Charlotte, thank God, seemed too consumed with the delicate task of keeping Lady Stratton occupied and away from her brother. Yet whenever their paths crossed, Jane felt the weight of her pointed, pitying look—one she could not quite place. And Margaret—sweet Margaret—pressed close with unconscious devotion and whispered, “You are warmer than anyone, Miss Ansley.”
* * *
Again and again the truth pressed against her lips, and again she swallowed it. Each silence left her more burdened than the last. By the turn of the year, her secret had grown heavier than her body, and every glance from William seemed a test she could not bear.
It was on such an evening, as she passed the library door, that the sound of him stopped her in her tracks. William lounged in a leather chair, boots stretched toward the hearth, a glass of brandy in hand. He looked for all the world like a man at ease, though his jaw was taut.
“Do you know,” he murmured, swirling the drink, “father has drawn up a list of eligible young women in London? Titles, dowries, family trees—all as neatly arranged as a military dispatch. At least Lady Henrietta was harmless. These others—paragons of ambition. One has a face like a hound.”
Jane had not meant to linger, but her chest went hollow at his words. He still thought it possible to plan his future. He still lived as though her body were only a place he visited, not a life he had changed. She paused—against her better sense—and listened.
Inside, Charlotte’s voice rang sharp. “I pity any woman you choose.”
A shadow crossed William’s face, every syllable steeped in sarcasm, “Pity her? Most women find little cause for complaint once the candles are snuffed.”
Charlotte leaned forward, her tone low, her gaze unblinking. “You make a jest of everything, but I am not laughing, William. I have seen how you look at Miss Ansley. Do you intend to present a wife at Court while keeping the governess in your bed?”
William gave a short laugh, flamboyant, careless. “Miss Ansley would sooner correct my Latin than fall into my arms. You overreach yourself, Charlotte. And pray, enlighten me—how do I look at her?”
“As if you would devour her,” Charlotte shot back. “If she is under your notice—or worse, already your conquest—you ought to be ashamed. Jane is under our protection. She has wit, dignity, a mind sharper than half the lords you drink with. She deserves better than to be ruined by you.”
William tipped his glass in a mocking salute. “Ruined? You make me out a villain. I am not that man any longer. I am not in the habit of seducing governesses for sport.”
“You are not in the habit of loving them, either,” Charlotte snapped.
Jane’s throat closed. She could bear no more. She moved on swiftly, her slippers whispering over the marble floor.
Her breath quickened, shallow and uneven. Their words had cut deep—Charlotte’s scorn, William’s careless denial. Love, habit, ruin. To them, she was an argument, not a woman. And to William—dear God—if he ever guessed her condition, would he not assume the worst?
He would think it Beaufort’s child, she thought with cold certainty, after how easily he had dismissed her. If she confessed now, he would ask whose it was, and she would hate him forever for it. Perhaps it was better to let Uncle Robert petition his Grace for some provision. They would not let her child starve—no matter how scandalized. It was, after all, their blood. And if it came to it, she would prove it. Lord Beaufort could speak to her innocence.
On the third of January, she walked into the village with the letter hidden in her cloak. She did not show it to anyone. She signed it, pressed the coins into the clerk’s hand for swift delivery. Then, she stood watching the post boy carry it out to the coach as if she had given away more than paper.
The snow was falling again that day, light and fine, the kind that never settled. It dusted the gravel paths and danced in the hedgerows. She looked up at the sky and wondered how swiftly Uncle Robert might answer, and whether, when the time came, she would be brave enough to leave with her head held high.
Chapter 27
By Twelfth Night, William had returned to London with his father and the Duchess. The Season had not yet unrolled its pageant of salons and drawing rooms, yet already he knew he must prepare for a battle of another sort. Every gaze would turn upon him—the heir to the Duke of Westford, the most eligible bachelor in England.
With Charlotte refusing to accompany him, he would have to rely on his own wit and judgment—his saber in this new campaign—and his father’s list of ladies, the field laid before him to conquer. Bitter and unsettled, William resolved he would choose a duchess worthy of his mother’s memory. If he could find the perfect woman, perhaps it would drown the torment Jane had left behind. He had thought London could dull the ache. Instead, it sharpened it.
The coffee room at White’s was thick with smoke and talk, the windows filmed in equal parts with soot and damp. Newspapers lay abandoned on tables, their ink smudged by careless fingers. At one end, young men argued politics; at the other, two older lords bent over a chessboard. William had come in search of his father, but it was Lord Beaufort who hailed him first.
“Blackmeer!” Beaufort rose from his chair near the fire, his smile as guileless as ever. “You vanish without warning and leave me chasing your shadow. Come, you owe me at least a word of explanation.”
William stiffened. “I left Westford Castle on urgent business.”
“I received nothing but silence,” Beaufort said lightly. “Thank God for Miss Ansley—she told me you were expected at Christmas, else I might have thought you’d marched off to the Continent again.”
At the name, a vein ticked in William’s jaw and heat rose in his face. “You…correspond with her?”
Beaufort chuckled, lowering his voice just enough to make the remark sound conspiratorial. “Why should I not? A man may profit by the good sense of an intelligent woman. She writes with more clarity than half the ministers who fill this room.”
The remark, innocent enough, landed like a spark in tinder. To William it sounded perilously like intimacy, as though Jane were Beaufort’s confidante, his chosen companion. He gritted his teeth until they ached.
Then Beaufort dealt the final blow to his composure. “Besides, I don’t know what I should have done without her those days I waited pointlessly for your return. She knows how to keep a man on his toes.”
His grip tightened on the glass.On his toes.Could not do without her.The implication struck sharp, leaving little room for doubt—at least to his mind.
