Page 20 of The Governess and the Rogue (Somerset Stories #6)

Chapter Seventeen

I t was half past five in the evening when their steamship from Calais finally reached Southampton.

Bea clung to Jack’s hand as they navigated the crowds on the docks.

She couldn’t recall when she’d taken hold of it?—or if he’d been the one to take hold of hers.

Reaching for each other in moments of chaos had practically become an instinct.

It was a luxury, having someone to act as a protector and guide.

Bea wouldn’t have thought she’d appreciate it.

She was too much an independent person. But the Channel crossing had been treacherous, their steamship rising and falling for hours over the churning waves.

Her legs hadn’t stopped trembling since they’d reached port.

Jack, meanwhile, appeared entirely unaffected.

He was bright-eyed and alert, and not at all unsteady.

His weight partially balanced on his cane, he guided her to a less crowded section of the docks, within sight of the cabstand.

There they stopped while Jack instructed his batman, Maberly, to fetch their luggage and to find them suitable transport.

“Yes, sir,” Maberly said. “Right away, sir.”

When the batman had gone, Jack turned to Bea. “Not long now,” he said, still holding her hand.

Not long until what? Bea was tempted to ask. Until they hired a carriage? Until he took her to a hotel? Until they said goodbye forever?

It had always been the plan. A plan Bea had willingly agreed to. But during their short time together, what a relief it had been to have someone she could lean on. Someone she could talk to on terms of equality. Someone she could smile with.

But no longer.

Bea forced herself to release her grip on Jack’s hand. If they were going to part?—

But there was no if about it. Their bargain had reached its natural conclusion. It was pointless to cling to him. Trembling knees or no, Bea must once again stand on her own.

Jack swept a concerned look over her. “All right?”

“I don’t recall the Channel being that choppy when I left England ten years ago,” she said.

“Ten years is a long time. How does it feel to be home again?”

“I don’t know,” she replied honestly. “I haven’t a home here to speak of. Not anymore.”

“You will,” Jack said. “I’ll find you a good situation, Bea. You have my word.”

Her heart withered. She didn’t know why his promise should be such cold comfort. When she’d left India, a good position was all she’d been hoping for.

But not anymore, it seemed.

All the time she’d spent in Jack’s company, pretending to belong with him and to him, had altered the modest limits of her dreams. She knew now what it was to be looked after, protected, cherished.

None of it had been real, of course. Only a pantomime sufficient to fool the other passengers. Yet in the process, some small part of it had managed to fool Bea too.

“I’m obliged to you,” she said. “But a situation isn’t the same as a home.”

“You’ll be settled at least,” Jack said. “And safe.”

Several ladies and gentlemen pushed past them, wrapped up in overcoats and cloaks, their loud voices carrying on the sea air as they bustled toward the cabstand, or to the carriages that awaited them on the street.

The docks were excessively crowded at this time of evening.

Urgency vibrated all about them—a vital, palpable thing.

Everyone was coming and going so quickly, so purposefully.

Captain Thornhill was among them. Bea saw him in the distance, making his way toward two gentlemen who were striding to greet him.

One was a slim, bespectacled fellow, and the other a blond giant of a man in a brown cloth coat.

The giant came forward to embrace the captain while the man in the spectacles looked on with a smile.

Jack followed Bea’s gaze. “Thornhill spoke truly, then,” he mused. “He did have someone coming to meet him.”

“His family, perhaps,” Bea suggested, though none of the men bore any resemblance to each other.

“Not his family. His attorney. A friend of his, I gather, along with the other fellow.” Jack gave a satisfied nod. “They’ll look after him.”

“You sound relieved.”

“I am,” he said. “It’s tedious feeling responsible for everyone.

I’ve had the devil of a time shedding the impulse after leaving the army.

” His eyes glinted with a flash of humor.

“For a while there, I feared I’d have to issue the man an invitation to join my family in Somerset.

They wouldn’t have thanked me for it, nor would Thornhill. Thank heaven he has people of his own.”

Bea’s eyes fell to her hands. It seemed that everyone had a home to return to, and friends and family to meet. Even someone as cross and curmudgeonly as Captain Thornhill.

It made her predicament that much lonelier.

She smoothed her gloves with restless fingers as the last of the steamship passengers hurried by. Time was ticking past more rapidly than she wished it to, bringing the two of them ever closer to their inevitable goodbyes.

