Damn him. This man’s behaviour often vacillated between gentleman and rogue.
Unpredictability was his middle name. She had learnt to deal with evil devils, and yet Mr Wycliff unsettled her composure at every turn.
Did he feel threatened because she knew too much about him?
Did his hostility stem from the fact she outranked him?
“Sit down.” Mr Wycliff gestured to the bed, and her heart smacked against her ribs. He shrugged out of his coat and hung it on a hook on the back of the door. “Kick off your boots and make yourself comfortable, Lady Steele.”
He spoke her name as if it were a common joke. At least he’d not called her Widow.
“We have the room for an hour. Best not waste precious time.” He dropped down onto the mattress, the bed groaning beneath his weight, and proceeded to tug off his boots. “As we’re beginning this partnership with honesty, I would like to thank you for saving my life.”
“I did what anyone with a conscience would do.”
He shuffled to the top of the bed, propped himself against the pillows and folded his arms behind his head. “It took courage, courage which you now have in abundance.”
“One must have fortitude in this wicked world if they hope to survive.”
He studied her for a moment. “Sit down else I shall have a devil of a crick in my neck.”
Every fibre of her being fought against his request. Perhaps because it sounded like a command. “I prefer to stand.”
He shrugged. “As you wish. Now, tell me your story. I must know every detail if I am to offer assistance.”
So many images flooded her mind. Vile scenes. Cruel pictures. There was so much to tell she didn’t know where to begin. Either way, she would need to hold her resolve. The next hour was guaranteed to be unpleasant.
“I don’t know what you’ve heard about Lord Steele, but—”
“Start from the beginning.” His sharp interjection only added to the tension. “Tell me why you moved from a seminary in Bath to a hovel off Drury Lane. Tell me why an educated woman chose to grace the stage.”
She had mentioned the seminary in passing three years ago while tending to his wound. How was it he remembered something so insignificant?
“Is it relevant?” No one knew her true identity. Her father insisted she kept it that way. Scarlett hadn’t the faintest notion why and could only imagine it stemmed from embarrassment about the nature of his business. “What possible bearing could that have on my current situation?”
“Well, I won’t know unless you tell me,” came his blunt
reply.
“It is personal.” Not something one mentioned to a man one did not fully trust.
“Then this is a pointless conversation.” He sat up and swung his legs to the floor. “And a complete waste of my time.”
“Are you leaving?” Panic surfaced.
There had been too many threats against her person for her to tackle the matter alone. Somewhere, in a tiny part of her heart where hope lay weak and undernourished, she had cast this wicked scoundrel as her hero. She remembered the tender caress, the moment he had thrust his treasured cross into her palm in the only true act of kindness she had ever known.
Mr Wycliff grabbed one of his boots, ready to thrust his foot inside.
“Wait!” Surrender did not come easy. Perhaps she need not give him a full explanation. “My mother died when I was ten. Between the ages of ten and twenty, my father paid for me to attend numerous establishments keen to educate females.”
He paused. Keeping a firm grip on his boot, he said, “Why did he not keep you at home and hire a governess?”
It was a question she had pondered on many a cold, lonely night. The answer given seemed logical, and yet it had left a gaping hole in her heart. “His home was his business. A business considered an unsuitable place for a lady.”
But she had always sensed it was more than that.
Love did not come easy to Jack Jewell.