Jack felt his temper snap comprehensively. ‘Out of the question,’ he said. He grabbed the bag with the dog in it and handed it to the butler, who recoiled with a look of horror on his face. ‘Keep him away from the Labradors,’ Jack said. ‘They’ll think he is a rabbit.’ He took Sally’s hand in his.
‘Your sister is here as my fiancée, Mrs Basset,’ he said, ‘so you will have to make shift for yourself.’ And he pulled Sally’s hand through his arm and marched her back into the breakfast parlour, with Connie’s indignant voice rising and falling like a siren behind him.
Sally’s head was aching by the time that breakfast was over. Connie had chattered non-stop about her wedding and about how utterly marvellous it was to be Mrs Bertie Basset now. Lady Ottoline had sat in ominous silence, her sharp gaze going from Connie’s animated face to Bertie’s embarrassed one and back again. After the meal she had announced that she wished to speak with Bertie and when Connie had tried to accompany them into the drawing room had uttered the chilling words, ‘Alone, if you please!’
Connie had looked mutinous, but Charley had persuaded her to go and inspect her bedchamber instead and they had disappeared upstairs with Connie’s fluting tones floating back down to Sally as she commented on the dowdiness of Charley’s colour schemes.
‘You didn’t tell me,’ Jack said in her ear, ‘just how unlike you your sister is.’
‘Connie was not always this way,’ Sally said, sighing. ‘Before her broken love affair with John Pettifer she was a sweet girl.’ She looked at him. ‘I did try to tell you about that, Mr Kestrel, but, as I recall, you were not interested in listening.’
‘Touché,’ Jack said. ‘I think we have rather a lot to talk about, Miss Bowes.’ He gestured towards the door. ‘Shall we walk for a little?’
‘I do not wish to discuss matters with you,’ Sally said coldly. She wanted nothing more than a bit of peace and a corner in which to hide away from Connie’s presence. She supposed dully that she should be grateful to her sister, whose artless prattle had confirmed so comprehensively that all the things she had told Jack were true, but she was too heart sore and too miserable to appreciate it.
Jack tucked her hand through his arm and steered her out on to the terrace. ‘Too bad, my love,’ he drawled, ‘for I need to talk to you urgently.’
They did not speak again until they were well away from the house, across the moat and in the arboretum, where the huge pines and redwoods spread their shade and the sharp and sweet scent of the pine needles was all around them. It was warm and tranquil, but Sally did not feel very peaceful. Connie was no doubt wreaking havoc even as they spoke, Lady Ottoline would probably have a heart attack and Jack was looking so unyielding that she quailed to see it.
‘I think,’ he said mildly, ‘that you owe me an explanation.’
Sally’s overtaxed nerves snapped. ‘Oh, do you!’ she said. ‘Well, I think that you owe me an apology!’
Jack nodded. ‘That too,’ he said pleasantly. He drove both hands into the pockets of his trousers and faced her directly. Sally’s heart started to pound.
‘First,’ he said, ‘I want to know why you did not tell me that you wanted the two hundred pounds for your sister Nell. You let me think you were selling your own virtue—’
‘I let you think nothing,’ Sally interrupted. She was incensed that instead of a polite apology he was trying to blame her for his own misjudgements. ‘You chose to think that I was venal and grasping because you had already decided to believe it,’ she said. ‘I tried hard enough to tell you that you had your facts wrong, but you chose not to listen.’
Jack raked his hand through his hair. ‘But if you had told me the truth I could have helped you.’
‘You were in no mood to help,’ Sally said. ‘Have you forgotten how severely we had quarrelled, Mr Kestrel? Besides, I barely knew you. I was not going to ask for a loan from a man I had met only two days before.’
‘You knew me well enough to sleep with me when we had met only two days before,’ Jack said. His gaze was hard and narrow. ‘So instead of requesting a loan you let me think you a grasping harpy who had sold her virginity.’
Sally shrugged, trying to pretend she did not care. ‘You offered the money.’
‘So you took it.’
‘I did not think it would make a whit of difference to your opinion of me, given that it was already so low.’
Jack shook his head in exasperation. ‘What did Nell need two hundred pounds for?’
Sally turned away to hide the naked emotion in her face. She had been hurt too badly by him to want to reveal the depth of her feelings and explain how desperately she had needed to help her sister.
‘She needed food and rent and money for medicine,’ she said. ‘The fines have crippled her financially and many of her friends are in gaol so she cares for their children too. They are all sick with a fever—’ Her voice broke and she put her hands up briefly to her face, letting them fall so she could look at him with defiant eyes. ‘That is why.’
‘So you sent the money to her directly before we left London?’ Jack asked.
‘I …’ Sally hesitated, but she knew there was no point in further prevarication. ‘Yes, I did.’
Jack cursed softly. ‘I knew it! I saw you give it to Alfred to deliver. But when I asked you and you denied it, I thought …’ he shrugged ‘… well, I assumed it was for some pressing debt.’
‘Nell’s debts were pressing. As I said, her children were sick and near starving.’
‘And once again,’ Jack said, ‘you took responsibility for helping your sisters.’
Sally did not answer. Taking care of Nell and Connie was something she had always done.
There was a silence. ‘And Connie,’ Jack said. ‘She plotted this whole elopement scheme with Bertie’s help, not yours, didn’t she?’
‘It seems so,’ Sally said. ‘I did not realise that Bertie was involved.’
‘I am sorry that I doubted you,’ Jack said.
Sally smiled bitterly. He sounded as though the words were sticking in his throat, but she knew that any sort of apology was a major concession from Jack. Perhaps in time she would be able to accept it, when her feelings were not so raw.
‘Thank you,’ she said politely.
‘The evidence about Chavenage and Pettifer seemed so strong,’ Jack continued. ‘I read the court papers.’
‘It is true that the Chavenage family tried to pay me off, but I would not accept a penny,’ Sally said. ‘Whoever gave you that information had their facts quite wrong, Mr Kestrel. As for John Pettifer, Connie loved him. You may find that hard to believe—I do myself when I see her now—but I think he was the only man she has ever truly loved. He used her very badly and when he jilted her it seemed only fair to sue him for breach of promise, to make the world see what a cad he was rather than to extract any money from him.’
‘The judge agreed with you,’ Jack said.
‘Yes. But in the end it was a hollow victory because Connie had been badly let down,’ Sally said. ‘I am sure it was then that she turned cynical towards men. She had always been flighty, but there was an innocence in her too. Now, though …’ Sally sighed ‘… she is as hard as nails.’
‘Your sister,’ Jack said grimly, ‘is the most conniving little piece it has ever been my misfortune to meet and she does not deserve your love and support.’
Sally shot him a startled