Chapter Seventeen
“There you are! And about time too.”
It was not the most welcoming of greetings, but Jessica had to admit that it was far more than she had expected.
A small part of her had wondered, as she had sat in her Uncle William’s carriage, rattling along with her cousin Maude chattering away about all the excitement she was looking forward to in London, whether her family would have even noticed that she had been gone.
“And why the glum face, after staying longer at Stanphrey Lacey, that’s what I want to know,” asked Gwen curiously as Jessica stepped through the wide doorway into the hall. “I would have thought you’d be delighted to be back home.”
Home.
Jessica had never really given it much thought. Pernrith House had been home for so long that she had stopped noticing the walls, the floor, the rugs and the carpets, the paintings on the walls.
The place had become, somehow, a part of the backdrop of her life, becoming so vague, she could hardly picture it.
It would be her home forever now. She would never marry.
She hadn’t the heart to tell her uncles, as her guardians at Stanphrey Lacey, that she had called off the wedding.
She had simply agreed to their presumption that Reginald—Baron Llyne had been called back home on barony business.
That meant the vicar would have read the banns one last time the day before at the local church, and assuredly back home in London, too.
But she had not been at the church to hear them this time.
She’d feigned another headache—though it had hardly been necessary to feign feeling unwell.
All the banns were read, but she would never marry. No one would ever ask her, she was certain, but even if a small miracle were to occur and someone did, someone who—mistakenly—did not doubt her chastity, she would have to decline.
She could never marry anyone else, not now. Not after sharing what she had shared with Reginald.
“…beautiful… so precious… mine, my own…”
“Leave this room, leave Stanphrey Lacey, leave my life.”
“Jessica?”
Jessica blinked. Her sister was staring with great confusion. “Wh-What?”
“I beg your pardon,” murmured their mother, drifting in wearing the most impeccable pelisse and shawl that Jessica had ever seen.
Trust her mother to always be the best dressed of the family.
“I’m going out to have afternoon tea with Lady Romeril—she wants to hear all about the wedding, Jessica, and truth be told, I am not certain what to tell her. ”
Jessica’s stomach roiled.
Yes, it was an excellent question. How to tell the whole of Society that she had broken off her engagement?
It was a scandalous thing to do at the best of times. A broken engagement was not something one considered lightly, and she had read the torrid stories about broken trust and outraged fathers.
But that was usually when a gentleman had experienced second thoughts. Society rarely castigated a lady for withdrawing her consent to a match.
The trouble was, it was a match made outside of London, far too swiftly, between two people who hardly knew each other, and it had ended just as swiftly as it had begun. Jessica was certain that Lady Romeril would be greatly intrigued to hear all about the sordid details.
Not that her mother knew any of the sordid details.
“Your cheeks look awfully red, dear,” her mother said conversationally as she pulled on her gloves. “Is it something I said?”
“No, I… I…”
Jessica swallowed, wishing to goodness she could think of the words—that they did not scatter the moment her mind attempted to grab hold of them.
She had not been able to face her uncles, or even the vicar at Stanphrey Lacey, but she had written a letter to her parents, explaining. Well, a letter. That was, more of a note. She wasn’t sure such a short missive counted as a letter.
Mama and Papa,
Engagement ended. Do not ask me about it. Please cancel all wedding plans.
Your – Jessica
Jessica had told herself at the time that she had no wish to waste paper. Only now, faced with her mother’s expectant face, could she admit to herself that it was because she had no idea how to explain the treachery that she had suffered.
That list! Any Chance he could take, using them for their name, using them for their reputation—and her most of all.
And she had loved him.
She had to have known this deep down from the start—why else would a total stranger ask for her hand? It was not her he’d wished to marry, but the idea of her. She had told herself she’d been all right with that, that she would make him fall in love with her for real.
But faced with written evidence of the whole scheme, presented with the truth about his brother…she’d found she had not been all right with that at all.
“Jessica, can you hear me?”
Jessica blinked. Her mother was waving an elegantly gloved hand before her eyes and Gwen had disappeared, though goodness knew where. Jessica had not been paying attention.
“Yes. Hello,” she said a little lamely.
