A Lord Rotheby's Holiday Bundle (122 page)

Number Fourteen was an empty shop, not
an existing modiste shop like he’d expected. The uncovered windows
revealed nothing inside but a couple of bare countertops and a
handful of chairs. No sign that anyone was there at all.

“
What in bloody hell does
she think she’s doing here?”

A gentleman Peter vaguely recognized
Lord Raynesford glared at him from across the street, where he was
escorting two ladies. He really needed to regain his composure.
Cursing in public in such a manner was inexcusable.

“
Jane has let this
building,” Sophie informed him. “For her business.”

“
Her
business?” It was worse than he had ever imagined. What could
have possessed the minx to think she could possibly run a business
on her own?

“
Yes, her modiste shop. She
plans to make gowns for the ladies of the
beau monde
. I believe she’ll be quite
good at it.” Sophie gave him a curt nod, as though to further
emphasize her point. “If one should ask me, that is.”

“
Jane? The same Jane who
came to London wearing tattered rags covered in stains? I hardly
think fashionable ladies will rely on her for their fashion.” She
was delusional. And his sister was almost as bad. Yes, she’d
mentioned she could sew—but making gowns such as would be required
by Society ladies seemed far beyond her area of
expertise.

“
Oh, she does lovely work,
Peter,” his mother interjected. “She could do quite well for
herself, judging from the gowns her mother showed me.”

Perfect. This just served as proof
that a severe dearth of common sense had recently afflicted the
women in his life. “And she’s living here, as well?” he asked. The
thought of living in such a confined space caused him to shudder.
While he certainly could make do in something smaller than
Hardwicke House if necessary, this took the idea to an
extreme.

“
In the apartment just
above,” Sophie said.

It was pointless to continue standing
around in the street, discussing Jane’s intentions. Peter marched
to the front door of the shop and tried the handle. It was locked.
Thank God she at least had enough common sense for that.

But it would make his current endeavor
all the more difficult.

Peter knocked loud enough that Jane
should be able to hear him from above stairs and waited. And
waited.

Then he waited some more.

“
Do you think, perhaps,
they didn’t hear you?” Mama asked.

Coming out of a stairwell
near the back of the shop, a bright orange ball of fur started
toward them, slinking along in an arabesque pattern over the floor,
and pausing to sniff at random intervals.
Mr. Cuddlesworth
. Jane was definitely
here.

Peter sighed. “Jane heard.”
Grudgingly, he reached up and knocked again—louder and longer this
time. “Open the door.” His voice, while not loud enough to carry
down the street, should still carry far enough to be heard
upstairs.

Then they all waited again, almost as
long as they waited the first time.

Almost. Sophie interrupted his musing.
“Perhaps you should try again, Peter. It seems Jane and Meg can’t
hear. Maybe you should knock a bit louder.”

This time, he glared. And growled.
“They can hear me perfectly well.” Jane was just willfully ignoring
him. When she finally came down and opened the door to him—which
had better happen soon—he promised himself to give her a good piece
of his mind for keeping him waiting.

In the meanwhile, he pounded so hard
upon the door that he thought it might break in, and he did not let
up his pace. “Open the door, Jane! I guarantee you this noise will
not stop until you let us in.”

His fury grew by the moment. Finally,
Meg emerged from a stairwell and walked to the door—Peter watched
her through the windows—but she stood there without opening the
door. Mr. Cuddlesworth moved to pace his figure-eights between her
legs.

“
Miss Matthews requests
that you kindly stop pounding on the door of her establishment,
Your Grace.” The maid’s voice trembled, but she didn’t
waver.

“
You may inform Miss
Matthews,” he said with more menace than he intended, “I’ll cease
pounding when she deigns to speak with me.”

“
Oh,” said Meg, with her
eyes widening. “Well.” Then she picked up the cat and scurried away
up the stairs.

He waited two minutes for Jane to
appear, then resumed knocking on the door—still louder, this time.
“I only want to speak with you, Jane.” Several passers-by stopped
and stared. “You are causing me to create a spectacle on the
street. Open the door.”

Several moments passed, with neither
sight nor sound of either Jane or Meg. Peter prepared himself to
deliver her a blistering set-down when she finally appeared. The
minx needed to understand she couldn’t just leave without a word.
She hadn’t even bothered to tell him to his face that she was
calling off their engagement.

This was simply unacceptable. And the
idea that she could start a business? Laughable, at
best.

After close to a quarter of an hour of
him beating on her door and calling up to her, Jane stormed down
the stairs with Mr. Cuddlesworth following in her wake. She threw
open the locks and pulled the door open, issuing him a scowl that
would melt an iceberg. “I beg your pardon.”

“
As well you should,” Peter
drawled, “for having the audacity to call off our engagement
without informing me of such a decision.”

He pushed past her and into the empty
shop, taking her wrist firmly into his hand when she tried to push
against him and block his progress. Mama, Sophie, and the cat
followed him in. Mama closed the door behind them.

“
Why, you
arrogant—”

“
Stop while you’re ahead,
Jane. That’s a lesson you need to learn, I fear. You might also beg
my forgiveness for your sudden departure from my home, without
informing me of where you were going, since you are still my
charge. And then there’s the small matter of your mistaken
beliefs.” Peter continued to advance upon her, forcing her to back
away lest he run her over.

