by Jen YatesNZ
‘Boot was on the other foot,’ Knight finished for him. ‘Not surprising really if you knew Harry. And I being a little older than you, remember the stories.’
‘I heard the stories—believed somehow they made him more—heroic. Wanted to be like him—though I wasn’t gonna make vows of fidelity to any woman—cos I wouldn’t keep them.’
‘And now,’ Knight said, sitting forward as the point of Bax’s grumblings finally hit him, ‘you need an heir—and therefore a wife.’
‘Fuck,’ Bax said, and slammed the whisky tumbler into the fireplace.
‘Dammit, Bax! That was fine crystal!’
Reaching for the bell-pull, Knight ordered Finch to bring more whisky—and a tin cup. When the man returned, Knight indicated he should pour another for Bax—in the tin cup.
As the man left the room. Bax picked up the cup and studied it from all sides.
‘A tin cup?’
‘It’ll bounce when you throw it.’
‘Why would I throw it? Washte—waste of whishky.’
‘Exactly. Don’t waste it. This one should put you to sleep and you’ll talk more sense tomorrow. Maybe even listen to it.’
***
Riding down to Windermere Abbey in the north of Surrey the following day for the annual grouse shoot, was the hardest ride of his life. An armchair didn’t make a comfortable bed for a man six foot five inches tall—and built like a national monument, as his friends were fond of telling him. His back ached, his neck ached and his head felt like the football used in the annual Baxter Village Shrove Tuesday ball games; exactly as if it had been kicked and punched from one end of the village to the other for a couple of hours.
Knight, riding with him, had started out lecturing on the necessity to change his way of thinking. It was based, his cousin argued, on the false premise Jason had left sons to inherit. Since he hadn’t it was clearly Bax’s duty to change his stance on marriage—and take a wife.
He had a feeling it might have been words to that effect that caused him to hurl one of Knight’s crystal whisky tumblers into the fireplace last night.
And since he was holding nothing to throw at his pontificating cousin, and throwing something wasn’t going to change anything anyway, he told Knight to shut up and ride.
He’d never been so pleased to see a destination, though he almost reversed that thought later. His state of health had to be explained and commented on and the damned story hashed over again for Dom and Rogue—and their wives.
As the four cousins relaxed over their port after dinner, Knight suggested in his usual understated way, ‘You could marry Lady Rotherby. She may be a little long in the tooth, but eminently eligible for all that. Shouldn’t be any hardship begetting an heir on her.’
‘I don’t want—’
‘Yes. You do,’ Knight answered calmly, as if he knew what Bax had been going to say.
The bastard probably did.
Bax drew in breath, leant back in his chair, and exhaled slowly.
‘Angular Jane—wouldn’t have me. Doesn’t want marriage.’
And he hoped like hell that wasn’t a whine he heard in his voice.
‘You asked?’ Rogue blurted, while the other two looked equally startled by the notion.
‘I did not.’
There. That sounded neutral enough.
‘Then how do you know?’ Dom asked, all ducal reasonableness.
‘Because—we—dammit! I’m going to bed,’ he snarled, and pushed himself out of his chair. ‘G’night.’
He knew if he looked back he’d see three sets of eyebrows climbing up to three hairlines. Bax was never the first to break up a party or seek his bed.
***
One day’s shooting and he’d had enough! Two nights and one day of his cousins’ knowing grins, cryptic remarks and occasional outright taunting and he’d had enough. Even the bloody women had started on him, as if being married to his cousins gave them special insights into his character—and needs!
The damned Duchess of Wolverton, in particular. Marriage had made her too confident in her opinions, and so he’d tell her bloody smirking husband—someday.
Love had nothing to do with his state of mind. Love had not, did not, and would not figure in his life! And he certainly didn’t have what it took to be a husband, make vows of fidelity—father children! Goddammit!
Him? A father? Trouble was, it was easy to imagine Jane as a mother.
