Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

J ames arrived in Camden Place promptly at eleven to collect Hannah for their journey to Fallkirk's Farm. Captain and Mrs. Heywood welcomed him in the drawing room, both of them civil but reserved. Hannah stood next to them in her pink pelisse, straw bonnet, and gloves, looking a little anxious.

"It's less than three miles to Bidbury," Captain Heywood said. "It shouldn't take you above half an hour each way."

"Possibly longer with the donkey," James replied. "He's tied to the back of my curricle."

Hannah's face brightened. "How is he?"

"Exceedingly well," James said. "A warm mash and a night in a comfortable stable have worked wonders. You would hardly recognize him."

"Oh, I can't wait to see him," Hannah said. "He was so pitifully dispirited yesterday." She took a step toward the doors of the drawing room. "Should we?—"

"Your tiger will be accompanying you?" Captain Heywood asked brusquely, interrupting his daughter.

Hannah came to a disgruntled halt.

"He will," James replied. "He's a capable hand with the horses."

"Curricles can be dangerous," Mrs. Heywood said. "I shall rely on you to bring my daughter back safely."

"I'm sure Lord St. Clare is an excellent driver, Mama," Hannah said.

"I won't let her come to harm," James assured Mrs. Heywood. "You may rely on me."

Captain Heywood looked at him steadily. "You and I will speak again when you return."

James solemnly returned his gaze. The last meeting he'd had with Hannah's father hadn't been a very encouraging one. In hindsight, James supposed that Captain Heywood had known how Hannah would respond to a proposal of marriage. The fact that James hadn't abandoned his suit after her rejection was likely cause for fatherly concern.

"I'm at your disposal, sir," he said.

Hannah gave her father a look of entreaty. "We should leave directly. Wouldn't you think so, Papa? The donkey is a little fellow and can't be made to trot too quickly."

"Naturally not," Captain Heywood said.

A short moment later, James was handing Hannah up into his waiting curricle. Bill was in his full livery for the occasion. He held the horses as they stamped with impatience. Even the donkey was twitching its tail, eager to be off. His head no longer drooped with resignation. His expression was alert, his eyes shining and his nose raised to the wind.

Hannah regarded the little beast with a smile of amazement. "You've had him groomed!"

"All credit to Bill." James climbed up beside her. "He had charge of him for the night."

"I'm obliged to you, Bill," Hannah said to the tiger. "He looks an entirely different animal."

Bill reddened. He was just a lad from the Beasley Park estate, scarcely ten years of age, and not accustomed to dealing with ladies. He muttered something about "just doing his duty" before retreating to his perch at the back of the curricle. From there, he could keep a close eye on the donkey as they traveled.

James started the horses.

Hannah pressed a hand to her bonnet as they surged forward. "The Fallkirks will be elated. I know I would be if one of my missing pets was returned to me unexpectedly."

"A happy circumstance that you encountered him as you did."

"Indeed, it was. To think, I nearly passed him without a second look. I was that focused on posting my article."

He gave her an interested glance as he drove the curricle. "What article?"

"A piece I'm contributing to the Animal Advocate on the importance of feeding one's cats. Many people don't feed them, you know. They presume a cat will hunt for their own supper. But not every cat is capable of hunting."

"That much I do know," James said. "My sister has two cats. I'm convinced they subsist on minced meat and cream."

Hannah smiled again. "Tabby and Major. I remember them well."

"Do you keep cats at Heywood House?" James asked. He couldn't recall seeing any outside the stables.

"Not in the house. It wouldn't be fair to them. Not with so many dogs in residence."

"How many dogs altogether?"

"Let me see." She appeared to perform a silent count in her head. "Six at the moment, not including the working dogs. Though that number is apt to change if the need arises."

"Do you anticipate keeping as many when you set up house of your own?"

She abruptly lowered her eyes.

James silently cursed himself for an idiot. It was an ill-conceived question. Ill-timed as well. All it had done was remind her of the true purpose of their being together this morning. And it wasn't for them to return the donkey to its rightful owners. It was for them to become better acquainted, with a view toward matrimony.

He may as well have asked her how many pets she planned to keep when they were married. It was outrageously presumptuous.

