The Lord of Heartbreak (Reluctant Regency Brides Book 2)

by Claudia Stone

  Jane found herself being led to a corner of the room where Giles Bastion, Caroline's husband stood, deep in conversation with the handsome man that Jane had seen James speaking with moments before. The introductions were made and soon Jane found herself engaged in an enjoyable conversation with Giles and Harry Dalton, who it transpired had just returned from an exploration of the South Americas. The gong was sounded for dinner and much to Jane's relief, Caroline insisted on moving her from her original placing beside Emily, to the seat beside Harry.

  "You both seem to be getting along so well," Caroline said loudly, "It would be a shame to separate you."

  This statement was accompanied by a mischievous wink from Caroline, who wrinkled her nose in Emily's direction. Jane stifled a giggle; it seemed her sister in law to be was as fond of the Viscountess Jarvis as she was. Except she's not to be my sister in law, Jane reminded herself sternly, ignoring the guilt which accompanied this thought. She had not expected to find herself having to spend any time with James' family, when he had first proposed the idea of a fake engagement, and now that she had met Caroline, she regretted that the friendship which they would surely have formed would never come to be.

  Jane smiled gratefully at Mr Falton as he chivalrously pulled out her chair for her to sit on.

  "Thank you," she said with a wide smile, as the explorer took his place beside her at the table. "You really must tell me more of the South Americas. I have never known anyone who has visited, excepting an old friend, Mr Jackson —though he has not yet returned, I think."

  "Are you by any chance speaking of Alastair Jackson?" Dalton asked, setting down his glass of wine and glancing at Jane curiously. Jane could have sworn that her heart stopped beating as the explorer mentioned the name of the man who had once been the love of her life.

  "I am," she offered, hastily taking a large sip of her own wine to mask the sudden nervousness which was skittering through her veins, "Are you acquainted?"

  "Oh more than acquainted," Dalton gave a rueful chuckle, "We're practically an old married couple after sharing a cabin on the crossing back to Bristol."

  "Alastair is back in England?" Jane was so surprised by this news that she knocked her glass of wine over, the red liquid quickly spreading and staining the pristine, white table cloth. From the corner of her eye she could see Julian glaring at her from his place near the head of the table, but she ignored him. The news that the man she had loved, or at least thought she had loved, for nearly a decade had returned to English soil was so all encompassing that she did not care for her brother's censure, nor that she may have made a rather large faux pas in front of the Duke and Duchess.

  "Why did he return?" she asked hurriedly, absently blotting at the wine stain with a napkin. "He told me that he would be gone for five years at the least."

  Alastair was an entomologist and had left England the previous summer on an expedition to study the native insects of South America. He had also left Jane completely heartbroken at having been abandoned in favour of centipedes and larvae, after ten years of waiting for him to propose.

  "He was bitten by a nasty spider of some sort,' Dalton grimaced, "He nearly died. Had to have two toes amputated and the cost of the treatment ate through his funds for the rest of the trip. He was quite ill for a lot of the journey, though he picked up as we neared home —said he was looking forward to meeting up with a lass he had left behind."

  Jane, who had just lifted her soup spoon to sample the white soup which had been place before her, dropped the piece of cutlery on the floor with a loud clatter as she heard this rather startling piece of information.

  "Oh, I am sorry," she whispered, her face red as she accepted a new spoon from a footman who had leapt into action at the commotion she had caused. She could feel several pairs of eyes, her brother's the most annoyed, watching her, but she chose to ignore them and refocused her attention on Bastion, who was tucking into the heavy, creamed soup with gusto.

  "Did he mention which lass this might be?" she asked; her voice, which she had tried to keep light and casual, came out as a strangled whisper.

  "A girl in Cornwall, I think," Dalton replied, looking at her curiously, "Do you know her?"

