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“I’m a governess, or at least I was until two weeks ago,” she said with a shrug. “There was never anything else for me to do.”
“If you think that, you’re a foolish woman, and I’ve never thought for a second that my wife’s two closest friends were anything but clever.” He squeezed her hand once again as the sound of Elizabeth and Mary’s boots scraping against the gravel grew nearer. “What would you do right now if you weren’t so dead set against ruffling a few feathers?”
She frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Everyone who has regrets has played out some scenario over and over again in their head where they do the one thing that will redeem them. What’s yours?”
Jane’s chest contracted. Somehow the earl had managed to break down all of the barriers she’d erected with one question. Not even hours of conversation with her two closest friends had done that.
“I’d go find him,” she said, her voice soft but clear.
“How?”
She had it all planned out, because all she’d had to do for the last two weeks was think about the life she might’ve had. In that time, Nicholas’s words had worked their way in, casting doubts on her convictions. Why couldn’t she be a baroness? Why couldn’t she and Nicholas try to find a way to guard his sisters’ futures? Why couldn’t she just let herself be happy and stop imagining that everyone was set to leave her the way her aunt and uncle had in sending her to school? The way her parents had when they’d died so early that all she had was a hazy recollection of who they were.
Why couldn’t she accept that Nicholas might actually love her, as he said?
“I’d go to Victoria Station and buy a ticket to Kent,” she said, her voice growing stronger.
“And then?”
She thought about the train schedule she’d asked Warthing to secure for her, and then tucked into the pages of her book, believing she’d never use it but wanting to have it nonetheless.
“I’d board the South Eastern Railway. I would disembark at Trenterden and hire a cart to drive me to Madeley House.”
“And what would you say to Lord Hollings when you saw him?” Eric asked with a grin.
“That I loved him. That I was sorry I wasn’t strong enough to believe that we could have a future together.”
“Anything else?”
She pursed her lips. “Nothing that’s suitable for a peer’s ears.”
Eric threw back his head and laughed. “That sounds like quite the plan. I’ll bet you even have the train picked out.”
“The two-twenty,” she said a little sheepishly.
“And what if we were to drive you to the station, buy you that ticket, and send you to Kent?” he asked. “Chaperoned by two married friends, of course.”
Oh, the earl was a devious man. With a few simple questions, he’d made her realize that the plan that had been rolling around in her head for days might actually work. Then he’d presented her with a way to execute it, making it nearly impossible for her not to follow through. Eric had removed some of the obstacles and, with time, her own resolve to stay away from Nicholas had weakened. Her need to see him was powerful, and she didn’t know if she could live with the ache any longer.
Jane smoothed her hands over her dress and looked up at the sun that shone over the buildings of Belgravia. “I think I have just enough time to pack if I’m to catch that train.”
“This is so exciting,” said Elizabeth with a squeeze of Jane’s hand.
“Exciting or nerve-racking?” asked Jane. “What am I doing?”
“Exactly what you should be doing,” said Mary from the opposite bench of the Asten carriage.
“Exactly what you want to do,” said Eric. “It’s your plan.”
“Encouraged by you,” she reminded him.
“Very clever of you, my dear,” said Mary with a smile for her husband.
“I’ll be sure to remind you of it as often as possible,” said the earl, nudging his wife playfully.
The carriage shuddered to a stop at the front doors of Victoria Station, and Jane’s stomach flipped. She was really doing this. She was going to Madeley to ask for a second chance. She’d beg Nicholas’s forgiveness and hope he could overlook the fact that she’d allowed him to walk away. But most important, she’d tell him she loved him.
