Elizabeth Powell by The Reluctant Rogue

she replied hastily. “Did you bring the—my property?”
    The viscount glanced past her to her groom, who remaineda respectful distance away. “Can your man be trusted to be discreet?”
    Jane followed his gaze, then nodded. “I have known Will since I was a girl. I trust him implicitly.”
    “Good.” He reached into the leather pouch behind his saddle, then handed her a neat bundle wrapped in paper. “I believe this is what you were looking for.”
    Jane tore one corner of the paper to see a patch of her periwinkle-colored wool shawl. She could feel the hard outline of the List within its folds; the tension in her neck and shoulders eased. “Thank you, my lord.” She quickly tucked the packet into the oversize reticule she had slung over her saddle bow, then rearranged her skirts to cover it.
    “You seem troubled,” he persisted. “If you’ll pardon me for saying so, imp, you look as though you did not sleep a wink all night.”
    Jane seized her lower lip between her teeth. She desperately wanted to confide in someone; she had held so much inside for so long. The viscount had been so kind to her last night—dare she trust him?
    He gestured with his riding crop. “The fog will not lift for some time yet, I think. Let us ride a while together.”
    She wavered.
    “Unless, of course, you need to return home,” he added.
    She thought about the oppressive silence that reigned over their rented town house, then shook her head. “No … I have no pressing engagements.”
    “I understand if you do not wish to reveal the cause of your distress,” he began, “but I entreat you to look upon me as a friend. I suspect you are in need of one.”
    “My mother would tell me that ladies do not formfriendships with gentlemen,” Jane replied, unable to keep the bitterness from her voice.
    Again that appealing, lopsided grin. “But you have stated before that I am no gentleman, so I believe you are safe on that account.”
    “You delight in teasing me.”
    “I do, but only because you need teasing. Why, you barely smiled at all last night. You are too young to be so somber and serious all the time. How old are you? Seventeen? Eighteen?”
    “I shall be nineteen this autumn.”
    “There, you see? When I was eighteen I had not a care in the world.”
    “If only I could be so fortunate,” Jane murmured.
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “Do you have family, my lord?” she asked suddenly.
    Lord Langley’s face went blank. “There is only my father, the Earl of Stanhope. My mother died when I was very young.”
    “No brothers or sisters?”
    A muscle twitched in his jaw. “One brother. Alexander—Alex.”
    She recognized the name. “Ah … you were conversing with him in the garden yesterday, weren’t you?”
    “You were eavesdropping,” he accused.
    “I did not make a point of it,” she replied. “But I could hear you quite well from my side of the wall.”
    The viscount rubbed the back of his neck. “Yes, I suppose I was speaking to Alex, in a way. He has been dead for the last five years. The house used to belong to him.”
    She gasped. “I am so sorry. Was he—was he with the army in the Peninsula?”
    “No. Alex’s death was the most singular piece of idiocy …” He stopped himself, then exhaled in a long,controlled sigh. “My father had summoned him home for Christmas, even though the weather had rendered the roads nigh unto impassable. Alex was traveling through a snowstorm when the carriage broke an axle and overturned. The coachman was killed; my brother suffered a broken back and could not move. No one found him until a few days later. By then he was dead.”
    Jane’s eyes rounded in shock. “How terrible,” she breathed. “Why would your father insist that he travel in such weather?”
    “Because my father is a tyrant.” Lord Langley’s voice quivered with anger. He paused a moment and composed himself. “Forgive me. I presume too much familiarity.”
    “You need not apologize, my