“Prado Verde is very beautiful,” Mariposa said, still speaking almost exclusively to Jean. “But I think it was made more beautiful because my family was there.”
Jean nodded. “I am not certain I could ever return to my home,” he said. “I fear it would feel too empty without my loved ones there.”
Mariposa leaned her head against Jason’s shoulder, which made him feel almost smug. Smug? What had happened to his logical self of late?
“Does your family remain in France?” Mariposa asked.
“No.” Jean filled that single word with decades of sadness. “They were all killed during the Terror. I alone escaped and only because I was away from them at the time.”
“Does that ever make you feel guilty?” Mariposa’s voice emerged much softer and far more uncertain than it had but moments earlier. “You are alive and well and they—” She took a shaky breath. “And they are not.”
Jason could not say for which of her family members her heart ached in that moment—those who were killed or those who were missing. Such a burden she bore.
“I like to think,” Jean said, “that even after all they suffered, they would be pleased to know I am well.”
For a time, they all sat in silence, and then more neutral topics were introduced. Mariposa conversed more openly with Jean, something that at first pleased Jason but quickly grew inexplicably irritating.
By midafternoon, Mariposa had shifted to the far end of the bench seat they shared, and rather than feeling grateful for the added room to stretch and shift and generally make himself more comfortable, Jason had to stop himself from taking hold of her arm and pulling her back to where she had been. He kept his grumblings to himself, but only just. His ability to remain unruffled in any and all circumstances seemed to have evaporated.
“At the risk of offending one or both of you”—Jean eyed them with obvious curiosity, a fact Jason had been ignoring for at least three quarters of an hour—“might I ask what it is you are quarreling about?”
Mariposa’s eyes immediately turned in Jason’s direction. He cleared his throat, feeling decidedly uncomfortable. He’d forgotten to mention to her his earlier conversation.
“You told him we were having an argument?”
Why did he suddenly feel like a child caught stealing biscuits from the kitchen?
“Oui,” Jean said. “But he would tell me nothing else, except that he was not at fault.”
Mariposa crossed her arms and gave Jason a look that likely should have burned a hole right through him. So he shot Jean a look he hoped would have an identical end result.
No one in the carriage burst into flames. Jean did, however, begin laughing.
“You’ve been very helpful,” Jason told him with as much dry sarcasm as he could muster.
“Then I shall add to my helpfulness and say this.” If not for the empathy in Jean’s expression, Jason would have immediately objected. “Though I do not know the source of your disagreement, I have watched the both of you throughout the day, and it is plain to see that you are miserable being at odds with one another.”
“Perhaps we are simply miserable in general,” Jason grumbled.
Though he was not looking at her, Jason had a feeling Mariposa’s look had grown even more explosive.
“I said I was sorry.” The vehemence of Mariposa’s tone immediately pulled Jason’s attention to her. Sure enough, she was glaring. “I have said it over and over again. I’ve done everything except grovel at your feet and beg. What’s more, I didn’t ask you to follow me. I never asked you to come after me.”
“Whether or not you specifically asked for my company is entirely irrelevant,” Jason said. “The situation demanded it. I couldn’t very well let you run off like you did.”
“You most certainly could have.” She looked away from him, though her posture continued screaming her annoyance. “Especialmente if doing so is making you mucho ‘miserable.’”
“I never actually said I was miserable.”
“You could at least pretend like you don’t hate me.” With that declaration, Mariposa turned her back fully to him.
Hate her? “I never—” But what was the use in protesting?
Their history was difficult enough that nothing he said was likely to convince her that he did not, in fact, hold her in contempt. He hadn’t even disliked her in a very long time. Rather, he’d come to like her a little too much for his own comfort.
“You think he hates you?” Jean asked.
“Sé que él me odia.”
Jean looked at Jason, a question in his eyes.
“She reverts to Spanish when she’s upset,” Jason said. “Probably because I can’t understand a word of it. You have to admit it is a very effective way of letting me know she is not speaking to me.”
Jean returned his attention to Mariposa. “¿Por qué crees que te odia?”
She spun around, amazement clearly written on her face. “You speak Spanish?”
Jean nodded and smiled. Mariposa’s gaze flicked to Jason for the minutest fraction of a moment before returning to Jean. Without warning, she launched into a highly animated speech delivered entirely in her native tongue. Her hands waved about, gesturing broadly and expressively. He didn’t think he’d ever heard so many syllables fly so quickly from a person’s mouth.
As he sat mute and entirely unable to translate a word, Mariposa and Jean undertook a conversation, one which likely cataloged his many shortcomings. It did not take long for Mariposa to shift to Jean’s side of the coach. Jason’s mood only darkened. By the time the mail paused for its evening change of teams and drivers, he did not feel himself in charity with either of his fellow passengers.
Only out of a sense of civility did Jason allow Jean to pull him aside during their evening meal in the public room of yet another inn. Mariposa remained at the table, eating in silence.
“I realize I have thrust myself quite unforgivably into your affairs during our very brief acquaintance,” Jean said.
