“Thank goodness. Jack, he helps many people, but you mustn’t forget he is a powerful man and you were alone with him.”
Louise’s sense seemed to echo the duke’s own concerns. It was infuriating. She sighed. “He sent me away.”
“What?” Louise replied.
“He sent me away before we could do anything more than kiss,” she explained swiftly. “He seemed horrified by his actions, and I don’t think I should have to worry about more overtures anytime soon.”
Louise shifted on her seat and asked carefully, “What was it like?”
“What was what like?”
“Kissinghim.”
“Oh, Louise,” she replied, her heart fluttering, even though she wished it would not. “It was the most magnificent moment of my entire life.”
Louise batted her lashes, then propped her chin on her fist. “I do hope it’s like that for me and Deptford.”
“I’m sure it will be,” Jack said gently. “You two are so happy together. I imagine that you’ll absolutely adore kissing each other.”
“Yes, but what is it like, risking it all?”
Jack grinned. “I couldn’t stop myself. There was something absolutely wild about him when he kissed me. I’d never seen him like that, not in all my years. It was as if he’d been holding onto something truly tight for a very long time and he, well, he almost let go.”
“You don’t want him to let go,” Louise said firmly. “That sounds like a very dangerous thing, indeed.”
“No doubt it is,” she agreed. But in the depths of her soul? She did wish that he had let go and taken her with him.
“Now,” Jack said, placing her teacup back in its saucer, “my darling elder, after this wonderful and edifying conversation full of warnings and ill portents, I am going to go play the pianoforte.”
She needed to let her emotions out. Somehow. And the instrument was the only way she could. Jack stood and crossed behind her sister. She paused and bent down, placing a quick kiss to Louise’s cheek. “I promise to do nothing to get in the way of your happiness.”
“Thank you, my dear. I will take that promise and hold it close to my heart.”
And she’d keep it. She had to. She’d danced too close to the edge, and she was simply lucky that no one had been hurt…but herself.
Chapter Nineteen
James stormed down his own townhouse steps, tugged on his waistcoat, and stared at the adjacent door leading into the Marquess of Blackbrook’s London family home.
He had always enjoyed passing it. It usually was a reminder of the happy times he’d had with the Peabody family in his younger years, though he’d gotten to spend so little time with them when they had gone abroad.
They were now back, of course, and he was affiliated with the family through attempts to marry them all off, which of course was a bit absurd, but it was enjoyable, or at least it had been until he’d made a mess of the situation with Jack.
It was imperative he apologize. Last night, under the dark hours, all had felt lost. But today, with dawn, he had reclaimed himself. After all, he had not spent years forging control just to lose it entirely in one night.
What an ass he had been.
How daring and foolish to let them kiss like that.Let. Let was a foolish word. He had notletJack do anything. He did not think anyone could let Jack do anything. Jack did as Jack pleased, and bloody hell, he loved that about her.
He loved the way she’d boldly taken her life in hand by throwing herself in through his window, by demanding that he fix her situation, by demanding more for herself.
She was a marvel, there was no countering it. And he’d handled her terribly.
He’d been trying to find a match for her. Which was absurd.
A woman like Jack? There was no match. No, she wanted independence. And a solution had come to him during the gray hours between night and daybreak.
He would set up a fund for her so that she wouldn’t have to worry about financial dependence, and he’d simply find a way to bring the Peabodys into financial security without them sacrificing their most unique girl to the prison of matrimony. Because for Jack? It would be a prison.