An Escapade and an Engagement

by Annie Burrows

  Although warning her guardians of what was going on would probably not do much good anyway. From what Lady Jayne had just said, her chaperone was clearly not up to the task of guarding such a highly spirited charge.

  He rubbed his hand over the crown of his head. He couldn’t report her to those who ought to protect her. Should he just warn her, then, of his mounting suspicions regarding Harry’s motives? No. Given her reactions to him so far, she would probably assume he was yet another overbearing male attempting to oppress her. And he rather thought she would derive as much pleasure from flouting him as she did from outwitting her grandfather and chaperone.

  But she really needed somebody who knew about Harry, and the lengths she would go to in order to get her own way, to watch over her. Somebody who wouldn’t be fooled by the haughty, unapproachable facade she’d employed at the ball.

  ‘Lady Jayne, I have given my word I will not say anything about tonight. And I would never go back on my word. But you must see that I cannot just let the matter rest. You have said yourself you are not behaving as you ought.’

  She looked mutinous as she said, ‘And just what do you mean to do about it?’

  He only wished he knew. For now, the best thing would be to make a strategic withdrawal so that he could regroup.

  ‘I shall call upon you this afternoon, to take you for a drive in Hyde Park. That is when I shall tell you what action I plan to take.’ Once he’d decided what it would be.

  ‘I shall be ready,’ she said, lifting her chin in a fashion that told him she was preparing to fight him every inch of the way. ‘This is it,’ she said, waving her hand at the frontage of an imposing mansion.

  Having shown him where she lived, she ducked down a passage that led to the mews at the back.

  Then she turned round and stood quite still, staring up at him for a minute, with her head on one side as though trying to work him out.

  ‘You have surprised me,’ she said at last. ‘I would never have imagined you could be so…decent,’ she finished on a shrug.

  ‘What did you think I would be like, then?’ It shouldn’t have made such an impact to hear that she’d had any expectations of him at all, considering they had only glanced at each other across a ballroom.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know… At the ball you looked so…hard. All those women who threw themselves at your feet had about as much impact on you as waves dashing themselves up against a cliff. And then, when you spoke of flogging Harry, I really thought for a minute that…’

  She looked abashed. ‘But you are really not cruel at all, are you?’

  ‘I have sent men to their death without giving it a second thought,’ he retaliated, lest she think his leniency with her on this one occasion meant he was a soft touch.

  ‘Ah, but you don’t take delight in it. That makes all the difference.’

  He was about to defend himself from the charge of not being cruel when she stole all the breath from his lungs by hitching up her skirts and tucking them into a belt at her waist.

  He knew he ought not to look. But how could he do her the disservice of not appreciating such a shapely pair of legs, covered in what looked like a junior footman’s breeches, especially when not a day ago the sight would not have interested him in the slightest?

  He was still swallowing too hard to ask if she needed any assistance in getting back into the house undetected when she scampered over to the horse trough and clambered up onto its rim. From there she swung herself up onto the stable roof.

  Darting him an impish grin as she reached for the lower branches of a gnarled old apple tree, she said, ‘I don’t think you are such a cross old stick as you look.’

  Having fired that Parthian shot, she clambered from one bough to another with the agility of a monkey, giving him one tantalizing glimpse of a perfectly formed bottom as she leaned over to push up a sash window which had been left open an inch, before vanishing into the house.

  For some minutes all he could do was stand there, rock hard and breathing heavily, feeling as though he’d been hit by some kind of energising force.

  He’d begun the night seething with resentment and frustration. But now he was savouring the delicious sensation of knowing everything was in working order. And it had not been achieved through the determined wiles of some doxy. No, in spite of everything, it had been a natural response to a society female. He chuckled. It was good to know that there was one, at least, amongst them that it would be no hardship to take to bed. He eyed the window, half wondering what would happen if he were to climb up after her and…

  The window slammed shut. He took a step back into the deeper shadows close to the stable. He’d come to London to contract a respectable alliance, not get embroiled in a scandal. It was no use standing here gazing up at the window through which she’d disappeared, wondering if the branches of that apple tree would bear his weight.

  But the fact that he was thinking along those lines at all was immensely cheering.

  He turned and walked away with a grin on his face. Lady Jayne was what was termed a handful. Continuing an association with her was going to bring him no end of trouble. He could feel it. And yet he was not dreading their next encounter. Not by a long shot.

  In fact, he couldn’t remember when he’d last felt so alive.

  * * *

  ‘Lor, miss, I been that worried about you,’ exclaimed Josie, leaping to her feet, dashing across the room and hauling Lady Jayne in over the windowsill. ‘Thank heavens you’re back safe and sound and no harm done.’

  ‘I am sorry you have been so worried,’ said Lady Jayne. ‘And I promise you,’ she said vehemently, turning to shut the sash firmly behind her, ‘that I shall never do anything so thoughtless and reckless and selfish ever again.’

