at included marriage didn't include Aunt Etta and the proposals that did include her, didn't include matrimony."
"What sort of proposals have you received?" Jarrod asked. "And from whom?"
Sarah held up her fingers and counted the offers one by one. "I've received three other offers of the position of governess, in addition to Reverend Tinsley's offer, and two offers to act as companion — one from Lady Manwaring, one from Lord Deavers, and — "
Jarrod didn't allow her to finish. "Lady Manwaring is a harridan who would make your life miserable and Lord Deavers is a lecherous old scoundrel."
"Captain Howard asked me to accompany him on his return to his regiment in India and Lieutenant Slater offered to set me up in a nice little house on Curzon Street." Sarah bit her bottom lip. "Unfortunately, he wasn't amenable to the idea of Aunt Etta living with me."
"Unless he is in possession of a fortune, a lieutenant in His Majesty's army couldn't keep a cat in a little house on Curzon Street, much less a lady and her aunt," Jarrod pronounced. "Lieutenants are notoriously strapped for blunt. And India is no place for a lady, so accompanying Captain Howard is entirely out of the question."
"That is not for you to decide, Jays," Sarah informed him, hating the fact that his argument was sound and the fact that he didn't seem bothered at all by the idea that she might want to accompany Captain Howard to India or take Lieutenant Slater up on his offer of a house on Curzon Street. "You are not my guardian."
"Who is your guardian?" he asked. "And better still, where is your guardian?"
"I don't have one," she replied in a lofty tone. "At least, not yet."
"And why is that?"
"Because I convinced the magistrate that he wouldn't have to appoint a guardian for me if he granted me the season in which to find my own," she replied.
"Why would the magistrate have to appoint a guardian?" Jarrod frowned. "Didn't your father name one in his will?"
Sarah shook her head. "There was no reason for Papa to make a will. The Church provided his living. He didn't have anything of value."
"He had you," Jarrod said. "And he should have made sure your future was secure."
"He expected me to marry, Jays." Bristling at the note of criticism in Jarrod's tone of voice, Sarah glared at him. And once I married, he expected that my husband would provide a secure future for me."
"Then why the devil haven't you found someone who would?"
"I've only been in town a sennight. What would you have me do, Jays? Run about London proposing to every man I meet?"
"Of course not!" he snapped. "But a sennight appears to have been long enough for you to see Captain Howard, Lieutenant Slater, and Lord Deavers."
"Captain Howard sent a note after Papa died. Lord Deavers did the same. And I ran into Lieutenant Slater while walking Precious in the park."
"What the devil is a Precious?"
"Aunt Etta's spaniel." She looked up at him. "And Lieutenant Slater is the only young man I've spoken to except you."
"And he propositioned you over a spaniel! You've endured five seasons. Surely you must know someone in the market for a bride."
"I've only 'endured' three seasons," Sarah corrected. "Including this one. Aunt Etta was in mourning for her sister-in-law one season and Papa suffered through a bout of pleurisy during another. We didn't come to town those years."
"What about the other two?" he asked. "Didn't you meet anyone then? Or are you that hard to please?"
"Hard to please?" Sarah's voice rose an octave. "I'm not hard to please."
"Then why haven't you married?"
Because I've been waiting for you to ask me. Sarah had to bite her tongue to keep from blurting out the truth and facing another disappointment. So she settled for a half-truth. "Because I've decided to become the mistress of my own fate." She hazarded a glance at Jarrod. "And I cannot begin a career as a…" She hesitated.
"Courtesan?" Jarrod supplied the term.
Sarah nodded and continued, "… without practical experience, and I had hoped that you would find it in your heart" — she chose the same phrase Jarrod had used earlier — "to help me acquire the knowledge I'll need."
Frustrated by her stubbornness, irritated at her late father for dying and leaving his only child to fend for herself, and more tempted than he liked to admit by the audacious beauty standing before him, Jarrod raked his fingers through his hair, then bent down and retrieved her cloak from the floor. "I cannot do what you're asking me to do, Sarah." He draped her velvet cloak over her shoulders. It was still wet, but Jarrod tied the cords in a neat bow beneath her chin anyway.