Chapter Two
Jane opened her mouth, but could find no words. Even if she had, there wasn’t breath enough in her lungs to say them. A false courtship with Wesley Hughes, Lord Stanton, one of the biggest rakes in London… not to mention one of her best friends? It was ludicrous. Ridiculous.
So why was a little thrill pulsing through her bloodstream? One that felt both out of place… and yet natural. And why was that thrill accompanied by a strange heat low in her belly? Not unpleasant, but entirely unsettling. Something that made her blush when she dared to meet Wesley’s eyes.
He hadn’t moved since he proposed his false courtship. He stood before her, watching her with those keen green eyes, as sharp as a hawk’s. They saw everything. And right now they were focused entirely on her. Delving into her soul, into secret places she hadn’t known existed. Places that stirred as she realized he continued to hold her trembling hand in his.
She pulled back out of instinct. It was only nervous shock at his offer that had her so out of sorts. Certainly there was no other reason. No purpose to becoming a complete ninny around one of her closest friends. Especially since she had been in love with David for nearly two years.
“Jane?” he said softly. His voice strummed over her emotions like a harpsichordist’s fingers and the vibrations echoed through her every nerve ending. “Do you understand what I’m asking you?”
She pursed her lips. “Of course I understand, Wesley.”
But somehow that felt like a lie. There were undercurrents all around that she wasn’t sure she fully comprehended. Tensions which hadn’t made themselves clear before tonight. Had they always been there?
“Do you intend to answer me?” he asked with a gravelly chuckle.
She covered her hot cheeks with icy fingers. How could she answer him? He was asking her to pretend to be in love with him. He was asking her to lie to the world. To lie to herself. Between this unexpected offer and David’s engagement to Madeline, her evening was spiraling out of control.
She hesitated. David and Madeline. For some reason she hadn’t thought about them since Wesley’s suggestion. The pain of David’s rejection was muted by Wesley’s shocking words.
“Wes,” she began, still unsure of what to say. What to do. “I-I-”
He moved closer, shrinking the world with that one step. Suddenly the room felt warm and the walls seemed to close in around her. She watched as his hand lifted, came toward her… and finally, finally, brushed her cheek. Tingling shocks of awareness blasted through her, taking her breath a second time.
“It isn’t a trick question, Jane,” he said with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I am asking you if you will help me. And in return I’ill help you. I’m asking you to spend a few scant weeks as the center of the ton’s attention. To spin around ballrooms as my partner. To walk with me. Laugh with me. Make everyone believe that we are falling in love.” He leaned a bit closer. “You will begin to hurt my feelings if you keep staring at me as if I’ve asked you to declare your undying allegiance to Napoleon.”
Jane blinked as she lost herself in Wesley’s eyes a second time. There were little mossy flecks of brown in the curtain of green. Why hadn’t she noticed them before?
With a start, she realized she wanted to say yes. Not to the false proposal, but to the ballroom spinning and the walking and the laughing… to the dream of falling in love and having that love returned.
She was truly losing her senses.
“Wesley-”
“There you are!”
Jane started, pulling away as she spun to the parlor door. Her best friend, Felicity Ellis, was standing just inside the door. Felicity’s blue eyes widened as they flitted from Jane to Wesley and back again.
“Felicity,” Jane gasped, clutching a trembling fist over her heart. “You startled me.”
One of her friend’s auburn brows arched. “Apparently you were deep in conversation. Good evening, Lord Stanton.”
Wesley smiled, but the expression was forced. Jane felt him look at her, his eyes filled with frustration and questions and… something else. “Good evening, Lady Felicity. You are looking very well this evening.”
Her friend’s pale cheeks darkened with a pink blush. “Thank you, my lord.”
Jane watched as Wesley stepped forward, his strained smile replaced by something warmer. More friendly and real. And flirtatious. Her heart leapt and for the first time ever, she wished her best friend weren’t so very pretty. And charming. And blessed with a family with more sense than Jane’s own. Felicity had a fortune for her dowry. She never need face the rejection Jane did… or worry about her future.
“I have heard rumors that your father is planning a gathering Wednesday next,” Wes was saying, though his words seemed far away to Jane’s ringing ears. “And that you will please the crowd with your beautiful pianoforte playing.”
Felicity’s blush deepened. She loved music and hoped to be accomplished at playing it. Clearly, Wes knew that fact. Jane’s chest burned with emotions, ones she hardly understood.
“I only hope not to embarrass myself,” Felicity laughed. “If I please the crowd, I will count the evening a glorious success.”
Wes gave a sure nod. “Then so it shall be. I heard you play two years ago and it was enchanting. Certainly, time will have only improved your talent.”
Her friend’s smile grew. “Perhaps my father will invite you and you will be able to judge that yourself.”
“Felicity,” Jane said, surprised at the rasping break in her voice and the jerky quality to her movements as she stepped forward.
Her friend turned from Wesley and her eyes went wide when she looked at Jane. She took a long step forward, grabbing Jane’s arm. “Jane, are you well? You are very pale.”
