"You should not have done that," Jane whispered. "You have declared war on them."
"They declared war on you," Henry said, stepping closer. He was crowding her against the door, but it didn't feel like a trap. It felt like a shield. "I will not let them tear you apart for their own amusement."
"I can handle them."
"I know you can." He reached up, his knuckles grazing the line of her jaw. The touch was agonizingly gentle. "But you shouldn't have to."
Jane closed her eyes, leaning into the warmth of his hand just a fraction of an inch. "Henry, this is madness. Tonight was a victory. Yes, but what about tomorrow? What about the day after? They will never accept me. And if you force them to, they will punish you for it. They will ostracize you."
"I don't care about them," he said fiercely. "I have spent my entire life avoiding them. I don't give a damn about society, Jane. I care about you."
Jane opened her eyes. The depth of the emotion in his stormy gray eyes was terrifying. It was exactly what she had always wanted and exactly what she was most afraid of.
"You don't know me," she breathed.
"I know you," he countered, his thumb tracing the line of her cheekbone. "I know you are brave. I know you are cynical because you care too much, not because you don't care at all. I know you look at me and you don't see a title. You just see a man." He leaned in, his forehead resting against hers. "Do not run from me, Jane. Let me fight for you."
For a long, shattering moment, Jane stood in the quiet library, surrounded by the smell of leather and smoke, and let herself believe that it was possible. She let herself believe that the ghost in silk had finally been seen.
The illusion shattered precisely at 8:00 the next morning. Jane awoke to the sound of frantic packing. She sat up in her narrow bed, pulling the thin quilt to her chin. Aunt Martha was tearing through Jane's small wardrobe, tossing gowns into a battered leather trunk with manic energy.
"Get up, Jane," Martha ordered, her face flushed with triumph. "The dressmaker will be here in an hour. We must have you fitted. The announcement will be in the morning post tomorrow, and we cannot have you receiving callers in that dreadful gray muslin."
Jane went perfectly still. The cold from the unlit fireplace seemed to seep directly into her bones. "What announcement?"
Martha stopped, turning to face Jane with a smile that looked more like a snarl of victory. "Your engagement, of course, to the Duke of Ashbourne."
Jane threw off the quilt and stood up, ignoring the freezing floorboards beneath her bare feet. "He has not proposed to me."
"He doesn't need to." Martha laughed. A sharp, ugly sound. "You spent half the night locked in a library with him at Ashbourne House. Lady Jersey sent her maid to tell my maid at dawn. The entire ton knows you were compromised. He has no choice. If he does not marry you, his reputation as a gentleman is ruined. I sent a note to the papers an hour ago."
The room spun. The walls of the small, shabby bedroom rushed inward. Compromised. It was a trap, not set by the mean girls of society, but by her own flesh and blood. Martha had used Jane's single moment of vulnerability, her single moment of actual human connection, and turned it into a financial transaction. She had forced Henry's hand. He didn't care about society, but he cared about honor. He would marry her now, not because he loved her, but because her aunt had trapped him in a scandal he couldn't walk away from without destroying Jane completely.
The thought of looking into Henry's gray eyes and seeing obligation instead of respect made Jane violently nauseous.
"You sent a note to the papers," Jane repeated, her voice dead.
"I secured our future," Martha snapped, misreading Jane's shock for stupidity. "He would have dragged his feet. Men like that always do. I simply expedited the process. Now get dressed. You have won."
Jane looked at the battered trunk. She looked at the woman who had housed her, fed her, and treated her like a piece of defective merchandise for 4 years.
"No," Jane said. She walked past Martha, grabbed a plain woolen walking dress from the chair, and began pulling it over her shift.
"What are you doing?" Martha demanded.
"I am leaving." Jane yanked the laces of her dress tight, ignoring the lack of a corset. She didn't care about posture anymore. She grabbed her heavy cloak.
"You cannot leave! The modiste—"
"Cancel her," Jane said coldly. "And write a retraction to the papers. Tell them I have fled to Sussex in disgrace. Tell them I lost my mind. I do not care, but I will not trap a man into marriage to pay your debts."
"Jane!" Martha shrieked, grabbing Jane's arm. "You are throwing away a dukedom. You are throwing away my money."
"It was never your money," Jane snarled, ripping her arm free with such force Martha stumbled backward. "And I am not for sale."