Page 79 of Lord Garson's Bride
Anger thinned Susan’s lips to a tiny red line. “I wash my hands of both of you.” She looked up at Frederick, who Jane realized hovered beside Hugh. Poor Frederick. It was his fate to be overlooked. “Take me home, Frederick. I find I have a headache.”
Under his receding brown hairline, Frederick’s eyes were bewildered. He extended a glass of champagne toward Susan as she stood up. “But, my love, you asked me to get this for you.”
“I don’t want it. We are leaving.” She snatched the glass away from him and slammed it down on the table so hard, champagne sloshed over the top. Jane was grateful they were in a corner and out of general view. As it was, she caught a curious glance fromCaro a few tables away. She sent her new friend a subtle shake of the head to discourage her from coming over.
Jane stood. “Susan, don’t be silly.”
“Silly, am I?” She puffed up to her full five foot two and shot Jane a searing glare. “Let’s see if you still say that, when your name has become a byword for depravity.”
“It’s only a dress.”
“It’s the thin edge of the wedge. I can see it in your eyes, that you’re not the same girl you were.”
“That’s a good thing,” Jane said bravely, but Susan swept over her comment as if she hadn’t spoken.
“I forecast trouble ahead. All this attention has turned your head. You’ll get yourself involved in a scandal, and we’ll all be dragged in after you. Remember what I’ve said, when your niece can’t find a husband, because no decent man will marry into a family that includes a wayward creature like Jane Norris.”
“Jane Rutherford,” Hugh said coldly. He bowed briefly to Frederick, who looked like he’d sell his soul to be anywhere else but here. “Bacon, Susan’s right. It’s time you took her home.”
Hugh stood beside Jane and took her hand. “Are you all right?”
Feeling as if she’d been caught in a violent thunderstorm, Jane watched Susan sweep from the room. How could a night that began so auspiciously deteriorate into this mess?
“Yes.” She paused. “No.”
“Susan completely overreacted. She had no right to say what she did.”
“Perhaps not.”
“Definitely not. I would have stepped in earlier, but you were fighting your corner without my help.”
She drew a shaky breath. “A lot of what I said has been festering for a long time.”
“Would you like to go home?”
Go home like a whipped dog with its tail between its legs? Go home where she’d be alone with Hugh, and helpless to know what to do with this unwelcome, engulfing love that flooded every cell of her body? Go home where she’d have time and space to think about the emotional wilderness stretching ahead of her?
“Good Lord, no,” she said decisively. “I want to stay here and dance the night away.”
He looked startled. “You seemed a little…peaky when we came into supper. I don’t mind leaving, if you’d rather.”
She tilted her chin at a jaunty angle and stuck a smile to her face. Peaky? She refused to be so pathetic. People might feel sorry for her now. They wouldn’t by the time the night ended, devil take them.
“We have a waltz coming up, and I’m promised to Silas for the contredanse after supper,” she said with a wholly manufactured brightness. “I want to drink that champagne you brought. I want us to be the last to leave. Tomorrow, I want to dance again, then every night until we have to go to Derbyshire.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
In the coach on the way back from the Oldhams’ ball, Hugh regarded Jane with a troubled frown. She sat beside him, hands lying limply in her lap and her attention focused on the street. He’d tried to take her hand when they left the ball, but she’d avoided him by making a great show of fiddling with her cloak.
Something was wrong. He’d wager every penny on it.
He thought back to those torrid, interrupted moments on the terrace. Until then, everything about the ball had been a grand success. His wife had shone bright as a star in her daring red dress. He’d witnessed the ton’s astonishment when this radiant stranger entered their midst, then curiosity, and finally acceptance and approval.
Before they went outside, she’d glowed with the inner fire that illuminated everything she did when her heart and soul were engaged. After they’d come inside, she’d still sparkled like a jewel. But the brilliance had turned feverish.
Not that anyone else noticed. Jane had arrived at the Oldhams’ as a complete unknown. Hugh took her home as a wild success. Gossip, most of it cruel, about the new Lady Garson had clearly filled the capital’s drawing rooms for weeks. After tonight, people would continue to talk about Jane, but in tones of envy and admiration.
“Are you upset because you had a fight with Susan?”
