Chapter 1
December 18, 1818
Jane would get the mistletoe herself. Everyone else was busy, and she did not wish to disturb them for something so trivial. No. Not trivial. Her mother had loved mistletoe. And Lillian—her dear moon-eyed, love-lorn friend—needed it.
She pulled on her brother's boots over two pairs of his thick, woolen socks and checked her sash was tied tight enough around his pants. They were much too large, but her stepmother had thrown all of Jane's own pants away with a giggle and a gleam in her eye, and she'd not yet had time to replace them.
Jane shrugged Christiana out of her mind and shrugged into her warmest and oldest velvet and fur pelisse. She buttoned it tight, then threw a cape around her shoulders for good measure. It was cold outside, but she also needed the extra layers to conceal her garments. Hopefully, no one looked at her lower limbs. From the waist up, she looked a warm and properly dressed youngish maiden. From the waist down, if one peered through the cape and gap in her pelisse, she wore pants. And boots. Not ideal, that. From perspectives other than her own, at least.
Pulling on gloves, she raced out of her bedroom door.
The hallway filled with raucous laughter and the clangs of a poorly played song on the pianoforte. The house-party guests gathered in the music room, serenaded, no doubt, by Christiana with a come-hither look and a bawdy song.
The perfect time to escape.
“Thank you, Christiana,” Jane whispered with a glance toward the music room. Her stepmother did have her uses now and then.
She slinked toward the front door, humming with victory.
“Lady Jane!”
Jane froze. She suppressed a groan and prayed Lord Sharpton would not look too closely at her skirts. Or rather, lack thereof.
She turned slowly, forcing a smile to her face. “Lord Sharpton. How are you today?”
“We are all in the music room, my lady. Will you join us?” He slid a hand over the yellow hair slicked back from his high forehead and angular face and eyed the front door behind her suspiciously. “Are you going outside? It’s freezing.”
She laughed, hoping she sounded light. “I must see to a detail or two in the stables momentarily. I’ll join the group as soon as I’m able.”
The suspicion dropped from his face, and the new expression he adopted may have been akin to disgust, but at this distance from him, she could not be certain.
“It is not your job to worry about suchdirtymatters, Lady Jane. Let the servants tend to it and join us in merriment.”
She felt less merry every moment. She wanted to retrieve the mistletoe, and she wanted to do it alone. She’d not had a moment’s peace for the last week since the army of suitors had arrived. If she did not take that moment now, she might explode.
“Lord Sharpton, it is kind of you to worry about me, but it is a matter of some import. Do enjoy Christiana’s expertise at the pianoforte, and I will join you and the others soon.”
She turned toward the door.
“Lady Jane, I—”
She opened the door, swept through, and slammed it shut, praying he didn’t follow. Considering how cold and dirty he thought the outdoors to be, he likely would not.
That man, she could not marry.
But marry, she must. She even wanted to. But notthat man.
She walked around to the side of the house and made her way to the center of the hedge maze and the rifle she'd hidden there earlier this morning. She retrieved it from under a stone bench and re-paced the maze's twists and turns.
“Oof!” Jane stumbled backward after coming into hard and unexpected contact with a male form. She steadied herself.
“My deepest apologies, Lady Jane.” Lord Devon, the man whose name was attached to hers in scandal, looked sheepishly at her. “I saw you escape into the maze, and I thought I might join you.” His body listed a breath to the right, and brandy fumes wafted from between his lips. His yellow hair fell in front of his face in a decidedly unkept tangle. How the man sent Lillian’s heart fluttering, Jane would never understand.
“I wished to speak with you,” he said, except wished sounded suspiciously like swished. “That a gun?”
“It is. I’m—ah—taking it out to practice my marksmanship.”
He nodded, accepting her lie. “I’ll join you.”
