She briefly considered telling Lucy and Cass the story, substituting an unknown gentleman—she could pretend that she didn’t know who he was either. But she quickly discarded that thought during the journey to the door. She knew Lucy and Cass. If her friends learned that she’d engaged in such an escapade with a gentleman at the house party—any gentleman—they wouldn’t rest until they discovered his identity. Not to mention they’d ask her a barrage of questions about what he looked like and what he’d been wearing, and it would all be discovered soon enough. There were only about two dozen gentlemen at the house party. Two dozen, and the one she happened to share a passionate interlude with had to be Upton. She shook her head.

“Are you in there, Janie?” came Lucy’s impatient voice.

“Coming,” Jane replied in the most normal, guiltless tone she could muster. She had to pretend that nothing unusual had happened last night. If Lucy and Cass wanted to know where she’d gone off to, she’d simply tell them she’d been in the library reading. She would apologize to Cass for being unsociable. Better to be thought unsociable than to be discovered being too sociable with the wrong person.

Jane pulled open the door and smiled widely at her friends. “To what do I owe the pleasure so early in the morning?”

Lucy and Cass entered stealthily as if they were sizing up the situation, much like Mrs. Cat when she’d first come to breakfast.

“We’re sorry if we woke you, Jane,” Cass said. “I know how much you like to stay up late reading.”

Jane shook her head. “It’s quite all right. I was awake.”

Lucy crossed her arms over her chest. “Where did you go off to last night, Janie?”

Jane’s palms began to sweat. She pressed them against the front of her dressing gown. Did they know something? No. They couldn’t know anything. She and Upton had been completely alone. She was certain of it. They hadn’t been the ones who’d closed the door. She’d decided that had all been a figment of her guilty imagination. Besides, Lord knew, if Lucy had been the one to discover them, she wouldn’t have silently shut the door and backed away. She would have burst in and demanded an explanation. No. Lucy didn’t know, but her question had been quite direct. Guilt was making Jane read too much into it.

“I was—erm, in the library, reading,” she offered.

“Reading? In the library?” Lucy continued, walking in a slow circle around her as if she were a barrister examining a witness.

Cass remained silent but her bright eyes were trained on Jane’s face and she looked worried.