A Lord Rotheby's Holiday Bundle (96 page)

At least, if they were visiting, Jane
wouldn’t have to worry about what Meg was doing. The girl could go
off and do whatever it was a lady’s maid did while they waited for
their next task. “Not at all. Come in.”

“
Sophie tends to do as she
likes,” said Charlotte, “despite whether anyone minds or not.”
Pulling a chaise closer to where Sophie and Jane sat, she smiled.
“She intended to disturb you, without a care as to your thoughts on
the matter. It’s only one of the many less-than-desirable habits
our governess was unable to break her of, much to Peter’s
chagrin.”

Jane laughed. “I do much the same,
myself. My mother is none too pleased about it.” In fact, it might
very well be part of the reason Mother had sent her here. Perhaps
Mother thought the duke and Cousin Henrietta could set Jane
straight.

If that were the case, she couldn’t be
further from right. A prim and proper lady, one who belonged in a
genteel setting with servants waiting on her hand and foot, was
something Jane would never be.

“
We got that impression
already. About you, that is,” Sophie said. “I daresay I haven’t
laughed as hard as I did when you told Peter you had cat sick caked
beneath your bosom. He looked like his head might lob off and roll
across the floor at the slightest breeze.”

“
Oh, dear.” She oughtn’t to
have said that. Actually, she didn’t even remember saying it, but
she must have done. Good Lord, would she never learn to think
before she spoke? How mortifying!

“
Don’t be upset, Jane,”
Charlotte said. “We all rather enjoyed ourselves.”

“
At my expense,” she
countered. “But I’m not upset with you, only with myself. Your
mother has taken on a task I’m afraid she can’t master with me,
Sophie. I’m a hopeless cause.”

“
Hopelessly perfect,” Char
said.

Perfect, indeed. A perfect
pickle, more like. “Gentlemen will be swimming for the continent,
once I descend upon the
ton
.”

Sophie laughed. “You, my dear, give
yourself far too little credit.”

Char hummed in agreement. “They’ll be
beating down Peter’s door to offer for you. We’ll have to beat them
off with clubs.”

“
Hardly,” Jane replied. “I
can’t fathom any gentleman looking twice at me, if you’re in the
room.”

Sophie Hardwicke had to be the most
beautiful creature on the face of the planet, with her perfect
ivory skin dotted with a light smattering of freckles, her
intensely deep blue eyes, and the most striking rich red curls Jane
had ever encountered. It was a wonder she had not already been
swept off the marriage mart. And Charlotte could have been her
twin, were she closer in age, save for her eyes being a more green
shade.

“
Oh, pish. None of them
bother with me anymore. I’ve already rejected the suits of nearly
half the
beau monde
.” She brushed a stray lock behind her ear. “The rest are
either too afraid to approach me, or too ignorant to realize I’m
the best thing that could ever happen to them. Or the worst.
Whichever the case may be.”

Charlotte snorted inelegantly. “I
think most would fall into that first category.”

Jane couldn’t imagine having turned
away so many suitors. In her entire life, she’d only had one, and
he’d been an overbearing imbecile on the best of days.

“
Why did you reject so
many?” she asked.

“
I doubt I can recall my
reasons for each of them, Jane. This
has
been going on for a good number
of years, you know.”

“
Don’t try to paint
yourself in a better light, now,” said Charlotte. She looked at
Jane with a serious expression, nodding for emphasis. “They simply
didn’t measure up.”

“
Measure up to
what?”

Charlotte and Sophie looked at each
other, raising eyebrows in turn. “Well?” Char finally
prodded.

Still, Sophie remained silent. She
even bit her tongue—literally.

Char sighed. “They didn’t measure up
to her idea of the perfect man. She refuses to marry anyone who is
less than what she wants.”

“
I’d say that is sound
reasoning,” Jane said. Why justify settling? Especially if, like
Sophie, one had an ample fortune at her beck and call. Jane
honestly couldn’t fathom why more women of means didn’t remain
unmarried and happy.

“
See?” replied Sophie,
frowning across at her sister. “She agrees with me.”

Char returned the frown.
“And
she
is also
well on her way to becoming a spinster.”

Sophie laughed. “That’s true. But that
wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen to me. Far from it.
It’s a choice.”

“
It would be my choice,
too,” Jane said with a longing sigh. Her eyes widened when the
ladies across from her each lifted a brow.

Oh, drat. She oughtn’t to have said
anything. Now they’d have questions and want to know why she
desired no beaux. If she wasn’t careful, she’d tell them absolutely
everything without meaning to tell them anything at all.

Change the subject. She needed to
change the subject. Now, before they asked her questions. “Sophie,”
she said, “do you think Miss Bentley would like me to make some
gowns for her? I couldn’t help but notice she wasn’t fitted at Miss
Jenkins’s shop…” There. That was surely a safe topic. The urge to
breathe a sigh of relief struck her, but she refrained through
sheer determination.

“
Of course,” Sophie said
with smiling eyes, clapping her hands together. “Mama told us
you’re quite the seamstress.” She looked to Charlotte. “If Jane can
sew Esther some gowns, she could possibly afford some nicer
fabrics. I think that is a brilliant plan.”

“
Brilliant…stupendous…perfect!” Char said.

Jane grinned. “I even have a bit of
fabric we could use to start with. They’re just over...er...that
is, they’re behind the bureau over there.”

Double drat. Why had she mentioned the
fabrics at all? And even worse, why had she admitted to them being
behind the bureau? This was not good. Not good at all.

Sophie moved across to the bureau,
eyeing Jane all the while, and then peeked behind it. “Good Lord.
This is not just ‘a bit of fabric.’ You have silks, muslins, lawn.
This is quite the supply.” She bent over and came up with the lot
of it in her hands. “What were you planning to use all of this
for?”

