Andrea Pickens - [Lessons in Love 01] (2 page)

"But you have many admirers who enjoy your outspokenness, who think you are a True Original," replied Thomas. It didn't hurt matters, he forbore to add, that she was the daughter of a duke and an heiress in the bargain.

"I don't want to be appreciated as an Original." Her tone had turned angry." I want to be appreciated for... what I am, not—oh, never mind."

"Enough of this! You've been cooped up inside too long on such a lovely day—it's given you the megrims. I know just the thing. Would you care to match your Midnight against the new stallion I just bought at Tattersall's? He just arrived this morning. I warn you though, he's a prime one."

Jane jumped to her feet, eyes sparkling with the challenge. Though he was six feet tall she could almost look him in the eye, and her willowy form was bristling with indignation. "Oh, you don't truly think you can beat me!"

Thomas shrugged his broad shoulders, hardly wrinkling the impeccable cut of his coat. He stared nonchalantly at the tips of his well-polished Hessians, as if contemplating her statement. Secretly he was relieved that the storm he had seen gathering on her brows had disappeared, to be replaced by her normally exuberant spirits. He waited another few moments in silence, just long enough to start her foot tapping impatiently on the carpet.

"Care to wager on it?" he drawled.

"A gold guinea!"

Her eyes were flashing bright as the named coin and with a start he realized how truly beautiful his sister was. Oh, it was not just her features, which were certainly lovely, but something else—a bewitching vitality. He sometimes worried that it ran too unchecked since both his widowed father and the entire household doted on her, but it was no wonder that so many of the most eligible Town bachelors, used to demure schoolroom misses, were intrigued. If her spiritedness sometimes crossed over the edge, he was sure that many of her hijinks were due to something other than true willfulness.

He was aware that since her come out last year the strictures on her behavior, especially in Town, had inexorably tightened. The escapades were her way of fighting back, of expressing her independence. With her keen mind, she could have no illusions about how Society viewed her spirit. They meant to break it, to make her take the bit between her teeth. It was time she married and it was expected that she would fall into step like a demure mare, like all the other girls her age. How repugnant—and frightening—the idea must be to her, and how he admired her courage. He found himself echoing her opinion that it wasn't fair. But it was only a matter of time. Unlike a man, she had precious little choice. And when she married, what man wouldn't want to control the reins? What rare fellow would accept an equal...

"Well?" Her impatience pulled him out of his reverie.

"Done!" he answered, putting aside such serious musing for another time.

"Have Jem saddle the horses immediately. I won't be but a moment changing into my riding habit."

She spun and raced towards the grand stairway, nearly upending one of the parlormaids who was just coming out of the morning room. "Your pardon, Bertha," she cried, barely missing a step.

The maid gazed after her with the fond smile of a longtime retainer. Turning to Thomas she said, "Such spirit has Lady Jane."

Thomas nodded thoughtfully and wondered, not for the first time, in what hot water that spirit would eventually land his sister.

* * *

Two hours later the pair of them reentered the manor house, flushed with exertion and laughing uproariously over some private joke. One of the feathers of Jane's dashing little hat was sadly askew and she had taken off the entire creation, allowing a mass of curls to fall over the shoulders of her bottle green jacket, cut snugly in the latest military fashion. She shook her head to loosen the last of the hairpins. "Dear me, I'd better not let Sarah catch me looking like this. She'll ring a peal over me for not acting like a lady!"

"Oh fustian," jeered Thomas. "Since when has your maid or any of the servants done anything but indulge you at every turn? You have them all in your pocket, as well you know."

"That's not true," she protested. "James was quite cross with me... I think it was last month when I—" She paused and looked at him pensively. "Do you think I'm spoiled?"

Thomas thought for a moment. "I think there are times when you don't think of the consequences of your actions..."

"Excuse me, Lady Jane." Grimshaw, the family's butler ever since Jane could remember had been standing patiently in the entrance hall, but as the friendly bantering between the two young people showed no signs of abating he felt obliged to interrupt.

"Oh, halloo, Grimshaw. Forgive our bad manners for not greeting you earlier but Thomas and I have been engaged in a most important discussion." She turned to her brother. "Grimshaw most certainly doesn't indulge me." She looked back at the butler. "Do you, Grimshaw?"

Grimshaw gazed sternly at her, repressing the twitch at the corners of his mouth. "Certainly not, Lady Jane. Most improper it would be of me."

Jane grinned triumphantly. "There, you see!"

Thomas only rolled his eyes.

"Now Lady Jane," said Grimshaw before the two younger members of the family could begin some other lark. "Your father asked that you see him in the library as soon as you returned."

Jane shot a questioning look at her brother. "I wonder what—you don't think he heard about me racing your curricle against Lord Cranston last week. Johnny was such a beast to insist no lady could drive prime cattle."

"Shhhhh," hissed Thomas. "Let us hope not!"

"Lady Hepplestone was here earlier," added Grimshaw. His face was impassive but the slight sniff at the end of his words indicated his opinion of the person in question.

"Now, what mischief has Aunt Bella been wreaking?" muttered Jane. "Why she can't mind her own children's affairs and leave us in peace. Lord knows, with six to tend..."

"Six
boring
ones," interrupted Thomas.

"Six
henwitted
ones," added Jane.

"Lady Jane!" The butler's stentorian tone filled the hall. "Your father said NOW!"

"Very well," she sighed. Tugging at her jacket and skirts to restore some semblance of neatness, she stared towards the library. After a few steps she turned back to Thomas. "You don't think
she
heard about the curricle?"

"Lord help us both. I can't begin to imagine the set down we will both receive if that is the case."

