So, he doffed his hat and scuffed the dust from the toes of his boots. “Good day to ye, Lord Warrister. ’ow can I be o’ service?”
The old earl straightened his shoulders and gave the courtyard a flinty-eyed stare. “Take me to Mr. John Pickerington’s chamber, if you please.”
Chapter 35
It was nearly Christmas and there were no garlands on the stairs or above the doorways. There were no beribboned kissing boughs, and no family puddings in the larder, waiting to be steamed.
Jane could barely summon the desire to walk into the conservatory. However, whenever she did, she went to the chaise longue for a good cry.
“I’ve had enough of this, Jane,” Ellie said sternly, wagging her finger. Her reprimand was lessened, however, by the blatant concern in her stricken features. “Let’s have a walk in the cold air. I’ve heard it’s very good for the constitution.”
“I would likely freeze to death on purpose, and I don’t want that weighing on your conscience.”
“Then we’ll walk down the hall to the library.”
Jane closed her eyes, futilely trying to keep the memory at bay. “Not the library.”
“Then what about your desk? Surely, you can manage ten steps.”
“I don’t see the point of it.”
“The point is,” Ellie huffed, “that there is paper and ink and a plan that needs to be formed. You’re not simply going to allow your parents to ship you off to America, are you? At the very least, you could think up a grand escape like you did for Winnie earlier this year. All turned out well for her. And it will for you. Why, even my aunts are determined to keep you if your parents attempt to go through with it.”
“Thank you, Ellie, but it doesn’t matter any longer.”
“Of course, it matters. What about our book?”
“I’m afraid that you will be left in charge of its completion. My name will have to be omitted, of course, or else it will never be published otherwise. And I wouldn’t be able to live with you and your aunts without risking your reputation. I won’t do that to you.”
“Oh, Jane why did you risk your own?” Ellie asked, worrying the seams of her cuffs with a flick of her manicured thumbnail. “You told me that you knew from the outset that he might never claim his birthright. So falling in love with him was a foolish choice. You’d never have been able to marry him and live here with your siblings like you’d always planned. Your parents would never have allowed it.”
“I know. I even tried to convince myself that I wasn’t aware of the full risk of ruination.” Jane shook her head, feeling silly for trying to fool herself. “But I would have married him regardless, or even stayed by his side without marriage. I was willing to risk everything. And I did. I love my siblings, but they will eventually grow up and move away and start families. But I want a family, too, and children of my . . . own.” Her voice broke on the painful reminder. “And I wanted that with him, even if it meant never being allowed back into this house.”
Ellie stared, agape, and slowly sank down onto the foot of the chaise longue. “You truly love him that much?”
“I do. But it is a one-sided love.” Apparently, it always was.
“The worst kind of love.” Her friend nodded in commiseration. “But how can you be certain of his regard, or lack thereof, if the two of you haven’t spoken since the night of the ball?”
In Ellie’s eyes Jane saw a glint of promise. At least, one of them still had hope.
“I sent him another missive this week, absolving him from any obligation toward me,” Jane said with numb desolation, recalling the miserable moment her courses had come, leaving her with no possible tie to Raven. “He never responded. And in his lack of response, he has made his desires indisputably clear.”
“I hate him,” her friend decided, her fist on her lap. “I know you don’t, but I must. He has wounded you too severely. The Jane Pickerington I knew would have marched up to his door and given him a piece of her mind . . .”
Ellie’s words trailed off and her gaze went distant and unfocused as she stared toward the frosted window glass.
The old Jane would have been able to surmise what she was thinking. But this Jane was only half of herself, having already given Raven a piece of her mind along with every bit of her heart.
* * *
“One of your lovelies finally came to see you,” Bess announced from the door. “Been wonderin’ when this would ’appen.”
Raven’s reflection went still in the washstand mirror, the razor poised in his hand. His heart stopped, too, and every thought went directly to Jane. Was she here?
Slowly, he lowered the razor and wiped the shaving soap from his jaw.
“Well? Am I to send ’er away?”
“No,” he heard himself say, his voice distant to his own ears. “I’ll be down in a trice.”
As Bess flounced out of the room, he realized that in the past he would have just said to bring this particular caller upstairs. But he couldn’t now. He had to keep his guard up. There was no way he’d allow himself to be manipulated again.
He dressed more carefully than he usually did for a day at Sterling’s. But he didn’t want Jane to know that he’d spent every moment of the past fortnight doing little more than thinking about her.
He kept his focus on straightening his cuffs as he ambled down the stairs, refusing to look at the figure waiting in the foyer until he reached the nadir. And there he stopped abruptly.
It wasn’t Jane.
A wave of tension rolled through him, clawing up his back, chafing his skin. On an exhale he said, “Miss Parrish. To what do I owe this unexpected visit?”
She held up a stack of the post that had piled on the table, withdrawing one as if she were planning to discard it like a card in a deck. “You haven’t even bothered to read it. I knew I was right to hate you, using my friend the way you did.”
“I think you have that the other way around. Your friend was the one who toyed with my life as if it was of little consequence to her.”
She scoffed. “Then, I imagine, you consider being sent to America, away from her family and friends, of little consequence.”
Raven took a step forward, and another, his heart thudding in his chest and their last night together playing poignantly through his mind. “Why is she being sent away?”
“Because of you, of course,” she hissed, narrowing a pair of amber-colored viper eyes. “Though, if you’d bothered to read her letter, I’m sure you would have known already.”
He snatched it out of her grasp and ripped it open, skimming the short missive for any word of a child. His child . . . their child . . . A family, with Jane.
And in that second of searching, he felt such hope that he knew he’d been fooling himself all this time.
Jane was right. And so was Sterling, for that matter. Raven had pushed her away because he was afraid of losing her. He knew that when doubt was cast on his legitimacy, he’d never be allowed to marry her. And the thought of never having her was even worse than losing any stupid title.
His hands gripped the page, his gaze settling on the text.