A Fine Gentleman Page 10

He turned the uncomfortable feeling into frustration and continued his interrogation. “Perhaps now would be a good time for you to explain just why you felt the need to deceive me so entirely,” Jason suggested, though no one hearing him would mistake his words for anything resembling a request.

  Mariposa certainly didn’t. “I needed your help,” she said with a quiet desperation. “But I couldn’t—There was too much . . .” She shook her head, her forehead creasing, her eyes closing. “I am determined not to lie, Mr. Jonquil, as I told you before, but I simply cannot tell you the truth.”

  “You don’t trust me?” Jason asked, the possibility more disconcerting than he would have guessed.

  “I don’t trust anyone,” she whispered. “La confianza es la primera víctima de la guerra.”

  “I am afraid my Spanish does not extend beyond the most basic of greetings,” Jason reminded her.

  But she just shook her head again, unwilling, it seemed, to translate.

  Jason let out a whoosh of frustrated air. He was growing more confused by the moment. Mrs. Aritza had offered very little information beyond her granddaughter looking for her family and not, as he had previously been told, a solicitor. What he did not know was just why finding them had warranted this mad dash from Town or why she cloaked herself and her search in such secrecy.

  “I shall see if there is a hired hack available to return you to your grandmother.” He turned to walk back to the inn, but Mariposa’s hand shot out, taking hold of his arm.

  “I must continue my journey,” she insisted, her look implacable.

  Jason raised an eyebrow, but she did not seem the least unnerved by his look of reprimand. So he allowed his gaze to shift to her would-be attacker, hunched on the ground, clutching his bleeding nose. Mariposa paled slightly, but her determined stance did not waver.

  “I must continue,” she said.

  “Why?”

  She hesitated only a moment. “I have to find my family. I made a promise.”

  “You intend to get back on that mail coach? Court the danger that would nag at your heels? Take such a monumental risk?” His voice rose with each question. She was mad! She must have windmills in her head, dust in her attic, cobwebs in her brain box.

  “I have to find my family.”

  “You are repeating yourself, Mariposa,” Jason pointed out dryly.

  Then it happened. Her lips slid into a bright smile, her deep-brown eyes twinkling, the lines of worry around her eyes easing. Everything about her expression rang with sincerity.

  “I shouldn’t have said that to you so often.” She sounded near to laughing. “But you do have the most diverting tendency to repeat things. Especially when you are caught unawares.”

  Jason had never seen a smile quite like hers before. The beauty of it, the glowing sincerity and pure joy of it momentarily knocked the wind from his lungs. She was enchanting.

  She was also far too tempting to rogues like her former traveling companion. If she continued on unprotected, she would find herself in desperate circumstances, he had no doubt. He wasn’t entirely sure he hadn’t pushed her into this ridiculous plan by threatening to prevent her from receiving aid from any other quarter.

  “You are determined?” he asked.

  She nodded decisively.

  Blast! He couldn’t simply leave her to fate and the dangers of an unforgiving world. If I ever hear you have mistreated a female . . . As a gentleman, he was honor bound to assist her. They would need a great deal of ingenuity to manage the business without tarnishing either of their reputations. Even more than that, he would have to lie rather extensively. He sighed. “It is a very good thing you are an accomplished actress. That is one skill we are going to need.”

  “We?” she asked, obviously bewildered.

  “Stanley is not the only principled gentleman in my family, Mariposa.” He took determined hold of her hand and marched her back to the front of the inn. The post would be departing soon. “No gentleman of honor would abandon a gently bred female to the cruelty of the world, regardless of whether or not she had placed herself in that position.”

  “Everyone else did.” Her voice was hardly loud enough to be heard.

  Jason ignored the pang of compassion that stirred in him. He was helping her only out of a sense of duty and responsibility. Her history was irrelevant.

  “Step up,” he instructed once they had reached the coach. “I believe there is an empty seat for me.” He smiled, picturing the cad they’d left behind in the stable yard.