There was no point pretending it was otherwise.

Lifting her chin, Bea forced her gaze back to his. “Is this where we have our amicable breakup?”

Jack gave her a puzzled frown. “Here on the docks?”

“We can’t very well have it in a hotel room,” she said. “Indeed, I don’t think you should accompany me to the hotel at all.”

“You’d prefer a separate carriage?” His brow furrowed. “I suppose it makes sense. Though I can’t be at ease until I see that your lodgings are respectable.”

“I’m the best judge of that. I’ve been managing my own affairs for a long while now. And it wouldn’t do for us to show up together at a hotel, even in separate carriages. I can’t afford any talk.”

His mouth quirked. “You’re not going to be difficult, are you?”

“I’m not being difficult. I’m being realistic. We had a plan and we must stick to it, for both of our sakes.”

“I mean to. But even you must admit that things haven’t gone exactly as we intended.”

Bea folded her arms, thinking of the shawl he’d given her. Thinking of their kiss, and all the small moments that had followed in its aftermath. The way he readily took her hand. The way he’d put his arm around her as she’d slept against his shoulder on the overnight train to Calais.

She swallowed the lump that was forming in her throat. “I don’t know what you mean.”

The amused expression in his eyes softened. “Don’t you, Bea?”

“Unless you’re referencing what happened that night on the deck?—”

“Among other things.”

Her stomach quivered with the threat of butterflies. She ignored the tremulous sensation as best she could. “That was days ago.”

“Five days, to be precise. I don’t take it lightly.”

“Nor do I. Which is nothing to the point. Unless…”

His attention sharpened. “Unless what?”

Bea summoned her courage. If this was the last time she was to see him, she may as well leave all her cards on the table. She’d never get another chance. She took a deep breath. “Unless you mean to make your proposal in earnest,” she said.

Jack froze, staring at her. The color drained from his face, leaving him peculiarly pale beneath his tan.

It was answer enough.

The unspoken rejection travelled through her, putting an end to her butterflies and her blushes. There were no more flutterings, no more warmth, only a growing coldness at her core.

This, then, was reality. The way Jack truly felt about her. She wasn’t entirely surprised by it. Even so…

Good lord. Did he have to look so horrified by the prospect of her being his real fiancée instead of his false one?

“Obviously you don’t,” she said tersely. “As I’m well aware. I was merely attempting to make a point. You needn’t gawp at me in horror as though you’d just seen a ghost.”

Jack’s stark gaze found hers. She realized then, much to her astonishment, that he hadn’t been looking at her at all. Rather, he’d been staring at something over her shoulder. “Not a ghost,” he said. “My oldest brother.”

* * *

Jack swallowed hard as his eyes once again found James on the opposite end of the dock. It was undoubtedly him. There was no mistaking that towering height, that golden Beresford hair, and that glacial expression, unthawed by the passage of time.

It had been more than three years since Jack’s last visit home, but James looked no different now than he had then.

Clad in an impeccably cut black three-piece suit, he stood beside his wife, Hannah.

She was an undisputed beauty, with a mass of upswept dark auburn hair and a face distinguished by the gentleness of its expression.

Bloody blasted hell.

“How the devil did they know—” Jack began.

But in that exact moment James’s icy gaze found his.

Jack’s stomach sank. There would be no extricating himself now. He forced himself to smile at his brother.

James returned the wordless greeting with a slight smile of his own.

“Your oldest brother?” Bea repeated in dismay. “The Viscount St. Clare?”

“That’s the one,” Jack said.

“Shall I away?” she asked. “I can go straight to the hotel or?—”

“It’s too late for that,” Jack said.

James was already making his way toward them, with Hannah on his arm. The crowd seemed to part for him, as though in tacit acknowledgment of the authority he wielded, both as heir to the earldom and as a gentleman to be reckoned with in his own right.

“The hero returns,” James said as he and his wife approached. They came to a halt in front of Jack and Bea. “And with a cane, no less.”

“A temporary necessity after my surgery,” Jack replied.

James looked Jack over with a rare show of brotherly concern. “It was a success?”

“So, I’m told,” Jack said. “How did you know?—”

“That you’d be arriving today?” Hannah embraced Jack. “We received a wire yesterday informing us of your travel plans—and of your engagement.” Withdrawing from him, she turned to Bea with a warm smile. “You must be Miss Layton.”

