I watched Jack as he made an off-the-cuff but perfectly suited speech for the occasion, making people laugh, and flattering the right ones. In short, doing everything that his mother expected of him, but as he glanced towards me, I could see that inside he was hating every moment. I held his gaze, trying to convey that he wasn’t alone, however much it felt like it. He looked away as he finished his speech but then turned again towards me as he raised a glass, and I knew the smile in his eyes was for me alone.

12

‘I don’t think I could have done that without you,’ Jack said as we got out of the car back at the house. It wasn’t a long drive, but he’d been quiet the whole time and I hadn’t liked to interrupt his thoughts.

‘Of course you could,’ I said. ‘You’re stronger than you think.’

‘So are you.’

I glanced up at him as I fished the key from my clutch bag. ‘Maybe.’

He laughed and I could smell expensive whiskey drift on the still night air. ‘No maybe about it. My mother intimidates everyone. Even the vicar quakes in her presence, and he’s got God on his side! But you just stood there and defended yourself and me. I’m not sure anyone’s ever done that before, certainly not for me, anyway. Any woman I did like whom my mother deemed not suitable, which was most women, ran for the hills after one meeting with her.’

‘Yes, but that’s different,’ I said, waiting for him to come in the door, now that I’d opened it. Caught up in his thoughts, he seemed to have missed that fact, so I reached out and gently pulled him inside.

‘Oh? How is it different?’

‘Because those women were linked with you romantically. I’m not. She might not like me, but I’m also not a threat and she knows that.’

‘I’m not sure she likes anybody,’ he said, wandering through to the kitchen and plopping down on the sofa, loosening his tie as he did so that it hung loose around his neck. It really was a good job that nineteen-year-old me wasn’t here because even thirty-nine-year-old me couldn’t deny that he looked as hot as a rude word right now.

‘I assume she must have liked your father, or at least did at some point enough to marry him.’

Jack laughed a hollow laugh. ‘You really don’t know anything about the aristocracy, do you?’

‘Of course I do. I’ve written several historical romances, you know, and I take my research very seriously.’

‘Perhaps you should have told me you wanted to do research that time you came up to me. Things might have gone differently.’

‘Ha. You wish.’

Jack didn’t reply.

‘What do you mean I don’t know anything about it, anyway?’

‘Marrying for money and titles might seem a bit outdated, but I can tell you, it definitely hasn’t disappeared completely.’

‘Would you do that?’