Miss Simpkins' School: Jane Read Free Page A

fast.” Molly picked up Jane’s pelisse, and Jane realized it was dark outside and the fire had burned low. “Can you take clothes with you?”
    “What?” Jane fastened her pelisse and picked up her gloves. “Yes, that’s no problem. Just perhaps not ones suited for the occasion.”
    “Then pack what you would usually pack, and I’ll sort the rest. How do you travel there by the way?”
    “I hire a coach.”
    “Even better.” Molly’s voice was full of satisfaction, and Jane couldn’t help the thrill that ran through her. Life was looking up apace.
    “One thing, Jane?”
    Jane looked up in query as she fiddled with the buttons on her gloves.
    “I will need to tell two people at least some of your story. They can be trusted.”
    Her heart sank. “Two?” Even one more person was enough for all sorts of unwelcome scenarios to rush into her mind.
    “One is a lady who can advise me if I have the right man in mind. She has suffered herself, and will be as close as the grave with the information. The other is the man himself, if she thinks I’m right.”
    “Then if you trust them, so will I. After all, I have trusted you.” There really wasn’t anything else she could say, even though spiders crawled over her skin, and a troupe of Morris Dancers performed in her stomach.

Chapter Three
    Luke De Freitas contemplated the glass of brandy he rested on his stomach and sighed. The glass rose and fell, and the liquid swayed perilously near the lip of the goblet. He was bored. Of the capital, of his soon to be ex mistress, and of the ton. Heaven help him if he wasn’t ready to go back to sea except his papa would no doubt expire in an apoplectic fit and he’d just be called back to be the earl. As it was, he lived a fairly unencumbered lifestyle—if he ignored the ever-increasing demands of Lady Matcham—as the alleged spoiled elder son of an aged father, and doting mother.
    His title, taken from their sugar plantation in the West Indies, was one well known in the upper echelons of society with the additional sobriquets of mad, bad, devil may care De Freitas. He knew it was well earned. Luke lived hard, and didn’t care who knew it. But only he knew why. To be told by your father you were born on the wrong side of the blanket, a bastard, and only the heir due to his parent’s desire not to be known as a cuckold, tended to upset your equilibrium—and your life. Luke had left the country, and did his best to forget the young lady whose eyes followed him whenever they met.
    It was hard. He also had to do his best to forget the feel of her lithe body pressed up against his naked one. How he’d ignored her unconscious invitation he had no idea. It was one of the few truly noble acts he’d accomplished for many a year. He forged a path at sea and in the Caribbean for himself, and established a new and comfortable life there. If he knew something was lacking, Luke hadn’t admitted it to anyone. Life was what it was.
    Called home due to his parent’s increasing ill health, Luke had discovered things he liked and didn’t know he’d missed about England. Along with an ability to manage the family estates well and profitably. Even so, he’d been loath to change certain parts of his lifestyle at first, and continued to live hard and fast. Now, however, he sensed a difference in himself and he had no idea why. Maybe it had something to do with the fact the only woman he thought he could have cared for told him in no uncertain terms she wanted nothing to do with him, and his offer was offensive. As he thought it was an agreement similar to the one she had enjoyed with a certain earl, he couldn’t for the life of him understand why. However, he had been sent away with a flea in his ear. To make matters worse and compound his misery, he suffered a visit from the aforementioned gentleman. Words such as duel and de-balled had been uttered in a tone that meant it was no idle threat.
    Luke had accepted the diktat, and set