“I haven’t done anything,” Molly protested.
“You were going to.” Jasper threw her a dark look.
Molly’s brows shot skyward. “How do you know?”
“I know,” Jasper grumbled. “Do you deny it?”
Molly couldn’t, because she had been considering how to jump out of the carriage once it slowed down a little. It wasn’t going all that fast, but unfortunately even that was too quickly for her to jump down while it was still in motion. If she tried it, even at the relatively slow pace they were going, there was a chance she would fall beneath the large wheels.
The next time I might not be so lucky, she mused. It was enough to make her settle back in her seat.
“Who are you? You expect me to tell you who I am and where I live, but you are not willing to answer my questions. Why is that?” She studied him but found herself working hard to keep all trace of emotion from her face while she waited for him to answer. Whenever he looked at her in that deeply thoughtful way of his she suspected he could see right into her soul. It was as disconcerting as the wild fluttery feeling of anticipation that swept through her whenever their gazes met.
“I will explain more when we get to where we are going. For now, just sit back and try to keep warm,” Jasper advised.
He studied her pale features in the darkness of the carriage. She was soaked, frozen, quite clearly terrified, but was so vitally alive that she was simply breath taking. He had never met anybody like her before. No woman had ever had this effect on him while doing so little. In such circumstances, he should never be experiencing the kind of thoughts he was having about her, or about them as a couple for that matter. But he was. He just couldn’t understand why now, or why her. Why today of all days, especially given the circumstances she presented him with. Miss Molly Egerton was, by far, the very last bundle of feminine trouble he needed in his life right now, but she was blasted her way into his existence, completely unexpectedly, and had thrown his entire world into chaos if she but knew it.
r /> Which she doesn’t and hopefully never will.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Oscar!”
Jasper jerked when Molly practically threw herself out of the still moving carriage. He stared blankly at the empty doorway for a moment before he launched himself after her swearing bitterly. When he hit the pavement, he was just in time to see her darting around the other pedestrians on the street after a young boy with dark hair.
“Wait! Molly, wait!”
But she didn’t stop. Jasper lengthened his stride, his gaze pinned on his quarry.
Molly heard him but couldn’t, wouldn’t, daren’t take her gaze off Oscar.
“Oscar! Wait!”
Molly was seething that her younger brother wasn’t going to stop, if only to have a quick word with her. Yet, another deeper part of her fully understood his determination not to return to Edith’s.
“Wait,” she wailed pitifully when she felt the last of her waning strength leave her.
She had no choice but to slow to a stumbling walk, and her determination vanished completely when she watched Oscar dart around a corner of a building and disappear into an inky blackness that was completely devoid of light.
“God, I hate you right now,” she whispered as she fell slowly to her knees in the middle of the pavement. Molly physically shook from head to toe so violently that she thought she was going to throw up. All she could do was stay on her knees, with her gaze locked on the spot she had last seen her brother, and suck in as much air as her starved lungs wanted.
“What in the Hell do you think you are doing?” Jasper yelled when he eventually reached her.
For a second, he had truly believed he had lost her, until he had rounded the corner and recognised the sodden bundle of clothing now hunched on the floor. His heart had jerked violently in his chest as he had contemplated what could have happened to her in even a short space of time on London’s streets without him. For those few brief moments that he had truly believed she had left him, Jasper had felt an inner misery the likes of which he knew he should never feel for someone he barely knew. It was a stark warning that Miss Molly Egerton posed more of a risk to him than anybody or any situation he had ever faced before in his life, and he would be a fool to encourage her further. If only he knew of a way to stop himself having these deep feelings of possessiveness for her, Jasper knew everything would be all right. Unfortunately, it was damned hard to do given she kept getting herself into trouble and proved that she needed him.
“Damn you,” he growled when he reached her.
Jasper was oblivious to anything other than his anger, at himself, at her, at the ludicrous way she kept putting herself in danger. He was ignorant of everything but the fact that he had found her again and felt nothing more than a profound relief that made him incredibly angry.
Hauling her onto her feet, he grabbed her shoulders and shook her once, very firmly.
“Just what in the Hell do you think you are doing?” he snapped. “Do you have any idea what danger you are in right now?”
He knew because while Molly’s home might be in one of the disreputable areas of London, she was now standing in the most dangerous. It would be a miracle if they managed to get out of the street they were in alive.
Molly opened her mouth to answer him, but she didn’t get the chance to say a word before Jasper hauled her away from the shadowed street and back into the well-lit main street several feet away. The stilted silence between them was fraught with tension, but all Molly could think was that her brother was in that impenetrable, menacing darkness, all alone.
“Oscar,” she screamed.