He handed her a large white one.
“But you did reach me in time,” he said, “and you did say all those things. Let me see if I can remember accurately. Horrid man? Arrogant? Bull-headed—that was a nasty one, Jane. You loathed me? I was never ever to come near you again? Have I missed anything?”
She blew her nose and then appeared not to know what to do with the handkerchief. He took it from her and put it away in his pocket.
“I would have died if you had died,” she said, and he had the satisfaction of seeing that she was growing cross again. “Horrid, loathsome man. If you ever again get yourself into a situation that invites a challenge from another man, I will kill you myself.”
“Will you, my love?” he asked her.
She compressed her lips. “You are determined to have me, are you not?” she asked him. “Is this all a ruse?”
“If you knew what I am suffering, Jane,” he said. “I am terrified that you are going to say no. And I know that if you do, there will be no shifting you. Have pity on me. I have never been in this position before. I have always been able to have my own way with ease.”
But she would only look back at him with the same expression on her face.
“What is it?” he asked her, but she shook her head slightly. “Jane, I long to go home. To go back to Acton—with you. To start creating our own memories and our own traditions there. You thought you knew my dreams. But this is my dream. Will you not share it with me?”
She pressed her lips even harder together.
“Why have you stopped talking to me?” He clasped his hands at his back and leaned his head slightly closer to her. “Jane?”
“This is all aboutyou, is it not?” she blurted. “About what you want? About your dreams? What about me? Do you even care about me?”
“Tell me,” he said. “What about you, Jane? What do you want? Do you want me to go away? Seriously? Tell me if you do—but quietly and seriously, not in a passion, so that I will know that you mean what you say. Tell me to go and I will.”
Even facing Forbes’s pistol a few days before had not filled him with such terror.
“I am withchild,” she cried. “I have no choices left.”
He recoiled rather as if she had punched him on the chin with the full force of her fist. Good God! How long had she known? Would she have told him if he had not come today? Would sheeverhave told him? Ever have confided in him, trusted him, forgiven him?
She glared at him in the silence that followed her words. He clasped his hands so tightly behind his back that he felt pain.
“Ah, so,” he said softly at last. “Well, this changes everything, Jane.”
26
ADY WEBB OPENED JANE’S DRESSING ROOM DOORand stepped inside. Dressed in midnight blue with matching plumed turban, she formed a marked contrast to Jane, who looked almost ethereal in a fashionable low-cut gown of white lace over white satin, silver thread gleaming on the scalloped hem, the sash beneath her bosom, and the short scalloped sleeves. She wore long white gloves and silver slippers and had a narrow white, silver-shot ribbon threaded through her golden hair.
“Oh, Sara, my dear,” Lady Webb said, “you are indeed the daughter I never had. How fortunate I am. But how I wish your poor mother could be here to see you on surely the most important day of your life. You look positively beautiful.”
Jane had been critically examining her appearance in the long pier glass in her dressing room. She turned to her godmother.
“You said exactly the same thing yesterday when I was forced to wear those horrid, heavy, old-fashioned clothes that the queen insists upon when one is being presented at one of her Drawing Rooms,” she said. “I certainly feel better tonight.”
“Your presentation at court was obligatory,” Lady Webb said. “Your come-out ball is your personal, triumphant entry into society.”
“Will it be a triumph, do you suppose?”
Jane picked up her fan from the dressing table. She was feeling a fluttering of anxiety about the evening ahead. All day there had been a great hustle and bustle in preparation for the ball. Since returning from a morning outing with her maid, she had watched in wonder as the ballroom was transformed before her eyes. It was decked out all in white and silver ribbons and bows and flowers, the only color provided by the lush green of leaves and ferns. The great chandeliers had been lowered and cleaned and filled with hundreds of new candles. The orchestra had arrived late in the afternoon and set up their instruments on the dais. The dining room had been set with all the best porcelain and crystal and silverware for a sumptuous supper banquet at midnight.
“Ofcourseit will be a triumph,” Lady Webb said, approaching Jane and hugging her, though not closely enough to rumple either of them. “How could it not? You are Lady Sara Illingsworth, daughter of the late Earl of Durbury and a great heiress. You are as lovely as the princesses of fairy tales. And you already have a considerable court of admirers.”
Jane smiled ruefully.
“You could make any of a number of brilliant matches,” her godmother told her. “Viscount Kimble, for example, has been markedly attentive and could be brought up to scratch, I believe. You need not feel obliged to allow Tresham to continue paying court to you—if he intends to do so, that is. He came and made you a decent offer—at least, I trust it was decent. But the choice is yours, Sara.”
“Aunt Harriet,” Jane said half reproachfully.
