Follow My Lead (47 page)

And they already had. When Totty had regained consciousness in Linz, she immediately wrote a letter to Phillippa Worth of George’s perfidy toward her, and Phillippa made certain that
that
information was known all over town, so when the time came for George to return to England, he had learned that if he did so, none would receive him. It was rumored he was in Ireland now, looking to teach at Trinity College. As if the Irish were any more forgiving than the English. George would have to go to America to find a school that would have him. Perhaps further.

And if Jason made damn certain—via hired men—that George Bambridge so much as never raised his voice to a woman again, well . . . who was to know?

But George Bambridge didn’t warrant a thought anymore. Jason’s brain could handle little more than comprehending that Winnifred Crane was there, standing in front of him. After six months.

Six months. She looked . . . she looked like Winn. His Winn. Oh, her hair was up and she was wearing a gown of fine silk, but she still looked like that small woman who had curled into a ball beneath the covers while he slept above. The Winn who had hunched over Herr Heider’s collection of papers and paintings for days, thumbing through with white gloves on, hoping for some small trace of evidence that her hunch about the Adam and Eve painting was correct. The Winn who had laughed herself crying when they saw the bottle of Burgundy ’93. The Winn who tugged at the heart-shaped locket around her neck whenever she was working something through her mind.

The heart-shaped locket, currently resting in the valley of her breasts, which had sparkled against her naked skin in the moonlight in Wurtzer’s loft.

“Jason?” she said, drawing his attention back to her words.

“What did you say?” he asked dully.

“I asked how you are,” she replied, her eyes never straying from his face.

“I’m fine. I’m . . . ah, I’m getting married.” He indicated the party in the room beyond, the party that, in defiance of the stoppage of time, went on with light and laughter.

“I know,” she replied. “Actually, I didn’t know—I was invited by Lord Forrester to his daughter’s engagement ball. They didn’t mention the groom.”

“Grooms are fairly incidental in these things, I’m told,” Jason said, laughing weakly at his own pale joke.

What would she have done if she had known, he wanted to ask. Would she have come anyway? Defying any feelings that she might have for him, or acknowledging their lack?

“Congratulations,” she said softly.

“Thank you,” was the only response to be made.

They stood there, in the cold winter air, their breath visible in the light cast by the glow of the party beyond the glass doors. At some point, the door had closed, but Jason did not remember it. Nor did he remember taking the few steps away from the doors, to a more shadowed alcove, but they had. Maybe it was the wine, he thought briefly, robbing him of any other thought but the woman in front of him. But of course, it wasn’t. It was foolish to hope that.

“I’ve been in France,” Winn said suddenly.

“Have you?” Jason asked. “We’ve all been wondering. The Historical Society, that is.”

“Yes, well.” She blushed, looking to her toes for a moment, then to the side for anything for her attention to land on, skittish like the sparrow she was. “We stayed in Vienna, on the goodwill of the Altons—but when I received word that I had been awarded my inheritance, I didn’t want to wait anymore to see the world.”

“Did you?” he could not help but ask. “See the world, that is.”

“Not all of it.” She smiled. “Not even most of it. Yet. But I did see the Mediterranean. You were right. About the blue.”

And suddenly Jason felt something in his heart drop. Foolish though it was, especially given what they were celebrating at this ball, but he’d held out hope in his traitorous heart that he would get to witness that moment. The moment her eyes fell on the blue of the Mediterranean Sea. He’d wanted to be there. And now . . . he never would be.

So, this is loss, Jason thought. Mourning moments you don’t get to have, because they’ve passed you by.

“I’ve been here,” Jason said as a void threatened to overcome the conversation. “In London.”

Yes, he’d been here. And the moment he’d stepped back on English shores, his sister Jane was there to light into him for abandoning his responsibilities.

“What was so important that you simply had to go gallivanting around Europe for a few weeks?” Jane had said after she hugged him and smacked him upside the head in turns.

