Just This Once (28 page)

She was about to enter the town house when a
flash of movement caught her eye, and she turned to see Miss Perry
hastening across the street toward her. There was a bright smile on
her face, and she gave a little cheerful wave as she quickened her
step, but so intent was she on reaching Josie that she failed to
notice the carriage suddenly swerving down the street, bearing down
right upon her.

“Miss Perry, look out!” Josie screamed, and
in a flash dived off the steps. Startled, Clara Perry froze on the
spot, which put her exactly in the path of the horses. She turned
her head and shrieked in horror as she saw what was about to befall
her.

Josie leapt at her and pushed her from
beneath the beasts’ plunging hooves at the last moment. Amid the
sounds of the horses’ terrified whinnying and the curses of the
frightened driver, they tumbled to the ground.

A moment later Ethan’s white-faced footman
reached them. Sweat poured down his face as he helped Josie to her
feet.

“My lady, are you hurt?”

“N-no, John. I’m fine.” Breathless, Josie
knelt beside the auburn-haired woman. “Miss Perry, are you all
right?”

“My goodness, Lady Stonecliff.” Miss Perry’s
gown was torn at the hem and there was soot on her face, but she
gained her feet steadily enough with the aid of Josie and the
footman. “Why, you saved my life!”

“Oh, no, Miss Perry. Of course I didn’t. I
only—”

“Don’t argue, Josie.” Ethan’s voice, coming
from behind her, made her spin around in shock. Did the man always
have to sneak up on her this way?

“Miss Perry is absolutely right. You did
save her life—and nearly lost your own!”

He was pale. She’d never seen him look so
shaken. With rough strength he grasped her arm.

“I saw everything. Happened to be glancing
out my window—” He broke off abruptly, glaring down at her through
fierce gray eyes that might have been made of smoldering coal. “And
that was the most idiotic—and most courageous—thing I ever
saw.”

“It wasn’t courageous. I didn’t even
think... it all happened so fast.”

“You might have been killed, you little
fool!”

“But I wasn’t. And neither was Miss Perry,”
she pointed out a bit smugly.

He gave her a long, incredulous look, then
his fingers tightened on her arm as the footman stooped to retrieve
the fallen package. “I believe some refreshment is in order,
ladies,” he grated out. “To celebrate your narrow escape.” With a
grim nod to the still trembling Miss Perry, Ethan led Josie firmly
toward the house.

“You’re angry... but I had no choice!” Josie
turned to him swiftly as they preceded the others into the hall. “I
had to do something....”

“I’m not angry. But if you’d been hurt...”
He drew in his breath. “I’d be a hell of a lot more than that,” he
muttered, almost inaudibly.

Her eyes widened at this: for a moment it
sounded like an open admission that he cared about her—but then she
realized how stupid it was to think that—and she understood exactly
what he meant. Of course he’d be upset if she was hurt—or killed.
It would hamper his precious charade.

“I’m fine,” she whispered, her whole body
taut as Miss Perry reached the hall. “Don’t worry—your plan hasn’t
been endangered.”

Ethan wheeled on her so abruptly, she took a
step backward, but he said nothing, though there was a hard, bitter
tension in his face that she didn’t understand. They were both
conscious of Miss Perry coming to a halt behind them.

“Oh, dear, I’ve come at an inopportune
time—I’m so sorry. Perhaps I should return another afternoon.”

“No.” The smile Josie flashed was brilliant
as she spun away from Ethan to take the woman’s arm. “I’m so very
glad to see you—and without Miss Crenshaw,” she added shamelessly.
“Come into the withdrawing room and have some tea.”

Ethan did not join them for tea, and a short
while later Josie heard him go out. She tried to forget that fierce
expression in his eyes right after the accident, tried not to
wonder what it meant, and concentrated on centering her attention
upon Miss Perry, who needed a bit of drawing out before she
admitted, even obliquely, that things were quite bad with the
Crenshaws.

