“Your money.” Jeremy shook his head. “But the contract is secure in your safe with your jewels and journals again.”
“Thank heavens.” Fanny sagged against Jeremy, relieved beyond measure as she hugged him. “Thank you.”
His hand swept up her arm, his fingers moving to the back of her neck and teasing into her hair. He bent his head toward hers and whispered, “All they have is their filthy imaginations now. I highly doubt anyone would believe them on the strength of their word alone.”
“They could still cause trouble if they made a copy, which I fervently hope they did not consider.” She bit her lip and looked up at Jeremy, studying his face a moment before asking the question she most wanted confirmed. “How did you get the original contract back from them? Samuel suggested that you picked Wilks’ pocket.”
Jeremy’s hand dropped from her skin. “Did he, now? What else did Samuel say?”
“He said I should ask you for the particulars. Well?”
Jeremy took a step back and glanced sideways. Fanny had the uncomfortable feeling he was preparing to run. She put out her hand to him. “Please, we need to talk about this.”
He glanced her way, his expression shuttered. “There were good reasons I refused to talk about my past. The truth will not allow you to trust me more. In fact, it should do the opposite.”
Fanny took her time to consider everything he was not telling her. In a way, he was confirming everything. Jeremy Dawes had been, was still perhaps, a thief.
But Jeremy had been in the presence of her valuables on several occasions and she couldn’t credit that he was dangerous to her. She had not felt, nor did she feel now, that he would steal from her. In fact, his picking a pocket and a lock had been done to help her alone.
It would be irrational that she might hold that past, and his recent actions, against him in the face of the aid he’d given her. “I won’t ask you to explain now, but I will ask again.”
He looked surprised by her response.
Right then, a drop of water landed on his cheek, and he looked up with an oath tumbling from his lips.
Fanny did too, but all she saw was raindrops falling through the dark canopy and threatening to drench them if they did not move. “We must hurry back to the manor. There is a storm approaching.”
Jeremy immediately put his arm around her waist. “I’ve been rained on before, but you should certainly not be out in it.”
They turned for home, hurrying along side by side. But when they reached the edge of the forest it was clear the storm was upon them already. Rain had begun to fall in great sheets across the open field, and with such dark clouds rolling in, the rain could soon become heavier.
She turned to Jeremy before they stepped out in the worst of it, mulling over what she’d learned in the woods again. Everyone had things in their past they didn’t like to talk about. She was no different. Jeremy could keep his secrets, provided they did not impact her own life. “We don’t need to talk about what you did or have done before we met, unless you want to tell me.”
His smile reappeared. “I appreciate that. You probably wouldn’t enjoy the telling unless it were put in a play anyway.”
Fanny gasped. “Don’t you dare put any of that in writing before you tell me. I think we can both agree I made a mistake writing that agreement, and it is a risk we should not take again with our reputations.”
“You’ll have no argument from me, my lady.” He removed his coat and held it over her head. “We’ll just go on the way we were before.”
Relief swept through her but then a rolling boom of thunder shook them both, and Fanny suddenly found herself wrapped tightly in Jeremy’s embrace. She wasn’t sure if she’d moved to him or he’d moved to her. All she knew was that in his arms was where she’d like to stay for a while. A good long while. Jeremy felt very safe, even if he was a thief.
They looked at each other a long moment and then laughed nervously as they parted.
Fanny gathered up her long skirts in both hands. “We’re going to have to make a run for it,” she warned. “Stay close.”
He made sure she was protected by his coat. “Always, my lady. I am completely under your direction.”
Chapter 12
Jeremy tightened his grip around Fanny’s slender waist and hurried her the last few yards to Stapleton Manor through the hard downpour. They collapsed in the shelter of a stone archway but both of them were soaked through and unfit to be seen by anyone. “We’ll have to get you out of those wet clothes.”
“You’re wet, too.”
Jeremy’s appearance hardly mattered in the greater scheme of things. Despite her wearing mourning black from head to toe, there were streaks of mud on Lady Rivers’ skirts at the knees from where she’d slipped and fallen, taking Jeremy down with her. Her once-perfect gown had become a rag.
If they were seen so disheveled, people might imagine she’d been rutting with him in a field. With the contents of their contract known by Thwaite and Wilks, they might all too happily make baseless insinuations.
Jeremy couldn’t allow that.