Hilton would not have a penny of her money left by the time she is of age.”
“Oh, Papa, I am sure Mr Lindsay does not wish to be bored with our little domestic disagreements.” Annabel came forward, all smiles, swaying flounces and bouncing curls, as Janey stood, momentarily stricken, wondering whether Mr Filmore could evict Mrs Avery without notice. “And you have not introduced me yet.”
“There is hardly any need,” Jonathan said, with a smile that did not reach his eyes. “I know you by sight, Miss Filmore, and by reputation.” His mouth curved a little upon the last word. “You were in Town last Season, were you not?”
“Yes, how clever of you to remember,” Annabel simpered, fluttering her eyelashes. “I did not think you would have noticed me amongst so many.”
“Oh, you are impossible to ignore, Miss Filmore,” Jonathan said drily as his eyes flicked over the pink frills. “Quite impossible.”
“Oh, Mr Lindsay, you are such a flatterer,” Annabel said, twirling one of her red curls coyly about her finger. “Is he not shameless, Jane?”
“Utterly, I fear,” Janey agreed mildly, the corners of her mouth curving in spite of everything. Only Annabel, whose vanity was overwhelming, could possibly have taken what he had said as a compliment.
“Jane,” Mr Filmore said frowningly, as he glanced from Lindsay to Janey, “have you entirely forgotten your manners? Go and order some refreshment for our guest.”
“Of course,” Janey said demurely. “If you will excuse me?” She waited for Jonathan Lindsay to step aside.
“A moment, Miss Hilton.” He touched her arm as she made to pass him, stopping her in mid-stride. She stared down at his long elegant fingers, so brown and firm upon her thin muslin sleeve just above her wrist. It was the lightest, politest of gestures. There was no need for her pulse to beat wildly at the base of her throat, no reason at all for her breath to stop in her throat. And it was ridiculous to have this feeling that her whole life had been leading to this moment, this man’s touch upon her sleeve.
Dragging in a hasty breath, she jerked her gaze upwards to his and found him staring at her speculatively.
“Yes?” Her voice was almost, but not quite, as steady as she would have wished it as his gaze held hers and she caught the gleam of amusement in the indigo depths of his eyes. No doubt he was used to women reacting to him in such a fashion and that piqued her. She did not want to be like the rest…not to this man.
“That matter we spoke of—”
“About the gardens of Southbrook, you mean?” she interrupted him warningly, willing him with her eyes to understand that she did not want Jem’s case mentioned before Mr Filmore.
“Yes,” he said after a fractional hesitation, “the gardens.”
“You will find the camomile seat at the foot of the waterfall,” she went on hastily. “Sunset is the best time to sit there, the light turns the water to rainbows—” She stopped, as close to blushing as she had ever been, as his brows lifted quizzically and he smiled at her in a way he had never done before, a wide slanting smile that reflected the warmth in his gaze.
“Rainbows at sunset?” he said with gentle mockery. “How very romantic for a Radical.”
“It was merely an observation—you really do get rainbows—” she said tersely as Annabel giggled.
“Then I shall go there this very evening.”
She exhaled with relief as he lifted his fingers from her arm. He had understood. But then he understood everything far too well, she thought wryly as she took a step back from him.
“Rainbows!” She heard Annabel snort as she left the room. “I swear Jane is becoming more fanciful by the day.”
Chapter Three
The orange disc of the sun was just slipping below the distant horizon of the downs when Janey stepped out of the woods. A few feet ahead of her was an apparently sheer cliff, out of which sprang a small torrent of water, which foamed and sparkled as it tumbled into the shadowy pool some forty feet below. Above the noise of the water, she could hear the frantic excited barking of a dog; glancing down to the edge of the pool, she saw Jonathan Lindsay, throwing sticks for his liver and white spaniel into the calm end of the pool.
Cautiously she began to descend the narrow zigzag of a fern-lined path that threaded down the cliff, thinking ruefully that it would have been easier if she had been as close a follower of the fashions as Annabel and, hence, would have been wearing a skirt that skimmed her ankles rather than the ground.
The roar of the falling water drowned out the noise of her approach. It was the spaniel who sensed her presence first, dropping its stick at Jonathan’s feet and raising its head to bark furiously.
“Hello! I was beginning to think you were not coming, or I had misunderstood you,” he called up to her as he turned.
“No, you understood perfectly,” she shouted back, wondering why it was that seeing him should give her this peculiar feeling of instant well-being. “I am sorry to have kept you waiting,” she said as she drew nearer, “it was more difficult than I had expected to get away.”
“You are still in disgrace, I take it?”
“For all eternity, I suspect,” she said with feeling, her guardians having waxed long and lyrical about her outrageous behaviour.
“Wait, I’ll help you—the path has collapsed there.” He came forward, hands outstretched to help her down the last drop of two feet or so.
“Thank you,” she said after a fractional hesitation, and put out her hands to rest them on his shoulders as his hands closed about her waist. It would have been ridiculous to refuse. As ridiculous as it was to feel so afraid of touching him. Daniel had lifted her down from a thousand such places when they had roamed the great forests on the long trail west, looking for firewood and berries.
“Ready?”
“Yes…” The word dwindled to nothing in her throat as she glanced down into his blue, blue eyes and everything seemed to stop: time, her heart, her lungs—even the roaring, cascading water.
For a second, no more, he stared back at her. Then, with a flicker of a smile, he lifted her down. Staring at his snowy linen cravat, she waited for him to release her waist, and then she realised that he could hardly do so until she removed her hands from his shoulders, where they seemed to have become fixed.
Snatching her hands back, she pulled out of his grasp, took two steps back and dragged in a breath. She had danced with several men, even been kissed upon the mouth once by Daniel, but she had never, ever felt anything like that sudden irrational sense of belonging, of wanting to touch, hold on and never let go—
Get yourself in hand, girl, she told herself impatiently, as he regarded her a little quizzically with a half-smile hovering upon his wide mouth. Sure, he was handsome, but he had not found their proximity in the least bit earthshaking—but then, no doubt, he was used to simpering society misses falling at his feet. She took another breath and lifted her chin, preparing to be as cool, as ladylike and as English as she knew how.
“Do