“Don’t think I am not grateful to them, for
I am, my lady,” she said earnestly, and took a quick, nervous sip
of tea. “But it is... not always comfortable for me there—I daresay
it is of my own doing,” she added hastily, and blushed, before
rushing on to say, “How can I be so ungrateful? My relations are
kindness itself. If not for them, I don’t know what would become of
me—”

“You’d be a good deal happier,” Josie cut in
promptly, then gave her a sheepish smile. “I know it’s unladylike
of me to say that—and it must reinforce what Miss Crenshaw has
already been saying about me ever since that day.”

“No one heeds her, my lady.” Miss Perry
patted her hand and smiled. “Everyone I have encountered since
returning to London—everyone who has met you, that is—is full of
your praises. Most have concluded that Rosamund is simply jealous
because you have married a handsome and titled man, while she is
still... well, you know...”

“Yes, I know. She is still shopping for a
husband—and heaven help the one she selects.” Josie grinned.
Sometimes she could no more control her forthright tongue than she
could stop breathing, and Miss Perry, though outwardly shocked,
seemed beneath it all to be amused by her statements. Not for the
first time, she began to suspect that beneath that very shy,
pleasant exterior was a woman with a genuine sense of humor and a
truly kind soul.

“Well, once again, I’m forgetting to be a
lady.” She sighed and set her teacup down. “Forgive me, but
sometimes it’s difficult to remember.”

“Oh, no.” Miss Perry set her cup on the
small marble-topped table and studied Josie quietly. “In my
opinion, you are always a very great lady.”

Josie gaped at her. Then she burst out
laughing.

“It’s true, Lady Stonecliff. Oh, I know.
These days, those who are most fashionable preach and prattle on
about ladylike ways—and that is all well and good, but I remember
some very great ladies who were never afraid to speak their minds,
or to act upon their convictions. And you remind me of them—the
ladies I looked up to when I was young, those of the finest birth,
who often gave the most lavish parties, who
led
society and
didn’t merely follow it. No, when it comes to heart and sensitivity
and courage and wit, my dear, you are every inch a lady.”

When she’d finished this impassioned speech,
Miss Perry looked quite as stunned as Josie did upon hearing
it.

“My lady, f-forgive me. I never meant to
speak so freely,” she stammered.

But Josie was touched. She’d rarely heard
praise or kind words in her life, and that they came from someone
as sweetly respectable as Miss Perry, overwhelmed her. She moved
nearer to Miss Perry on the sofa and touched her hand.

“Thank you. I’m very grateful for that...
and very thankful to have you as my friend.”

Glancing down then, she noticed the simple
gold-and-pearl ring Clara Perry wore, and it occurred to her to
wonder suddenly why Miss Perry had never married. Of course, even
she knew better than to broach this most sensitive subject, but the
other woman, noting her glance, and with a quick one at the loose
gold band on Josie’s finger, spoke in response to her unasked
question.

“No, my lady,” she said softly. “I never
married. I was betrothed once, though—when I was a very young, very
foolish woman.” Her voice broke a little, but she recovered it
before Josie could think of anything to say.

“His family made him break it off, you
see.”

“Oh, no!”

“It happens that way sometimes.” There was
no bitterness in her tone, or in her gentle eyes, only a trace of
sadness. “It was all hushed up. They felt I wasn’t good enough for
him—he was a viscount, and my father only a country squire, and
they wished a better connection, someone with a substantial
fortune.”

As Josie made a sound of protest, Miss Perry
shook her head. “No, no, it was all for the best. If he had loved
me, you know, no amount of pressure could have forced him to break
it off. And if he did not... then I am better off not being married
to him... for I loved him too much to settle for anything less than
that.”

Only the ticking of the mantel clock broke
the cool silence of the room. “Yes, I feel the same way. Without
love, marriage would be... torture,” Josie said softly.

“I always thought so.”

“And there was never anyone else?”

Miss Perry’s shoulders lifted in a tiny
shrug. She gave a wan smile. “No one offered. I suppose it was
partly my own fault—I withdrew from society after that. I was young
and foolish—and by the time I was ready to show my face again,
everyone considered me to be upon the shelf.”

“What happened to the young man?” Angry at
the unknown viscount, Josie watched Miss Perry’s face closely as
she replied.

“Oh, he married an heiress and now there are
three grown sons. Our paths crossed a few times over the years and
I must say, the whispers were not too unbearable. We spoke civilly
to one another—rather like strangers.”