“
Just a bit of practice,”
Jane replied, a touch too fast. “But it would be best to practice
on something someone will actually use. So I thought...I thought I
could sew some gowns for Miss Bentley with these fabrics. If she
wants.” She shrugged when Char and Sophie both gawked over at
her.

Sophie narrowed her eyes. “Mm
hmm.”

“
I’m sure she would be
thrilled for your assistance,” Charlotte murmured, mimicking her
sister’s narrowed eyes.

“
Lovely.” This whole
secrecy plan didn’t seem to be working as well as she had
hoped.

“
Lovely, indeed,” said
Sophie. She left it alone there, but didn’t appear at all happy
about it.

Jane would most definitely
need to be more aware of what she revealed to both Charlotte
and
Sophie. She doubted
either one of them would keep a secret from the other.

For that matter, she was
beginning to doubt whether
she
could keep a secret from them.

~ * ~

Good gracious, the duke seemed to be
taking drastic measures to avoid Jane’s company since her
arrival.

Of course he claimed to have some
dreadful business that kept him occupied and unable to spend a
reasonable amount of time with his family. But Jane knew, without a
doubt, that it was all a lie.

Why, she had caught him one day in the
nursery, playing with his children when she went to check on Mr.
Cuddlesworth, who had quite irrevocably attached himself to little
Sarah since their arrival. On that visit, she had found His Grace
on the floor, forming blocks into something that rather resembled a
fortress, with his two children serving as assistants. She peeked
further into the room to discover Mr. Cuddlesworth napping in his
basket (which was carefully situated directly in a stream of
sunlight pouring in through the windows, she noted) while Mrs.
Pratt caught a bit of shut eye in an old chair in the
corner.

Based on the elaborate design of the
fortress, Jane would be surprised if the duke hadn’t been with the
children for hours at that point. And all the while, he claimed to
be locked away in his library, poring over his ledgers.
Balderdash!

Granted, he didn’t realize she’d
caught him in the act. Jane pulled the door closed as quietly as
she had opened it—and the children were making a good deal of
noise, as happy children tend to do. Her intrusion had gone
entirely unnoticed by the lot of them, not the least of which being
her cat.

Another time, a few days after that
first incident, Jane had made her way through the halls of
Hardwicke House to join Cousin Henrietta and her daughters for tea.
As had become his custom, at least since Jane’s arrival, the duke
had declined and claimed he must meet with his secretary to go over
these supposed “business” concerns. But how could that be the case
when she’d seen Mr. Forrester, the duke’s secretary, donning his
beaver hat and coat in the front hallway and taking his leave just
as the ladies had convened in the parlor for tea?

Jane thought it less than prudent to
point out to his family the lengths to which the man had gone in
order to avoid her company—because what else could be the cause of
his sudden avoidance of all of them, if not her own attendance at
those very functions?—so she just tucked those tidbits away for
future use, should she need them.

While she had seen very little of the
head of the Hardwicke family during her fortnight’s stay in London,
however, she had spent a great deal of time with the two sisters,
Esther, and Cousin Henrietta. Even Lord Neil, the youngest of the
brothers, joined them on occasion. On the day of their first
meeting, he had strolled in to the breakfast room, still dressed
from the previous evening, with longish, heavily tousled auburn
hair and bleary eyes that struggled to remain open.

Lord Neil passed her a rakish grin and
winked at her.

She liked him immediately.

He didn’t, however, spend time with
the females of the family on any sort of regular basis.

Actually, Lord Neil Hardwicke seemed
to keep rather odd hours, coming when most people were going and
vice versa. “Don’t mind my comings and goings overmuch, Miss
Matthews,” he had told her upon one occasion, again giving her that
devilish smile...the very one she had since discovered proved he
was up to no good. “No one else does, to be sure.”

Indeed, he seemed to be correct in
that assumption. Much more import was placed on the frequent
absence of His Grace than the far less frequent, though admittedly
sporadic, absences of Lord Neil.

The duke’s absences would
now be forced to come to a close, however, as the dowager assured
Jane and the Hardwicke sisters that her son would be accompanying
them to all of their numerous and
infinitely important
social
engagements.

Well, almost all. His Grace wasn’t
present for Jane’s presentation to the Queen. Truth be told, she
was rather grateful for that fact.

It had been nerve-wracking
enough to be forced to wear such a dated and ostentatious design,
however lovely the stitchery may be. And then to have to make her
curtsy (without falling all over herself, she might add) to the
queen, and back out of Her Blasted Majesty’s presence
(
still
without
tripping).

To have that odious man present might
have been enough to do Jane in.

As things stood, she made it through
the ordeal without making a cake of herself in front of the queen,
instead doing so before all of the other ladies waiting in the hall
for their turn to curtsy to Her Majesty after Jane’s turn had
passed. The blasted gown boasted simply too many flounces, ruffles,
and petticoats. They got all tangled with her legs, and she took
quite the spill.

She would have been mortified if the
duke had been present to see such a fiasco. It was bad enough doing
it in front of Charlotte, who was also being presented to the
queen, and Cousin Henrietta. In fact, Jane shivered even now
thinking back upon it.

But her presentation to the
queen had passed, and now she must prepare for her presentation to
the
ton
at the
ball given by Lord and Lady Bodham-Smythe at Turnsley
Hall.

And
he
would escort them.

The idea of being
surrounded by hordes of lords and ladies too high in the instep to
take notice of her since she
was
merely a miss was bad enough, but when she must be
escorted to such an affair by a man who clearly detested spending
time in her presence—well, it was perhaps the most lowering
situation she could imagine.