His and Hers

by Dawn Calvert

Anne's gaze dropped to the ground. "It was meant to be amusing."

  Jane waited.

  "I had no intention to—Was most certain that—"

  "Trust me," said Jane. "Whatever it is, I've done worse."

  "You, Jane?"

  "You don't know everything about me, Anne." She tried giving the girl an encouraging smile. "Remember that I'm American when Mary is not writing me? I have a life other than this. A life where I do some pretty stupid things. On a regular basis." Harsh. She amended it to, "Once in awhile."

  At last, Anne admitted, "Lord Thunder." She screwed her eyes nearly shut as she looked at her sister.

  A bad feeling began to steal over Jane. "Benton Dempsey's horse."

  Anne nodded. "He—We—did not intend for him to leave the enclosure."

  Jane went from laying a hand on the girl's arm to gripping it tightly. "You let him escape?"

  Unshed tears sparkled in her eyes. "It was not to have happened. It was merely a game. To let him loose where James would discover him. But there was an opening. One I did not see."

  Sympathy stabbed at Jane's heart. She knew that look, that sense of foreboding and remorse. Knowing, but not wanting to know, just how badly things were going to turn out. Still… "Why would you want to leave him where James would discover him?"

  The girl let her eyes flutter closed and then opened them. "Matthew and I—"

  Jane did a rapid-fire search of her memory. She didn't think she'd heard that name before. "Matthew?"

  "The stable boy. He is well acquainted with James's temper. Indeed he has been on the receiving end of it, far too many times. And I—Mr. James Dempsey is—is—"

  "Arrogant?" Whoops. She shouldn't be putting words in Anne's mouth.

  A nod, given to her shoes. "We thought it would be amusing to…" Anne's voice trailed away.

  "Amusing to watch James have a fit over the horse being let out of his stall, "Jane finished for her.

  Anne nodded again, her misery evident. "Lord Thunder is high-spirited. Matthew says that James wants the horse most desperately after his father—But Matthew thought James should see that Lord Thunder is perhaps more horse than he is suited for."

  "This was Matthew's idea?"

  "No," Anne rushed to say. "It was me."

  "I get it." Jane nodded. This hero seemed to have more than one person putting him to the test. She put a hand to the girl's tangle of curls. "Pretty big problem. That's horse theft, which is something I don't think they look lightly at around here. But you're telling me that you didn't mean it That things turned out a lot differently than you thought they would." Didn't they always.

  A contrite nod.

  "I don't suppose Matthew is…" What was the word for cute in this era? "Attractive?" No, not the right word. "Appealing? Handsome?"

  Anne's mouth formed a circle of shock. "Oh, no, Sister," she rushed to say.

  "He's not?"

  "It is not that."

  "Good. Because that almost never turns out well. Doing something you know you shouldn't because you're trying to impress someone."

  "The idea was mine alone," Anne admitted. Now she looked confused. "Impress Matthew?"

  Right. A stable boy would have no chance with a girl of Anne's social standing. What had Jane been thinking? She dropped her hand from her sister's arm. "I know you feel bad about what happened," she said softly. "But what you did was—" No. She couldn't do it. Jane couldn't even address her own selfishness in this kind of thing, let alone help this teenager see hers. "I know you feel bad, but at least Lord Thunder is back and no one was hurt."

  The girl's shoulders sagged, relief shining in her eyes. The admission of guilt had been hard for her, Jane realized. She wondered if she should launch into some kind of a lecture about the risks that were involved with what Anne had done. As quickly as the idea popped into her head, she popped it back out. Anne knew. She didn't need to be reminded by an older sister who, more than anything else, seemed fixated on having the younger girl act older than her years. At least when Mary was writing.

  "So, what to do," Jane mused, taking a step across the grass.

  Anne fell in beside her. "You are quite different, Jane, when our author is not writing." She spoke hesitantly, as though she weren't sure how the words would be received.

  Jane grinned. "That much, I've been able to figure out." She sighed. "I don't think Mary would know what to do with the real me. She writes what she thinks I should be. Who knows, maybe I'm who she hoped to be at some point in her life."

