Follow My Lead (10 page)

“She’s a bit too old to be a debutante,” Jason replied. And then, with a pointed look to his sister, “And no—she did not make an impression on me. At least not the kind you imply.”

“No, I don’t suppose any young lady who lays down a challenge to the head of the Historical Society came to London with marriage on her mind.” Jane sighed. “Truthfully, Jason, I don’t care why you did it. I’m just pleased you did. Imagine—
you
of all people shaking the dust off the establishment!” She laughed, and Lissa gurgled with her. “At least all those young ladies will have something else to say to you other than to comment on the weather or compliment your eyes. Oh no! Lissa!” Jane cried, her other shoulder now drenched with baby sick. “You couldn’t have given that particular gift to your uncle?”

But Jason could only smile mischievously at his niece. Then, not allowing his sister to change the subject . . .

“They compliment my eyes?”

Indeed they did (and his hair, and once, even his teeth, like a prize-winning horse), but over the course of the next few weeks, they also spoke in great detail about the outrageous Miss Winnifred Crane and her challenge. Not only were young ladies and their mothers remarking on her behavior (an unsurprising number of the mothers feared her influence on their daughters), but the fathers, the brothers, the gentlemen of the ton were all discussing it as well, asking Jason who this Miss Winnifred Crane was, and did she really think she could prove that painting wasn’t real?

It was about the time that Jason saw the betting book in White’s, with Miss Crane’s name mentioned on every single line of the front page, and then glanced over at the
London Times
, which, too, bore her name, that Jason realized he was not going to be permitted to forget Miss Crane—as all of England was paying rapt attention.

“You would not believe the people at the theatre,” Phillippa had said a few days after his encounter with Miss Crane. They were at a card party, sanctioned by the Worths. And as Jason was chaperoned by Jane, he was fairly safe from the worst of the fawning.

The gossip, of course, was another matter.

“Everyone craning their necks to see this tiniest slip of a woman, and being rebuffed by her gargantuan bodyguard of a cousin. I swear I haven’t had so much fun in ages.” Phillippa sighed, playing a trump and taking the trick. “
And
she’s adorable, and such fun to talk to. She told me that the pattern on the Marchioness of Broughton’s gown—you remember Nora, don’t you, Jane?—well, the pattern was not French as she supposed, but actually Slavic! Nora was utterly red faced. Well, more so than usual.” Phillippa’s expression of delight turned into a pretty pout. “If only she would stay in London, I’m certain I could wash the bluestocking right out of her.” Then, her turn well played, she took to her old habit of tapping a nail against her teeth, lost in thought. “It’s simply too bad she is so intent on her course and going to the Continent. I haven’t had a protégée in
years
; there is so much I could do with her . . .”

“Thank God she’s set on her course, then,” Jane muttered under her breath.

“What’s that?” Phillippa replied.

“Nothing. Simply, having
been
a protégée of yours, I can only think Miss Crane is better off on her own.”

Phillippa narrowed her eyes. “You were not a protégée, you were a prototype. There are always flaws in the first model.”

Sensing the verbal sparring match to come, Jason decided to excuse himself loudly. “Oh look, I’m to sit out this hand.” He laid out his cards and scooted his chair back from the table. Jane and Phillippa noticed nothing.

As Jason made his way across the room, he exhaled deeply. It was his third such event in three days, and somehow, Jane and Phillippa managed to start bickering halfway through each time, only to be reconciled ten minutes later, Jane once again focused on keeping him safe in his pursuit of a bride. As thankful as he was for Jane’s presence this year, he really despised those ten minutes. He found himself at the refreshment table, pouring himself another cup of too sticky sweet tea, ducking to taste it, then turning and bumping into a soft feminine hand, which had the sad effect of splashing tea on his face and down his front.

“Oh, Your Grace!” Miss Sarah Forrester cried, putting down her own tea. “I’m so sorry—I was reaching for the cream, and I didn’t think you were going to turn . . .”

“I have rotten luck with turning, it seems.” Jason sighed, taking his now ruined cravat and dabbing at his soaked chin. “One of these days I’ll think to go left instead of right.”

“It’s my fault,” Miss Forrester claimed, picking up a napkin from the table and wetting it from a pitcher of water. “I have always favored my left hand, you see, no matter how often I’ve had it drilled into me to use the right. I have accidentally knocked over more cups of tea than I care to admit.” She smiled at him as she dabbed at his neck. A brazen informality that, oddly, Jason found he did not mind. “At least you can take comfort in the fact that this tea is lukewarm at best.”

“Yes, the lack of proper refreshments seems to be my saving grace,” Jason said as she looked up from her work and met his eyes. And they both smiled.

“Miss Forrester, lovely to see you again,” he said, surprised to find he truly meant it. They’d exchanged pleasant hellos only yesterday at a mediocre but proper musicale. He bowed, ridiculous since up until a second ago, she had her hand on his neck, and therefore made her laugh.

“And you, Your Grace,” she replied, ducking into a curtsy.

“How are you enjoying the card party?”

“Well,” she said, disposing of the wet napkin on the tray of a nearby servant, “I’m losing.”

“Oh dear,” Jason drawled, watching her face as she sighed and nodded with mock pity. A lovely face, with a smile that could only be answered in kind. “What are the stakes at your table?”

“I had hoped to play for a ha’penny a hand,” she explained, “but my mother is my partner and she will not stand for such missish wagers.”

Jason’s brow furrowed. Was Lady Forrester a closet gambler? Did she play so high that her daughter was to worry for it? And what of Lord Forrester—did he learn his penchant for outlandish wagers from his wife?

“I fear to ask what you’ve been made to wager.” Jason crossed his arms.

“Dances.” Miss Forrester cocked a brow.

