The Heart's Companion - By Holly Newman Page 0,59

chap. No hope with Royce about, though, Seen that in a thrice. Better if it were the Willoughbys leaving, though," he said with a sad shake of his head.

It was on Jane’s tongue to ask him why, but she refrained. She would not listen to idle gossip and speculation! The habit of years was not changed easily, but she would persevere. Besides, she did not think she was ready to hear explanations for all the veiled comments she’d received regarding the earl. Not because she feared the gossips were right—more out of fear they were wrong. She thought it better to go on not knowing than to risk disappointment.

With slow steps, Jane followed Mr. Burry into the breakfast parlor. She was disappointed to see all of her favorite muffins gone from the breakfast board. With a resigned sigh she filled her plate and poured herself a cup of coffee. She shook herself out of her reverie and sat in a chair near the Willoughbys, who were just finishing. Though she refused to listen to the speculation of others, she decided she would attempt to learn for herself what so disquieted Mr. Burry and Sir Helmsdon. It should make for an amusing game.

She took a sip of tepid coffee and grimaced.

"I’m sorry I cannot offer you any entertainment today," she told the Willoughbys.

"Quite all right, quite all right Miss—Grantley," said Lord Willoughby.

The slight hesitation before her last name caught Jane’s attention, as it must have Lady Willoughby, for her brow rose and she threw her husband a sidelong glance.

"Lady Willoughby and I will take a carriage ride today. See a bit of the countryside. Very different from our own, you know," he continued with a barking laugh.

"Well, actually I don’t know," she answered apologetically. "I’ve never been in that part of the country. What is it like?"

"What’s it like? Oh, hilly and empty. Lots of windswept moors, gray rock, that sort of thing." He turned to his wife. "Are you quite finished, my dear? Then I expect we’d best be off. We’ll talk more this evening, Miss Grantley, eh, what? Come dear," he said, pushing back his chair and rising quickly. As he stepped back against the table to allow his wife to pass first, his arm swung backwards. It caught the lip of Jane’s cup.

Jane looked down at her plate in time to see the coffee stream into it.

"Oh, I say, I am sorry, Miss Grantley!"

"That’s quite all right, Lord Willoughby. Do not concern yourself. I wasn’t hungry, anyway," she said with a rueful sigh.

The first rays of afternoon sunlight that struck the tall west-facing Gothic parlor window cut a knife-edged swath across the brilliantly colored carpet. Motes glittered and danced in the sun like a sprinkling of fairy dust in the air. There was a lazy stillness to the house, to the room. Indeed, for Jane, such calm was a long forgotten treat, redolent with memories.

Sir Helmsdon was gone, the Willoughbys off jaunting, Mr. Burry napping, Millicent still keeping to her room, and Lady Serena somewhere, anywhere, it didn’t matter, but in Jane’s vicinity. The children had coaxed Cook into preparing another picnic. Nurse Twinkleham was resting easily while Elsbeth worked in the stillroom. The marquis and the earl were closeted in the earl’s room playing cards and blowing a cloud.

A sense of peace settled into Jane, smoothing the faint traces of tension in her brow, at the corners of her lips, in the set of her shoulders. She sat on one of the long settees, her shoes off, her feet drawn up under her, an open book lying forgotten under her hand. She savored the stillness for its implicit, ephemeral nature. It gave time and space for her thoughts to settle and expand. Since she’d heard Lady Serena and Millicent were to visit, her mind had been buzzing and darting about, frantically and to no purpose, a bee seeking nectar from all the wrong flowers.

For almost three years they have been manipulating her life. Three years! Not directly through explicit actions, but by the continuing canker on her soul; the canker formed by her naiveté and their deceit.

She leaned her head back against the upholstery, willing her body to relax. She let her thoughts melt and flow.

The manipulation of her life had begun with David Hedgeworth.

Or had it. Had it actually begun then, or with the death of her mother? Yes, the history of their interference went back further.

She remembered herself as a fragile child, burdened with myriad