CHAPTER THREE

J asper winced as the pain in his head grew steadily worse.

God save him from younger sisters. He had been blissfuly unaware of how loud they were when he’d been living in his rooms away from the family home. Loud and expensive, the thought wryly as their carriage trundled its way through the icy streets.

Just this morning they’d managed to damage his pockets before most people arose. And if he had to hear one more bloody word about the wallflower.

All last evening when they had driven home from that insipid party, the girls had chattered about her. Isn’t she beautiful? Isn’t she funny? Isn’t she witty? Did you see how awful Mr. Answel was? Did you see how rude Lady Fennel was? On and on.

The worst part was that he couldn’t disagree with a single thing they’d said, though he pretended to ignore it, of course.

Yes, she was beautiful. Incredibly so with all that golden hair and those wide, chocolate-brown eyes.

Yes, she was funny and witty. Even when it had been at his expense, he couldn’t deny he’d been amused by her sassiness.

He’d known exactly what that Answel bastard had been up to. And he’d seen the notable snub from Lady Fennel. But he’d also seen the little termagent purposely ruin the lady’s skirts.

Three years ago, Charlotte Forrester would have been everything that interested him. Three years ago he would have taken one look at those eyes, those delectable curves, and made it his business to get to know her a whole lot better.

But he was no longer the man he’d been three years ago. Now, he was an earl with two irascible charges to take care of. And he couldn’t afford to be distracted by a golden-haired beauty. He couldn’t afford to care that she’d been pawed at, or shunned for what the twins had informed him were the perceived sins of her sister and nothing that she herself had done.

And he certainly couldn’t afford to have someone with that cheeky mouth and impish glint in her eyes influencing his sisters. They were already turning him grey with their antics. They didn’t need a third helping them break out of house parties or fall out of favor with the ton.

When his father had passed away, and the mantle of earl had fallen on him, the one thing his mother had demanded of him was to ensure the girls’ entrée into Society went as smoothly as possible. Jasper had presumed that would mean opening his pockets and keeping blackguards away from them.

But their mother had taken ill claiming that the stress of trying to keep the girls in check had worn so much on her that she needed to retreat to her sister’s in Scotland for Christmastide. She would be back, she’d said, in time to truly prepare them for their presentation next spring. Until then, she was expecting Jasper to control them.

In a fit of desperation he’d decided that exposing them to some sort of Society, even if it was more restricted than what they’d actually experience during the Season, would benefit them all.

Thus far, all he’d earned for his efforts was a daily headache and the companionship of an inconveniently attractive social outcast.

“We’re here.”

One of them, and at this point he couldn’t even remember which was which squealed excitedly and then before their footman even had a chance to assist them, they were both out of the carriage and bounding up the steps of the white stucco townhouse they’d stopped outside.

He wasn’t about to go traipsing after them. He wouldn’t have come at all this morning if he felt as though he could trust them to be out without him. But just the other day, they’d slipped their maids and he’d tracked them down in a hackney on its way to a gambling hell in the Dials. Now, he was afraid to let them move without him there.

But he drew the line at visiting with the wallflower and her on-the-outs family. The last thing he wanted to do was encourage the twins’ attachment to a scandalous family. He’d give them today. He’d allow them to make small talk with the young lady should their paths cross. But that would be as far as it went for all of them. He would make sure of it.

A burst of giggles and gabbing rent the quiet morning air and Jasper gritted his teeth as he cast a glare out the door of the carriage. Harriet and Joanna spilled from the doorway of the townhouse, Miss Forrester between them.

Christ, but she was a pretty little thing, he thought begrudgingly. The navy-blue, velvet winter coat a perfect foil for her bright, golden curls. She looked like a splash of sunshine on the grey, overcast day.

But that didn’t change the fact that she wasn’t good for his sisters.

Another voice joined the fray and Jasper watched wide-eyed as Mrs. Forrester appeared in the doorway, waving frantically at him. “Good morning, my lord,” she cried, voice loud enough to wake the dead. “How kind of you to call upon us this morning.”

She darted her eyes around and Jasper followed suit, noticing some of the Forrester’s neighbors milling around. The damned woman was making a spectacle of his being there, practically salivating at having an earl and his sisters call on them. With witnesses, no less.

He didn’t have it in him to shout back at the older woman, but he also didn’t have it in him to be outright hostile so he settled on nodding at her. She seemed content enough with that, he thougth wryly as he watched her eyeball the crest on the side of his lacquered carriage. He had no doubt she’d be using this occasion to try to gain entry to the houses that had been shut to her because of her oldest daughter’s marriage.

A marriage he knew all about since the twins had insisted on regaling him with all the salacious facts that he didn’t ask for.

