Page 12 of Sinful Persuasion of a Lady in the Making
I must help her!
He stepped around the tree, thinking to grab the unfriendly man over the balustrade, thus disarming him long enough for Miss Jones to escape. It would take him too long to run all the way back around and through the gap in the wall to reach him. Who knows what he could have done by then.
But as he stepped into the circle of light, he heard the thwack. Miss Jones’ hand connected hard with the unpleasant man’s face, and he staggered backwards, hand to his cheek and growling in both pain and humiliation.
Sebastian froze on his spot, unbelieving.
That is no damsel in distress.
Sebastian didn’t need to save her, for she had saved herself, and he was in awe of her, as he stood there watching her, the whimpering man cowering almost unseen between them.
He had never before seen a lady behave in such a brazen but independent and fierce way. And he was shocked, yes, but he couldn’t deny that it made him all the more intrigued. As he gaped at the scene, Miss Jones slipped from the clutches of the hideous man, and ran to the other side of the terrace.
* * *
Jenny’s hand stung from the slap as she ran away from Lord Frederick, frightened but enraged.
He howled in shock and pain, and Jenny ran to the other side of the terrace—not daring to go in and face the other guests, but not knowing where else to go.
Hopefully the slap will have been warning enough.
And then, miraculously, out of the trees, emerged a gentleman. At first, Jenny didn’t have a chance to look at him, let alone recognize him. He grabbed Lord Frederick by his back collar and dragged him back to the door into the ballroom.
“I think it’s best you remove yourself from this vicinity,” he snarled, the larger, older man shaking in his grip. “And don’t come back.”
“But she—”
He shook him again, full of rage and certainty.
“Go! Do you understand me?”
The brute nodded furiously and then, wriggling out of the gentleman’s grip, he ran through the ballroom.
Good riddance. I hope he never comes back.
“Are you all right?”
The voice was soft and caring, gentle in the way that Luke was always gentle when he spoke to the horses. Jenny, folded into a corner as small as she could make herself, looked up, wary but willing.
“Yes,” she said, her voice weak.
It’s him.
As he stepped closer to her, she saw that it was the man she had spotted earlier on, the one she had been so drawn to. She froze, half way to straightening up and with her mouth open, an animal caught but curious. He stood in front of her, arms raised as thought trying to catch a wild horse, and she wondered at how skittish she really was.
“I…” she tried. But she couldn’t utter another word, another sound, so overwhelmed she was by what had happened to her.
The world of gentlemen and nobles is nothing but a monster’s world.
“All right,” he said, somehow even softer, and she whimpered under his gaze, so gentle, so kind. He inched forward. “It’s all right.”
With his last word, she fell into the emotion she had been pushing back, and she broke down into tears.
“Oh, dear,” he said. “You’re not all right, are you?”
“I’m sorry,” she sputtered between her sobs. “It’s just—”
The lord took a final step toward her and turned to half lean, half perch on the balustrade next to her. Jenny’s heart fluttered—that he had saved her, that he hadn’t run away immediately. That he sat next to her and seemed to want to spend time with her without any other intention. That she could feel his body so close to hers.