God, he wished she was still at The Chase, waiting for his return, curled up before the fire. He’d lay his head in her lap, feel her hands in his hair and listen to her voice singing, soothing, taking away this anger and desolation.
Not only had his life changed, he’d changed, and he couldn’t seem to understand how or what that meant for who he was now!
Who the fuck was he now?
The turmoil of his thoughts carried him back to London without noticing anything along the way. But once there he scarce knew what to do with himself. Knight was still at Windermere. Whites or any of the other clubs would be deadly dull since most of his friends were gone to grouse shooting house parties or returned to their own estates.
Gaming hells didn’t appeal. There was no one to drink with and he couldn’t find the enthusiasm to visit the ladies at any of his usual haunts. He told himself it wasn’t the same without company, but he’d never been dependent on friends for his entertainment.
He climbed the stairs at Baxendene House and knocked on his mother’s door. When he entered, she was sitting by the window reading in the last of the afternoon light.
‘Haden! You’re back already? The shooting didn’t go well?’
‘Nothing’s going well, Mama!’ he growled with a sigh, dropped a kiss on her cheek and lowered himself into a chair at her side, wondering what the hell he was doing there.
When had he last brought his troubles to his mother? Her softened expression suggested she was wondering the same.
‘Not like you to give in to a fit of the blue devils.’
Did she know him at all? Then again, he’d gone to great lengths all his adult life to hide that tendency from her—and everyone else. No wonder no one knew how to handle him now! He didn’t know how to handle himself!
Jane would know how to handle him—
‘I’m not now either, Mama,’ he lied smoothly. ‘How about you?’
‘I have my moments, Haden,’ she admitted, ‘but—I keep reminding myself Jason did an honorable thing for his friend and his friend’s children. We haven’t really—lost him all over again.’
‘Well said, Mama,’ he muttered, dragging his hand down his face. ‘Have you talked to Holly? Told her about—the lads?’
‘She was upset. Perhaps you could call on her?’
‘Good idea. I’ll go now.’
‘Haden?’ she called as he reached the door.
‘What?’
‘It passes. The pain. It gets easier.’
Nodding because he didn’t trust himself to speak, he quietly left the room, startled to feel his eyes burning.
Going to see Holly had seemed the ideal excuse to leave Mama and yet visiting his little sister was probably not going to be any easier.
Except—she might have heard from Jane—
God damn! Could he have two thoughts without one of them being about Jane? With a painful internal groan, he stomped back down the stairs.
***
Holly had fallen on his neck in tears, then pulled herself together and asked him to stay to dinner. With nothing better to do he’d acquiesced and spent an agreeable evening debating politics with Brisco. It had at least taken his mind off the wreck he considered his life to be at the moment.
He’d head up to Bancombe Park tomorrow. He wasn’t ready to face The Chase yet, if he ever would be. He hadn’t thought, in the heat of his need for Jane that taking her to The Chase might not be a wise thing to do. There were few women in his past whose appeal had lasted beyond a couple of weeks.
It had neve
r occurred to him Angular Jane would be different.
Different—could be her middle name. No longer angular; a widow and yet still a virgin; a woman who’d seen him cry; who’d shared his pain.
He wanted to share this with her too. Goddammit, he missed her.
Why the fuck wasn’t Fosse here? There wasn’t much of the lord and servant ethic between him and Fosse. As often as not it was Fosse who’d accompanied him into the seedier dives in the city, searching out old soldiers down on their luck and offering them jobs.
If Fosse had been here, they could simply have settled in his study with a bottle of whisky and rehashed their memories of Jason—
No. Thinking about Jason only made him mad. Fosse too.
A final whisky toddy to ensure sleep, and bed then.
He’d go to Bancombe Park on the morrow.
***
He’d managed a week at Bancombe before giving in to the need for Jane. Riding the Bancombe acres, joining the small group of more able men digging ditches along the edge of a low lying meadow or wielding an axe to replenish the wood supplies had done nothing to change the fact he needed a wife to sire his own heir—or that Angela Jane was the only woman he could ever imagine in that role.