"Forgive me," he said. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. I thought only to talk with you about what you love best."

She cautiously returned his gaze. "That was very kind of you."

"It was strategic. I didn't want to make any mistakes this time. Yet, that's exactly what I've done, haven't I?" He gave a humorless huff. "It seems I can't be in your company above five minutes without frightening you away."

Her mouth tilted in a faint smile. "You haven't frightened me."

James gave her a doubtful look. "No?"

"I find conversation difficult with strangers," she said. "But I'm not scared of them."

"Perhaps that's the trouble."

Her brows lifted. "That I'm not scared of you?"

"That we're still strangers," he said.

"Oh." Her cheeks colored. "I wouldn't say we were. Not exactly."

"But we're not friends, either."

She gripped the edge of the padded seat as the curricle bounced over an uneven patch of road. "Do you want to be my friend?"

"Very much so," he said.

The horses' hooves clip-clopped over the hard-packed earth of the road. The donkey's hoofbeats sounded behind, lighter and quicker.

Hannah cast a fleeting look back at the little creature before returning her attention to James. "You're well on your way. I can think of no one more deserving of friendship than a gentleman who would help an animal in need."

"I suppose that's a start," he said dryly.

"It is," she assured him. "I myself have never turned away an animal in need of rescuing. And…" She hesitated, suddenly shy again. "I don't imagine I ever would, not even when I marry."

James eyes briefly met hers. He felt the same surge of hope he'd felt yesterday when she'd confessed that she was glad he had returned to Bath. "Nor why should you."

"You wouldn't object to having a…a…"

"A menagerie?" He smiled slightly. "No." He guided the horses down the Lower Bristol Road. "My family's seat in Hertfordshire is sizeable. There's ample room for animals, and plenty of staff to help care for them."

"You surely wouldn't wish to see it overrun."

"Worth House has witnessed countless family scandals over the centuries. If my sole contribution to the cannon is a pack of crossbreed dogs, I shall count myself fortunate indeed."

"Your sister has shared something of those scandals with me."

James cut her a piercing glance. "Has she?"

"About your grandfather having been a highwayman."

He suppressed a wince. Leave it to Kate to bandy about the worst of the Beresfords' history. Then again, she was marrying into the Heywood family. And it wasn't as if James's grandfather's infamy was a secret.

"Gentleman Jim, they called him," he said flatly.

Hannah's eyes lit. "Really?"

"Upon my honor."

"But how exciting it sounds! Just like a Penny Dreadful."

James gripped the reins hard. Highwaymen were frequently featured in the cheap, penny fiction of the day. Rather than villains, they were often portrayed as heroic figures. It was the furthest thing from the truth.

"Hardly that," he said. "My grandfather was a scoundrel who left my father in very bleak circumstances. There was nothing exciting about it."

Her smile dimmed. She was quiet a moment. "Were you named after him?"

"I was," he acknowledged grimly. "My great-grandfather and my parents had hoped I might restore dignity to the name."

"I'm confident you have."

"I've certainly given it my best effort." He turned the subject. "What about your name? Did you inherit it from a disreputable ancestor?"

"No, indeed. But my parents did like it very much. My father says it's straightforward, just as I am. The same, backwards and forwards. What you see is precisely what you get."

"I like what I see," James said, looking at her.

Hannah's cheeks turned petal pink, just as he'd hoped they would. She bent her head, briefly shielding her face from his view behind the brim of her straw bonnet. "I don't know how to reply when you say such things."

"Would you rather I didn't say them?"

"No, but…I should like to better prepare myself."

"Next time I compliment you," he said solemnly, "I'll take care to give you adequate warning."

She peeped at him from beneath her bonnet brim. "Now you're being absurd."

He returned his gaze to the road. "I've never been accused of that before."

"I don't expect you have. But I stand by my assessment." She folded her hands neatly in her lap. Her gloves were dyed to match her pelisse. "We were speaking of family scandals."

"Of which mine has many and yours has none."

"That isn't at all true."

"No?"

"My parents' elopement was a scandal."

