Page 46 of Regency Whispers: Scandalous Matches

‘What do they say about you?’

She pulled a face and shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Probably something along the lines of Miss Ashworth, the dull and plain debutante who has no interest in society.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘I’m not. Society likes to put people in their boxes. I am an unattractive woman destined to be a spinster.’

‘You are not.’

‘I don’t have any plans to marry.’

He waved a dismissive hand. ‘You’re not unattractive. You’re not even plain.’

A hand flitted to her hair, where she had it pulled back into a tight bun.

‘You may try to look plain, so you can fade into the background,’ he said quietly. ‘But you do not succeed.’

She scoffed and he saw the disbelief in her eyes.

‘You believe it, don’t you?’ he said, realising now that she didn’t choose the unflattering dresses and hairstyles solely to remain unnoticed. ‘You believe that you’re not beautiful.’

‘No one, ever, has thought I am beautiful,’ she said, her chin jutting out in defiance.

‘That’s why you do it, why you choose clothes that don’t fit that well and have your hair in such a severe style.’

‘Enlighten me,’ she said softly. ‘Seeing as you are suddenly the expert on my innermost feelings.’

‘You truly believe you are plain, and you think if you made an effort it would show you care. It is about preservation, at not having to listen to anyone laugh because you tried to be more than you think people expect.’

She shrugged but Tom could see he had got to the core of it.

Knowing he should stay in his seat, he stood, hating how Jane had wrapped her arms across her chest protectively. With a glance at the door, he came and crouched down in front of her, taking both her hands in his own.

‘You’re beautiful, Jane Ashworth.’

At first she wouldn’t meet his eye. Instead she shook her head and kept looking down at her lap.

‘Look at me.’ He waited, the seconds stretching out until finally she lifted her head a fraction and looked him in the eye. ‘You are beautiful.’

‘No. I’m the plain one, the clever one, the dull one.’

He frowned, wondering who it was she was comparing herself to.

‘You are clever, I am not denying that, but you are so much more than those three words. You are witty and sharp, you are kind and generous, you are beautiful...and you are a hundred more things.’

Knowing he was on dangerous ground, he reached up and trailed a finger down her cheek. It was intimate, far too intimate, for a couple who only an hour earlier had agreed there was nothing in the kiss they’d shared, but he did it all the same.

Jane took a sharp breath and he saw her eyes darken as she looked at him.

‘Beauty is not just about the thickness of a woman’s hair or the clarity of her skin, it is about so much more,’ he said softly. ‘But, even if it were based purely on the physical, you are an attractive woman, Jane, even when you try so hard not to be.’

For a long moment she looked into his eyes and he felt as though he might be getting through, then she gave a violent shake of her head and stood abruptly, almost knocking him over, fleeing from the room out, of the glass doors into the garden beyond.

Tom stood, debating whether to follow her. It was a cold night, but he doubted the Weymans’ garden was large, and she could return whenever she wanted. She would probably tell him she wanted solitude, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave her out there alone, believing the lies her own mind told her.

With a cursory glance at the door to the hall, he satisfied himself no one was returning to the drawing room yet, and dashed out into the garden to follow Jane.

It took him a few seconds to adjust to the moonlight, but after a moment he saw Jane’s figure in the corner of the little garden.