Chapter Eleven
Jessica gave out a long, languid sigh as she watched the autumnal breeze rustle the top leaves of the oaks down the avenue.
And it was an autumnal breeze. For the last few days, she and her sisters had attempted to persuade their father that the summer had lingered, that the growing evening chill should be ignored, that the final harvest of apples was not to be considered.
But the signs that summer was over and autumn was finally here could no longer been ignored.
The cooler temperatures were allowing for more of the hunting the family was enjoying, and the mantelpiece was groaning with the growing number of invitations being sent on with requests for the presence of a Chance, any Chance, at every event for the rest of the year.
Any Chance they could take.
Jessica smiled as the bustle of several footmen and maids behind her in the great hall filled the place.
“—two more trunks for Miss Irene—”
“Did anyone clean the guns for Mr. Chance?”
“—haven’t seen it for a while. Is it possible his lordship left it in the library?”
There was always such a to-do whenever the Pernrith branch of the family decided to return home. It was no surprise, in a way. They were the most numerous of the four branches.
Still, that did not explain why they were quite so disorganized.
“I swear, there is not a single left glove in this place.” Irene sighed as she approached Jessica by the large windows. “I don’t know where they are running off to.”
“You keep losing them,” Jessica reminded her sister with a wry expression. “What I don’t understand is how Gwen, who keeps losing her right gloves, isn’t finding yours. Surely, between you two, you could make a few whole pairs.”
“Careful now, that’s got the dragon in it!” Irene rushed off in a flurry of skirts and Jessica chuckled as Reginald joined her by the window, his eyebrows raised.
“How is it possible,” he asked genially, “that I have been here for weeks and have not realized that this family keeps dragons?”
“It’s just Gwen’s dog, Petal,” Jessica explained with a laugh. Well, she had never had to explain this to an outsider before, had she? She had never been intimate enough with anyone for them to need an explanation. “Do not raise your eyebrows, we all call dogs dragons. I blame Maude.”
“Maude—your oldest cousin, I believe?”
Jessica considered pointing out that technically Maude was her aunt Alice’s daughter from her first marriage, adopted by her Uncle William so long ago that whole years could go by without her remembering that fact.
She did not bother. Maudy was family. Where a person came from did not matter. What mattered was that she was one of them. One of us.
“Yes, Maude,” Jessica said aloud as a pair of maids bickered behind them about how exactly to carry a trunk out to the waiting carriages. “I think she wished for a dragon as a pet, not a dog, and so decided to call her dog ‘Dragon.’ When her brothers were born and they were learning their animals—”
“I can quite see how the situation occurred.” Reginald laughed, glancing over his shoulder at the yelping box that was carefully carried by a somber-looking footman out through the main door onto the drive.
“Such a great deal of luggage for your family. I thought—I had hoped you would be staying with the rest of the family. The banns have been read at the local church, so I assumed that was the plan. Then again, your father said he wrote to your London parish to begin the readings as well.”
A tug at her stomach made it impossible, immediately, for Jessica to reply.
It was always this way. She would not say it, for fear that her father may overhear. She had no wish to upset him, after all.
But it was like this every year. Every year, the Pernrith branch of the family was invited to the summer house party of the Chances just like all of them.
Every year, they would come, and it would be wonderful, and they would have such a marvelous time that she and her siblings had no wish to go home.
And every year, about a fortnight before the house party was officially over, her father would decide to leave.
She had never asked him about it, and Jessica never would.
She thought perhaps, with him initiating that the banns read locally as well as in London, this year might be different, that she and Reginald might hold their wedding here at the end of the family gathering. But it appeared not.
“No, we are leaving this very afternoon,” she said aloud. “We shall have to make arrangements for the wedding, but the banns can continue without our presence and we can return here, perhaps. Or the London location will work just as well. I suppose your sister will be glad to see you?”
It should not really have been a question, not really. Jessica could not imagine any sister not looking forward to Reginald returning home. He was such… He was so…
Every moment with him was more entertaining than the last. Just when she had thought she had understood him, all of him, there was something new. Something fresh. Something more to discover.
