080072089X (R) by Ruth Axtell Page B

escort you and Mrs. Barry and Jessamine about.
    He paused, having to think of some valid excuse why he wouldn’t be able to see her. Taking a deep breath, he re-dipped the pen and began again.
However, I am sorry to have to tell you that I will be away from London for—
    Again he hesitated, his pen hovering above the page. Better play it safe, since he didn’t know how long this assignment would last.
—a few weeks. The Foreign Office is sending me to an M.P.’s country house to act as his secretary. He is involved in some work on a pending bill and needs help in the research and drafting of it.
    Strange how easy lying was becoming to him, he who had always striven to be honest and aboveboard in all his dealings. He read over what he had just written.
    Would his sister believe his explanation? He didn’t even know if such a reason was plausible. But he couldn’t think of anything betteron such short notice. If he pleaded indisposition, both his mother and sister would be upon him, wanting to nurse him.
    He scribbled a few more lines, adding some newsy bits about life in town and the latest excesses of the Prince Regent. He promised to write more at a later date, making it sound as if his job was keeping him particularly busy at the moment. He expressed his disappointment at not seeing them—being able to be genuine in this—and finally sat back, feeling as if he’d completed a grueling obstacle course.
    Would either of them read something between the lines? His mother was very discerning. Would she sense he wasn’t being candid? If so, hopefully, she would attribute it to the sensitive nature of his work at the Foreign Office.
    Sensitive. That’s exactly what it was, he thought, picturing Lady Wexham.
    He heard a clock tower chime the hour in the distance and realized with a start he needed to get back.
    He reread the note, folded it up, and proceeded to melt some wax to seal it. He’d have just enough time to post it.
    And he’d have to pray that when his sister was in town, he wouldn’t run into her. His lips turned downward at the little likelihood of her running into a butler. Though they would both reside in Mayfair, their two worlds would be at the opposite ends of the spectrum.
    As he made his way to the post office, his thoughts turned to Jessamine. He felt only a mild regret, that of not seeing an acquaintance who was coming up to town.
    Why wasn’t he more anxious to see her?
    He’d had little time and opportunity to form any romantic attachments in his life. Only now, at thirty-one, after a decade of toil, did he feel prepared to support a wife. He’d managed to put aside a little money—what he didn’t send to his mother and sister—by scrimping on his own life.
    He didn’t go out into society, so the only woman who held any interest for him was his sister’s closest friend, Jessamine, a younggirl who’d lived in the same village all her life. She’d made his sister’s acquaintance when his widowed mother had resettled in her girlhood home.
    Rees had never seen Jessamine as anything but a girl until just recently, as both she and Megan had blossomed into young women. Whenever he managed to get home for a visit, she was there. Somehow, without any effort, they had formed a friendship. His sister and mother certainly seemed to encourage it.
    She was a well-behaved young lady, quiet, unassuming, all that a man would want in a wife.
    Any thoughts he might have had earlier in his life of settling down had been put aside, first because of the war, and then until his sister was provided with a respectable dowry and his mother for her old age. Without conscious intention, the idea had taken shape, so gradually he could hardly pinpoint when he’d first entertained it, that Jess would make him a suitable wife.
    He hadn’t gone so far as to court her formally, much less propose. But he had thought she seemed willing enough, if he were only to hint at a deeper friendship. There was nothing to