A Most Sinful Proposal (The Husband Hunters Club 2)

He followed after her without another word.

The doctor had finished his operation and dressed the wound in clean bandages and was arranging for some restorative medicines to be prepared by the local apothecary and brought to the inn. The last remnants of the messy business of removing the bullet were being tidied away, and Lady Bethany looked up with a relieved smile when she saw her granddaughter.

Marissa went to take her outstretched hand, giving the patient a sympathetic grimace.

“Poor Lord Jasper,” she said. “Are you in a great deal of pain?”

“Not so much, thank you, my dear. The doctor tells me I will live to make a full recovery.”

“And you, Grandmamma?”

Lady Bethany’s smile grew thin. “If I’d known when I agreed to accompany you to a weekend house party, Marissa, that it would be this exciting I may have reconsidered. Perhaps next time you could confine yourself to playing whist and charades, my dear, instead of gallivanting about all over the countryside after roses and Prussian barons.”

Marissa bent to kiss her cheek. “Come now, Grandmamma, you have to admit this is much more fun than standing on windswept hillsides admiring ferns and mosses?” Even as she said it she wondered whether she was trying to soothe Lady Bethany’s ruffled nerves or whether she actually was enjoying herself.

“I am not admitting to anything.” But Lady Bethany’s eyes sparkled.

“I wish I had got my hands on Von Hautt,” Jasper muttered. “This is all his fault.”

Lady Bethany’s expression hardened alarmingly. “Next time he turns up you will let me deal with him, Jasper. I find a nice sharp hatpin does the trick very nicely.”

The two men looked at her in astonishment—with a hefty dollop of admiration in Jasper’s case—while Marissa stifled a giggle.

“Lord Kent still wants to see the ruins of Montfitchet Castle,” she said, when she was able.

“I will rest here until you are done,” Jasper declared. “The doctor says I should be able to travel back to Abbey Thorne Manor if there is no more bleeding from the wound.”

“Did you want to come with us, Grandmamma?”

“I think I will stay here, too,” Lady Bethany replied, fixing her dark gaze on Valentine. “I trust you will take care of my granddaughter, Kent.”

Valentine hesitated. Marissa could guess the reason. It wasn’t that he didn’t intend to take care of her, but rather because he would have preferred she remain here at the inn, out of the way. Perhaps she should save him the awkwardness and feign a headache? But Marissa had no intention of making life easier for Valentine.

Besides, she had to prove to herself that she was perfectly capable of being in his company without behaving like the wayward heroine in a dreadful penny novel.

“Indeed I will take good care of her, Lady Bethany,” he said smoothly, and gave a little bow. “Unless she prefers to rest here…?”

Marissa dashed his hopes. “I’m not at all tired, thank you.”

“My granddaughter has never been one of those feeble young ladies who cannot walk more than a few steps without catching breath. I blame tightlacing,” Lady Bethany said. “Once at Brighton Pavilion I remember I was—”

“We will leave you now, Grandmamma, and Lord Jasper,” Marissa spoke hastily, before her grandmother’s risqué story could progress any further. “Come, Lord Kent, we have a rose to find.”

All that remained of lonely Montfitchet Castle was a crumbling stone tower surrounded by a sea of long grass. A wild rose rambled through what had once been a narrow window, but although Valentine examined it closely he knew at once it was just a common dog rose, the single petalled flower a pale shade of pink and not the exquisite cup of golden petals he had read and dreamed about.

“No luck?” Marissa said.

“If the Crusader’s Rose was ever here then it is long gone.”

“At least we know Baron Von Hautt has not found it, either.”

“Yet,” he muttered.

“Do you know,” Marissa said, “this is nothing like my father’s expeditions. Are your rose hunts always this exciting, Valentine?”

“Actually they are normally very leisurely affairs. It is only since you arrived that things have heated up.”

The word was a mistake. It reminded him of what else was heating up every time he glanced in her direction.