People, places, everything she’d left behind and not picked back up when she was finally free—they all surged up as the song she’d chosen went into a crashing crescendo. And then gently drifted down into the finishing melody. She lifted her fingers from the keys with a last, gentle swipe and opened her eyes.
The room was silent. Jane searched for the one person who would understand—who could tell her if she’d done well or made a fool of herself. Mathilda’s eyes were sparkling with tears. When she caught Jane’s glance, she nodded with fingers pressed against her lips. It was good. It had been good.
Someone started clapping. Then another. Everyone joined in until it filled the room. Jane stood up, curtsying to the room, and returned to her seat.
“Well, ah, well.” A flustered Lady Lyndon stood up in front of the room. “Thank you, Miss Bailey, for that unexpected treat. And to all of you for coming. Refreshments are in the parlor.”
While everyone else was getting up and discussing performers, the party surrounding Jane stayed seated. And stared. Mathilda reached over with a watery smile and squeezed her hand. “It was lovely to hear you play again, dear.”
“I wasn’t sure if I could.”
“Well, you certainly did.” Adam’s brother was staring at her with awe. “That was beautiful. Do you play often?”
“I did.” Before.
Adam heard what she didn’t say. “Well, with the exception of Jane, that was atrocious. Let’s all get a drink, shall we?”
“Thank God,” Lord Brandon sighed.
Chapter 14
There was a knock on Adam’s door early the next morning. Not too early to be reasonable, but earlier than anyone he could think of would come calling. When he opened the door in his shirtsleeves, he was particularly surprised to find Jane’s aunt.
“Lady Hawthorne.”
“Invite me in, Wesley.”
He scrubbed at his hair, trying to figure out if he was actually still asleep. “Isn’t that a bit . . .”
Her expression didn’t leave a lot of room for argument.
“Come in. The parlor is on the left. I’ll put a kettle on.” And shoes. And a coat.
“You don’t have any staff?” she asked.
Adam shook his groggy head. “I don’t really see the point. I’m perfectly capable of making a bed and boiling water.”
He put the water on to boil and went to his room to finish getting dressed. While looking in the mirror he concluded that he was, in fact, awake. The kettle started to whistle while he was fighting with his stockings. The sound abruptly stopped.
“Do you mind if I set this up?” Lady Hawthorne called.
What else could he say? “That would be nice.”
What was she doing here? Oh no. Was something the matter with Jane? No. She would have said that first. She wouldn’t be asking him about staff. Had Jane told her about the boathouse? He’d like to think she wouldn’t, but those two had a very unusual relationship. She’d taken the kiss in the garden in remarkable stride, but what he and Jane had been up to in the boathouse was a bit beyond the norm.
He came out as she was carrying his previously unused tea tray into the parlor. “Let me—”
“Nonsense. I’ve woken you at an ungodly hour. The least I can do is save you from laboring.”
Carrying a tray hardly counted. Still, he wasn’t sure why she was here or how angry she was with him. Adam decided to let her have her way.
“Adam,” she said after she’d poured. “Do you mind if I call you Adam?”
That depended. Was she about to poison him? “Not at all.”
“Good. And you must call me Matty. Adam, I understand you like farms.”
“I—all right.” He had run farms. He supposed he liked them more than most. More than the city, certainly.
“Did you know that I have a farm?”
“No.”
She nodded. “In Hatfield.”
Had she come to ask him farming advice? It was very early for confusion of this level.
“Well,” she corrected, “I had a farm. It’s yours now.”
That part made it through the fog but didn’t make sense. “Excuse me?”
“This morning I visited my solicitor. He’s drawing up the papers to transfer my farm in Hatfield to your name. It’s a small farm—there’s a little bit of money attached to it—but the land is worth a fair amount. You can live there or sell it; it’s up to you.”
Adam held up a hand. “Lady Hawthorne—Mathilda—it sounded like you just said you gave me a farm.”
“I did.”
He paused. “Why?”
Lady Hawthorne smoothed her fingers across the fabric of her skirt. “Did you know that I don’t have any children of my own?”
“No.” He had assumed, but he’d never confirmed it.
“Jane is as close to a child of my own as I have.”
Adam nodded.
“Certainly, I love Charlie, but Jane . . . You watched my niece while she was playing the pianoforte last night. What did you see?”
She’d been glorious. Transcendent, even. Adam had wondered if it was just him—just the growing feelings he had for Jane affecting his perception—but everyone else had felt it, too. “She was radiant.”
Lady Hawthorne nodded. “She used to be that way all the time. I haven’t seen her look like that since . . .”
“Since before Pembroke.”
“Adam, you’ve brought my niece back to life.”
“I don’t think—” He hadn’t done that. “I didn’t know she was going to play.”
“Whatever is happening, it has everything to do with you. She’s herself when she’s with you in ways we haven’t seen in a very long time.”
