Page 18 of The Governess and the Rogue (Somerset Stories #6)

Chapter Sixteen

“I ’m not changing my mind,” Jack said the moment they were safely ensconced in their compartment. He and Bea were alone, with Maberly having been relegated to a lower-class carriage along with the servants of the other first-class passengers.

“I’m aware,” Bea said.

Jack set his cane down against the seat beside him.

He was feeling a trifle gray around the gills.

Too much time on that dratted ship, he suspected.

And too much time spent putting weight on his leg since they’d arrived in Marseilles.

He was meant to exercise it, not push it past the bounds of all bearing. His knee and calf were throbbing.

It hadn’t helped that he’d stood on the platform for far too long trying to talk sense into Captain Thornhill.

A useless proposition.

Thornhill had rejected all Jack’s offers of assistance.

He’d also rather rudely declined Jack’s invitation to join him and Bea in their compartment.

The man was unrelentingly stubborn about maintaining his solitude.

He had a private compartment of his own, a valet to see to his needs, and a hired groom looking after his horse.

It was more than sufficient, or so he claimed.

Jack had been loath to believe him. He knew only too well how traumatic injuries could color one’s perspective. The idea of any soldier suffering as Thornhill likely was didn’t sit well with Jack. His mood wasn’t very congenial as a result.

Then again, it hadn’t been congenial since he’d kissed Bea that night on the deck.

Jack regarded her with a brooding frown.

He’d originally thought that time and distance would put their relationship back on a steady footing.

Instead, he’d hour-by-hour found himself watching her when she wasn’t aware of it, trying to puzzle out what she was thinking about their arrangement. About him.

All these days later, he was none the wiser. His little governess was a vault when she chose to be. He was rather impressed by her self-possession, even as it nettled him.

“You don’t want to stop in Paris, do you?” he asked.

Bea settled in her seat next to him. “What would be the purpose? Lest you forget, I haven’t actually got a trousseau to purchase.”

Jack’s frown deepened. “No. I suppose not.”

She arranged the folds of her full skirts. “Who was that gentleman you were speaking with on the platform?”

“Thornhill? What about him?”

“Mrs. Rawson said he was a prisoner during the rebellion. That he’d been tortured.”

“He was,” Jack said. “I asked him to join us. I thought he might benefit from our company.”

To her credit, Bea didn’t look appalled by the idea. “I wasn’t aware you knew any of the other soldiers on board.”

“I don’t. Thornhill and I first met when we boarded the ship in Alexandria. He’s kept to himself since then. I’ve tried to draw him out, with no success.”

“You feel sorry for him.”

“It’s not pity,” Jack said. “It’s empathy. When one is hurt, one often turns inward. It’s not the wisest course.”

“Perhaps he simply prefers his own company,” Bea said. “Many people do.”

Jack wondered if she was one of them. “There are other things to buy in Paris besides a trousseau,” he said.

Her hands stilled for a moment as she finished smoothing her skirts. “I don’t doubt it. But stopping for a pleasure jaunt was never part of our plan. You said from the beginning that we’d be traveling straight through.”

“So I did,” Jack acknowledged. “Speaking of our plan…”

She turned to him fully, catching the note of hesitation in his voice. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

Except that he was going to have to leave her in Southampton, unchaperoned, without a maid or companion to see to her safety.

The plan had seemed reasonable enough when he’d first proposed it. Governesses and women of the servant class frequently traveled alone when taking up positions in new towns. There was nothing out of the ordinary in it.

Even so…

“When we reach Southampton, you must allow me to choose the hotel that you’ll stay in,” he said.

“Does it matter?” she asked.

“I want you somewhere safe and respectable, where no harm will come to you, not at some coaching inn filled with dissolute sailors and rabble.”

“I’m not unaccustomed to rabble.”

“Nevertheless,” Jack said. “You will do as I say and remain in your room until you hear from me.”

He had no sooner uttered the words, than he suppressed a wince.

Good Lord. He sounded rather horrifyingly like his brother, James. Just as top lofty and insufferable.

“Shall I, indeed?” Bea questioned in a peculiarly neutral tone.

Jack didn’t like the sound of it any better than he’d liked the sound of his own words. He didn’t let it stop him. “The instant I have your reference, and the direction of somewhere you might find suitable employment, I’ll send it to you express.”

“You won’t deliver it yourself?”

