Unclaimed (Turner #2)(53)

Mark met her gaze and delivered the next words for her and her alone.

“Women are the point of chastity, not the enemy of it. You should hold to chastity not because you fear what your cohort will say, but because when you indulge your own lusts, the woman you indulge them with is hurt. She is the one who will weather the censure of society. She is the one on whom the burden and expense of an unanticipated pregnancy will fall. She is the one who will be cast out. Men? Men will survive the temporary opprobrium of society. Only an unfeeling cad ignores the plight created by his passing desire. Only a juvenile lets the weight of his actions fall on someone else, and then blames her for his own weakness.”

The crowd had disappeared from his vision. He could see no one but Jessica, could think of no one but her. She watched him like a stone statue, her cheeks marble.

“I know what integrity looks like,” Mark said. “A person with integrity takes responsibility for his own failings. And I respect and admire that more than any number of false protestations of honor.”

If he’d not known better, he’d have thought her on the verge of tears. He looked away. Proud as she was, he didn’t think she’d want him to see it.

“And so when you say a woman has caused your downfall?” Mark swept his gaze back to the members of the MCB. “You’re acting like a pack of irresponsible infants.”

Tolliver actually cringed under Mark’s glare. And for the first time since Mark, swept up in his rage, had begun to speak, cold reality asserted itself. He’d truly let his anger get the better of him. He’d called them all cowards and babies, as if he were the worst sort of hellfire pulpit-thumping preacher.

But thinking of Jessica, sitting isolated and scarcely tolerated, infuriated him. He couldn’t even feel a mild regret.

What was left?

“There,” he said, brushing his hands together as if he were Pontius Pilate disclaiming all responsibility. “I’m done with you.”

He began to walk away. For his first three steps, there was silence. Then the crowd surged to its feet, applauding, shrieking wildly.

He couldn’t believe it. “Are you mad?” he protested aloud. “I just called you all fainthearted infants!”

But they didn’t hear him, not over the whistled accolades. It hadn’t done any good—they still sprang from their places as he tried to escape, slapping his back, thanking him—even though he’d done his best to make them hate him.

“Brilliant speech, Sir Mark!” Tolliver was saying.

“Such heartfelt conviction!”

“I feel inspired,” someone was saying by his elbow. “Truly inspired to live a righteous life.”

“Everyone loved it.” That was Tolliver again. “Except, um, Mr. Lewis. I think he’s looking a bit angry. And Mrs. Farleigh—she’s leaving already.”

Mark turned toward the exit. In this crowd, he could scarcely see more than elbows and hats, wide sleeves and cloaks being claimed in the entrance. But he didn’t need to see more than her elbow—more than the tip of her finger—to recognize her.

She was leaving. After all that, she was leaving without saying a single word to him.

“Tolliver,” Mark said, “do me a favor, there’s a good lad. Tackle anyone who tries to stop me.”

“What, sir?”

But there was no time to explain. Mark shoved through the crowd after her. Not a chance he’d let her go, not now.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“JESSICA!”

She didn’t want to turn, especially not at the sound of his voice. She didn’t want to look at him, didn’t want to have to sort through the confused welter of emotions that coursed through her.

But his footfalls pounded on the dirt road behind her. He must have run clear from the center of town.

“Jessica,” he repeated as he came up to her.

“Sir Mark. I told you not to make a romance of me. You…you are the dearest idiot.”

He didn’t flinch. “Is that what you think I’m doing, then? Seeing some idealized version of you? Didn’t you hear a word I just said? It’s not about you.”

“No? Then you must have been making a champion of yourself.”

“Jessica.”

“I’d quite forgot,” she said, “you are a knight, are you not? I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that you occasionally play the part.”

He shook his head and rubbed at one eye. “Are you yelling at me because I like you?”

“Yes!”

“Well, get used to it,” he shot back. “Because I can’t get you out of my mind. I think of you all the time. And you can’t shout loud enough to make me stop.”

“Would you care to place a wager?”

“Just go ahead and try,” he said coldly, rummaging in his pockets. “Here.” He pulled out his fob watch, flicked the gold face open. “It’s three past eight. Now go on. Scream as loudly as you like. Don’t mind me. I’ll just stand here and keep time until you’re bored.”

He didn’t need to tell her about the ticking of time. She had two days to seduce him, and she couldn’t bear to do it any longer. He stared back, tapping his foot. And it was only then that the utter, impossible ridiculousness of it swept over her and she began to laugh. He was by her side in a trice, his arms around her. Her shoulders shook. She wasn’t sure if she was laughing or crying until his hand ran down her head.