  An older woman with a careworn face but kind eyes looked at Mariposa with something akin to relief. Mariposa smiled back at her.

  “You have found your—” The poor unknown woman seemed at a loss to identify Jason.

  He took a deep breath. Only one course of action would keep them both inconspicuous during their trek north. They must pretend to be poor, unimportant, and something else far more uncomfortable.

  He finished the woman’s sentence with as much conviction as he could muster and with what he hoped was a convincing lower-class accent. “Her husband.”

  Mariposa—when had he begun thinking of her by her given name?—allowed the smallest of startled gasps, but when Jason looked down at her, she had diverted her eyes in a look of utter bashfulness. Jason fought down an amused smile. For once, he was not on the receiving end of her trickery; he was benefiting from it.

  “Oh, lands, ain’t that just wonderful,” their traveling companion declared. “Mary seems such a dear, sweet thing. And that bounder—” Her eyes darkened with suppressed anger. “I’d been prayin’ for hours someone’d be at the next stop to protect her.”

  “So had I,” Mariposa said.

  Though Jason knew her capable of deception, he believed her. It was an odd feeling, being the answer to someone’s prayers. He doubted it had ever happened to him before.

  The mail coach jerked as it began the next leg of its journey.

  “Seems that bounder didn’t return in time,” Jason observed, smiling conspiratorially at the woman who sat across from Mariposa and him.

  “Good riddance, I say,” another man dressed in the garb of a vicar said, lifting his nose momentarily from a book. “I’m right glad to see your wife has caught up with you at last.”

  Jason nodded.

  “It is a sore trial to be separated from the person one loves.” The older woman nodded her understanding and gave Jason and Mariposa such a look of fond approval he could almost hear her sighing. “Mary seems far more at ease with you here.”

  A wonderfully awful idea entered his brain, and holding back a chuckle of ironic satisfaction, Jason addressed their talkative traveling companion. “Mary is such a shy, quiet sort o’ girl. I doubt you’ll hear more than a few words out o’ her this entire journey.”

  He felt Mariposa stiffen beside him. His words had essentially made her continued silence necessary for their ruse. That would grate, he’d wager. But, oh, how he had earned the right to ruffle her just a little.

  An imp of mischief pushed him on, one he’d been ignoring for years in favor of—how had Mater phrased it?—the appearance of impeccable respectability. She had also declared him a dab hand at imaginative acting. Perhaps it was time to dust off that particular talent.

  In an aside to the woman, he said, “Though she’s my dear wife, I confess she ain’t terribly bright.”

  “She is female,” the vicar replied with a dismissive shrug.

  That would rankle. Jason very nearly grinned. He didn’t dare look at Mariposa lest he laugh out loud. She deserved this bit of turnaround, so help him. Not a soul who knew him would witness this lark; he need not worry about its impact on his reputation. He could simply enjoy being a little absurd.

  “But I daresay she has a good heart,” the older woman said, still looking at them both as fondly as if they were her own children. />
  “Oh, the very best,” Jason acknowledged. “So you must forgive ’er if she’s rather too quiet and if, when she does summon the courage to speak, she repeats ’erself.” He tapped his temple with his index finger in a gesture meant to communicate she was missing a brick or two.

  A sudden, unexpected pinch on his arm very nearly brought a startled yelp to his lips. Jason caught himself in time and covered her assault with his own smooth words.

  “Of course, dear,” Jason said, gazing at Mariposa with feigned adoration and using a tone that clearly indicated that he thought she had made a request with her pinch. He raised his arm and settled it snuggly around her, pulling her up against his side. He hoped she would be as uncomfortable with this arrangement as he had been facing down the accusatory glances of his colleagues weeks earlier and the insatiable curiosity of his family. Giving her back a little of her own proved far more enjoyable than he would have anticipated.

  Mariposa untied and slipped off her bonnet, then she stretched enough to speak almost directly into his ear. “You are telling a lot of plumpers for someone who lectures about honesty,” she said sotto voce.

  “Turnaround is fair play, dear,” he answered just as softly.