The arguments in his head never changed. An optimistic part of him believed she might be longing for him to suggest marriage—for she’d fallen so easily into the role of mistress at The Chase.
The realist in him knew the likelihood of Jane welcoming him with love, or anything approaching it, was slim at best. She’d made it plain the month they’d shared at The Chase was all she was offering, if she ever was to marry again it would be for love.
And he wasn’t offering love, was he? He didn’t really know what love was. But he did lust after Jane—still—painfully—which didn’t look like changing any time soon.
If he didn’t ask, he’d never know.
And if she refused?
Deep in his heart he didn’t believe she could resist him. So, he’d do his damnedest to convince her.
***
Driving the beautiful phaeton James had bought for her always gave Jane much pleasure, but it was not enough to make her content to be back at Rotherby Dower House. She felt as if she’d been away for years and even after two weeks at home the place still didn’t feel familiar or comfortable, as it used to.
It felt like a prison.
Her father was more irascible than ever, the old dames in the village as vicious in their gossiping, and the old men playing bowls on the village green still stared rudely at all passersby, as they always had.
None of it had bothered her—before London. She told herself she wished she hadn’t had the season in the capital, never disturbed the even tenor of her days here at Rotherby, which, looking back, seemed idyllic.
Or more truthfully, boring.
And she could never wish to have missed one moment of these last three months.
She’d come home a different person, more aware, more demanding of life. She’d lived, but for the first time in her thirty years on this earth she actually felt alive. It had never occurred to her how empty and dull her life would feel when she came back to it.
‘I think—you have a visitor, my Lady!’ Dolly said, pointing to where—Fosse—walked a magnificent palomino stallion before the front portico.
Zeus? Hades! Dear God!
By the time they reached the stables and the head groom handed her down, Jane’s hands were shaking badly and she had to talk sternly to herself to keep from running like a schoolroom miss, across the stable-yard and gardens into the house and straight into those all-engulfing arms. It was harder still when he turned from his perusal of the books in her small library as she entered.
One month she’d allowed herself, one illicit, gloriously, wicked month. There could be no more.
‘Lord Baxendene! To what do I owe this honor?’
His eyebrows rose, then his eyes narrowed and she could see him rethinking what he’d been going to say—or do. What purpose had brought him to her door a scant two weeks since they’d parted—finally—at The Chase?
Stepping forward, he bowed formally over her hand, then raised his head to search her eyes while keeping her fingers clasped in his. She really needed him to let her go. She had no strength to regain her hand. His touch set off sensory memories over every inch of her body. His gaze conveyed so much of heat and desire and need without ever a word being spoken. Nothing had changed.
And yet it had. This was her life now and she could not afford to let him disturb what tenuous grasp she’d regained on her sanity.
‘May I kiss you?’
He was asking? What had happened to Bold Bax? Demanding Bax? The Great Bax, who’d swooped and stolen her senses times without number—and without any thought of asking permission?
‘I don’t think—that would be a good idea,’ she breathed.
His jaw worked and his brow furrowed. When had he lost the devil-may-care smile? What had he come for?
Stepping back a little, but keeping his gaze on hers, he dropped to one knee.
Jane forgot to breathe. Her stomach dropped to her feet and for a moment fainting seemed highly likely.
‘Angela Jane, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?’
Never had this scenario figured in her imaginings—except in the most far-fetched of fantasies. Even then she’d known what the answer had to be.
She was holding on to her heart, her sanity, by the merest thread, for while they’d made love, shared so much she would never share with any other, they’d made no pledges or promises. No vows of fidelity or commitment.
If they had and he followed his usual modus operandi and continued his pursuit of fast widows and demi reps, she’d simply shrivel from the core of her being until no life was left in her.
