Page 29 of Who’s That Earl

For example, might not a newly arrived landowner look for a chance to investigate the state of things quietly before making any decisions? Such a man might want to take stock of his inheritance without anyone fawning over him or complaining to him. He might hope to gauge how the friends of his youth would react to his unexpected inheritance.

Yes, there were times when a lie might make it easier to get at the truth.

“He sounds the perfect gentleman, an ideal husband,” Thomas said, his voice free of its playful brogue, wrung of all emotion.

Did she even remember the truth? Did she remember how to trust?

“Of course he was,” she replied, surprised at her own firmness. “After all, I invented him.”

As soon as the words passed her lips, she sucked in her breath, wishing she could recall them. But the secret, once spilled, slipped away like quicksilver, impossible to put back into the vial. He was still looking at her, though she had no name for the wide-eyed expression he now sported.

Tugging her hands free of her muff, she lifted her skirts in great handfuls, turned, and darted toward the castle gate.

Chapter 11

Bewildered, Athena and Aphrodite stood beside Thomas and stared after her fleeing form. Then, with an anxious glance upward, as if only just discovering they’d been abandoned with their enemy, they dashed after their mistress, leaving him alone to weigh the meaning of her words.

There is no Mr. Higginbotham, she had insisted on the night of his arrival.

I invented him.

He’d suspected her of hiding something, yes. But not that. She’d made up both her husband and his death? She wore widow’s weeds for a man who’d never existed? Thomas could not easily sort his emotions in that moment.

“Jane, wait.”

Perhaps more related to the slick terrain than to his command, her steps slowed, but did not stop.

On the ground a few feet before him lay the bottom of a thin, narrow box, its lid having been knocked free and then trampled by the dogs. Jane must have dropped it as she ran. From it spilled something blue, a puddle of springtime against the snow. He bent and retrieved both the box and its contents: a pair of ladies’ silk stockings, with a latticework of delicate embroidery running along their length. A gift? An indulgence?

He stuffed them into the deep pocket of his greatcoat and hurried after her, reaching her side just before she slipped through the inner bailey of the castle. Though the dogs raced ahead, she stopped, head and shoulders bowed.

When it became clear that she did not intend to speak first, or perhaps at all, he said simply, “I don’t...understand.”

Her reply was muffled. “I made him up.”

“But why would you do such a thing?” Certainly he had no right or reason to be angry at her for keeping secrets. In fact, some small, terrible part of him dared to rejoice at the realization that he would not have to compete with another man’s memory. In spite of himself, however, his voice rose, shock and surprise coloring his question.

Her head snapped up, her hood slipping back over her hair with the violence of the movement. “Why would a young woman, living alone, want the protections, the freedoms, our society affords widows?” Her eyes lit with the spark of some otherworldly fire. “Can you not imagine?”

“I—”

In truth, he had never before given the matter much thought. He had always regarded widows as objects of pity. He had never considered that a woman might be tempted to don those weeds as a means of resisting the restraints society put on her. At seventeen, he had been free to follow a path of his choosing. His fortune, such as it was, had been his to command. His person, too—whatever the British Army might assert to the contrary. At seventeen, Jane too had wanted to strike out on her own, it seemed. But she had been driven to play the part of widowed “Mrs. Higginbotham” just to have some scant measure of control over her life. Would he have had the strength to do what she had done, for just a taste of independence?

“I’m sorry it was necessary,” he said, his voice low. “But I confess, I’m glad to know you’re not really a grieving widow.” Fishing deep in his pocket, he withdrew the pair of bright-colored stockings and held them out to her.

She took them, though with something like reluctance, or wariness at least, as if they belonged to someone else. Methodically, she wrapped them around one hand with the other to form a neat bundle. Why did she have them? Was she considering leaving off her false mourning? Did his arrival have anything to do with it?

“No, I have not lost a husband,” she said, watching herself wind the stockings into a ball before stuffing them into her muff. “It does not therefore follow that I have not grieved.”

Before his parted lips could decide which question to form, she explained.

“I lost my family. I have not seen them since the night of that assembly. While you and I were dancing and talking and—” More heat flamed into her cheeks, but she dashed it away with sharp shake of her head. “My mother found something of mine, something she misunderstood. Something of which she strenuously disapproved. She showed it to my father. By the time Sir Richard and Julia walked me home, my fate had already been decided. Papa ordered me to leave the house. I was granted a few moments to gather my things and kiss my sleeping brother goodbye. Under cover of helping me pack, our housekeeper gave me what I fear must have been her life’s savings. By dawn I was on the stage bound for London. Alone.”

“Jane.” Her name burst from his lips, half sigh, half groan. He knew not what else to say. The circumstances that had driven her here were worse, much worse, than he could have imagined. The part of him that generally acted first and reflected later, the part that had longed for the glorious adventure of a soldier’s life, itched to leave right that moment for Tenchley and set her father straight. But the part of him that had been trained to perform the careful, sometimes tedious, always dangerous work of an intelligence officer knew that rashness would solve nothing.

And squeezed between those two shares of his soul was an uncomfortably sharp splinter that wondered just what her mother had found.

“For seven years,” he said, “I have puzzled over why your father told me he had no daughter.”