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Her aunt laughed. "Well, we can’t have that, can we? All right, as quick as possible.” She dried her face and went over to sit on the edge of her bed. Jane joined her.

“By the time the new season began, I was anxious to see him. As it was, I was back in London three weeks before we met again. Three of the longest weeks of my life. Immediately he took me aside to ask how I liked his mother’s journal.

Naturally, I raved about it. I don’t know how long we talked—or rather, how long I talked, and he listened; but afterward, I was chastised for spending such an excessive amount of time with him.

I was told his manners were too polite to allow him to walk away. No doubt I bored him completely.”

“Who—Why—Please don’t tell me you believed this!” Jane expostulated.

“It did shake me,” Lady Elsbeth conceded.

"The next time we met, I was very quiet and shy. Painfully so. The last thing I wanted was to give him a disgust of me. Finally, he asked me what was the matter, did I no longer desire his company? Had he disgusted me in some way? Horrified, I told him no! I told him what family members had advised me. He was angry. Frighteningly angry. He let me know that the time I’d spent with him had been the most enjoyable interlude he’d known in a long time.

In fact, he wanted to spend more time with me.

He asked me to go driving with him the next day.

I was ecstatic. Then I was warned, quite kindly I thought, that he was using my innocence to redeem himself with society for his jaded existence.

I was hurt. Not having great confidence in myself, I believed that. ”

“Oh, no, Elsbeth!”

Lady Elsbeth laughed. "When I look back now, I am awed at my naiveté. I kept our relationship very formal, for I was afraid of being hurt. During that time, I was told that he was currently supporting two mistresses in different establishments. That he had no intention of changing his lifestyle. He was merely in the market for a quiet, biddable wife. I didn’t want to believe that.

I was even driven by one of the mistresses’ houses.

Another time, while at the theater, I had one of the women pointed out to me, and I heard some young men joke about Black Jack’s good taste.

Then one day, he came to speak with Father.

Afterward, Father called me into his study and left me alone with him.

I was astonished. That was when Lord Conisbrough proposed to me. ”

“Elsbeth!”

Her aunt smiled sadly. "I was confused, distraught. I loved him so, and I wanted to be loved as intensely in return. I was not willing to share him with even one other woman. I formally and coldly turned him down. Afterward, I went upstairs and cried myself to sleep. Later, still bleary-eyed, I went downstairs. Father didn’t understand what went on, but he knew I was miserable.

To cheer me up, he suggested we all go to Vauxhall Gardens.

It was a more acceptable place to go back then.

As it happened, Lord Conisbrough was there.

He was stern and forbidding in appearance, sarcastic in speech.

I was never so miserable. He said he wanted to talk to me.

I felt I owed him at least that. We went off down one of the many dark walks at Vauxhall.

He accused me of leading him on, of playing the innocent, of toying with his emotions.

He was talking to me as if I were the miscreant.

I grew angry. I told him in no uncertain terms what I thought of him and his morals.

He never tried to defend himself, but his expression in the moonlit shadows became even more forbidding.

All he said, in a quiet, contained voice that sent shivers down my spine, was that he had thought better of me. He said I was a creature of gossip.”

“And that you should try being a woman.”

“Yes! How did you guess?”

Jane smiled wryly. I’ve been accused of the same."

"Royce?”

“The same.”

“And it was Royce who brought Conisbrough here,” Lady Elsbeth said thoughtfully. "I wonder?—”

“You wonder what?”

Her aunt smiled. "Nothing. But now you know my sad tale. I need hardly say that later I learned that he had kept two mistresses at once, but he’d severed both relationships after he met me.”

“Dear God.”

“Yes, exactly. But by then, Father had died and Hereward and his young family needed me, and it just seemed to go on from there.

At first, I desperately wanted to see him so I could apologize, not that I thought it would change things, but it would ease my conscience.

But we were in mourning, which seemed to go on for the next six years.

After that, I felt it was too late, and it would smack of the old spinster trying for what she foolishly gave up, so I made sure I stayed away from him.

“I thought of writing, but I consider that the coward’s way. If I had known all those complications were going to happen in my life, I would have written him. Last night was the first time I’ve seen him in fifteen years, but he had never left my thoughts. That’s why I fainted.”

“It doesn’t seem as if his feelings have altered in time."

"Oh, they have. He carries around a great hurt inside him. I can feel it. He could never truly bring himself to forgive me."

“Elsbeth, how can you say that without giving him a chance?”

Her aunt smiled and patted Jane’s hand, a faraway look in her eyes. "I should be happy if we could go through life as friends. I hope that is not too much to ask.”

“But Elsbeth!”

"Shush. I’m too old.”

A mulish expression pursed Jane’s lips tight and hardened her eyes into green gemstones.

“Enough,” Lady Elsbeth begged. "Now go and get dressed. We haven’t much time.”

“All right. But do not think because you fob me off now you will do so in the future.”

“I shall continue to do so as long as you fall into the traps I did.”

“And just what is that supposed to mean?”

“It means, dear, dear Jane, do not believe all the gossip you hear,” Lady Elsbeth said, shutting the door firmly behind her.