Jilted in January (4 page)

“Ah, there you are, Mr. Ford!”

The loud command halted Colin as he went to pass the doorway of the drawing room.

He peered inside. “Lady Maude?”

She beckoned imperiously at him. “Come here and greet our guests. I don’t suppose you have seen my great-niece anywhere, have you?”

Colin reluctantly came into the room. “Are you referring to Miss Leyton, my lady? I have not had the pleasure of her company this morning. Do you wish me to find her for you?”

“There is no need. I’ve sent one of the footmen.” Lady Maude gestured at the two men in uniform who had sprung to their feet when Colin entered the room. “May I introduce you to my great-nephew, Lieutenant David Leyton, and his traveling companion, Lieutenant Henry Woodford? They are most anxious to see dear Rose.”

“I’m sure they are.” Colin bowed. “Welcome back to England, gentlemen. I pray that your journey was uneventful?”

“It was pretty torrid. The horses don’t like the ships.” The darker haired of the two men answered him.

Colin nodded at the man he assumed was Miss Leyton’s brother. “I had never thought of that. Did they survive the journey?”

“Better than we did.” Lieutenant Leyton’s smile was rueful. “Henry and I spent all night tending to their needs and forgot to get a wink of sleep between us!”

A footman entered the room with a tray of tea. Just behind him, Colin caught a glimpse of Miss Leyton hovering uncertainly in the doorway. Murmuring a polite excuse, he went toward her and caught her elbow before she had time to escape.

He drew her farther along the corridor and out of earshot of the door.

“Your brother’s here. Don’t you wish to see him?”

“I wish to see
him
—it’s his companion I’m trying to avoid.”

Colin frowned. “Is that your betrothed?”

“My ex-betrothed.” She sighed. “I don’t want to face him. He’s going to attempt to explain his decision or apologize, and I don’t want to hear anything he has to say.”

“You deserve an apology, Miss Leyton. What he has done to you is inexcusable.”

She searched his face. “You sound quite annoyed, Mr. Ford.”

“That’s because I am.”

“Then perhaps with your support, I might brush through this.”

He offered her his arm. “I will stand your friend, I promise you.”

Raising her chin, she marched beside him along the corridor and into the drawing room. Colin couldn’t deny her bravery or fault her composure at all. He felt inordinately proud of her.

“Rose, my darling girl!”

Colin stood back as Rose’s brother took her hands and drew her into an embrace.

“How lovely to see you, David.” She smiled up at him before turning to his silent companion and curtsying. “Good morning, Henry.”

Colin tensed as the cad stepped forward. “Rose, I mean, Miss Leyton, I am sure that you are surprised to see me here, but—”

She cut him off, earning Colin’s complete approval. “As my brother’s friend, I am sure that you are more than welcome here, Lieutenant. Would you like some tea?”

Lieutenant Woodford took another hasty step toward Miss Leyton. “I would appreciate the opportunity to speak to you urgently in private, Rose.” He bowed to Lady Maude. “If you would allow that, my lady?”

Colin frowned at the older woman, but she wasn’t attending to him in the slightest, her gaze fixed on poor Miss Leyton.

“You may speak to her, Lieutenant, but please leave the door open, and be quick about it.”

Miss Leyton cast him a despairing look as she was escorted out of the drawing room and into the salon next door. Colin eased closer to the door, hoping he would be able to hear what was being said and maybe intervene if necessary. He’d never thought of himself as the kind of man who would leap to a lady’s defense, but there was something about Miss Leyton that made him feel very protective of her.

Unfortunately, Miss Leyton’s brother decided it was his duty to be sociable and spent several minutes quizzing Colin on his antecedents, resulting in the happy understanding that he had been on the same cricket team as one of Colin’s older brother’s at Eton. Not that Colin cared about that, but it seemed to make Lieutenant Leyton regard him as more of an equal than an employee, which had to be to his advantage.

Within a few moments, Miss Leyton and her erstwhile suitor returned and sat down. While Lieutenant Woodford turned to his fellow officer, Colin changed his seat so that he was beside Miss Leyton.

“How did it go?”

She pressed her lips together, her brown eyes stormy.

“Not well, I assume?” He patted his pocket. “You aren’t going to cry, are you?”

She suddenly stood up, and he followed her.

“Mr. Ford? Would you mind accompanying me for a turn around the garden? I feel rather overcome with the heat.”

Colin didn’t mention that it was actually raining, which was why he’d been taking a shortcut through the house and was caught by Lady Maude.

“Certainly, Miss Leyton.”

She curtsied to the room in general. “I’m sure Great-Aunt Maude will take good care of you, gentlemen. Perhaps I will see you at dinner?”

Colin escorted her from the room and then almost had to run to keep up with her as she ascended the back staircase, which was dark and spiraled round until he was dizzy.

“Miss
Leyton
?”

It wasn’t until she flung open a small door that he realized she’d led him straight into her bedchamber. He took a wary step backward and collided with the door.

“I should not be in here.”

She glanced over her shoulder, crossed the room to her dressing table, and started opening the drawers.

“I won’t tell anyone. I just need a witness.”

“To what?” He advanced a cautious step. “Don’t tell me you are going to challenge Lieutenant Woodford to a duel and are searching for your pistol?”

“I wish I could.” She continued to hunt through the drawers, dainty stockings, garters, and ribbons flying through the air, leaving Colin with nowhere safe to look. “Ah, here it is.”

She turned back to him, holding a small leather box. “Do you know what he was
most
concerned about?” She opened the box and showed him the small sparkling ring that nestled inside the satin. “Not that he had embarrassed me or let me down or could be sued for breach of promise, but that he wanted the ring he gave me back because it was a family piece and of great sentimental value to his mother.”

