Jane recalled the last lines of the letter, as if she were staring at the page right then.
I know you would not have been swayed by moonlight and soft words. No, you would have kept your head firmly on your shoulders and saved yourself. And, therefore, you would never need to live your days from one letter to the next.
Until the next . . .
Your Friend,
Prudence Thorogood
Jane expelled a slow breath, thinking carefully about her decisions this evening. Yes, her errand had been dangerous. But she wasn’t filled with doubt and repentance. Quite the opposite, in fact. The words in the letter only reinvigorated her determination.
“Prue’s situation reaffirms that the risks I took tonight will only serve a greater purpose in the future, once we finish our book.”
“You and I know very well that no one will print it if there’s a single mention of”—Ellie cast a fretful glance over her shoulder to the closed bedchamber door before whispering—“prostitution. As women, we are taught to pretend we’ve never heard of the practice.”
“I wonder if there are a pair of prostitutes having a conversation right this instant, pretending they’ve never heard of debutantes.”
“Do be serious, Jane.”
Still in hysterics, Ellie continued pacing back and forth between the rosewood vanity and a mossy green canopied bed. Her skirts shushed loud enough to rival a squirrel crunching through a walnut shell.
Blocking out the noise, Jane closed her eyes again and lifted her shoulders in a soundless shrug. “We’ll simply use veiled references in the book.”
“Veiled? They would need to be stitched in a shroud if we expect anyone like the persnickety Miss Churchouse to teach a lesson in her class. She nearly had an apoplexy when you inquired about the acceptable moment for a gentleman to press a lady’s hand. And the answer was never.”
“Which is likely the reason she is still Miss Churchouse,” Jane said with a smirk. But when her attempt at humor was met with silence, she cracked one eye open to see her friend glaring at her. In her own defense, she said, “I’ll have you know, I gained valuable research. Sometimes calculated risks must be taken. After all, we’re doing this for our own friends as well as for ourselves.”
“If you ask me, you are doing this more to satisfy your own rapacious curiosity,” Ellie sniffed. “And you know what happened to the cat.”
It was not the first—or even the fiftieth—time Jane had heard this argument. “Yes, yes. The poor fabled creature was killed by inquisitiveness. But instead of always thinking about that one singular feline, try to concentrate on the millions of others with nine lives, hmm?”
“Then you are likely down to your last one.”
“Nonsense. I’m certain I have at least . . .” She paused, mentally recalling the number of experiments that had gone awry and ticking them off one by one. But when she ran out of fingers, she cleared her throat. “Well, the number doesn’t really matter. Every misstep has offered new insights.”
“Perfect. That’s precisely how I would have comforted your brothers and sisters if you’d been caught tonight. Never fear, children, your sister likely gained some ‘new insights’ before her untimely demise.”
“I’m certain that Death isn’t looming nearby with a scythe in a skeletal grip the way you are forever thinking he is,” Jane said with nonchalance as if the chastisement hadn’t struck a chord within her. But it had.
She loved her siblings dearly and couldn’t imagine ever being separated from them. Before she’d even entered society, she’d vowed never to wed a man who didn’t love her family. And after Prue’s unfortunate expulsion, Jane had also decided never to allow herself to be seduced outside of marriage and sent to live apart from them.
Not that it had ever been a viable consideration. Of the three admirers who’d demonstrated a passing interest in being invited to tea, each were quickly frightened away as soon as they’d met the horde. And since she hardly inspired men with the desire to dance with her at assemblies, let alone conjure illicit fantasies, she’d been certain imminent seduction was an impossibility.
Of course, she’d never once imagined herself venturing into a scoundrel’s bedchamber. And, had he been genuinely interested in seducing her, she might have need to worry. But in the end, as always, her plainness had been her virtue’s savior.
“I should hate to think of what might have happened if you’d encountered a man who was more determined than you,” Ellie said, as if reading her mind.
“Actually, I did,” she said, matter-of-fact. But seeing her friend’s eyes alter from almond-shaped, to round and stark like amber gems dropped in snow, Jane realized how her statement must have sounded. “Not more determined. Perhaps, similarly would be a better adverb. I left unscathed. Well, minus a glove but missing nothing irreparable. In fact, I’d even go so far as to say the gray-eyed scoundrel was quite chivalrous at times and . . . Oh, bother.”
Ellie had gone still and white as paste, her breaths shallow like froth on a pot of boiling potatoes. Her fingertips were fanned out over her lips as if to stop a sudden torrent of unwarranted, retrospective panic.
Jane began hastily fishing through her reticule until her hand closed around a brown flacon. Standing, she lifted it and removed the stopper. “Breathe, Ellie, or you’ll force me to deploy this vinaigrette.”
Her hyperventilating friend’s porcelain features grimaced in swift distaste. “Put that away, if you please. The last time you waved it under my nose, I couldn’t smell anything for a week.”
Jane took no offense. Even though it was her own concoction, she wasn’t yet satisfied with the results.
Dropping it into her bag again, she watched absently as Ellie walked over to her bed, pulled back the coverlet, and slid in—fully dressed—and closed her eyes tightly.
The melodramatic scene caused a spark of mirth to erupt in Jane. “What are you doing?”
“I’ve determined that this has all been a terrible dream and I am preparing myself to awaken at any moment.”
Jane shook her head in fond exasperation and glanced out the window to see her cousin had emerged. The lantern light cast slanted shadows over his squared jaw and confused expression as he scratched his chin and gazed from one town house to the next.
“I’d better go before Duncan decides to drive off without me. I’ll have to share the details from my errand with you on the morrow. And trust me, they aren’t as dire as you might imagine.” Especially since she’d just decided to keep the more salacious aspects of what happened at his bedside to herself.
What Ellie didn’t know couldn’t hurt her, she thought as she went to the door.
“Jane,” her friend sleepily called, halting her for the moment. Ellie turned her head on the pillow, her gaze curious despite her fatalistic fears. “What did it feel like when you met the gray-eyed scoundrel? Was it different than meeting an average gentleman?”
Jane considered her answer carefully, making a mental note of the sudden escalation of her pulse as she pictured Raven’s face. How peculiar.
After forty-seven rapid beats, she said, “Do you remember when it was our last day at the academy and Prue and Winnie and you and I were being terribly silly and dancing the waltz until we were all so dizzy we had to lie on the grass for our heads to stop spinning?”