Dear Cousin Violet,
I do hope your sister continues to improve in health and spirits—
* * *
Twenty minutes later she finished the letter and sanded the wet ink. That was better. Talking to Violet, even at a distance, had made her feel calmer again, better able to think of things more charitably.
Daphne set those men on Ivo because she was frightened and lashed out. It doesn’t excuse her behaviour, but it does explain it. If Ivo can forgive her, then so can I.
She chewed the end of her pen.
I hope.
* * *
Ivo wrestled with the complexities of repairing leases while attempting to give his conscience a rational talking-to. If Daphne had written to tell him of her unhappiness with their engagement, he would have released her from it. Once he heard of her entanglement with Meredith he could not have got back to England any faster than he had done, so he could not have prevented her elopement. He had done all he could to clarify her legal position given that she did not want to be freed from the marriage.
He tried to imagine Jane in a similar positon and found that he could not. She would have written him a series of letters beginning with concerned enquiries about his well-being and culminating in an announcement that she no longer wished to marry him. If he had not responded, he would not have put it past her to take ship and march into camp to demand to know what he thought he was about, neglecting her.
He smiled at the thought, the lengthy legal document in front of him blurring until Ranwick cleared his throat. ‘This can wait a day or so, my lord, if it is not convenient to consider it now.’
‘No, I was simply wool-gathering. Explain this clause to me, if you would.’ Thoughts of Daphne had never made him smile out of sheer affectionate amusement, he realised as he focused on schedules of dilapidations.
* * *
‘Ouch!’
‘I am sorry, Miss Newnham,’ the modiste’s assistant mumbled through a mouthful of pins.
‘Do not apologise, it was my fault, I was fidgeting,’ Jane admitted. She had been standing on a stool for half an hour while the seamstresses fussed around the hem of her wedding gown. First they had raised it, then, after a lengthy scrutiny involving all five of them in addition to Betsy, Jane’s new lady’s maid, and Great-Aunt Honoria who, refreshed by several glasses of sherry, was supervising from the comfort of an armchair, they decided to lower it by half an inch.
Jane’s patience was ebbing in direct opposition to the hem. Somehow she could not imagine that Ivo was remotely interested in hemlines unless they were at mid-calf or higher. Necklines, though—that was very possible. She glanced down, smugly content that the gown showed a very pleasing expanse of bosom, daring enough to interest Ivo once she put back her veil, but modest enough to be perfectly suitable at the altar.
He was still somehow distracted after that news from the lawyers the day before, although his manner had, if anything, been more attentive to her. Men were mysterious creatures.
Her perch was in the square bay window on top of the porch of the front door. With glass on three sides it gave the dressmakers good light and gave Jane something to look at while she was poked, prodded and, occasionally, pricked. The weather was holding, the season slipping into a sunny, golden autumn and the prospect was pleasant.
She obliged by turning yet again until she faced down the driveway to the first bend which meant that she had an excellent view of the carriage as it came into sight, the
sweating horses labouring in the traces.
‘There is a carriage coming, Lady Gravestock,’ she said.
‘Who is it?’ The old lady put down her sherry glass. ‘Where is my stick.’
The vehicle came to a halt and a footman jumped down from the back, opened the door and let down the step. The young woman who took his hand and climbed down was petite and no one Jane recognised. Then she took off her bonnet and gazed around her, tipping her face back for a moment. Blonde, fragile, pale.
Jane stared down, feeling a sick apprehension wash through her. Could it be? She got off the stool in a scramble, hem half-pinned, and ran for the door. The railing around the open well of the hallway was just opposite and she hung over it, ignoring Lady Gravestock’s demand that she came back this instant and tell her who it was.
The bell peeled and a footman strode down the hall to open the door. Jane held her breath.
The woman walked straight in. ‘Lord Kendall,’ she said, her voice clear and carrying and urgent.
‘Who should I say, ma’am?’
‘Just get him! Get him now!’
Jane heard a door open under where she was standing, the sound of booted feet on marble. ‘Henry? What is going—? Daphne?’