Page 69 of To Seduce a Stranger

Two hundred pounds. A paltry sum to force a man to play such a dangerous game. “I think some arrangement can be made to keep you out of debtor’s prison,” Edward said.

“Thank you.” Jack’s spine straightened, and some of the despair left his eyes. “Lord Beckley. And I hope I will have a chance to make amends with the lady someday. I owe you an apology, too, ma’am,” he added, with a glance at Mari, who granted him reluctant forgiveness with the slightest tip of her head.

Edward felt as if he was seeing the real man for the first time, rather than the mask Jack had put on for a performance, a role part of him must have detested. Perhaps there was hope yet for Jacques Revard.

“Once things are settled,” Edward said, “I’ll do what I can to help you. Set you up in a business that would suit. Your own printmaker’s shop, perhaps?”

Jack’s eyes brightened further, though they still looked wary. “You’d do that? After what I’ve done?”

Edward smiled. “I’ve had a sister or two, over the years,” he said, extending his hand toward Jack with a sideways glance for Mari. “But never a brother.” Stunned, Jack took his hand, shook it. “But no more drinking to excess,” he cautioned. “No more lies.”

“No, sir!” Jack exclaimed, then pulled him into a hearty hug. At first, Edward did not know how to respond, but after a moment, he gave in and returned the embrace, slapping his brother on his back.

“That’s all well and good, Neddy,” Mama said, smiling, when they broke apart. “But when I asked what was next, I meant, what are you going to do about Charlotte?”

“Do? What can I do? If she wanted my help, she had an odd way of asking for it.”

“Hmm. Did she say anything else before she left, Mr. Garrick?” Mama asked politely.

“‘S-sorry,’” the man sputtered, spewing bread crumbs across the table. “She said tell Mr. Cary I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” Deceiving him? Leaving him? It would be nothing less than hypocrisy if he refused to forgive her for the former. But the latter required some explanation he was not sure he would ever get. And he could not say for certain that she had made the wrong choice, given what he had revealed to her.

Garrick’s reply was delayed by another bout of coughing, followed by a shrug. “Don’ know. Didn’t ask.”

Edward eyed the man for a long moment before glancing up at Mari. “Go on. Fetch Garrick a cup of coffee, won’t you?”

One corner of Mari’s mouth lifted in a smile. At the far end of the table, Jack gave a laughing sort of groan.

“Sometimes,” his mother said gently, patting Edward’s hand, “the people who need help the most are also the ones most determined not to involve others in their struggle. There must be an explanation. You mustn’t just let her go,” she insisted. “I like her.”

“As do I,” Mari chimed in.

His mother’s assertion was hardly surprising. She had always had a warm heart. But Mari? Slow to trust, quick to judge . . . Her approval he had never expected.

“I—I like her, too,” he said. A dreadful lie. What he felt for Charlotte was so much more. “But . . .”

But she had left him. After what they had shared. Without a word of explanation. What if the rumors about her motives were right? What if she had taken all she wanted from him?

“What if she doesn’t want to be found?”

Mama only smiled. “She does. We all do.”

Chapter 18

Mr. Sykes drove at a punishing pace, pausing only to change horses and stopping to sleep only for the few hours when the moon had set and the roads were too dark to continue.

“My livelihood’s in Lon’on,” he explained as he rousted himself from the driver’s perch before dawn the next morning to hitch the horses to the coach. “I can’t afford to dally.” Uncurling herself from the musty coach seat that had served as her bed, Charlotte prepared to set out once more.

But beyond the headache and backache it gave her, Charlotte had no complaints to make about the speed of their journey. At just past noon, she caught the first glimpse of the great city on the horizon. The sight filled her with sudden dread. She was exhausted, faint with hunger, filthy—again. If she arrived at Blakemore House in this state, she would only be giving support to Robert’s case.

She slid open the panel behind the driver’s seat. “Mr. Sykes?”

“Aye, missus?”

“If it’s not too much trouble, I wish to go to Clerkenwell.”

Without slowing the horses, Sykes craned around and peered down into the narrow opening. “You sure ’bout that, missus?”