The Secret Marriage Pact. Georgie Lee

      He watched her until the vehicle rolled down the street and was finally lost in the crush of traffic. Isolation swathed him when she vanished from sight. Gone was the young girl who used to scamper with him and Milton, her surety in herself and her ideas eternally exasperating her brother and Jasper’s parents. Gone, too, was the boy Jasper had been. An ocean of experience and deception separated him from everyone he’d ever known. Yet in his brief moment with Jane, he’d touched something of the innocent young man he’d once been. He wondered, if he sat with her a while, could he be carefree and blameless again? It wasn’t possible. He couldn’t weigh her down with the awfulness of his past or his present deceits.

      He started down the auction-house steps and made for the jeweller across the street, ready to pay a pound or two for a fine walking stick or something equally expensive. His soul might be in the gutter. It didn’t mean the rest of him needed to wallow there too. He’d escaped death. Now he’d make sure he enjoyed life again.

      * * *

      ‘Mrs Townsend and I trained you to handle your affairs better than this, Jane.’ Philip chided from across the landau before he turned to Justin. ‘You should’ve stopped her.’

      ‘She’s not my sister.’ Justin threw up his hands in protest. ‘Besides, she’d old enough to decide what to do with her money.’

      ‘On that point, we disagree.’

      ‘He’s right. It’s my inheritance and I’ll spend it as I see fit,’ Jane insisted.

      Philip didn’t answer, refusing to be baited into the fight Jane was aching for. Despite gaining control over her money there’d been little she’d been able to do with it except pay the milliner’s bill. Seeing Jasper today had reminded her of the few clever transactions she and the Charton boys had hustled as children. The experiences had given her a taste for commerce, but as her dresses had become longer her world had reduced in size until it nearly choked her. Jasper’s world had expanded and, judging by his fine clothes, he’d done well for himself in America. It made her wonder why he’d decided to return. ‘You knew Jasper Charton was home, didn’t you?’

      Philip’s jaw tightened, almost imperceptibly, but she caught it. It was one of his few tells. To her surprise, he didn’t deny her accusation. ‘Yes.’

      ‘Why didn’t you or the Chartons tell me?’ It wasn’t like the Chartons not to fête a family member, especially one who’d been gone for so long and endured so much.

      ‘Mr Charton asked me not to. Jasper had a difficult time in Savannah and needed a chance to recover. He was very ill when he came home.’

      ‘I’m sure he was.’ Mrs Charton had shared news of the yellow fever which had ravaged the port city. Jane had worried along with her over Jasper, as eager as his mother was for the letter telling them things were all right. She might not have heard from Jasper for nine years, but it didn’t mean she’d stopped caring about him. Waiting with Mrs Charton had felt too much like when she was six and her own mother had been stricken with the fever. The long days had passed as she’d prayed, hoped and bargained with the Almighty to make her mother better. He hadn’t listened and her mother had passed, and it’d been all her fault. ‘Why did Jasper come back?’

      ‘His cotton-trading business collapsed after the epidemic. He plans to use the money his uncle left him, and the capital he raised from the sale of his Savannah properties and goods, to establish a new business in London. Jasper needs the Fleet Street building you purchased and the opportunity it offers. Since you don’t, we’ll visit the Chartons tomorrow and you’ll offer to sell it to him.’

      ‘I’ll do no such thing. I’ll start my own endeavour with it.’

      Philip flexed his fingers over the handle of his walking stick. ‘Be sensible, Jane.’

      ‘I am being sensible. I need something more to do than tend the rose garden and listen to my niece and nephews tear through the house.’

      ‘And I’ve given you ample opportunities to do so.’

      ‘Yes, always behind you and your reputation, never out in the open where everyone can see it’s me successfully managing things.’

      ‘As well as the merchants of the Fleet regard our family, they won’t countenance a single young woman in trade. It would damage both your reputation and mine and hinder all our future dealings.’

      She twisted her reticule between her hands, the deed to the building crinkling inside, before she let go. Philip was right. Customers and other merchants would recoil from her if she began openly to oversee some venture of her own. Jane dropped back against the squabs, cursing her unmarried state once again. ‘I hate it when you’re practical.’

      ‘It’s nothing but a headache when you aren’t.’

      The landau carried them past the building she now owned in the middle of Fleet Street. The staid façade with its small Ionic columns reaching up to the first floor sat squat between two taller ones. A round outline of dirt above the front door indicated where the sign from the now-defunct tobacconist’s used to hang. She rested her arm on the landau’s edge and tapped the wood. The building was hers and, despite what Philip said, she would not relinquish it; she would use it to make something of her life and escape from this limbo of being an adult while being treated like a mindless child. She needed activity, industry of her own, or she would run mad. Now she needed to decide what she’d do, and how she’d do it, without drawing attention to herself or needing Philip’s help. Her brother might have her best interests at heart, but it didn’t mean she wanted him or anyone else deciding her path.

      She glanced across the landau at Justin who chatted with Philip. Perhaps he could be her secret front. He might help her, if only because he thought it a lark, but with his wine business and the demands of his wife and family, she doubted he had time to dabble in any endeavour of hers.

      There must be some man willing to be the front for a business. She continued to trill her fingers on the trim, mulling through the people she knew and not finding one likely to support her admittedly odd idea. No one had ever gone along with her schemes except at one time Milton, and Jasper.

      Jasper.

      Jane stilled her fingers. She could become a silent partner with him in whatever plans he had for the building. It would be a perfect arrangement—except for her having to hide her involvement from everyone, including Philip. However, being a silent partner was better than nothing at all, and she would only have to be silent in public.

      Unless I can find a husband, and quickly.

      She rolled her eyes at her own ridiculousness, wondering if she was going mad from boredom and how long it would be until she began collecting small dogs and refusing to leave the house. If landing a gentleman was as simple as selecting a stock, she’d be a wife by now. Besides, all her friends and acquaintances had taken every man worth having in the Fleet, except for Jasper.

      ‘Philip, did Jasper return with a wife?’ Jane asked, interrupting his and Justin’s conversation.

      ‘No. Why?’

      She shrugged. ‘I was curious.’

      Philip narrowed his eyes in scrutiny before Justin drew him back into conversation.

      So Jasper isn’t married. She rested her elbow on the landau’s edge again and tapped her fingers against her chin. The vehicle vibrated beneath her arm as it crossed over the cobblestones. And he needs money and a building, and I have both. I wonder if he’d like a wife in the bargain, too.

      She and Jasper had been friends once and friendship was an excellent basis for a marriage. After all, she’d tried affection with Milton and look where it had landed her. There was no reason not to try something more practical with Jasper. He might have rebuffed her advances nine years ago, but this wasn’t about romance. It was business. She could present her proposal in rational terms, appeal to his good sense and make him see how perfectly logical, reasonable and completely insane the idea was.

      She