“I…” Susan spluttered, but Jane spoke over her, in a way she never had before.
“You know how humdrum my life has been for the last ten years.”
“Don’t be silly. You loved living in Dorset.”
“No, it suited you to think that.” Jane’s eyes narrowed on her sister. “But don’t you think I regretted missing out on having a season like yours? Don’t you think I longed for company my own age, and new and interesting people to talk to?”
Susan looked increasingly uncomfortable. “You never said anything.”
“What was the point? Someone had to take charge at Cavell Court.” Aware that they were in public, Jane kept her voice low, but the strength of her feelings vibrated through every word. It was fortunate that the noise in the packed room masked this increasingly contentious discussion. “Now I’m married, and I have a wonderful husband, and the chance to do the things I’ve always wanted to. I’m twenty-eight, not sixteen. I won’t be lectured about my clothes, or my friends, or my behavior.”
Susan’s face flushed, and temper flashed in her dark eyes. “I was only trying to help.”
“Well, I appreciate it,” Jane said, without meaning a word. “But you can leave me to make my own way in society.”
Susan glanced past Jane’s shoulder to someone behind her. “You should keep better control of your wife, Hugh, or she’ll bring the whole family into disrepute. This unseemly rag she has on is only the start of it. You mark my words.”
Jane wondered how long he’d been standing there. “Rubbish,” he snapped. “Jane’s a credit to the Norris name, and a credit to me as her husband. Susan, your sister is going to become a power in the world.”
Anger thinned Susan’s lips to a tiny red line. “I wash my hands of both of you.” She looked up at Frederick, who Jane realized hovered beside Hugh. Poor Frederick. It was his fate to be overlooked. “Take me home, Frederick. I find I have a headache.”
Under his receding brown hairline, Frederick’s eyes were bewildered. He extended a glass of champagne toward Susan as she stood up. “But, my love, you asked me to get this for you.”
“I don’t want it. We are leaving.” She snatched the glass away from him and slammed it down on the table so hard, champagne sloshed over the top. Jane was grateful they were in a corner and out of general view. As it was, she caught a curious glance from Caro a few tables away. She sent her new friend a subtle shake of the head to discourage her from coming over.
Jane stood. “Susan, don’t be silly.”
“Silly, am I?” She puffed up to her full five foot two and shot Jane a searing glare. “Let’s see if you still say that, when your name has become a byword for depravity.”
“It’s only a dress.”
“It’s the thin edge of the wedge. I can see it in your eyes, that you’re not the same girl you were.”
“That’s a good thing,” Jane said bravely, but Susan swept over her comment as if she hadn’t spoken.
“I forecast trouble ahead. All this attention has turned your head. You’ll get yourself involved in a scandal, and we’ll all be dragged in after you. Remember what I’ve said, when your niece can’t find a husband, because no decent man will marry into a family that includes a wayward creature like Jane Norris.”
“Jane Rutherford,” Hugh said coldly. He bowed briefly to Frederick, who looked like he’d sell his soul to be anywhere else but here. “Bacon, Susan’s right. It’s time you took her home.”
Hugh stood beside Jane and took her hand. “Are you all right?”
Feeling as if she’d been caught in a violent thunderstorm, Jane watched Susan sweep from the room. How could a night that began so auspiciously deteriorate into this mess?
“Yes.” She paused. “No.”
“Susan completely overreacted. She had no right to say what she did.”
“Perhaps not.”
“Definitely not. I would
have stepped in earlier, but you were fighting your corner without my help.”
She drew a shaky breath. “A lot of what I said has been festering for a long time.”
“Would you like to go home?”
Go home like a whipped dog with its tail between its legs? Go home where she’d be alone with Hugh, and helpless to know what to do with this unwelcome, engulfing love that flooded every cell of her body? Go home where she’d have time and space to think about the emotional wilderness stretching ahead of her?