“But why?”
Sophie looked up and saw genuine bewilderment in Clarissa’s lovely face. She grimaced. “Because he’s a rake.”
There. It was said. Time and more that she brought these two down to earth.
Their reaction was immediate. Two pairs of eyes went round, two mouths dropped open.
Clarissa was the first to recover. “Really?” Her tone was one of scandalized discovery.
“No!” came from Melly. Then, “How can you tell?”
Clarissa’s expression stated that was her question, too.
Sophie stifled her groan. How could she explain? A subtle something in his eyes? An undertone in his deep voice? Something in his suave manner? Then she recalled she had known instantly, in the moment she had seen him framed in Lady Asfordby’s doorway. “His arrogant air. He carried himself as if the world were his oyster, the women in it his pearls.”
His to enjoy at his whim. Sophie had surprised even herself with her words.
Both Clarissa and Melly fell silent. Then, frowning slightly, Clarissa glanced up. “I don’t mean to doubt you, Sophie, but, you know, I don’t think you can be right—at least, not in this instance.”
Resigned to resistance, Sophie merely raised her brows.
Encouraged, Clarissa ventured, “If Mr. Lester were a rake, then surely Mama would not be encouraging him. And she is, you know. Why, she was perfectly thrilled to see him this morning—you know she was. And it was her suggestion he sit with us, beside you.”
That, of course, had been the other niggling concern that had been inhabiting Sophie’s mind. All Clarissa said was true; the only point Sophie was yet unsure of was what, exactly, her aunt was about. And that, as she well knew, could be just about anything. Given that Mr. Lester was a rake, one of the more dangerous of the species if her instincts were any guide, then Lucilla might just be grasping the opportunity to have her, Sophie, brush up on the social skills she would doubtless need once they were established in London. In the present circumstances, safe in the bosom of her family in their quiet country backwater, there was no real danger involved.
“Anyway,” Clarissa said, drawing Sophie from her thoughts, “what I said at first is still undeniably true. Experienced London gentlemen are much more interesting than country gentlemen.”
Knowing there was one particular country gentleman Clarissa had in mind, Sophie felt compelled to point out, “But young country gentlemen do grow older, and gain experience in so doing. Even experienced gentlemen must once have been young.”
The comment drew a spurt of laughter from Melly. “Can you imagine Mr. Marston young?”
Clarissa giggled. Sophie knew she should chide them but did not; she agreed far too well to make a rebuke sound sincere. As Clarissa and Melly fell to chattering, comparing various older men of their acquaintance and speculating on their younger incarnations, Sophie tried to visualize a younger Jack Lester. It was, she found, a very difficult task. She couldn’t imagine his eyes without that certain gleam. With an inward snort, she banished such foolish thoughts and reached for the next garment to be mended.
Doubtless, Jack Lester had been born a rake.
CHAPTER THREE
FATE WAS DEFINITELY smiling upon him.
Tooling his curricle along the lane to the village, Jack squinted against the glare of the brittlely bright morning sunshine, his gaze locked on the group slowly making its way down the lane on the other side of the narrow valley, also bound for the village. A female figure in a familiar cherry-red pelisse was walking a horse of advanced years, hitched to the poles of a gig. A young girl skipped about, now beside the woman, now on the other side of the horse.
“Looks like a problem, Jigson.” Jack threw the comment over his shoulder to his groom, perched on the box behind him.
“Aye,” Jigson replied. “Likely a stone from the way he’s favouring that hoof.”
A tiny track joining the two main lanes across the narrow valley came into sight just ahead. Jack smiled and checked his team.
“Be we a-going that way, guv’nor? I thought we was for the village?”
“Where’s your sense of chivalry, Jigson?” Jack grinned as he steered his highly strung pair onto the hedged track, then steadied them down a steep incline. “We can’t leave a lady in distress.”
Especially not that lady.
He should, of course, have left for London by now—or, at the very least, quit the scene. His experienced brother-in-law, for one, would certainly have recommended such a strategic retreat. “Women should never be crammed, any more than one’s fences” had been a favourite saying of Jason’s. He had, of course, been speaking of seduction, a fact that had given Jack pause. Given that he was, to all intents and purposes, wooing his golden head, he had elected to ignore the voice of experience, choosing instead to take heed of a new and unexpectedly strong inner prompting, which categorically stated that leaving the field free to Phillip Marston was not a good idea.
As he feathered his leader around a tight curve, Jack felt his expression harden.
According to Hodgeley, his head groom at the cottage, Marston was a gentleman farmer, a neighbour of the Webbs. He was commonly held to be a warm man, comfortably circumstanced. Village gossip also had it that he was on the lookout for a wife, and had cast his eye in Miss Winterton’s direction.
Jack gritted his teeth. He took the tiny bridge at a smart clip, surprising a startled expletive from Jigson, but not so much as scratching the curricle’s paintwork. Frowning, he shook aside the odd urge that had gripped him. For some reason, his mind seemed intent on creating monsters where doubtless none lurked. Fate wouldn’t be so cruel as to parade his golden head before him, only to hand her to another. Besides, Jigson, who frequented the local tap, had heard no whispers of Mr. Marston heading south for the Season.
Deftly negotiating the tight turn into the lane, Jack relaxed. He came upon them around the next bend.
Sophie glanced up and beheld a team of matchless bays bearing down upon them. She grabbed Amy, then blinked as the team swung neatly aside, pulling up close by the ditch. Only then did she see the driver.
As he tossed the reins to his groom and swung down from the elegant equipage, she had ample time to admire the sleek lines of both carriage and horses. He strode across the narrow lane, his many-caped greatcoat flapping about the tops of his glossy Hessians, the cravat at his throat as neat and precise as if he were in Bond Street. His smile, unabashed, stated very clearly how pleased he was to see her. “Good day, Miss Winterton.”
Stifling her response was impossible. Her lips curving warmly, Sophie countered, “Good morning, Mr. Lester. Dobbin has loosed a shoe.”
He put a hand on the old horse’s neck and, after casting an improbably apologetic glance her way, verified that fact. Releasing the horse’s leg, he asked, “I can’t remember—is the blacksmith in the village?”
“Yes, I was taking him there.”
Jack nodded. “Jigson, walk Miss Winterton’s horse to the blacksmith’s and have him fix this shoe immediately. You can return the gig to Webb Park and wait for me there.”
Sophie blinked. “But I was on my way to see my mother’s old nurse. She lives on the other side of the village. I visit her every Monday.”
A flourishing bow was Jack’s reply. “Consider me in the light of a coachman, Miss Winterton. And Miss Webb,” he added, his gaze dropping to Amy, who was staring, open-mouthed, at his curricle.
“Oh, but we couldn’t impose….” Sophie’s protest died away as Jack lifted his head. The glance he slanted her brimmed with arrogant