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Jane shook her head. “He won’t find out.”

“Though I intend to do the right thing by you and make you my wife. Please be reminded, Miss Grant, that it is you that refuses me. Even though I can clearly see that you like my touch, and you like being in my arms…”

And she loved him…

But she couldn’t say it.

“Besides, there’s the matter of my school.”

He frowned. “What about your school? I thought we had already addressed this. I’ve said more than once that I would support you.”

“Aren’t you worried it would take too much of my time? That I wouldn’t be the wife you want, a good mother to your children?”

He gazed at her with so much admiration her heart was going to burst. “Jane, I would never forbid you anything. I could never suffocate you like that. If you want to build your school, I’ll be the first one to hand you the bricks and the mortar. The time you spend away from me will only make me want you more. And our children would grow up knowing that their mother is kind and thoughtful and generous. A person of true integrity and strength.”

Her heart must have exploded with love for him. It was harder and harder to say no to him. She kissed him deeply, then sighed and rolled from under his hand and to the other side of the bed.

“Can you please just promise me one thing?” he said as she stood up.

Her head spun a little, her body slack and warm and lazy.

“What?” she asked as she picked up her chemise and put it on.

“Don’t break it off yet, darling,” he said. “We have the ball tomorrow night. Let’s attend the ball, as though everything is still the same. Let me show you that you actually do belong in the ton, if you want to belong there.”

She stilled, barely able to breathe. Walking in at his side, in the ball gown that made her look like royalty… Being in his arms as they danced, no one else existing but them… She really liked the sound of that. She was probably going crazy, but she considered it.

What would another day change?

“All right,” she said, grinning. “I won’t. Let’s go to the ball.”

* * *

Ruby Woods pressed her hand to her mouth as she leaned back from Jane’s door. The candle in her other hand flickered from her sharp exhale.

Ruby bit her lip and thought hard. Her dear Janie, Miss Grant, was ruined.

Mr. Blackmore must know it. Right away.

Quietly, Ruby stepped away from the door. Even in the darkness, she knew which floorboards creaked and which were safe. She tiptoed back along the hall and down the stairs. She went to Mr. Blackmore’s study, but he wasn’t there. He must be in the club.

As she made her way through the back door and emerged behind the dry marula tree with the huge snake that always gave her a fright, she looked around Elysium, which was crowded and loud. The women—whom she didn’t judge as her own mother had been one of those whores, and she’d never known her father—talked with the men, laughing and smiling seductively. The orchestra played something cheerful up in the gallery.

There were several male couples who kissed and others who talked with their faces tender and close. She didn’t mind that, either. She had long ago suspected that in a different world she’d have found herself a wife.

But Mr. Blackmore was nowhere to be seen as she made her way through the warm, drunken bodies. Not among the guests. Not at the back of the club. She even went outside briefly, into the dark street with palely illuminated windows.

Atticus stood with two of his men, one of them Reuben, talking quietly by the entrance.

“Atticus,” she said as she walked up to him. The men stopped talking, and all three of them nodded respectfully to her. They knew she’d been like a mother hen over Janie from the moment Mr. Blackmore had brought her home. So sad, so forlorn, like a little chick who’d lost her mother. “Do you know where Mr. Blackmore is?”

“Went out for business, Ruby,” said Atticus. “Is everything all right?”

Ruby sighed and looked into the dark street. “We will have to wait and see. When is he coming back?”

“I don’t have a bloody clue, Rubes.”

She nodded. “If you see him, tell him to find me in my chamber. Whatever the hour. I won’t sleep until I talk to him. All right?”