An Escapade and an Engagement Read Online Free PDF

again.
    Until he had told her that the separation had almost broken his
heart.
    Oh, how she hoped Lord Ledbury could persuade him to abandon
his pursuit of her! Because if he couldn’t she was going to have to tell him
herself that she had never really loved him. She had not seen it before tonight.
But now that she was looking at her behaviour through Lord Ledbury’s censorious
eyes she had to face the fact that a very large part of Harry’s attraction had
derived from the satisfaction gained in knowing that to see him was to defy her
grandfather.
    Oh, heavens. Lord Ledbury would be quite entitled to write her
off as a shallow, thoughtless, selfish creature.
    She shut her eyes and turned onto her side as Josie slid from
the room and shut the door softly behind her. Her stomach flipped over. She did
not want to be the kind of girl who could casually break a man’s heart in a
spirit of defiance. Though she had never dreamed Harry’s feelings were so deeply
engaged. She tried to excuse herself. She had not done it deliberately! She had
thought… She frowned, looking back on her behaviour with critical eyes. She had
not thought at all, she realized on a spurt of shame that seared through her so
sharply she had to draw up her legs to counteract it. Harry had just turned up
when she was so frustrated with her life in Town that she’d been silently
screaming at the weight of the restrictions imposed on her.
    Though they were not all entirely the fault of her chaperone.
She herself had made a stupid vow not to dance with anyone this Season, lest
they take it as a sign she might welcome their suit.
    Though, she comforted herself, even before Lord Ledbury had
caught them she had begun to see that, in all conscience, she could not continue
to encourage Harry. It had only been a moment before he’d come upon them. The
moment when Harry had urged her to elope and she’d known she could never do
anything of the sort. Even before he had kissed her, and it had become so very
unpleasant, she had known she would have to break it off.
    That was the moment when she’d
known she was not in love with Harry. Not in that deep, all-consuming way which
might induce a woman to give up everything—as her aunt Aurora, so her mother had
told her, had done when she had eloped with an impecunious local boy.
    ‘Oh, Harry.’ She sighed. She hoped he would get over her
quickly. He should, for she was not worth the risks he had taken. Anyway, he was
certainly going to have more important things to think about than her in the
near future. The newspapers were full of Bonaparte’s escape from Elba. Every
available regiment was being posted overseas in an attempt to halt his triumphal
progress through France. And what with all the excitement of travelling to
foreign climes and engaging in battles, he would soon, she hoped, be able to put
her out of his mind altogether.
    Though she would feel guilty for toying with a man’s feelings
for a considerable time to come.
    Shutting her eyes, she uttered a swift prayer for him to meet a
nice girl of his own class, who would love him back the way he deserved to be
loved.

Chapter Three
    ‘L ord Ledbury is coming to take you for a
drive today? Are you quite sure?’
    Lady Penrose regarded her over the top of her lorgnettes, which
she was using to peruse the pile of correspondence that had arrived that
morning.
    ‘Yes,’ said Lady Jayne, crossing her fingers behind her back.
‘Did I not mention it last night?’
    Lady Penrose looked pensive. ‘I was aware he was at the
Beresfords’ last night, of course. But not that you had been formally
introduced. Nor that an invitation had been given. Or accepted. In fact you
should not have accepted at all.’ She laid her glasses down with evident
irritation. ‘You know it was quite wrong of you to do such a thing. The young
man ought to have applied to me for the permission which I alone am in a
position to give.’
    Though Lady Jayne hung her head, her spirits