Kristina O'Grady - Debutantes Don't Date

Lord Harrison’s voice had the effect of a bucket of cold water on Grace. She leapt out of Jasper’s arms, tripped on the hem of her borrowed dress and landed soundly on her bottom on the cold marble floor. Tears sprang to her eyes, partly from the pain but mostly from the humiliation of being caught again; and being made to feel like a slut. Good Lord, this whole time-warp was going to take some getting used to. Really, who thought a kiss was an act of sin?

“You keep this up much longer, Bingham, and you will need to procure a special licence.”

“Thank you, Neal. I will be sure to heed your advice.” Sarcasm dripped from his lips. “Come, Miss Lancaster, I believe we have a few things to discuss.”

She was so glad to see the door shut in Lord Harrison’s face that she almost broke out in giggles. She managed to cover them with a cough that lasted so long Jasper stepped towards her to smack her back.

“Are you quite well? Now then, Grace, I may call you Grace, can I not? I think we are past formalities.” A cheeky smile spread on his face.

“Of course,” she snorted.

“Good, call me Jasper.” He raised his hand and almost brushed a wayward strand of hair from her eyes but turned to pace the room instead. “Maybe Neal’s right. Maybe we shouldn’t have a long engagement. There’s really no reason to wait; my family consists of Victoria and you say you no longer have one.” He turned to face her. “What do you say? We get married in a week?”

“A week?” she squeaked and collapsed into the nearest chair. She couldn’t get married, and certainly not in a week’s time! For the second time in five minutes hysteria set in, but this time instead of laughter there was a body-numbing panic. What if she couldn’t figure out how to get home before then? What if there was no reason that she time-travelled? What if she just disappeared without a trace, anyone she married would be frantic for her. She couldn’t marry someone and then disappear into thin air. But…she couldn’t not marry this man either. As Victoria had pointed out last night, she had no other option. Victoria’s evil husband would just as soon throw her out of his house on her ass as look after her. If it wasn’t for Victoria and Jasper’s protection, what would become of her? Would she end up on the street? It was not as if event managers were in high demand in the 1800s was it? She knew if she didn’t at least pretend to be engaged to Jasper, Victoria wouldn’t be able to protect her and Jasper wouldn’t want to. She would be out on her ear in no time. Oh God, she would have to become a prostitute. The thought of selling her body to the unwashed men of this time made her skin crawl. Eww, yuck.

Jasper watched as the panic filled her wide eyes. Her face became so pale he was afraid she might faint. Surely the thought of marrying him wasn’t that bad? He knew of several women who’d sell their souls to become the next Countess of Bingham. “Are you perfectly well?” he asked.

Grace shook herself out of her daydream, looked him in the eye and opened her mouth to accept…nothing came out.

“Come.” Jasper pulled her to her feet and led her over to the sofa, gently pushed her down and sat next to her. He rubbed her hands briskly in between his to try to get some blood flowing. “Grace, Grace , are you feeling better now?” At the slightest nod of her head Jasper continued. “If getting married to me is scaring you, you need not worry. I will look after you. I’m very well off you know, you will never want for anything and I will never hurt you. Grace, are you listening to me? I know you were confused last night after you hit your head, but surely you feel better now. I’m sorry if you don’t remember the event that caused us to get in this situation to begin with, but going by our reaction to each other, I believe we’ll get along very well together.”

Grace marvelled at how sweet he looked sitting next to her. His eyes were filled with concern as he continued to rub her hands. He was going to rub the skin right off if she didn’t respond soon. She took a deep breath, looked him in the eyes again and crushed his ego. “I am honoured you would ask me to marry you, I really am. But I can’t marry you. Not because I don’t think that you are a good man, but we just met. I don’t want to rush into anything.”

“Rush anything?” Jasper jumped off the sofa to his feet and frowned down at her, his hands on his hips. “Every time we are in the same room as each other we are rushing it ! If we rush it any more, you are going to be with child!” The last point he punctuated with flailing hand gestures.

Grace calmly got to her feet. She didn’t like being looked down on, even if she was vertically challenged. “Don’t be ridiculous. We need to have sex before we can make a baby. And we certainly haven’t done that yet, have we?”

“S…s…sex! What kind of woman are you to utter such a word?!”

“Really Jasper, keep your voice down.” Victoria swept into the room and firmly shut the door behind her. “You don’t want Neal coming down from his study do you? Now sit, both of you, I have an idea that just might work.”

Chapter Seven

Robin arrived home to find some of his creditors at his door. It was as though they were having a conference on how best to thrash him. He overheard them fighting over who got to have him first. He wasn’t about to wait around to find out who the lucky one was. He ducked around a corner before they saw him and hid behind a tree further down the street. Curtains flicked at his neighbours’ houses as the residents there tried to see what he was up to, but he wasn’t about to satisfy their curiosity.

The minutes ticked by as he waited for the men to leave. He looked at his pocket watch constantly until he resorted to playing a game with himself to see how long he could go without pulling the watch from his pocket to look at the time. He only made it up to five minutes once.

He forced himself to wait for an hour before cautiously emerging from his hiding spot.

Luckily the men had gone.

His butler opened the door as he approached. “There were some men here to see you, sir. I did not admit them but they did congregate on the steps for a time. They left their cards. I have put them on your desk in your study.”

“Thanks, Harold.” Robin made his way to his study, but not to see who had called, he already knew their names; he was going to pour himself a drink, if he could find a bottle with some liquor still left in it, that was.

“Well, what is it?”

“Patience, Jasper, stop glowering and sit down would you?” Victoria selected the chair nearest the fire, leaving Grace and Jasper to sit where they were before. “Grace, from our conversation earlier,” Victoria started and Grace’s heart skipped a beat; surely she wouldn’t tell Jasper about the time-travelling, would she? He’d have her committed and she had heard Bedlam was not a nice place to visit. “I gather that you don’t want to rush into anything, for reasons of your own,” Victoria continued. Grace let out a sigh of relief.

“But you, Jasper, want to be engaged to the girl you ruined so your honour stays intact. Yes? Am I right so far?” At both their nods, she continued, “Well, why don’t you have an extended engagement, for as long as you both need, and at the end of it, you either marry or you both go your own way? The ton will soon forget this scandal when the next one arrives. What do you think? If you do go ahead with my plan at least Grace has some time before Neal throws her out and we don’t want him to do that do we, Jasper?”

Jasper and Grace looked warily at each other. “I suppose that would work,” Grace ventured. “What do you say, engaged for now?”