“It would take too long,” he said.

And it would be too painful. Saying goodbye to her. Knowing their mutual scheme had officially come to an end. That he’d likely never see her again.

Jack wasn’t sure he could do it.

Not to mention his leg would hardly be up to the challenge after having just travelled all the way from Southampton to Somerset.

“I see.” Bea folded her hands in her lap.

A resigned look came over her. It was gone as quickly as it came, replaced by an expression of implacable resolve.

“Well, I expect I shall be safe enough in an English hotel, providing I keep my door locked and don’t take my meals in the public dining room. ”

Jack’s brows lowered. The prospect of leaving her alone in such an establishment was becoming less and less appealing. “Perhaps Mrs. Rawson can be convinced to relinquish Pearl to us?”

“And further embroil her in our deception?” Bea scoffed. “No thank you. I’ve risked her reputation quite enough. Henceforth, I shall risk only mine.” She lifted her traveling valise onto her lap. “I only wonder if it was worth it.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed. “For yourself?”

“For both of us,” she said. “Now it’s nearly over, how much good did it really do to have me as your protector on the Pera?”

Jack set a hand on the curved handle of his cane. He was tempted to answer her question with a jest, or perhaps with only his silence. But he and Bea were past the point of prevarication. “Do you see this cane?”

“What about it?” she asked.

Jack lifted it for her perusal. “I know many injured men who can walk without one, albeit with great difficulty. But I’ve just had surgery.

Without this , I can’t walk at all. What do you imagine would have happened if Mrs. Farraday had stolen it while I was preoccupied reading in some remote nook on the ship, or while I was dozing in the sunshine on the deck? ”

Bea’s lips parted in astonishment at the suggestion. “Surely she wouldn’t?—”

“Oh, but she would,” Jack assured her. “And then, when I was trapped, unable to remove myself from a potentially sticky situation, who do you imagine might have appeared in the seat beside me, in some isolated place, where our very presence alone together would be sufficient to constitute a compromising situation?”

Bea stared at him. “Not Miss Farraday?”

“Exactly Miss Farraday,” Jack said unequivocally.

Bea shook her head. “But she’s never behaved in a mercenary manner. Not to you. Not so far as I’ve seen. Indeed, she’s never seemed to have a genuine interest in you at all.”

“Oh, I don’t say that she likes me of her own accord.

I’m not that vain. But she’s young and obedient, and she’s been brought up by her mother to do whatever’s necessary to achieve their ends.

If her mother told her to join me in a darkened ship’s saloon, you can bet Miss Farraday would do it, and she wouldn’t lose a second. ”

The look of disbelief in Bea’s eyes faded. “Until today, I’d have said that Miss Faraday wasn’t of the same mind as her mother. But the way she spoke to me on the platform… There was something in her tone that put me on my guard. It made me fear I’d misjudged her.”

“Her mother had doubtless pressured her to persuade us to stop with them in Paris,” Jack said. “Told her it was their last chance or some such rot.”

Bea searched his face. “Is it true that she and her daughter pursued you to Cairo when you went there to have your surgery?”

“She did,” Jack said somberly. “I heard about it after the fact.”

It had been enough to send a chill down his spine. It was one thing to be hunted so relentlessly when he had the capacity to outmaneuver his pursuers, and quite another when he was drugged and helpless.

“How did you manage?—”

“Pure luck. She couldn’t find the correct hospital. By the time she did, I had already gone. But I knew I’d encounter her again on the steamer out of Alexandria. I had two choices, either wait for the next ship, or employ evasive maneuvers.”

“A false name,” Bea said.

“For a start.”

“Self-imposed confinement to your quarters.”

“That too.”

She gave him an arch look. “A fake fiancée.”

His mouth hitched. “A stroke of genius on my part, I must say.”

“But not part of your original plan?”

“God no. It never occurred to me at all until I met you.” He paused. “And yes, to answer your question. It was worth it.”

* * *

Bea wasn’t unaccustomed to lengthy journeys. During all her years in India, and throughout her various positions as governess, she had traversed the length and breadth of the continent by carriage, train, dak cart, and palanquin. A rail journey from Marseilles to Calais was nothing in comparison.

Except for the fact that she was making the journey in company with Jack.

They were seated side-by-side, close enough that her wool skirts billowed over one of his legs and her arm intermittently brushed against his.