What she’d said was for the best. She knew that. Even if Sebastian had developed romantic notions about them, his father would never approve. He’d made that clear. And that was without knowing that her mother was still alive and apparently involved in criminal activities.
In no world did this pairing make a lick of sense.
It was time to get back home. To get back to her real world.
It wasn’t until the ball was well underway that she finally found her sister. She frowned and hurried over toward her, tugging her away from a group of ladies. “Rebecca, are you all right?” she asked as they weaved through the crowded rooms toward the ballroom.
“Of course.” But her sister’s smile seemed strained.
Sally just barely held back a weary sigh. Of course it was strained. Her poor sister had just seen their mother who’d abandoned them. And now they were leaving the place where she’d been having such fun. “Are you certain you want to rush home? We could stay another day if you’d like or—”
“No.” Her sister shook her head. “No, we need to be back.”
Sally nodded, her throat tight. But for the life of her she could not say if she was pleased or disappointed with her sister’s response. Going home was the right thing to do. So why did it feel as though she’d be leaving her heart behind?
Rebecca’s eyes narrowed on her. “And you, sister? Are you all right?”
“Of course!”
“Of course,” Rebecca repeated, her tone far more rueful. Almost mocking. “Sally, you do know the world would not end if you were to admit that you were not all right, don’t you?”
Sally frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that you are so like Minerva at times. You both seem to think you must always be the strong ones.”
Sally’s lips hitched up in a weak attempt at a smile. “I am the strong one.”
“Yes, but we no longer need you fighting our battles.” Her sister placed a hand on her arm. “And you also experienced a shock. You have just as many questions as I do. You’re also allowed to feel that.”
Sally nodded, her throat tight once more. If she made it through this night without caving to the urge to weep, it would be a miracle. “I know that.”
Rebecca nodded, but her expression was thoughtful. “I know you feared that I’d have my heart broken by one of these gallant lads,” she said, glancing around with a wry grin. “But to be honest, dear, you’re the one I’m worried about.”
“Why would you ever be—”
Her sister’s look had her falling silent. As Sally would be the first to tell anyone, Rebecca might have been flighty and fanciful—but she was nobody’s fool.
At this particular moment she looked all too knowing. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Sally shook her head. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
Rebecca did not look as though she believed her but after another considering stare, she turned her attention toward the ballroom, where musicians were tuning their instruments as the foyer filled with new voices and laughter. “A proper ball, Sally. Can you imagine?”
Sally knew what she meant. None of the Jones girls had ever expected to attend something as glamorous as this. They weren’t exactly urchins, but they were still a good long ways from being a part of London society.
The ton they were not.
Which was fine by Sally. It was more than fine. She wanted nothing to do with this world or anyone in it.
Sebastian chose that moment to approach through the thickening crowd as if to call her out on her lie with his mere presence.
Her heart turned traitor too, making her mind out to be a liar as it picked up its pace the closer he drew near. “Sally,” he said. He said it like an accusation.
She arched her brows. “Sebastian.”
Her sister made a funny humming sound as she inched away. “I’ll just be over there if you need me.”
“Have I frightened your sister away?” he asked as they both watched Rebecca hurry off toward the ballroom where the musicians had started to play in earnest.
“Hardly,” Sally said. “Jones girls don’t frighten easily.”
“Is that right?” he asked. His tone was stern, more serious than she’d ever heard him. “Then what is your excuse?”
“Pardon me?”
His brows came down and he offered his hand. “Dance with me.”
It was a challenge. He might as well have slapped her with his glove and threatened a duel at dawn.
Her mouth went dry as she tried to remind herself that she was not a coward. She could handle this. It was only one more night. One dance.
She slipped her gloved hand into his and instantly realized her mistake. One dance was never just one dance when it was with the one you loved.
The room spun about her as his hand pressed against her back. Love. The word crashed over her. Was that what this was?
The swelling music coursed through her veins as if in harmony with the crashing waves of emotions that soared in her chest.
“This feels right,” he murmured as he pulled her into his arms.
She swallowed to keep from agreeing, her gaze fixed on his chin. How did he manage to have an attractive chin? It just wasn’t fair.
His grip on her tightened and his voice lowered. “Have I mentioned how striking you look?”
She sighed. Yes, yes, Rebecca and her lady’s maid had helped to choose the blue gown that best suited her complexion, but it was still a thousand times less elegant than every gown here. And not even Rebecca’s curling tongs could make much of her stick-straight, perfectly boring brown hair. “I’m not beautiful.”
“I believe that’s up to me to decide.”
She arched a brow. “How so?”
“They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, is it not?” He donned a magnificently snobby expression. “And I am the beholder.”
She tried not to. She really did. But a laugh tumbled out of her, and he grinned, and for a moment everything was all right. She was just Sally and he was just Sebastian, and families and duties and long-lost mothers had nothing to do with anything.
“Now you are beautiful,” he said, his gaze warming and making her insides melt.
