Page 64 of The Governess and the Rogue

Bea immediately thought of his injury. “You can’t dance?”

Jack’s mouth twisted. “I’m not a hero.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Bea stared at him. Of all the replies she’d been expecting, it hadn’t been that. “I thought you were going to say it was your leg.”

“Two problems, then,” Jack acknowledged. “Likely more if I took the time to identify them.”

Bea studied his face, striving to understand. He looked so closed off. So hard and alone. It wasn’t like Jack. Not the Jack she had come to know.

“I don’t know why you’d say such a thing in the first place,” she said. “To claim you aren’t a hero? What nonsense.” A thought occurred to her. “It’s not… That is, it isn’t because of how you were injured, is it?”

“It is,” he admitted.

Her lips thinned in reproof. “Just because your horse fell on you in battle doesn’t make your sacrifice any less heroic. You were still fighting for Queen and country, weren’t you? And all injuries in service to the Crown are⁠—”

Jack cut her off. “That’s not what happened.”

Bea stilled. “But you said⁠—”

“I said my horse fell on me during a skirmish.”

“During a battle, I thought. At…” Her brows knit. What had he called it? “Mohammerah?”

He gave a terse nod.

“Yet, that’s not the whole of it,” she concluded. “You’re saying there was more.”

“There was. But… It’s not anything I can talk about.”

“Why not?” She sunk her voice. “Is it a secret?”

“Something like that.”

Bea could think of no better place to confide one than here beside the stream in the shelter of trees, with forget-me-nots blanketing the sloping banks around them. The secluded spot was a secret in itself. No one else seemed to exist here but her and Jack. Just the two of them on the ancient fallen tree, side-by-side, just as they’d been in their railway compartment on their journey from Marseilles.

A scrap of birdsong broke the silence—a sweet, melodic sound. It was carried away on the breeze. Only the sound of the rippling water remained.

“You’re the one who brought it up,” Bea pointed out.

“I often find myself telling you far more than I should,” Jack said. “Why is that, do you suppose?” His voice took on a sardonic edge. “Is it because you’re so extraordinarily sympathetic?”

Bea suppressed a huff of amusement. “I’m not unsympathetic.”

“Pragmatic, I should have said. Unless someone wrongs you one too many times. Or unless they wrong one of your friends. In which case, all bets are off.”

Amusement fading, Bea regarded him with unusual solemnity. They’d been through so much together in so short a time. All those hours on the Pera, on the train across France, and on the steamer over the Channel. All those miles traveled, shoulder-to-shoulder and hand-in-hand.

“I count you as a friend,” she said.

A rare glimmer of vulnerability flickered at the back of Jack’s gaze. “Do you, Bea?”

“I do,” she said. “Which is why I won’t interrogate you on the subject of your last battle, or skirmish, or whatever you’d like to call it. I’ve no wish for you to put your honor at risk revealing the clandestine operations of the British government.”

A bitter smile edged Jack’s mouth. “It’s not a military secret,” he said. “Merely a shameful one.”

Her brows lifted in question. But she didn’t press him. She merely waited.