  "Perhaps." The girl nodded. "Our author would then enjoy writing you."

  Jane screwed up her face at that. "I'm not sure 'enjoy' is the right word to use."

  "I cannot believe that I am anything but a trial to our author."

  Jane stopped and turned to Anne. "I think you're there to remind Mary that not everyone has to be proper in this society. A person can still have some fun, even if you have to be under the age of eighteen to be allowed to do it. Mary could have been a huge practical joker when she was young. Who knows?" She quirked an eyebrow, looking for Anne's agreement.

  The girl gave a reluctant grin. "I have heard it said that she favored mischief upon occasion."

  "There you go. You're probably her favorite character. "Jane clasped her hands together. "What I wouldn't give for a little fun right now. While Mary isn't writing."

  "I have found a place," Anne volunteered.

  "What kind of a place?"

  "With a swing. A magnificent one."

  "On the estate?" She didn't see the Dempseys as the sort of people to have, and use, a swing.

  "Yes. Though it is hidden. I do not believe it has been used for some time."

  "Perfect." Jane looked back over each shoulder and then pointed a finger at her sister. "Show me. We'll go there, have some fun, and figure out what to do about this mess you're in."

  Anne needed no further encouragement. "It is this way." She indicated a direction to the right and they set off together, steps in synch along the path. After a few moments, the girl ventured, "I believe this is the worst I have ever done."

  "I know that feeling, except that I usually seem to top the worst I've ever done with something else later. Like I said, I've done some pretty bad things myself. Without ever intending to."

  "Could that be so?" The expression Anne turned on Jane said she wanted to believe it but didn't think she could, leading Jane to wonder what sort of invincibly proper aura she was giving off as heroine of Afton House.

  "Let's see… where to start." The list was uncomfortably long. "Well, here's one." She steeled herself for a confession, which never came easy. "I spilled red wine down my friend's beautiful white wedding dress. Only a couple of days before the wedding." She squeezed her eyes shut, reliving the moment. "Red wine does not come out."

  "Oh," breathed Anne. "Yet you did not intend to do so, surely?"

  "Of course not. No." Jane opened her eyes and shook her head. "But it was horrible, all the same."

  Anne nodded. "I once spilled ink on our mother's treasured white lace. She swooned so greatly, I feared she would injure herself." She paused. "Do you recall?"

  Jane shook her head. "No. But maybe that's a good thing!"

  Her sister gave her a shy smile that disappeared a moment later. "Lord Thunder could have broken his leg. Never been found. Hurt Matthew."

  "Or hurt you."

  Anne shrugged. "That does not concern me."

  She may not worry about being hurt physically, but there was a whole other element to this kind of an awkward life. One she suspected Anne knew something about already. Jane squared her shoulders, looking straight ahead. "I made the mistake of asking a man to marry me, because I thought he felt the same way about me that I did about him."

  "You proposed marriage?" Anne's eyes were wide, disbelieving.

  "I did." Jane nodded ruefully. "And he didn't. Feel the same way, that is." Ow. The memory still hurt, but not as much as it had before. Maybe because she could now
share it to help someone else feel better: JANE ELLINGTON'S LIST OF TOP TEN THINGS TO DO TO SCREW UP YOUR LIFE. Everything for a reason, her mother had always said. Jane, however, rarely found a valid reason. So this was a first.

  "Oh, my poor Jane. You must have been devastated."

  "I was," she admitted. Past tense. Hmmm. Her own heart seemed to have moved past weeping, although it was still sniffing pretty loud.

  "But the proposal only came from your heart. Which is not to be faulted for its feelings."

  "It did, yes. But I think…" No. She didn't really think that, did she?

  "You think?" Anne prompted.

  "I may have…" Go ahead. Say it. "I may have known he didn't feel the same way. And I may have been thinking only about me and what I wanted. There was a business trip he had just taken to Mexico. I think he could have taken me with him, but he didn't. I was, okay, a little upset about that." She took a series of deep breaths, afraid the admission had taken a tremendous amount out of her. It hadn't, though. Felt more like throwing off a rock that had been sitting squarely in the middle of her shoulders.