Both stood in silent contemplation of such a ghastly thought until Grimshaw drew himself up to his full imperious height and pointed meaningfully down the hallway. Jane hurried away, leaving the butler to silently curse the meddlesome relative who always seemed to cause trouble for the young mistress of the house.

* * *

Her father was seated at his desk, head bent over some papers as Jane quietly entered the library. For a moment he was unaware of her presence and she found herself wondering why he had never remarried as she studied his handsome profile. His hair, though completely grey, was still thick, with a wavy curl that many young Pinks of the
ton
spent hours in front of a mirror trying to achieve. His shoulders, broad and unbent with age, filled out the cut of his stylish coat as well as those of a younger man. And the eyes studying the documents were still sharp and penetrating—sometimes too much so, she thought with a wry smile.

Henry James Sebastian Stanhope, the fifth Duke of Avanlea, looked up at his daughter. "Take a seat, Jane."

She knew immediately that something was very wrong. Even in his rare fits of temper there was always a certain look in his eyes, one acknowledging what they both knew—that she was the light of his life. Now suddenly it was missing, replaced by something she couldn't fathom, she who understood his moods better than anyone. Shaken and not knowing what else to do, she smiled as if unaware of the tension in the room. "I'm sorry to keep you waiting Papa, but Thomas and I were..."

"Were racing—neck and leather I've no doubt—around the countryside like two... hellions," finished her father.

Racing
, thought Jane. Then perhaps she was wrong and this was just about the curricle race. She cleared her throat. "I understand Aunt Bella was here earlier. If she told you about..."

"She told me nothing about any of your latest escapades. Just the usual dire warning that I have sadly mismanaged your upbringing."

"That's unfair," she cried. "Why can not Aunt Bella mind her own affairs! I have had a wonderful..." She paused in mid-sentence. "Then why are you so upset with me? What have I done? Surely you cannot be angry because Thomas and I have had a nice gallop—why, we've been doing that for years."

"What have you done?" said her father in a quiet tone that belied the anger in his eyes. "Your aunt has informed me that the Duke of Branwell asked your leave to pay his addresses to you and that you turned him down. Is this true?"

Jane was thoroughly perplexed. "Why, yes."

"May I ask why?"

"Because I don't care to marry him."

The duke leaned over the desk towards her. "You don't care to marry him," he repeated slowly. "And why is that? Is Branwell a cruel man? A gamester? A rake? A simpleton?"

Jane shook her head. "You know he is none of those things. He's nice enough, but he lacks... a certain fire. He's rather priggish, if you must know, and I certainly don't feel about him the way one should about the man one is going to marry."

"And how is that? I should very much like to hear what a twenty-year-old miss scarcely out of the schoolroom has to say on such matters."

Stung by his words, Jane responded hotly. "I think one should feel love for one's future husband, not settle for a marriage of convenience that seems so popular among the
ton
."

"What nonsense have I allowed you to fill your head with?" replied her father. "Is this the result of allowing you to study with Thomas and his tutor, learning French, the classics, history and science. And to read what you liked instead of insisting you be content with sewing, watercolors and lessons on the pianoforte?" He shook his head. "Instead of a well-mannered, biddable daughter I have one with her head filled full of wild romantic notions."

"Biddable! You, of all people, have always encouraged me to think for myself, not to be a ninnyhammer like Aunt Bella's daughters," cried Jane, her voice rising to the same fiery pitch as his.

"Well, I have been wrong, I see. For an entire Season since your coming out you have racketed around Town with your brother, getting into scrapes that should make a father blush. You have scorned any number of eligible young men—in short, you have indulged your own passions with nary a thought to your reputation or your future. That is going to change."

A silence descended upon the room. The cracking and hissing of the burning logs mirrored what both of them felt inside. Jane clasped her hands together so tightly that her nails dug into the skin. "Just what does that mean?" she asked.

"It means that I have given Branwell leave to pay his addresses to you. His father was a good friend of mine and I have know the young man since he was in leading strings, He has no vices, his estates are prosperous, his title is one of the oldest in the land, and you certainly cannot complain of his looks. I know he is considered quite a prize on the Marriage Mart. And he has character—enough backbone to deal with you, which unfortunately cannot be said for many. In short, I am convinced he will make you a very good husband."

Jane raised her chin defiantly and met his gaze in a clash of sapphire. "I shall
never
marry for a title or a handsome face. You cannot force me to the alter."

"No, I cannot," he agreed. "But I think when you have had time to consider, you will come to your senses and agree that it is a reasonable course, one that will bring you happiness in the end. For you know," he added, softening his tone for the first time, "that is all that I want for you, Jane."

"How can you say such a thing?" She jumped to her feet, unable to rein in her emotions any longer. "You want to fob me off on a man I neither love nor even like above half! You of all people, who I know made a love match with Mama, and even today refuse to remarry because of her, despite all your mistresses..."

His hand lashed through the air, veering only at the last minute from her cheek to slap down against the desk. The blow was so violent that it knocked the inkwell to the floor, the shattering of glass stunning both of them into a shocked silence. The only sound between them was their own ragged breathing until the duke recovered his resolve.

"Never speak to your father thus, young lady. Your temper and your language only reinforce that I am doing the right thing, so listen carefully to me. There will be no Season in Town, no routs, no balls, no theatre—nothing!—until you see reason. From now on, you will not leave Avanlea until you leave it as the bride of the Duke of Branwell. And I am sending Thomas away to London tomorrow morning so you may contemplate in solitude the folly of your past behavior. It is to be hoped that in three week's time, the date for which I have invited Branwell to make an extended visit here, you will have come to your senses."

Jane made a horrified little gasp.

"And don't think to sweeten me up on this. I vow to you that I will not change my mind. It is time to grow up and be a dutiful daughter, and obey your father. You must trust that I know what is best for you."