"Why not?" he asked, slightly affronted. Over the years, he'd grown quite accustomed to Sarah professing her intention to marry him.
"Because," she breathed against his lips, "I finally realized that you're a very attractive man and I have no doubt that you'll be an excellent lover, but you're hardly what one would want in a husband."
"I beg your pardon?" Jarrod opened his eyes and stepped back, all thoughts of kissing her temporarily forgotten as he stared down at Sarah's upturned face.
She smiled. "There's no need to beg my pardon, Jays. I invited you to kiss me."
"You ordered me to kiss you," Jarrod corrected. "But that's neither here nor there at the moment." He frowned. "What makes you think that marriageable young women consider me unsuitable as a husband? Because I assure you most young ladies and their parents or guardians find me eminently suitable."
"I didn't assume most young women would consider you an unsuitable husband," Sarah corrected.
"I believe your exact words were — " Jarrod began.
"I know what my exact words were," she interrupted. "I wasn't speaking in general terms of what most young women want." She looked him squarely in the eye. "I was stating my view."
"Your view of my suitability as a husband?"
She nodded. "As opposed to your suitability as a lover, yes."
"An opinion you base, of course, on your vast experience," Jarrod reminded her.
Sarah wrinkled her nose at him. "I'm well aware that I'm lacking in experience, Jays. That's why I came to you."
"To learn how to kiss."
The husky timbre of his voice sent shivers down Sarah's spine. She slanted a look at him from beneath the cover of her eyelashes. "Among other things…"
She was an innocent, but the warmth in her voice and the look in her eyes were invitations as old as time. Jarrod's body tightened even further and he marveled at the strength of his trouser buttons. "You want me," he confirmed. "As your lover."
"As my first lover," she corrected, tracing a line through that fascinating wedge of hair on his chest with the tip of her index finger.
"Your first?" Jarrod caught hold of her hand, halting her exploration. "Have you others waiting in the wings?" He consulted a mental list of men Sarah might have chosen as prospective lovers and frowned once again. There were dozens of likely prospects. Men of all shapes and sizes and from all walks of life. Men who were older, younger, richer, poorer, more handsome, and less handsome than he was. Men whose only common trait would be their desire to take his place in Sarah Eckersley's bed and become her next lover.
"Not yet," Sarah answered. "But I'm a young woman, Jays. And your reputation precedes you."
Jarrod lifted his eyebrow in query. "How so?"
"You've a reputation for demanding absolute perfection in everything you do," Sarah explained. "I don't doubt that you'll prove to be a most excellent tutor, but I believe it would be most unrealistic to suppose that in the course of my lifetime, you will be my only lover. Or my only tutor. I am, after all, nearly nine years your junior."
Looking at her, Jarrod found it much more likely that he would be quite satisfied to become her first and only lover. He was disappointed to think that Sarah felt otherwise. "You're eight years my junior," he reminded her. "And you're assuming I'll be willing to accommodate your request."
"Aren't you?"
Jarrod relaxed his grip on her hand, then reached out and cradled her face in his hands. "If, as you say, my reputation precedes me, then you should know that I pride myself on being a gentleman. And no gentleman would agree to divest a young lady — any young lady — of her maidenhead. Especially a young lady he's known and" — he faltered, surprised to find the word loved on the tip of his tongue — "regarded fondly since she was a child. A young lady who happens to be the daughter of the rector who's always held that gentleman in high esteem." He leaned closer. "Good lord, Sarah, what were you thinking to come here at this time of night? Where are your aunt and your father? What were they thinking to let you?"
Sarah paused, then looked at him sharply. "When I left her, Aunt Etta was sleeping soundly in our room at Ibbetson's Hotel."
Ibbetson's? A tiny prickling feeling of unease lifted the hair on the back of Jarrod's neck. He had assumed that Sarah, her father, and her aunt were renting a town house for the season. Ibbetson's wasn't as fine a hotel as the Clarendon or Grillon's or the Pulteney, but it catered to members of the clergy and to academics and was completely respectable. "And your father?"
