Page 67 of My Deceitful Duchess
“I never asked you to!”
“You neverhadto ask, I—” With some effort, he seemed to wrangle control of himself once more, lowering his voice. “Jenny, it was difficult enough when it was onlyyouto consider. I won’t even speak if you would prefer my silence—only please let me accompany you.”
Perhaps she didnotowe him her consideration in this regard, but for just a moment she recalled the strain upon his face when first he had begun walking with her—when he had learned where she went and why. She had not considered it as much a risk as he, but she imagined that she, too, might have felt similarly helpless, in his situation. But she caught herself before she was given too much toward sympathy—shehadfelt helpless. For weeks, in jail. Where he had placed her.
“I suppose,” she said tartly, “you could always simply have me jailed again. Then you would need not worry what I might be doing in your absence.”
And then a sliver of regret slipped beneath her skin, because despite the fact that he had claimed not to have any shame—hedid. It lay smoothly across the surface of his cheeks with a burning flush, and it lived at the corners of his dark eyes, which he swiftly averted. “I know I have not behaved well,” he said. “But I do learn from my mistakes. I will not make the same one twice.” And then, “I’ll walk three paces behind you, if you like.”
Charlie nudged at her hand with a little whimper, as if he sensed the tension between them, and gazed up at her with worshipful dark eyes. She had missed him; her ragged little mutt, with his overzealous affection and his persistently-ruffled coat too coarse to be elegant, but distinguished somehow nonetheless.
He would be hers, too. If she married Sebastian. Another little piece of the life she might’ve had—the one she had always wanted. A happiness ruined before it had even truly begun. And just now, at this moment, it had never seemed further from her reach.Shehad never felt further from it. Perhaps it, too, had been ruined for her entirely.
Like it had spilled from her hands to be trampled beneath careless feet. Perhaps she could lose the taste for it just as easily as she had the profiteroles she had once loved.
Chapter Thirty One
Sebastian had never been particularly skilled at reading emotions on faces. There was a whole language that people had invented to convey meaning without words, and it was one of subtlety and nuance that he had never mastered. But just now—Jenny wasdesolated. It wasn’t so much that he could read it on her face, because she had turned toward Charlie at her side, and she was still largely in shadow.
But he could see it in the slope of her neck. In the slump of her shoulders, as if the weight of the world pressed down upon them. In the soft sigh of her breath, full of resignation. As if she had lost something precious.
More than anything else, he wanted to reach out to her. But though he had given it to her, her burden was not one he could now carry for her. He had never imagined himself here, standing on the pavement past midnight, bargaining with a woman to let him be close to her however she could tolerate it—but he would have signed away his soul to the very devil only for a chance.
“Please,” he said, and his voice rasped with it.
A reluctant nod at last. She gave him wide berth as she moved around him, and though Sebastian patted his thigh, Charlie remained stuck to her side as if he had been sewn there. A minute passed in silence, with only the click of Charlie’s nails to mark it. He trailed along in her wake, keeping to his end of the bargain as best he could. He owed her that much, at least. And more, besides.
“I would appreciate it,” she said at last, though he had expected nothing at all of her, “if you did not send your mother to manipulate me.”
He nearly stumbled in his surprise. “Mymother?” And then he paused as she turned, keeping his distance when she stopped entirely.
“Only a coward hides behind his mother’s skirts,” she said, her voice rife with scorn.
“I did not send my mother to you. Iwould nothave sent my mother to you.” He jammed his hands into his pockets. “Did she offend in some way?”
Her eyes searched his face. For truth? “No,” she admitted. “She was lovely. Kinder than I deserved.”
“You deserve every kindness.” Perhaps she had thought it an empty platitude, for she turned back around and began walking once more. “She must have liked you,” he said, tentatively.
“What makes you think that?”
“If she hadn’t, she’d have told me at once, and I would have learned of her visit before now. Mum has gotopinions. She does not often keep them to herself.” He nudged a loose stone with the toe of his boot. “But she didn’t come round to tell me—so shedidlike you.” This did not garner a response, and so he kept his silence once more…but it pleased him that Mum had liked her. And that Jenny had liked Mum in return.
Another minute, perhaps two—he could see Louisa up ahead, tucked into the dubious shelter of her alleyway. And Jenny had, too, by the way she increased her pace, hurrying toward her.
“Hello, Louisa,” she said, stuffing her hand into her pocket. “I’m so sorry to have been away so long. I imagine I owe you quite a bit.”
“Naw,” Louisa said, with a huff, nodding toward Sebastian. “Your gennelman took care o’ it already. Good ter see you, though, at last, ma’am. Been too long, it has.”
“Took care of it?” Jenny had gone very still, but her eyes darted toward him, as if she could not help herself.
Louisa gave a dry laugh. “While you was in the clink. Done you a bad turn, he did. ‘Course he oughter have paid for it.” She stretched out her hand to receive the coin that Jenny laid into it. “You might just let ‘im keep at it, mind. Save a bit o’ coin.”
“I shall keep that in mind.” It was just a low murmur, and then Jenny was off again, and Sebastian had to jog a little to catch up with her, grateful at least that Charlie had stayed closely to her side.
“How often?” she asked, a strange catch in her voice, though she did not turn or look back. “How often did you do it?”
“Every Saturday. Same as you.” A little over two months. He’d learned the route when he’d walked it with her, learned who he ought to be looking out for and where they might be found.