  Jane mutely shook her head and turned her focus to the bowl of soup before her. Her mind was reeling from this second revelation: Alastair was still interested in her. She wondered if he had gone straight to Cornwall, where her family's estate lay in the quiet enclave of St Jarvis, or if he would come straight to town? Perhaps he would call on her this week, she thought excitedly. As her bowl of soup was removed and replaced with a platter of red-meats dressed with herbs, Jane glanced up and caught sight of James, who was seated on the opposite side of the cavernous dining table, a few seats to her left. His face wore a frown of concern as he watched her, his blue eyes tender and kind.

  He probably thinks that I am dropping spoons and spilling drinks because I am nervous, Jane thought, with an ache. How could she tell Lord Payne that it was the news of the return of the man she had once dreamed of marrying, that had made her so clumsy?

  Somehow Jane made it through the next seven courses without any more outward mistakes, helped by the fact that she diverted all conversation with Harry Dalton away from the topic of Alastair Jackson. She encouraged him to tell her tales of the jungles, rivers and tropics that he had explored and he was such a charming, interesting story-teller that she was shocked when dinner ended and the Duke announced that the menfolk would be retiring to his library for a spot of port.

  "It was so wonderful to speak with you, Miss Deveraux," Bastion said with a smooth bow before he departed. Jane smiled warmly and stood for a moment as she watched him follow the trail of men who were hastily departing the dining room.

  "You and Dalton seem to have hit it off."

  "Oh," Jane turned at the sound of James' voice and gave him a slightly shocked smile; she hadn't realised he was still there. "He's a very interesting man, your sister insisted we sit together."

  "I'm sure she did." Lord Payne scowled across the room at his sister, who simply gave him a lazy wave, "She's always been good at making trouble."

  Lord Payne's face wore a dark scowl which contrasted with his light colouring and was so opposite to the cheerful demeanour that he usually wore.

  "I don't understand how seating me beside Mr Dalton would cause any trouble?" Jane responded, feeling more than a little perplexed by the statement; did James somehow know his connection to Alastair?

  "Well, you were talking to him; for the whole evening I watched you talk to no one but him," James huffed, frowning down at her.

  "Of course I talked to him," Jane almost laughed at his ridiculous statement, "It would have been far worse if I had sat beside the man and ignored him completely."

  "That's not the point," James argued, ignoring her perfectly rational response, "My sister sat you beside him to try to invoke feelings of jealousy in me at watching my intended swooning over another man, all night long."

  "I was not swooning over Mr Dalton," Jane responded, issuing James with a glare of her own. "How dare you accuse me of such base behaviour. And there is no need to feel jealous of Mr Dalton. We are not actually engaged, if you remember, and he and I were simply having an interesting conversation—he's an interesting man."

  "And I'm not?" James asked, his voice low with annoyance.

  "Usually you are, my Lord," Jane replied, exasperation finally taking hold, "But tonight you are acting like a mad-man and you will excuse me, I have to join your mother and the other guests in the drawing room for tea."

  Jane pushed past her betrothed, anger simmering in the pit of her stomach. Caroline stood waiting for her in the doorway, her eyes alight with amusement.

  "Was that a lover's quarrel I witnessed?" she asked, glancing pointedly at her brother who was still standing in the spot where Jane had left him, anger radiating from his very being.

  "No," Jane sighed, feeling worn from James' ridiculous attack, "You simply witness
ed the beginning of your brother's descent into madness. Can you believe he accused me of swooning over Mr Dalton? I have never swooned in my life."

  "Did he?" Caroline's dark eyebrows shot up in wonder, "I have never known James to feel jealousy toward any man. My, my —he must be thoroughly smitten with you."

  "He's not—" Jane stopped herself before the dry, sarcastic comment that Lord Payne was not smitten by her, in any way, rolled off her tongue. They were supposed to be head-over-heels in love; she had nearly forgotten that they were engaged in a charade and that she had a part to play.

  "Oh, don't be so modest," Caroline linked her arm through Jane's and led her into the drawing room, where Georgianna, Duchess of Hawkfield was waiting impatiently for them, "I've never seen a man fidget like that through so many courses. Honestly at one stage I thought he was going to launch himself at Dalton and throttle him with the trout."

