Free Jane Feather by Engagement at Beaufort Hall Page A

after the drive from the station.”
    The party moved into the drawing room, where the long velvet curtains had been drawn against the winter night, the fire blazed, and the gas lamps were lit. Sharpton and a footman passed around glasses of sherry and Madeira.
    “Duncan says the hunting’s off for the moment, Miss Carstairs.” Lord Alfred drew close to Imogen. “Shame . . . I was hoping for a good run across Burley Heath.”
    “There’s always shooting, Lord Alfred.” Imogen smiled at him and moved away to where Harry Graham stood, for the moment alone to one side of the fireplace.
    “Are you a fervent rider to hounds, Mr. Graham?” she inquired. “If so, I fear my brother has misled you.”
    “No . . . not at all, Miss Carstairs.” He smiled, showing a flash of very white teeth. “I enjoy the exercise, and one doesn’t need to hunt for that.”
    “Indeed,” she agreed, warming to the young man with the bright smile and the easy manner. “Allow me to refresh your glass.”
    As she turned from him, she became aware of her brother’s gaze. She couldn’t read it—it seemed almost pleading, almost hungry. But that wasn’t Duncan. He could be sulky sometimes when things didn’t go his way, and he could make decisions that were far from well thought out, but she and Esther understood their little brother. He had been both spoiled and neglected, praised and criticized in almost equal measure throughout his boyhood. School had been a brutal experience, but it had given him an identity that he shared with his social peers. As far as his sisters knew, he had never had a mentor who could have guided him into the right choices. And at the most vulnerable point in his growing, their father had died and he’d inherited a fortune, a mansion in London, and a country estate without anyone to steer him through. Except for his two sisters, who, of course, suffered from the eternal disadvantage of being women. They might see more clearly than Duncan did, but their opinions were tainted by their sex.

Chapter 7
    The evening seemed eternal. Imogen enjoyed the company of her brother’s friends in small doses, but both she and Esther, after a while, found them callow, their youthful exuberance lacking in any conversational stimulus, with the exception of Harry Graham, who had a sophisticated range of interests far ahead of Duncan’s other friends. It was with relief that they rose from the dinner table to seek refuge in the drawing room, leaving the gentlemen to their port.
    “I will never understand how a university education can leave such a nonexistent mark on the minds of its graduates,” Esther declared. “If we were to have such an opportunity, can you imagine how the world would change?”
    Imogen chuckled. Usually it was she making such comments. “Well, we could attend Oxford or Cambridge, just not graduate,” she pointed out.
    “And have no public recognition at all of what we’d achieved,” Esther stated, pouring coffee. “At least Charles acknowledges that injustice.”
    Imogen was silent for a moment. “Yes,” she agreed eventually. “Yes, he does.” She took up her coffee cup. “Different subject . . . but don’t you think Duncan is behaving a little oddly? He seems very nervous, and I don’t think it’s anything to do with me and Charles. I’ve tried to make as little as possible of that hunting business, and Duncan’s conscience never bothers him for very long anyway.”
    “No, I agree. He does seem oddly anxious. And yet he’s surrounded by his friends.” Esther stirred sugar into her coffee. “To tell you the truth, Gen, I’ve never really understood our little brother.”
    “Me neither,” her sister concurred. “But I don’t feel like waiting around for them to break up the dinner table. I’d like a quiet night upstairs. They’re bound to want to play billiards, and I’m sure they’ll be relieved if we’re not here when they come in.”
    “My thoughts exactly.”