He’d wanted to tell her. He’d wanted to tell her that he was doing something important for someone. That he was helping a friend, and that in the process, he’d fallen madly in love with a woman who didn’t want him. But she would never believe it.

Sir Geoffrey was as good as his word—he had made no mention to anyone of his presence in Vienna. (Mr. Ellis arrived some weeks later in England, and all it took was one visit to that good gentleman to have him keep his counsel.) And Jason knew that he was not mentioned in Totty’s letter to Phillippa (as at the time, she was not able to confirm the identity of Winn’s companion) . . . As far as the Ton knew, he’d dropped off Winn Crane in Dover and that was that. And since the last thing he’d said to Bones was “This little adventure may take longer than anticipated,” when he didn’t return in a goodly amount of time, all assumed that he’d boarded a boat for distant shores. Why fight the reputation he’d fostered for so long?

“I was there in Dover, and I thought it had been a while since I’d been to Paris.” He’d shrugged nonchalantly. “Really, Jane, it was nothing more than a bit of fun—ow! Stop hitting me!”

“The next time you decide to leave the country, abandoning your sister and the lady you told me you intend to marry,
tell someone
!” Jane finished in a huff.

Luckily for him, Sarah was far more forgiving than his sister.

And if, while he begged for forgiveness from his sister and Sarah, he happened to make certain that a certain set of paintings were given back to their rightful owner, putting the full weight of his title to bear on his alma mater, who was to blink an eye? After all, he was simply doing what was right for the newest candidate to the Historical Society for Art and Architecture, a body that was headed by his hopefully soon-to-be father-in-law.

And if, he also made certain—through anonymous sources, of course—that those paintings went for a ridiculous sum at auction and then were donated by the new, nameless owner to Oxford, putting them full circle back where they were at home, who was there to know or care?

But Winn didn’t reply to his inane statement that he’d been in London all this time. Instead, she met his eyes and asked the one question that no one in all the huge transition of his life had ever thought to ask—because they assumed they knew the answer.

“And are you happy?”

Was he happy? He’d thought so. Until three minutes ago.

But he couldn’t reply to that, couldn’t joke it away, nor answer with any seriousness—any reply would break the wall that needed to hold.

“You’re shivering,” he commented, his mind falling to anything other than her question.

“It’s cold out here. And I do get cold easily.”

“Right.” Then, “I hear you are writing a book,” Jason said suddenly, changing the subject.

She nodded.

“About your adventures in finding the letters, and the Adam and Eve painting.”

She nodded again. “I wanted to fictionalize it, but my publishers said it was too good a story to not be told as true.”

“Am I in it?” he asked tersely.

She regarded him quietly for a moment.

“Not if you don’t want to be,” she replied.

“Not if I don’t want to be,” he repeated, uncomprehending.

“No one knows you—that is, you never told anyone you were with me. And I understand . . . it would alter your life if you did. Your marriage to Miss Forrester, your standing in good society.” She looked down at her toes again, her hand going to the locket at her neck, but she stopped herself.

“I would never do that to you,” she said, straightening, looking him dead in the eye. “So, I can . . . write you out the story. Pretend I went on my journey alone. If you want.”

He nodded, dully, comprehending her reasoning, if not agreeing with it.

“Well that’s settled, then,” she said, sighing and straightening her shoulders. “I should likely go,” she said finally, with a smile too bright to be real. She dipped to a curtsy.

“I wish you every happiness, Your Grace.” And she stepped neatly around him, quickly to the doors to the ballroom.

“Winn, wait—” he called out, but she had already slipped through, back into the real world.

And slipped past Sarah, on her way out to meet him.

“Oh, excuse me,” Sarah said to Winn’s retreating form. Then turning to Jason, met his with a look of surprised delight. “Was that Winnifred Crane?” she asked.

Jason nodded mutely—the only response he could muster.

“Where is she going? I so wanted to meet her. My father told me he wanted to invite her, but didn’t think she’d attend, as she’s been traveling through Europe—”

“You knew?” Jason interrupted suddenly. “You knew she would be here?”