  The older woman sighed. “Young love. So refreshing, Mr.—”

  “Jones,” Jason blurted the first thing that came to mind.

  “I am Mrs. Brown,” their companion answered with a friendly smile.

  “Pleasure.” Jason inclined his head. “And you ’ave my gratitude for looking out for my wife. She does wander about at times if she ain’t looked after.”

  He nearly laughed out loud when he felt a jab in his ribs. Lud, when was the last time he’d been so entirely entertained? Likely not since the knife-boy episode.

  He glanced at Mariposa, fully expecting indignation and flashing fire in her eyes. To his surprise, she appeared to be desperately holding back laughter.

  He grinned down at her. As if to prove that he knew nothing about women, Mariposa’s laughter died on the instant and tears sprang immediately to her eyes. Yet through her tears, she continued to smile.

  “What has upset you so suddenly?” he asked warily.

  But she merely shook her head before laying it silently against his shoulder.

  A sigh made its way across the coach. Theirs was apparently a convincing performance. That was, Jason insisted to himself, the reason he settled his arm more snugly around Mariposa as she leaned against his side.

  It was relief, he further told himself, that made their relative positions so pleasant—that and the fact that she smelled far better than any person had a right to after an entire day in a closed-in mail coach. He certainly wasn’t complaining over the view of her fascinating head of hair. It was unusually thick and, he would wager, silky as well.

  He was once again fighting a smile for which he had no explanation. Unbidden to his mind came words Mrs. Aritza had said as Jason had escorted her to Lampton House: “Mariposa means butterfly. She was once light and happy. War made our young women old and hard. It injured their souls. I wish to see her fly again.”

  The little speech offered in halting English had seemed odd at the time. Now, sitting with Mariposa all but in his arms, Jason couldn’t help agreeing with Abuela. He had seen the tiniest hint of happiness in Mariposa’s eyes. It couldn’t have been more obvious that she was meant to be joyous.

  “Jonquils save people,” Father had once said only partly in jest. “It’s what we do. We can’t help ourselves.”

  Jason had never managed that. He had never been anyone’s hero or rescuing knight. He wasn’t the earl, able to impact lives simply by existing. Nor was he a father as Layton was. Or a soldier or vicar. He was simply Jason. But he had only moments earlier come to Mariposa’s aid. It was a feeling he could quickly grow accustomed to.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The sight of Jason Jonquil’s long-awaited smile brought tears to Mariposa’s eyes. His pensive aura had always felt forced and unnatural, but she had only ever seen the briefest hints of the lighthearted man she was certain lay beneath his tense exterior. How she’d longed to see him look happy.

  It was almost enough for her to forgive him both for making a lack of intelligence and near silence an integral part of her role over the remainder of the journey and for indulging in an entire chain of lies after having scolded her so thoroughly for precisely that.

  She’d been hard-pressed not to laugh out loud as he’d turned the tables on her. The rogue. Two could play at that game. If she was truly fortunate, she might even coax that elusive laugh out of him. If she could bring laughter to her irascible butler after all he had seen and experienced, surely she could manage as much for Jason.

  She lifted her head ever so slightly and glanced up at him, keeping her expression vacuous and her tone simplistic. “You smell like turnips,” she observed quietly but just loudly enough for the other occupants to hear her comment.

  Jason’s head slowly turned in her direction, surprise registering on his face.

  “Mmmm,” she added, holding fast to the role of clueless simpleton.

  He must have seen the devilry in her eyes. His own expression slipped into one of patient adoration. “You ’ave always liked turnips,” he replied, patting her shoulder, then resting his hand there. To Mrs. Brown, he explained, “She never had a doll as a child but came to enjoy the company of turnips. And radishes. She is very fond of vegetables, though it took many years for her to not cry when they were chopped up to be eaten.”

  Mariposa dug her knuckle into his ribs once more, biting on her lips to prevent a rare giggle. She laughed, chuckled at times, but she never giggled. Jason did little more than shift his position in response to her jab.

