Rake's Reform

“Oh we must—we must—” Annabel spluttered into helpless incoherent laughter.

With a resigned sigh, Janey bent to pick up the Register and made to leave.

“Where are you going, dear coz?” Piers stepped in front of her.

“Somewhere a little quieter,” Janey said, staring back into Piers’s rather bulbous pale blue eyes. “Will you stand aside, please?”

“Papa wants you in the library,” Piers answered without moving. “He is none too happy about the food you’ve been doling out in the village. Quite choleric, in fact, says he won’t have the estate’s money wasted upon the undeserving poor who do no work.”

“And yet he does not mind keeping you in funds,” Janey said mildly.

“I am not poor,” Piers said frostily, his heavy features taking on an expression of hauteur.

“Undeserving was the adjective I had in mind.” Janey smiled. “Now let me pass, if you please. Perhaps you can convey my apologies to your father? I have other more pressing matters to attend to this morning.”

“Like reading this insurrectionist rubbish!” Piers snatched the Register from her, crumpled it into a ball and threw it into the fire.

“How dare you!” Janey hissed. “That was mine, you had no right—”

“I had every right, dear coz,” Piers sneered, catching her arm as she went to turn away. “You know Papa will not have that paper in the house. And now you are coming to the library, as Papa wishes.”

“Let go of me!” Janey said warningly.

“No.”

“Very well.” Janey brought her knee sharply upwards in a manoeuvre which no well-brought-up young English lady would have known.

There were definitely some advantages in a frontier upbringing, she thought, as she saw Piers’s eyes bulge, and he crumpled into a groaning heap upon the floor.

“Jane! What have you done? You have killed him!” Annabel flew to her cursing brother’s side.

“I fear not,” Janey said unrepentantly. She picked up her shawl from the window-seat and turned for the door, a smile upon her lips. A smile that froze as she found herself looking over her guardian’s shoulder, straight into Jonathan Lindsay’s blue eyes.

How long he had been there, what he thought of her after the scene he had just witnessed, were of no consequence for the moment in which their gazes locked. She only knew that she felt a ridiculous surge of happiness that he had not forgotten his promise to her. He had come.

“Jane!” Mr Filmore, who had seemed transfixed, apart from the trembling of his moustache, finally found his voice in a tone of thunderous disapproval. “I cannot think what you have to smile about! Brawling like some tavern slut! Has the money your grandfather spent upon your education, the effort Mrs Filmore has expended, counted for nothing?”

Janey made no answer, but stood, head held high, her gaze fixed upon a point somewhere over the rather short Mr Filmore’s head. She had a very good idea of how the conversation would progress. Mr Filmore never lost an opportunity to remind her of her failings, her lack of gratitude for the belated, but expensive, education lavished upon her by her grandfather.

Or the fact that she had been discovered, at the age of fifteen, living in a boarding house in the care of a woman who thought little of hiring herself out along with the beds, a woman who taught her the very useful manoeuvre she had just tried out on Piers. And upon receipt of that information, Jonathan Lindsay would no doubt decide to discontinue their acquaintance at the earliest opportunity, she thought, her happiness evaporating into a sudden bleak emptiness.

“Have you ever had the misfortune to witness such behaviour before, Mr Lindsay? I should wager you have not!” Somewhat to Janey’s surprise, Mr Filmore turned to address his visitor before berating her further.

“No.” Mild contempt edged Jonathan Lindsay’s voice like a razor. “But then, neither have I seen such provocation before, being accustomed to the company of gentlemen.” He looked pointedly at Piers who, after being assisted to his feet by his sister, strode out of the opposite door without so much as a word to any of them.

Janey’s hazel gaze flashed back to his in grateful astonishment. She had not expected to find an ally in the aristocratic Jonathan Lindsay.

Holding her gaze, he gave her the briefest of smiles. A smile that made her heart stop and skip a beat. Suddenly, the imminent lecture to be endured did not seem such an ordeal.

“If you knew my ward, sir, you would know my son is blameless in this matter,” Mr Filmore said huffily. “We make allowances, of course—she has never been quite herself since her betrothed died so tragically last year.”

“Allowances!” Janey’s hazel eyes took on a greener hue as her temper rose.