“How awful.”

Miss Perry nodded, then seemed to brace
herself, her shoulders straightening. “He died six years ago of
some inflammation or other. So it is all in the past now. I have
long since come to believe that it was simply not in my destiny to
be married—to have my own home and family.”

She sounded so calm, so without bitterness,
that Josie couldn’t help but gaze at her admiringly. She knew why
she had liked Miss Perry so much, right from the first moment they
met. Miss Perry not only had a generous heart, she was a survivor.
She didn’t complain, she bore what she had to, and survived.

“I enjoy hearing about the past,” she said
slowly, her mind shifting to another subject, and wondering how to
broach it. “I would like to ask you... I hope you won’t think I’m
prying, but...”

“Go ahead, my dear.”

“Do you know anything about my husband’s
past? I gather it’s common knowledge except to me. He loved a girl
named Molly once. Lady Tattersall told me a little about her, but
we were interrupted before I learned what happened to her—or why
Ethan quarreled with the old earl and left London.”

“Now that,” Miss Perry remarked softly, “was
a tragic story.”

“You know it then.” Eagerly, Josie searched
her face. “You know what became of Molly.”

“I know what most people know—what was
guessed at, hinted at.” Miss Perry regarded her soberly. “That the
shopgirl loved by the Earl of Stonecliff’s younger son died when
she was run down by a carriage after leaving work one night—run
down much as I almost was this afternoon, my lady. Only, according
to rumor and gossip—that occasion was no accident, but
deliberate.”

For a moment Josie could only stare at her.
Then she found her voice, though it came out in a hoarse gasp.
“Murder?”

“It could never be proved, of course.”
Though there was no one else in the room and they couldn’t possibly
be overheard, Miss Perry dropped her voice to little more than a
whisper. “But everyone knew that the earl objected to his son’s
involvement with the poor child, and the night Ethan Savage left
England, he—”

She broke off, pursing her lips together in
an agony of hesitation.

“Please tell me all of it,” Josie pleaded,
her mind spinning with thoughts of Ethan, a younger, more
vulnerable Ethan, in love... battling the will and wishes of his
father.

“On that last night, Ethan burst into the
ballroom of Lady Tattersall’s house—she was sponsoring the
coming-out party of her niece—and before one and all, he...” She
took a deep breath. “He accused his cousin Oliver Winthrop of
carrying tales to his father, and he accused the old earl, his own
father—and his brother, Hugh—of hiring scoundrels to murder that
poor girl, to run her down and leave her dead in the street. And he
threw Hugh across the room, quite shattering a good number of
furnishings and valuables, and he told his father, before everyone
who was assembled, that with Molly dead, he would never marry, he
would leave London and never return... that if he ever saw his
father or his brother again, he would...” Her voice dropped even
lower, quivering. “He would tear them limb from limb.”

“My God.”

Josie stared down at her hands. Her heart
was twisting inside her, twisting painfully like a rag being wrung
out to dry. “He must have loved her so very much... so much... with
all his heart.”

“He gave up everything because of what
happened to her. London spoke of little else for months—though in
whispers only, of course.” Miss Perry seemed to have forgotten all
about the young countess as her memory drifted back to the gossip
and rumors that had swirled through salons and theatres and dining
rooms.

“I remember that the earl declared himself
well rid of so wildly scandalous a son, and everyone agreed with
him—but from that moment on, though I only watched from the
corners, you know, and never spoke once to the earl in my life, or
to Ethan Savage until his return—I secretly admired that wild,
handsome boy for loving with his whole heart. One can’t help but
admire it. Oh, dear,” she murmured suddenly, dismayed by the
stricken expression on Lady Stonecliff’s face, and realizing in
dismay how she had been carrying on most tactlessly about the
Earl’s first love to his brand-new bride.

“But that was all in the past, you know—a
very
long time ago. He obviously loves you now with the same
depth and intensity, Lady Stonecliff, or he never would have
subjected himself to returning to England, to taking over the
responsibilities left to him. A man like Ethan Savage wouldn’t have
married for any reason other than love.” She smiled warmly and with
encouragement, her words emphatic. “You are a very lucky woman, my
dear. As I’m sure you well know.”