“Indeed.” Lips compressing, he threw Clarice a brief glance, then awkwardly got to his feet. Straightening, he paused, as if waiting for the world to stop spinning, then he fractionally inclined his head. “If you’ll excuse me?”
He started back to the door. His stride hitched as he saw the group of three ladies and two gentlemen who had followed Jack outside; from the looks on their faces they’d seen enough to keep the gossips buzzing for the rest of the week. Then Warwick continued on, passing the group without acknowledging them in any way.
Jack turned to Clarice, met her eyes, and pulled a face. “My apologies. It seemed that was overdue, and no one else seemed likely to…” He shrugged.
To his relief, she smiled delightedly. “Thank you.” Her eyes said it even more than her words. Placing her hand on his sleeve, she turned to stand beside him, viewing the beauty of the garden at night as they sipped.
There were whispers behind them, but then the group, eager to share their news, scurried back into the ballroom.
Jack sighed. “I didn’t mean to create a scandal.”
Clarice chuckled. “I don’t mind. Indeed, since my aim is to distract the ton from James’s predicament”—she glanced up at him, lightly squeezed his arm—“I should thank you for your help.”
She caught his gaze as he glanced at her. “Thank you for hitting him for me. I’ve always wished I could do that.”
“Your way would have worked, too.” Jack turned her back to the ballroom. “But you don’t want to become predictable.”
She was laughing, smiling, as he led her back into the ballroom, back under the glare of the ton’s fervid gaze.
They didn’t leave immediately, but played the game, circulated once, then departed.
Back at Benedict’s, together alone in her suite, Clarice devoted herself to tendering her thanks in more tangible, much more sensual vein.
Later still, lying sated in the tangle of the bedcovers, Jack slumped beside her fast asleep, she found her mind drifting over recent events, over the changes in her life.
The unexpected shifts in her landscape, her unforeseen reactions.
That evening’s incident with Warwick flared in her mind. She had no doubt whatever that he’d been about to make her an improper offer, when Jack had returned, and without even knowing of that pending insult, had dealt with Warwick as he deserved.
For her. There was no other reason that might have driven him. He’d acted not just as her defender, but as her avenger.
She’d never had anyone act for her in that sense. Not her father or her brothers. She’d never expected it of them; she wasn’t even sure she’d have accepted such support from them.
Jack hadn’t asked, he’d simply acted as her champion, as if he had the right.
She wasn’t sure he didn’t. She certainly felt no qualms, no inner difficulties over accepting help from him, over letting him stand as her defender, her champion.
The news, of course, would be all over the ton by morning, yet she couldn’t summon any degree of care, of concern. She didn’t care if the whole world knew that she was willing to allow him into her life. Close.
She glanced across the pillow, watched him as he slept, let her eyes trace his face, the hard planes, the definite angles. The strength inherent there, and in the heavy body half-wrapped around hers.
Her lips curved; she looked up at the ceiling, unexpectedly basking in his instinctive possessiveness.
A possessiveness that had always been there, with her, an aspect of his nature he’d never sought to hide or conceal. She’d seen it from the first, but hadn’t felt threatened, still didn’t. In her heart, in her bones, in her soul she knew he posed no threat to her, that he never would.
She wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was something to do with the connection that day by day, night by night, continued to grow between them. Perhaps that was why she didn’t feel vulnerable, because due to that connection, he was vulnerable, too.
In the same way, to the same degree.
A mutual binding.
Reaching out, she let her fingers play in the soft ends of his hair while she considered that, and what such a binding might mean.
Her mind couldn’t answer her questions. It drifted away to another change, another unforeseen reaction.
No one, herself included, could have known that, her position within the ton beyond her expectations reclaimed, she wouldn’t want it anymore. That tonnish life and the constant whirl of society would no longer hold any allure for her. She’d been away long enough for the spell to fade and die; perhaps she should thank her father for that? Not for banishing her, but for forcing her to choose.
Life, as Claire had said, was a matter of making choices, then living with the results. Of choosing a road, then going forward along it, seeing where it led, enjoying the adventures along the way.