Her mother bit her lip. “I do not have to take tea with Lady Romeril, you know. If it is going to be too difficult for you, the topic being spoken of.”
“No, no, you go,” Jessica said hastily. What she did not say was, If we all retreat from Society, it will be talked of. The small whispers will become a shout, a roar, and suddenly, the whole of London will not be able to move without talking about it.
And she couldn’t bear that. She just couldn’t bear it.
“Hmm,” said her mother, evidently not convinced. “Well, Reeny is in the drawing room, deciding on invitations.”
All the warmth drained from Jessica’s cheeks. “Mama—Mama, I told you in my letter, the wedding preparations had to be canceled!”
Surely, they had understood? Perhaps she should not have been so circumspect, perhaps she should have given greater detail…but that would have betrayed herself as a fool and Reginald as a cad, a rogue of the worst order, and…
And somehow Jessica could not do that. To accept that Reginald was that sort of man was to accept not only that she had not spotted it, but that she had been entirely taken in. That she had fallen in love with a man who could treat her so ill.
That was not something she could accept.
“Invitations we have received, dear,” said her mother patiently. “Invitations to dinners, and card parties, and a late picnic that I think Hyde Park will be far too damp for, if you ask me. I do not know what the Duchess of Axwick is thinking.”
Jessica blinked. “Oh. Oh, I see.”
Obviously, there was more than one type of invitation. She had to remember that. There would be a great deal of invitations to stave off, she supposed, now that she was no longer going to become Lady Llyne.
“Though I did have word from the vicar at Stanphrey Lacey. He read the last of the banns yesterday? And he wanted to know if our plans included a wedding there or if we would be staying in London for it.”
Jessica swallowed.
“But I suppose it was more a matter of you not relaying your change of heart to the man before you left?” her mother asked. “I have not received word of any changes in expectations from your aunts, either.”
Reginald’s face flashed before Jessica’s eyes and she hastily pulled off her bonnet and traveling cloak as she said, “It…. I wasn’t feeling well. I’m better now. The drawing room. I will go and assist Reeny.”
Her mother said something, though precisely what, Jessica did not know. She had stepped with indecent haste, not even bothering to change her shoes for her town slippers, across the hall and down the west corridor toward the drawing room.
This is home. With every footstep, she could feel the tension in her shoulder blades starting to dissipate. Every echo was familiar, every inch of the walls intimate.
And this was where she would spend the rest of her life, wasn’t it?
Jessica knew that now; her choice to never marry—not that it was much of a choice, as the door was hardly being battered down by suitors—meant that unless one of her sisters married and asked for her Jessica’s help with her children, she would live out her time as a spinster here with her parents, and then when her father died, here in Pernrith House with her brother, who would become the new viscount.
That was a disarming thought. Michael, a viscount. It did not bear thinking about.
At least I like the old place, she thought as she entered the drawing room and saw her sister poring over a plethora of cards and papers laid out on top of the pianoforte, the lid closed. At least she could reconcile herself to the future before her.
“There you are. We thought you’d never get here,” Irene said without turning around.
Jessica smiled, despite herself. “And you knew it was me because…?”
“Because no one else walks that quietly, not even the servants,” her sister said brightly, glancing over her shoulder with a laugh. “And—dear God, what has happened?”
Jessica froze. Surely, her parents had—she had presumed they would tell her siblings what had happened. The idea that they did not know…
“Other than the blasted man being an absolute rogue, of course,” Irene said lightly, turning back to the pianoforte and moving a few cards around. “I was saying to Wilfred only yesterday, it is deplorable, the way men gad about. I suppose he broke your heart?”
How precisely Jessica was able to move farther into the room without bursting into tears, she did not know. She did reach the pianoforte to see so many cards of invitation that she could now understand why it was the instrument, and not a small console table, that was being used to sort them.
The Baroness Grasemere invites you to…
The Duke and Duchess of Sharnwick are hosting…
Viscount and Viscountess Walden would appreciate your company at…
The Earl and Countess of Dalmerlington hope you are available for light drinks…
The Duchess of Axwick is welcoming a select group of friends…
“We are popular,” Jessica said weakly.