Miss Verey’s Proposal

by Nicola Cornick

  ‘Oh, no!’ Jane tried to pull herself together. ‘That is…I am very sorry for Mama, for it was a dreadfully unlucky thing to happen, but I believe that she will recover well. I must thank you for your help, sir. You have eased our difficulties considerably.’

  ‘Even if the price is having to accept my company?’ Alex said, with an unrepentant smile. ‘I saw that you disapproved of my high-handedness, Miss Verey!’

  Jane bit back an answering smile. ‘You are very frank, sir.’

  ‘I deal straight, as you do, Miss Verey. Perhaps you would have preferred to stay here alone, facing whatever dangers Miss Marchment feels lurk in such places?’

  ‘I do not believe that I would have been in any great peril,’ Jane said judiciously. ‘However, your Grace evidently felt it necessary to provide protection, for which, no doubt, I should also thank you!’

  ‘It was nothing. I have my own reasons.’

  ‘I do not doubt it,’ Jane said, a little crossly. ‘Does everyone always fall in with your plans, sir?’

  ‘Almost always!’ Alex said cheerfully. ‘Except for you, Miss Verey! You are the one notable exception and it has been a salutary experience for me!’

  Jane met his eyes squarely. ‘I collect that you refer to my refusal of your brother’s suit? If you thought to spend your time this evening persuading me, I should warn you now that it would be a waste of time! I am still of the same mind!’

  Alex considered the deep ruby red of his wine. ‘Oddly enough, Miss Verey, that was not my intention.’ He looked up suddenly and Jane’s heart did a little flip as their eyes met. ‘Though I should be gratified to know why you are so adamantly against the match.’

  Jane looked away. ‘It is simply that marriage is a very serious business, your Grace. I esteem your brother-we are fast friends-but we have little in common on which to base a life together.’ She blushed. ‘Must we speak of this? I have no wish to prolong the subject!’

  Alex inclined his head. ‘Then we will not do so. It would be ungallant of me to persist with a topic you find distressing.’ He paused. ‘However, your reluctance did lead me to wonder whether your feelings were already engaged. I asked you before, of course, but now that we know each other better you might be willing to confide…’

  Jane stared at him, her pie congealing on the plate in front of her. Of course! Why had she not thought of that for herself? It would have been the obvious delaying tactic! She could not believe that it had not occurred to her to invent a secret fiancé, or indeed to plead guilty to an affection that was not returned! There was only one problem-the identity of her secret love…

  ‘Harry Marchnight, for instance,’ Alex was saying, carefully expressionless. ‘I have observed that you are very fond of him, but perhaps your feelings are of a deeper nature than mere affection…’

  Dark eyes and hazel met and held. Jane trembled on the edge of committing herself. Henry was a perfect candidate for her unrequited love, handsome, dashing…Yet there was something in Alex’s gaze that compelled her honesty.

  ‘Oh, I have known Harry for an age,’ she said, as carelessly as she was able, ‘and I love him like a brother! I wish I could claim that you are right, sir, but it is not true and I shall not pretend otherwise.’

  She thought she saw Alex relax infinitesimally, but could not imagine why. The silence between them suddenly seemed oddly significant.

  ‘Let us speak of other matters,’ she said impulsively. ‘Tell me about Hayenham, sir. I have heard that you spend most of your time there.’

  Alex’s description of his Yorkshire home took most of the rest of the meal and by the end Jane could almost taste the sea spray and feel the wind in the heather.

  ‘I can tell that you love it very much,’ she said, a little wistfully. ‘It sounds so very beautiful! Yet I would have thought that a man like you would still need other employment…some sort of gainful activity-’ She broke off and flushed at the look he gave her. ‘I beg your pardon, sir. I was thinking aloud.’

  Alex was smiling. ‘So you do not think that my estates provide sufficient interest or occupation, Miss Verey?’

  Jane blushed all the more. ‘I did not intend…I suppose that I see you as needing more of a challenge…forgive me,’ she finished hastily. ‘I am tired, I think, and should retire.’

  Alex put out a hand to detain her. ‘A moment. This is interesting-an interesting insight. What would you see me doing, Miss Verey?’

