Jane stared blankly at that poor volume, forgotten more times in this past week than the course of her life. For years those words had filled a void. They’d given her a belief in a world she thought she desired for herself. It was a world in which she was dependent upon no one and found contentment in her own accomplishments. And though there was the dream of a school for women such as herself, there was all this never before confronted desire for more—a family, a connection. She closed her eyes a moment—love.
“It is a cruelly harsh world oftentimes for young women, isn’t it?”
“It is,” she said softly. Until Jane had slipped into the fold of the Edgerton family she would have scoffed at Imogen’s words. What did lords and ladies know of the trials and uncertainties that came in being born on the fringe of their glittering, opulent world of perfection? But it wasn’t perfect. Gabriel and Chloe’s life spoke to the same struggles known by so many and, in that, Jane’s unfair lumping of all the peerage into one self-absorbed category had proven incorrect. If she’d been so very wrong about that, what else had she been wrong in?
The young lady fanned the pages of Jane’s book. “I once believed the ton was horrible and cruel and all things unfair where young ladies are concerned.”
She recalled Montclair’s tepid breath against her lips. “Aren’t they?” she asked, unable to keep the bitterness from creeping in.
Imogen stuck her finger on a random page of the book and looked down at the words. “Yes, yes they are often that,” she said matter-of-factly.
They. She’d not consider herself a member of the world to which she rightfully belonged?
Gabriel’s sister-in-law placed her hand on Jane’s and she started at the unexpected contact. “I was…” She wrinkled her nose. “There was a scandal that involved me,” she substituted.
“Oh.” For what really was there to say, with realization after realization she was not as unlike these people as she’d believed. Once more, it was harder than ever to resent the whole of them for the crimes of a few.
“You won’t ask me about that scandal.”
“Never.” She shook her head. “I’ve been gossiped about by too many,” she said with a bluntness that brought the young woman’s eyebrows shooting up. “Most of the things whispered about me were untrue.” She thought of her father, the powerful duke, and then the scandalous discovery of her and Gabriel last evening. “But some of them are not. I would not ask you to share the stories which belong to you.”
The woman gave Jane’s hand a slight squeeze and a gentle smile wreathed her cheeks. “I would not have volunteered unless I wished to share.” Which was, once again, all the more terrifying. “My betrothed jilted me for my sister.”
She blinked several times.
“I swore to never wed for any reason but stability and order, to a gentleman who inspired no grand sentiments. Do you know what happened to that pledge?”
Jane recalled all of Chloe’s words about her brother, Lord Alex—the infamous rogue. “I do not,” she said for politeness sake.
The gleam in the woman’s eye indicated she knew as much. “I fell in love.” How often had Jane scoffed at that emotion that had so weakened her mother? And yet, there was nothing wrong about Imogen, or Lord Alex, or Chloe, and Gabriel and the entire Edgerton family who loved so passionately. “So, there are scandals,” Imogen said bringing her to the moment. “And they are awful when they are happening, and some of them are disastrous and horrible in every way, but sometimes, just sometimes, good comes from them. As it did for me.” She touched her neck, as though searching for something. Then, she let her hand flutter back to her lap. “And I suspect as it will be for you.”
Of course. The lady believed Jane would wed Gabriel. Even with her own scandal, Imogen had not disavowed marriage. She’d merely sought to avoid a match based on the volatile emotions that Jane herself feared. A lump formed in her throat and she swallowed several times. “Why are you being so nice to me?” she asked, desperate to understand why these strangers were so different than all others she’d known. They’d shared parts of their lives with her, an outsider, an interloper, and thief.