A Fine Gentleman Page 8

  “¿Su familia? I would not hurt your family. No. ¡Jamás!” Her pulse thrummed in her ears.

  “You, Mariposa Thornton, are a liar.” His lips curled, and his nostrils flared in disgust. “I doubt a single truthful syllable has passed your lips since first we met. I do not work with clients whose word is worth less than the soot that covers London.”

  Soot? Did he truly think so low of her?

  “And be assured,” Mr. Jonquil added, “I will take whatever steps necessary to warn my colleagues against your deceit should you choose to inflict yourself upon any of them.”

  “¿No me vas a ayudar?” Mr. Jonquil’s look of momentary confusion told Mariposa her English was slipping, a sure sign that she needed to escape before she completely fell apart. “You won’t help me?”

  “I do not feel you require my legal services any longer,” Mr. Jonquil answered, giving her a look of frigid civility. “Indeed, you would do well to consider the entire legal establishment beyond the reach of your dishonesty. Good day to you, Miss Thornton.”

  o

  Tears of mortification poured from Mariposa’s eyes as she lay in a cramped room of a roadside inn that night. She had brought her chambermaid with her on this ill-conceived journey for propriety’s sake but wished to heaven she could have been alone with her grief. Instead, she kept her face turned toward the wall and away from the cot where Jane made her bed.

  The disgust that had twisted Mr. Jonquil’s mouth as he’d declared her a liar had cut a deep and painful wound in her heart. A liar. That was all she was to him.

  In the early days after she’d led her family from their home, producing gross fabrications had been difficult. She’d struggled every time. Lies now came so very easily.

  She wiped at more tears with Mr. Jonquil’s handkerchief. In her distress, she’d forgotten to leave it with him. He would likely think she’d made off with it on purpose. What reason had she given him to think well enough of her to not assume she was a thief as well as a deceiver?

  Papá had taught her to be honest and true and trustworthy. He had taught her to value integrity above all else. She had traded her honor for food and shelter and for her family’s safety. The war had changed her, and not for the better.

  Mr. Jonquil considered her word worthless. She couldn’t help but agree with him. Her father would have found very little in her conduct of which to be proud.

  “A contract is not worth the ink with which it is written if the signers have no honor,” Papá had said when the Peace of Amiens was brokered. He didn’t feel Napoleon could be trusted. That had proven true time and again. And Papá had denounced him many times over, nearly as much for his lack of integrity as for his efforts to pull down the nations of Europe.

  Oh, Papá. Her tears picked up their pace. I am ashamed of what I have become, and I know you would be as well. But it is all I know anymore. I don’t have any idea how to change.

  Chapter Ten

  Jason walked arm in arm with Mater around the back garden at Havenworth. He would be in Nottinghamshire only another hour and meant to spend it with his beloved mother.

  “Your brother has truly made a fine life for himself here,” she said.

  “He has, indeed.”

  “Though Harold would, no doubt, wax long about the vice of conceit to hear me say as much, I am inordinately proud of Corbin.” Mater glanced back at the house. “I worried a great deal about him, about all of you boys, truth be told. Without your father here these past years—”

  Jason guided her around a puddle in their path, keeping his gaze straight ahead while Mater regained her composure.

  “I miss him, Jason.”

  He rubbed her arm with his hand. “I miss him as well. At times I can still hear his voice as clear as if he were standing next to me.”

  Mater took a slow breath. “Charlie has very few memories of him. It breaks my heart.”

  “Oh, Mater.” He slipped his arm free of hers and pulled her into a one-armed embrace.

  She leaned her head against him. “Philip has told Charlie about your father again and again, hoping to give him some idea of the man he was.”

  “Then Philip does remember him?” Jason ought not to have spoken so sneeringly, but discussions involving Philip never failed to feed his frustrations with his oldest brother.

  “You once idolized him,” Mater said. “What changed that?”

  “He did,” Jason answered. “He changed.”

  Mater motioned Jason to a stone bench set beneath the intertwined branches of two trees. “I have not failed to notice your irritation with Philip. I have simply chosen to allow the two of you to sort out your difficulties on your own. Until now.”

  He eyed her sidelong.

  “Tell me your grievance with your brother.”

  And burden Mater with the view Society had of her oldest son? “I would rather not—”

  “Jason.” He hadn’t heard that scolding tone from her since he was young. “Argue with me all you like; I have more than sufficient patience to sit here until you spill your budget.”

  “‘Spill my budget?’ Who has been teaching you Town cant?”

  “That particular phrase I learned from Charlie, though I suspect he first heard it from Philip.” Mater shook her head in apparent weariness. “There is that look of disapproval again. Talk to your mother, Jason.”

  “Father was a remarkable man.”

  “I will not argue with you on that point.”

  How would she feel about the rest of his points? He stood, unaccountably nervous yet surprisingly anxious to speak the frustrations that had weighed on him for years. “Father bore his title with dignity. He was a credit to the family name, respected by Society and his peers. Selfless. Upright.”

  Mater nodded. “Again, I agree.”

