point of suffocation. Of a sudden, the weight became too much to bear. He couldn’t stand here watching the woman he cared for lose all respect for him.
“So now you are aware,” he said, hoping for a lighter tone. “You know I am ineligible both as a brother and a suitor. I am sorry; more than I can say. I will leave you now, so that . . . ” So she could solidify her ill opinion of him, certainly.
He couldn’t look at her. As the final brick fell upon his chest, he broke away, head down. “I am so sorry,” he muttered again, then strode for the house, any vestiges of gentlemanly honor gone as he abandoned her in the garden.