“And how exactly do you think a man would behave in such a situation?” Heath drawled.
“Flirtatious. Aggressive. He was more—how do you say it?—calculating.”
Heath stiffened. “Like me, you mean?”
“Of course not. You may flirt with me now, but your interest in me will wane, just as it did after you kissed me years ago.”
He blinked. “What the hell are you talking about?”
She shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “You kissed me, and then you never came near me again.”
“Because Morris threatened to call me out if I ever did.” He snorted. “I was not going to duel with your father, no matter how much I desired you.”
She stilled, the shock of that resonating through her. “He threatened to call you out?” She could not believe her father would go so far.
Heath arched an eyebrow. “He saw us kissing and said you were an innocent. That if I even attempted to seduce you, he would fight me. I knew he was unaccustomed to using weapons, and that he’d lose. Since I had no intention of killing Morris—I respected your father, after all—I refrained from acting on my desire for you.”
Glancing away, she gazed out at the innyard, her thoughts all ajumble and her heart racing. “So, all these years, you were …”
“Trying to be a gentleman. I am many things, Giselle, but not a liar. When I told you I wanted you, I was speaking the truth. I desire you. I have always desired you. I just refused to act on it.” He searched her face. “Surely you knew that.”
She shook her head. “My father never said a word about it. I-I thought you simply did not like our kiss.”
He gave a bitter laugh. “Oh, I liked it, trust me. But I knew you were forbidden to me, so that was the end of it.” He shrugged. “I found others to enjoy.”
“And now?”
“Nothing has changed.” He sighed. “I cannot be the man you want, sweeting. Once you know me better—” He swore under his breath. “In any case, there’s no point to this.”
He was right about there being no point to this. Worse yet, she feared he was right about not being the man she wanted. If theymarried, he would always find “others to enjoy” once he tired of her. He was a man like her French papa, incapable of fidelity, and having seen Maman suffer through that, she refused to go through it with any man.
“We should go speak to the coachmen,” he said coolly. “Jones might even now be on the property.”
“Yes,” she said, trying to hide the tumult that his revelation had startled in her chest. Her father had intervened to protect her? That was so sweet it hurt.
Yet it also made her angry. What right had her father to decide who she did or did not kiss? “What if my father had not said anything to you? What would you have done?”
He sighed. “Does it matter? He did. And we cannot change that now.”
“I suppose.” Of course he was right. The truth of it was he had not wanted to fight for her, to defy her father on her behalf. And that had not changed, to be sure—he did not even care enough about her to make this betrothal a real courtship.
They headed off to question the coachmen, but neither man had noticed anyone on the main road behind them. One of them said he thought he saw a young gentleman follow them down the small road to Freeman’s Inn, but when he looked again, the man had vanished.
Just as he had done aftershehad spotted him.
Heath insisted on having one of the footmen get down his bag that contained her sketch. He dragged out the sketch and showed it to the coachmen.
“That’s the fellow I saw behind us coming up to Freeman’s Inn,” said the driver of the park drag she and her mother had ridden in. “What does he want?”
Giselle sucked in a harsh breath. She did not know whether to be glad to be proven right about what she had seen or terrified that Mr. Jones was following them. And to what purpose?
“Who is he?” the coachman for Heath’s landau asked.
“He’s a détenu. We’re not sure what he wants, but he’s someone we’d like to avoid,” Heath said grimly. “So, here’s what we’re going to do.” He turned to the coachman who had carried Giselle and her mother. “When we are all done eating, James, you’ll head to theroad to Bath. I’ll make sure the ostler is paid well to say, to anyone who asks, that the ladies are inside your coach. You’ll keep the curtains drawn, and if anyone asks, you’ll say they’re resting.”
Before she could protest that madness, he turned to the other coachman. “Meanwhile, Tom, all of us lads and the Bernard ladies will go in my landau and turn off on the road to Longmead as soon as possible. We’ll let James get ahead of us by a good bit, enough to lead this fellow astray.”
Giselle relaxed. Heath’s plan was rather clever, actually.