"My father died, Jarrod," Sarah answered flatly. "Two months ago."
Jarrod was stunned by the news. He released her, then stepped back out of reach. "I'm sorry," he said, bowing his head in a gesture of respect for the reverend, staring at the toes of his boots for a moment before he met Sarah's gaze once again. "I wasn't aware — " He faltered. "I don't recall a notice…"
"Why should you?" Sarah demanded, cutting him off. "You didn't bother to renew our acquaintance after our dance last season. Or pay Papa or me a call. Why should you notice his death?"
Her accusation stung. He had purposely refrained from paying Sarah Eckersley and her father a call after their dance last season because Jarrod hadn't wanted Sarah to think he meant to court her after one dance — no matter how much he enjoyed it. And Jarrod couldn't pay a call on the reverend without Sarah assuming he might be willing to offer her more than friendship. And Jarrod knew that was out of the question. He would never marry and he couldn't offer Sarah anything less.
"Rectors in villages much the size of Helford Green don't rate notice in the London papers," she continued, blinking back the hot rush of tears burning her eyes as she related the bitter facts. Her father had spent his adult life serving his fellow men, teaching God's word, and bringing goodness and hope and light into the lives of everyone around him. His death had gone all but unnoticed except to his parishioners, while a ne'er-do-well member of the ton could overturn a phaeton and be memorialized in every rag in London. "Especially when compared to an outstanding young peer like Lord Brinson."
Jarrod had been away from London on a mission two months ago and although he'd caught up on the news and the gossip when he returned, Jarrod had to search his memory for a connection. "Lord Brinson? Lord Peter Brinson? The young fool who bet that he could make three circles around the park in under five minutes? That Lord Brinson?"
Sarah nodded.
"Peter Brinson hasn't had a sober moment since he reached his majority," Jarrod told her. "What has he to do with your father?"
"He died the same day Papa died," Sarah answered in a tone of voice flavored with bitterness.
"I see." Although Sarah's father wouldn't have minded the quiet anonymity of his death, it was galling to realize that an irresponsible young peer who had never done a day's work — either good or bad — and who had died while racing his phaeton around Hyde Park in response to a dare had had his passing recognized and his brief life gloriously recounted for the entire population of London while the Reverend Eckersley's life and work had gone largely unnoticed.
"Everyone who was anyone in the ton attended Lord Brinson's funeral," Sarah replied, pinning Jarrod with an accusing look.
"I wasn't one of them." Jarrod met her gaze without flinching. "I was in Scotland when your father died. Had I known of his passing, I would have gone to Helford Green to pay my last respects."
"Would you?" she challenged.
"Of course I would have," he snapped. "And you know it. I was very fond of your father and, what's more, I respected him. He was a good man and there are far too few truly good men." Jarrod looked at Sarah. "And I don't intend to dishonor his memory by compromising his daughter. You're in mourning, Sarah. You shouldn't be in London or at Ibbetson's and you certainly shouldn't be here. It isn't proper."
It wasn't and Sarah knew it as well as he did, but Jarrod's censure stung and try as she might, Sarah couldn't hold her tongue. "You are in no position to lecture me on propriety, Jays. I'm a rector's daughte
r. I've always followed the rules. I've always done what was right and proper, while you've always done exactly as you pleased."
Jarrod bit his bottom lip to keep from smiling. "Your memory is faulty, Sarah. As I recall, you were a little hoyden who sneaked out of the rectory every chance you got. You couldn't have always done what was right and proper because you followed me everywhere I went whenever I was at Shepherdston Hall. You were everywhere I turned. I was amazed by your tenacity. And I distinctly remember taking to horseback whenever I wanted to escape you." He had been thirteen at the time and perpetually annoyed at having a girl of five shadowing his every move.
"You were only at Shepherdston Hall twice a year — at Easter and Christmas," she informed him. "That meant that the rest of the year, I was a proper young lady." Sarah fought the childish urge to stick her tongue out at him.
"Because you had a father and an aunt who loved you enough to set rules and to see that you followed them."
