The Earl's Marriage Bargain (Liberated Ladies)

Jane virtually tumbled out of the chair when it halted in front of the Rooms. She had no idea whether the tea rooms were open when there was no Assembly in progress, but Ivo seemed confident enough when he paid the chairmen and turned to the open front door.

‘Hopefully it will be quiet at this hour.’

‘I will write to them, all of them,’ she gabbled as he swept her inside without a pause. ‘I will explain that it was just to reassure the chairmen and get us out of an awkward situation. I know I should have said something at once and that

you could not, but I—’

‘Shh,’ Ivo said. ‘Take a deep breath, sit down here.’ He glanced around the tea room. Only three other tables were occupied, all by parties of ladies deep in conversation and none of them close enough to overhear. A maid arrived before they could even take their chairs. ‘Tea for two and cake. A selection,’ he added with a glance at Jane.

‘I panicked,’ Jane admitted the moment the girl had gone. ‘I should have explained the moment I realised they had overheard. I will write to the ladies,’ she repeated. ‘Tell them all about the chairmen.’

‘It was not your fault.’ For a man who had found himself accidentally betrothed in the middle of Bath, Ivo was looking remarkably calm, if serious. Perhaps it was shock. ‘I should have squashed George the moment he bounced up.’

‘If you had not been so cross with me about the shop then we would not have been arguing and the chairmen would not have thought I needed rescuing and none of it would have happened,’ Jane said, determined to accept her full blame.

‘And if we could all foretell the consequences of every action nothing would ever be done,’ Ivo retorted.

‘Yes, but usually one’s actions do not lead to anything so ghastly happening.’ She broke off to smile her thanks to the maid who set the tea tray on the table and walked away slowly, clearly agog to hear more about the ‘ghastly happenings’.

‘I am sorry if the prospect of marriage to me is so distasteful.’ Ivo disposed of a blameless jam tart with a snap of white teeth.

‘If I were not resolved to remain unwed and if our ranks were not so disparate that I would spend my entire marriage trying not to disgrace you and if we did not spend so much time arguing, then I am sure that marriage to you, my lord, would be delightful,’ Jane said crossly as she pushed a cup of tea across the marble table top without too much care not to slop any into the saucer.

Ivo’s lips twitched into his almost-smile and he licked a crumb of pastry from the lower one.

He does have very good teeth, Jane mused. And a well-formed mouth.

She was thinking as an artist, of course she was, she told herself. But the sight of those lips brought back the memory of that fleeting kiss, of the taste of him, and she felt herself blushing.

‘The matter would be dealt with perfectly simply, as you say, with notes from you to the ladies and by me having a word with my erstwhile comrades in arms.’ Ivo was looking at her face, which did nothing to help the blush subside.

‘But? There is a but, isn’t there?’ Jane eyed the cakes and decided that she had no appetite.

‘Eat,’ Ivo said, correctly interpreting the glance. ‘You need sugar. Lady Tredwick is an old friend of my grandfather. A very close friend. Apparently, they still meet weekly to play cards and assassinate the reputations of all their acquaintance, or so Partridge, our butler, informs me. Not quite in those words, but you get the gist. I imagine the first thing she will do when she arrives home is to pen a note demanding to know why he has not informed her of my betrothal.’

‘Then you need to reach him first and explain,’ Jane said. ‘What is the time? Is there long before your groom brings the phaeton around?’

‘Ten minutes,’ Ivo said, with a glance up at the clock at one end of the long room. ‘Unfortunately, it is not quite that simple. My grandfather is, understandably, anxious about the succession and he is urgent in his desire to see me married. In fact, he has as good as arranged a match, although fortunately I was able to stop him before matters progressed too far. I have not met the lady concerned and I most certainly do not want to find myself committed before I have any idea whether we may suit.’

‘Goodness, how awkward for you. The Marquess seems to be a very, um, commanding figure.’

‘He’s an old tyrant who has had no one to say him nay for decades,’ Ivo said ruefully. ‘He and I will lock horns sooner or later, but I’m conscious that he has had a difficult time lately with my father’s death, not that he’ll admit to it. I do not want to make things worse just now.’

‘Therefore the sooner you explain about me, the better.’

‘Yes. However, when he first raised the matter of Miss—of the bride he had selected for me—I told him that I had met a young lady, was uncertain of the nature of my feelings for her and needed time to decide whether to propose to her or not. I told him, when he probed, not your name, but that you were from a gentry family.’

‘You were uncertain of your feelings for me?’ Jane stared at him, teacup halfway to her lips. ‘Me?’ It came out as a squeak.

‘The feelings I was unclear about, as I am sure you realise, were a choice between amusement, exasperation or panic,’ Ivo said. ‘But it was all I could think of on the spur of the moment and had the virtue of being true, even if my grandfather chose to read more into it than I actually said.’

Jane put down her teacup with a rattle and stared at him. It was not often that she found herself speechless, but this... The shock of thinking, even for a few seconds, that Ivo meant he was falling for her, was considering proposing, was literally breathtaking. Not that she wanted him to, of course not, but even so... And then he had tossed out words that were as bracing as a bucket of cold water over her. She amused him and exasperated him.

Not as much as you exasperate me, my lord.

Now her brain was working again she could see why Ivo was so concerned. ‘Lady Tredwick meets your apparent betrothed, who, she quickly realises, is no member of the aristocracy. We are both flustered, you say we had not intended to announce the betrothal yet. When your grandfather hears that, then he is either going to assume that I am the lady you told him about and will take a poor view of you changing your mind virtually the moment you propose or he will conclude that you have two young gentlewomen dangling and that you are not behaving in a gentlemanly fashion.’

‘Or he will realise that I was inventing a story to thwart his well-meant plans for my future. Oh, and dangling after innocent young women in the process,’ Ivo said leaning back in the spindly chair and gazing at the ceiling as though expecting celestial guidance. ‘Ah well, nothing for it but to make a clean breast of matters. I will go and confess all, with your permission. I shall have to tell him the entire story of our journey together, but you may trust him entirely to be discreet about your identity.’