Read Online Joan Wolf by A London Season - Free Book Online

Jane had altered. His love had always been the one great constant of his life. It was not something he thought about. It was simply there, unnoticed and essential, like the air he breathed. Jane's absences at school had been bearable because he had always known she was coming back. It had never occurred to him that there would be a time when she would not.
    It had not yet occurred to her. Nor did she realize his sudden, painful awareness of her physical beauty and desirability. Jane had never read a romantic novel in her life and the girls at school had never tried to confide their own adolescent yearnings into her sublimely indifferent ears. Motivated, perhaps, by an instinct for self-preservation, she clung fiercely and blindly to childhood. To her they were still Jane-and-David. But to David the love that had always been the foundation of his happiness had begun to be the cause of a profound desolation.
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    Chapter IX
    Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight, And custom lie upon thee with a weight...
    —William Wordsworth
    In August, Jane and the Marquis were to go on a visit to Bellerman Hall. Lord Rayleigh's engagement to Miss Anne Bellerman had been officially announced some months ago and the wedding was set for October.
    Jane thought the whole business of protocol surrounding the wedding to be a deadly bore. “First we go there for a week,” she told David, “then they come here. Then we all go back there for the wedding. I thought at last I'd have a chance to spend autumn at home, instead of in that dreadful school, and now I have to trip around the countryside making wedding visits."
    She sounded so disgusted that David had to smile. “I hope you show a more cheerful face to Lord Rayleigh."
    She sighed. “I try to. Uncle Edward is a dear, and if he wants to marry Anne Bellerman, then I'll certainly do my part."
    They were sitting in the stable office. Outside the rain was pouring down and consequently the afternoon gallops had been called off. David was taking five of the horses to the meet at Epsom next month. Lord Rayleigh would not be going himself, as he was committed to pre-wedding visits. Jane would miss the races also and, although she made an heroic attempt to appear gracious about accompanying the Marquis, she would have much preferred to go with David.
    "What is Miss Bellerman like?” David asked curiously.
    "Very gentle. Easy to handle. Docile disposition."
    "Jane!” David's sherry-colored eyes were alight with laughter. “You really must stop talking about people as if they were horses."
    "Nonsense. It's a great compliment. I don't like most people half as well as I like most horses."
    He gave a gentle tug to the black plait that hung down her back almost to her waist. “Idiot,” he said. “Do you like her?"
    "Anne, do you mean?"
    "Yes."
    "She's all right, I guess. I suppose Uncle Edward has to get married. The succession and all that, I mean. She's probably the best he could come up with from our point of view."
    David was staring at her. He had lately become extremely sensitive to Jane's obtuseness. Her cold-blooded analysis of her uncle's marriage rather shocked him. He blinked. “Our point of view?” he questioned finally.
    "Yes. She won't come messing around where she's not wanted. As I said before, she's very easy to handle. Once she's here, life should go on exactly as it always has. Only now, hooray, hooray, I don't have to go back to school."
    With difficulty he dragged his eyes from her satisfied face. She was such a child, he told himself. She seemed to have no idea that the fact that she was no longer a schoolgirl was itself the sign of a changing future. He switched the subject and began to talk about the coming meet.
    * * * *
    Bellerman Hall was in Bedfordshire, so Jane and Lord Rayleigh did not have long to travel. The Marquis was anxious for Jane and Anne to become better acquainted. He thought that Anne, so sweet and feminine, could