  Jane made a vague gesture. ‘Well, take Harry Marchnight as an example-’

  ‘Must we? I am fast becoming tired of his name!’

  ‘Nonsense! Harry is the perfect example! He gives the impression of being a rake and a gamester and yet he is nothing of the sort!’

  Alex’s gaze was suddenly very intent. ‘What do you mean, Miss Verey?’

  ‘Why, that Harry is forever disappearing on mysterious errands and pretending that he is nothing but a pleasure-seeker, but anyone who knows him must realise he is no dilettante! It is obvious that he must be engaged upon secret government business. Just as you-’

  Jane broke off and blushed scarlet. ‘Excuse me, sir. I have said too much. My imagination runs away with me.’

  Alex leant forward. ‘What does your imagination see for me, Miss Verey? A self-proclaimed recluse using his somewhat eccentric reputation to cover-what?’

  Jane shrugged. ‘I know not, sir. I promised that I would keep quiet about that night at Vauxhall-and about your activities in Spitalfields-and I have kept my word! But I do not have to be a bluestocking to calculate that there is some strange business afoot! Only…’ she frowned, aware that her glass was empty and her mind slightly fuzzy from drink and tiredness ‘…I do believe that you should be careful, sir. It cannot be right that someone is stalking you armed with a knife!’

  ‘I will take your advice, Miss Verey,’ Alex said gravely. ‘I do take it. And once again I am touched at your concern for me. What does that betoken, I wonder?’

  Jane suddenly realised how very tired she did feel. The food, the warmth of the fire and most of all the wine, had filled her with a sudden lassitude. She stood up. It seemed very late. The shadowed room was far too intimate for comfort and Alex was coming far too close to the truth. It was best to retire before she gave away all her secrets.

  ‘I hope that my mother may stand as chaperon even though she is asleep in bed,’ Jane said doubtfully. ‘I do not think that this is at all respectable, your Grace!’

  Alex smiled. ‘Perhaps you are right! Certainly I could argue that you are hopelessly compromised!’

  Jane blinked at him a little owlishly. ‘Surely it is your brother who has the rake’s reputation!’

  Alex’s gaze was bright with mockery. ‘Perhaps,’ he said again, ‘but you have had the proof that I am not safe, have you not, Miss Verey?’

  The room suddenly seemed far too small. Jane edged towards the door. Alex stood up and stretched with a lazy grace. ‘Allow me to escort you to your room…’

  Jane started to protest, but to her horror she found that she was so tired she could not be bothered to form the words. She grasped the back of a chair to steady herself.

  ‘Oh, dear…’

  ‘It is just a reaction to all the events of the day,’ Alex said practically, and before Jane could object, he had swept her up into his arms. ‘I will take you upstairs.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Jane’s eyes opened wide, sobriety suddenly restored. ‘You cannot do that!’

  He was laughing openly at her, the mocking tone still very much in evidence. ‘You are quite safe, Miss Verey! I have never had to stoop to seducing young ladies in alehouses…’

  ‘No, but…’ The effort of argument was almost too much for Jane, whose eyes seemed to be closing of their own volition. ‘If somebody saw us-’

  ‘Then you would have to marry me. It is a perfectly simple solution.’

  Suddenly it all seemed perfectly simple to Jane also. Various pieces seemed to slot together in her mind. ‘Yes,’
she said sleepily, ‘because that is the real reason that I cannot marry your brother, sir…’

  She opened her eyes. Alex’s face was very close above her own, his eyes so dark she imagined that she might drown in them. The firelight cast its shadow along the hard line of his jaw, his mouth…

  ‘Why is that, Miss Verey?’

  ‘Because it is you that I…’

  Jane’s eyes closed. Her head rested against his shoulder. She thought she heard him say, ‘You stopped at the most interesting moment, Miss Verey!’ Then he was holding her even closer and she felt his mouth brush her hair with the lightest of touches. She could not protest, could not even open her eyes. She felt warm and safe and by the time he had carried her up to her room, Jane was fast asleep.

