Lord Payne gave a guffaw of laughter, which was quickly silenced by Jane's face, which had flamed red at his most inappropriate comment. Most men did not discuss chamber pots with ladies, even in a joking manner, though Lord Payne's grasp of etiquette had always been tenuous at best.
"I'm sure she'll realise her mistake soon," Payne offered gamely, after an awkward pause.
"Perhaps in a decade or so," Jane whispered in reply, her cheeks still red. Belinda could be gone for hours, she had very little sense of place or time and was inclined to be distracted easily. Jane wouldn't be surprised if the poor girl somehow ended up trapped in a Greek Urn. "I did not know you were a member of the Historical Society, Lord Payne."
"Nor did I," the Marquis ruffled a hand through his tawny locks, so that they fell charmingly across his forehead, as was fashionable. Jane felt a strange urge to reach out and push the lock of hair that was falling into his eyes back, though resisted, feeling slightly queer at the butterflies that once again erupted in her stomach at this most unusual thought.
"In fact I had quite forgotten it even existed until an invitation arrived for your lecture," Payne continued cheerfully, "And it was such a fortuitous coincidence that I couldn't resist attending."
"Fortuitous in what way?" Jane looked at Lord Payne suspiciously.
"Well," the devil had the decency to blush, "I was rather wondering if you'd do me the great honour of becoming my betrothed?"
CHAPTER TWO
"Your what?"
James Fairweather, Marquess of Payne and heir to the Ducal seat of Hawkfield felt himself blush, as Jane Deveraux, his friend's younger sister, stared at him with incredulity. Her slightly scolding gaze reminded him of the governess he and his sister had shared as children, who had spent most of her days reprimanding the young Lord in her charge for his many misdemeanours. I rather should have explained myself first, instead of diving straight in and proposing, he thought wryly as he observed Jane's pale, shocked face, and silently cursed his impetuousness. Mind you, it was this same act first, think later, style of living that had gotten him into his current predicament.
"No need to look so horrified," he mumbled, his pride slightly wounded by the look of complete and utter horror on Jane's face at hearing his marriage proposal . "It would only be temporary, until I get a few things sorted out with my father."
His father, the current Duke of Hawkfield, who had been threatening to disown him for the past month.
"Please, my Lord," Jane said with a sigh, taking off her spectacles and massaging her forehead with her free hand. "Please explain to me why you wish me to become your temporary fiance?"
Jane replaced her spectacles and blinked at him quizzically. The glasses magnified her eyes, so that it felt like he was speaking with an endearing, woodland nymph, or a lost fairy, and not a lady of the ton. Her hand had left a small smudge of ink on one of her temples, and for an odd second James felt the urge to reach out and wipe it away with his hand. This strange impulse left him dry mouthed with shock and overcome with another queer feeling that he could not identify, so that he was unable to answer her question for almost a minute. A minute in which she stared at him as though he had three heads and not just the one.
"Well," he cleared his throat nervously, glancing around the auditorium, which mercifully was now nearly empty. "It's just I've gotten myself into rather a bind."
Well, numerous binds, if truth be told.
The disastrous Phaeton race on Rotten Row, the summer just gone, had been the start of it. He had destroyed his new vehicle in a crash that was witnessed by dozens, then read about by thousands in the papers the next day. This had been swiftly followed by more articles in the broadsheets, this time detailing the end of his affair with the famous actress Signora Fusco —which had ended even more disastrously than the Phaeton race. His lasting memories of the Italian seductress included an enormous bill for damages to the suite of rooms she occupied in Grillon's Hotel, a black eye that still pained in cold weather and a father that was infuriated by his son's ever extravagant financial affairs.
And then he had lost that damn bet at White's...
"A bind?" Jane quirked an eyebrow, and James silently cursed. He was going to have to go into details; if he knew one thing about Jane Deveraux, it was that she was a woman who loved facts and figures.
"It's actually all your brother's fault," he replied, somewhat mutinously. "For he swore blind that he would be proposing on the Monday, and then he didn't."
