Lord Wraybourne's Betrothed Read Online Free Page B

knight-errant for her husband.
    On the other hand, she had learned to take such pleasures as were presented and consoled herself with the fact that any marriage would take her away from Carne and give her a position in Society, perhaps even afford the opportunity to travel a little. A bishop would surely be good and gentle, and Jane was rather frightened of men.
    She had become so attached to the notion of her kindly old bishop that she had been taken aback when her mother baldly announced that they were to receive a visit from the Earl of Wraybourne, who would doubtless make Jane an offer of marriage if he found her acceptable. Jane knew there was no purpose in questioning Lady Sandiford, who would only decry the vulgar curiosity. It would, of course, be demeaning to go to the servants for gossip. Fortunately, Jane had one valid source of information—her governess, Beth Hawley.
    Mrs. Hawley had come to be Jane’s companion nearly ten years before. She had been the wife of a young naval officer less than a year when the Battle of Copenhagen made her a widow. At first Jane had seen the tiny, pale-faced woman as yet another extension of her mother, but as Beth’s grief faded and the two became acquainted, friendship had flowered. It was this friendship that was largely responsible for the young woman Jane had become.
    Without offending the strict rules laid down for Jane’s upbringing, Mrs. Hawley had enriched the girl’s education. If only textbooks and sermons were allowed, Mrs. Hawley sought the best-written and most sensitively considered ones. With the introduction of music lessons came ballads and lullabies. The rudiments of history and geography could be expanded to cover a great deal of human knowledge. Thus, the governess had most scrupulously adhered to the directions of the girl’s parents while still managing to encourage her spirit and sense of humor.
    If anyone in the house could tell her more of Lord Wraybourne, it would be Beth. Unfortunately, even that lady could be little help since she had never moved in Society. She rather thought that the gentleman occasionally spoke in the House, and she had never heard any scandal of him—that was the sum of Beth’s knowledge. Jane had been forced to fall back again upon imagination, from which she had constructed a revised picture of a stern, but kindly man her parents’ age, elegantly yet soberly dressed, much given to reading weighty tomes on statesmanship. Jane convinced herself that marriage to this paragon would be even better than life as a bishop’s wife. She would be the wife of a government man, hearing all the great issues of the day discussed around her dinner table.
    The reality, when Lord Wraybourne finally arrived, had, therefore, been stunning. He was not precisely young, but he was nowhere near her parents’ age. He was well-informed and intelligent, but she was sure he did not spend all his time with his books. His dress might be sober, but it spoke clearly of expensive elegance even to her unsophisticated eye and did not disguise a quality about him for which she did not even have a word. In all her dreams of a husband, even in the dreams of her own Sir Galahad, the shape of the man’s body had played no part. Yet it was this—the fluidity of movement, the bones of his face, the fine strength of his hands—which overwhelmed her. At times, despite his kindness, she would find her tongue stumbling over commonplaces or chattering inanities, something she was sure she would never have done with her bishop. Jane was at a loss to determine whether she was delighted . . . or terrified out of her wits.
    For the first time in her life, she had given consideration to her appearance and been dismayed. She was forbidden to have a mirror in her rooms for fear she be vain, but there were mirrors around the house. She examined her plain, rather ill-fitting dresses and her hair in a thick plait down her back with dismay, and wished passionately for