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W hen Jane woke the next morning, she immediately knew that she’d taken her tumble down the hillside far too lightly. There did not seem to be a square inch of her body that did not ache. She groaned as she stretched.

“Sore ye’d be, I prophesied to Lady Elsbeth, and sore ye are,” stated a clipped Irish voice.

Jane turned her head to see her dresser, Mrs. O'Rourke, lay down the petticoat she was mending. The widow of an impressed seaman, she’d been with Jane since her come-out and had long adopted the forwardness of a lifetime servant.

She was an imperious-looking woman with a stern long face and gray hair swept severely off her high brow.

Other servants were in awe of her. She was good at her job but secretly given to periodic indulgences with the bottle, spouting prophecies and conversing with 'little people' no one else could see.

“You were not alone in that prophecy,” Jane said tightly as she straightened cramped limbs and struggled to sit up.

"I believe I was the only one who did not. I stand, or rather sit,” she amended as her legs gave way under her when she attempted to stand, “corrected. I do not recall ever hurting so. I suppose my aunt has another liniment ready for me to try?”

“Aye, a minty one. Sweet smellin’ and bound to clear yur head if not ease yur pur muscles.

" She crossed to the dressing table and came back carrying a white wide-mouthed jar. She liberally rubbed the creamy lotion into Jane’s skin, her wide spatulate fingers kneading tight muscles.

Slowly Jane relaxed and gave herself over to enjoying the massage.

“Hmm, I must admit I do feel better,” admitted Jane when Mrs. O'Rourke stopped and recapped the jar, rubbing her hands on her apron front.

“Now you be restin’ there while I send fur yur breakfast and inform yur lady aunt that yur awake.”

“You’ve massaged my muscles until they’re incapable of movement. I will not be going anywhere,” Jane assured her, languidly closing her eyes and savoring the cold-hot sensations of the lotion on her skin.

She must have drowsed lazily for several minutes, for the next thing she was aware of was the sound of rattling china. She opened her eyes to see Lady Elsbeth pouring a cup of tea. Jane struggled to sit up against the pillows.

“Tea? You know I prefer coffee in the morning,” she protested.

“This is a special herbal blend. It will help you feel much more the thing." Lady Elsbeth handed Jane the china cup, then drew a chair forward to sit beside the bed. "Serena has written again. She has supplied me with a list of those that accompany her. I may thankfully say it is not a long list.”

“Oh?”

Lady Elsbeth nodded. She held up a closely written letter. "Mr. Raymond Burry is, as you may guess, escorting her.”

“He has been in her entourage all season. What does Beau Burry see in Lady Serena? Or she in him? He’s neither wealthy, wise, nor—if you consider his corpulence—healthy.”

Lady Elsbeth looked reprovingly over the edge of the letter. "Such cynicism does not become you.”

Jane waved her hand in apology and requested she continue.

"Serena also mentions a Lord and Lady Willoughby."

"Who?”

“Willoughby. She says they’re from somewhere up north. This is their first trip south."

“How odd,” Jane mused. She took a sip of tea. "Is that all?"

"No. And I’m afraid the last is a name you’ll not like.”

“Gracious, such hesitancy in your tone! Dislike more than my two relatives? Impossible, I’m sure. Who could be more unwelcome than Aunt Serena and Cousin Millicent?”

“Sir Garth Helmsdon.”

Silence fell between them. Then Jane blinked and rallied.

"It appears that of late I’ve been too impetuous,” she said lightly.

"I did not believe it was possible to ache so after a fall, and I did not believe there could be a name more unwelcome to me than my aunt’s and cousin’s.

It appears I was wrong.” Shadows darkened her eyes. She took a sip of the tea.

“Perhaps he is now dangling after Millicent,” Elsbeth offered.

“Oh, I’m sure he is. However, recall that we agree Millicent is likely coming here to throw her cap at Royce. She most likely desires someone to take Helmsdon off her hands. And who would be better than the very woman he so ardently pursued during the season?” Jane asked bitterly.

She handed the cup back to Elsbeth and threw off the covers. Picking up a wrapper from the end of the bed, she jerkily stuffed her arms in and wrapped the garment about her. She began pacing the room, her protesting muscles a bittersweet counterpoint to the pain of her thoughts.

Ardently was perhaps too weak a word to describe Sir Helmsdon’s pursuit for her hand.