  “Philip has taken all of that, the legacy he inherited, and has rendered it a farce.” Jason paced a few steps in each direction. “The Lampton title has become a byword. He is laughed at and the family with him.”

  “You are upset with your brother because he embarrasses you?”

  “No. Because Father’s memory deserves better.”

  Mater patted the bench beside her. Jason obeyed the unspoken summons.

  “Do you know what my opinion of your father was when I was a young girl?”

  He knew his parents had spent their lives on neighboring estates, but this part of their history he had not heard.

  “I thought him arrogant, obnoxious, and an embarrassment to the neighborhood.”

  “Father?” He could not believe that.

  Mater laughed lightly. “Yes. And if he were here, he would tell you I was not entirely wrong. But he would also insist that I was not entirely correct either.” Her expression turned wistful and nostalgic. “I see a lot of him in each of you boys, but one trait you all share with him is a tendency to hide the person you truly are.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  She took his hand in hers. “You all keep yourselves tucked safely behind various masks and walls, whether it be isolation or playing the fool or”—she eyed him more pointedly—“clinging to the appearance of impeccable respectability.”

  “Respectability is not a bad thing.”

  “Being your full self is a better thing, my dear.” She patted his cheek. “Give your brother a chance to be his full self before deciding who he is. You might both be surprised by what you discover.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Miss Mariposa Thornton,” Hansen announced from the door of Jason’s office a few days after his return to Town.

  He couldn’t have been more surprised if his secretary had announced the emperor of China. Jason rose to his feet, bracing himself. How would she insult him this time? He’d had more than a week free of her exasperating company, though the reprieve had been filled with enough difficulties
to last a very long time, not the least of which was the conversation he’d had with Mater. His thoughts were in enough of a jumble without Miss Thornton adding to it.

  But the lady who entered his office was noticeably different from the one he’d last seen at Havenworth only ten days earlier. Gone was the sunny smile and eyes sparkling with mischief. No aura of confidence surrounded her. Miss Thornton looked nervous. She kept near the door as Hansen stepped out and closed it behind him.

  “What is it you want, Miss Thornton?” Jason asked sharply. “I believe I was quite clear about no longer serving as your legal council.”

  “Sí—Yes, sir.”

  The uncertainty in her voice sent off warning bells in Jason’s mind. She wasn’t looking at him. That was decidedly odd. Miss Thornton was not one for timidity and reserve.

  “I will not permit any of my colleagues to be badgered into service either,” Jason reminded her.

  “Lo sé,” she said quietly. “I did not come aquí in order to obtain new legal council, Señor Jonquil.”

  Miss Thornton’s English was slipping, very much as it had at Havenworth. “You have determined to try a different Inn of Court?”

  “No, sir,” she answered. “Estoy segura de que usted conoce—” She cut off her own words and started again. “I am certain you know a sufficient number of your colleagues to make any attempts at obtaining council a fruitless effort.”

  There was no censure in her tone, nor any self-pity. And why wouldn’t she look at him? Her eyes never rose much above her clasped hands.

  “I did not come here to regale you with my difficulties, señor,” Miss Thornton pressed on. “I neglected to leave this en la casa de su hermano,” she said, her words suddenly rushed. She stepped swiftly forward and deposited a handkerchief on his desk, the matching double Js in one corner declaring it his own. “And to . . . to apologize. I should never have lied to you. I know I treated you horriblemente and usted no se merece to be misled nor disrespected before sus colleagues, nor embarrassed before su familia. It was wrong of me. Very wrong, and I apologize. Perdóneme.”

  Perdóneme he could sort out. The rest of her lingual slips were beyond his understanding, though he felt relatively certain it was all part of a very jumbled expression of regret. He wanted to trust that she truly was sorry but couldn’t be certain. A liar could never be completely trusted.

  “Your words de censura were difficult to hear, but you were correct. About me. No estoy—I am not truthful as I should be. And I have been unkind.”

  Jason couldn’t help watching this almost heartrending apology with something akin to shock.

  “If you wish me to confess my underhandedness to your colleagues, señor, I am prepared to do so. And to . . . to your . . .” Was her chin actually quivering? “And to your family.” Her voice broke as she made the offer. “I will confess that I was unkind to you and that they would be well advised not to pay me any heed.”

  She would declare herself untrustworthy to his family as penance? That was unexpected, as were the tears clinging to her eyelashes when, for the first time since stepping into his office, Miss Thornton met his eye. The pain he saw in her expression struck him deeply. Miss Thornton’s mask had slipped. Instead of the spoiled young lady he had expected, he saw one who looked entirely defeated, as if she bore a weight far too heavy for her shoulders. There was no cynical triumph in her expression, only torment and heartbreaking humility.

  Jason was too shaken to even respond. And Miss Thornton was not done with her unexpected soliloquy.

  “Only, please . . .” One of those lingering tears slipped down her cheek. “Please don’t tell Stanley. After everything he’s done for me, after all his kindnesses, I couldn’t bear it if he despised me. Please. I—”

  Miss Thornton stopped abruptly, her face going even paler, her eyes lowering once more. Something of Jason’s surprise must have shown on his face.

  “Forgive me,” she whispered. “I have no right to beg favors.”

