Mary Balogh - Bespelling Jane Austen

Although he had had a healthy interest in women since about the age of sixteen, Robert had never really looked upon any of them as the potential one-and-only love of his life. He had certainly never thought of any as a possible soul mate. He would have laughed at the very idea with a mingling of derision and embarrassment if anyone had mentioned such a thing before his battle wounds changed his life.

He found himself now looking closely at every woman who was even vaguely eligible.

Inside the vicarage the three Everett sisters paid their respects to Great-Aunt Dinah and took their seats while Amelia sat behind the tea tray and poured the tea.

Robert observed each sister in turn. Miss Louisa Everett was beautiful with her perfect posture, dark, glossy hair and flawless complexion. She inclined her head graciously to his great-aunt and looked as if she expected some obeisance in return. She was an arrogant young lady, he decided. Not very likable. Which might be an unfair judgment since he did not really know her at all.

He hoped she was not the one.

Miss Edna Everett was pretty in a youthful, rosy-cheeked, flighty sort of way. She bobbed a curtsy to his great-aunt, spoke a few words and took a seat as far away as she could. There was a hint of petulance about her mouth. Surely she was not the one.

And then there was Miss Jane Everett. Who had inexplicably frozen into immobility for a few seconds after Gerald had introduced him to her. And who had thus caught his attention more than her sisters had done.

She was small and slender, fair-haired and blue-eyed. She was pretty without being beautiful and bore herself proudly but without arrogance. She was neatly but unostentatiously dressed in a high-waisted gown of sprigged muslin and a straw bonnet that looked as if it had survived a rain shower or two in its time. She curtsied to his great-aunt, bade her a happy birthday, hesitated and then hurried closer to draw her into a hug. Great-Aunt Dinah looked a little startled and then pleased. She smiled as she took Miss Jane’s hand in her gnarled, arthritic fingers, and drew her to sit on the chair beside her own. The younger woman smiled sweetly and bent her head closer to listen to what Great-Aunt Dinah was saying.

She was attractive in an understated way, Robert thought. No! She was attractive plain and simple. He must be careful not to give in to wishful thinking, though, and convince himself that she was the one. She looked nothing like the Egyptian washerwoman or the Indian maiden or the Russian noblewoman or any of the others. But they had not looked anything like one another, either.

How he wished he could know!

Miss Louisa talked almost exclusively with Amelia. Miss Edna spoke mainly of her health. It was generally poor, Robert learned, though she never complained and no one ever took notice of her ailments anyway. She looked perfectly healthy to him.

Miss Jane gave most of her attention to Great-Aunt Dinah, who still held her hand and gazed at her with eyes that seemed filled with affection. But Miss Jane, alone among her sisters, made an effort to be agreeable to everyone else, too. She commended Gerald on last Sunday’s sermon and Amelia on the tastiness of the little cakes that were served with tea. And eventually she spoke to Robert, her cheeks coloring slightly as she did so.

“I trust, Captain Mitford,” she said, “you have recovered from your wounds.”

“Thank you.” He inclined his head. “I must not complain. An army surgeon wanted to saw off my leg and assured me when I refused that I would never walk again. I have hopes of casting aside my cane before the summer is out. Perhaps even of dancing a jig.”

He smiled at her, and she smiled back.

“You must have great fortitude, then,” she said. “You are to be congratulated.”

“Thank you,” he said again.

Why had she paused so significantly outside the gate when she first set eyes on him, rather as if she had seen a ghost?

The visit had not yet lasted half an hour, but it was over. Miss Louisa, doing nothing to hide her impatience to be gone, was on her feet.

“Amelia is coming to Goodrich Hall with me for an hour or two,” she said, addressing her sisters. “She will need a seat in the gig, but there is not room for all four of us. One of you must walk.”

“Well, it cannot be me, Louisa,” Miss Edna cried. “You know I turned my ankle yesterday and it is worse today because I felt obliged to dance at the Burtons’ soiree last evening. It will have to be Jane.”

Robert glanced at that young lady, who did not look at all chagrined, as she might well have done.

“I do not mind walking,” she said. “Indeed, I would prefer to walk than to ride on such a lovely day.”

“If you will permit me,” Robert said impulsively, “I will walk with you, Miss Jane.”

“Oh, that is quite unnecessary,” she said, turning her eyes on him again. “But if you would welcome some exercise on your own account, I will be pleased with your company.”

“You will be able to escort Amelia home later, Rob,” Gerald said, rubbing his hands together and looking pleased.

“And it is only right that a young lady have an escort,” Great-Aunt Dinah added.

Miss Jane smiled sweetly at her.

“You will all come to Goodrich Hall tomorrow evening,” Miss Louisa said. It was a command more than an invitation. “Father and I will honor Mrs. Mitford’s birthday with a gathering of our neighbors.”

She looked about her with condescension as though she were conferring a great honor—as, Robert supposed, she was. Her mother must be dead, since there had been no mention of her. Miss Louisa, then, was mistress of the hall, and her father was a baronet. She was a great lady.

So was Miss Jane Everett.

And he was a mere army captain. It would quite possibly put something of a strain upon his father’s purse to secure his promotion to major, though his father was quite insistent that it must be done.

Ah. Robert had a sudden thought and smiled inwardly. There was an impediment. Miss Jane Everett was his social superior, and if the father was anything like the eldest daughter, that fact would be of some significance.

Perhaps she really was the one.

Gerald bowed Miss Louisa Everett out of the house. Amelia followed, looking rather pathetically gratified, and Miss Edna Everett followed her, looking aggrieved that she had not been given due precedence.

“Shall we?” Robert asked Miss Jane Everett, and she turned to hug his great-aunt once more before stepping out of the cottage ahead of him.

Could this possibly be she, he wondered as they walked along the street past the church. The one he had loved and lost through life after life? The one he had loved through an eternity of between-lives? The one he must learn to love without condition through a human lifetime so that they could return to the between-time with their souls one significant step closer to the union of perfect love?

It seemed impossible. That was so grandiose an idea. She was just a quiet slip of a woman.

Whom he found curiously attractive.

But surely if she were the one, he would have known it instantly. How could he have known her and loved her through eternity and numerous lives and not recognize her immediately now?

How could he possibly not know?

“I beg your pardon,” she said as the gig bowled by and Amelia waved to him, “but is it possible, Captain Mitford, that we have met before? I am quite sure we have not, but you seem so familiar to me that I feel I must have seen you somewhere.”

Ah.

He turned his head sharply to look at her, and she turned hers to look at him.

The breath caught in his throat.