“Yes,” Sarah replied cautiously. Then, after a moment, “I did not realize you were acquainted with her, however.”

“Only a little,” Jason stuttered finally, remembering his lines. “Her father was one of my professors at school . . . and then when she wanted to get into the Historical Society, I was there and . . .”

“Oh, I remember now!” Sarah cried with a relieved smile. “You helped her get inside Somerset House and to her audience with my father. I hear she’s writing a book, you know. All about her misadventures, trying to gain admittance to the Society.” Sarah’s eyes lit up like candles. “Do you think you’ll be in it? You did play an instrumental part getting her through the door—”

“No!” Jason cried, crossing his arms over his chest and beginning to pace furiously. “That’s just it! She’s writing me out of it. How can . . . how can someone do that? Literally write someone out of their lives?”

If Jason had been paying closer attention, he would have seen all the joy, all the color, drain out of Sarah’s face at his fevered, hurt words. But he was too much in his own head. Too much drawn into his own past with Winn, to properly see the woman with whom he intended to make a future. But he heard it, the painful realization in Sarah’s voice, when she finally spoke.

“Jason . . . I, uh . . . how well do you know Miss Crane?”

“I told you, when I was a student . . .” he tried, but she shook her head.

“No, I think you know her better than that,” Sarah replied astutely.

Jason held silent, his eyes finally coming to Sarah’s pale face, her huge eyes. “Yes, I do,” he whispered.

“I think I would like to sit down,” Sarah breathed. Jason rushed immediately to her side, took her arm, and guided her to a nearby stone bench, further out into the dark. What she had to ask—and what Jason had to say—well, it would be difficult to say in the light.

“When?” she asked, once she was settled in her seat.

“When?” he replied, uncomprehending.

“When did you come to know Miss Crane. Was it at school?”

“After,” he replied.

“Before we met?” she asked, hope in her words. Hope he would have to crush.

“No . . . this summer, when I went to the Continent for a few weeks.”

“Oh,” was the small distressed reply.

“Sarah, I am going to marry you. Don’t worry. And we’ll . . . we’ll be happy,” Jason said in a rush. “What she and I have . . .
had
—it was a matter of circumstance. It’s over between us.”

“No, it’s not,” Sarah replied, her eyes directed outward, looking back at the party—their engagement party—beyond the glass doors. “I have made a study of you, these past months. You have been my favorite subject. And you have been many things with me—jovial, joking, pleased, content . . . but never happy. Not . . . not truly. Nor have I ever seen you as stirred up as you are after a mere few minutes in the presence of Miss Crane.”

He shook his head. “That doesn’t mean you and I won’t—”

“Jason, look at me.” He did, his frightened gaze finding her as controlled and clear-eyed as befit her upbringing. “If you are going to break my heart, do it now. Not three months from now, after we’ve made vows. Not even tomorrow. Do it now. Have the strength to say what you want. And to go after it.”

Jason rose abruptly, unable to keep still. But he didn’t walk away, he didn’t pace. He merely looked out at the party beyond the doors. All of those laughing, happy, good people. And the only one he wanted to see . . . she wasn’t there anymore.

He turned, looked down into the face of his fiancée. The strength she had was beginning to wear thin, the shine in her eyes threatening to spill down her cheeks, a small shiver her only concession to the cold. She was so good. So very good, that he said the only thing he could to her.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

And that was it. The finality of breaking a woman’s heart echoed across the night air, and there was nothing else that needed a voice.

Sarah nodded, her breath leaving her body, bowing her posture down with acceptance. Seconds ticked between them before Sarah had enough composure to smile at Jason with forgiveness.

“What time is it?” Jason asked, coming out of his breath-held reverie.

“About midnight,” Sarah answered matter-of-factly. “Any minute now, my father is going to make his toast.”

“I should go speak with him, then,” Jason said, setting his jaw.

“No.” Sarah put her small hand on his arm, stilling him before he could move. “Let me do it. I’ll stop the formal toasting and the like. But let them have their party. For now.”

“What will you tell them?” he asked.