"Because there was no alternative," she corrected. "We lived a quiet country life in a quiet country village where the rector's daughter had to be above reproach. I had never been to London until my first season."
"Which was what?" Jarrod asked. "Two or three seasons ago?"
"Five," she replied, ever so sweetly. "I made my curtsy along with Adelaide and Alyssa Carrollton."
"Adelaide and Alyssa Carrollton are well married," Jarrod said. "As are their sisters, Anne and Amelia." Adelaide had married Lord Hastings. Anne had married Lord Garrison. Amelia wed Lord Brookestone. And Alyssa, the youngest Carrollton sister, had married Griffin Abernathy, founding member of the Free Fellows League and one of Jarrod's closest friends. "Yes, I know," Sarah said.
"As a veteran of five campaigns, I would have thought that you would have snagged a rich peer by now and have an heir and a spare to show for it."
"I would have thought the same of you," Sarah parried. "Except that I happen to know that…"
"I'm not in the market for a marchioness," he concluded.
"That you would rather take a lover than take a wife." She contradicted, meeting his steady brown-eyed gaze.
"I have my reasons, Sarah." Jarrod turned his back to her and walked to the fireplace.
"So do I," she replied, softly.
"And you're wrong, you know." Jarrod stared into the fire, mesmerized by the blue and orange flames licking at the coal. "I've never done exactly as I pleased," he said, at last. "It may have seemed that way to you, but that was only because I was born to parents who didn't care what I did or where I went so long as I stayed out of their way. I would have given anything to have what you had. Now, forget about this harebrained scheme." Jarrod turned away from the fire and began to pace the width of carpet in front of it. "Take your aunt and go home and mourn your father."
"Would that I could," Sarah retorted, "but I no longer have a home to — " She broke off abruptly, clamping her teeth down on her wayward tongue, appalled that she'd admitted so much.
Jarrod stopped his pacing and turned to face her. "What happened to the rectory?"
"Nothing," she said. "The rectory and the living belong to the rector."
"And?" he prompted when she finished speaking.
"Aunt Etta and I do not."
* * *
Chapter Four
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Chance reveals virtues and vices as light reveals objects.
— La Rochefoucauld, 1613-1680
"Someone else has been awarded the Helford Green rectory and the living attached to it." Usually exceedingly quick on the uptake, Jarrod could only blame his temporary stupidity on his surprise at having Sarah Eckersley pay him a late-night call in order to present him with such a tempting and troubling proposition. He should have discerned the situation immediately.
"Yes," Sarah confirmed. "And that someone would be the new rector."
"Surely a man of God can find it in his heart to allow a grieving daughter to remain in the only home she's ever known," Jarrod suggested.
"As a matter of fact, Reverend Tinsley did ask that I remain in residence at the rectory — "
"See?" Jarrod interrupted with a self-satisfied smile. "I knew it."
"As governess to his children."
"As governess?" Jarrod repeated the phrases as if he'd never heard the words before. "To his children?"
"Two girls and a boy. Polly, Pippa, and Paul. Ages seven, five, and three." She studied Jarrod's expression, then crossed her fingers and hid her hand in the folds of her nightgown. "I was asked to stay on for a small stipend of twelve pounds a year plus room and board. Of course, I will have to relinquish my bedchamber to the rector's daughters and move my personal things to the little room in the attic."
Jarrod knew the room Sarah described. He had been to the rectory. Before being sent to Knightsguild for his formal secular education, Jarrod had received his religious instruction from Sarah's father at the rectory. The little attic room had been built as living quarters for a maid or a manservant, but Reverend Eckersley had declared it much too small for that purpose and had used it instead as a workshop, where he spent long hours repairing prayer books, hymnals, and on occasion, altar cloths and vestments. Jarrod remembered helping the reverend carry the books from the sanctuary to the workshop and back again. "Not bloody likely."
"Pardon?" He'd mumbled something, but Sarah couldn't understand a word of it.
"What about your aunt?" Jarrod asked instead of repeating his words. "Will she be forced to give up her room as well?"
