“I have thought on it often, since you told me of it at the Christingle Ball,” Elliot admitted. “I did not think my actions could be construed as courtly at the time - but looking upon them now I can see how Lady Faith might have felt that way. I am truly sorry that I may have hurt her or led her on in any way.”
“She knows that,” Jane assured him. “Faith has an infinite capacity to forgive, and to accept things that others struggle with. She does not ever harbor a grudge. But you should not have lied to her.”
“Lied to her?” Elliot asked, his tone incredulous. “I told her the absolute truth. The only thing I did not tell her was the identity of the woman I have loved all my life.”
“But you have never spoken of any woman, ever, that held your heart,” Jane said.
“I did not tell her, you silly ninny, because that woman is you – and like you, I believed that you would only ever love me as a brother.”
“You were speaking of me?” Jane asked, stunned. Oh, he had kissed her and looked at her with eyes filled with desire, but that was not love. Such things could be dismissed as momentary lapses in propriety, or judgement. They did not have to mean that the parties involved held strong feelings for one another.
“Yes, Lady Jane Whitton, I was speaking of you,” Elliot said, turning her face to his and kissing her tenderly. “There has only ever been you.”
“But you never told me? You never asked for my hand? You would not stand up for me against your mother, who always despised me because I was my father’s daughter and therefore not good enough for you.”
Elliot laughed out loud. Jane was surprised at such a reaction. She stared at him, anger rising in her belly. He was not taking any of this seriously, and she had been foolish enough to reveal her heart. She stood abruptly and moved towards her horse, preparing herself to mount – though she felt too weak to push up off the ground without help. She leant against the chestnut’s flanks, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to fall.
“Jane, you are so very wrong,” Elliot said, as he moved towards her. Cautiously he turned her around and pulled her back into his arms. “I never told you, but I did ask your father for you hand when I returned from my Grand Tour. He said no. He did not tell me at the time, but he had already made his pact with Wulfstan. He was trapped, but too proud to tell me of his troubles.”
“You did ask?” Jane asked, not believing him. “You truly asked him?”
“Why would I lie? Your father will assure you it is true.”
“But, your mother – you would never have defied her and we both know she despised my father.”
“She did not despise him. She thought him weak. But she loved your mother, they were friends for most of their lives. She would have frowned upon the match because of your father’s debts – not because of you. She went to her grave swearing that she had nothing to do with Lord Lachlan refusing my suit. I believe her, now, and wish I could tell her so. She would have cautioned me against the match – she did, often, in fact. But she would never have stopped me if being with you was what would have made me happy.”
“But…” Jane broke off. She did not know what she wanted to say, and unable to stop them any longer, she let the tears she had been holding back fall.
Elliot cradled her head against his chest and let her sob. “My poor darling. You have had so much to deal with, so much to cope with – and now this.” He chuckled, and Jane was unable to stop herself from smiling through the tears.
“You are the very worst person,” she said. “I do not know why I love you.”
“But, the wonderful thing is, you do love me,” he said, kissing her on the forehead and then each of her eyes in turn. “And, I love you. My darling, Jane, marry me? I cannot live without you by my side, now I know that you are as moon-mad as me. We shall make such a pair. Your father gave me his permission to ask for your hand whilst I was in Northumberland, so there are no impediments this time.”
“Oh, Elliot,” Jane sighed. “Yes, I would rather live with you, than anyone.” Elliot wiped away her tears and she beamed up at him. “Are you truly sure you want me?”
“I am positive. Life will never be dull with you, that is for sure. I shall have to be on the lookout for midnight flights when I upset you, and fiercely independent thinking, laughter, love and passionate arguments where you tell me just how wrong I am.”
Jane swatted at him playfully, but she knew that he was not saying such things because he thought she should not do them, but because he truly valued her right to do just that. It seemed all too perfect that she should get just what she had always wanted, and too good to be true. But then, she remembered Faith. “However will I tell Faith?” she cried. “I do not doubt that her understanding of the confusion is genuine, but I cannot think she will be able to be so sanguine about us announcing our engagement so soon after?”
“I think she already knows that you are the person I love,” Elliot said. “She is no fool, your friend. And given she knows you almost as well as I do, I think she may well be aware that you have held feelings for me for many years, as well.”
“Can we at least wait until we get home to tell her. I want to be able to do so when we are alone, and in a place where there are plenty of rooms she may hide in should she wish to. She may well be happy for us once she has had time to think on it, but I do not want her to feel forced to be polite whilst we are stuck in that carriage together.”
“Then we shall wait,” Elliot said with a loving smile. “But I want us to be wed as soon as possible. Now I know you love me, darling Jane, I find myself to be strangely impatient to know you are my wife.”
Chapter Twelve
When the little party finally arrived in the border lands, they were all heartily sick of life on the road. Elliot had even bought a horse, so he might ride outside the coach from time to time. Today he was doing just that, and the women were alone in the carriage. At first sight of Linney House Jane sighed heavily. “Oh, it is so wonderful to be home.”