The man was a gazetted fortune hunter who was desperate to find a match that would relieve him of financial worries.

He could have married well into trade, for there were businessmen in abound who would trade their wealth for society’s entree, but Helmsdon was a snob and would do anything to avoid cit’s blood.

It was unfortunate, for the man could be charming when he chose.

Nonetheless, as Jane discovered, he could also be ruthless and was not above kidnapping or ruination to achieve his goals.

He was the real reason she took to her heels and departed London before the season was out.

He tried to arrange an assignation designed to ensure her ruination unless she married him.

He did not know that she was wary of all such traps, for there was a similar trap sprung on her in the past that, only through happenstance, failed.

The irony being it was the very trap Aunt Serena attempted to use on her three years before, not to marry her off for some gentleman’s advantage, but to clear the field for her own daughter’s pursuit of another.

Mr. David Hedgeworth. When her original plan failed, Lady Serena altered it slightly to lead to Millicent's supposed ruination at the hands of Mr. Hedgeworth, knowing that the gentleman would do decently by her daughter and solicit her hand in marriage.

Jane rubbed her temples to ease the incipient headache building there.

Was there ever such a coil? Who could she get to act as a shield?

What could she do to protect herself, for she did not put it past Sir Helmsdon to make an attempt upon her virtue and thereby force her hand.

In this, Lady Serena Tipton would no doubt aid and abet him.

Then she remembered the apartments on the ground floor.

“Elsbeth, in your opinion, would it require much effort on the part of the servants to make the old family apartments habitable?”

“No, not at all. Why?”

“Because that is where we shall be staying for the duration of our guests’ visit.”

Jane wouldn’t tell Elsbeth why they must remove to the ground floor rooms; nonetheless, once Lady Elsbeth assayed the heavy oak door with its ornate lock that guarded the entrance to that wing, she began to understand.

What puzzled her was Jane’s quiet conviction that such safeguards as distance and a heavy oak barrier were necessary.

Sir Helmsdon was an annoyingly persistent suitor, but certainly not one to overstep the bounds of propriety!

Still, it wasn’t like Jane to act unwarrantably, and there was her matter-of-fact attitude that argued against any suspicion of hysteria.

That afternoon, as Jane directed the cleaning and organizing of those apartments, there was a certain grimness to her expression not totally explained by her weakened condition.

She had just finished directing the movement of certain heavy pieces of furniture when Jeremy came with the information that the Earl of Royce was in the parlor.

Lady Elsbeth glanced at her niece worriedly, dubious as to her reception of the information.

To her gratification, Jane merely directed the servants to carry on and formally suggested Elsbeth accompany her.

“I should be very remiss in my duty if I didn’t!”

“Oh, excuse me, Aunt Elsbeth. I’m sorry.

I must seem the coldest individual today.

My mind is quite tied up in knots. I’ll own that news of Sir Helmsdon’s imminent appearance has rattled me a bit.

It’s just that he was so persistent . . .

” she said, her voice fading away. She shook herself and forced a bright smile to her lips, but it was a smile that failed to reach and warm her icy green eyes.

"Will you forgive me? I shall strive to be better. I promise.”

Jane saw the worry in her aunt’s eyes and was touched, but she did not feel she could confide the extent of her misgivings surrounding the upcoming visit.

She hoped she was wrong, but she suspected that neither Lady Serena Tipton nor Sir Garth Helmsdon intended to act in an honorable fashion.

She felt like a warrior girding up for battle, checking her defenses, setting strategy, and readying her ammunition.

The problem was, she had no ammunition with which to fight, save for the Earl of Royce.

And he was at best a keg of dynamite, as likely to destroy her as her enemy.

What could he want now? She tore at the strings of the large white apron that covered her gown.

She flung it over her head, tossing it in a hallway chair by a tall pier-glass in which she stopped to check her appearance.

She patted a stray raven lock back into place, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

The trick to dealing with men like the earl, she told herself, was to be impeccably polite. Such behavior drove them crazy.

She closed her eyes a moment to will a relaxed, calm state to greet the earl. Behind her, Lady Elsbeth began making slight noises indicating her growing sense of unease. Jane opened her eyes and flashed Lady Elsbeth a smile before taking her arm in hers.

“I’ll not deny the man makes me nervous. Look at me, preening like some fresh debutante! It is simply not to be borne!”