The Westerby Inheritance by M.C. Beaton Page B

for you,” he said lightly. “But perhaps we shall meet before then—Ranelagh or the opera.”
    “Oh, no,” said Jane. “I never go anywhere, you see. I am a sort of companion to my godmother.”
    He felt an unaccustomed twinge of compassion. “We can still forget about the whole thing,” he said gently. “Look, I have our contract here. I shall tear it up—”
    “No!” cried Jane.
    His eyes glinted at her strangely in the morning light. “I am a very lucky gambler, my dear,” he said in that soft, mocking voice. “It is more than likely that your father shall have his estates and I shall have you.”
    “I shall not draw back, sir,” declared Jane, trying to look noble and courageous and failing miserably. “And furthermore,” she went on, “I am in love with you, my lord.”
    There! She had said it, so it must be so!
    He looked down at her determined, childish face with some amusement. He put a long finger under her chin and tilted her face up. He bent his head and kissed her gently on the lips, his mouth lingering on hers in an almost
listening
kind of way.
    At last he raised his head. “Alas!” he mocked. “I regret to tell you, you are not.”
    Jane looked at him in bewilderment. How could he tell that from a mere kiss?
    “Yes, I am,” she said stoutly. “I am not in the way of kissing strange gentlemen, that is all.”
    “Don’t become in the way of it,” he said, giving her nose a flick with his finger. “You are promised to me. I have enough experience for both of us.”
    “Oh,” she said miserably. “I was rather afraid that you might have. Good day, my lord.” And with that, she trailed off into Lady Comfrey’s, having had taken the precaution of leaving the front door unlocked.
    He watched her until the door closed behind her. “Poor child,” he murmured to himself. “I shall send her a note later in the day, telling her that the whole business is ridiculous—although I shall couch it in kinder terms. It was too bad of me to tease her by pretending to accept her proposal.”
    But as his heels tapped out of Huggets Square, punctuated by the lighter taps of his tall walking cane, a fugitive little voice in his brain was niggling and nagging that since the advent of Lady Jane he was no longer assailed by tedium—no longer plagued by that sick lethargy.

Chapter Six
    When Jane awoke several hours later, a pale sun was shining down through the smoky haze of London, but the tremendous heat of August had gone. It was the first day of September and felt remarkably like it as she climbed from her bed and leaned from her window and felt a nip in the air.
    All at once, she remembered the events of the night before and blushed from the soles of her feet to the top of her head. She thought for one moment that it must surely have been a dream. But there was her best gown, lying thrown over a chair, and there were her shoes with their traces of mud.
    She put her hands up to her hot cheeks. All her ambition had fled. She had said she would not draw back from the contract. But surely she could be allowed to change her mind!
    It was a mercy she need never see him again. She did not go out in society. And
surely
such a sophisticated gentleman as Lord Charles would not hold a silly goose like herself to such an absurd contract. Lady Jane became determined to write to Lord Charles that very day, apologize, and demand her release from the mad bargain.
    It was as if she had grown up a little overnight. It was sad that Papa would never live in his beloved home again, but somehow the burning determination to restore his estates had suddenly left her. She felt very young and very weary and wanted to go home. To her surprise, Jane found herself missing Hetty. Hetty was her good humor and cheerful commonsense. She forgot about the other Hetty, who could be extremely noisy and wild and vulgar, particularly in her cups. Jane missed Philadelphia as well, distance lending enchantment to Philadelphia’s cold,