  "He did not ask you to accompany him."

  "Right." It sounded lame, even to her.

  "Perhaps you were only making such a proposal to assure yourself of his regard."

  "So instead, I asked him to marry me. See, I told you I had done worse things than you." She gave Anne a grin that wobbled.

  "I did not know about this."

  "You wouldn't have," Jane rushed to assure her. "It happened when… well, when you wouldn't have known."

  "When you had gone to visit Aunt Hathaway?"

  Oh, God. Had she? That must have been some visit. She was saved from answering by Anne's announcement that they had arrived at the swing. Following the girl behind a stand of trees, Jane saw a small clearing. And a large swing. A very large swing, with a wooden slat for the seat, hung by ropes from the branches of a tree in the center of the clearing.

  It looked inviting. And fun.

  "Race you, "Jane said, with a wink at her sister.

  She took off first, Anne following close behind. It felt good, her feet pounding through the grass, each step landing harder than the last. As though all of this that surrounded her was somehow more real with each physical connection she could make. Jane drank in the clean, fresh smell and the sun pouring down on them from above. In Mary's England, the sun shone often.

  Jane slowed up to let the younger girl pull ahead. When they reached the swing, each of them held on to one of the ropes with both hands, panting. Jane cursed the corset once again, which seemed better at reducing her lung capacity than anything else was, and the fact that Mary must not have her character doing the equivalent of Jane's every-other-day routine at the gym. "How about if you go first and I push you?" she offered when they'd recovered.

  Anne nodded and then carefully sat on the swing's wooden seat.

  Jane gave her a starting push. "So what are we going to do to make this right?"

  "I have confessed the truth of the matter to you. Is that not enough?" The pleading in the girl's voice told Jane that Anne knew it wasn't.

  "I don't think so. Someone else has been blamed."

  "You are the only one who knows of the mischief. And Matthew, of course."

  "Yes. Matthew." In between pushes, Jane tapped her finger to her chin. "Is he likely to tell anyone?"

  Anne shook her head, vehemently. "He would lose his position."

  "Right Of course."

  Anne began to drag her feet on the ground, stopping the swing. "I shall push you," she said.

  They changed spots.

  "Still. This isn't right, Anne. We have to figure out something. When I really screw something up…" Forget that. She'd never done the right thing in her entire history of accidents. "I suppose we could—" She shook her head. "No. Don't think we can rely on Benton Dempsey to clear you. It was his horse."

  "Mr. Dempsey. I could not." The girl looked mildly terrified… for a prankster with near-professional status.

  "He is mildly terrifying. I'd hate to see a plate hit you."

  She looked back long enough to see Anne's quizzical look. "I've seen him throw—Never mind. You don't want to know." She snapped her fingers. "I've got it We'll go to Curran."

  "Oh, Jane, he frightens me so!" Anne, with an alarmed expression on her face, stepped around so that she could see Jane.

  Jane made a don't-worry-about-it gesture. "Nothing to be afraid of. Curran is miscast as a villain." Funny how her heartbeat sped up at the mere mention of his name.

  "No! He is—The way he looks at a person—I could not bear to confess such a deed to him." Anne shivered. Didn't look entirely like fear.

  Oh, yes. The way he looks at a person. As Jane thought about that, she had to fan her face with her hand. Then it occurred to her that Anne might be having a similar reaction, even if she was too young to recognize it for what it was. This was the Victorian era. She doubted Jane's mother had ever had one of those talks with her.

  "Yes," she said. "When a man looks at a woman like that, she might feel odd things. Might even seem scary at first. But it's not really the man, it's, well, a woman seeing an attractive man and thinking…" Thinking incredibly provocative thoughts about him, imagining him beside her, doing things that—Wow. Face fanning again, double-time.

  Anne's eyes widened.

  "The point is," Jane continued, "a man like Curran has a certain…" How could she phrase it, without giving herself away and embarrassing Anne to death? "A certain sensuality that just emanates from him." She stopped, realizing she'd said the words aloud.

  Anne looked interested. Very interested.

