LITMIR.BIZ

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it as unusual to have…uh…company.”

      Choking back a sharp retort, Raleigh found he did not care to be likened to one of the vicarage children. He was about to protest that he in no way resembled those shabby youths when Jane looked down into her lap and uttered a low admission. “The bed was soft, the house quiet, but for the rain, which was rather comforting. I suppose that I slept like a stone.”

      Hmm, Raleigh thought. From what he had seen of the noisy, crowded vicarage, he could hardly fault the chit for seeking peace, and he could take some small comfort in the knowledge that if he was indistinguishable from one of her siblings, at least he didn’t snore.

      “Well, the damage is done,” Wycliffe said. “Now we must decide what we are going to do about it” He gazed straight at Raleigh, who experienced another queasy, sinking feeling as he looked into his friend’s face. Although his glib tongue could probably be induced to spout out a variety of remedies, it suddenly felt thick and stuck to the roof of his mouth. A sense of doom enveloped him as Raleigh realized only one answer would satisfy Wycliffe.

      Darting a quick glance at Jane, he sucked in a sharp breath to right his reeling head. Surely the girl was too young for what he suspected Wycliffe had in mind? Clearing his throat, he found his voice. “I think that all depends on several factors,” he said, watching Wycliffe’s expression darken. “For instance, just how old is the, uh, lady in question?”

      Charlotte sent him a sympathetic look that made him feel even more like a man bound for the gallows. “Jane is eighteen now, Raleigh,” she said, and his stomach rolled. He turned to blink at the bespectacled chit in astonishment When had she grown up? He remembered her always as one of Charlotte’s innumerable child siblings, who often frequented Casterleigh during his visits. Eighteen?

      His palms began to sweat, and a cold, clammy feeling echoed in his gut, for Raleigh knew well what a stickler Wycliffe was for honorable behavior. The two maids who had woken him with their shrieks had, no doubt, spread the tale throughout the house by now. And from there it would go through the village and back to the girl’s father, the vicar himself.

      Raleigh thought of kindly John Trowbridge and stifled a groan. It appeared that he could either lose his respect and his friendships or his freedom, and so he forced his groggy thoughts toward his mouth, eager to have the business concluded before his stomach rebelled further.

      “I suppose there’s nothing else for it but to come up to scratch,” he declared. Then, turning to Jane, he bowed his aching head. “I say, Miss Trowbridge, would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

      Having at last forced out the question he had never entertained in connection with Plain Jane, Raleigh had a glimpse of shocked eyes behind rounded glass before he proceeded to cast up his accounts all over Wycliffe’s prized parquet floor.

      

      Jane was aghast, her normally placid disposition so highly agitated that she paced back and forth across the thick Aubusson carpet in the yellow bedroom while trying to reason with her sister. “You cannot truly expect me to marry him!” she exclaimed once again, but the look of compassion on Charlotte’s face made her turn aside.

      It was all her own fault. Rain or no, she should have gone home to her hard, narrow cot at the vicarage. Usually, Jane disdained her sister’s luxuries, but last night she had weakened, giving in to the temptation of the huge, soft, sweetly scented feather bed. And now she was paying the price of her lack of character!

      She had slept like a rock, cradled in the cushioned warmth, the wind and rain only a faint sound against the tall windows. There had been no arguments from James and Thomas in the next room to be shushed, no night cries from Jenny to be soothed or worries over what Kit might be up to—only an odd sort of comfort that she had never expected to find in such a lavish setting.

      She had not even marked the presence of someone else until all the shrieking started this morning. Goodness knows the bed was large enough for half a dozen people to rest without disturbance. “It was all a mistake. Nothing…happened,” she muttered.

      “I know, dear, but I’m afraid that doesn’t have much to do with it,” Charlotte said. “Believe me, in society, it is all outward appearances. A married woman can carry on all sorts of dalliances if she is discreet about it, while a miss must not even be touched by a hint of impropriety!”

      “But Charlotte, this isn’t London—only a tiny corner of Sussex! It was an honest mistake, no harm done, and who will be the wiser?”

      Charlotte shook her head, her lovely face full of sympathy, but Jane also recognized the set of her chin. As sweet as she was, Charlotte could also be determined. Witness her marriage to an earl far above her station, Jane thought glumly. And now she looked frightfully resolute.

      “You were seen, Jane. The servants are already spreading the tale, presumably, and you know how gossip flies through Upper. It will be all over the countryside in a trice, and if you don’t marry him, you will be ruined, Jane. Ruined!”

      Jane turned away, her thoughts bleak. “Does it really matter?” she asked softly.

      “Of course, it matters!” Charlotte took her by the shoulders and turned her around. “Why would you say such a thing?” she asked, genuinely bewildered.

      Jane could not meet her eyes. “I am well aware that I am not the beauty of the family,” she said, swallowing hard against the truth she had always known.

      “Neither are you a gorgon!” Charlotte protested. “And believe me, beauty does not guarantee happiness. It is more of a burden than anything else.”

      Jane shook her head, unconvinced. “You were always surrounded by suitors, while I have had nary a one.”

      “You have no suitors because you have discouraged every boy within miles, Jane, and well you know it! I thought you were being extremely particular, as I was, so I said nothing even after you refused a season in London! Never would I have suspected that you do not recognize your own worth. You are a lovely girl, and any man would be proud to take you as a wife.”

      When Charlotte released her, Jane shook her head once more. Everyone knew that of the vicar’s daughters, Charlotte was the beauty, with young Carrie and Jenny well on their way to matching her. Sarah and Jane were the plain ones, and though Sarah was devoted to her great oaf of a husband, Alf, Jane had always been determined never to marry, to neither be disappointed nor disappoint. She had her garden and her books and her duties at the vicarage.

      “Perhaps this incident is all for the best, for now I will have an excuse for my lack of prospects. Being ruined, I can live quietly, helping Papa,” Jane said softly. Although such an existence seemed quite reasonable and was what she had always planned, Jane was surprised to feel a tightening in her chest at the finality of it.

      “A pariah at age eighteen?” Charlotte asked in horrified tones. “Jane, you are too young to make such a decision, to throw away your future irrevocably. And what of Papa and the little ones? How can the villagers be expected to listen to his sermons when his own daughter goes astray? How will you do your errands when most of the good people will cross the street rather than greet you? Will you make the children suffer because of you, a latter-day Lizzy Beaton?”

      “Lizzy Beaton’s reputation is well earned!” Jane said of the poor pox-ridden woman who lived nearby. Although the vicar made sure the woman had food, the villagers avoided her, even those male citizens who had once frequented her hovel.

      “And how will you prove that you were not compromised when you were seen in bed with a naked man?” Charlotte asked.

      Was he naked? Jane nearly started at that news. She had not been wearing her glasses, naturally, and by the time she got them on, her companion had been modestly covered by a drawn-up blanket. She shook her head at the irony of it all. Only she was so plain as to be ignored by an undressed, drunken male!

      “You can hardly compare me to Lizzy Beaton,” Jane argued, though not as forcefully as she would have liked. She knew she was blameless, and she could, no doubt, convince

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