Her first season had been nearly unbearable. She had only just gotten used to living with Ben and Cat before she was thrust into meeting the king and balls upon balls. John had not been wrong. Men had flocked to her. She was a new beauty and her dowry was so extensive that every man had asked her for a dance. Jane had smiled and remained calm as her dance card filled, though she would have much rather been climbing trees with John. Still, last year at least, there had been some novelty. This year, the same men asked for the same dances. She was sure some of them had good intentions, but she felt as if she wore a sign around her neck that held her dowry price.
She could not express her gratitude for all that Ben and Cat had done for her, though she did express it as best as she could. She thanked them for the gowns and the introduction to society and the dowry so often that at breakfast one day, Ben finally told her she must stop.
“Jane,” he’d told her with a sigh. “You know your sister would give you the world if she could. And so would I. We do none of this because we have to, but because we want to.” He’d then made her laugh with his next words. “Have you ever known me to do something I did not want to do?”
There were dresses upon dresses, all of them worn once by this point of the season, all in light colors. Her favorite was an iridescent white that she would wear tonight. She had so many silk slippers that it took her days to realize her nephew, George, had stolen one and brought it into the nursery. She would not have known it was gone at all if not for Nanny informing her of it. She felt like Cinderella as she tried it on, making sure it was hers and not Cat’s. But after tonight, they would spend the rest of the week packing up and then making their way back to Pritchford Place in Yorkshire. At some point in the summer, Julia and Shep and their two darling babies would join them, as they had forgone the London season because of the twins’ age.
Jane had made some friends since she came of age. But her closest friends were still Julia and Cat. It was just that most of these girls had been a part of this world their whole lives, when it was very much new to Jane. Thanks to Cat’s mothering and Jane’s ability to adapt, Jane had been able to fit in so seamlessly. People always commented on her pristine manners as if they expected her to be some kind of barbarian because she did not have the title of lady before her name. The thought had her rolling her eyes in the mirror while her lady’s maid, Trent, clucked her tongue.
“Now, now, Miss Watson, what if your face freezes like that?” Trent asked with a chuckle.
“I think even if my face were frozen like that, and Lady Ceciline would still push her son on me,” Jane sighed.
Yes, she had made friends, but she still missed John, who she had grown up loving, chasing, and teaching about figures until he surpassed her, racing and then pounding her fist into his chest in a most unladylike fashion when he clearly let her win. Other memories flashes in front of her mind’s eye, though she wished they did not: Jane pressing a compress to a black eye John’s father had given him, finding John sleeping in the barn with his brothers so they would be protected during his father’s rampages. To her, John’s disposition was truly miraculous. She loved Ben and Shep both like brothers, and they were good men who she both respected and loved. But she had seen John’s large hands pick a baby bird up off the ground and gently place it back in the nest to save it from the rest of the scary world. She had felt his hand on her face, his lips on hers…
She had moved on; she had made new friends. She had a new nephew to love on and Julia’s twins to see for the second time in a few weeks. But John’s lips were still the only ones she had kissed.
She sighed. It was no good to think of him. As far as she knew, he was gone. He had not tried to contact her, though a part of her still hoped for that. She did not know why her mind was so firmly fixed on him tonight. She thought she had trained it better than that.
“Are you almost ready?” Cat asked from the doorway. She held the baby in her arms, and George held her hand dutifully. It was near their bedtime. “Are you sure it is all right that Ben accompanies you without me for tonight?” Jane turned to nod and as soon as she did, Cat sighed. “Oh, you look beautiful, darling.”
“Pretty,” George told her as he walked toward her.
“Come and give Aunt Jane a kiss then, Georgie,” Jane told her nephew, who ran to her and pressed his lips sweetly to hers. She loved Cat and was so beyond happy that she had fallen in love and had a family. But since that day when John kissed her against the tree two years ago, Jane had wondered if that would ever happen for her. Would she marry for love? Was that possible? Oh, she hoped it could be so. “Do you promise to be a very good boy and help Mama and Nanny with Baby Charlie?”
