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was
demonstrating such faith in her fashion sense?
    But still… ‘You have not thought this through at all, have you?
I have not gone shopping with a friend once since
coming to Town. If I am to suddenly wish to do so with Milly, then Lady Penrose
has got to believe she is someone exceptional. A special friend. Or she will
become suspicious.’
    Lady Jayne never went shopping with friends? He’d thought that
was how all fashionable young ladies spent their days.
    They were both obliged to suspend any effort at conversation
when a footman approached with the drinks that had given them the excuse to go
out onto the terrace. But once Lady Jayne had taken just one sip, she pointed
out rather tartly, ‘You wished me to exercise some influence on her. Which I
have promised to do. But you did not give me enough information to see me
through any social awkwardness which presenting her to Lady Penrose would
entail. I did my best to smooth over that awkwardness. I thought it was what you
military types called thinking on your feet.’
    He eyed her with misgiving. All he’d wanted was some pretext
for making her think they were doing each other a favour—something to distract
her from questioning his real motives behind monitoring her and Lieutenant
Kendell’s meetings so closely.
    He could never have guessed just how little freedom she had—not
even to go shopping. He’d assumed she’d been exaggerating when she’d said she
felt caged, but now he understood what she had meant. It must be intolerable. No
wonder she resorted to telling lies and climbing out of windows. Though he
couldn’t very well encourage her propensity for getting into mischief by
admitting that. So, instead, he observed, ‘All you have done is make everything
twice as complicated as it need be by adding yet another layer to the deception
you are practising upon Lady Penrose.’
    Guilt made her stomach twinge. She did not want to practise any
deception upon Lady Penrose at all. After living under her aegis for only a few
weeks she had discovered that, though reserved and inclined to be strict,
basically she was a kind woman. So kind, in fact, that after observing the two
girls together in the shop she had invited Milly back to Mount Street.
Immediately catching on to what a marvellous opportunity this would be to spend
some time together in private and concoct a suitable background story, Milly had
accepted the invitation with alacrity.
    ‘I am sure you wish to catch up with each other,’ Lady Penrose
had said once they arrived, and then had retired to her own room leaving them
entirely unsupervised.
    Lady Jayne did not think she had ever laughed so much since…
No, she had never laughed so much as she had done
that afternoon, closeted in her room with Milly and her lively sense of humour.
She had wondered if this was what it would be like to have a close female
friend. She had no idea. She had never had any friends she had chosen for herself. Her grandfather vetted everyone she came
into contact with so closely that by the time they measured up to his impossibly
high standards she had lost interest in them.
    Milly was like a breath of fresh air. Even though Jayne had
been a little jealous of the esteem in which Lord Ledbury held her to begin
with, once they had retired to the privacy of Lady Jayne’s room and got
talking—well! Milly had seen so much, had had so many exciting adventures
growing up in the tail of the army, and recounted them so amusingly that Lady
Jayne forgot to be anything but completely enthralled. How she wished she might
have had but a tithe of Milly’s experiences. Once her parents had died, and she
had gone to live with her grandfather, Lady Jayne had not set foot outside Kent.
While there, she had scarcely been allowed off the estate except for church on
Sunday, or to visit the few neighbouring families of whom her grandfather
approved. She felt so green and naive and ignorant beside Milly.
    After she had gone, Lady Penrose