She nodded, glancing at Wes even as she tried to formulate a reply to her friend. He was watching her, concern plain in his expression, all flirtatiousness he’d exchanged with Felicity gone.
“It has been a tiring evening,” Jane admitted, casting her glance away from him. It was ridiculous how emotionally she had reacted to him earlier. And how difficult it was to watch him with her friend. He was known as a rake, a rogue. Why was she been surprised by him proving that? Certainly she had seen him flirt with young ladies before.
But never after asking her to court, even in an imaginary courtship, with him.
“Of course it has,” Felicity soothed, pulling her closer. “I’m sorry, I was being entirely insensitive and forgot why I came looking for you. My mother has taken ill with a headache and would like to retire. Since you…” She hesitated. “Since you had your own trials this evening, I thought you might like to depart early with us.”
Jane looked at her friend and any petty, unexpected jealousy she felt toward her faded. Felicity had always been loyal and kind to her. After her father’s public humiliation a few years before, Jane had seen many of her ‘friends’ turn away. But Felicity and her family remained true. Felicity’s presence insured Jane was rarely given the cut direct. And if she was… her friend was the one who made sure she didn’t creep away in humiliation.
“Thank you,” Jane whispered. “It has been a trying and-and…” Peeking over her shoulder, she caught Wesley’s eye. “And unexpected evening. I would very much like to leave with you.”
“Very good.” Felicity smiled, sad and kind at the same time, then turned to Wesley. “I hope you do not mind if I steal her away, Lord Stanton.”
Wesley did not look at her friend, but instead his mossy stare snared her own. Held her captive so she couldn’t have turned away even if she wanted to.
“Of course not,” he answered with a proper bow.
Felicity took Jane’s arm and guided her toward the door. Jane followed her friend’s lead, uncertain she could do anything else. Her mind spun with everything she had experienced… everything she felt in the past hour. David’s engagement. Wesley’s offer. Her own strange, inexplicable reaction to his words, his touch, his flirtatio
n with her closest friend.
They had reached the door when Wesley’s voice called them back. “Jane?”
She froze, steeling herself and hoping she was able to cover her turbulent emotions when she turned. “Yes?”
“Perhaps I will come to call on you tomorrow afternoon to finish our talk. I hope you will think about what we discussed.”
She stared at him, seeing Wes in an entirely different light. Slowly, she nodded. “I will think of nothing else, my lord. Good evening.”
#
“Lord Stanton to see you, my lady.”
Jane’s fingers curled around the spine of her book and her breath left her lungs in an instant. She sat up a bit straighter, forcing herself to speak when all she wanted to do was hide.
“Tell him I will receive him.”
Her butler nodded as he slipped out to fetch Wesley. She took the opportunity to straighten her gown, run a hand over her hair and try to force some level of calm when that was the last thing she felt.
Somehow she had hoped the distance of a night would help her conquer her fluttering stomach, her confusion about Wesley’s offer. It had not. Instead, she tossed and turned in her bed, tormented by dreams she could not fully recall. The morning light brought no further peace. Since she rose, she had watched both the clock and the door, waiting for him to make his promised appearance… and hoping she would know what to say and do when he did.
As if on cue, the parlor door opened to reveal her butler a second time. “Lord Stanton.”
Wesley came around the man and Jane’s breath caught at his handsomeness. And when he smiled, that cocky little half-grin that stirred some hidden part of herself, her breath went to nonexistent. Why was she having such powerful reactions?
“Good afternoon,” she managed to croak, salvaging some vestige of her manners. As her butler exited, she tried to smile. “My father is not home at present and my mother is indisposed… a headache.”
She frowned. That wasn’t entirely true. Her mother was actually abed bemoaning Jane’s humiliation the night before. And her father was at White’s, hiding from the guilt he felt whenever he stepped foot in the house and saw the damage his gambling had done. Not that the guilt stopped him. No doubt he was filling his name in on the wager ledgers even as they spoke.
“I’m sorry to hear your mother is not well, but I am not here to see either of them, and you know that.” The corner of Wesley’s mouth tilted into a smile.
She bobbed out a nod and motioned to the settee across from her own chair. Wesley took it and she couldn’t not help but notice the way he filled the chair, dwarfing it… along with everything else in the room. His presence was as large as his tall, muscular frame.
“I assume you have considered my offer of a false courtship,” he said as he cast a careful glance at the partly open doorway.
She nodded. “Yes. It is all I have thought about since I left the ball last night.”
“And what is your decision?” His casual drawl said he didn’t have any emotion about her choice one way or the other, but his sharp glance in her direction told her otherwise.
Jane staggered to her feet, breaking the eye contact that so confused her. She walked to the window, staring down at the gardens which had once been so well-tended, but now were as wild as her emotions.
“Everything you said to me last night made perfect sense,” she began. “To regain David’s interest or to make myself attractive to the men of the ton who are not in need of a wife with a large dowry, I must bring attention to myself.”
She winced at the thought. It was utterly humiliating that she had to force the affections of a man she once thought loved her. Or that she had to put herself on display like a peacock in order to make some other man accept her with all her family’s problems.
