A Lord Rotheby's Holiday Bundle (107 page)

“
I mean I don’t want you to
clean up after me. Please cease immediately.” Before I rip them
from your hands. Somehow, Jane kept that last little bit to
herself. She prayed for patience. It simply wouldn’t do to attack
the servant for the sins of her master—the bloody man who had the
audacity to call her stupid.

She would show him. He could not order
her about, no matter how much higher he ranked within the ton than
she.

“
I’m terribly sorry, ma’am,
but I’m a bit confused.” Meg still held the shift she had been
folding loosely in her hands, but at least she had stopped working
for the moment. “Are you going somewhere? Might I help you to
pack?”

There was a thought. “Yes, fine. Will
you go and fetch a trunk, please?”

“
Of course. But miss, where
are you going? Her Grace sent me to help you dress for the
evening—for the entertainment at Lady Kearsey’s house. Are you not
going?”

“
No. I’m not.” Not that it
was any of Meg’s business. “Please see to fetching a trunk
immediately.” The servant set the garment she was holding down and
turned to do her bidding. “Oh, and Meg? Please don’t mention this
to anyone. Not yet, at least.”

“
No one, ma’am? But I’ll
need a footman to carry a trunk up the stairs for me.”

Jane cringed at the headache building
in her temples. Patience. Time to exercise patience. “No one but a
single footman, then, and swear him to secrecy as well. Do please
hurry.”

Once Meg finally scurried away, Jane
had a moment to think. If only she’d made more progress toward
opening her shop. That would at least give her somewhere to go, a
way to earn at least a meager living. But she had yet to even find
a solicitor to aid her in the process.

Granted, she had done a good deal to
learn about her competition, and she had studied the stitchery in
the gowns Miss Jenkins had made for her. That was some progress,
though not nearly as much as she would have liked.

But she needed a storefront. She
needed a place to set up her business, preferably with living
quarters attached.

Where would she go now?

Where
could
she go?

Only one thing was certain—absolutely
certain, beyond any shadow of a doubt. She wouldn’t stay one more
night in the same home as His Grace, the haughty, repugnant tyrant
who couldn’t lower himself enough to cease looking down his nose
upon her.

A commotion sounded at the doorway to
her chamber. Good. Meg and the footman must be bringing a trunk in
so she could finish her packing and leave before someone tried to
stop her. Jane hated to hurt Cousin Henrietta, and she dreaded no
longer having the companionship of Sophie and Charlotte...but what
could be done for it?

“
Pardon me. Let me through,
please.”

Oh dear. That was no footman. And it
was definitely not Meg, either.

Drat.

Sophie burst through the door to
Jane’s dressing room and planted her fists against her hips,
wearing a lovely blue evening gown and with her hair out of sorts,
as though she had gotten up in the middle of having her hair
coiffed for the night. “What, pray tell, is the meaning of all of
this?” She gestured with one hand toward the mess about the floor,
then looked over her shoulder at the footman standing behind her,
sheepishly carrying a single, rather large trunk.

Good gracious, she did not have time
for all of this. She sent a glare in Meg’s direction, who refused
to meet her eyes, then returned her attention to Sophie. “What does
it look like?”

“
It looks like you’re
running away, and I, for one, will have none of it.” Sophie looked
behind her at the two servants eagerly listening in to their
conversation. “Leave us.”

“
Yes, my lady.” They bobbed
their bow and curtsy and slunk away, the footman taking the trunk
with them.

“
Whatever has gotten into
you, Jane?” Sophie walked over to her, took one hand into her own,
and pulled her down to a settee. “What on earth could have brought
you to this?”

Jane studiously avoided meeting her
eyes. “I don’t particularly care to discuss it at the
moment.”

“
Too bad. You’ll tell me
now, and that’s all there is to it.” She frowned when Jane didn’t
immediately respond. “It was Peter, wasn’t it? I just
knew
he was up to
something when he was eavesdropping on us in the drawing room
earlier. And then when he kept you behind…well, out with
it.”

Jane merely shook her head. Sophie
narrowed her eyes at her. Drat, she mustn’t be hiding the truth
very well. “You will learn, if you haven’t already done so, that
there can be no secrets kept from me. Not for long, at least.”
Sophie lifted a single eyebrow and inclined her head in a
tell-me-or-else sort of manner. “I have my ways.”

“
Well, you’ll just have to
use one of your ways, then. I’m not giving in so
easily.”

“
He kissed you.”

It sounded like an
accusation. “What? Really...” Had Sophie somehow seen them that
night in the garden? And she had
thought
they were discussing the
conversation that occurred only moments ago in the drawing
room.

“
I knew it! He did kiss
you.”
“No, no he didn’t kiss me.”

Sophie frowned. “He did so.
Your eyes told me the truth, so it won’t do you any good to try to
lie to me. I’ll see straight through you. He kissed you and
you
enjoyed
it.”

Jane knit her brows together and gave
her friend the fiercest frown she could muster. Then she got up and
started to pull items from drawers and closets again. “You have the
strangest ideas, Sophie. If your mother knew what we were
discussing...”

“
But she won’t know, will
she? Besides, it’s perfectly clear that you not only enjoyed it
when Peter kissed you, you want him to kiss you again. Plain as day
on your face.”

“
Humph.” Jane shook her
head to herself. Since when was that the best retort she could
manage? “Whether your brother kissed me or not is entirely
irrelevant. I’m leaving.” The unmentionables in her hands were
tangled into a knot, so she tossed them aside.

“
Why?” Sophie shot
back.

“
What do you mean,
‘why’?”