Jane's plump mouth twitched with a mixture of amusement and disapproval at this statement. James found himself momentarily transfixed by this involuntary action of her lips; he had not noted before just how luscious her mouth was.
"You can't blame Julian for your misfortune, my Lord," she replied, heaving a great sigh of annoyance. He was used to that sound, her exasperation, for when he had spent the summer in St. Jarvis with Julian and his sister, Jane had often seemed to find his presence a little irritating.
"Though I would not put it past my brother to have deliberately misled you for his own amusement," she continued, casting him a look that was almost piteous. Jame's heart leapt with hope—pity might make her more inclined to agree to his plan.
"Well deliberate or not, it's got me in an awful lot of bother," he replied, adopting a hang-dog expression. "I was summoned to an audience with my father, who has promised to disinherit me if I don't settle down."
"So why don't you just settled down?" Jane quipped dryly, "Why the need to pretend that you wish to marry me?"
"Because Hawkfield thinks settling down involves marriage," James replied hotly. He could feel the tips of his ears burning with annoyance as he recalled his father's dictat that unless he wed a suitable, young lady of good breeding, his allowance would be severed with immediate effect. His threats to disinherit him were easy to dismiss —for there was no other male to inherit the title but James—but cutting off his allowance was very much in his father's power. And as the man himself had pointed out, he was in excellent shape and health for a man of five and fifty and James could not hope to come into the title any time soon.
"What's so wrong with marriage?" Jane's expression was mild, though the corners of her lips twitched and he knew that she found the whole thing rather amusing. "Your father is right, in that it's high time for you to settle down. You're thirty years of age, my Lord, are you not?"
"Yes, I am," James responded through gritted teeth; Jane was not the first person to have mentioned his age in the last few days, and it was beginning to grate on his nerves. "It's just that the urgency that my father has imparted upon me settling down, means that there's no time for me to look for a suitable girl, get to know her adequately enough and fall in—"
He stopped speaking abruptly, his face now burning with embarrassment.
"Enough time to fall in love?" Jane's expression as she finished his sentence was openly kind. If James had declared to any of his acquaintances in White's that he was in any way romantically inclined when it came to marriage, he would have been unmercifully mocked for the rest of his days. Luckily his slip of the tongue had happened in front of Jane, who, even though she openly found him irritating, was one of the softest souls he had ever met.
"Well, yes," he confessed, his blue eyes meeting her brown, hoping that she would see the pain that this whole situation was causing him. "I know it's not the most fashionable of ideas, but I was rather hoping that I'd find a wife that I love, and who loves me back, and that we could—"
"Live happily ever after?"
James nodded, noting the queer, misty eyed expression that Jane was regarding him with. He tried hard to resist punching the air in victory; it seemed baring his soul to Miss Deveraux might work in his favour and sadly he was not above exploiting her pity for his own gain.
"That's all very sweet and endearing, but I'm afraid I can't get involved in such an audacious lie, my Lord. It's a ridiculous plan."
"Oh."
James felt all his
hopes come crashing to the ground. Jane's tone was both strict and firm, rather like a schoolmistress's'. Even the admonishing look she was giving him over her spectacles put him in mind of a governess, scolding a naughty child. He found himself bristling at her censure, as she had pointed out he was thirty years of age, which was two years older than her — and he was the next in line to a Ducal seat. How dare she make him feel like an unruly schoolboy, and she hadn't even let him get to the part of the plan that would be beneficial for her.
"I would, of course, be offering you financial renumeration for your time," he continued, in a tone that he hoped was both suave and commanding. "Your brother has informed me that he intends to sell the boarding house in St. Jarvis that you hold so dear. The Refuge for Recalcitrant Daughters, is that what it's called?"
"No." It was Jane's turn to bristle now, her cheeks pink with indignation. "As you well know, my Lord. Mrs Bakers' Boarding House is not a hideaway home for sulky teens, it is a place where young women may stay and explore their talents, academic or otherwise and not be hindered by the constraints that society so often places on them."