Still, something tightened in his chest, infinitesimal and hardly worthy of notice but there all the same, as he imagined Charlotte’s treatment at the hands of the beau monde because her sister had followed her heart instead of doing what was expected of her. Hardly a crime that warranted her entire family being plunged into social purgatory. But then, that was the ton. Always silently judging. Always watching for someone to fall from grace.

The ladies reached the carriage and good manners dictated that he would have to alight to assist them.

He held out his hand to Harriet who promptly entered and sat on the same bench he’d been occupying. Next came Joanna who smiled her thanks. And finally, the wallflower.

“Good afternoon, my lord,” she said brightly, a hint of amusement in the dark depths of her eyes. It was as though she knew how much he disapproved of her and found it nothing more than diverting.

Somewhere deep inside him, the man he’d been before the mantle of earl had fallen upon him stirred to life at her audacity, as the tiny smile playing around her mouth. Jasper ruthlessly pushed him away.

“Good afternoon, Miss Forrester,” he answered stiffly which bizarrely seemed to amuse her even more.

He held out his hand, schooling his features to remain impassive when she grasped it and allowed him to help her into the carriage. Once she was settled, directly across from him and close enough that he could smell her tantalizing scent; vanilla, he noted without meaning to, he rapped on the ceiling and they were on the move once more.

“Lord, Charlotte, I thought your mother was going to fall to a dead faint when we were announced.”

Jasper winced a little at his sister’s lack of tact. But Miss Forrester, Charlotte, laughed. The sound was throaty and mischievous and altogether too damned distracting. “I know,” she said ruefully. “It’s been so long since anyone deigned to call on us, I’m afraid she’s quite forgotten how to conduct yourself. Thank heavens your brother didn’t come in with you. I’m not sure she’d have recovered.”

The girls set off in peals of giggles and Jasper muttered an oath under his breath. He had an entire afternoon of this to look forward to. This is what had become of him. Nannying three unwed misses in the depths of a London winter.

The carriage entered Hyde Park and made its way to the Serpentine. Although nowhere near as throttled with people as it was in the warmer months, it was still one of the busier places in Town during the winter. Already there were people skating on the iced over surface, while others milled around wrapped up against the afternoon chill. Yet more sat in open-topped carriages sipping hot ciders and talking with passers-by.

It was a scene that looked positively bucolic. Everyone was so at peace. He felt almost guilty that their peace was about to be shattered by the arrival of the three women in his company.

The carriage drew to a stop but this time, Jasper was ready, and he managed to jump out before one of his sisters made a run for it.

The footman had no sooner set the steps at the door than the twins came tumbling out in a flurry of skirts and chatter. He managed to prevent an injury and then they were hurrying over to the pond, yelling over their shoulders for Miss Forrester to make haste. Utterly chaotic, as usual.

Miss Forrester emerged, and actually had the manners to allow Jasper to hand her out of the carriage. He watched her face as her eyes roved over the crowd and because he was watching so closely he saw it; the tiny frown marring her brow, the tightening of her mouth, the flash of trepidation in her eyes.

She was worried, he realized. Worried about the censure she faced every time she was in ‘polite’ society. Precisely what he didn’t want for his sisters.

He shouldn’t care. He didn’t care. And yet, somehow he found himself leaning down to whisper in her ear, to reassure her, of all things. “Not one of them is without fault, Miss Forrester. Not one of them can afford to cast aspersions.”

She blinked up at him, wide-eyed, as though utterly shocked that he was being friendly, and it made him feel uncomfortably guilty. He hadn’t been that unpleasant, had he?

“Oh, I know,” she recovered quickly to answer, her tone breezy and unaffected. “Besides, they’re nowhere near as unfriendly as they used to be. Two years ago, they probably would have had a guard at the gate to keep me out.”

She was so flippant about it, but her words galled Jasper nonetheless. From what he gathered, her sister’s actions had turned the ton quite on its head. A pregnancy out of wedlock and then a flight to Gretna to marry the father, breaking her agreement with a gentleman. It truly was the stuff of nightmares for Society mamas. His own would only be fit for Bedlam should Harriet or Joanna do such a thing.

Yet Charlotte hadn’t done those things. Charlotte didn’t deserve their censure. It seemed needlessly unkind. And for a moment, he wondered if he should abandon his plans to distance the twins from her.

“Sheep, every one of them,” she muttered softly. So softly he wasn’t even sure she intended him to hear. But he had heard, and he couldn’t quite shake it. And having resolved to keep him distance from Miss Forrester, and to ensure that his sisters did the same, it made absolutely no sense that he looked at the stubborn tilt of her chin despite the slight tremble that belied her nonchalance and whispered in her ear once again.

“It never troubles a wolf, how many the sheep be.”