"Young Master Tinsley will have Aunt Etta's room," Sarah told him. "He cannot share with the girls and there are only three bedchambers in the rectory."
"Why can't young Master Tinsley take the attic room?" Jarrod demanded. "While you share with your aunt?" He didn't like the idea of Sarah becoming governess to anyone's children — especially children who would displace her from her bedchamber in the only home she had ever known. And he didn't like the idea of anyone removing Sarah's aunt from the bedchamber she had occupied since Sarah was a small child. It seemed an especially callous thing to do — especially for a man of the cloth.
Sarah pretended to laugh, but her laughter sounded hollow, even to her own ears. "Because it simply isn't done, Jays. A governess cannot take a room that should belong to a member of the family. You know that."
"I know that it makes more sense to have young Master Tinsley take the smaller of the rooms since he is smaller and to allow you and your aunt to share the larger bedchamber."
Sarah bit her bottom lip. "It makes no difference, Jays, because Reverend Tinsley hasn't offered Aunt Etta a home at the rectory."
"Why not?" Jarrod arched his eyebrow in query.
"I don't know." Sarah lifted her chin a notch higher, looked Jarrod in the eye, and dared him to challenge her decision. "But staying at the rectory or going anywhere else without her is out of the question. I won't consider it."
Jarrod expelled the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and met Sarah's challenging gaze. "I wouldn't expect otherwise."
"I've lost Papa," she said softly. "And I would rather lose my home than lose Aunt Etta."
"I don't own the living," Jarrod announced abruptly. The position as rector of Helford Green came with a glebe of several hundred acres of flourishing orchards, fertile farm and grazing land, rent, and tithes that provided the clergyman with a handsome income. The owner of the living had the duty of inviting a man of the cloth to accept the living and the responsibility of ministering to the souls who lived and worked in Helford Green. Although the Marquess of Shepherdston was the largest landowner in the county, he didn't own the rector's living. It belonged to the present Viscount Dunbridge — the late Lord Dunbridge's nephew and Sarah's aunt Etta's nephew by marriage. Jarrod took a deep breath. "If you've come here tonight with this outrageous proposition because you believed that…"
Sarah sucked in a breath. "I came to you because I've received several proposals since Papa died. But the proposal th
at included marriage didn't include Aunt Etta and the proposals that did include her, didn't include matrimony."
"What sort of proposals have you received?" Jarrod asked. "And from whom?"
Sarah held up her fingers and counted the offers one by one. "I've received three other offers of the position of governess, in addition to Reverend Tinsley's offer, and two offers to act as companion — one from Lady Manwaring, one from Lord Deavers, and — "
Jarrod didn't allow her to finish. "Lady Manwaring is a harridan who would make your life miserable and Lord Deavers is a lecherous old scoundrel."
"Captain Howard asked me to accompany him on his return to his regiment in India and Lieutenant Slater offered to set me up in a nice little house on Curzon Street." Sarah bit her bottom lip. "Unfortunately, he wasn't amenable to the idea of Aunt Etta living with me."
"Unless he is in possession of a fortune, a lieutenant in His Majesty's army couldn't keep a cat in a little house on Curzon Street, much less a lady and her aunt," Jarrod pronounced. "Lieutenants are notoriously strapped for blunt. And India is no place for a lady, so accompanying Captain Howard is entirely out of the question."
"That is not for you to decide, Jays," Sarah informed him, hating the fact that his argument was sound and the fact that he didn't seem bothered at all by the idea that she might want to accompany Captain Howard to India or take Lieutenant Slater up on his offer of a house on Curzon Street. "You are not my guardian."
"Who is your guardian?" he asked. "And better still, where is your guardian?"
"I don't have one," she replied in a lofty tone. "At least, not yet."
"And why is that?"
"Because I convinced the magistrate that he wouldn't have to appoint a guardian for me if he granted me the season in which to find my own," she replied.
"Why would the magistrate have to appoint a guardian?" Jarrod frowned. "Didn't your father name one in his will?"
Sarah shook her head. "There was no reason for Papa to make a will. The Church provided his living. He didn't have anything of value."