Chapter 15
JACK TOOK IN a deep breath and knocked on the door of Vallentyn House the following afternoon. It took every single bit of his will power to get him there and to keep him from slipping away before the door was answered.
This was the right thing to do, he reminded himself. This is what he had to do. If he wanted to think of himself as a decent person, this was what he would do. He would never even dare to think of himself as a gentleman, that was too high a standard to attempt despite what his mother had always told him. No, decent was all he could ever hope for, so he’d damn well do what he could to reach that low bar.
“Yes?” the footman standing in the doorway asked, shaking Jack from his thoughts.
“Jack the Lad here to see Miss Haveland,” he said.
He expected the footman
