Page 104 of Gentleman Jim

“Neither possibility is very likely,” she said. “Firstly, I’m an excellent shot.”

“True,” he acknowledged.

“And secondly, those men recognized you as soon as we walked in the door. I didn’t think of it then, but your resemblance to your father must be quite striking indeed.”

“Uncanny, apparently.”

“Quite. And Gentleman Jim is all but a folk hero to those villains. Naturally they’d take your side in a quarrel. Especially if your adversary was someone like Fred or your cousin, coming into the place and threatening to summon the magistrate of all people.”

“Fred is a fool. He’s always been a fool. That doesn’t make him any less of a threat.” St. Clare’s mood darkened. “He’s going to make things very difficult for you, Maggie.”

“He’ll try.”

“We must marry at once. As soon as I can procure a license.” He wanted her away from this place. Away from Fred and the malice of the Beresfords. Somewhere St. Clare could keep an eye on her. In his bed to start with.

“Of course we must. But in the meanwhile, I won’t let him drive me from my home, not one single minute sooner than Papa’s will requires. Beasley Park is still mine for the time being. And the first thing I’m going to do when I return is to eject your cousin and his mother from the premises. I want them out of my house by dawn.”

“By all means. But we’re not going to Beasley Park.”

She wiggled around in front of him, attempting to meet his gaze, even as he urged his horse into a canter. “We’re not?”

He shook his head. “We’re going to the Hart and Hound.”

Maggie stood in front of the fireplace, warming her hands over the freshly kindled blaze. The Hart and Hound was nothing at all like the Crossed Daggers. It was a respectable inn run by respectable people—people who were slavishly deferential to the earl and his grandson.

Indeed, when Maggie and St. Clare had arrived, the husband and wife proprietors hadn’t been at all cross about being rudely awakened from their beds in the early hours before dawn. Instead, they’d averted their eyes from St. Clare’s battered face, from his torn shirt and blood-stained waistcoat, and all but bowed him and Maggie into a private parlor.

After seeing her settled there, St. Clare had withdrawn almost immediately to speak to his grandfather. Ten minutes passed before he returned to her, washed, groomed, and wearing a fresh suit of clothes.

Her pulse gave a little leap, just as it always did whenever she first laid eyes on him.

But he wasn’t alone.

Lord Allendale entered the private parlor after him. “Miss Honeywell.”

“My lord.” She curtsied. The room was lit by the fire, and by a branch of candles. The flames flickered and snapped, casting patterns over the earl’s face, making his already unwelcoming expression look almost sinister.

“This is a fine mess the pair of you have got us into,” he said. A wooden table graced the center of the parlor, four straight-backed wooden chairs arrayed around it. Allendale drew one out and sat down. “A public declaration of my grandson’s former identity? In a hedge tavern, no less?”

St. Clare pulled out a chair for Maggie. As she passed him to sit down, their bare hands brushed, fingers tangling for the briefest instant. It sent a rush of warmth through her belly, making her knees go weak.

She didn’t dare meet his eyes for fear of blushing. “No one of importance was there,” she said to the earl. “No one save Mr. Burton-Smythe and Mr. Beresford.”

“Burton-Smythe might be persuaded to keep silent. He has your reputation to think of. But Beresford? That duplicitous jackanapes and his mother will have the tale in all the papers by morning.”

St. Clare sat down in the chair next to her. “It is morning.”

Allendale’s frown deepened. “You must have taken leave of your senses. To be out all hours brawling, and with a lady in tow. Is this the outlandish behavior you inspire in my grandson, ma’am? And you. Look at yourself, sir. Cut and bruised. Your lip split and your eye blackened like a criminal of the lower orders. Haven’t I told you that nothing can be learned from digging up the past?”

“But we did learn something.” Maggie looked at St. Clare in confusion. “Didn’t you tell him?”

Allendale’s gaze narrowed. “Tell me what?”

St. Clare ran a hand over his face. “It’s nothing. Old rumors about my father and mother.”

“What rumors?” Allendale asked.

St. Clare was silent.