Page 18 of Heiress Gone Wild

“And she poured out her tale of woe to you, a perfect stranger? How convenient she found such a sympathetic—and wealthy—listener.”

“I don’t see why you’re grousing about this,” she said, sounding decidedly nettled. “You wanted me to have a chaperone.”

“What I wanted was for you to stay in White Plains until I could make proper arrangements for you.”

“There’s nothing improper about my arrangements!”

“Given all the dashing about on bicycles and trains and ships that you’ve been doing today, just how and when did you find the time to hire this woman?”

“We met in the ladies’ reading room just after I came aboard. We struck up a rapport, talked for about an hour, and came to an agreement that suits us both. We are going to have the purser move us into adjoining cabins tomorrow. It would be better, of course, if we could be installed in a suite...”

She paused, looking at him hopefully.

“No,” he said, quashing that plan at once. “And no adjoining rooms either. Give a woman you just met access to your cabin? Not a chance.”

“What do you think she’s going to do? Steal my jewelry?”

He could only thank God the Rose of Shoshone was in the ship’s vault. “A likely possibility, I should say.”

“No, it’s not, since I don’t own any jewelry except a cameo brooch and a garnet ring of my mother’s—hardly worth robbery. And it makes sense for us to share rooms, since she’s my chaperone.”

He shuddered. “God forbid.”

“You can’t say she’s inappropriate for the task. She’s a baroness.”

“If that woman’s a baroness, I’m a prince of the realm. Her bloodlines aside, no woman who uses hair dye could possibly be an appropriate chaperone for you, or any girl.”

Marjorie gave him a look of pity. “You have been away from civilization a long time, haven’t you? Many older women dye their hair nowadays. It’s quite the fashionable thing to do. Why, I believe Oscar Wilde even mentioned something about that in one of his plays.”

“Oscar Wilde also went to prison,” he pointed out. “I’m hardly reassured.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” she cried. “It’s not as if I picked a perfect stranger off the street. She knows your sister and brother-in-law.”

“Indeed? Did she mention that connection before or after she learned you were William McGann’s daughter, and that I, his business partner and your guardian, am the brother of a duchess?”

“I didn’t say anything about you,” she answered with dignity. “Or about my father.”

“Then it’s clear you didn’t have to. It’s likely that she already knew all about you.” Jonathan decided this was the perfect time to offer a lesson on just how hazardous a place the world could be for an innocent, unaccompanied woman. “I’m sure she reads the New York papers, as I’d wager all the talented confidence swindlers who work the liners do.”

“You seem to know a great deal about confidence swindlers,” she said acidly. “I wonder how.”

“My guess is that she saw you sitting alone in the ladies’ reading room, inquired of a member of the ship’s company who you were, and the moment she heard your name, she recognized it from the papers. Seizing her opportunity, she approached you, made some friendly comment, and you, like a lamb, invited her to sit with you?”

Marjorie shifted her weight, not meeting his gaze, and Jonathan knew he was on the right track. “She discovered you were unchaperoned, no doubt, and pretended to be appalled by the fact. She then poured out her tale of woe—her unfortunate circumstances and her money troubles and how hard life is for the impoverished nobility in our modern, uncivilized age.”

She jerked her chin, confirming the accuracy of his reconstruction of the afternoon’s events. “Now you’re just being absurd,” she muttered.

“My point is, what do you really know about this woman?”

When she didn’t answer, he pressed his advantage. “After an hour’s acquaintance, there’s nothing you could know except what she’s told you. She says she knows my sister, but we have no idea if that’s true. You must understand that many people will try to become intimate with you because of who you are, and that not all of them have good intentions.”

“I already realize that.”

“You may realize it, but you can’t possibly understand it. Not yet. You don’t have enough experience to see all the ways in which people can take advantage of you, and how to guard yourself from them. My job is to see that you are introduced to the wider world gradually, by the proper people at the proper time.”

“If you believe the baroness has nefarious intentions, you could have interviewed her yourself,” Marjorie pointed out as she picked up a white silk rose ornament from the table and clipped it into her hair. “But, no,” she added, slipping on a pair of long white evening gloves, “you decided to play the indignant, overprotective guardian and shove her out into the hallway.”

“I didn’t shove the woman anywhere. And I have no intention of being anything but protective where you are concerned.”

---