Jason didn’t bother to disagree.
“When I first boarded the mail coach and came across your lovely Mariposa”—Jean’s use of the word lovely did nothing to improve Jason’s spirits—“looking so forlorn, I was immediately put in mind of my dear sister.”
“She reminds you of your sister?” Jason would not have predicted that.
Jean raised an eyebrow in censure. “Surely you did not suspect me of having romantic intentions toward a woman two decades my junior? Not to mention one married to another man?”
“Well, I—That is . . .”
Jean held up a hand, cutting off Jason’s rambling attempt to excuse himself. “Your Mariposa spoke very vaguely of her trials before coming to England, though what she told me was enough to convince me she experienced absolute horrors.”
“She did.” The detailed explanation she’d given Jason only the day before left no doubt that her life had, on many occasions, been terrible.
“And she is much tormented by the loss of her younger brother. She cannot even speak his name without her voice splintering in agony. He haunts her thoughts and, I suspect, her dreams at night. Though she puts forward a brave face, I think your sweet Mariposa is breaking inside.”
Jason felt certain Jean was right. “I do not know what I can do to relieve any of her suffering.”
“Be her safe haven,” Jean said. “War leaves wounds that too often go unseen. It changes people, and rarely for the better. Give her reason to feel secure and protected so she can begin to heal.”
Those words remained with Jason throughout their brief stop. He felt thoroughly chastised. When one took into consideration all she had been through, a certain degree of understanding was more than called for. She had been dishonest when faced with a stranger she could not be certain would be an ally. She’d hidden behind the armor of an assumed façade
when braving a world that had hurt her again and again. Were these such unforgivable actions?
He had been taught to be honest at all times, though even he acknowledged the necessity of the ruse they had enacted since embarking on this journey. How much more justified were her lies when faced with a man she did not know, in an unfamiliar country, with a lifetime of suffering and danger fresh in her thoughts?
Jason realized with a pang of regret that he had been too harsh, too quick to pass judgment. While he yet struggled to understand her, he knew Mariposa deserved a greater portion of his kindness and consideration than he had hitherto granted her.
They returned to the coach. Mariposa retreated immediately to her corner.
Jason swallowed his pride and slid over beside her. “Mariposa,” he whispered.
She glanced at him but only briefly.
“This is not easy for me,” he said. “So I would greatly appreciate any support you are willing to give.”
That seemed to pique her curiosity. She at least turned her head in his direction.
“I have been insufferable and pompous.” Jason pushed on despite his innate dislike of confessing all his misdeeds at once. “I have always considered myself not easily fooled, but you came along and pulled the wool over my eyes so entirely and with seemingly little effort. And in my pride, I condemned you out of hand for being deceitful. That same pride got in the way of my good sense and prevented me from forgiving you as I should. I held a grudge, and for that, I am sorry.”
She faced him fully. “You do not hate me any longer?”
“I never hated you.”
“You most certainly did.” But a smile seemed to hover just below the surface.
“May we begin again, Mariposa?”
“I would very much like that.”
Jean rejoined them only a moment before the carriage began its journey once more. The three of them rode quietly as night began to fall.
Mariposa leaned closer to Jason, something which had an immediate effect on his heart rate, and placed a brief kiss on his cheek. He sat frozen, shocked. A flattering hint of color touched her cheeks. He slid away from her, all the while attempting to look unaffected.
He had never been one to feel tempted to go beyond the most rigid bounds of propriety. But he found himself so powerfully drawn to Mariposa that he did not feel he could entirely trust himself not to kiss her quite thoroughly right there in the carriage. How had he gone so quickly from finding himself in charity with her to wishing to kiss her truly and deeply?
Distance seemed key. Jason shifted until his back pressed against his side of the carriage, as far from her as he could get without leaping out the window.
“You should probably try to get some rest.” An innocuous subject would serve as a welcome distraction. “We’ll reach Philip’s tomorrow. He’s exhausting even on a full night’s sleep.”
“I have been looking forward to meeting him,” Mariposa said. “Stanley painted such an amusing picture of your eldest brother.”
“I’ll just sit over here.” Jason slipped across the carriage to the empty space beside Jean. “So you’ll be able to lie down.”
“Won’t you be uncomfortable sitting up all night?” Mariposa asked.
He shook his head. Sitting beside her with that unsettling kiss still fresh in his mind would be far more uncomfortable.
Long after Mariposa had grown quiet and relaxed with sleep, Jean broke the silence of the carriage. “I will be disembarking not long after we cross the border into Scotland. I should like to hear from you, if you would be so good as to write.” He handed Jason a bit of paper with his name and direction scrawled on it. “Let me know how the young lady is doing.”
“I will.” Oddly enough, Jason had come to feel like Jean was an old friend, despite the less than twenty-four hours’ worth of acquaintance they shared.
“Perhaps you will even be willing to someday tell me just why you are pretending to be of the lower classes,” Jean added with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, “and just what your reasons are for acting as though you are married.”
Before Jason could formulate any kind of reply, Jean turned his attention once more to his book.