  Jane cleared her throat and stood straighter, trying to buckle down and get this right. "Matthew might sort of, you know, make you feel that way sometimes, too."

  Anne looked away.

  "And that's okay," Jane rushed to say. "Absolutely normal."

  "He is…" Anne began to admit, then recovered her-self quickly. "Mr. Curran Dempsey is not a villain? But he must be. Our author has declared him such."

  Jane thought about this. No sense in tarnishing Curran's reputation, so she decided to take a different approach. "If he's such a villain, he'll understand what you did and not judge you, right? He has to have done things much worse."

  Anne blinked.

  "Come on," Jane said, looping her arm through the younger girl's. "We're going to find him."

  "But our father. He must not ever discover what I have done."

  "Something tells me he wouldn't be that surprised." Jane tugged at Anne's arm.

  Anne looked down at the ground, watching her feet scurry along beside Jane.

  "I'm pretty sure he doesn't have to find out," Jane reassured her. "Curran isn't going to tell him, so let's not think about that right now."

  And let's also not think about Jane's growing suspicion that the reason she was moving so fast to find Curran had more to do with a legitimate excuse to talk with him than the need to put things right about the horse.

  She hoped that wasn't the case. Because if it was, how much more unheroine-like could one person get?

  Talk about miscasting.

  Chapter 16

  Jane had Curran's whereabouts right on the first guess. She and Anne found him at the stable, preparing to mount his horse. Walking with purpose, she led Anne to Curran and then came to an abrupt stop, suddenly feeling uncomfortable and out of place by the light of the day in this all-male domain.

  The two females found themselves surrounded by dirt, dust, horses, leather. And men, who faded into the background when they approached.

  Curran paused, his hand on the saddle. 'The Misses Ellingson," he acknowledged with a nod. The two fairest ladies in the county. To what do I owe the honor?"

  He sounded charming, but Jane noticed he wasn't smiling. "Mr. Dempsey," she said by way of greeting. "Alfred."

  The horse eyed her with suspicion.

  Jane seemed to be having some trou
ble keeping her knees from buckling. When she looked at Curran's mouth, she relived the moments when it had been on hers. So she switched her gaze to his eyes, where she didn't fare much better.

  He waited. Anne waited. Jane brushed a tendril of hair from her face and took a step forward, her eyes on a point somewhere over Curran's shoulder. "Anne has something she would like to tell you."

  Nothing happened. Anne, she saw with a sideways glance, again looked terrified. "It's all right," Jane coaxed. "Mr. Dempsey will not be angry."

  She hoped not, anyway. The crease between his brow had made a return appearance.

  Anne stood mute, her hands grasped so hard in front of her that her knuckles turned white.

  Curran looked slowly from Anne to Jane and back again without saying a word.

  Jane decided she'd better help get this confession started. "It's about Lord Thunder," she began. "As it happens, his getting out was all a simple accident." She lifted a palm and shoulder, as if to say, "Who knew?" Then she made a gesture down low at her side, urging Anne to chime in.

  Instead, she saw Anne's gaze veer to the right. Following it, Jane saw why. The stable boy standing at the door, behind Curran, had to be Matthew, Anne's cohort in crime. The fear on his teenage face matched hers. But there was something else on his face. If Jane was correct in interpreting it as a longing for the younger of the Ellingson sisters, he wouldn't be climbing far up the career ladder.

  Curran also shot a glance over at the stable boy, who took a step back into the shadows. Jane didn't blame him. She debated whether or not to hide Anne behind her and slowly slink away herself. But then Curran's half-lidded gaze returned to linger on Jane. In it, she saw something meant only for her—recognition of the agony of a teenage crush.

  She dipped her chin, the smallest bit, in acknowledgment, feeling a tremor begin inside her that had no business being there. He's the villain, Jane. The villain. It would help if he would act like one on occasion.

  "An accident," he repeated.

  "Yes." With her elbow, Jane nudged Anne.

  "An accident, sir." The girl's voice melted away.

  "I see," Curran said.

  "And now we're not sure," Jane told him, "what to do to make things right." She reminded herself to breathe.