  Josie, who had been with her since she was twelve years old, and therefore knew her moods well, looked at her sharply.

  ‘What happened? Something, I can tell. Have you fallen out with your young man?’

  Lady Jayne shook her head. ‘No, nothing like that.’

  Although, in a way, she supposed she had. Even before Lord Ledbury had come along and put an end to their encounter she had wondered if it had been a mistake to leave the house to meet Harry. The darkened windows of the houses she’d snuck past had seemed to glare at her menacingly, so that she had already been feeling uneasy by the time she’d entered the square. It was not like sneaking out at dawn for an unsupervised ride or walk around Darvill Park, her grandfather’s estate in Kent. She might run into anyone in a public park.

  ‘We’d best get you into your night rail and into bed before that maid of Lady Penrose’s comes in with your breakfast,’ said Josie, turning her round and briskly unhooking the back of her gown while she undid her breeches.

  She’d already been feeling distinctly uneasy when she’d found Harry. And then, instead of just taking her hand and murmuring the sort of endearments he generally employed during their snatched meetings, he had pulled her down onto the bench next to him and hauled her into his arms.

  ‘I cannot bear to go on like this, my darling,’ he’d said in accents of despair. ‘There is nothing for it. We shall have to elope.’

  Before she’d had a chance to say she would never do anything of the sort, he had kissed her full on the mouth. His moustache had scoured her upper lip in a most unpleasant way, and some of the bristles had gone up her nostrils. And what with his arms crushing her ribcage, half his moustache up her nose, and his mou
th clamped over hers, she had felt as though she was suffocating. It had all been a far cry from what she had expected her first kiss to be like. When eventually she permitted some man to kiss her… And that was another thing, she reflected with resentment as she stepped out of her gown and breeches. She had not given him permission. He had just pounced. And he had been so very strong and unyielding that for a moment or two she had panicked.

  It was not easy, even now, to keep perfectly still while Josie untied her stay laces and she relived those horrible moments in Harry’s determined embrace. How relieved she had been when Lord Ledbury had come upon the scene, looking so ferocious. Not that she would ever admit that to a living soul. She ducked her head guiltily so that Josie could throw her night rail over her head.

  She had not felt grateful for long, though. The way he’d looked at Harry, as though he wanted to tear him limb from limb, had caused her fear to come rushing back—although its focus had no longer been upon herself.

  But then he’d dismissed Harry, wiped away the one tear she had not been able to hold back, and taken her home as though there was nothing the least bit untoward about walking through the streets at daybreak with a person he’d just caught in a compromising position.

  She went to the dressing-table stool and sat down heavily.

  Until the viscount had talked about getting Harry brought up on a charge it had never occurred to her that others might have to pay any penalty for her misdemeanours. She had cheerfully flouted the rules, safe in the knowledge that any punishment meted out to her would be relatively mild. Lady Penrose might have forbidden her to attend any balls for a few nights, or curtailed her shopping expeditions. Which would have been no punishment at all.

  At the very worst she had thought she might get sent home to Kent. Which would have felt like a victory, of sorts.

  It had taken the grim-faced viscount to make her see that there would inevitably be repercussions for others tangled up in her affairs, too. To wake her up to the fact that she would never have forgiven herself if Josie had lost her job, or Harry had been cashiered out of his regiment, on her account. Thankfully he had listened to her pleas for leniency for Harry and Josie, and had given his word not to speak of what he knew about her activities tonight.

  She reached up and patted Josie on the hand as her faithful maid began to brush out her hair, separating it into strands so that she could put it in the plaits she always wore to bed. How could she not have considered that others might have to pay for her misdemeanours? How could she have been so selfish?

  She raised her head and regarded her reflection in the mirror with distaste.

  People were always telling her how very much she resembled her father. They were beginning to whisper that she was as cold and heartless as him, too, because of the wooden expression she had taken so many years to perfect.

  But you couldn’t tell what a person was really like from just looking at their face. Only think of how wrong she’d been about Lord Ledbury. Earlier tonight, when she’d noticed him at Lucy Beresford’s come-out ball, she’d thought him one of the most disagreeable men she’d ever seen. He had not smiled once, though people had been falling over themselves to try and amuse him.

  She’d really disliked the way he’d behaved, as though he was doing Lucy’s brother an immense favour by making his first public appearance as Lord Ledbury in his home. She’d thought Lucy a complete ninny for going into raptures about him for being some kind of war hero. He looked just the sort of man to enjoy hacking people to bits, and there was nothing heroic about such behaviour.

  But he wasn’t cruel at all. He could have ruined her reputation, and Harry’s career, and left Josie destitute if he was the kind of man who revelled in inflicting pain on others. But he had chosen not to.

  She looked at her cool expression again and felt a little comforted. She might look like her father, but she wasn’t like him—not inside, where it mattered. Was she?

  She gave an involuntary shiver.

  ‘Not long now, miss. Then we’ll get you all snug and warm in your bed,’ said Josie, misinterpreting the reaction.