“
Mistaken beliefs? I’ll
have you know—”

Two more steps had her back
pinned against the far wall, her wrist still locked tightly in his
grip. “
I
will
have
you
know that
you’ll most certainly and irrevocably not survive the blow to your
reputation that the impending scandal will cause if you follow
through with your silly plan.”

“
I most certainly will.
Sophie agreed with me that the notoriety will cause the
ton
to be curious, and
will only help me to grow and maintain a client base.”

“
Is that so?” He turned to
look at Sophie for the first time since he’d entered the
shop.

She nodded.

Fiend seize it, his sister was
definitely not helping his cause. One might think she had even been
plotting and scheming against him.

“
That is most assuredly
so,” Jane said. “And she’s right. Once word gets out in Society
about the so-called scandal, ladies will flock to my shop in
droves, eager to see for themselves the mere miss who had the
audacity to jilt the Duke of Somerton.”

“
You are a fool. They will
come, that’s a certainty. But they’ll come to gawk and make a
mockery of you for your gauche idiocy.”

“
Jane, dear,” his mother
interrupted. “I’m afraid Peter is right this time.”

This time. It was pleasing to know his
mother had such confidence in him.

Jane looked back and forth
between Sophie and his mother. “It doesn’t matter. I will not marry
him. And since he was so kind as to inform the
beau monde
of our betrothal—which,
I’ll have you all know, I never agreed to—I’ll now be as good as
black-balled for reneging on the arrangement. There’s nothing to be
done about it. I’ll simply have to start up my shop and hope for
the best.”

“
I can’t allow you to do
something so rash.” Patience was preparing to abandon Peter
completely, further exacerbated by the fact that the cat was now
butting its head up against Peter’s legs and rubbing all over him.
“Your parents have entrusted you to my mother’s care, which
essentially places you in my care. Whether you marry me or not,
you
will
return to
Hardwicke House.” Even if he had to drag her there by the
hair.

The little halfwit opened her mouth to
argue with him again. She didn’t know when to stop. But then Jane
whispered something that sounded rather like “Drat” to his ears.
She stared up at him, fighting to keep the tears pooling in her
eyes from falling. “I’ll not marry a boor who could never love me.”
The conviction in her voice started to wane. “You can’t deny that
you see me as inferior—as someone unworthy to be your
duchess.”

At least she was allowing him to see
the direction her mind was traveling. “I won’t deny that I thought
that at one point. But things change, Jane.”

Her eyes crinkled at the corners and
she frowned up at him. “What has changed?”

“
For one thing, I
remembered that my first wife was everything I expected in a
duchess—but I still had a miserable marriage. I have no desire to
repeat that failure.”

Her frown softened somewhat and the
tension in her wrist went lax. Hopefully she would give up her
fight soon. They still had a rather full day ahead of
them.

“
Another thing is that I
have developed a rather odd fascination with you.”

She winced at the
word
odd
, but
refrained from interrupting.

“
You see, I actually enjoy
spending time with you...even if you do lack a few of the social
graces most women of the
ton
are expected to master.”

“
You mean to say even if
I’m an utter and complete disaster in the eyes of the
beau monde
.”

“
Far from it. There’s
something peculiarly refreshing about your tendency toward
committing a
faux pas
. I look forward to discovering not only what you might do,
but observing how the
ton
reacts to you. And they love you,
Jane.”

Peter specifically
said
they
loved
her—he hadn’t included himself in the
they
. He probably should have. That
might help things. But he wasn’t sure he was ready to admit it to
her yet. He needed to show her, because she wasn’t one to simply
take him at his word.

She stared off into the empty
storefront for several moments before responding. “If I marry
you...”

“
Yes?
When
you marry me?”

Another searing glare.
“
If
I marry you,
will you treat me as a wife, or as a responsibility?”

She truly had some of the most
ridiculous questions he’d ever heard. “They are one and the same.
My wife is my duty. It is my responsibility to see to all of your
needs.”

Her frown intensified at that
response. “And if I become your wife, what will be my
responsibility? Other than the obvious, that is.” Jane’s eyes
shifted to his mother and Sophie for a moment, then back to
him.

“
Other than sharing in the
marriage bed, do you mean?”

She flushed a deep crimson
almost instantaneously, and it took all of his concentration not to
toss Mama and Sophie out of the shop and ravish Jane on the dusty
countertop. He leaned in close to her ear, where the others
couldn’t hear. “And you
will
marry me, because as much as you may wish
otherwise, you feel a need to finish what we started last
night.”

She shivered against the wall, her
wrist pulling against his grip. Well. At least that had had the
desired effect on her, even if nothing else had.

He had to get the
conversation back on track. “I’ll take that as a yes,” he ground
out, loud enough Mama and Sophie could hear. Good God, he felt like
a green youth around Jane. “Well, apart from
those
duties, you must care for our
children and stand at my side at any society functions where it
would be required. Other than that, if you desire, you can be
responsible for overseeing the running of my home.”

“
If I desire
it
…”

“
Yes. If you wish. I won’t
insist upon it.”

“
Very well,” she said with
a scowl that would level a lesser man. “And what else would be
included in my responsibilities?”

Christ, wasn’t that enough? Mary had
never wanted to have even half of that in her care. “You may also
be responsible for organizing a ball or other entertainment each
Season.” The details of those always entailed a great amount of
care in planning. Surely all of those things could keep the minx
busy.