  This was far too much self-castigation. Something, Jason knew, was decidedly not right. His words of chastisement could not be the only source of Miss Thornton’s obvious pain; he had not been that harsh.

  How did Stanley, of all people, factor into it? Did Jason’s younger brother and Miss Thornton have an affection for one another? That seemed unlikely. Stanley had been markedly attentive to Miss Marjie Kendrick up until the day he’d returned to his regiment only a few short weeks earlier; though to Jason’s knowledge, there was no formal understanding between them.

  “I am determined, Señor Jonquil, to be honest and forthright from now on,” Miss Thornton said, discreetly inching toward the door. Hasty retreat hardly seemed her style.

  Jason found himself following, completely baffled by her seeming change of character and oddly wishing to reach out and pull the poor creature into a reassuring embrace. Jason was not generally one for an outward show of emotion, but she seemed to so desperately need it.

  “I will not give mi familia or yours any further reason to be ashamed of me,” Miss Thornton added.

  “Miss Thornton,” Jason said, stopping her even as her fingers gripped the doorknob.

  She looked back at him, and her red-rimmed eyes made his heart thud uncomfortably. Her suffering was so obvious and so unexpected that he simply stood in shock, hoping he hadn’t been the cause of such pain.

  He searched his brain for something, anything, to say. “What of your legal difficulties?” he finally managed. “I was not able to identify your father’s family’s solicitor. If you do not locate him, you will not be able to claim your inheritance. What will you live on?”

  A small, sad smile flashed momentarily across her face. “I will address my problems on my own, señor.”

  “You have very little information to go on. Without someone in the legal profession assisting you, you aren’t likely to be successful.” Though, he admitted in the back of his mind, he had given her little choice, declaring he would denounce her to any barrister or solicitor she sought out.

  “I will do my best,” she said. “And that will have to be enough.” Miss Mariposa Thornton slipped from Jason’s office, leaving him entirely bewildered.

  o

  Jason couldn’t say just what brought him to Lampton House that evening. He must have made his way there out of habit, though he’d had his own place for more than half a decade.

  “Welcome, Mister Jonquil,” Jeffers greeted, completely unruffled by Jason’s unannounced arrival.

  The knocker had been taken off the door, a clear indication that the staff understood, even if Philip hadn’t, that Jason didn’t intend to leech off his eldest brother. Yet there he stood in the front entry of the family’s London home, allowing a footman to divest him of his outer coat, hat, and gloves.

  “At what time would you like dinner, sir?” Jeffers asked.

  “That won’t be necessary.” Jason shook his head, wondering again what had propelled him to come.

  Instead of accepting Jason’s pronouncement, Jeffers offered a warning reply. “Cook’s feelings will be hurt if you refuse.”

  “Seven o’clock will be fine,” Jason heard himself relent.

  In the back of his mind, he wondered just what Philip had done to change the austere butler Jason remembered from his childhood into this smiling, friendly man. He couldn’t decide whether or not he approved of the change. That alone was odd. He generally disliked anything Philip did different from Father’s way.

  Lampton House was eerily quiet. Only his vivid memories filled the silence with the robust laughter of a houseful of young boys.

  “Someday, my love,” Jason could hear Father’s voice echoing across the years, “they will all be grown and gone, and we will stand in the silence and miss all the noise they make.”

  But Father was the one who was gone, and Jason stood in the empty house, fighting
the tug of memories and the pain of loss. How Jason missed him, longed for his guiding influence. Speaking of Father was difficult, but remembering him so clearly pained Jason almost beyond bearing.

  A flash of unexpected clarity struck with such force that Jason stopped halfway up the stairs. He had avoided Lampton House in London and Lampton Park in Nottinghamshire for years but had never admitted to himself the reason. But this was it. Father was everywhere in both houses, the pain of his death made fresh by both the memories of him and his glaring absence. Being in either place forced him to remember.

  Jason had been at Eton when news of Father’s death had come. He’d not had the opportunity to say good-bye. The whole world had felt unstable from that moment on. He’d seen Philip sag under the weight of responsibility. He’d watched Mater, pale and sobbing, age years in a matter of days. Layton had looked lost. Corbin had stopped talking, even to Jason. Stanley had turned almost desperately helpful. Harold had retreated into his books. And Charlie, only seven years old, had spent weeks asking where Father was.

  Jason had been numb. By the time the truth of what had happened had sunk in, he was back at school, Philip was answering to their father’s title, and nothing was ever the same again.

  Keeping away had been his only defense. With distance between him and those places he most associated with Father, he could almost pretend he didn’t still grieve in the deepest parts of his heart.

  His feet carried him automatically to the bedchamber that had been his and Corbin’s in their youth. The space didn’t look at all the same, and yet there was a calming familiarity there that he’d needed. He’d felt oddly upended since Miss Thornton’s call.

  Jason had expected to find haughtiness behind the mask she wore but had seen only vulnerability. He had anticipated denial but had received an apology. He had assumed his words would simply bounce off her unnoticed. Instead, his censure had landed her a jarring blow. Piercing her armor had brought pain into her eyes, and it was eating away at him.