“
I mean why? Why are you
leaving? Why are you running away from him?” She stood and began to
replace all of Jane’s belongings in their proper drawers and
cabinets, utterly ignoring the severe scowl Jane gave her for doing
so.

“
Would you please stop
that?” Jane asked in an almost commanding tone as she pulled her
garments free from Sophie’s grasp.

“
No. Answer me.” The
infuriating woman picked up another stack and tossed it into the
armoire before slamming the door shut.

“
Answer what?” Jane threw
the door open and pulled the stack out again, tossing it onto the
floor alongside the majority of the destructed dressing room’s
contents. “I’ll answer you when you ask me a reasonable question
and not a moment before.”

“
And I’ll ask you a
reasonable question when you behave like a reasonable person! You,
my friend, are no coward. You proved that this afternoon. Why on
earth are you behaving like one now?”

“
I’m not. You’re behaving
like a shrew, poking your nose into my business.” Jane pulled
another stack of clothes from Sophie’s hands, sending most of them
falling to the floor—other than the dress that each of them had a
hand fully grasping. “Let go.”

“
No. Tell me why you’re
running from my brother, when it is perfectly clear that you are
madly in love with him.” She tugged at the dress, pulling Jane
closer to her.

Ha! In love with that rude,
overbearing, condescending boor? Never.

“
I most certainly am not,”
she said and returned the tug. “Unhand my dress. You’ll ruin
it.”

“
You can fix it later. We
all know you’re more than capable of that, even if you are
incapable of giving an answer to a simple question.”

“
Why on earth would you
possibly think I’m in love with him? I’ve never heard anything more
ludicrous in my entire life.”

“
Then why are you nearly in
tears? You love him, and you cannot stand it.”

“
I’m not about to cry,” she
said before she felt the sting of hot tears pouring down her
cheeks. “Oh, drat!”

“
I told you.”

“
You are most definitely
not helping anything at the moment, Sophie.” Could she possibly
love him? Impossible. He constantly insisted on putting her in her
place, he tried to intimidate her at every turn—and he hated Mr.
Cuddlesworth! She could think of no man she wanted to love less
than the Duke of Somerton.

No, it was out of the question. She
was simply so...so...so mad at the man. Nothing more.

“
Nevertheless, you are
crying, and it is clearly about Peter. So what is it?” Again,
Sophie led her to the settee to sit—but only after shoving piles of
tossed about clothing off of it. “Tell me. Why are you
leaving?”

“
Because he’s horrible to
me. He called me stupid today, and I will not—
ever
—be called stupid. Not by any
man. I won’t stand for it, for the way he speaks down to me, the
way he does everything possible to even avoid looking at me. It’s
simply more than I can bear.”

“
He would never intend to
hurt you. I can promise you that.” Sophie patted the back of her
hand, calming and soothing. “Surely he’s just unaware of his
behavior. He’s always doing things that seem to contradict what he
really feels and wants. Terrible habit, that.” Her eyes took on an
almost wistful gaze, staring off into nothing.

“
You only think that of him
because he is your brother.”

“
Well—as you said,
he
is
my brother.
I love him. And because I love him and have known him my entire
life, I can assure you that he’s not truly a horrible man. Not at
all. He loves his family and works very hard to keep us all happy
and comfortable. Perhaps he is simply—a bit naïve about how he is
making you feel?”

“
That’s no excuse,” Jane
mumbled, then sniffled and used a random garment to dry her
tears.

“
No. But it’s also no
reason to run away. Besides, whatever would you do? You are a
single woman in London. There are only so many options, my dear,
and none of them are acceptable.”

“
One of them is,” she
muttered beneath her breath.

Again Sophie’s eyes narrowed into her
shrewd, entirely too perceptive gaze. “What did you
say?”

Double drat. When would she ever learn
to keep her mouth shut when she good and well needed to keep it
shut?

“
Nothing.”

“
Stop lying. It is
unattractive. You said one option was acceptable. Tell me what you
meant.”

“
Er...”

“
Don’t you dare try to
avoid this, Jane. Answer me.”

“
I could...I could open my
own modiste business. I could sew to make my living.” Please, let
Sophie drop it now.

A moment passed in silence,
then, “A modiste shop? Oh, that would be
perfect
for you!” Sophie’s cobalt
blue eyes sparkled with mischief. “But now is not the time. You
need to face Peter instead of running away from him. Besides, your
come-out ball is just around the corner. You couldn’t disappoint
Mama like that. Let us get through this, and then we’ll see what’s
to be done. I’ll help you.”

“
You’ll help me?
How?”

“
Well, have you found a
solicitor yet? I believe I know of a few gentlemen who could help.
And perhaps you’ll need a contributor—you know, financially. I can
help with that, too.”

“
Oh, no. I could never take
your money. I have enough on my own.”

Sophie studied her for a moment and
then nodded briskly. “Very well. And the solicitor?”

“
I would gladly appreciate
your suggestions in that area.”

“
Excellent. Then it’s
settled.”

“
Really? You’ll help me do
it. Why?”

“
Because frankly, no woman
should have to marry simply because that is the way of things. If
you want to run a modiste shop, I’ll do anything I can to assist
you in that endeavor.” Sophie stood and looked about at the massive
mess in Jane’s dressing room. “I suggest you allow Meg to help you
dress. That is, if she can find something appropriate in all
of
this
. We should
be downstairs soon, or Mama will come up to see what’s causing the
delay.”

With a grin as wide as the sea, Sophie
left.

Chapter Ten

The one man in all of England Jane
most wanted to strangle was the one man who refused to leave her
side the entire evening.

As expected, word of her
misadventures in Hyde Park had traveled through the
ton
faster than one could
sneeze. She was the talk of Town—quite literally.