“Jane,” Mr Filmore said firmly, “do not let us have another scene. You do not want Mr Lindsay to think you unbalanced, do you?”

“That is not an error I am likely to make,” Jonathan said coolly. “In my opinion, Miss Hilton is perfectly balanced.” He put the slightest emphasis upon the last word, and Janey felt her insides contract as his blue gaze skimmed downwards from her face to the sharp curve of her waist emphasised by the tightly fitting bodice of her lavender gown. “And it is a delight to see her again.”

“Again?” Mr Filmore said, looking down his sharp thin nose. “I was not aware you had been introduced, Jane.”

“We met by accident, last week,” Janey said dragging her gaze from Jonathan Lindsay’s face. A delight. Was that true?

“In Burton’s Lane,” supplied Annabel with deliberate malice. “That’s where the family of that boy who fired the rick live.”

“Not for much longer, if I have anything to do with it.” Mr Filmore was curt, disapproving. “I might have known you were gallivanting about the countryside again, dispensing largesse to all and sundry.” He drew himself up. “If it were not for me, Mr Lindsay, Miss Hilton would not have a penny of her money left by the time she is of age.”

“Oh, Papa, I am sure Mr Lindsay does not wish to be bored with our little domestic disagreements.” Annabel came forward, all smiles, swaying flounces and bouncing curls, as Janey stood, momentarily stricken, wondering whether Mr Filmore could evict Mrs Avery without notice. “And you have not introduced me yet.”

“There is hardly any need,” Jonathan said, with a smile that did not reach his eyes. “I know you by sight, Miss Filmore, and by reputation.” His mouth curved a little upon the last word. “You were in Town last Season, were you not?”

“Yes, how clever of you to remember,” Annabel simpered, fluttering her eyelashes. “I did not think you would have noticed me amongst so many.”

“Oh, you are impossible to ignore, Miss Filmore,” Jonathan said drily as his eyes flicked over the pink frills. “Quite impossible.”

“Oh, Mr Lindsay, you are such a flatterer,” Annabel said, twirling one of her red curls coyly about her finger. “Is he not shameless, Jane?”

“Utterly, I fear,” Janey agreed mildly, the corners of her mouth curving in spite of everything. Only Annabel, whose vanity was overwhelming, could possibly have taken what he had said as a compliment.

“Jane,” Mr Filmore said frowningly, as he glanced from Lindsay to Janey, “have you entirely forgotten your manners? Go and order some refreshment for our guest.”

“Of course,” Janey said demurely. “If you will excuse me?” She waited for Jonathan Lindsay to step aside.

“A moment, Miss Hilton.” He touched her arm as she made to pass him, stopping her in mid-stride. She stared down at his long elegant fingers, so brown and firm upon her thin muslin sleeve just above her wrist. It was the lightest, politest of gestures. There was no need for her pulse to beat wildly at the base of her throat, no reason at all for her breath to stop in her throat. And it was ridiculous to have this feeling that her whole life had been leading to this moment, this man’s touch upon her sleeve.

Dragging in a hasty breath, she jerked her gaze upwards to his and found him staring at her speculatively.

“Yes?” Her voice was almost, but not quite, as steady as she would have wished it as his gaze held hers and she caught the gleam of amusement in the indigo depths of his eyes. No doubt he was used to women reacting to him in such a fashion and that piqued her. She did not want to be like the rest…not to this man.

“That matter we spoke of—”

“About the gardens of Southbrook, you mean?” she interrupted him warningly, willing him with her eyes to understand that she did not want Jem’s case mentioned before Mr Filmore.

“Yes,” he said after a fractional hesitation, “the gardens.”

“You will find the camomile seat at the foot of the waterfall,” she went on hastily. “Sunset is the best time to sit there, the light turns the water to rainbows—” She stopped, as close to blushing as she had ever been, as his brows lifted quizzically and he smiled at her in a way he had never done before, a wide slanting smile that reflected the warmth in his gaze.

“Rainbows at sunset?” he said with gentle mockery. “How very romantic for a Radical.”

“It was merely an observation—you really do get rainbows—” she said tersely as Annabel giggled.