He nodded solemnly and kissed her again with a smile. “Dance?” he asked.
She tickled his belly. “Yes, tonight I shall dance and then I shall come back home and go to sleep and wake up and see you.” And nothing will have changed. I will not meet my prince, just the same group that is always there. But I will pretend I am having the time of my life because that is what is expected of me and maybe someday I will feel even a bit of what I felt that day two years ago by the tree.
“Why do you look sad?” Cat asked. “Is something wrong? Are you well?”
“It is nothing. Please tell Ben I will be ready in just a few minutes. Trent just has to fix a few curls George’s embrace misplaced.” She looked her sister in the eye to prove that everything was all right but Cat still looked skeptical. “And then we will be off to the ball.”
Cat nodded and took George’s hand back in her own. “All right. I believe you. I shall go and tell Ben.”
Jane smiled, trying to look as happy as possible.
Cat exited and walked her two sons toward the bedroom she shared with her husband. Though she technically had her own room, they had always shared a bedroom. Ben’s valet was just fixing the last of his cufflinks when Cat walked in with both children and he bowed to her.
“There are my boys,” Ben chortled as he walked toward them. He picked George up and pressed his lips to Cat’s. “And there’s my wife,” he murmured against her lips. When she would have pulled away, to keep the kiss casual, he only pulled her nearer, his hand touching her scarred neck, but paying it no mind at all. “You must not rush me, you know,” he told her, flashing his dimples.
She pressed her finger to her lips. “Later,” she promised. “When George and Charlie are asleep and you have fulfilled your duties as Jane’s chaperone.”
He groaned, which George mimicked, making them both laugh. “I am here to tell you she should be ready in a few minutes.”
“All right.” He bounced their eldest in his arms. “You shall be good for Mama, George?”
The boy nodded with enthusiasm.
Cat closed the door behind her, easily juggling Charlie in her arms, a well-practiced mother. “There’s something else.”
“Yes, my love?” Ben asked. As far as Ben was concerned, life could not be better. The only thing that continued to nag at him was the mystery of who had set the fire that had nearly killed his wife, but that mystery would wait until they returned from London.
“She is unhappy,” Cat told him, her blue eyes full of worry. “I know we decided not to mention anything having to do with what Shep wrote to us about John Christopherson but…”
“Perhaps she is sad that it is the end of the season,” Ben suggested a bit lamely.
Cat shook her head. “You know her better than that. She has not been the same since he left.”
For Ben, Jane would always be a younger sister. The fact that men could ask her to dance and ask to court her was one he tried to pretend did not exist. “That could be because your father.”
Cat pressed her lips together. “Oh, Ben. I wish I could say that is what I thought it was. But I do not think so any longer. I will be so glad when we are back at Pritchford Place and Julia and Shep come.”
He kissed her again, lightly this time. “So you and Julia can try to get info
rmation out of her together?”
Cat smiled. “Well, yes.”
“Do not worry, Cat,” Ben soothed, as he pushed back her blond hair. “I think it is part of being a young woman in the season. Goodness knows that Julia was incredibly moody during this time. Actually, she was acting very similarly to Jane now.”
“Exactly,” Cat hissed, though she was not angry at her husband. “And do you not remember why she was acting that way? She was in love with someone she could not have.”
“Oh,” Ben gulped. “That.”
“Yes.” Cat had to smile at his ignorance. “That. We should think about telling her.”
“Yes, perhaps we should,” Ben agreed. “Tomorrow. We can tell her when the pressure from the season is gone. We can let her know about John’s new situation in life.”
Later, he would wonder if he had jinxed them.
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Fire and Smoke
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Raptures of Royalty
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by Charlotte Stone
and
ShermanBrooks Publishing House LLC.
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Regency Romance: The Duke’s Ever Burning Passion (Fire and Smoke: CLEAN Historical Romance) Page 16
