A Study In Seduction by Nina Rowan

followed him to the piano.
    Jane trailed after them as Mr. Hall opened a book and began explaining his theory of music and what Jane could expect to learn in the first few weeks.
    She glanced at the painting again and thought of all the animals they’d seen at the zoological gardens. Why would anyone want to kill a tiger?
    A bank of windows lined the wall on the other sideof the room, sunlight streaming through them. Jane wondered if they overlooked the garden.
    When Lydia and Mr. Hall started discussing which books to procure, Jane crossed the room. An alcove was next to the windows with a door presumably leading outside. Metal trays sat on several tables, filled with dirt and sprouting green seedlings. She stepped closer, peering at the little shoots.
    The door opened and a tall, big-shouldered man entered, his black hair sprinkled with gray like a coating of frost. He was fiddling with an apparatus in his hands, his head bent. He looked up at Jane and frowned.
    She startled. The earl! She knew it. His face was austere and hard, lined with creases around his eyes and mouth.
    Jane’s heart pounded. She couldn’t move.
    “Who are you?” the Earl of Rushton demanded in a deep voice.
    “Er… Jane Kellaway, sir… my lord. I’m taking piano lessons with Mr. Hall.”
    “What are you doing here, then?”
    “He’s… he’s discussing things with my sister.”
    “Is she taking piano lessons?” His words were short and clipped, like bullets.
    “No, si—my lord.”
    “Then oughtn’t he discuss things with you?”
    Jane scratched her forehead, then stopped. Likely it wasn’t polite to scratch in front of an earl.
    “I… well, I’m certain Mr. Hall knows what he’s about.”
    The earl stared at her for a second, then gave a laugh that sounded rusty and humorless, as if he hadn’t laughed in ages. “Certain of that, are you?”
    Jane glanced back to where Lydia and Mr. Hall werestill conferring, then shrugged. The earl frowned at her. He looked like a cruel knight Jane had once seen in a picture book of verses.
    “Be gone, girl,” he ordered. “I’ve work to do.”
    His gruff tone made her insides quiver, but she didn’t move. “Are those your plants?”
    “Whose else would they be?”
    “What’s that?” Jane indicated the apparatus he held.
    The earl lifted it a bit. It was a long metal tube with what appeared to be a handle at one end. “Water syringe. Meant to spray a mist of water on seedlings. Useful, if one can get the blasted thing to work.”
    He pushed the handle, but it stuck halfway down the cylinder. The earl scowled at the thing as if it had deeply insulted him. Jane fought a smile.
    “That’s the way it is, isn’t it?” she said. “Most things are useful only if they work.”
    “That so? What do
you
plan to do, then?”
    Jane wished she knew. “I haven’t decided yet.”
    The earl grunted and turned to his plants. Jane watched him for a moment.
    “I like to study insects,” she finally said.
    He barked out one of his rusty laughs again. “You like to study the scourge of my garden? Find a way to get rid of them—then you’ll be useful.”
    His tone implied that until that day, she would be nothing more than a bother. A twinge of hurt went through Jane, though she didn’t quite know why. It wasn’t as if it ought to matter what the man thought of her, even if he was a peer. Papa had always said a man’s character mattered more than his stature.
    “My lord, do you know anything about ferns?” she asked.
    He looked as if she’d asked him if he knew how to be an earl.
    “Of course I do,” he said. “Why?”
    “I’ve got a fern that’s a bit tattered. Turning brown and such. Can’t think what I’m doing wrong, but perhaps you might tell me?”
    Lord Rushton harrumphed, then ordered, “Bring it the next time you come round.”
    “Jane?” Lydia’s voice, threaded with tension, came from behind her. “Are you… Oh.” She stopped, resting her hand on Jane’s