Unclaimed (Turner, #2)

Weston had not said “or else.” He’d not needed to. Without his promised money, she would have no way to survive except to find another protector.

And even that would only stave off the darkness for a little while. Once that man left her, she’d need another, and another, and another. Each time, she’d lose a little corner of herself. She had to do this. She hated to do this, to Sir Mark least of all. She liked him. But he looked up, away from—was that Mr. Parret he’d tossed in the water trough? Yes. Good. He saw her. His gaze fixed on her, and he strode forward until he stood before her.

“Sir Mark,” said a woman next to her. “Did my son James invite you to our shooting competition next week? I know that—”

Mark didn’t even look at Mrs. Tolliver. “He did,” he replied shortly.

“And will you be there?”

“As I told your son, I’ll be there so long as Mrs. Farleigh is invited, as well.”

Jessica’s breath sucked in.

“She…she was invited.” Mrs. Tolliver didn’t look in Jessica’s direction. “And…and she’s very welcome indeed. But can we be of help?”

Whatever emotion had prompted Sir Mark to dunk a man in water, it had left him angry. “In fact,” Sir Mark continued, “I had promised to see Mrs. Farleigh home earlier and never did make good on that promise.”

She didn’t want to like him more, didn’t want to bring him that much closer to his downfall. She didn’t want to think of George Weston, waiting for the lascivious details he expected her to divulge. “I don’t need—”

He glanced at her. “I know you don’t need the accompaniment. But I do.”

He was going to create a scandal, speaking to her like that. Scandal was precisely what she was supposed to want him to cause. The women watched him turn and leave, and Jessica gave them one last unapologetic shrug before hurrying after his retreating form.

“What are you doing?” she demanded. “Do you have any idea how…how much those women are going to talk?”

“Let them.” His shoulders were taut. “What are they going to do? Talk to Parret?”

Sir Mark made no attempt to moderate his steps to match hers, and Jessica found herself half running to keep up with his long stride. In the hot sun, she was overheated within several streets. Still, he kept the pace through the heart of town, past the point where the paving stones gave way to dust. Sir Mark stared fixedly at the horizon as he walked. It wasn’t until five minutes had passed that he addressed her again.

“I was rather too unfair. I’m not much company right now.” Droplets from the horse trough had splashed him all over; the darker spots that the water had left across his coat had almost faded.

Jessica didn’t say anything.

“In truth,” he said, “I’m in a bit of a temper.”

“I could never have guessed.”

He did look at her then—a slow, sidelong glance. His eyes fairly snapped with intensity. And her insides sparked with the fierceness of his gaze.

“You’re formidable when you’re angry,” she said. He jerked his head toward the front once more, and she breathed again.

Formidable didn’t quite cover it. She couldn’t imagine crossing him in this mood. She wouldn’t have known how to seduce him from it. There was something about the way he walked, the way he held himself—he seemed larger and more lethal than he usually did. As if his anger had stripped away some civilizing influence and left this version of him: less voluble and more vicious.

She should have been wary.

“I don’t trust myself when I’m angry,” he said, as if hearing her thoughts.

“Well,” Jessica said slowly, “I do. So that’s all right then.”

“Hardly reassuring. You’ve no familiarity with my temper.” Little clouds of dust rose up from the ground with his every footfall. He walked so quickly, he could have kept time with the beat of her own heart.

“I try not to lose my temper,” he said gravely, “because it is so very, very bad when I do. Even today, I nearly slammed that unfortunate scribbler into a wall. I only recalled myself at the last moment.”

“Consider me shocked.”

“I like balance,” he said. “I like quiet. I like calm.”

“You must hate me, then.”

“Hardly.” Sir Mark snorted. “When I was younger, I…I picked a fight with a distant cousin, Edmund Dalrymple. He’d been making some remarks about me, about my mother. I broke his arm in two places. The incident precipitated a rift between our two families. It took years to heal, simply because I couldn’t keep hold of my temper.”