"Well, no one will be staying there, once the lease is up," James snorted, taking slight pleasure in the look of anger which flashed across Jane's features. "For your brother intends to sell, once June arrives and Her Grace's hold on the place expires."
The Duchess of Everleigh had purchased the lease on the famous Cornish boarding house the previous summer, after she had fled from her new husband, believing him to be a charlatan and a murderer. The Duke and Duchess were now reunited and living in almost nauseating wedded bliss on the Duke's own Cornish estate, but Olive had refused to relinquish her hold on the guest house. She had left Polly Jenkins, her friend, in charge and much to Lord Jarvis's dismay, the boarding house had remained full of eccentric, intellectual types throughout the summer.
"When did he tell you this?" Jane's brown eyes narrowed suspiciously behind her spectacles.
"Just last night, in White's," James met her gaze with a faux thoughtful look, as though an idea had just struck him. "I don't suppose you'd like to purchase it, and keep the late Mrs Bakers' dream of a feminine intellectual utopia alive?"
"You know very well that I wouldn't have the funds for that kind of thing, my Lord."
"But I would."
A silence fell between the two, who were faced off like a pair of boxers in a ring. Jane's pale face was flushed with anger, her eyes almost sparking with fury at his teasing tone. For his own part James tried to adopt a more neutral expression, though the memory of how she had dismissed his proposal still rankled. Which was ridiculous, as it was all a charade, but still his pride was wounded and it left him feeling defensive.
"If you agree to pretend to be my betrothed, just for the season, I can buy you the boarding house, Jane, and gift you a sum of money that would support you for many years. Think of all the young ladies you could save from the drudgery of ton life. "
James almost felt that he could see the cogs and wheels of Jane's brain whirring inside her head. He knew that since her brother had married, that Jane's position within the household had become slightly perilous. He had never been one to listen to idle gossip, but when the Viscount had announced his engagement to Emily Balfour, something his own sister had said, as a throwaway comment, had stuck in his head.
"I pity poor Jane, having to live under a mistress who is a decade her junior, it will be humiliating," Caroline had said as she read the announcement in the paper. It had caused James to pause, and consider his friend's plight, and when his own situation became perilous he had thought of a way he could solve both their problems.
Jane had gone from being the Mistress of Jarvis House and looking after her brother's affairs, to an underling of the new Viscountess, whom James had met on several occasions and had taken an instant dislike to. He hated the thought of Jane— proud, kind, clever Jane— having to take orders from Emily, who was at best vapid and vain, at worst cruel and spiteful in the way that only very young, beautiful girls could be. Why couldn't she see that he was offering her a way out of Jarvis House?
"No one would believe it, my Lord," Jane finally replied, nibbling on her plump bottom lip nervously. "Least of all my brother, he would know straight away that it was a lie, for I'm not—I'm not—"
"Not what?"
"Not your type."
"I wasn't aware I had a type," James retorted in surprise; he adored women, all kinds of women. Tall, small, thin, curvy —he had never met a woman that he couldn't find a single attractive feature in, for the feminine form was usually beautiful no matter what way it was presented.
"You do," Jane shook her head fiercely in disagreement, as though she knew him better than he did himself. "You're always rumoured to be in the company of beautiful, scandalous, temptresses and I...I am so plain. Nobody would believe that you had fallen in love with me, my Lord."
"You're not plain, Jane," James silently cursed at his unintentional rhyme, for it sounded silly to his ears. "Whatever makes you think that? You're a smashing looking girl and clever to boot."
"There's no need to lie to try and sway me, Lord Payne," Jane sighed deeply, running a frustrated hand through her lustrous, brown locks. "Julian has told me often enough that I'm plain and that I've made it worse by reading so many books and wearing spectacles."
