Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

J ames drove Hannah back to Camden Place in a far more optimistic frame of mind than he'd been in when he'd arrived to collect her. They had experienced something together this morning. Smiles. Laughter. A shared sense of the absurd. It had lent a lightness to their conversation that had never been present before. She had been, for a short time, suddenly and remarkably at ease with him.

She had also asked him to be himself.

James wasn't entirely confident he could oblige her.

He had spent so much of his life keeping ruthless control of his emotions that he'd forgotten what it was like to relax his hold. To be impulsive. Frivolous. Fun. The very qualities that characterized his reckless younger siblings.

Unlike them, James had had no older brother to pave the way, either at school or in fashionable society. He'd been the one to take all the slings and arrows. To deal with the slurs, the slander, the outright insults. There had been only one way of doing so. Rather than rising to the bait, engaging in endless bouts of fisticuffs over his family's honor, he'd learned to affect an air of intimidatingly cold reserve.

At the time, it had been a studied copy of his father at his most formidable moments. But James no longer had to affect that glacial formidability, to don it like a suit of armor as he'd done during his years at Eton and Oxford. It had become who he was, as natural to him as breathing.

The closest he'd come to abandoning his control was in his decision to pursue Hannah Heywood. She wasn't part of his master plan for the Beresford family. She didn't fit . And in the end, it hadn't mattered. His attraction to her had overshadowed all sensible concern. Just like that, he'd been willing to cast away years of planning and calculation. Tempted to give it all up if only he could have her for his own.

James despised the weakness in himself, even as he relished every moment spent in Hannah's company.

On returning, he escorted her into the house. He was on the verge of inquiring when he might see her again, when a footman approached them.

"Captain Heywood awaits you in the library, my lord," the footman said.

Hannah's hands stilled in the act of untying her pink satin bonnet ribbons. A glimmer of anxiety shone in her eyes. "I'd forgotten he wished to speak with you."

"I hadn't," James replied. "If you will excuse me?"

"Of course," she said.

He bowed to her before following the footman from the hall. The library was at the back of the residence in a similar location to the library in the Beresfords' house on the Circus.

Captain Heywood was inside, seated behind a carved walnut desk in the corner. He appeared to be writing a letter. He didn't rise. "Lord St. Clare," he said. "Please, sit down."

James took a seat in one of the leather-upholstered chairs across from him. The desk between them gave the meeting an air of formality. No doubt Captain Heywood had intended it to. James was, after all, a suitor for his daughter's hand. A once-spurned suitor who had had the temerity to return to the scene of his defeat. And Captain Heywood was nothing if not a protective father.

A very protective father.

Indeed, if Hannah's story was to be believed, Captain Heywood was cold-bloodedly ruthless when it came to the defense of his family.

James hadn't seen it in him initially. But he could see it now quite clearly, even as the captain finished his letter. The steely glint in his eyes, the sternness of his brow, and the steadiness of his hand as he held his quill pen. The same steadiness with which he was reputed to hold a pistol.

Yet Hannah had claimed her father was a romantic too. That James couldn't see. Whatever softness Captain Heywood's granite-hard demeanor was shielding was reserved for his family alone.

At length, the captain set down his quill. He tucked his unfinished letter under the blotter. "I trust everything has been resolved with the stolen donkey?"

"It has, sir," James replied. "After a fashion. It seems the donkey now belongs to me." He gave the captain a brief summary of what had happened at Fallkirk's Farm.

The story provoked a rare flash of humor in Captain Heywood's otherwise flinty expression. "I can't say I'm surprised," he said. "There have been many occasions over the years when championing an animal on behalf of my wife or my daughter has had the same result."

James's mouth hitched briefly at one corner. "Do you mean to say that you've found yourself the unwitting owner of an animal or two?"

"Or ten," Captain Heywood said. "A man soon grows accustomed."

James could easily imagine himself in the same predicament. The prospect wasn't an unpleasant one. Not if Hannah was part of the picture. "I count it a small price to pay for the privilege of knowing your daughter," he said.

"It heartens me to hear you say so," the captain replied solemnly, "considering the fact that she rejected you. And in no uncertain terms, I believe."

James's expression sobered. "Yes, she did," he acknowledged. "I suspect you knew she would."

Captain Heywood didn't deny it. "My daughter was raised to know her worth. I knew she was not likely to settle for less than a love match."

James flinched. "I'm well aware she isn't in love with me."

"Yet, here you are." Captain Heywood sat back in his chair. He surveyed James's face with a thoughtful frown. " Why are you here?"

James saw no point in wasting either of their time with long-winded explanations. Not when his reasons for returning to Bath could be distilled into five simple words. "I gave up too soon."

"Some would say you gave up at exactly the right moment. A man who has had his proposals refused has good reason to quit the field."

James recalled those bleak, regret-filled weeks in London. He'd spent every day of them raking himself over the coals, first for having proposed to Hannah at all, and then for having done so without having first made an effort to win her heart.

"Which I did," he said. "Until I came to my senses."

Captain Heywood regarded him in silence for a long moment. "I presume you're aware of the effect of your returning?"

"In relation to Miss Heywood?"

"In relation to the whole of Bath society. Your presence here looms large. If you mean to make yourself a fixture at every entertainment to which my daughter is invited, you will soon drive away all competition for her hand."

Good , James thought uncharitably. But he didn't show it. And he certainly didn't say it.

"I'm not concerned about competition," he replied instead. "It's Miss Heywood I'm interested in, nothing else. I hope that, with time and effort, I might prove to her that she could one day find happiness with me."

"An admirable answer," Captain Heywood said.

"It's the truth, sir. I was in error before, approaching her too hastily. It's not a mistake I intend to repeat. I mean to do things properly this time."

"Also, admirable."

James felt a flicker of unease. Hannah's father was an incredibly difficult man to read. It was impossible to predict whether he would endorse James renewing his suit or put an end to it here and now. James very much feared it would be the latter.

"Do you disapprove?" he asked abruptly.

"I neither approve nor disapprove," Captain Heywood said. "My only purpose in summoning you here was to issue a warning."

James tensed.

"Your family and mine are soon to be connected by marriage," Captain Heywood said. "That allows for a certain informality between us. But know this. Regardless of any respect I might hold for your parents, if you cause my daughter even a moment of pain, you shall answer to me."

James didn't take the warning lightly. "Understood."

"That's not all." Captain Heywood's face grew more serious still. "I want something from you, lad."

"Anything, sir," James said promptly.

"At the first indication that my daughter doesn't return your interest, I want your word as a gentleman that you will leave Bath."

James's stomach sank. Hell's teeth. He had walked neatly into that trap, hadn't he?

"I won't permit you to stand in the way of her finding true happiness, whether that happiness lies with another gentleman or back home with her mother and me. With you out of the way, she will be free to decide what's best for her."

"I would never stand in the way of her happiness," James said.

Captain Heywood was unmoved. "I want your word."

James saw no way to avoid giving it. He stiffly inclined his head in grudging acceptance of the captain's terms. "Very well," he answered. "You have it."