"I already have a headache," Jane muttered, keeping her eyes rigidly on the path. "Half of London is currently drafting letters about us. The other half is placing bets at White's on how quickly you will discard me."
"Let them bet," he said smoothly. "I have £50 on myself lasting at least through the winter."
Jane stopped walking. She turned to look at him, her annoyance overriding her fear of making a scene. "Are you always this flippant about people's reputations?"
Henry stopped beside her. He leaned his weight on his walking stick, his gray eyes studying her face. The faint amusement faded from his expression, replaced by a heavy, grounding seriousness. "I am not flippant, Jane," he said quietly. "I simply refuse to grant them power over me. And I refuse to let them have power over you."
"They have power over me whether I grant it or not," she argued, wrapping her wool cloak tighter against the wind. "Look at them. Look at the way they stare. If you walk away from me tomorrow, I am destroyed. I will not even be a ghost in a ballroom anymore. I will be a cautionary tale. My aunt will lock me in a country house until I die of old age or sheer boredom."
He took a step closer. The wind whipped the edge of his coat against her skirt. "Do you think I am going to walk away?"
Jane swallowed hard. "I don't know you."
"You know I hate the waltz. You know I despise Lady Mary's fan-dropping techniques. You know I prefer honest insults to polite lies." He tilted his head slightly. "It's a start."
"It's madness, perhaps."
"Agreed." He turned and began walking again. "Walk with me, Jane. Let them stare. If we stop walking, they win."
Jane hesitated for a fraction of a second, then fell into step beside him. They walked in silence for a few minutes, passing beneath the bare skeletal branches of the elm trees. The initial shock of the public scrutiny began to wear off, replaced by a strange humming adrenaline. She was walking beside a storm. And strangely, inside the storm, it was quiet.
"Why are you in London?" Jane asked finally, breaking the silence. "Lord Alvington said you were supposed to be in Derbyshire."
Henry let out a short harsh breath. "My mother, the Dowager Duchess. She wrote me a rather dramatic letter stating that her health was failing and she wished to see me settled before she passed."
"I am sorry to hear she is ill."
"Don't be. Her health is magnificent. She could likely wrestle a bear and win," Henry said dryly. "It was a ruse. When I arrived, the house was filled with 15 eligible young ladies, all seemingly terrified of me and armed with terrifyingly aggressive piano skills."
Jane couldn't stop the small smirk that tugged at her lips. "So, you fled."
"I retreated strategically," he corrected. "I came to London to wait out the siege. I attended Alvington's ball entirely out of spite, intending to stay 10 minutes to prove I was alive and then return to my club."
"And then you saw a scowling spinster hiding behind a curtain."
"I saw a woman who looked like she wanted to murder the entire room," he said, turning his head to look at her, a genuine smile softening his eyes. "It was the most attractive thing I had seen in years."
Jane felt that terrifying flutter behind her ribs again. It wasn't the cold wind. It was him.
"You have a very strange set of standards, your grace," she murmured.
"Henry," he said softly. Jane looked up. "My name is Henry. If we are going to terrify polite society, you should at least use my given name."
She looked into his gray eyes. There was no mockery there. There was no aristocratic distance. He was asking for an equal footing, something she had never been offered by any man, let alone one of his station.
"Henry," she tested the name. It felt heavy and solid on her tongue.
"Better," he said. He glanced ahead, his jaw tightening slightly. "Brace yourself, Jane. We have a rapidly approaching obstacle."
Jane followed his gaze. Striding toward them on the path, flanked by two nervously hovering companions, was the Duke of Ashbourne's mother. The Dowager Duchess was a tall, imposing woman wrapped in dark velvet, possessing the exact same sharp, stormy gray eyes as her son, and her eyes were fixed entirely on Jane, calculating, cold, and utterly terrifying.
"Do not look away," Henry murmured, moving just a fraction closer to Jane, so their shoulders brushed. "Stand your ground."
The Dowager Duchess of Ashbourne didn't walk. She advanced. She moved with the steady, unyielding momentum of a warship cutting through open water. Her velvet pelisse was a deep imposing violet, and her walking stick, though similar to her son's, was gripped not as an accessory, but as a weapon. As she closed the distance, the crowds along the gravel path instinctively pulled back. The whispers abruptly died.