The Frenchman had seen through their façade. But how quickly? What had given them away?
“A word of advice, monsieur, for any future masquerades.”
Jason listened warily.
“When a man is kissed by his wife, that man generally does not run for his life.”
Remembering all too vividly the very simple, very brief kiss that had sent him into rather immediate panic, Jason smiled, acknowledging the truth of Jean’s statement. His amusement only grew, realizing how very obvious they’d been about their mutual unease in each other’s presence. In a moment’s time, he was laughing out loud. Jean joined him.
“Take care of your sweet butterfly, Jason.”
“I intend to.”
Chapter Twenty
Jason awoke the next morning, every bit as stiff as he’d been the morning before but far less conflicted. He had meant what he’d said to Jean—he would support Mariposa and care for her in whatever capacity he was permitted. Whether that meant assisting her as she searched Scotland for her elusive family or returning her unharmed to her grandmother, he meant to see it done.
They had passed the morning in relative silence. Mariposa’s unease had grown by leaps and bounds. He’d come to miss the cool confidence of the young lady who’d walked into his office weeks earlier. Seeing her so upended made him feel rather helpless.
“Will your brother be upset that I am turning up unexpectedly?” Mariposa asked out of the blue, nervousness evident in her expressive eyes. “He doesn’t even know me, and I wasn’t invited.”
“Philip, for all his show of being a dandy, is not at all high in the instep.” Jason was surprised to realize that he meant what he said. He didn’t generally have many compliments for Philip.
“Stanley could not understand why Philip began acting the way he does,” Mariposa said, eyeing the passing landscape, her fingers wrapping around themselves in an unconscious gesture of discomfort. She likely had no idea how endearing it was. “He said the new Philip was very different from the old Philip.”
Jason couldn’t have agreed more. “He has always been lighthearted, the first of us brothers to enjoy a lark or share a humorous anecdote, but he didn’t used to go to such lengths to be ridiculous.”
“You believe it is an affectation, then?”
“I know it is. I simply don’t know why he does it.”
“All of us have reasons for the disguises we wear,” Mariposa said quietly, leaning her forehead against the window and continuing to look out. “Some masks are meant to save us from the world around us. Others are meant to shield us from ourselves.”
Jason tried to unravel what she’d said but found himself as confused as he was intrigued. “From ourselves?”
“Like Stanley.” She shrugged as she spoke. Jason had come to recognize that as one of her signature gestures; it could mean dismissal, acceptance, rejection, and any number of things in between. He smiled at the sight of it, a sure sign that their days-long quarrel had come to something of an end. “He hides from his own pain and hides it from others as well.”
Other than the painful injury he’d sustained, Stanley hadn’t seemed to be suffering as acutely as Mariposa had believed him to be.
“He acts as though he is unaffected by what he has experienced, but his eyes give him away.” She turned to look at Jason. “He hates being a soldier. He has spent half a decade surrounded by death and inhumanity and endless suffering, and it is destroying his soul.” Those were heavy words and an enormous declaration, but Mariposa seemed convinced. “Stanley is not suited to the life he is living,” she said. “He can’t close off his heart. He can no longer shield himself from the pain.”
>
“Stanley has never said anything about—”
“Because he is a gentleman of his word. He will fight so long as he is able and needed, but I worry about the price he is paying. He is dying inside.”
Those words brought to mind similar ones Jean had spoken, that war left wounds unseen. How many of those same wounds did Mariposa bear, scars beyond even those she had revealed to him?
o
Mariposa’s stomach tied into a rather intricate knot as they waited at the front door of a cozy cottage surrounded by lush vegetation. Jason had managed to secure them a seat on the back of a delivery wagon for eight of the ten miles required to reach the Lampton hunting box. More than fifty hours of nearly nonstop travel had taken its toll, however, and Mariposa knew she looked a positive fright.
The door opened, and a woman of indeterminate years and a decidedly piercing gaze skewered the two visitors with a dismissive sweep of her eyes before beginning to close the door once more.
“Now, Mrs. Dunbar,” Jason said, a smile in his tone that stood in sharp contrast to the overbearingly serious gentleman Mariposa had once known. “You wouldn’t close the door on one of your meddlesome boys, would you?”
“Why, Master Jason! As I live and breathe!” The woman’s eyebrows shot up, her mouth falling open. “His lordship never said ye was coming to see him.”
“Probably because he doesn’t know yet.”
“Well, come in. Come in. Both of you.” She ushered them in without batting an eyelash. “Don’t you look a sight.” She tsked. “What’ve you been doing to yourself to come here looking like a beggar boy?”
“I’ve been riding the Royal Mail,” Jason answered with a mischievous smile.
“Don’t tell me you’ve gone and lost all your money on a card game.” Mrs. Dunbar gave him a reproachful look.
Jason just laughed. “Not at all. Is Lord Lampton in?”
“Of course he is,” Mrs. Dunbar answered. “Where else would he be with his wife still off her feet, I’d like to know.”
A Fine Gentleman Page 14
