The Westerby Inheritance by M.C. Beaton

deep curtsy, and then said in as bold a tone as she could muster, “I have made a terrible mistake. I want to go home. You are not what I expected.”
    “Indeed?” he said dryly, raising one eyebrow and looking at her quizzically. “This grows interesting, i’ faith. Pray be seated.”
    With a swirl of satin skirts, he arranged himself in a chair on the other side of the fireplace from Jane, reached forward and unstoppered one of the decanters, and poured himself a glass of wine.
    Jane sank down in the seat opposite and stared at him helplessly. He was concentrating on pouring the wine and did not seem in the slightest troubled by her presence.
    He leaned forward and handed her a glass, then filled one for himself, and, leaning back in the chair, studied her for a few moments.
    Jane felt paralyzed.
    “Your business, Lady Jane?” came that soft, mocking drawl.
    “I want to go home,” said Jane, her voice rendered childish by fear.
    “After you have told me why you came. Now, drink your wine like a good girl. Your father is Westerby, I believe?”
    “Yes.” Very faintly came the reply, whispered in the shadowy room.
    “Your father is in town?”
    “No.”
    “My dear child, this is like pulling teeth. You may as well tell me, you know.”
    “You are not what I expected,” said Jane again in a low voice.
    “In what way?”
    Jane summoned up her small stock of courage. “You are not so old or—or
animated
as I had imagined,” she said, staring into the depths of her wineglass.
    “I’ faith, I can assure you I can be animated enough, given the occasion,” said Lord Charles. “But I am not in the way of entertaining schoolroom misses at this hour of the night.”
    “I am not a schoolroom miss,” said Jane defiantly. “I am seventeen years old.…”
    “A great age,” he said solemnly. “Well, Lady Jane, now that we have established that you are a grown woman of the world, could we now discover the purpose of your visit?”
    “It was a mad idea,” said Jane. “I heard you were a lucky gambler. Very lucky. My father lost his house and estates to his cousin, James Bentley, at the card tables. I wanted you to win those estates back for me.”
    “Really,” remarked his lordship, his face betraying only polite interest. “And should I succeed in this—er—plan, what would I get out of it, if it does not seem too vulgar a point to raise?”
    “Me.”
    Lord Charles put up his eyeglass again and surveyed the small figure, the small elfin face, the immature bosom rising from the neck of the fashionable gown, and then the trembling hands.
    Lady Jane endured his scrutiny for as long as she could, and then, with a flaming face and a flurry of silks, she rose quickly to her feet. “Forgive me,” she said breathlessly. “It was madness. I was desperate, you see. Please let me go, my lord.”
    He rose languidly to his feet and strolled across the room toward her. The wine he had drunk that evening must have risen to his brain, he decided. It was the only thing to account for this sudden, strange feeling of elation.
    He put his hands on her shoulders and looked down at her. “I will do this for you,” he said slowly, drawing her closer. She smelled faintly of lavender and soap, and he could see the faint shine of her hair under its covering of powder. “Strange,” he mused inwardly, “that cleanliness should be so seductive.”
    “But first I will deal with the first part of the bargain,” he teased. “Come, Lady Jane. Let’s to bed!”
    She jerked herself out of his hold and turned and wrenched at the doorhandle, forgetting in her panic that the door was locked.
    “No!” she cried wildly. “I have changed my mind!”
    “Very well,” he said carelessly. He dug into his pocket and produced the key. “You disappoint me. I would have thought you to have had more courage.”
    He pressed the key into her hand, returned to his chair, picked up his wine, and to all intents and purposes appeared to