An Escapade and an Engagement (3 page)

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 mouth 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 break 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.