Page 9 of A Deal with the Rebellious Marquess
She gave him a long look and for a moment he thought perhaps she’d seen through him, that he’d pushed too far and given away his hand. He didn’t expect his little ruse to last for ever. All she had to do was look him up inDebrett’sif she was interested in Baron Umberton. But he did prefer it last a bit longer until he could complete his reconnaissance.
‘He is the brother of a marquess. If anything, he ought to be held to a higher standard. He has all the advantages most people lack and his one responsibility is to take care of his people. He couldn’t even do that.’
‘Spoken like a woman who resents the peerage,’ he commented wryly. ‘Is that why you’ve picked him out? Because he’s a lord, even if just an honorary one.’
‘I don’t hate the peerage. I’m having lunch with you, aren’t I? I’ve picked him out because he is guilty,’ she snapped. ‘I can’t decide, Lord Umberton, if you are friend or foe. One moment I think we could be allies in this and the next you’re warning me off pursuing a legitimate culprit.’
He thought that, too. One moment he was trying to protect his brother, discover the truth of Orion’s association with the dam accident, and the next his mind was running riot with a thousand curiosities about Fleur Griffiths. ‘I’m not warning you off, Mrs Griffiths. I would not seek to decide for you or to know your mind.’
He certainly wasn’t seeking to obstruct the pursuit of the truth. He wanted to know the truth about Orion’s involvement as badly as she did, only for different reasons. ‘I am, however, cautioning you to consider the long-reaching ramifications of your choices and to think about your motives for them. I am merely offering counsel since you seem to have none to rely on.’
‘You mean I’ve been left unsupervised to run amok in the world, wreaking havoc.’ Her tone was cutting. Fleur Griffiths wasn’t afraid to speak her mind.
He inclined his head. ‘I would hope not. I would hope you had more decorum and restraint than that. Business is not a place for hot heads. A newspaper is a powerful tool and must be wielded accordingly for the benefit of society.’
‘As is a title,’ she responded with the sharp heat he’d come to associate with her. He supposed some men would be turned off by her knife-edge sharpness. He was not one of them. Lord help him, but he found it deuced attractive. If it weren’t for his brother being involved... Who was he kidding? If it wasn’t for his brother, he wouldn’t have encountered Mrs Griffiths at all.
Wealthy newspaper widows weren’t exactly in his circle of association. She was of the City. He was of thetonand seldom did the two meet. There was only one path that would be acceptable for him to pursue with a woman like Fleur Griffiths—a private path that kept to the shadows and ended when he walked a different path to the altar with another woman. He put himself in check. Was he really considering an affair—even in the hypothetical—with the woman who wanted to use his brother as the scapegoat for her grief?
It was perhaps a testimony as to how attracted he was. If only the ladies of thetonwere half as challenging, half as thrilling. Perhaps it was the danger, the risk that came with her that attracted him, or perhaps it was simply that Fleur Griffith made no secret of the fact that she would bite if provoked.
The bill came to the table and Jasper automatically reached for it, but Fleur Griffiths was faster, her eyes brooking no dispute. ‘Iinvitedyou,’ she said, signing the cheque.
Well, that was an interesting change. A woman had never bought him lunch before. Jasper rose and reached for her coat, holding it for her as she slipped it on. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. It felt disturbingly as if he’d given up a modicum of control. She pulled on her gloves and stepped away from him, their eyes meeting, hers with a message: she who had her own money made her own rules.
He escorted her to the front of the restaurant, the place much fuller than it had been when they’d arrived, his hand light at her back, his body close enough to hers to breathe in the scent of her. ‘I shall take a cab from here. I need to return to the office, Lord Umberton.’ She made his dismissal clear. Their business was concluded. She would not allow him to drag it out with a cab ride. He found he didn’t like being dismissed any more than he’d liked having his lunch paid for.
‘I’ll wait until you’re safely on your way,’ he negotiated smoothly. His honour demanded he not leave even a self-sufficient woman alone on a street corner and his pride demanded he restore the balance of power at least a little before they parted. She needed to know that he would not allow anyone to walk over him.
He hailed her a cab. ‘I’ll be in touch, Mrs Griffiths, and the next time our meal will be on me,’ he said, helping her inside, breathing her in one last time, memorising the scent to decode later.
‘I hope our meeting was enlightening.’
‘Most enlightening.’ He was positively aflame with enlightenment. He could not recall the last time a woman had so tempted him while simultaneously terrifying him. She was indeed trouble. He gave away none of that turmoil. He smiled politely and shut the door, sending the cab off before his town coach pulled to the curb. His own afternoon would be busy indeed, his mind already formulating lists of things he needed to know and answers his brother needed to provide. Orion might have tangled with the wrong person this time. He’d accused her of seeking personal vengeance instead of public justice, but Jasper couldn’t shake the nagging question growing in his mind. What if she was right?
Chapter Five
‘You think she’s right.Youare taking her side. I cannot believe this.’ Orion paused his agitated pacing before the fireplace long enough to push an equally agitated hand through his hair. Jasper wondered if he’d practised the move. Perhaps it had been a mistake to give Orion advance notice of this meeting.
Advance notice had given Orion time to think about how to posture, how to position his arguments and his emotions. Orion was nothing if not the sum of his emotions, all of which he felt entitled to display whenever he felt them. Real adults weren’t ruled by their emotions, in Jasper’s opinion, or at the very least real adults controlled and contained those emotions.
The thought immediately conjured images of Fleur Griffiths over lunch today. She’d been emotional, heated and then cool in turn, calm at moments, angry in others. But she’d kept those emotions under control. It was fine to feel, just not to feel too much too often, that was Jasper’s credo. Too much emotion undermined Baconian law, after all, left a man feeling exposed, vulnerable. He’d had a strong taste of that after his father died. He wasn’t willing to drink from that cup again.
‘I am not siding with her,’ Jasper corrected from the sideboard that held decanters at the ready for a pre-prandial drink. ‘I had lunch with her today in order to hear her position.’
‘You took her to lunch?’ Orion said the words as if he’d indulged in the eighth deadly sin.
‘We took lunch together, at Verrey’s Café. To be honest, it had not been my intention. She invited me, if you must know.’ Jasper crossed the room and handed a tumbler to his brother.
‘Why?’ Orion swirled the brandy and gave a sorrowful look into its depths. ‘You’re always asking questions. Did you think of asking that one?Whywould she invite a man to lunch whom she doesn’t know, who is, by the way, related to the man she seeks to pillory? It is not the done thing to dine with one’s enemies.’
‘Perhaps you should test some of the assumptions undergirding your last statement.’ Jasper took a swallow of his drink and waited one beat, then two as dawning came to Orion.
‘She doesn’t know who you are. You’ve given her some trumped-up name.’
‘Not trumped up, a real name. Baron Umberton. I did not lie to her. IamBaron Umberton.’ Although he hadn’t ever used that title. The Earl of Wincastle had been his honorary title growing up, one of his father’s titles bestowed on him at birth.
‘You made her believe you were interested in her articles,’ Orion went on.