  It was very late when Jane awoke the following day. The sounds of the voices upraised in the kitchen floated up to her room mingled with the rumble of wheels on the cobbles of the yard. Jane stretched. She felt warm and content-until she remembered the events of the previous evening. She had been very sleepy…what had she said? She must have fallen asleep in the parlour and Alex…She was in her shift! With growing horror, Jane saw that her clothes were neatly folded over the back of a wooden chair by the window. She closed her eyes in dread. Certainly she could not ask…

  ‘Miss Verey!’ The landlord’s daughter had knocked briskly at the door and stuck her head inside. ‘Your mother is asking for you and your brother is already arrived! Do you care for some breakfast, madam?’

  When Jane reached her mother’s chamber it was to find Lady Verey was up and dressed, partaking of breakfast and in a surprisingly buoyant mood.

  ‘I am very well, my love,’ she said in answer to Jane’s inquiry, ‘though the arm pains me a little. Of all the foolish accidents! Your brother is come to take me back to Town and the Duke has graciously agreed to drive you-’

  Jane flushed bright red. ‘Oh, no, Mama! I am persuaded that it would be better for me to accompany you and Simon to tend to your comfort-’

  ‘Your mother will be more comfortable with the additional space in the carriage,’ a smooth voice said from the doorway behind her. ‘Lady Verey, your servant, ma’am! I can scarce believe I find you looking so well!’

  Lady Verey fluttered becomingly. ‘Oh, your Grace! So unfortunate an accident, but I thank you for all your help…’

  ‘It was nothing,’ Alex said easily, smiling at her. His gaze travelled to Jane and lingered. ‘Good morning, Miss Verey. I believe you were just evincing a desire to be rid of my company?’

  Jane dropped a slight curtsy. She did not choose to be diplomatic that morning. It was so very frustrating to find that he was ahead of her at every turn!

  ‘Just so, your Grace. Excuse me, I must go and greet my brother.’ Before Lady Verey could reprove her she had slipped from the room.

  When the time came to leave, it seemed that her feelings were not to be taken into account. Lady Verey and Simon took the carriage whilst Alex handed Jane up into his phaeton as though she had never expressed any disinclination for his company. Jane found herself so annoyed by this that she was uncharacteristically cross and silent. Her feelings were already rubbed raw by a self-consciousness in Alex’s presence and her mind was worrying over the events of the previous night. Had he…? No, surely it was impossible…The memory of the pile of neatly folded clothes came back to haunt her. No one would know, least of all herself…

  ‘I do believe that you are quite out of charity with me this morning, Miss Verey!’ Alex said cheerfully, observing her stony face. ‘You must allow that it is better for Lady Verey to have plenty of space. She needs a cushion for her arm, you see-’

  ‘I am perfectly aware that my mother requires not to be squashed!’ Jane snapped. ‘It is simply-’

  ‘That you did not wish to travel with me. I am aware. What can I have done to have given you so strong a dislike for me?’

  Jane turned her face away and gazed unseeingly at the passing countryside. Her tormentor was not silenced.

  ‘Perhaps you are regretting the things you said last night,’ he said softly. ‘Such an avowal of affection…’

  Jane turned to him, her hazel eyes huge and stricken. Oh, why could she not remember? ‘I made no such avowal!’ she said hotly. ‘How dare you, sir!’

  ‘Oh, but indeed you did!’ Alex took his eyes off the road to consider her flushed and furious face. ‘You said that you could not marry my brother because-’

  ‘I beg you,’ Jane said hastily, in a fierce tone that belied her words, ‘not to put me to the blush, your Grace! I swear you are no gentleman!’

  He shot her a smile. ‘Gentleman enough to leave you to the tender mercies of the landlord’s daughter rather than acting as lady’s maid myself! Though the temptation-’

  Relief and anger washed through Jane in equal measure. Why did he have to be so provoking? And how could this laughing man be the same austere Duke of Delahaye whom everyone described as cold and remote?

  ‘Your Grace!’ she began stormily. ‘Pray show a little decorum!’

  ‘Very well.’ Alex lowered his voice. ‘We shall talk about it another time.’

  ‘I have no ambition for it,’ Jane said, turning her shoulder. Her hands were shaking and she pressed them together to still them. It was with the most profound relief that she realised they were already driving through the outskirts of London and she did not speak again until they were in Portman Square.

  ‘I wondered if I might call on you tomorrow,’ Alex was saying, effortlessly casual, as he helped her down from the phaeton. ‘Would ten o’clock be convenient? It is early, I know, but then my business is urgent.’