“You said that already,” she said with another laugh, heat stealing into her cheeks.
“No, I’d said you were striking. And you are.” He grew serious. “Always.”
She rolled her eyes.
“I mean it—”
“No one finds me beautiful. Or striking.” Whatever that meant. “And that’s quite all right by me.”
“I do.” He drew her closer until she placed a hand on his chest, reminding him with a touch where they were. That there were others all around them. “You are beautiful when you smile, when that passion that is so distinctly you reaches your eyes and makes them glow.”
Her eyes widened at the uncharacteristically romantic talk.
“Your smile is truly something spectacular to behold. Anyone who sees it—anyone who’s lucky enough to win one—must be humbled by that pure beauty.”
“I-I—” Her lips moved as she fumbled for words. She was spectacularly unprepared for something like this. It was an assault. He was waging a war on her heart and it wasn’t fair because nothing had changed.
Nothing could change.
“But you’re always striking.” He sounded so serious as he spoke as though she hadn’t tried to protest. “You’re striking because of your convictions and your strength and your ability to face life and people head on.” His brows went up. “You’re not even intimidated by my father.”
She bit her lip. No, indeed she was not. In fact, the more time she’d spent with him and the more she learned about him, the more she merely felt sorry for the earl.
“Maybe it’s that medical training,” he said, musing to himself as he studied her. “Maybe it’s that ability to see us all for the mere mortal shells that we are.”
Her lips twitched with mirth at th
at. Was that how she saw people? Possibly. It was how she saw her patients, to be certain. A body was a body and person was a person, no matter what their rank or station.
“Whatever it is, it means you’ve never once looked at me as though I am an earl’s son, for better or for worse. You’ve never looked at me and seen what everyone else sees. My guess is, that is what makes you special to many people. You let people be who they are without judgment.”
His words were lovely. Sweet, even. They cut straight through her sternum and burrowed into her heart. But his last words brought with it a flash of her mother. Her father. All the questions she had and the lies and secrets that she hoped to discover.
But would she still look at either of them without judgment if she were to learn the whole truth?
The music came to an end and he drew her from the dance floor, down a nearly deserted hallway leading toward the family’s private rooms. He stopped short before they could be so far from the others as to be improper but far enough that they had some privacy, aside from the occasional laughing guest who walked past in the distance. “What troubles you, Sally? Please tell me.”
She didn’t want to. It wasn’t his trouble to share.
“Do you not trust me?”
“No, that is not it.” She said it so quickly and there was no doubt that she meant it. “I trust you.” Oh heaven help her, that was the worst part. She’d never trusted anyone outside of her own family before. She’d never let anyone close enough to need to.
Why did it have to be him? Why now? Her chest ached with the unfairness of it.
“Then tell me.” He shrugged. “Maybe I can help.”
She shook her head. “You cannot.”
He stared at her. He didn’t say a word but she could feel his hurt at being rejected. And then, as if her words were a force outside of her control, they bubbled up inside her chest, the urge to spill her secrets, to confide in him as he had her—it was too great a temptation to deny. For once she did want to lean on someone else. For once, she didn’t want to be the strong one.
Just this once, she wanted someone to take care of her.
And so she let it out. All of it. Or at least, what part she knew about her mother’s departure, what their father had told them, her bizarre return and the cryptic things she’d said.
Worst of all, she told him of the doubts that had shaken her to her core.
“You think she might be behind the piracy and smuggling in Billingham?” he asked when his dazed look of shock had lifted.
She shook her head and shrugged at once. “Maybe? I don’t know. All I know is, there are secrets there, and I think…” She swallowed down a swell of pain to admit it. “I think perhaps my father has lied to us. Or at least, he has not told us the whole truth.”
Sebastian sighed and drew her close, into his arms like she was a child in need of comfort. For a moment she held herself back, trying to keep some distance. What if someone saw? But the feel of his strong arms around her, the heat from his chest, the achingly familiar scent of him in her nose…
It was too much.
She melted against him and sputtered out an ugly sob. She wasn’t much of a crier and it ended as quickly as it started, but when she was through she felt the veriest fool. “I shouldn’t have burdened you with all that.”
He reached a hand out and touched her chin, cupping it lightly. “Of course you should have. I am your friend.”
The word friend hit her with a jarring thud and she jerked back. Is that all we are? His question from the day before came back to her now as if he’d just said them. Raising her stricken eyes to his she was nearly certain he heard it too. Or at least he was remembering.
The sadness in his eyes seemed to say he was thinking about her response. It’s all we can be.
Surely he saw now that she was right. It was one thing to court a captain’s daughter. It was quite another to court the daughter of a presumed-dead criminal.
A hysterical wave of laughter threatened to rise up in her. Was that who she was? It seemed too farfetched and ludicrous to be true. She knew nothing for certain until she talked to her father, but it was a conversation she was dreading.
“What are you thinking?” He tilted her face up once more.