‘No! Hades! Please—don’t—do this to us! We—had our time. It was fun.’ Such a short, common word for something so indescribably beautiful and out-of-this-world, but—‘I could not have asked for a more considerate Master of Virgins—or a more f-fulfilling affair—but—that’s all it was ever meant to be. An—affair.’
He rose to stand rigidly before her.
‘You don’t mean that, Jane!’
Was that shock she saw in his eyes? She could not be swayed. She could not!
‘I do, Hades,’ she said, her voice husky with emotion. ‘It would never work between us. You’ve said yourself—you’ll never marry! The only reason that could have changed is you feel honor-bound after all. We had an agreement; one month. We had our time, Hades. Please don’t—’
No more words would issue from her mouth.
‘Everything has changed,’ he growled, turning abruptly away to stare out the window. His back was rigid with some intense emotion and the hand pressed against the window frame was curled into a white-knuckled fist.
‘Turns out,’ he said, still staring out into the wintry gardens, ‘Jason’s sons are not his. They were fathered by his best friend in the army, Maurice Ormsby, younger brother to the Earl of Greave. He died of a stomach fever and Jason promised he’d take care of his fiancée, Lady Mary Willoughby—and she turned out to be—enceinte. In honor of his promise to Ormsby, he took leave for long enough to come home and marry her. When he died at Vimeiro, the twins were not quite a year old, and he passed the burden of honor to Fosse, who has carefully guarded the secret of their paternity all these years—to ensure I continued to support Lady Mary and the twins in Jason’s stead.’
‘Fosse? Your Fosse?’
‘Yes,’ he ground out, ‘my Fosse, whose first loyalty even now, is to my f—saintly brother. Because he’d made that vow to Jason before he became my Fosse!’
Briefly he turned towards her, the cold, unseeing fury of his gaze raking over her before he turned back to the window.
Jane shivered. She had the feeling if either Jason or Fosse were present at this moment they’d wish they hadn’t been.
Then it hit her. If Jason had no sons H
ades would have to father his own heirs and for that he needed a wife. That was what had changed.
‘And you thought of me.’
Her voice sounded flat to her own ears. Abruptly he turned to face her.
‘Of course I thought of you! We’re great together, but more than that, you’re descended from the Laird of Rosen Keep.’
Not a word of what they’d meant to one another. Not even a token mouthing of words of affection or desire. Just they were great together—and bloodlines, of course. And she happened to have the right ones. Almost.
‘Not the last Laird, his father. I’m descended from the Auld Laird’s second wife.’
‘You’re still of the blood, Jane, don’t you see—?’
‘No!’
He came to a halt halfway across the floor to her.
‘No, you don’t see? Or—no, you don’t want to be my wife?’
His voice, clipped, cold and furious sounded as if he couldn’t believe she’d deny him.
‘No, I—will not—be your wife.’
She’d learned long ago to control the flashfire of her temper. Indignation and wrath fueled her denial however, and empowered her to look directly at him while she enunciated it. Had he thought her a ripe fruit, ready to fall conveniently into his large, magic-inducing hands? Did he think she wouldn’t be able to resist him? She might have been still a virgin at thirty, but she was not naïve.
Something changed in him then, like a candle being snuffed out behind his eyes. Before she could do more than blink, let alone offer any sort of reason for the stark denial, he’d made her a stiff bow and stalked from the house.
***
Two months and two weeks since she’d left The Chase—and Hades—though she told herself she wasn’t counting.
She pulled the wrap tighter about her shoulders. November was half done and she was so cold it didn’t matter how high Dolly stoked the fire, how many woolen wraps she had around her shoulders, or how she sought out every sunny window in the house. The cold was inside her, generated deep within her heart, her womb—her mind, where she fought a constant futile battle to banish the memory of the icy fury in Hades’ eyes as he’d stalked from her presence. That had been four weeks ago and each passing hour added another frozen shard to the ice sculpture titled ‘Despair’ taking shape inside her.