Page 91 of Not Quite a Lady
Jack strolled back into the drawing room and found its occupants deep in plans for a dance. After being comprehensively ignored for five minutes he enquired mildly when it was to be.
‘Next Tuesday. Jack – you won’t be tiresome and say you have some prior engagement, now will you?’ his eldest sister demanded. Denying any such intention, he beat a strategic retreat to the study.
Why Caro was assuming he would want to avoid the dance was a mystery, as was why she was nagging him about finding a wife.
Had Lily said something? But that would presuppose Lily had confided their entire story to Caro: she would hardly tell her that she and Jack had decided to behave with circumspection. That would only make sense if she knew Caroline would understand the background. And if Caroline knew that Lily knew that she knew about…He stopped trying to puzzle it out, it was making is head spin.
He could avoid Caro’s clumsy match-making schemes easily enough. The real mystery was what had happened to Lily. She had become stiff, subdued and formal ever since his suggestion in the warehouse.
He had expected her to relax, to feel safer with him as a result.Yet it seemed it had had the opposite effect and she had become a conformable unmarried young lady. And he did not want a prim and proper young lady – he wantedhisLily back.
Jack pulled a face at his distorted reflection in the battered pewter ink pot on his desk. ‘You want your cake and eat it too,’ he informed himself wryly.
He wanted to ride with Lily over the estate and hear her views on the landscape. Was she as much of a town mouse as he suspected, or would she find the wide open spaces irresistible? He was looking forward to her observations on sheep: he suspected they would be forthright.
He had plans to tease her with extravagant schemes for redecorating the Great Hall in full baronial splendour and he wanted her to rivet the assembled guests at the dance by appearing in one of her completely outrageous eveningensembles.
But she had made all her gowns simple and elegant. And now it seemed he had made her so self-conscious that not only her gowns had become conventional but she had submerged her entire personality.
Oh, Lily my love, where have you gone?
Lily appeared next day for their ride in a rigorously-tailored black riding habit which drew a covetous gasp from Jack’s two elder sisters and a long, unreadable look from under his lashes from Jack.
Lily made friends with Chaffinch, a pretty strawberry roan mare, and was boosted into the saddle by one of the grooms while Jack was helping his sisters.
He strode across, with a curt nod of thanks to the man, and took over checking Chaffinch’s girth. ‘Are you comfortable? She is not such a spirited ride as you are used to, I’m afraid.’
He stood looking up at her, his hand resting on the mare’sneck, so close to hers that she could have extended her little finger and touched his. Why did she want to? Wasn’t this all supposed to be simple now they were merely acquaintances? Why could she not just stop loving him?
Instead she found herself studying the way his hair was beginning to curl as the crop grew out, the way the laughter lines at the corners of his eyes crinkled as he narrowed them to look up at her. ‘Jack, this–’
She broke off at an exclamation of pleasure from Caroline. ‘George. What a nice surprise.’
A tall, sober-looking gentleman on a rangy hack rode into the yard, his austere face breaking into a smile as his eyes found Caroline.
‘Willoughby.’ Jack turned to greet his neighbour. ‘We were just on our way out for a ride to introduce our guest Miss France to the countryside. Will you join us?’
This was Caroline’s beau, Lily realised, gathering her scattered wits.
The sober gentleman was easily persuaded, despite a mild protest that he had only ridden over with a book of sermons he had promised to lend Caroline.
Lily bit her lip as Penelope rolled her eyes behind his back. He certainly seemed a strange choice for vivacious Miss Lovell, but then, who chose who they fell in love with? Certainly not her.
As the party rode out over the moat, Lily began to suspect that Caroline had known only too well that George Willoughby was going to call at this time. She manoeuvred her own gelding so that Lily had no choice but to ride beside Jack, while she fell in beside George, and Susan and Penelope were left to bring up the rear. Even more suspiciously, the two younger girls immediately began to dawdle.
Jack grinned. ‘Trust Caro to have a plan,’ he remarked softly. ‘I believe it is our role to draw on ahead a little while the haplessGeorge hands over his heart along with his sermons.’
‘Hapless?’ Lily queried. ‘Doesn’t he love Caroline?’
‘I am sure he does, but if she does not take a hand he is going to hesitate in a damnably respectful manner until she goes into a decline.’
He turned his big grey hunter down towards the river. ‘Shall we canter?’
Lily realised she had not seen Jack on a horse before. The sight did nothing to subdue any of her feelings about him.
He rode as though he was part of the animal, with a relaxed natural balance she could only envy, yet she was not deceived that he was astride an easy ride. The big horse curved its neck, fretting at the bit, and she could see Jack’s thigh muscles working as he controlled the animal, as much by his balance as by any pressure on its mouth.
He relaxed the rein and it was away, hitting a controlled canter direct from the walk.