  ‘I…yes, of course.’ Jane tried to think of an excuse and totally failed to do so. More than half of her wanted to see him, but the timid part of her was still urging her to withdraw before it was too late. ‘That would be quite convenient.’

  ‘Good.’ Alex smiled at her and the glimmer of humour in his dark eyes set her pulse awry. He kissed her hand. ‘Until tomorrow, then, Miss Verey.’

  It was good to be home again. Whilst the servants fussed over Lady Verey and led her away to rest, Jane cornered Simon over a cup of chocolate in the drawing-room. She had thought that her brother looked strained and tired in the brief time she had seen him before their departure from the inn. Now she was shocked as the harsh morning light showed just how hollow-eyed he had become.

  ‘How did you fare whilst we were away, Simon?’ she asked lightly, only the expression in her eyes betraying her concern.

  ‘Very ill, Janey.’ Simon’s smile and his use of the childhood diminutive confirmed her worst fears.

  ‘Have you seen her?’

  Simon turned away, making a pretence of scanning the Morning Post. ‘I collect that you mean Thérèse? No, I have not seen her. She would not see me!’ He turned back sharply and his face was full of so much misery that Jane could feel his unhappiness. ‘For the first three days they continued to deny that she lived there, then they said that she would not see me and finally she told me to take my foolish flowers and leave her alone!’

  ‘You sent her flowers?’

  ‘By the barrowful,’ Simon confirmed grimly, casting the paper aside. ‘She didn’t want them, nor the food I sent, nor any of the things I could offer…’ His mouth tightened. ‘So in the end I thought, what’s the point? She don’t want me but there must be hundreds who would! So I thought to throw myself into the party spirit-’

  ‘Oh, Simon!’

  ‘-and I’ve been entertaining myself ever since! Plenty of pretty girls out this season, and ladies of another sort for other sport-’ He caught himself up. ‘Sorry, Janey, feeling a bit rough…’

  ‘Go and sleep it off,’ his sister advised unsympathetically. ‘And you need a shave!’

  ‘No time!’ Simon said, with an attempt at a jaunty grin. ‘I’m engaged to take the divine Miss Shearsby driving!’

  Jane sighed. She was hardly fooled by Simon’s assumed insouciance and
knew it hid a deeper pain. It seemed that Thérèse de Beaurain simply did not wish to know and, Jane thought, there was no possible way to make her care for Simon if she did not.

  ‘What about you?’ her brother asked, pausing in the doorway. ‘Am I addressing the future Lady Jane Delahaye?’

  Jane looked affronted. ‘No, Simon! I have told you that I will not marry Lord Philip! I have told everyone and no one is listening!’

  ‘Thought that was the point of your trip to the country,’ Simon said, tactlessly but with truth. ‘Mama seemed to think that it would bring matters to a head! She and Lady Eleanor were banking on it!’

  ‘Well, they will have to accept it! Philip is to marry Sophia-I have it all planned!’

  Simon raised an eyebrow. ‘Then you may solve the problem by marrying Alex,’ he said easily. He eyed his sister’s sudden blush with frank interest. ‘Oh, dear, it seems I have struck a nerve there, Janey! Well, you have my blessing! I should like above all things to have Alex as a brother-in-law!’

  ‘Oh, go away!’ Jane hustled her brother out of the room, suddenly anxious to see the back of him. Simon knew her well enough to suspect the truth and she did not want him to realise just how much his suggestion had appealed to her. ‘Go and devastate poor, unsuspecting Miss Shearsby! Though why she would wish to be seen with so disreputable a character defeats me!’

  Alex Delahaye was not at Lady Sefton’s ball that night. Sophia Marchment and Philip Delahaye danced with each other three times, to the delight of the gossips. Simon Verey behaved quite scandalously, flirting with any lady who glanced in his direction, and Jane Verey sat quietly in a corner, wondering what on earth the Duke was going to say to her the following morning.

  Chapter Eleven

  The following day was bright but cooler than previously and Jane was glad of the warmth of her red riding habit when she and the Duke of Delahaye rode out. She had been awake for hours, but in the event, Alex was early and he brought with him a horse from the livery stables.