Free Tea and Scandal by Joan Smith Page A

your schedule. ”
    She turned a startled face to him. Her long eyelashes fluttered a moment. “ Is she having a party? I doubt she will invite Aunt Fay and me. ”
    “ You are mistaken. The party is in your honor. ”
    She gave him a doubting look. “ That is certainly a change. ”
    “ Phoebe is not one to follow a fruitless course forever. ”
    “ No invitation had been delivered when we left the house, but if it comes, I cannot promise my aunt will accept. You must have noticed the two were at daggers drawn yesterday. ”
    “ It promises to be an — interesting evening. I know you will try to convince your aunt to accept. ”
    “ How do you know that? ”
    They came to a stream, really just a shallow ditch with water lying an inch deep. Fenwick ’ s long legs stepped across with no trouble, but Jane hesitated. He gave her his hand to assist her. She daintily lifted her skirts and jumped across. They didn ’ t continue walking immediately.
    Fenwick looked at her upturned face, with the sunlight streaming on it. The sun glinted on her brown curls, gilding them in gold. He wondered if those pink patches on her cheeks were due to the fresh air, or pleasure in her outing. What a pretty little thing she was, in her own quiet way.
    “ You said yesterday you wished the ladies could be friendly, ” he reminded her.
    “ Yes, but that was before I had seen them together. It promises to be a horrid evening, if my aunt does accept. ”
    “ Family gatherings are usually horrid, one way or the other, ” he said, and smiled ruefully at the memory of large family gatherings he had attended.
    “ Really? ” She frowned to consider this. “ I always regretted having so few relatives. My friends used to have their houses bulging at Christmas, with aunts and cousins and I don ’ t know what all. At home there was just Papa and myself. I don ’ t remember Mama at all. She died when I was born. ”
    Fenwick murmured some sympathetic sound. He was thinking that if Pargeter had put his by-blow up for adoption, he would not have left her with a widower. He would have put her in a home with a mother.
    “ Family parties combine the worst of all worlds, ” he said. “ Intimacy and familiarity without the civility we accord to outsiders. You will see what I mean at Phoebe ’ s dinner party. ”
    “ That doesn ’ t encourage me to urge Auntie to attend. ” Yet she wanted to go. Fenwick and Swann would be there. “ Swann will make it a pleasant evening, ” she said.
    Fenwick felt a jolt of annoyance. “Fenwick will also do his poor best to make the evening pleasant, ” he said. Then he took her hand and continued the walk.
    First she had repelled his offer of friendship, and now she had compared him unfavorably to Swann. Why was Miss Lonsdale immune to him? The little puzzle gnawed at him after he had seen her home. Miss Lonsdale was certainly different from the other ladies he met. She was more provincial, with virtually no experience of gentlemen. He was not unduly conceited, but experience told him she ought to be bowled over by his wealth and title, if not his person. Yet she preferred Scawen Swann. It was a baffling situation.
    Having decided there was no scandal in Miss Lonsdale’s past—she was a vicar’s daughter who had got her position at Miss Prism’s through ecclesiastical connections—he was now faced with another mystery. Why did a pretty young lady not throw her bonnet at the most eligible gentleman she had ever met? Had she no ambition to better herself? Her aunt’s success must have shown her such a thing was possible. Had she no romance in her soul? Impossible! She might have stepped right out of one of those novels ladies read: a poor, beautiful orphan, working for a living. Why didn’t she recognize her hero when he was right under her nose?
     

Chapter Eight
     
    When Jane returned to Wildercliffe, Lady Pargeter informed her of Lord Malton ’ s call.
    “ He behaved just like his old self, as