Page 41 of A Sham Engagement

Jack would have liked his usual glass of bedtime brandy but, with what he’d just seen, it might be best to keep his wits about him, whatever he’d said to Briggs. “Thank you, Briggs. You may go.”

Briggs departed, bearing Jack’s clothes and shoes to tend to later. As soon as he’d closed the door, Jack went back to the window. Sure enough, the man was still there, his pipe smoke curling into the cold night air. He must be determined at whatever he was about, because the night was freezing. He’d have to be on his way soon, though, or the lamplighters would be finding his cold dead body in the morning. Just a loiterer with nothing better to do.

Jack got into bed and picked up the book he’d been reading these last few nights—book two of the series he’d lent to Elenora. He hadn’t read it for a long time and was curious to see what it was that attracted her. The thought that he’d really prefer it if he himself attracted her instead of his books arose, but was pushed back down. He wasn’t immune to her pretty face and didn’t mind admitting it. He’d always found pretty faces beguiling; what man didn’t? Perhaps it would have been better had she been a little brown mouse like her mother and sisters. He opened the book. He wouldn’t think about that now.

After he’d read the same paragraph three times and nothing had sunk in, he let the book fall back into his lap. The lamp flickered. Not the easiest thing to read by. And especially not when he was thinking about something else. About someone else. About Elenora.

He closed the book and lay back on his pillows, stretching his legs out. Briggs had put a couple of wrapped hot bricks in his bed earlier that evening and it was toasty warm. However, even that couldn’t keep his thoughts from the girl he didn’t understand.

Why was she immune to his charms? He was handsome, in a devil-may-care way, as more than one of his ex-mistresses, and other ladies of the Ton, had frequently informed him. Although she’d said he was old in that endearingly frank manner she possessed, he was certainly nowhere near her father’s age. Forty was still two years off and he had maintained the trim figure of a much younger man. Unlike Dugdale with his little potbelly. And yet, a girl he was finding increasingly fascinating seemed not to have noticed his many attributes. In fact, she’d been more interested in his seven-year-old son. Perplexing.

He blew out the lamp and put his arms behind his head. Tonight was going to be one on which sleep would be hard to find. Not only were his thoughts full of Elenora, with her spun gold hair and intelligent blue eyes, but also every so often they returned to the figure lurking outside in the street, if only as a distraction from visions of Elenora. Shoving her image aside with determination, he concentrated on struggling to remember where he’d seen someone similar lurking, but failed.

However, inevitably, his thoughts returned to Elenora again. When she’d precipitated out of that alcove away from Louise’s clutches, and he’d caught her in his arms, he’d suffered the sensation of never wanting to let her go. Which was quite uncharacteristic of him. He’d always prided himself on not allowing his heart to become engaged with whatever lady was his latest dalliance. And up until now, he’d succeeded. Until he’d met the little oddity that was Elenora Wetherby.

With a deep sigh, he rolled onto his side, the man in the shadows forgotten. How difficult was it going to be to get to sleep now he couldn’t banish Elenora’s face, with its furrowed brow of concentration, from his mind. Damn women to blazes. Damn Elenora and damn Louise Raby.

Elenora was also lying awake in Arlington Street. And she, like Jack, had thoughts only for the person she was engaged to. Aunt Penelope had fussed over her like an old hen with one chick when they’d reached home, insisting on a posset being warmed for her and sitting with her while she drank it in bed, something that had only elicited further resentful glares from Petunia. For some reason, her aunt had been far more inclined to believe Jack when he said Elenora was unwell than she had been when Elenora had claimed it herself before they left. Piqued at this discrimination, Elenora finally managed to rid herself of her putative nurse, and Agatha, who’d been waiting up for her, when the posset was all gone.

Aunt Penelope left with reluctance, Agatha with undue haste as she must have been exhausted and longing for her bed.

“It was very unfair of you to make us leave the ball early,” Petunia said, as soon as they had the room to themselves.

Elenora, who’d been about to snuff out her candle, glanced at the other bed, wrestling with her conscience. “I had a megrim.” Putting the lie into words rankled.

Petunia’s brows lowered threateningly. “No, you didn’t. You made it up, and that idiot you’re engaged to believed you. Just because you don’t like balls. You told me you couldn’t tell lies. So that was a lie too.”

Elenora bristled, seizing on the first bit as being the easiest to refute. “Jack’s not an idiot.”

Petunia harrumphed. “He must be to have asked you to marry him. Even though he compromised you, I bet he could have found a way out of it if he’d wanted to.”

What was she supposed to say to that? Nothing she could think of. She’d just have to stay silent.

Petunia persevered. “How did you manage it?”

“Manage what?”

“To snare a man—an earl’s heir, to top it all—on your debut into society? Did you deliberately set out to be compromised? I bet you did. I bet under all those innocent looks you give people you’ve been plotting this all along.”

Oh dear. This was rapidly getting awkward. How had she missed how jealous Petunia was becoming?

“I, er, I don’t know.” Which in a way was quite true, as she had no idea how she’d fallen into the events that had led up to her engagement.

Petunia snorted. “There must be something you’re hiding. I think you did whatever it was you did on purpose. No one gets engaged the first time they’re at a ball. No one. Not even girls with huge fortunes.”

By that she must mean herself, as her papa had left her with a goodly inheritance, something Mama had mentioned so many times it was engraved on Elenora’s brain.

“Just lucky chance,” Elenora tried, as that too was not a lie.

Another snort from her resentful cousin. “You must be just about the luckiest girl alive then.”

This presented Elenora with another neat response. “I think you might be right.” Or you could look at it that she was the unluckiest. It depended on which angle you came at it from. But she was indeed lucky that Jack had been so reasonable and suggested the sham engagement.

“I can’t believe it,” Petunia snarled, pulling her covers up to her chin. “I really just can’t believe it. You’re so undeserving. You don’t even want to get married, and look at you—engaged to one of the biggest catches of the season.” She turned onto her side, presenting Elenora with her back. “Put that candle out, can’t you? I need to go to sleep.”

With relief, Elenora blew her candle out and snuggled down into her bedcovers.

But sleep would not come. She wriggled down a little further and closed her eyes, but thoughts tumbled through her head as though they were in a whirlpool. Chief amongst them was the memory of how Jack had held her against his chest when she’d escaped from Lady Raby’s dubious presence. And how she’d felt no inclination to struggle to free herself. This was a totally new sensation. His arms, tight around her body, had bestowed instead of agitation, a feeling of being safe and secure. Not that she’d been in any danger from Lady Raby. Well, probably not. Her face admittedly had taken on a rather threatening appearance. But a ball was rather a public place for a murder.