As Mary walked, she noticed that more than one passerby shot her a quick, curious glance. She supposed it was her clothing, for her dress was plain and she could tell from looking at the few other women on the street that it was out of style, as well. But more than that, she realized after a few minutes, she was the only woman who was unaccompanied, except for the vegetable vendor. Most women were on the arms of well-dressed gentlemen or hidden away inside carriages, and the rest had other ladies with them or maids trailing along just behind—or both. It seemed quite peculiar to her. Did women remain in the house if they couldn’t find another person to drag along?
The distance was longer than it had seemed in the carriage, and Mary got lost a second time. The trek was made no easier by her gloomy thoughts. How was she to talk to their grandfather if she could not get inside the house? She had known that she might have a hard time convincing the old man that she and her sisters were his granddaughters, and she had not been certain that he would take them in. But it had never occurred to her that she might not even be able to present her case to him!
At last, bone-weary and dejected, she reached the inn. The first thing she heard as she stepped inside was the merry sound of her sisters’ laughter coming from the private parlor, so she turned her steps in that direction. Knocking on the door, she went in and stopped abruptly.
There, sitting with her sisters, looking quite composed and devastatingly handsome, was Sir Royce Winslow.
Sir Royce had not intended to concern himself further with the Bascombe girls. He had seen them to a respectable inn; they had assured him that they were able to take care of themselves. There was no need for him to worry about what became of them.
He was not, after all, the sort of man who took everyone else’s problems on his own shoulders. Let his stepbrother Oliver hold himself responsible for every person within his reach, however tangentially. Royce was a different sort. He was not the head of the family, merely the son of a nobleman with a nice inheritance. He looked after his estate, of course; the old man had drummed that into him. Any of his tenants could turn to him in need, just as they could expect fair treatment from him. But Royce had always been careful not to take on added responsibility. He was not one to stick his nose in where it did not belong.
And the four young American women he had encountered last night were no business of his. He could not have left them alone by the docks; he was, after all, a gentleman. But having seen them to safety, he considered that he had done his duty.
However, he found that he could not stop thinking about them. They were so odd—at once quite pretty and yet far out of the mode, they were naïve and innocent, but at the same time bizarrely able to take care of themselves. Whoever heard of a young lady strapping a knife to her leg? Or of four young gentlewomen traveling alone across the ocean, as they seemed to have done? Why, Charlotte and his other female cousins had never ventured as far as the park without a chaperone, at least in the form of a maid.
And what, he wondered, was in that satchel that was so important to them? He supposed it must be their money; yet it had been quite light, as if containing very little. Certainly it was nothing heavy like coins or jewelry or even stacks of paper scrip.
Most of all, though, Royce found himself thinking about Mary Bascombe. But, no, that was too common a name for such an uncommon woman.
“Marigold,” he decided, and a smile curved his lips.
Certainly she was no flower—what a blunt, unrefined, direct creature she was—but the exotic quality of the name suited her. He had never met anyone quite like her. She had none of the airs of a lady, no girlish simpering or missish indecision. She had not cast herself at him, playing the helpless innocent as most young women would have, seeking his aid in her desperate situation. Indeed, she had been, if anything, reluctant to receive his help.#p#分页标题#e#
But there was nothing of the jaded sophisticate about her, either. She was far too fresh, too unaware of the dangers of their situation. And despite the astonishingly straightforward way she had talked to him, a strange man, it was clear that she had had no experience with men.
A smile touched his mouth again as he remembered their kiss, her lips soft and yielding beneath his. He had not intended to kiss her—he had been certain that, despite her odd ways, she was well brought-up—but at the last moment, he had been unable to resist. He had had to taste that luscious full mouth. She had melted so easily against him, her response untutored yet eager. It had been far harder to pull away than he had expected.
And far harder to forget.