A Fine Passion (Bastion Club 4)

He forced a charming smile and asked after the young gentleman.

“No change.” Connimore shook her head. “Lady Clarice sent word she’d drop by this afternoon.”

His smile grew tight. “I’m afraid I’ll miss her—I’m going to ride around the estate.”

With a nod, he left the kitchens, strode out to the stables, called for Challenger to be saddled, then swung himself up and thundered off across the fields. His fields. His land.

He prayed his tenants wouldn’t fill his ears with tales of Lady Clarice and her suggestions.

They did, of course.

By the time he turned Challenger’s head for home, he had a very clear idea of how Boadicea had filled her time, buried down there in the country. And while some part of his brain told him his instinctive response to her actions was irrational—she wasn’t trying to interfere, nor had she deliberately usurped his position—yet still he smarted, justifiably or not.

He still felt…slighted in some indefinable way.

Illogical, irrational, and given Boadicea, probably idiotic, yet he couldn’t shake the feeling, couldn’t free himself of the emotion.

When he turned into the village street and, looking ahead, saw her talking to the innkeeper, Jed Butler, then saw them go into the tap, he couldn’t stop his reaction.

Leaving Challenger with Jed’s son in the yard behind the inn, he entered the tap quietly through the side door. Neither Clarice nor Jed heard him; they were standing facing the long, scarred bar, studying it and the wall behind it. Halting in the shadows behind them, Jack listened.

“I thought as how, if we knock out that wall there, we’ll be able to open up that back parlor. Hardly ever used, it is, and Betsy says as we could serve food for the lads in there. They won’t go into the dining room, o’course, and with their boots an’ all, we’d not want them to, and summer they do like the tables outdoors, but in winter, we could make this place right snug, and they’d have some place by the bar to eat as well as drink.”

Boadicea had been nodding slowly throughout. “I think that’s an excellent idea, but—”

“Lady Clarice.” Jack heard the hard command in his voice; he softened it as Clarice and Jed swung to face him, and nodded genially to the innkeeper. “Jed.”

Jed blinked, then bobbed his head. “M’lord.”

Clarice scanned his face. She opened her mouth.

Before she could speak, Jack seized her hand. “If you’ll excuse us, Jed, I want a few w

ords with Lady Clarice.” He met her gaze briefly as he turned to the door. “Outside.”

He would have hauled her out with him—towed her—but after that fleeting exchange of glances she went with him readily if not willingly, giving him, his temper, not even that much satisfaction. Her hand in his, he led her out of the side door, across the grassed lane that led to the rear yard, making for the inn’s orchard beyond. He strode for the gap in the orchard wall, registering that Boadicea’s long legs kept pace without hurrying in the least.

The distracting observation only sharpened his flinty mood.

Three stone steps led into the orchard; he went down them and continued beneath the trees. Without warning, Boadicea halted, dug in her heels, and pulled back. “Lord Warnefleet!”

“Jack.” Curt, abrupt, he flung the name over his shoulder and jerked her on. With a gasp—stifled—she was forced to follow; he wanted to be far enough from the lane so no one passing would be able to hear them. “If you’re going to be me, you might at least use my name!”

“Wh—what?”

“Don’t play the innocent—it doesn’t become you.”

An instant passed, then she said, “I beg your pardon?”

Her voice had turned to ice, dripping with chilly warning. He ignored it. “As well you might.”

“Have you taken leave of your senses?”

They were in the middle of the orchard with nothing but trees and apple blossom for company. Jack halted and swung to face her. “Not yet.”

He still held her hand; they were close, only a foot between them.

She read his eyes; he thought hers widened.