“Dances?” Jason repeated.

“I’ve lost three quadrilles, one waltz, and one dance of the gentleman’s choosing. And the way I play, I have no hope of winning them back.”

“Huh,” was all that Jason could think of in reply. “And who did you lose these dances to?”

“Lord Darabont and Mr. Threshing.” She pointed discreetly in the direction of her table, where Lady Forrester sat in between Darabont and Threshing—two men whose fortunes and breeding made up for their advanced age and lack of dental hygiene, respectively.

“Oh dear,” Jason replied.

“Precisely,” Miss Forrester concurred. “The oddest thing is my mother is normally a magnificent player—routinely winning her table. She must be having an off day,” she reflected. “At this rate, I’ll not have a free dance to give for a whole week.”

Jason’s stomach did a little turn. He was not a great dancer; never having had the surety of his steps like his sister, he tended to stick to quadrilles and that was it. But it was on the tip of his tongue to ask Miss Forrester for her next free dance, before she was forced to sell it for a trump card.

“How goes it at your table?” Miss Forrester asked before Jason could give voice to his thought.

“My table?” he squeaked, his eyes falling on the table he had abandoned. “Oh well, it—ah—it goes . . .”

Just then, Jason saw Jane stand up from the table, her voice carrying over the heads of the other players, as if lightly on a breeze, hashing out one of her oldest arguments with Phillippa.

“That midnight tea party was
my
idea, and
you
were the one who was terrified we would get caught by the headmistress, and don’t you deny it . . .”

“Miss Forrester,” Jason said abruptly, “it has gotten remarkably stuffy in here. Would you care to take a turn out on the terrace?”

Uncertainty crossed her face for the barest of moments. She opened her mouth to reply but was swiftly interrupted by another voice, this one coming from her table.

“Oh la, Lord Darabont!” Lady Forrester’s voice reached their ears. “Another waltz? I dare say you will keep my pretty daughter on her toes all evening.”

“I would love to,” Miss Forrester replied. And taking the arm he offered, out the door they went.

The next evening, Jason managed to run into Miss Forrester at Almack’s, in between her dances with Lord Darabont and Mr. Threshing. He also managed a whole five minutes of conversation before Threshing came by to claim his dance partner. Two days later, he saw her at a lecture and artifact display, her vague interest in the people and culture of India matching Jason’s, which came as a surprise and delight.

“My father likes it when I attend lectures like these,” she whispered to him as the crowd was gathering and finding their seats. “And my mother detests it. I find that sufficient reason to go—Indian silks and spices aside.”

It was at that lecture that he asked her to call him Jason, and she gave him permission to call her Sarah.

Over the next few weeks, Jason ran into Sarah at a number of functions, and at each one she became the highlight of his evening. In fact, if anything or anyone was going to reduce Miss Winnifred Crane and her mission to little more than background chatter in Jason’s mind, it was Sarah Forrester.

They talked about the weather, and somehow, it turned into an inane discussion of which person at the assembly looked the wettest, which turned into a fit of giggles at their own ridiculousness.

He told her of the horses he had growing up, and how much he loved riding.

She told him about the cherry tree behind the parsonage near where she grew up, and how many times she had to do penance for stealing the vicar’s wife’s cherries.

And on those occasions, when her smile was so wide and her eyes were so bright that Jason thought he might just be happy in this moment, she would laugh musically and thus confirm that he was.

He’d hoped to get Jane’s opinion of Miss Forrester, but more than once, when he turned to introduce his sister, she was off somewhere arguing with Phillippa. It was only at the Whitford banquet—an evening of such food and wine that it practically wrought its own harvest festival—when Jason left Sarah’s side to go fetch his sister and noticed Jane take Phillippa’s arm and pinch her, thus beginning another argument, that he became suspicious.

“What are you doing?” he whispered to Jane once he finally got her alone, which happened to be on the carriage ride home that evening.

“Doing?” Jane asked innocently. “Nothing. We’re going home. Hopefully the wet nurse got Lissa down in good order, else Byrne will be up half the night with her. He won’t let me take her, you know—he always wants to be the one to rock her.”

“I don’t care about your child-rearing arrangements with your husband. I want to know why is it every time I try to have you speak with Miss Forrester, you are magically in some sort of fight with Phillippa Worth?” he asked, laziness in his voice but directness in his question.

“Oh.” Jane blushed. “That.”

“Yes, that,” Jason replied coldly. “If you have something against Miss Forrester, I warn you, Jane, I’ll have none of your snobbishness—”

“Snobbishness?” Jane cried, offended. But then, letting the offense go, raised her hand. “I have nothing against Miss Forrester. Quite to contrary. She seems a lovely young woman.”

“But . . .” he supplied for her.

“But, my concern is about you,” Jane countered. At Jason’s lifted brow, she hemmed a moment before going on. “Byrne told me what he said to you—about having me court the girls for you.”

Jason’s brow shuttered down. “What he meant was that there would be no chance of getting locked in a cellar again, if you did the courting,” he argued.

“Yes, I know,” Jane replied drily. “But once I thought about it, I realized that is exactly what would end up happening.”

Jason stared at his sister in confusion. “You think I would simply . . .
hand over
the task of choosing a wife to you? Forgive me, Jane, but I doubt we’d have the same taste in wives.”

Jane crossed her arms over her chest. “If you were to introduce her to me any time in the past few weeks, I would have invited her to tea, to Mariah’s charitable dinner, to just about every event I could think of.”

“Which is how I’m told these things go.”

“How long before you get bored of attending musicales and afternoon teas and picnics? How long before you start begging them off? You would have considered your duty done, gone off to the Historical Society or maybe one of the estates, and effectively pawned your courting of Miss Forrester off onto me!” Jane cried.