Page 43 of To Swoon and to Spar
“Mrs. Brown-Montague, then,” Jane said with her best attempt to sound deeply enthused at the prospect of entertaining a horde of houseguests, all of whom were of a considerably more elevated background than her own, a sizable chunk of whom she’d never exchanged more than a word with, and a few of whom she’d never met at all. “Anyone else to add to the list, before I start on the invitations?”
“No,” Penvale said slowly, but with a faint frown. “Perhaps I ought to write the invitations, though.”
Jane immediately stiffened. “Why would you do that?” she asked. “I’m not an expert on these things, but I think sending the invitations would be well within my responsibilities as the viscountess.”
“Well,” he said, “you’ve never hosted a party like this, and I know you’re uncomfortable in situations like this, so I want to make sure my friends feel truly welcomed—”
“And why,” Jane broke in sharply, “don’t you think I could managethat? Do you not think I’m capable of writing a letter of invitation without insinuating that I despise them?”
Penvale waved a hand dismissively, which did nothing to improve her temper. “Of course not. It’s just that— Well, you’ve not spent much time with my friends, have you? So I thought they might be more inclined to accept an invitation if it came directly from me.”
Jane went still. Placed both of her hands in her lap, where she folded them neatly, out of sight. Leveled an even look across the table at her husband. “You mean to say that you think I have been so unfriendly toward your friends, in our almost nonexistent acquaintance, that they would not accept an invitation if it came from me?” She was trying very hard to keep her voice calm, but that was growing more difficult by the moment.
Penvale straightened in his seat, clearly sensing that he’d waded into dangerous waters. “I didn’t mean to imply that you were ever deliberately unkind—just that they don’t know you terribly well yet. You’re not particularly… warm, you know.”
Jane felt his words like a blow. She was aware of her own shortcomings. She was aware of her discomfort around people she did not know well, and that she was hardly a skilled conversationalist—at least not when the conversation turned to the sort of idle chatter that polite society seemed to find so vitally important and which Jane found so desperately dull. But she did not think she was unkind—and she knew that she was perfectly capable of sending an invitation without implying that its recipients were unwelcome.
She was merelyshy—not completely hopeless.
Except perhaps her husband thought she was—and it was not a terribly pleasant realization to make, not when she was already feeling entirely out of her depth with a large house party to host for a group of near-strangers.
“Is that what you think of me, then?” she asked, meeting his gaze without blinking. How odd to think that she had found it so difficult to meet his eyes for so long and that she should find it so easy to do so now. How odd, indeed, that this time two months ago, she was just making his acquaintance, while now he was becoming so frightfully familiar to her, in a way that most people had never been—most people had never had the chance to be, for that matter.
She was more comfortable around him than she had been around any man—or woman—her own age whom she had ever met. Perhaps this was why she felt the sting of his words so sharply.
She had been coming to…trusthim.
How unutterably foolish.
“I think this may have come out wrong,” he replied, not breaking her gaze, his voice as quiet and serious as her own. “I didn’t mean to cause offense.”
“Of course not.” She shook her head once. Sharply. “I do not believe it was intentional at all—but youdidcause offense, all the same. At least now I know. Now I know that you think I am so awkward, such an embarrassment, that I cannot even send a polite letter to your friends without frightening them off. I know—” Here, for the first time, her voice wavered a bit, but she pressed on all the same. “I know that I am not like your sister and her friends and doubtless countless other women you’ve known in London, all your mistresses, all the ladies you courted who batted their eyelashes at you and bantered and flirted and said frightfully clever and amusing things. I’m not like that. I’ll never becharming.”
“I know that.” Something about his tone caused a small trickle of warmth to course through her—there was an appreciative note to his words, one that did not sound as though he regretted any of the thingsshe had just said about herself, the qualities she had reminded him she did not possess.
But she mustn’t dwell on that warmth.
“I have other qualities,” she said. “I don’t plan to host balls for theton, or to try to mingle in the finest circles—I’d fail in any such attempts, and I don’twantto. But I—I can be a good wife, and a good mistress of this estate, and I thought you had conversed with me enough to know that even if I can’t discuss the weather and so-and-so’s new dress and which coiffure is at the height of fashion, I can…” She trailed off before finishing quietly, “I can discuss the things that matter. And I can send a bloody invitation, for heaven’s sake.” Before he could respond, she pushed back her chair and announced, “If you’ll excuse me.”
And then she fled.
Chapter Fifteen
Penvale was not accustomed toapologizing.
It was not that he thought himself so perfect, so above reproach, that he never did anything that warranted apology. It was more that the need scarcely arose because he never had conversations serious enough to put himself at risk of offending whomever he was conversing with, not even Diana, Jeremy, and Audley.
But Jane was not his sister or his friend.
She was his wife.
He had spent much of the past year watching his friends play out their own romantic dramas, and often it had been so obvious to him what needed to be done—what simple conversations needed to be had. Why could his friends not see it?
He was finding, however, that it was considerably easier to sit and offer opinions as an idle observer than it was to make a success of his own marriage. One thing, at least, was clear: He’d been an ass, and he needed to apologize.
But in order to do that, he needed to find Jane.
At first he’d made a beeline for the library—it was her favorite room, after all. But he’d entered it, confident that he’d guessed correctly, only to find the room empty, no sign that anyone had recentlybeen within. So then he’d tried the morning room—no—and her bedroom—still no—and, eventually, lowered himself to asking Mrs. Ash if she’d seen Lady Penvale.
