“He’s very interesting,” Marianne said. “I understand from Esme and from Sebastian that he’s led a fascinating life.”
Jane thought of the years she’d known him, about his powerful career as a pugilist, about how he’d pulled himself from that life and created a whole new one, a very successful one, with his club. “Yes. Fascinating.”
Esme arched a brow. “I think my two dear friends are trying to pry very politely into what the two of you are to each other.”
Jane swallowed. “What we are?”
Marianne and Clarissa exchanged a look. “He’s very handsome," Clarissa said carefully. “And he always seems to be watching you. You are very comfortable when you’re talking. It does make one wonder if there might be something more, something deeper than the friendship we understand you two share.”
Jane looked at Esme. “You aren’t involving yourself in this silliness, are you? You know that Ripley and I are friends. There’s nothing more to it.”
“Isn’t there?” Esme asked, and there was no teasing to her tone.
“I think I’ll get more madeira if I’m to entertain such foolishness,” Jane said with a forced laugh as she walked away to the sideboard.
When she was no longer facing the other women, her smile fell. Her heart was racing. She knew none of them meant any harm. All of them, her dear friend included, were just rich, bored women, just as she’d told Ripley. They’d found love and they wanted to see it everywhere else they looked. It was kindly meant, but they didn’t understand her world. Even Esme, who had inhabited it for several years, had only been a passing visitor. They didn’t understand that love was a liability for some. That it could create weakness. Cause pain.
“Why isn’t this whisky?” she muttered as she picked up the bottle of wine and began to uncork it.
“I have whisky.”
Jane jumped as Esme appeared at her shoulder like a wisp. She laughed as she bent to the cabinet at Jane’s knees and brought out a bottle. She waggled it playfully and then poured it into Jane’s empty glass.
“Are you well?” she asked as she did so.
Jane gripped the glass tighter. Once upon a time she might have poured out her troubles to her friend. But that was when she was just Esme, champion female pugilist and runaway heiress.
But now she was Lady Delacourt. Charlotte Esmerelda. A former lightskirt couldn’t give over her troubles to someone with all those honorifics, could she?
“Of course,” Jane said instead.
“The shop is going well?” Esme pressed.
Jane swallowed. “Yes.”
She hoped she didn’t sound as uncertain as she felt. It wasn’t just that the visitors to her general store were few and far between, probably fewer and further between since Elizabeth had made her unpleasant stop there a few days before. It was that when Jane was in the shop she felt…itchy. Uncomfortable. Out of place.
Esme had meant well in helping her procure the place, helping her step away from a life made on the wages of sin. But it didn’t feel like a place that…fit.
“I’m worried about you,” Esme said, taking her hand and squeezing. “Worried about us. I don’t see you anymore and I miss my friend.”
Jane shut her eyes and hated that tears stung behind them. Ones she refused to allow to fall. “Oh, you know how it is. Just so busy. And you are, too. A freshly married lady must have all kinds of things to do. Both the mundane and the much more exciting if the way Delacourt always has to touch you is any indication.”
Esme’s expression softened. “He is wonderful. I do adore him to distraction. But I’m never too busy for you. If you need me, I’ll always be here.”
Jane was mercifully saved from having to answer that statement by the gentlemen returning to the room together after their port and billiards. Esme squeezed her hand and returned to Delacourt, as the others did to their own husbands. But Ripley didn’t come to her as he had earlier in the night. He smiled at her, but then he went to the fireplace and lit a cigar.
And she was left alone. Which was what she’d always claimed she wanted: to be independent. And yet it didn’t feel as good as she wished it was.
In that moment, it felt empty.
CHAPTER 3
A few days had passed since the gathering at Esme and Delacourt’s, but Jane still found herself out of sorts. She kept thinking of the conversation started by countesses. The one that questioned what her relationship with Ripley was, exactly. Put that together with the emptiness she felt sitting for hours in her lonely shop and…well, her head was not a good place to hide at present.
She sighed as she began the process of shutting the shop down for the night. There had only been one customer today, an elderly gentleman who had spent time pursuing her general goods but had ultimately only bought a few sweets. She reorganized shelves that hadn’t even been touched, dusted off countertops and eventually moved to the door to pull the shades and lock up.
Before she could, the door opened and a young man stepped in.
