Read Online Claiming the Chaperon's Heart by Anne Herries - Free Book Online

and so it seemed she had enjoyed having it all explained to her. Perhaps for the purpose of inviting the viscount’s whole attention? ‘I am glad that you enjoyed your evening, my dear.’
    ‘Oh, yes, very much,’ Melia replied, a small satisfied smile on her lips.
    They parted, each to their own rooms—Melia to dream of a handsome face and a young god coming down from the heavens to bear her off with him to celestial heights, and Jane to wonder if she’d served her brother a bad turn by accepting what she’d imagined a harmless invitation to the theatre.
    For her it had been a pleasure. Paul Frant was an attentive host, making sure that the ladies were served with cooling drinks between the acts of the play, and taking them to a very pleasant supper in a private booth afterwards. Enjoying herself more than she had for some time, Jane had not become aware of the way Melia was flirting with Viscount Hargreaves until halfway through supper. She’d wondered then how long it had been going on—the little intimate smiles, the light touches on his arm and that ingenuous way of looking up as if in awe of his superior intelligence.
    It was what every young lady on the catch for a husband learned to do, though some did it much better than others. Where some inexperienced young ladies might have seemed coy, Melia played the sweet innocent to perfection. Her aunt must have told her that gentlemen did not care for clever women or some such nonsense. Jane felt such behaviour to be deceitful, especially when the girl in question was perfectly capable of understanding and coping with most situations alone; to pretend misunderstanding or to act as if one were a weak and vulnerable female in need of a gentleman’s strong arm was not something Jane would have resorted to. She believed in calling a spade a spade and taking one’s life in one’s own hands whenever possible, but perhaps some gentlemen did prefer the childish woman that Melia portrayed so well at times.
    Knowing how firmly Melia spoke out for her own opinions in the matter of dress or other domestic matters, Jane thought her husband would soon be relieved of any such misapprehension once she was mistress of his home. Melia liked her own way and she’d heard her argue with Will over a horse he’d considered too strong for her to drive when he’d given her lessons in a light phaeton that his sister knew he’d had made especially for her. Will knew her as the wilful and sometimes headstrong girl she was and loved her, but in trying to trap the viscount with a sweet modesty that was not her own Melia was, in Jane’s opinion, behaving badly.
    She sighed as she unpinned her hair and her maid brushed it for her, the slightly waving length of it tumbling way past her shoulders. Jane had told Tilda not to sit up but she might as well have saved her breath, for her faithful servant had replied huffily, ‘The day I can’t sit up for you, my lady, you may give me my pension and send me off.’
    ‘I couldn’t possible manage without you,’ Jane told her affectionately. ‘You will have to go on for many years yet. I’m sorry, Tilda, but you must train a girl to care for me as you do before you think of retiring.’
    Tilda had given her a dark look and muttered something that Jane could not hear and diplomatically ignored. The girl had come to her via her mother, a shy young thing of fifteen when she first worked for the family; employed in the nursery, she’d worked her way up to become Jane’s maid, had gone with her to Spain and France when Harry was fighting under Wellington, and been a tower of strength when his death had almost killed Jane. Indeed, she did not know whether she could have borne it without Tilda and some other friends who had supported her in her grief.
    After Tilda had wished her pleasant dreams and left her, Jane felt too restless for sleep. She looked at the portrait of her husband that she had kept by her bed since it was first given her as one