stopped him. Her words, and the way she stood there, her spine so straight, looking at him with those huge brown eyes. What did he expect from her? What did he expect from himself?
He knew what he hadn’t expected. He hadn’t expected to be interested in this quiet female who apparently had depths he’d never considered. He hadn’t expected to be so curious as to what went on behind those wide, seemingly frank, ingenuous brown eyes. He hadn’t expected to feel quite so protective of her, or so attracted to her.
And now, once more, and knowing it, damn her, he was going to rush to fill the silence. And fill it by saying something he’d probably regret. “You’re free to look at anything in my desk. Anything. You’re free to ask me any questions, and I’ll do my best to answer those questions. You’re Ainsley’s daughter, and I consider you to be his agent here and, in some twisted way, my partner.”
Now he fell silent, waiting for her to fill that silence with a similar promise of her own.
He may as well have been waiting for Hades to freeze over.
At last she said thank you, and then inclined her head toward the door, which was as close as a refined young lady probably could get to “Now take yourself off, you bugger!”
“Elly…”
“Eleanor,” she corrected. She had enough on her plate. She might as well be truthful on this one small thing. “I’d much prefer you to address me as Eleanor, if you don’t mind.”
That was as good as a slap to the face. She’d said her family called her Elly. He was back to being an outsider. “Certainly…Eleanor. I didn’t wish to presume a familiarity you might not like.”
“No, that isn’t what I—that is, we are supposedly husband and wife.”
“And newly married, too,” Jack said, happy to have the conversation steered back to territory that seemed to discommode her more than it did him. Not that he could recall a time when he’d been nervous around a female.
Until tonight.
“Yes, and newly married, as well. We should discuss that, just so that our stories match. Where we met, for one. I’d prefer you did not mention Becket Hall.”
Jack nodded. “That makes sense. If I’m exposed, you can disappear. And with no one knowing about Becket Hall or those who live there. So, wife, where did we meet?”
Eleanor was becoming more uncomfortable by the moment. “I’m merely being careful, Jack. No one has to know that I am a Becket at all, that Morgan is my sister. Ethan was careful to keep any of that out of his letter to Lady Beresford.”
“You read it?”
“Certainly. Didn’t you? As I said, we need to keep our stories consistent.”
Jack was beginning to think he was in the presence of a master. That his days as courier and spy had been relegated to amateurish at best. Why, he should be surprised to still be alive, and not have been long since put up against some French wall and shot.
“Do you have a plan?” he asked when yet another silence yawned between them, a silence he’d have to fill sooner or later anyway.
“I do, yes. Sussex is too close, too easily checked for the truth. Your story for Mr. Phelps, as I remember it, is that you have an estate somewhere in the West Indies and are only visiting here, correct? I should say that we met there, in Jamaica to be more precise, and that I am the child of a moderately wealthy landowner there.”
“Splendid. Then you came to me with a considerable dowry? That should please our gentlemen. Yes,” Jack said, beginning to pace the carpet. “That would work well. I’ve run through my fortune, and now I want to purloin my wife’s fat dowry and use it to invest in something that will very quickly make me very rich, put my near-bankrupt Jamaican plantation to rights.” He turned to smile at Eleanor. “You should write novels.”
Eleanor twined her fingers together at her waist. “Yes, thank you. This also negates any necessity for ours to be seen as a love match.”
“In other words, I’m to be cast in the role of unmitigated cad. Charming. You know, woman, when you eventually disappear the world will think I’ve buried you under a rosebush. Or haven’t you thought of that? Ah, by the look on your face, I can see you haven’t. Then it’s settled. Ours is also a love match. We have Ethan’s reputation to consider here, too, remember, as he’s the one who has ostensibly introduced me to the ton.”
Eleanor, who now knew the full story of Morgan’s titled husband and his unconventional parents, smiled at this. “I don’t think Ethan is overly concerned about that, Jack.”
Why this one point was becoming so important to him, Jack didn’t know, didn’t want to know. But, damn it, he couldn’t spend the next weeks squiring about a woman who cared less for him than she did the dirt beneath her feet. It was just unnatural, that’s what it was.
“I think I must nevertheless insist. I want a love match. The appearance of a love match.”
Eleanor knew when a battle wasn’t worth the fight. Besides, what difference would it make, as they’d both know they were playacting? “For the sake of your male pride, yes, I understand. My brother Spencer would probably feel much the same way. Even if, as you may recall saying, we never set foot in society at all. Very well. If we are in company, any company at all, I hereby promise to make mooncalf eyes at you at every opportunity.”
He longed to shake her, shake away some of that quiet reserve that, he felt increasingly sure, hid a whole other Eleanor Becket. The real Eleanor Becket.
“Sarcasm to one side, I accept,” Jack told her. He retrieved his journal, then approached Eleanor once more…and she stepped one step backward once more. “And that will have to stop. We have to practice.” He reached for her hand, lifted it to within inches of his mouth. “No flinching now, Eleanor, I’m not going to bite.”
She stood very still as he bent over her hand, pressing his lips to her skin for one brief moment that nearly turned her knees to water. She’d rarely had her hand bent over, let alone kissed, so she didn’t know if her reaction to the act was usual. But she didn’t think so.
Still bent over her hand, he lifted his head to smile at her. “See? Completely painless. I will do this from time to time, as a man does.”
It was time to put a halt to this exercise before the man suggested he kiss her cheek, just to make sure she wouldn’t scream in maidenly fright. “Claiming his woman, yes. Every animal marks its territory in one way or another.”
He narrowed those intense green eyes as he looked at her as if she’d just spoken to him in some unknown language. “You are a piece of work, Eleanor Becket.”
“Eleanor Eastwood,” she corrected, wondering when on earth her common sense would wake up from its nap and stop her from saying anything else ridiculous. Now was not the time to correct the man. Not when he was standing so close to her. Not when he was still holding her hand.
“Eleanor Eastwood. Alliterative, almost rolls off the tongue. And now, wife, good night.”
Before she could pull her hand away he lifted it once more, this time turning her hand so that he could press his lips against her palm. For an instant only, he lightly slid the tip of his tongue