“You always told me that your home was a mean place,” Faith said, arching an eyebrow at Jane as they drove across the open moorland in front of the house and took in the large grey-stone building with its dramatic chimneys, set against a backdrop of wild forest. “It looks grand enough to me.”
“I meant in comparison with the homes you were used to,” Jane said. “I am afraid to say that inside there is little of comfort.” She did not say that her father had long since sold off her mother’s family heirlooms, and the few that he had brought to the marriage himself. Much of the land that was suitable for farming was mortgaged to the hilt and Jane was not sure if her father had already sold the timber in the forest, long before it was ready to be felled, just to make ends meet.
“Then we must do what we can whilst I am here to bring some warmth and comfort back to it,” Faith said determinedly.
Jane squeezed her friend’s hand and smiled. “Whatever would I do without you?” she asked.
“You’ be half dead somewhere, with nobody to care,” Faith said, with a chuckle. “Imagine where you might have ended up, had we not taken you in?”
“Indeed, had I fallen sick whilst I was still on the road, I doubt I would have still had my life. I am grateful to you, for all you have done for me.” She paused. Now was undoubtedly the time to tell Faith of Elliot’s proposal, but though she longed to shout her love from the rooftops, she was still cautious of her friend’s feelings about the matter. She had believed herself to be in love with Elliot, mere weeks earlier, and it seemed somehow cruel to be so happy that Elliot had chosen Jane instead of her.
“Are you ever going to tell me your secret?” Faith said, surprising Jane as she so often did with her powers of perception. “You have been keeping something from me, certainly since we left Leicestershire, but perhaps even longer.”
“As ever, you are right,” Jane admitted. “I did not wish to tell you whilst we were on the road, it seemed unfair when we were all in such close quarte
rs – but Elliot proposed to me that day we went for a ride.”
“And you said yes,” Faith said, her tone perfectly matter-of-fact.
“I did,” Jane said. “I never meant to hurt you or deceive you in any way.”
“You are a silly girl sometimes, for someone who is so very clever,” Faith said, grinning at her. “It took me barely a few hours after Elliot had told me there was someone else who held his heart to be sure it was you. He visited every day. Few men would do that, even for a woman they were betrothed to. And, when you denied that you loved him, assured me that you loved him as a brother, I could not help feeling you were trying to convince yourself, more than me.”
“So, you do not mind?” Jane asked, as incredulous as she had been when Elliot declared his love for her.
“Why ever should I mind?” Faith said. “You are the person I care about most in the world. You faced a future so many woman we know fear, yet must learn to bear, and you decided not to let it be your fate. I worried that you may never be able to come home, and I know how much you love it here. You chose never to have a London Season, before coming to stay with me you had only left the Borders to come to school. You would have pined away in the south. You would have come to hate the kind of life a young woman in Society has to live. And, for all his faults, you would have missed your father.”
“But none of that has anything to do with Elliot. We knew it was safe for me to return home long before he proposed,” Jane said, a little confused by everything Faith had just said.
“And do you not think it peculiar that Elliot just happened to change his plans, and travel to Northumberland rather than to Dyfedd? Do you not think it a coincidence that he met with your father and suggested a doctor in Edinburgh that just might be able to help your father? And that his debts were suddenly made good? Come Jane, you are a clever woman – surely you can see Elliot’s hand in all of this?”
“But he would have told me?” Jane asked, as suddenly all the things she had been pushing from her mind crowded in. Faith was right. There could be no doubting that Elliot had somehow managed to convince her father to accept his help. She shivered, feeling suddenly cold. What if Elliot had asked for the same payment as Lord Wulfstan? Was she just being sold to the highest bidder all over again?
Faith’s smile faded as she watched Jane’s reactions to what she had said. “What is wrong?” she asked anxiously. “Did I say something I ought not?”
“No, it is not you, dear Faith,” Jane assured her. “I just did not think past my happiness. I did not want to. I hoped that my father truly did mean to mend his ways. I truly believed Elliot loved me and wanted to be with me – not that he was prepared to marry me in order to save me from Lord Wulfstan. I do not wish to be a charity case. I do not want his pity. I will not wed a man who wishes to marry me for the wrong reasons.”
The carriage drew to a halt as Jane finished speaking and she burst out of the door, not waiting to hear anything further that Faith might say. She could vaguely hear her friend’s voice, but the pounding in her head was louder. She had been such a fool. She ran past the house and out into the gardens. She did not stop running until she reached the walled garden, where she made her way into the glass house. It was a place she had always felt at home, safe – away from everything that was expected of her. It was a place where she had spent many happy hours, sowing seeds and potting on plants. She needed the catharsis of such work now.
She pulled off her gloves and hat and threw them onto one of the benches. She picked up a tray of seedlings and began to fill small terracotta pots with soil. Carefully she began to prick out the seedlings, one by one planting them into their own pot. Her mind calmed as she worked, and she was able to think on what Faith had said without the haze of emotions that had so blinded her. Faith had been sure that Elliot loved her. Up until Faith had said that Elliot was probably her father’s mystery benefactor, she had believed it to be true, too. But that did not excuse her father for selling her hand to another man – even if it was the one Jane herself wished to be married to.
