Chapter 6 #2
“We are very much obliged for your… intervention,” Mrs. Hartington said tightly. “I only hope Mr. Fairfax is equally appreciative.”
“I have no expectations where Mr. Fairfax is concerned,” Jillian answered. “We have simply agreed not to quarrel in front of his relations. That is the beginning and end of it.”
It was a peace offering and a possible easing of tensions. Or it would have been until Beatrice sighed, satisfied. “The best beginnings often pretend to be endings. You will see.”
Jillian would have groaned had it done the least bit of good.
But Beatrice was…. Well, Beatrice. Irrepressible as ever.
Retreat was her only option, it seemed. “If you will excuse me,” Jillian said instead, turning from them, “I find myself in need of quieter company than this morning seems inclined to offer. The library, perhaps. I prefer to satisfy my own inquisitive nature more so than satisfying others’. ”
Beatrice waved a hand. “Do not linger too long. The house is not done with you.”
“It matters not, Aunt Beatrice,” Jillian said, heading for the door, “I have determined that I shall make every attempt to be done with it.”
She left the room with a calm step that cost her more effort than she liked to admit.
The corridor outside felt cooler by comparison, the sounds from the breakfast room and main hall muffled by distance and thick carpets.
She drew in a slow breath, then another, and forced herself not to look back.
Whatever gossip still clung to the walls could chatter without her.
Jillian turned toward the library, skirts whispering against the floor, shoulders squared. If Fairhaven wanted theatrics, it would have to stage them without her cooperation for at least an hour.
She did not notice, as she went, the slight movement in the shadowed alcove near the turn in the passageway.
She did not see Miles nor did she hear his quickly indrawn breath at the sight of her.
Miles had fled the breakfast room with the intention of escaping to the billiards room, not the library.
He had had quite enough of being watched over his toast by several matrons whose interest in his appetite extended far beyond concerns for his health.
Henry’s attempts to make careless jokes had not improved matters.
A gentleman could only bear so many pointed remarks about forfeits before he became a danger to himself and others.
He had paused in the alcove outside the smaller morning parlor when he heard raised voices—female, sharp, and altogether too familiar.
Beatrice’s amused cadence, Mrs. Hartington’s clipped consonants, Arabella’s breathless protests, and then Jillian’s voice threading through them all, cool and controlled, occasionally flashing with unmistakable temper and the biting wit he admired as much as he feared.
He had not meant to listen.
He had told himself he would step out at once, make some innocuous remark, and deflect whatever fresh absurdity was underway.
Instead, he stayed where he was, motionless in the small recess, his shoulders pressed back against the paneling.
Something in Jillian’s tone—equal parts wounded and defiant—held him there against his better judgment.
He heard the older woman’s insinuations, Arabella’s thoughtless repetition of her supposed age and on the shelf status, Beatrice’s delighted provocations.
Through it all, Jillian stood her ground.
He imagined the line of her chin, the bright edge in her eyes when she said she had no expectations of him. The words stung more than he cared to examine.
When the conversation reached its conclusion and Jillian announced her intention of seeking quieter company, he shifted at last, intending to step forward, to offer some useless remark about the weather, anything that might ease the mutinous set he could hear in her voice.
It was the most natural impulse in the world to go after her.
He almost did.
His hand even lifted from his side, as if to reach for a woman who was not there.
Then, from the other end of the corridor, Henry’s voice floated up the stairs, accompanied by two of their cousins, all three of them still in high good humor over yesterday’s spectacle.
Behind them came Mrs. Templeton and another guest, conversing in low tones that broke into giggles whenever they glanced in the direction of the morning room.
Miles stilled.
He watched Jillian turn the corner, her profile visible for an instant as she moved away—composed, self-possessed, untouchable. Her shoulders did not droop as one might expect after such an encounter. She walked as though she would allow nothing, not even a houseful of gossips, to see her falter.
She did not look back.
He felt a powerful urge to follow her, to abandon propriety and common sense and any pretense of indifference, to go after her down the corridor and tell her that she was not alone in this farce.
That whatever implications were being drawn, he would bear them alongside her.
The urge was so strong it surprised him.
He tightened his hand at his side instead.
Henry and the others reached the top of the stairs just as Jillian disappeared from view. They saw only Miles, emerging from shadow, his stance taut.
“There you are,” Henry said cheerfully. “I was just coming to drag you off for a game of billiards. Anything to distract you from the fact that half the house has decided you have entered into a grand romance.”
One of the cousins chuckled. “Years of glacial disdain only to end in sudden passion. It is very like a novel.”
Mrs. Templeton, arriving a moment later, smiled in that knowing way older ladies often adopted when they believed themselves to be generous. “I shall not say I am surprised, Mr. Fairfax. A woman with that much spirit will either drive you mad or marry you. Sometimes both.”
Miles forced his features into something approximating polite amusement. “You give the situation more drama than it truly possesses, ma’am.”
“Do we?” Mrs. Templeton’s eyes gleamed. “We shall see.”
He inclined his head and murmured something suitably noncommittal.
It would not do, he told himself, to go striding down the passage in full view of everyone, following Jillian into a secluded room.
It would feed precisely the story that was already forming around them.
Whatever he felt about how she had been spoken to in that morning room, whatever he wanted to say to her, would have to wait until it could be done without making matters worse.
He turned toward the stair that led to the billiards room instead, falling into step with Henry, answering some remark he barely heard. The careful, practiced discipline he had trained into himself over years—remain detached, notice everything, reveal little—settled back into place.
As he moved away, Miles cast one last look down the corridor where Jillian had gone. The sight of the empty passage pricked at him. He did not realize, until he turned fully, that Mrs. Hartington and Arabella stood at the far end, half-hidden in a side turning, their faces pale with indignation.
Arabella’s gaze was fixed not on the door Jillian had taken, but on him.
If Jillian had seen it, she might not have dismissed that look as harmless. Given Arabella’s obvious fury and the cold calculation evident in Mrs. Hartington’s expression, he knew they did not.
There was nothing harmless in it now. He’d been indiscreet and Jillian might well pay a price for it.