To her credit, Bea didn’t bat an eye. Neither did she speak.

Jack maintained his smile through sheer strength of will. “Someone has spoiled my surprise.”

“Then it’s true?” James’s attention settled on Bea.

Bea stood ramrod straight under his regard.

Steeling herself, very probably. This was, after all, the moment Jack must disabuse his relations of their misapprehension.

He must tell them either that Bea was not in fact his fiancé, or that she had been so during the voyage, but was no longer.

Either way, their relationship would shortly be severed.

Bea would go to her hotel and Jack would go with his family, and that would be an end to it.

Simple enough.

But when Jack opened his mouth to do so, the words wouldn’t come.

At least, not those words.

“Bea, may I present my brother James, Lord St. Clare, and his wife Hannah, Lady St. Clare,” he heard himself say. “James, Hannah, this is Miss Beatrice Layton, my fiancée.”

Hannah beamed. “Then, it is true.” She extended her gloved hands to Bea. “How pleased I am to meet you, Miss Layton.”

Bea hesitated for a fraction of a second before taking Hannah’s hands in return. “And I you, my lady.”

“Hannah, please,” Hannah said. “And may I call you Beatrice? Or do you prefer Bea?”

“Either will suffice,” Bea said.

James offered Bea a bow. “Miss Layton.”

Bea inclined her head to him. “My lord.”

Before either of them could utter another word, Maberly materialized with Jack’s and Bea’s luggage on a hand cart. He wasn’t unacquainted with Jack’s family, having accompanied Jack home on leave multiple times during his years serving as Jack’s batman.

“Your luggage, Colonel Beresford,” he said, perspiration dotting his brow. “And Miss Layton’s. Where shall I?—”

“You may load it onto my carriage, Maberly,” James said. “It’s by the cab stand. My footman will assist you.”

“Yes, my lord.” Maberly bobbed his head before obediently haring off with the bags.

Jack’s fingers tightened on the handle of his cane. “Who sent the wire?” he asked his brother.

“A Mrs. Rawson,” James said. “She claims an acquaintance with me.”

“Mrs. Rawson, of course.” Jack might have known.

“She was concerned about you traveling home in comfort,” James said. “And about Miss Layton being properly chaperoned.”

“Not to worry on either count,” Hannah said. “We have brought our traveling coach. And I am here to ensure Miss Layton isn’t without female companionship.” She addressed Bea. “You must be dreadfully tired after traveling all through the night.”

“I am,” Bea admitted. “But you needn’t put yourself to any trouble on my account.”

“Nonsense.” Hannah slipped her arm through Bea’s. “You are soon to be my sister-in-law. You must allow me to take care of you.”

Jack exchanged a weighted glance with Bea as Hannah drew her toward the waiting carriage. The single look seemed to contain an entire conversation.

“Why on earth didn’t you tell them the truth?” she asked with her eyes.

“It’s complicated,” he answered back silently. “My brother wouldn’t understand.”

“What about our amicable breakup?”

“Later.”

“And my reference?”

“You’ll have your reference. I gave you my word and I mean to keep it. I just require a bit of time.”

Jack had never communicated so much with another person in his life. Not without words. Not in a single scorching look.

But things with Bea had always been different, hadn’t they? She hadn’t chased him. Hadn’t wanted him. She had, he was fairly certain, at one time thought he might be insane.

Given their current predicament, Jack wouldn’t be at all surprised if she was reconsidering that diagnosis.

“Where did you meet her?” James asked.

Jack turned his attention to his brother. Despite all these years, James still had the ability to make him feel like a feckless boy of eighteen. “On the voyage home from India.”

“Rather hasty on your part.”

“Not at all. We were many weeks at sea.”

“Precisely my point,” James said. “It’s hardly enough time to get to know a person. Not sufficient for marriage.”

“No?”

“And she’s not altogether your type, is she?”

Jack fixed his brother with a warning glare. “What is my type, James?”

James returned Jack’s gaze, undaunted. “You used to prefer them rather less quiet in their allurements.”

Quiet?

Jack was tempted to laugh.

Beatrice Layton was anything but quiet.

She walked ahead of them, arm and arm with Hannah, her spine straight and her slim shoulders squared—unbent, unbroken—despite everything life had thrown at her. Despite what Jack had thrown at her.

Admiration rose in his breast. It was coupled with an unmistakable warmth.

“Perhaps I’ve grown up,” he said.