  Jane lamely joined in with Caroline's giggles, her mind reeling with confusion. Lord Payne was not in love with her, he was simply playing a part, like she was. The news of Alastair's return had her wondering, however, if she might be giving up her acting career before it had truly begun.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The next day, just after noon, James found himself once again standing on the doorstep of Jane's Berkely Square residence, this time with a bouquet of hot-house flowers in hand. He waited impatiently in the chill Spring air for someone to open the door. He had been wracked with guilt all night for his ridiculous behaviour with Jane after dinner and wanted to apologise. Preferably sooner rather than later, for he was anxious to explain to Jane that his annoyance wasn't flamed by jealousy, rather by his sibling's mischief making. He had known Caroline his whole life and she had always relished in goading and provoking him, as only an elder sister could. Not for the first time in his life James wished that Caroline had been born a boy, or at the very least born younger than him. She had always seemed one step ahead of him, seeming to know how he would react to something before he even did.

  "Lord Payne," the butler opened the door, peering around the huge bunch of roses which was obscuring his view to offer James a smile of welcome.

  "I have come to call on Miss Deveraux," James said, inhaling a sprig of gypsophelia as he spoke, which left him coughing and spluttering in a most undignified manner.

  "I'm afraid Miss Deveraux is not at home," the butler replied benignly once James' coughing fit had ended.

  "Not at home?" James paled; goodness was Jane giving him the cut absolute for his boorish behaviour last night? He gave the butler a curious look, wondering how informative the man would be. "Do you mean she's not at home because she has left the premises, or that she's not at home because it is I who is calling on her?"

  To James' surprise the butler gave a peal of laughter, his previous impassive expression exchanged for one of wonder.

  "I beg your pardon, my Lord," the butler hastily apologised, once more donning a staid face, "But that is the second time today that I have been asked that question, I have never in all my years working for Miss Deveraux experienced as many callers as I have these past few days. Miss Deveraux is not at home because she has gone to call on your mother with Lady Jarvis. Would you like me to take the bouquet and put it in water?"

  "Yes, please," James replied absently, passing the monstrous bunch of flowers to the man and following him inside the door. His mind was mulling over what the servant had said about him being the second person to ask the same question—who else was there that thought Jane was avoiding them?

  "I'll just leave my card," he said casually, striding over to the half-moon table, which stood under an ornate, gilt mirror. Upon this table was a very showy calling card box, with an engraved ivory lid. James extracted his own card from its case in his breast pocket, before lifting the lid to place it inside; before he did however, he stole a glance at the card which lay on the top of the pile. Instead of reading Harry Dalton, as the raging, jealous beast in his chest had suspected, it read: Mr Alastair Jackson, Entomologist. The card gave an address in Bloomsbury, which James duly noted, in case he needed to call on whoever this chap was at a later date. He had no idea who this Jackson fellow was, or what an entomologist was for that matter, but Jane had some explaining to do.

  "There you are darling, what a surprise to see you up and about so early." Georgianna, Duchess of Hawkfield's voice positively boomed across the vast drawing room to her son as he entered. James resisted rolling his eyes at his mother's theatrics; she was not a woman who did anything quietly. Indeed, even her dress was loud. Today she wore a large turban of turquoise, topped with an ostrich feather which bobbed as she turned her head. Her dress matched the colour of her turban and an opulent necklace of sapphires glistened at her neck. She looked much younger than her fifty years, though next to Jane, dressed in a simple, dove grey dress, she looked rather flamboyant for so early in the day.

  "I was just asking dear Miss Deveraux to regale us all with the tale of how you both fell in love," his mother continued, waving a hand to encompass Lady Jarvis and his sister Caroline into her plans. Lady Jarvis wore a sour look on her face that made James think that being regaled with their supposed love story was the last thing she wished to experience.

  "I'm finding the time line of your courtship rather difficult to understand," his mother continued blandly, gesturing for James to sit on an empty chair beside Jane. "It seems you have known each other for months, though there is no urgency on Miss Deveraux's part to march you down the aisle. Can you try to persuade the girl that no one wants to wait until December for a Christmas wedding? I'm barely able to wait until the Bishop finishes reading the banns!"