She heard the crunch of boots on gravel and looked up to see Elliot entering the glass house. “I knew you would be in here,” he said with a wry smile. “Faith told me what she said to you, and how you reacted.”
“Elliot, I will not be bought and sold again,” she said.
“And I can assure you that you are most certainly not either,” he said, his tone patient as he moved closer. “I know you, and love you, and would never dream of putting you in that position.”
“Then how did you get my father to accept the money to pay his debts?”
“I purchased some land from him,” Elliot said simply. “I now own the woodland. Your father may have been a fool in so many ways, but he never mortgaged it or pre-sold the timber. Maybe he thought that if he could slow his losses that the yield in time would be enough to save him. As it is, I now own the land that abuts my own estates and in a year or two, I will more than recoup the money I have paid for it.”
“Your mother always wanted him to sell to her, he never did,” Jane mused. “I wonder why he agreed now?”
“Well, that might have had something to do with my asking for your hand in marriage,” Elliot admitted. “You are his only heir. He knew that by selling to me that that land would remain in the family, that the two estates would eventually become one and that our children would inherit not only my titles, but his – and his family seat. It meant he could save face, but only if you agreed.”
“So what would have been the outcome had I not said yes?” Jane asked, still a little angry, though she was coming to think that she might have misjudged the situation this time.
“Neither of us would ever have put pressure on you. Your father knew you might say no, and he agreed to the sale anyway. I think he wanted to show you that he would put you first for once, to try and make up for Lord Wulfstan.”
“So, you do really love me?” Jane asked, sidling a little closer to Elliot.
“More than life itself,” Elliot said grinning at her as she wrapped her arms around his waist.
He bent down to kiss her but stopped as they heard the sound of footsteps in the walled garden. They went outside to see her father and Faith walking arm in arm towards the glass house. “Oh, you found her,” Faith said, rushing forward to hug Jane. “I am so sorry. I did not mean to upset you.”
“You did not upset me. I think, perhaps, that my silly brain upset itself. I saw things that were not there. I am sorry to have concerned you.”
Her father could not look her in the eye. His head was down and his shoulder were slumped. Jane moved forward and hugged him, too. “Papa, is it true that you went to see the doctor in Edinburgh?”
He nodded. “He wants me to go and stay at his clinic for a few months, but when Lord Grey wrote to me and told me you were coming home, I wanted to see you. I am so sorry for all the harm I have done you, and the troubles I brought upon your dear Mama. I hope you can forgive me.”
“Oh, Papa,” Jane said, kissing his cheeks. “Of course I can, and though I do not want to delay your treatment, you will have to wait another few weeks so you can be here to see Elliot and I wed. I will not marry any man if you are not there to give me away.”
Tears poured down her father’s cheeks, and he held her tight. “You truly want me to be there, after all I have done?” he asked. Jane nodded and gently began to wipe away his tears. “I have been a terrible father, but I want to change. I will make it all up to you, and more. I promise.”
“Do not,” Jane said firmly. “All I want is for you to be happy, and to finally set down the burden of your debts, your gambling and your drinking. I want you to do it, not for me, but for you. You have tried so hard to cope, all alone. I just pray you know that you can turn to me, to Elliot and we will always be there for you.”
Jane turned to see Faith dabbing at her eyes with an embroidered handkerchief, as Elliot stood watching them with love in his eyes. “You will always
have a home with us, Lord Lachlan,” he said. “If you decide that this place is too big and empty without this hellion in it.”
The two men shook hands, and Elliot took Jane’s hand in his. Faith smiled at them. “I hate to be presumptive, but as I shall be your bridesmaid, might I ask if there will be any eligible young men attending your nuptials? Preferably those who live nearby, I rather like it here and find myself warming to a life in the North. I should never tire of painting the changing seasons here, of that I am certain.”
Jane laughed. “Then it is settled. We shall find a suitable match for Faith so she might be wed and remain in the Borders, and we shall all live happily ever after.”
Elliot looked at Faith and then Jane. He squeezed Jane’s hand with a chuckle. “Happily ever after indeed.”
Preview of A Brother’s Duty
Book One in the Repington Chronicles Series
Kelly Anne Bruce
Chapter One
James Repington pushed his chair back from the desk with a sigh.
“Where are you off to?”
He looked up to see Matthew leaning lazily at the library door. Matthew was one of his brothers, he had four of them.
“I was going to go round and check on the tenants,” James replied as he stood up and pulled on his coat.
“You seem quite unhappy about the prospect,” Matthew commented folding his arms over his chest.
James shrugged, as the second son it was not specifically his responsibility to check on the tenants. However, it had fallen to him as his elder brother, Philip was too busy spending the Season in London. Yes, gambling and going to parties with a number of other members of London's social elite seemed to be more important than running the estate. Kicking up larks and spending most of their days half sprung was what the Season was all about for much of the crowd that Philip chose to run with.
The Earl's Love Match: A Sweet Regency Romance Page 9