Page 81 of A November to Remember

“I was ill, my lord. I knew very little of what was happening beyond the room, but I knew someone had gone out to fetch help. Afterwards, the book gave me something to think about besides whether I should ever again be permitted to swallow anything which did not contain beef.”

“I understand the colonel’s broth was vile.”

“The colonel’s broth had a taste which exceeded my strength. Cowper was considerably easier to swallow. And it was marked at The Task, which is my favourite, and which I have never mentioned to a living soul.”

“Then I have been fortunate in my choice.”

She glanced at him sidelong. “Perhaps you are kinder than you appear, my lord. You do not flaunt your goodness. It is to your credit.”

“Ah.” Lord Keathley drew the syllable out to a length that suggested genuine pain. “Miss Bennet, I must respectfully disagree.”

“You may disagree. I shall continue to think it.”

“Then allow me to correct the record.” He clasped his hands behind his back and addressed the orchard wall, in the manner of a barrister opening for the prosecution against his own client. “I am not a good man. I am a charming man, which is an entirely different species and considerably more dangerous. A good man improves the people around him. A charming man persuades them they have been improved, and sends them the bill. My mother will attest to it. My father will attest to it, at volume. Every hostess in London will attest to it, and several of their husbands. I have jumped out of a window to avoid a husband, Miss Bennet.”

“Was it a high window?”

He turned his head. She had surprised him. Good.

“Second floor. Into a rose bed.”

“Then you were fortunate.”

“The roses were not. They were planted the week before.” He faced forward again. “I have also been thrown from a trellis.”

“Thrown? By whom?”

“By the trellis. It gave way under the weight of my sins. I lost a boot. An excellent boot which I still mourn. So, you see, I am not to be trusted, and any lady of sense would be advised to keep to the far edge of the path.”

Jane’s face grew warm. She understood enough to be discomposed, and she would not insult either of them by pretending that his meaning had escaped her. For several paces she considered what he had said while he walked beside her in silence.

“No.” She kept her eyes firmly forward. “Those are not circumstances I should recommend.”

“I thought not.”

A laurel branch hung across the way; Lord Keathley reached up to hold it aside for her and received its entire cargo of sleet-water down his sleeve. He did not flinch; he merely lowered the branch behind them with dignity, without caring for his attire.

“I do not approve of what you have described, my lord. But I do not understand why you speak of your past as though it were a disease, as though you might give it to me on our stroll.”

“It is contagious. Ask Lady Pemb—ask anyone.”

“It does not explain everything about you, especially the occasions you have been considerate of others.”

He regarded her with an attention which made her suddenly conscious of how seldom she had allowed herself to be contrary. People were accustomed to Jane agreeing, or finding a charitable interpretation, or permitting an awkward subject to fall quietly between them. Lord Keathley appeared, for the moment, to have encountered something he had not prepared for.

“You are determined to think well of me.” He studied her profile.

“I am determined to think for myself. You may find the results less uniformly agreeable.”

His mouth curved, but she could see that he was still considering her answer. Jane stopped beside a bush whose wet leaves shivered in the wind and turned to face him before her courage could dissolve into another accommodating smile.

“We all have faults. We all have things we regret, or reasons to mistrust our own judgement.”

“You do not.” The immediate conviction in his voice almost made her laugh.

“Oh, I do.”

Jane, who had spent weeks conversing with this man’s coat, met his eyes directly. What a beautiful grey, she thought.