wasn’t how he’d imagined this proposal unfolding.
‘Such as?’ Justin leaned back against the squabs, sure he wasn’t going to like what he was about to hear.
‘You aren’t likely to make a go of it.’ She shrugged as though his failure was predetermined. ‘Not after what happened with the last one.’
‘The storm sank the ship.’ And my business. He pulled his gaping shirt closed. He thought everyone understood that little fact. Apparently he was wrong. ‘There was nothing I or anyone could have done to prevent it.’
Despite months of careful planning, researching, investing, hiring the most capable captain and the sturdiest ship, his first foray into business had dropped to the bottom of the English Channel, taking with it a considerable amount of his money. He hated ships.
‘Even if you did manage to make a go of it, I’m tired of being some unpaid servant to my husband’s ventures. I worked myself to the bone with Mr Gammon. Now I want to be free of such concerns.’ She tugged her bodice up higher over her ample breasts. ‘Mr Preston asked me to marry him this morning and I accepted.’
‘You did what?’ He hadn’t realised the old furrier was sniffing around the widow, much less falling on his knees in front of her in infatuation.
‘He’s rich and has people to take care of his business for him.’
‘He’s well over sixty and not likely to keep you amused in the evenings.’
‘That’s why I’m here.’ She laid her hand over the open flap of his breeches. ‘I thought we could continue.’
He caught her fingers. ‘After a year, you should know I won’t dally with another man’s wife, or help a woman break her marriage vows.’
She pulled back her hand. ‘When did you become so serious about anything except Mr Rathbone’s business?’
‘I tend to be serious when there’s the possibility of violence,’ Justin growled, seeing Helena’s true colours for the first time and despising them. He’d thought their convenient arrangement was based on some measure of respect and affability. He’d been mistaken.
‘Well, if that’s how you’re going to be.’ She flicked her skirt down over her calves and ankles. ‘Mr Preston is waiting for me inside.’
‘You’ll regret marrying him.’ Justin pushed open the chaise door. ‘He might be making a lot of promises now, but once you’re his wife, they’ll all disappear.’
‘You know nothing of the situation.’ Mrs Gammon hopped down from the chaise and stormed off across the walk and into the gardens.
Justin slammed the chaise door shut and slumped against the squabs. It galled him to think she’d waited until he’d proposed to reveal her true impression of him, though he supposed it was better now than after the parson’s mousetrap was sprung. Justin roughly stuffed his shirt back in his breeches and did up the fall, not bothering to button his coat or redo his cravat. Outside, the excited chatter of ladies and gentlemen passing too close to the chaise as they filed into the gardens filled the air.
Then the door swung open. He jerked upright, thinking Helena had come back, but it wasn’t her.
A stunning woman with eyes the colour of the emeralds he’d once handled as collateral fixed her gaze on him, not with the coy calculation of a vixen, but determination. She opened her full lips as if to say something, then changed her mind, pressing them tight together. Gold earrings swung from the small lobes as she raised her foot to step inside the chaise, then paused, as she took in his partial undress and began to back away. Male voices outside the carriage caught her attention and, in a sweep of chestnut curls, she looked to the sound of the noise, then climbed inside and pulled the door shut behind her.
‘Drive away, at once,’ she commanded, pressing herself against the squabs and out of view of the window.
‘No.’ Justin pushed open the door, inviting her to leave. Whatever nuisance this was, he wasn’t in the mood for it, no matter how pretty it might be.
‘Please, you must.’ She leaned out of the chaise to pull the door closed, bringing her face much too close to his. A few freckles dotted her nose and her eyelashes were thick and dark above her vivid eyes. She licked her lips nervously, making the red buds glisten in the low light. Her jasmine perfume encircled him like the cool night slipping in through the open door. She was tempting, but she was trouble, he could feel it.
‘I’ve had enough female companionship for one night and don’t intend to pay for more.’
She closed the door and sat up across from him with unwarranted indignity. ‘I don’t want your money, or anything else.’
She waved a bare hand at him, making the gold bracelet adorning her wrist slide down.
‘Then what do you want?’ He dropped his elbow on the sill of the window and touched his fingers to his chin, more intrigued than annoyed. She wasn’t dressed in the flamboyant colours of the night birds, but in a silhouette of shimmering green material which hugged her high breasts, the tops of which rose in lush half-circles above the bodice.
‘To be away from here, as fast as possible.’ She could barely sit still, but still he didn’t give the order to the driver.
‘Why?’
‘It’s none of your business.’ The irritation mingling with anxiety in her eyes made them sparkle even brighter.
He levelled one finger at her. ‘You’re in my carriage, so I think it is my business. Besides, you don’t strike me as the kind of woman whose family approves of her jumping in a strange man’s vehicle.’
She glanced out of the window, a new panic dimming the slight sweep of pink across her fine nose. ‘You don’t know the half of it.’
‘Enlighten me. I have nothing else to do this evening.’
There was no time for her to tell him as the door swung open again. Two men stared inside, too finely turned out to be whore minders. The older man sighed and clapped his hands over his eyes. The younger man heaved like a bull as he studied first the woman, then Justin and his undone cravat and coat.
‘How dare you.’ The bull reached in and grabbed Justin by the lapels, hauling him out of the chaise.
Justin’s boots hit the step before he regained his footing. He brought his arms up between the bull’s and knocked them aside, then pulled back his fist and rammed it into the younger man’s face.
The bull dropped to his rear in the dirt, sending up a puff of dust. Stunned but not beaten, he hauled himself to his feet, staggering as he glowered at Justin. ‘You’ll pay for that.’
‘Why don’t you stay down?’ Justin moved one foot back for balance, then raised his fists. ‘It’ll hurt less.’
The man rushed at Justin, who slammed his fist into the bull’s stomach, making him double over. Then Justin brought his elbows down on the man’s back to knock him face first into the dirt. He groaned and rolled over, clutching his middle.
Justin straightened one cufflink. ‘I warned you to stay down.’
‘No,