"Hold on, just one second," James held up a hand to silence the woman standing opposite him. "I spent much of my adolescence fantasising about women with spectacles. There's something very alluring about a woman with glasses, and there's many a young blood who uses the image of a woman like you as fodder for—as fodder for—"
James stopped speaking abruptly, his face crimson with embarrassment. Good God, had he just been about to indulge Miss Deveraux with tales of teenage boys' fantasies about their old governesses and how they acted upon them? Nobody wanted to hear that, least of all a lady of gentle breeding like Jane. Perhaps his father was right, and that he was a hopeless case?
The lady in question was gazing at him curiously, expecting him to continue with his most inappropriate line of conversation. James cleared his throat awkwardly, deciding that now was probably the best time to finish their business, before he humiliated himself any further.
"Despite what your brother has told you," he said, feeling irritated with the Viscount Jarvis for undermining Jane's confidence so, "There are many men who find women just like you incredibly attractive. On top of how pretty you are Jane, you are also clever, kind and warm hearted —and I think that most people would wonder why you had considered to accept the proposal of a dunderhead such as me. Will you consider my offer, at least a little bit?"
"I will think on it, but I make no promises." Jane relented, turning away from him at the sound of a nearby door slamming shut. Jane's companion —James wasn't certain of her name—emerged into the auditorium looking more than a little bit flustered.
"Is something the matter Belinda?" Jane called,upon seeing how scattered the young, blonde girl appeared.
"Nothing, nothing," Belinda replied absently, glancing back at the door she had just come through, as though expecting someone to have followed her. Belinda barely glanced at James, instead focusing on Jane, her face anxious as she spoke. "Are you ready to leave?"
"I am if you are," Jane said and with a curt nod to James, whose eyes she could not quite meet, both young women fled the auditorium, leaving the Marquess standing forlornly on the same spot for a few minutes, as he pondered how on earth he was supposed to get out of his current predicament without the help of Jane Deveraux.
CHAPTER THREE
"Where on earth have you been all afternoon?"
Emily's voiced, laced with irritation, called out loudly as Jane and Belinda let themselves into the hallway of the imposing, three-story Berkley town house, just as the clock in the hallway was striking five.
"Jane was giving a lecture in Montagu House," Belinda responded cheerfully, oblivious to Jane's furious motions to rem
ain silent.
"A lecture?"
Emily arched an eyebrow with such disdain as she made her way down the hallway to them, that Jane felt herself shrink under her censure. Which was ridiculous, as Jane was a decade older than the young woman before her, and not a debutant fresh out of the school room. She was allowed some leeway in her activities; after all as Emily kept pointing out, she was a veritable spinster, and spinsters never did anything scandalous.
"Yes," Jane struggled to remain composed in the face of such icy fury, "A lecture. I was invited by Sir Edward Smirke himself. It was quite the honour."
"I wonder if your brother will think it was an honour too?"
Jane who had been holding Emily's gaze defiantly, blinked at the mention of her brother. Julian would not find any pride in his sister having been asked to present an historical research paper—quite the opposite in fact. Ever since they were children he had resented how she had excelled at academics, whilst he himself had struggled. The schoolmasters that their parents had hired to tutor him in mathematics and the languages had found Jane a far more talented scholar than her brother, whose abilities were best suited to outdoor activities and sports. It was a childish thing, but Julian still resented Jane for her gifted brain, though she readily forgave him each slight and irritated sigh, for he was the only family she had left.
"Are you going to tattle on me?"
If Emily was going to behave like a child, then Jane sadly decided that she wasn't above lowering herself to the same standards.
"I'm not a tattle tale," Emily responded, with such ferocity that Jane almost laughed. Her brother's new wife was still, at heart, a child and the school-yard insult seemed to have rankled her.
"I know you're not," Jane adopted a placating tone, "Forgive me. You seemed eager to speak with me?"
"I wanted to make sure that you wear something fetching for dinner, for Mama has invited a guest. Nothing too drab, Jane dear...if you can manage that."
The Lord of Heartbreak Page 2