  “How did the two of you meet?” Mrs. Brown asked. She regarded them as if they were the most romantic of couples. She had no reason to doubt their story, though Mariposa wondered if it was entirely fair of them to be so untruthful.

  Jason looked down at Mariposa with an anticipatory expression. After not only taking her to task for lying but also declaring her a nearly mute, empty-headed nincompoop, she was not going to rescue him from his own hole.

  She lowered her eyes in her most bashful expression, even pressing her hands to her cheeks as if covering a blush.

  “Such a shy little thing,” Mrs. Brown said.

  Jason leaned closer and whispered in her ear, “Minx.” But his tone was full of amusement.

  “Do tell her the story, honeycomb,” Mariposa smiled lovingly up at him.

  “Honeycomb?” Jason mouthed.

  Mariposa’s look of featherheaded innocence didn’t slip for an instant.

  “Oh, now isn’t that just precious,” Mrs. Brown declared. “Do tell your tale, Mr. Jones.”

  Mariposa could see the wheels turning in Jason’s mind as he desperately created a courtship story. She fought down a grin.

  He proved more imaginative than expected.

  “I first saw my Mary sitting in a mud puddle clutching an armful of filthy turnips. When I asked her why she was sitting there with those vegetables, she told me she was saving their lives. She cried an’ cried as she pressed ’em to her cheek. And I said to myself, now that’s a girl with a big heart—not too bright but a big heart. She couldn’t bear to see a defenseless turnip suffer.”

  “Ah,” Mrs. Brown nodded. “So you met as little uns.”

  “No,” Jason corrected. “Just this year.”

  Mariposa had to bury her face in his jacket to hide her laughter. He’d described her as a full-grown woman crying over turnips. Their fellow travelers must think her completely daft.

  “How does the girl feel about potatoes?” the vicar asked as if more than a little concerned about her state of mind.

  “Can’t bring herself to eat ’em, poor thing.” Jason’s shoulders rose and fell in an exaggerated sigh.


  Mariposa bit down on her lips to hold back a grin. She had assumed he possessed some degree of humor underneath his starched-up exterior. She hadn’t expected such an entertaining degree of mischief.

  The arm he had draped across her shoulders slid slightly lower, very nearly into an embrace. Nothing could be more natural than to lean more fully against him. All across Spain and into France, she had been the one to offer reassurance. She had borne the weight of survival for all of her family, despite being little more than a child. No one had ever come to her aid when life was threatening and exhausting. But Jason, whom she was certain had never so much as liked her, had come to find her. He’d offered his aid and his support, and he was helping her still.

  She felt him shift and lifted her face. He grinned down at her. Jason had a beautiful smile—masculine but beautiful just the same.

  “Should I tell them any more stories, Mary?” Jason whispered, raising his eyebrow in obvious challenge.

  She didn’t answer. She was the mute, didn’t he remember that? But she did smile back. And he didn’t look away.

  “Mr. Jones, I am so glad you took care o’ that bounder,” Mrs. Brown said. “He was fair tormentin’ our little Mary.”

  “Was he tormenting you?” Jason asked her, his tone gentle and understanding.

  The reality of what had very nearly happened washed over her. She felt her composure slip to a quiver and had to fight back the emotion that surfaced.

  “Tears?” Jason looked genuinely concerned.

  “I’ve had a difficult day,” she whispered in reply.

  “You have a few hours before the next stop.” He lowered his voice too. “Try to rest.”

  “When I awake, you won’t be gone?” How pathetic and desperate she sounded. She shifted, uncomfortable at having revealed so much.

  Jason shrugged. “The coach is moving too fast for me to jump out.”

  She allowed a small show of amusement. He shifted beside her, and Mariposa found her head had little choice but to rest against him.

  She’d spent years surviving on her own, not trusting a single soul. But there she sat, with a gentleman she had known only a matter of weeks, if one did not count Stanley’s confidences regarding his brother, and she felt unexpectedly safe and protected.