Page 18 of Hunted By the Guardian
“I’ll fix it,” Noah said simply. “Obviously that’s what I’ll do. Easy question.”
He was so sure of himself. So confident. And now Jonathan had to admit to himself that he wasn’t sure how to proceed. He couldn’t very well admit that he had been provoking Lady Violet on purpose. If he did, he could see that Noah would be furious, and it would undo all the progress the two of them had made this morning. The boy would stop trusting him.
Honestly, maybe he would be right to stop trusting him.
That was hard to admit, but Jonathan knew that his behavior this morning had been unkind. Thoughtless. He had deliberately attempted to upset Lady Violet, and that was a cruel thing to do. He knew that. He had wanted to see her get worked up again, as she had yesterday. He had been so fascinated by her temper. But to do that at the breakfast table when she was just trying to enjoy her meal in peace—and to do it in front of Noah, no less…yes, that had probably been a mistake.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said to Noah. “You’re right. I can see that I have done something to upset her, and I do want to make it right. But that shouldn’t be your responsibility, Noah. I’ll go to her. I’ll talk to her and find out why she’s upset with me, and I’ll apologize for…whatever it is.”
“Will you really?” Noah narrowed his eyes. “I don’t want to have to patch it up later.”
“You won’t have to,” Jonathan assured him. “You’re right to have pointed this out to me, and I thank you for it. I’ll make sure everything is all right. You’ll see.”
“All right, then,” Noah agreed, suddenly mollified. He returned to his breakfast.
After a while, Jonathan rose from the table and made his way to the foyer to ready himself for his journey into town. The stablehands were preparing a horse for him—he’d elected not to take a carriage. It would be nice to get a bit of fresh air and to indulge in the freeing feeling of being outdoors.
As he fastened his riding cloak, Lady Violet stepped into the foyer. She went still at the sight of him.
Now would be a good moment to offer that apology. He knew it. The words were on his lips. But before he could speak, she cut him off. “What are you doing here?”
“Getting ready to go into town.” He was rather surprised at her surprise. “Just as I mentioned at breakfast. I need to get the supplies for Noah.”
“I know what you’re doing,” she said quietly. “You may think you’re very clever, but I can see right through this little charade of yours. I know exactly what this is. I don’t know how I can stop you, but I want you to know that I do see it.”
He frowned. He didn’t actually know what she was talking about. “What do you think I’m doing?” he asked her. “I really am just going to get the school books.”
“Don’t be coy with me,” she said sharply. “You may outmaneuver me, Your Grace, but I won’t permit you to pretend I’m foolish while you do it.”
“Violet…” He shook his head. “I thought we had come to an agreement over our meal that there was no need for formalities? That you could call me Jonathan, just as Noah can?”
“I’m not going to play into the little game you struck up over breakfast,” she snapped. “I’m not going to start pretending that the three of us are all friends now, because I haven’t fallen for it. I know that you haven’t changed—that your feelings haven’t changed. People don’t just change overnight like that. You didn’t come down to breakfast today as a completely new man. You feel the same way toward Noah, and toward me, that you did yesterday. And the fact that you would make him a pawn in your bid to claim this house is abhorrent. I thought you were a cold man, but now I realize that you are a villain through and through.”
“How could Noah be a pawn to help me get the house?” Jonathan asked, staring at her. “You wanted me to be kind to him, and I was kind to him. And frankly, I agree with you that it was the right thing to do. He called me a friend. Didn’t you notice? Yet you’re still angry.” This was not the hot temper of yesterday’s encounter. She looked nearly heartbroken, and it occurred to him suddenly that she wasn’t angry about the way she had been treated at all. This was still about Noah. “You can’t truly believe it was wrong to be kind to the boy.”
“I think you’re misleading him. You’re letting him believe you’re his friend, but really, friendship is the furthest thing from you mind. You just want the house.”
“Well, I think you’re just being difficult,” he countered. “You're unhappy with the fact that it was so easy for me to win Noah over. You don’t like being proven wrong about what you said about me being cold and unfeeling. You don’t want to think that you might have misread me, and that I might actually be a decent person. Easier for you to believe that I am such a villain that even my moments of kindness are somehow wicked.”
Her jaw dropped.
“And I’m not going to play that game,” he went on firmly. “I’m not going to stand here and accept your idea that I’m a wicked man when all I’ve done is try to carry on a conversation with Noah.”
“If your motives were pure, why wouldn't you have done it earlier?” she snapped. “Why wouldn’t it have been your first instinct to befriend him when you came to live here? You didn’t do that. You started out by pushing him away…and then you suddenly changed your approach. You expect me to trust that?”
He straightened his cloak. “You know what?” he said. “It doesn’t matter what you trust. It doesn’t matter what you think I was doing, or how you feel about it. You’ve made up a motive for me in your head, and now you won’t hear anything I have to say. So I’m going into town to get the books I promised Noah, because he, at least, is willing to believe the best of a person.”
He turned on his heel and walked out the front door.
His anger stayed with him as he mounted his horse and started down the path toward town. It wasn’t until he began to draw even with the main shops and see people around him that it occurred to Jonathan how badly he had handled the encounter with Lady Violet.
It’s lucky Noah didn’t see that, since I promised him I was going to apologize and make things right! That’s the opposite of what I did. Instead, I deepened the argument and made her even angrier than she already was.
He had truly believed, when he’d left the table, that her anger was because he had been trying to aggravate her at breakfast. It was a sensible thing to be upset about. He wouldn’t have blamed her if she had admitted to it. But if that was what was bothering her, she had been completely unreasonable just now, telling him what a vile man he was and trying to make it about his treatment of Noah. His behavior had been irksome, and he knew it, but not that bad.
And the thing that gave Jonathan pause was that he knew Lady Violet well enough, by now, to know that she was not one to overreact. It was downright difficult to get a rise out of her most of the time. She wasn’t the sort of lady who could be needled into losing her composure.
I saw her at the breakfast table—that was nothing but composure! But the moment she came across me in the foyer, she lost it altogether.