She glanced over her shoulder to find Wesley watching her. Thank God there was no pity in his stare. She didn’t think she could take that. She’d seen enough of it from the rest of Society, along with catty glee, last night at the ball.
Drawing a breath, she continued, “And a courtship with you would certainly bring me attention. But…” she trailed off, unsure what to say.
“But?” Wes got to his feet, taking a few long strides in her direction. “What makes you hesitate?”
She bit her lip. How was she to explain that sudden, unexplained emotion had reared its head? That she feared it. Feared the way Wesley looked at her and the fact that when she was with him, she hardly thought of David at all. Feared losing his friendship if she could not control these reactions.
But if she said those things, he would surely laugh at her. He wasn’t looking for an authentic courtship any more than she. And if he was, he would look to a woman with a dowry, without scandal to sully her name.
Not to mention that she loved Wesley’s best friend, even if that hadn’t been in the forefront of her mind in the last twelve hours.
“Is it my reputation?” Wesley took another step and closed the gap separating them completely. “I promise I won’t do anything to make you seem foolish, Jane. While we pretend this connection, I will not make a rake of myself. It would defeat both our purposes.”
She started. Him making a spectacle of her was the furthest thing from her mind. Despite what everyone said of him, she knew he was not capable of that kind of cruelty. Not to her.
“Would that be difficult for you?” she whispered.
He met her stare and for a moment she thought she saw a brief flash of sadness, buried deep.
“Not as difficult as either of us might imagine,” he murmured. Then his seriousness was replaced by his usual good humor. “What do you say, Jane? Will you take this chance with me? Make my grandmother happy in her final days and give yourself a fighting chance in the marriage mart?”
She drew in a sharp breath. There was little choice. If she wanted to marry, if she had any hope of regaining David’s affection… or at the very least, his regret he chose Madeline Reynolds’ purse over her love, she had to do as Wesley proposed.
“Yes,” she whispered, her head dipping down.
“Very good!” Wesley cried with a clap of his hands.
His green eyes lit up with pleasure so pure, it surprised her. She knew he had a great deal of regard for his grandmother, but there seemed to be more to his reaction than that. He seemed to really care that Jane had agreed to his plan.
“We have much to prepare,” Wesley continued, dragging her from her thoughts. “We need to make a good show of it, of course. Come out in public at the biggest event of the Season. That would be Lord and Lady Davenport’s ball in two days.”
Jane nodded, numbed. Gone was the emotion that had flashed between them. Now Wesley was all business, plotting out their ruse. Perhaps she had only imagined the pleasure in his reaction, the heat of his stare… or he had used those things as a tool to garner what he desired. If that were true, she would have to be very careful.
“Jane?” he asked, his brow wrinkling. “Are you listening?”
She managed a nod. “Yes. Of course.”
“Good, then I will escort you to the ball that night. Until then…” He gave her a short bow as he backed toward the door.
Jane’s eyes went wide. “Wait!” she cried. “That’s all? No other plans than that we will attend the Davenport Ball together?”
Wesley stopped, his eyes shining. “Oh no, there are many more plans, Jane.”
“Such as?” she asked, folding her arms.
He was keeping her in the dark, and she knew from bitter experience that being unaware was dangerous. Her father’s secrets had hurt her family. David’s had hurt her.
“You shall see,” he said with a wink. “For now, I must go so I can start planting the seeds of our courtship.” With a grin, he turned away and left the parlor. “I will see you in two nights.”
Jane opened her mouth to protest, but he was already gone. She sank back into the settee with a sigh. What in the world had she just agreed to? And how could she
regain control of her future and her heart?
Chapter Three
It was all too easy.
Wesley settled back in a comfortable chair in the parlor and watched the door. Waiting. Anticipating. By the time this evening was over, the seeds of his ‘courtship’ with Jane would be planted.
And Jane would have a little bit of justice.
The door came open and David Langston stepped into the parlor. David had been his best friend for as long as Wesley could remember, and yet his reaction to seeing him this night was the bristling of the hair on the back of his neck. Where he normally felt an affectionate tolerance for his friend’s sometimes selfish tendencies, this evening an unaccountable anger filled his chest.
Especially when David smiled in that blank way, flipped a lock of blond hair away from his eyes, and said, “Wes! Good to see you. Never got to thank you for your help with Jane last night. That was an awkward situation, but since I didn’t see her sobbing openly, I suppose you saved me.”
Wesley arched a brow as he got to his feet. Drawing a calming breath, he tried to remember all the reasons he liked David. They had been friends since boyhood and David had always included Wes in his family’s activities. He’d been more than willing to allow Wes to turn to his own father for advice since Wesley had none of his own.
Wesley remembered all those thing, and yet resentment still tingled in his veins.
“Is that all you have to say?”
His best friend shrugged in surprise as he shut the parlor door behind him. “What else is there?”
Wesley clenched a fist behind his back. “You made Jane look a fool in front of the entire ton when you know full well that her family’s reputation could not withstand such a blow. Worse yet, you hurt her.”
Almost A Spinster Page 2