“I suppose she will, when I return,” Reginald said quietly. “But not today.”
There was something strange in what he said, and it caused Jessica to glance over her shoulder and take in the plethora of luggage, trunks, carpet bags, and boxes that were slowly disappearing into the two baggage carriages that the Pernrith Chances had brought with them.
There was her brother’s gun set and Gwen’s and Irene’s trunks, and her own things, of course, and her mother’s lady’s maid had already taken Teddy and her own belongings out…
But there was nothing in the grand hallway that did not belong to them. In short, Reginald’s belongings were nowhere to be seen.
“But…you are not leaving?”
“I was going to,” Reginald said quietly, stepping closer to her to lower his voice.
Jessica’s breath hitched at the nearness.
“You were going to?” Jessica could not understand it. It was most strange for the man to turn up at Stanphrey Lacey without an invitation in the first place, but to linger without her…
“I was hoping,” he continued, his voice now a delicious murmur, “that I might persuade you to stay.”
Stay.
“Stay?”
Reginald’s expression was one of longing, just for a flash of a moment. She was certain she could not have misunderstood, but it was gone before she could truly interrogate it.
She was, after all, supposed to be making the man fall in love with her. That was going to be rather difficult, from London.
“Yes, stay,” Reginald said quietly. “I thought—well, if you and I decided to stay, not only would we be able to continue the banns at Stanphrey Lacey’s church, you would still be under the protection and guidance of your extended family, and it would afford us more time to…
to be together. To get to know each other better, before the wedding. To be…alone.”
Alone.
Jessica’s sharp inhale was lost in the noise of the room, but she was certain that the gentleman staring at her mouth had noticed it.
Alone.
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” was what she really should have said.
After all, the one day they had been left alone at Stanphrey Lacey, they had revealed family truths, held hands, and kissed so furiously against a wall that they had dislodged a painting.
It was hardly auspicious.
“You can decline, obviously,” Reginald said as he took a half-step back, his attention now directed to the window. “It was just a thought. I have no wish to impose.”
“I would like that.” Jessica had not meant to speak hastily, but she did, before the man could get quite the wrong idea about her hesitation.
“I took the time to consider not because I do not wish to spend more time with you, but because…because I think I may wish to spend time with you a mite too much.”
It cost her greatly to be so bold, and yet the reward was instantaneous.
Reginald’s smile could have burnt down a building. “Thank you.”
He’d thanked her and yet he could not know, could he, just how much his words meant to her? How everything he did was starting to mean so much to her.
It was cruel, in a way, that she would start to fall in love with a man to whom she was already engaged.
She could not dream of catching his eye when she’d done nothing to catch it in the first place.
“Jessica Chance, if you have any knowledge of your sisters’ gloves, I beg you to give us peace and let us know.”
“Mama,” said Jessica swiftly, turning while placing a hand on Reginald’s chest and then removing it as though scalded. “Mama, I have decided to stay.”
“Stay?” Her mother blinked as though she had started speaking gibberish. “Stay what?”
“Stay here. At Stanphrey Lacey,” Jessica added in way of further explanation.
Her mother did not look as though she fully understood. “But you can’t. I know the banns have been read, but your father decided we are leaving. They’ve been read back in London without us present as well. We can discuss the details of the plan going forward at home.”
“I am sure Victoria would appreciate some assistance with the baby, and I can walk over to the Lodge every day, and—”
“You wish to stay?”
Jessica swallowed. It was most unfair of her mother to sound so incredulous—but then, she supposed it was an odd request. She had never asked for such a thing before. The noise of a Chance house party was usually more than enough to drive a wallflower back home at the soonest convenience.
“As you said, Father already had the banns begun here. It makes sense for me to stay for the rest of the readings, even if we wind up marrying in London. And… And I can continue to plan the wedding. With Reginald. Lord Llyne,” Jessica amended hastily, determinedly not looking at the man standing beside her.
It did not matter. Even without turning her attention to him, she could feel the weight, the heat of his focus upon her neck. That was surely the explanation as to why her cheeks were flushing and heat was cascading down her neck.
“With…Reginald?”