Jane lifted her face to gaze at him, but she was too alarmed by the embrace to smile.
Beaumont’s own smile sort of froze in place in embarrassment. “You must stay for dinner, Miss Austen.”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that,” said Jane. “We are simply here to…” Why were they here? “My mother and my sister will be worried about me.”
“Send them off a note, telling them you’ll be back after dinner, then,” said Beaumont.
“I don’t have anything to wear,” said Jane. She had not come prepared for dinner. She was not dressed for such a thing.
“No worries on that score,” said Beaumont. “We shan’t be bothering to dress here at all. Indeed, my wife is still recovering. She will take her meal in her rooms. We’ll just have something entirely informal together, in the breakfast parlor.”
Jane wasn’t sure this was better. This seemed highly improper, suddenly, her gallivanting all over on Lord Byron’s horse, having intimate dinners with men who embraced each other and who—either one—could have strangled Miss Anne Seward. “I don’t know, sir, truly, I am only here to ask if you…”Have been unfaithful to your wife with another woman.
“I shan’t take no for an answer,” said Beaumont. “Say you’ll stay.”
Jane finally found a smile, but it was a nervous one. “Well, if you really do insist, I suppose I haven’t a choice, then.”
“You do not,” said Beaumont with a grin.
CHAPTER SIX
“THIS IS PERFECT, you see,” said Byron to Jane as they sat together in the breakfast parlor, waiting for Beaumont to arrive. There was a simple supper laid out, only meat and carrots and some dinner rolls, and they would be serving themselves, for no servants were there with them. “I can stay here, with Beaumont, and then I can come and call upon you each day, and we can go out into town and speak to people and get to the bottom of what happened to Miss Seward.”
“Oh,” said Jane. “You think this is going to take several days, do you?”
“I don’t know,” said Byron. “It could. I obviously couldn’t stay with you, and after what happened in town, I wouldn’t feel comfortable staying at an inn—also, inns are rather expensive, don’t you find that? And so, here, with Beaumont, everything is much more tidy.”
“Well,” said Jane, “you don’t really need my help, though, not with this. You were going to go and ask questions on your own, clear your name on your own, were you not?”
“You don’t wish to help?” he said. He thought about it. “No, why would you, after all?”
“It’s not that I don’t wish to, it’s that I shouldn’t,” she said, looking around the parlor. “I don’t entirely know how it is that I’ve ended up here. I simply went on a walk, and then I got pulledinto this entire scheme. This is not how I live my life, my lord. I have things planned out and executed. I don’t simply flit into people’s houses and get myself invited to dinner.”
“I see,” he said.
She sighed. “Oh, this is neither here nor there. How do you know this man?”
“School chums,” said Byron.
“And you were obviously quite close,” said Jane.
“Oh, indeed.” Byron chuckled to himself.
“And so I doubt you do think he murdered Miss Seward.”
“Well, I can’t say for sure,” said Byron.
“You don’t vouch for his character?”
“No, of course not, and he wouldn’t vouch for mine either. We are not that way with each other. We have both seen each other do all manner of things that might be considered untoward,” said Byron.
“Yes, I suppose that would be the case when it comes to you,” said Jane.
“But I shall handle all of that,” said Byron. “Let me question him.”
Jane sighed. “I simply am not sure why I am even here.”
Byron considered this. “Perhaps I can see that. But you’ve already accepted the invitation to dinner, so you might as well stay.”