  Jane cast a despairing look at James, her eyes pleading with him to stop his mother before she sent for a Vicar to perform the nuptials there and then. The Duchess was a formidable woman at the best of times, but when she had her heart set on something she was as dangerous and calculating as the Duke of Wellington himself.

  "Now, Mother," he said carefully, knowing that he needed to word his response carefully. "I shall not have you overriding Jane's wishes, whatever she wants she may have."

  "Well," Georgianna huffed, "I'll just have to convince Jane that what she wants is actually what I want. Won't I Jane, dear?"

  Caroline, who was seated beside the Duchess, looked visibly alarmed at her mother's steely tone. Jane seemed to shrink into the overstuffed chair she was seated in and merely offered the Duchess a faint "Ah" as a response, apparently to afraid to actually form a word.

  "How we came to fall in love," James blurted loudly, in a desperate attempt to end the moment, "Was really quite simple, wasn't it Jane?"

  Jane nodded mutely and blinked at him from behind her spectacles. Her deep brown eyes were full of worry and grey shadows ringed them. James felt a stab of guilt as he saw how upset she was; it was all his fault. Accusing her of trying to charm Bastion and then leaving her alone to do battle with his mother.

  "We spent rather a lot of time together, when I went to stay in St Jarvis," he continued, ignoring the fact that he had actually been in Cornwall to hide from his father's ire after he had been publicly disgraced again. "We took walks along the cliffs, sat reading together in the library, Jane even got me to attend a lecture on the history of women's literature."

  Caroline raised an impressed eyebrow to the last statement, which like the two previous was only a slight variation of the truth. The only walk that James and Jane had taken along the cliffs near St Jarvis had occurred because he had accidentally knocked her best bonnet off whilst play acting on the way home from Sunday Service, and they had both been forced to chase it before it landed in the sea. Reading in the library, for James at least, had involved the racing pages of the newspapers and much muttering about bad bets, whilst Jane absently chastised him for gambling in the first place, without looking up from the pages of whatever book it was she was devouring. He had only attended the lecture on the history of women in literature as his visit to Cornwall was c
oming to an end and he had wanted to see inside the boarding house that Julian was forever disparaging. Jane had been more than a little reluctant to bring him, though he had behaved himself, quite taken aback by the way the quiet, mousy woman he had lived with for months had transformed into a passionate, persuasive speaker as she delivered her portion of the night.

  "We became quite accustomed to each other's company," James continued, "And when I returned to town I could not understand what was wrong with me, why I felt so out of sorts."

  "You missed Jane," Caroline offered, not bothering to conceal her look of glee.

  "Yes, I rather think I did," James offered his fiance a wide smile, "And then when the invitation to attend Jane's lecture on, on—"

  "The moralities of the Romans," Jane helpfully supplied, discreetly rolling her eyes at his lack of attention to detail.

  "Yes that," James beamed, "My heart nearly exploded and I knew that it was because it had recognised what I had been missing all that time."

  "Jane," Caroline sighed, casting a dreamy glance at Miss Deveraux who had turned a charming shade of pink at the attention. Blushing seemed to accentuate the alabaster paleness of her skin and the warmth of her chestnut brown locks. Goodness, how did I ever think she was mousy? James thought with surprise. Jane was radiant, her beauty soft and understated, the type of beauty that could go unnoticed by men who were only attracted to a loud, brash type of prettiness. Men like James.

  "Well that settles it." James started as his mother clapped her hands together loudly, her voice voice firm. "It's clear, Jane, that my son is completely besotted by you and I won't have you leave him waiting a moment longer. The wedding will take place the Monday after the last banns have been read, and I won't hear any argument against it."

  James stole a glance at Jane, who had paled at his mother's words. She wore the look of a woman who had been sentenced to the gallows and for some reason he felt like he had been kicked in the stomach at her reaction. You're not actually getting married, he reminded himself sternly, you have more important things to worry about, like halting this blasted wedding that you didn't want in the first place.