“That I am not sure what to believe,” she admitted. “And that my father—my hero…” She shook her head, not wanting to say it aloud. The man she’d trusted and loved more than all others may have lied to her.
“I cannot claim to know your father well, but it seems to me that everything he’s done has been to protect you and your sisters.”
She closed her eyes and thought of every teasing jibe she’d overheard when her father’s friends came to visit. They’d done that often when she was young, and she recalled in vivid detail their confusion about why he would have left his honorable position, his full pay, his ever-rising career...to go off to the middle of nowhere and command a stone frigate which protected the coastline but that had no hope of seeing any real action.
A knot inside her eased. Whatever secrets her father was keeping, whatever lies he’d told. She knew Sebastian was right. Everything he did was for her and her sisters. “I still need to speak with him,” she said.
“Of course you do.”
“My eldest sister is en route to America, and my other sister Abigail will be on her way to London with our aunt for the season, which means…” She straightened her shoulders. “My two younger sisters need me now more than ever.”
He nodded. “I understand that.”
For a moment, she thought he did. She looked into his eyes and with a sadness she could not hide, she thought perhaps he finally understood that this was where they must end.
“I’ll go with you,” he said.
She blinked. Or perhaps not. “Pardon?”
He reached for her, holding her arms and tugging her close. “Sally,” he breathed. That was her only warning before he ducked his head, his lips molding to hers in a kiss that seared her all the way through. It seemed to brand her as his and her heart twisted in her chest as she let herself enjoy it for one moment. The taste of him. His familiar scent. The feel of his hands at her waist and the way he groaned softly at the touch of his lips against hers.
It was heaven. The moment blissful and sweet, and for a moment it wiped away all concerns and she was safe. Warm.
Happy.
She pushed back when the moment ended, and a flare of panic had her glancing down the hallway to ensure no one had seen. They were courting danger every moment they stood like this. They were playing with fire. “We cannot keep doing this,” she hissed. “Sebastian, surely you see now—”
“All I see is the woman I love.”
The fire in his eyes made her start. His words made her heart thrum and her pulse race. Love? No, surely he could not mean that.
Excitement and hope were dangerous devils. They were already making her head spin with what ifs.
But she was smarter than that. Clenching her fists she reminded herself of who she was. She was practical Sally. The girl Billingham relied on when Dr. Roberts was away. The one who studied medical journals and who raced her sisters on the cliff’s edge and who had absolutely no place in an earl’s home.
“Sebastian, you cannot mean that.”
“Why not?” he demanded.
Her mind chose that moment to call up something his father said and her heart twisted. She didn’t want it to be true. But it tumbled out all the same. “Your father said you only want what you cannot have—”
“Surely you don’t believe that’s what this is.” His brows came down and his eyes flashed with hurt. The pain in his eyes, the accusation, it cut into her like a knife but all she managed was a shrug. Why this was wrong wasn’t as important as the fact that it was wrong...for him.
Her troubles should not be his. And she would not be anyone’s burden.
“Sally.” He gripped her hands, his voice tight with emotions. “I know my father makes me out to b
e a reckless cad, but you have to believe that this is not some act of rebellion. I am not the irresponsible fool he believes me to be.” He managed a small, rueful smile because that was the sort of man he was. The sort of man who could laugh at himself even in a moment so fraught with tension. “Not entirely, at least.”
She wanted to laugh. She ached to cry.
How very Sebastian to find humor in a moment like this. It was one of the reasons he was so wonderfully loveable. It was one of the reasons she hadn’t stood a chance.
She withdrew one of her hands from his firm grip to reach up and touch his cheek softly. He leaned into her touch and she had to swallow hard to fight against the burgeoning tears that threatened to choke her. “Of course you’re not an irresponsible fool. And you’re not a reckless cad, either. But I am not fit for an earl’s son—”
“What if it’s a second son?” His attempt at levity made her heart hurt that much more.
Her lips twitched with humor even as sadness stole over her. “Not even a second son.” She met his gaze, hoping he could see how much this hurt her. Hoping he might understand that this was the way it had to be. “My family needs me, Sebastian. And yours needs you.”
He opened his mouth as if to protest.
“Step up, Sebastian.” Her voice was harder than intended but it was the only way to get the words out past this overwhelming ache in her chest. “It’s time. Don’t speak of being responsible. Be responsible.” She took a step back, her chin held high. “And I shall do the same.”
Chapter 10
“What do you mean, she’s gone?” Sebastian said the next day.
The footman winced and then repeated himself for the third time. “Miss Sally and her sister departed just after dawn, my lord.”
Sebastian scrubbed at his weary eyes. He’d barely slept the night before, but he hadn’t gone deaf. He’d heard the man the first two times, but it refused to register.
He’d lost track of her for the rest of the night—he suspected his brave girl had run and hid.
Not terribly brave at all, but he couldn’t blame her. She’d been through more than enough emotional upheaval and his declarations had been...unwelcome.
Miss Sally's Unsuitable Soldier Page 10