Adam cringed. “Lady Hawthorne—”
“I don’t want to know. I’m aware that there are a number of things happening between you that are perhaps complex. That’s between you two. But the farm is my gift to you.”
He couldn’t accept it. “Don’t you need it? Why don’t you give it to Jane?”
She smiled. “That was my plan, but Charlie is doing very well. He’s reopening our family home in Sussex soon. We don’t need the farm anymore.”
Adam couldn’t deny that he did need it, but he couldn’t take it. It belonged to Jane if it belonged to anyone. She was the one taking all the hard steps.
“That’s not the only reason I stopped by.”
“No?” There was more than a farm? Adam wasn’t certain he couldn’t handle any more.
“Jane is going to fall in love with you—if she hasn’t already.”
Adam felt his throat drop to the bottom of his stomach.
“I don’t know what your intentions are . . .”
“Mathilda—”
“. . . and I don’t need to. You’re an honorable man. I trust you’ll do the right thing. But if the right thing is to walk away because you can’t love her back, then you need to do it sooner rather than later.”
Walk away. He understood the gift now. It was an anchor, or it was an out. Either way, she expected him to choose. Set down roots or sell it and go back home. He couldn’t blame her. They both knew Jane was fragile. If he left right now, she would likely recover. If he waited . . .
Would he recover? He hadn’t realized how far she’d wormed her way into his heart until he woke up yesterday, and all he’d thought about for days was how to make her happy. Could he go back to the colonies and live his life without her brilliant smile or her blunt lectures on his insufferable arrogance? Could he stay in this suffocating city just for her? Would it be enough?
Adam realized Mathilda was still watching him. “I’ll think about what you said.”
“I know you will.” She set her teacup down and stood. “Whatever you choose, Adam, thank you. Truly. You’ve brought about s
omething for which I can never truly repay you.”
Well, property was certainly a valiant effort.
“I’ll walk you down.”
“No need,” Mathilda said, waving him off. “I can find my own way.”
The question was—could Adam?
• • •
The dining room was cheerful without Mathilda’s surly early morning grumblings. Aunt Matty was many things—many of them graceful and wonderful—but a gracious morning person she was not. Or a gracious traveler. Or a gracious lot of things, come to think of it. Occasionally she could surprise a person, though.
“Pass the butter?”
Jane ignored her brother’s request in favor of delivering her own. “Charlie, I want you to buy me a horse.”
“Don’t you have a horse?” he said from behind a wall of paper.
“A better horse. A jumper.”
He put down his paper. “You want to jump again?”
“I do. Also, I’d like a piano.”
“A piano.”
“And I think we should plan a trip to the continent.”
Charlie mock-raised his chin up off the floor. “The European continent. The one you said you didn’t want to go to because there were too many foreigners.”
“Not me,” Jane said, cutting her breakfast soufflé. “Geoffrey said that. I just agreed with him because that’s what I did.”
He shook his head, marveling. “What has happened to you? Is it the soufflé? Can I have some?”
Jane slid her plate away when he reached for it. “I think it’s time I revisit the girl I was before. I’ve realized I miss her, and I’d like to see what it’s like to walk around as her again for a while.”
“And then?”
“And then, if I like it, I’ll stay that way.”
“And if you don’t?”
Jane tossed up her hands. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll become somebody entirely new.”
“No more crazed flower arranging?”
“The secret language of flowers is going to catch on someday very soon, and you’re going to be sad you’ve mocked me, because you won’t have bothered to learn it, and I won’t help you.”
Charlie laughed deep in his belly. “Just checking to make sure you haven’t been replaced by someone who looks like you. Glad to have you back, Janey, even if this reinventing is going to cost me a fortune.”
“About my horse.” Jane refused to lose momentum now that she had it.
“What color do you want? I’ll go find it for you today.”
“I want to go with you.”
Charlie’s eyebrows raised into his hairline. “Do you suddenly know something about bloodstock? Is that part of this new Jane?”
“Probably not much, but not nothing. I’ve had at least one good jumper to use as a reference. And what I don’t know you can teach me.”
She wasn’t going to trade one dictator for another—even if that dictator was Charlie.
“All right,” he agreed. He was smiling when he picked his paper back up.
“And Charlie?” A flutter of nerves started in her stomach, but she pushed them down. She was going to be the old Jane again.
“Yes?”
“You should have asked me if I wanted to come to London.”
He set his paper back down.
“You just sprung it on me. You never asked me if it was something that I wanted.”
“You never said—” The hurt in his eyes became her hurt, but she pushed that down, too.
“Did you expect me to? You know how I hate to disappoint people, Charlie.”
“I thought . . .” He didn’t finish telling her what he’d thought.
Jane answered for him. “You didn’t consider what I wanted at all; you just arranged everything with Aunt Matty and Father and Lord Rhone, because it made you feel like the conquering hero. Which you are, and I’m proud of you. But you should have asked.”