  Lady Jayne did not bother to correct her mistake. She had no intention of adding to her maid’s worries by telling her what had happened. Or confiding in anybody that Lord Ledbury’s very forbearance, when she knew she deserved his contempt, had made her feel as though she had behaved in as selfish a fashion as her father had ever done.

  She couldn’t bear to look at herself any longer. Had she really encouraged Harry to fall so hopelessly in love with her that he’d acted recklessly enough to jeopardise his whole career? In just such a way had her womanising father destroyed the women who’d been foolish enough to fall for his handsome face and surface charm.

  Not that Lord Ledbury would let that happen. Not now. He was bound to prevent her from seeing Harry again. He had made it clear he disapproved of a woman of her rank having a relationship with a man who had no fortune of his own. Or at the very least a title.

  At last Josie had finished her hair, and she could get into bed and pull the coverlets up comfortingly to her chin as she wriggled down into the pillows.

  Though she couldn’t get comfortable. How likely was it that Lord Ledbury would be able to deter Harry from contacting her again? Not even her grandfather had managed that.

  She chewed on her thumbnail. She did like Harry. Quite a lot. And she had been quite cut up when her grandfather had sent her to London to put an end to the association that had started when his regiment was stationed in Kent for training. And she had been pleased to see him again.

  Until he had told her that the separation had almost broken his heart.

  Oh, how she hoped Lord Ledbury could persuade him to abandon his pursuit of her! Because if he couldn’t she was going to have to tell him herself that she had never really loved him. She had not seen it before tonight. But now that she was looking at her behaviour through Lord Ledbury’s censorious eyes she had to face the fact that a very large part of Harry’s attraction had derived from the satisfaction gained in knowing that to see him was to defy her grandfather.

  Oh, heavens. Lord Ledbury would be quite entitled to write her off as a shallow, thoughtless, selfish creature.

  She shut her eyes and turned onto her side as Josie slid from the room and shut the door softly behind her. Her stomach flipped over. She did not want to be the kind of girl who could casually break a man’s heart in a spirit of defiance. Though she had never dreamed Harry’s feelings were so deeply engaged. She tried to excuse herself. She had not done it deliberately! She had thought… She frowned, looking back on her behaviour with critical eyes. She had not thought at all, she realized on a spurt of shame that seared through her so sharply she had to draw up her legs to counteract it. Harry had just turned up when she was so frustrated with her life in Town that she’d been silently screaming at the weight of the restrictions imposed on her.

  Though they were not all entirely the fault of her chaperone. She herself had made a stupid vow not to dance with anyone this Season, lest they take it as a sign she might welcome their suit.

  Though, she comforted herself, even before Lord Ledbury had caught them she had begun to see that, in all conscience, she could not continue to encourage Harry. It had only been a moment before he’d come upon them. The moment when Harry had urged her to elope and she’d known she could never do anything of the sort. Even before he had kissed her, and it had become so very unpleasant, she had known she would have to b
reak it off.

  That was the moment when she’d known she was not in love with Harry. Not in that deep, all-consuming way which might induce a woman to give up everything—as her aunt Aurora, so her mother had told her, had done when she had eloped with an impecunious local boy.

  ‘Oh, Harry.’ She sighed. She hoped he would get over her quickly. He should, for she was not worth the risks he had taken. Anyway, he was certainly going to have more important things to think about than her in the near future. The newspapers were full of Bonaparte’s escape from Elba. Every available regiment was being posted overseas in an attempt to halt his triumphal progress through France. And what with all the excitement of travelling to foreign climes and engaging in battles, he would soon, she hoped, be able to put her out of his mind altogether.

  Though she would feel guilty for toying with a man’s feelings for a considerable time to come.

  Shutting her eyes, she uttered a swift prayer for him to meet a nice girl of his own class, who would love him back the way he deserved to be loved.

  Chapter Three

  ‘Lord Ledbury is coming to take you for a drive today? Are you quite sure?’

  Lady Penrose regarded her over the top of her lorgnettes, which she was using to peruse the pile of correspondence that had arrived that morning.

  ‘Yes,’ said Lady Jayne, crossing her fingers behind her back. ‘Did I not mention it last night?’

  Lady Penrose looked pensive. ‘I was aware he was at the Beresfords’ last night, of course. But not that you had been formally introduced. Nor that an invitation had been given. Or accepted. In fact you should not have accepted at all.’ She laid her glasses down with evident irritation. ‘You know it was quite wrong of you to do such a thing. The young man ought to have applied to me for the permission which I alone am in a position to give.’

  Though Lady Jayne hung her head, her spirits leaped at the possibility that Lord Ledbury was not going to have it all his own way after all. In any confrontation between the hard-faced viscount and her stern duenna regarding a breach of form she would lay odds on Lady Penrose emerging victorious. Lady Penrose was such a stickler for etiquette. It was why her grandfather had appointed this distant relative to oversee her Season.