Page 3 of The Pirate Lord
The tapping of his fingers on his knee showed how uncomfortable her depth of emotion made him. “I miss your mother, too, you know. She treated me like a son at a time when I was cynical about being mothered.”
Sara had always sensed there was something peculiar about Jordan’s relationship to his own mother, who’d died only a year before her mother had married his father. But Jordan and his father had always refused to speak of the first Lady Blackmore in any depth, and Sara had never pressed them.
“And I honor her zeal for reform,” Jordan added.
“So did your father.”
“True, but even Father would have been against this. He would have said you should stay here and?—”
“Feed the poor? Make occasional visits to the prison while dodging your matchmaking efforts?” She regretted those last words when he flinched. She hadn’t wanted to upset him, not when she was leaving London in a few days.
“Matchmaking? What the devil do you mean?”
“I’m not an idiot, Jordan. I know why you insist I attend those fashionable affairs.” She leaned forward to clasp his glovedhands. “You think if you throw me at enough eligible bachelors, one will take pity on me and marry me.”
“Take pity—” He jerked his hands from hers. “How can you talk like that? You’re beautiful, intelligent, and witty. If you were to meet the right man?—”
“He doesn’t exist! Can’t you get that through your thick head?”
“You’re still punishing me for Colonel Taylor. You’re refusing all other men because I wouldn’t let you have that one.”
“Don’t be absurd. That was five years ago. And it’s not as if I couldn’t have had him if I’d wanted.” When he cast her a quizzical glance, she hesitated, torn between her pride and her need to make him understand her feelings. “I-I never told you this before, but do you remember the night you revealed all you knew to your father? The night he threatened to cut off my portion if I married the colonel?”
“How could I forget? You were furious at me.”
“Well, I sneaked out later to meet with Colonel Taylor in secret.”
“The devil you say!”
“I went to him and offered to elope.” She turned away, too mortified to meet his gaze. “He refused. It seems he was exactly the fortune-hunting scoundrel you deemed him. And I was too foolish to see it.”
She waited for him to pounce on her confession as evidence that of her rash decisions in the past. When he patted her knee kindly instead, she had to bite back tears.
“Not foolish, moppet.” His voice was husky with caring. “You were merely young. Women follow their hearts at that age, and as they say, love is blind. You couldn’t see his character as truthfully as the rest of us.”
“Oh, but Ishouldhave! Everyone else did—you, Papa, even Mama.”
“Is that why you won’t countenance other suitors? Because you think they’ll deceive you?”
She twisted a ribbon on her morning gown. “While Mama was ill, it was impossible for me to think of suitors. After she died, I … lost my nerve. I chose so badly the first time, and now I don’t know if I can distinguish fortune hunters from reliable men.”
“You can’t accuse any of my friends of wanting you for your fortune. Take St. Clair, for example. His fortune is small, but wealth has never mattered much to him. And he often comments on your beauty.”
“St. Clair would never countenance my work. He wants a mistress of the manor, not a reformer.” She added in a teasing tone, “Besides, he likes salmon, and I simply can’t abide a man who likes salmon.”
“Be serious. Plenty of men would suit you perfectly.”
She twisted the ribbon tighter. “Not as many as you’d think. Men beneath my station are attracted by my fortune, and men above my station need not saddle themselves with a wife who’ll plague their friends about reform.”
“Then find someone in the middle.”
“There’s no such creature. I’m a commoner adopted by an earl, but with no lineage to speak of. I’m neither fish nor fowl. I don’t belong in your world. The only place I’m comfortable is with the Ladies’ Committee, and they have a dearth of potential suitors.”
Besides, she’d never found a man of any station with whom she could imagine spending the rest of her life. Jordan’s friends were all very nice, but they’d rather play at life than do anything useful. And none of them understood her.
“Deuce take it, Sara, if I thought it would keep you from going,I’dmarry you. We’re not blood relations. Wecouldmarry, I suppose.”
She laughed. “Isuppose?Such enthusiasm!” Knowing how he felt about marriage, she was surprised he’d even suggest it. She tried to imagine marriage to Jordan and recoiled at the thought. “It’s impossible and you know it. We may not be siblings by blood, but we’re siblings in every other way. We could certainly never consummate a marriage.”