“If you want to leave London, we can.”
“I don’t, actually. I’ve made friends, and I’m enjoying myself now. But in the beginning it was miserable, and you should have asked me.”
Jane forked a piece of her soufflé into her mouth. It was delicious.
He was watching her like she’d grown a second head. “Is it safe to start reading my paper again?”
“Yes. Wait!”
Charlie’s hands hovered in midair.
“Did Aunt Matty say when she would be back?”
“Nothing specific, just that she had a lot of errands to run. We’ll probably miss her if you’re serious about coming with me to look at horses.”
“I’m serious.”
• • •
The second knock on his door came just as Adam was pulling the last stroke on his morning shave. He wiped his face and slid a coat over his open shirt. Anyone shocked by his appearance was welcome to not come knocking before he’d had a chance to dress properly.
“If you’ve come to give me property,” he joked on his way down the hall, “you’ll have to get in line.”
He opened the door. There was a brief moment to register Sebastian and begin a smile before his brother’s fist flew out and struck him just below the right eye. Adam had been hit plenty harder in his life, but never when he so completely didn’t expect it. He and Sebastian had been on excellent terms last night at the musicale.
“That’s for Jane, you cad.” He tried to turn and leave, like that could possibly be the end of it.
Adam grabbed him by the collar, hauling him into the flat and closing the door. “You’ll explain yourself.”
“I don’t have to explain anything to you, you pervert!” Sebastian struggled to get away.
So. Something had gotten out—though what version involved Sebastian needing to defend Jane’s honor, he couldn’t fathom. Adam dragged them both into the study. It seemed the right sort of room for whatever they needed to talk about. He closed that door and leaned against it, trapping Sebastian inside with him. “If you want to get out of this room, you do.”
“I’ll strike you again.”
“You’ll try again. I won’t be completely blindsided this time. What the devil is the matter?”
His brother rushed forward, throwing his punch with an odd stutter step and no power. Adam made an easy shift to the side, and Sebastian’s hand connected with the solid wood of the door.
“Son of a—”
Adam doubted it was broken. If he had better form, maybe. They could work on that later. “Just talk to me.”
“She’s your mother!” Sebastian shouted while he was still bent over, cradling his hand. “She’s my mother, but she’s your mother, too. And you’re in love with her?”
A strange chill went down the back of Adam’s neck. It was a conversation he’d always hoped to avoid having with Sebastian. “Your information is about a decade out of date.”
“Is it? Is it!” Sebastian waved his arms around the room. “You think I don’t know who did all this? You’re a kept man, just like your friend Brandon.”
“Sebastian.” Adam tried to put himself in his brother’s position. He’d just heard something shocking that had been deliberately kept from him about two people he cared about. He had every right to be upset.
“God. You’re both disgusting. My mother and my brother are lovers. It has a certain ring to it, doesn’t it?”
“We’re not lovers.”
“How old were you the first time you fu—”
Understanding had its limits. Adam struck his brother in the mouth, swift and precise, with a little bit of power. It was a sting, really, but it sent it him flying back to the sofa holding a bloody mouth.
“What the—”
“Your mother is an honorable woman. You might be angry, but you won’t speak of her that way.”
“Our mother,” Adam said, even though he avoided using the term for Regina for obvious reasons.
“How could you do this to Miss Bailey? How could you let such a sweet girl think you have feelings for her when you’re secretly in love with my mother?” He scowled with red-stained teeth. “Or is that why you picked her? Because she’s quiet and kind, and you figured you could just carry on as you have been.”
“I will tell you once more,” Adam said with quiet menace. “Your mother and I aren’t carrying on.”
“Really. So why did Father send you away? Why do you two hate each other?”
“I—” It would take a lifetime to get into all the reasons he and Lord Clairborne did not get along. “I thought I loved your mother once. But I was sent away for it, and exile did its job. I have great affection for her, but affection is all I have now.”
Some bloody how, that managed to make it worse.
“So you declared your love for her and then just discarded her?”
“I didn’t—”
“You’re despicable. You’re a cad. You might be able to keep me here with your hulking laborer strength, but I will never forgive you.”
Adam wasn’t about to accept that, but if he stayed in the tiny study while his brother continued to sling insults—someone was going to get hit again. Time was the answer. And information. Sebastian hadn’t just come up with the theory on his own.
The door handle turned in his palm. Adam pulled it open without turning his back to his brother. The last thing he needed was Sebastian using one of the statuettes Regina had filled the study with as a murder weapon.
“We’re not done with this,” he told his brother.
Sebastian scowled at him. “Yes, we are. I never want to see you again.”
• • •
His first stop at St. James’s Square was his father’s house. Lady Clairborne was mostly abed these days, so he went up to her room to see her. When they let him in there was no mistaking she’d been crying.
A Ballroom Temptation Page 16