The Unlikely Lady (Playful Brides #3)(76)

Could they? She’d spent the night contemplating that question and still didn’t have an answer.

Another sharp rap sounded at her door, pulling Jane from her thoughts.

“Who is it?” she called.

“Your mother!”

Jane groaned and pulled the pillow over her head. Mama knew better than to bother her at such an ungodly hour. If she was rapping on Jane’s door this early, it wasn’t going to be good.

“Come in,” Jane managed to reply, though her words were horribly garbled by the pillow.

Her mother marched into the room. Jane dragged the pillow from her face and blinked one bleary eye.

“Miss?” Her mother crossed her arms over her chest. Another bad sign.

“Yes?” Jane stuffed the pillow behind her head and managed to sit up.

“Did you do something you ought not at the wedding house party?”

Jane blinked. Panic rose within her. Stalling was the best tactic. “Pardon?”

“Lady Elrod just left. She said she was distressed to report she’d heard some unsavory gossip about your behavior at the house party.”

“What in the world is Lady Elrod doing paying calls at this time of day? It isn’t even noon, is it?” More stalling. Well done.

“It is nearly noon, young lady, and that is not the point. Were you or were you not gallivanting about the corridors of the Morelands’ estate in the middle of the night in your dressing gown?”

“Gallivanting? I’m not even certain how one goes about gallivanting, Mama.”

Her mother stamped her foot. “Answer me, Jane!”

Jane rubbed her sweaty palms against the bedsheets. “I’m trying to answer you. I don’t know what you are implying.”

“Lady Elrod informed me there is a rumor that you were seen in the bachelor wing of the house far past a decent hour wearing only your dressing gown and night rail.”

It was her chemise, actually. “I’d like to know how Lady Elrod knows anything about it,” Jane replied. “She wasn’t even invited to the house party.”

“Jane, I’m not going to ask you again. Is there any truth to this rumor?”

Jane took a deep breath. She had two choices. She could admit that she had, indeed, been gallivanting about in her dressing gown, which might give her mother an apoplectic fit. Or she could deny she had been gallivanting about in her dressing gown, which she doubted her mother would believe at the moment. The latter might convince her mother to leave her alone, temporarily at least, until more gossip reached her ears. But the former might cause her mother to realize that the scandal was well on its way to ruining Jane’s reputation, and that alone would be reason enough to keep Jane from attending any of the Season’s events. Oh, yes. That was the obvious choice, then.

“Yes, Mama,” Jane said with a nod. “I was gallivanting about in the middle of the night wearing nothing other than my night rail and dressing gown.” It probably wasn’t prudent to mention the chemise.

Her mother gasped. Her hands fell to her sides. “You were not!”

Jane winced. “You asked and I told you the truth. What did you want me to say?”

“I wanted you to say it was a complete fabrication.”

Jane concentrated on picking lint off the coverlet. “I’m sorry, Mama, but it’s true.”

Her mother paced in front of the large window that looked down over the gardens in the back of the town house. She wrung her hands. “What are we to do?”

“What is there to do?” Jane offered.

“I cannot face my friends and tell them this isn’t true, knowing that it is. You’ll be ruined!”

Jane settled back into the pillows. “I doubt there’s much to be done other than my forgoing social events for the foreseeable future. I’ll just remain here and read. A pity.”

Her mother stopped pacing, put her hands on her hips, and glared at her. “No you don’t. You’re not going to get away with this. Your chaperone will be held accountable for this. Where was Mrs. Bunbury when you were gallivanting about in the middle of the night?”

“I’m certain she was asleep, poor woman.” Jane’s fingers itched to pick up the book she’d left off reading last night.

Hortense Lowndes’s voice simmered with outrage. “If your reputation is ruined, she’ll never find work in this town again. I demand to see Mrs. Bunbury immediately!”





CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

How Jane managed to sneak out of her town house and make it to Lucy’s, she would never know. It was a miracle as far as Jane was concerned. After she’d convinced her mother she would have to write Mrs. Bunbury a note and ask the woman to pay them a visit as soon as she was feeling up to it, Jane had slipped out of the back door. She scurried past the mews, nodding to Mrs. Cat, and managed to hire a hack near the corner to take her the several streets to Lucy’s town house.

Once she arrived on Lucy’s doorstep, Jane rapped on the huge black-lacquered door. The duke’s butler, Hughes, soon answered it.

“I’ve come to call on Her Grace,” Jane announced.

The butler gave her a condemning glare, but ushered her into the blue salon at the front of the house before going to alert his mistress that she had a visitor. Jane paced while she waited for Lucy.