Page 21 of The Seduction of an English Scoundrel

Jane turned stiffly and smiled at the diminutive housekeeper, who was dabbing at her tearful eye with her apron string. Oh, Lord, this was an unforeseen bit of embarrassment. “Chin up, Mrs. Bee. We are the Belshires.”

“We are indeed, my lady,” Mrs. Bee sniffed.

Her good mood a trifle diminished, Jane wended her way outside to the lushly overgrown garden to find her mother, in a straw bonnet and bright aquamarine day gown, attacking the weeds between the wall of lupines with a pair of sewing scissors. There was something comforting about the familiar domestic scene. Life in a garden tended to go on despite the complications of the outside world.

“Hello, my poor darling.” Lady Belshire scanned her daughter’s face for evidence of a broken heart. “Did you manage to sleep at all? I warned everyone to be as quiet as possible.”

“I slept. . . .” Jane paused, remembering the dream that had awakened her. To her private dismay, the lifelike image of the naked marquess had begun to grow blurry—she certainly would never be able to admire a Roman statue again. But if she couldn’t recall the unclad Sedgecroft, she couldn’t titillate herself at the odd interval either.

“Dearest, are you all right?”

Jane blinked, aware her mother was waving a lupine stalk back and forth before her. “I’m fine. Did—did Sedgecroft send word by any chance? I mean, not that I want him to. . . .”

Lady Belshire heaved a sigh. “He could not manage to call this morning, Jane. I hope this is not another disappointment, although after yesterday I imagine there is not much that can damage your aching heart. Sedgecroft was detained on some family matter. He sent a message that—”

“It’s all right, Mama. I really didn’t expect him to keep his word. He probably already regrets making his offer, and I certainly won’t hold him to it.” Jane darted around the stone bench, giddy with relief. A reprieve. A chance to recover her equilibrium. Of course Sedgecroft wasn’t coming. What would he want with dull jilted Lady Jane? Although for a few minutes, he had made her feel more desirable then she had dreamed possible. Well, it only proved she had been right about him all along.

“Are my sisters still with Madame Dumas?” she asked as she backed away.

“Yes, but—” Lady Belshire stared at her fleeing daughter in consternation. “Jane, my goodness, I haven’t even finished delivering his message.”

Jane restrained herself from racing into the summerhouse to deliver the welcome news to Caroline. She and Miranda were reading Molière’s Tartuffe aloud in their dreadful French accents while Madame Dumas listened, her skinny fingers pinched to her nose as if in pain.

“May I interrupt?” Jane asked in amusement.

Madame Dumas shuddered, slamming the book shut. “By all means, please do. Your sisters are slaughtering my mother tongue.”

Miranda slid to her feet and embraced Jane in a fervent hug. “Caroline told me everything,” she said in an undertone. “I am bursting with admiration. And terror,” she added as an afterthought. “Oh, Jane, what have you done?”

“So much for keeping a secret,” Jane said, dragging both sisters down the steps into the sun. “I forbid you to tell anyone else.”

“Not another soul,” the two of them vowed somberly.

“And I hope you did not discuss me in front of Madame Dumas. She already thinks I’m a lost cause because I preferred studying Italian over French in protest for all the friends who’ve died in the war.”

Caroline coaxed a butterfly away from her heavy mahogany-gold hair. “I heard Dumas telling Mrs. Bee you might have to marry a Frenchman, as it’s unlikely any English aristocrat will have you.”

Before Jane could react to that remark, Lady Belshire interrupted them, breathless from hurrying across the garden.

“He’s here!” With uncharacteristic aggression she wrested Jane away from her sisters. “And you’re not even properly dressed.”

“Properly . . . for what?” Jane glanced around the garden in confusion. Aside from the two gardeners pruning the poplars, there was not a male in sight, and certainly no reason for her mother to go all fluttery. Which gave her another one of those dreadful feelings of doom.

“Who is here, Mama?”

“Sedgecroft. Who else?” Lady Belshire put her hand to her heart at her daughter’s stricken expression. “Oh, sweeting, you thought I meant Nigel, didn’t you? How careless of me. How utterly stupid. Of course you are still hoping the scapegrace will appear with some perfectly understandable explanation for his appalling cruelty.”

Jane stared at her mother, controlling a childish urge to yank off her beribboned straw bonnet and stomp it into the ground. “You know Sedgecroft’s reputation, Mama. Aren’t you the least bit concerned that he will taint me?”

Lady Belshire paused to pluck a weed from between the flagstones. “Don’t be silly. All of my daughters are above temptation. Your brother is another thing entirely. I tried to tell you a few moments ago that Sedgecroft could not call this morning because he was detained on a family matter. He said he would be here this afternoon.”

“This afternoon?”

“Now, Jane,” her mother said in exasperation. “That was his carriage in the street.”

“What carriage?”

“It doesn’t matter now,” her mother whispered urgently, turning Jane by the shoulders toward the house. “He’s here, and, oh, look at the dress you’re wearing.”