Colin shook his head and tutted. “I told you he was a cad.”

“And now you have seen the ring and can confirm—as it passes out of my keeping—that it is in excellent condition.”

He strolled over and took the box from her to examine the contents.

“It looks perfectly fine to me.”

“Good. Will you write that down? His mother never liked me and would be more than happy to attempt to shift the blame for her son’s desertion squarely onto my shoulders.”

“Of course I will.” Colin walked through the tangle of silk stockings and garter bows and sat at the desk under the window. He was surrounded by the scent of lavender and line-dried linen, which already reminded him of his companion. He recut the nib of her pen, stirred the ink, and wrote out his appraisal of the ring. He signed and dated it and then looked around for a candle to light.

“Do you have your seal?” she asked, making him jump because he hadn’t expected her to be right at his shoulder, ready to hand him a candle. “The Beckworth one?”

“I do, and my family seal.” He melted some wax and applied both seals to the letter. “There. That makes it doubly official.”

“Thank you.” She briefly patted his shoulder and then turned away from him.

“Did Lieutenant Woodford explain how he came to make such a hurried and ungentlemanly decision?”

She sat on the side of her bed and regarded her slippered feet. “He was wounded and brought to a private house in Brussels to recuperate, where he was nursed by ‘an angel’ whose very presence made him yearn to survive.”

“So he decided to marry her?”

“Apparently she was not only English but the daughter of an earl with a large dowry. How could he resist?”

“Because he was betrothed to another?”

“I would not have wished him to come home and marry me and then yearn for someone else.”

He had the most unexpected urge to walk over, pick her up, set her on his lap, and hold her close to his heart. “I agree, but he should at least have broken off the engagement before he went ahead and got married.”

“He was in love and desperate to secure her affections before he lost the chance and she went home without him.”

He raised an eyebrow. “With all due respect, he sounds like the kind of man who reads too many gothic novels and has something of a romantical streak, which one would not expect in a soldier.”

She smiled for the first time. “You are remarkably pragmatic, Mr. Ford.”

“I’ve had to be.” He studied her carefully. “And you, if I might be so bold as to mention it, are not acting as if you have lost the love of your life.”

She sat up straight. “What on earth do you mean?”

“You are more angry and embarrassed than stricken with grief.”

The color rose on her cheeks. “That is none of your business.”

He blinked at her suddenly arctic tone. He’d quite forgotten she wasn’t the one fondly imagining holding her in his arms. “You are quite right. I do apologize. Now, do you require anything else of me, or am I free to leave?” Inclining his head, he turned sharply on his heel and headed back toward the servants stairs.

“Mr. Ford…”

She came after him, and he paused on the narrow landing.

“What, Miss Leyton?” She looked up into his eyes, and he went still. “Good Lord, don’t cry.”

“I… Thank you,” she whispered. “Yet again you have proved my true friend.” She rested her hand on his shoulder, went on tiptoe, and kissed him on the cheek. Her lavender scent surrounded him, making it difficult to breathe let alone think.

For a moment, he just stood there like a pillar of stone, and then his arm closed around her waist, holding her still as he kissed her on the forehead. In the shadowy darkness, he could hear her shallow breathing and the irregular bump of his own heart.

“You are most welcome, Miss Leyton.” He wondered what on earth had got into him, as he didn’t want to release her. He slowly let her go and took an unsteady step backward, almost falling down the stairs.

“Wait!” She darted forward again, and his heart gave a treacherous leap of joy. “You have one of my stockings stuck to your boot.”

He managed to laugh as he awkwardly attempted to remove the infuriatingly silky, clingy
thing.
“Thank goodness you spotted it. I would’ve had a hard time explaining
that
to Mrs. Pemberley if she’d encountered me in the hallways.” He went down a few stairs and looked back up at her silhouetted in the faint light coming through from her bedchamber.

“I’ll see you at dinner, Miss Leyton.”

Then he galloped down the rest of the stairs as if the hounds of hell were after him.

Rose put on the best gown she possessed for dinner. It had originally belonged to the duchess who, having been obliged to go into deep mourning, had offered the dress to Rose. It was a pale yellow silk with a cream net underdress and a single row of flounces. Great-Aunt Maude had insisted that Rose alter the neckline into something less revealing and more suitable for an unmarried woman. It was still a beautiful dress and only a season or two out of date. She wore the pearls her mother had left her and that her sister had willingly left behind, decreeing them “too small and insignificant to be worn in good society.”

They gave Rose confidence, and she needed every scrap of it if she was to get through the meal with her dignity intact while facing the curiosity of her fellow Beckworth residents and the scrutiny of her aunt. She had no doubt that word of her broken engagement would have already circulated throughout the house. Would the staff treat her differently now? Would she be seen as yet another body dependent on the new duke’s wages?

Shaking off her depressing thoughts, she placed a paisley shawl around her shoulders, picked up her reticule, and went down the stairs. Loud male voices drifted upward from the drawing room. The reflected glow of the fire and candlelight spilled out of the open door onto the marble tile floor.

When she went through the door, everyone turned to stare. Even the three elderly Beckworth invalids who rarely left their rooms had gathered to observe her tonight, plus the local vicar and a couple of village worthies who amused her aunt. The governess, Miss Vere, and her charge, the duke’s ward, were not present. A shape detached itself from the gathering of gentlemen around the fire.

“Good evening, Miss Leyton.”

“Mr. Ford.”

She curtsied, keeping her eyes cast demurely down. He’d kissed her on the forehead earlier, and for one breathless moment she’d thought he was going to kiss her again before he’d recollected himself and stepped back. She was to blame for his presumption. She’d taken him upstairs to her bedchamber! She’d been in such a rage after dealing with Henry that she hadn’t thought through the implications of ordering the poor land agent to accompany her.