James recalled hearing something of the old gossip about Hannah's parents when Charles and Kate had been courting. It was said that Captain Heywood had met his wife in London—a young beauty who, at the time, was rumored to have been betrothed to a duke. Some antiquated busybodies still maintained that the captain had kidnapped her and spirited her away to the country to be his unwilling bride.

"A nine-day scandal, if that," he said. "Elopements aren't in the same class as blatant criminal activity, even if they do inspire the London tabbies to talk."

"Not only the elopement," Hannah replied. "My father is a fearsome shot."

His mouth quirked at the seeming non sequitur. "Captain Heywood's reputation with a pistol is much admired. I wouldn't call it scandalous."

"Some might." She dropped her voice to a confidential whisper. "He once killed a gentleman who was threatening my mother."

James flashed her a sharp look as he guided the horses around a curve in the road. This was news to him. "When is this supposed to have happened?"

"It was years before I was born," she said. "Our housekeeper, Sara, confided it to me. She was my mother's lady's maid at the time. She said that my father put a bullet in the man's brain. And that my mother's wolfhound, Basil, bit the man for good measure."

James's brows lowered in a repressive frown. "Your housekeeper was very wrong to have mentioned it to you."

"Why?"

"Because it isn't a proper thing for a young lady to be hearing."

One wasn't meant to discuss shooting people around a female of any age, let alone sheltered young ladies in their first season.

"I thought it rather romantic," Hannah said.

" Romantic? "

"My father acted to protect my mother." She brushed one of her fluttering bonnet ribbons back from her cheek. "She was counted a rare beauty in her day, with many admirers from London who wanted to take her away and set her up as a trophy in their great houses. She refused them all to marry Papa. They love each other desperately."

"A moving story."

"It isn't a story. It's the truth. And it is scandalous, despite being romantic. It's one of the reasons my parents didn't host a come-out ball for me themselves, and why they thought it better for me to debut in Bath instead of in London. They didn't wish to risk my first season being sullied."

James gazed stonily at the road ahead, his hands steady as he reflexively guided the horses over the rise. He hadn't known the Heywoods' long-ago actions were still exacting a price from them. "I thought it was you who wanted to debut in Bath?"

"I did. But my preferences weren't the only factor. My parents are always a consideration. I'd no more cause pain to them than they would to me."

James's frown deepened. He'd been so consumed with rehabilitating the Beresfords' scandalous history, it hadn't occurred to him that Hannah's family might have their own scandal to deal with. If it was indeed true that they'd made a calculated decision to keep their daughter away from London…

But he had no good reason to doubt it.

Every interaction he'd had with Captain Heywood and his wife stood as proof of how much they loved their daughter. They were clearly too protective of her to subject her to even a whisper of unfavorable talk, even if that meant encouraging her to spend her first season in Bath.

James's own parents had been less obliging when it came to Kate. The Beresford way was more of the sword than of the shield. His sister had debuted in London without fear or apology, daring the society busybodies to say the worst.

And many of them had.

It hadn't been the first time the Beresfords had kicked a hornet's nest. One would think they enjoyed rekindling all the old gossip. That they relished the whispers about a stolen title. About James's father being a usurper—a cuckoo in the nest.

"I daresay it's why we have lived such a quiet life in Somerset," Hannah said. Her dark brows notched in an elegant line. "Charles didn't like it above half. He soon grew restless and desired to go to sea. But I love the solitude. I find it suits me very well."

"Perhaps because you don't know any different," James suggested.

Her gaze returned to his, vaguely affronted. "One needn't experience everything in the world to know where one's heart lies."

His attention lingered on her face. Despite everything she'd revealed to him, the revelations about her family's scandals, and the obstacles she would face if she ever removed to London. Yes, despite even that, his blood stirred with warmth. He had never met someone so confident in their own best instincts. "Your heart is your lodestar, is it?"

"In all things," she said. "Isn't yours?"

"Not generally. I find my head to be a more reliable compass."

"A person must use their powers of reason, naturally, but the right thing isn't always the most reasonable, I find."

James thought of his attraction to her. It surely wasn't reasonable. That was the precise reason he'd resisted it for so long. And yet…

Here he was.

"Perhaps not," he allowed.