“Jenny, please,” Haven said, pushing her back down onto the stone bench and sitting down beside her. “I wish we had been honest with each other right from the beginning, but I cannot take back the past. And now . . . well, I will not have you badgered into this marriage, but your aunt is right in some respects. Your reputation is in tatters and I am responsible. But I wish to make it right, and—”
“Lord, but you do not understand at all!” Jane rose and stalked away from the bench. She looked back at him and the bewildered expression on his face. “Forget any responsibility you feel toward me, my lord. I have no desire to live in society. So ease your conscience and I will go away and you need never hear of me again!” With that she turned and ran away.
What on earth had he said to make her bolt? He started after her but the dowager was in the doorway and she put her cane across it.
“Grand, I have to go after her! I must make her see . . .” He started to push the cane aside but she jerked on it, making him halt.
“Dolt. I did not think you such a slowtop, Haven. I heard you. You have intolerably insulted the girl and she will likely never listen to you again now.”
“Grand, what are you saying?”
“That you are a great looby in a family of prize loobies, as Pamela would say. Come with me and we shall talk. I think I shall have to explain to you a few things about women, Haven. Among them, how impossible it is for a woman in love to marry a man to whom she will be a burden, or whom she does not think loves her.”
• • •
There was one last thing to do before she left, Jane thought later that afternoon, glancing around before slipping out of Haven Court alone. The next morning she was going to go to town, get on the stage and return to Bath. She would go home, seize control of her finances in any way possible, and make her own life.
But right now she had a task to accomplish. She took her bearings and started up the long grassy rise, hoping she could find her way on her own. A half hour later, out of breath but triumphant, she was tapping on the door of Mary’s cottage.
“Come in.”
Mary’s voice was musical but Jane entered hesitantly, poking her head in. She was at her spinning wheel, keeping up the even movement of the treadle as she spun her fine and even wool.
“Come in, come in,” Mary called, smiling at her. She finished off the bobbin she was spinning and left the wheel. Molly was sitting on a blanket on the floor pushing some square wooden blocks around with chubby, clumsy fingers.
Jane took a deep breath and entered the cottage, thinking that though it had only been two days, she felt so separated already from the person she had been while living in Mary’s home.
“I’m so glad you came back,” Mary said, reaching out and enclosing Jane’s fingers in her warm, callused hands. “I’ve bin that worrit about you, tho’ Gerry sed you was all right, but I prefer the proof of my own eyes.”
“I’m so sorry, Mary, for everything.”
Mary’s face split into a grin. “An’ what part would you be sorriest for, Jenny—ah, I keep thinkin’ of you as Jenny!”
“That’s all right, Mary. Jenny is the name my Scottish nurse called me. It is a diminutive of Jane for many.”
“Jenny it is, then. So, what part would you be sorry for? That poor attempt at milkin’ you made? I think Esther has still not recovered! Or that brick of bread you baked and that even the birds scorned?”
Jane giggled, happy once again in the confines of the cozy cottage. “You know what I mean. I am so sorry for lying to you, for misleading you. It was wrong and I apologize.” She picked up Molly and put her on her hip, as she had seen Mary do. “I did learn how to do one thing, though. Shall I make us some tea?”
“You know,” Mary said, once they had their tea and were settled by the hearth. The day had turned gloomy after a promising start and the wind beat at the door of the cottage, but inside the fire made it warm and welcoming. “Gerry has bin here, an’ he told me much.”
Jane felt the rush of blood to her cheeks.
“So much heartache,” Mary murmured.
“I just don’t know what to do,” Jane admitted.
“Do you love Gerry?”
“How can I know? I thought I loved him, but that was when I knew him as Gerry, the local farmer. Lord Haven, the viscount, is quite a different man! He’s . . . intimidating. He just is not Gerry.”
“Oh, but he is!” Mary sighed and took a sip of her tea out of the pewter mug she cradled in her hands. She glanced up at Jane as she cradled little Molly in her arms. “When I was thinkin’ of my Jem’s proposal, I was not certain. He was a man o’ few words was my Jem, and I have always liked conversation. But with me he could talk. Oh, he ne’er was a big talker, but when it were just us, alone, he would open his heart and say things he could ne’er say otherwise. Jenny, men spend their lives bein’ strong an’ silent; they must command and direct and it leaves precious little time for the other side o’ them. But with th’right woman, if you give ’em a safe place to feel and just be, they open their hearts and show you what’s inside. That’s what Gerry found with you, Jenny, a safe haven for his heart to rest. He’s the same man. Viscount Haven and Gerry are just two parts o’ who he be. Just as you have a private side and a side you show in the parlor.”
Jane pondered that for a few minutes. Mary took a sleepy Molly from her arms and put her in her cradle, and then came back to the fireside.
“I have known him all my life, and he has a good heart, and nobbut more gentle than Gerry. And he loves you. I ha’ never seen him in love before, but he is in love with you.”
“I have been afraid to believe it,” Jane said slowly.
“Well, believe it.”
“I thought it was just because he thought me a servant girl. It has all become so jumbled and confused, I don’t know what to think.”
“Ah, but lass, it is really quite simple,” Mary said with a sad smile. “Love is a rare and precious thing. You might ha’ bin foolin’ each other as to your identities, but you canna disguise the heart. Don’t say nay to him just ’cause yer hurt right now. Look inta his heart, lass, an’ yer gonna see what is true.”
There was a tap at the door and Mary opened it; it was Gerry, looking weary and discouraged. He looked up and saw Jane and his expression flickered between hope and sadness.
Mary made an exclamation of disgust. “You two poor fools! Go, both of you, and don’t come back to me cottage until you have a date set and plan to have the banns read next Sunday!”
Still afraid, still uncertain, Jane was nonetheless willing. When he held out his hand she took it and stepped out in the breezy afternoon, tying her bonnet more securely against the tugging of the breeze. They walked for a while, wordless, and she felt all the tension ease out of her. Could she pretend just for a while that they really were just Jenny and Gerry? He was wearing his disreputable “farmer” garb again, with the beaten and battered hat. But she looked down at her own gown. It was a well-tailored traveling dress of gold wool. Expensive and tasteful. And she wore a poke bonnet of modern structure
When she realized where he was leading her she hesitated, but he gave her a pleading expression and she allowed him to direct her to the top of the long rise. They looked down. They were overlooking Haven Court. Clouds scudded across the leaden sky and the stiff breeze lifted the skirts of her dress, tugging at them. She pulled off her bonnet, wanting to feel the breeze in her hair again.
He turned her to face him, held her smaller hands in his large warm ones, and said, “I have been doing a lot of thinking since our last conversation. First, I should say what I neglected to say earlier. I don’t want you to marry me because you have been compromised. Nor do I want you to marry me because you are, at twenty-seven, at your last gasp!” He moved his big strong hands up her arms and clutched her shoulders in his hands. She gazed up into his face. “I want to marry you because I love you!”
She was speechless.
“We have both b
een beyond foolish, acting as if who we are is not good enough somehow! But it is, Jenny! I fell in love with you, not who I thought you were. I don’t care if you are a dairymaid or a duchess, I would still want to marry you.”
“Truly?”
“Truly! And we are masters of our own fate, my love. No one can make us dress up in court dress and retire to London. No one can make us kowtow to the rest of the aristocrats, or leap and caper at Almack’s, or grimace and grunt at the annual farce that is the London Season!”
She giggled giddily at his exemplary choice of words. “You mean no diamond tiaras or fancy court gowns?”
“Not unless you want them. Please say you will marry me. I love you with all my heart! Will you marry me knowing you will be Lady Haven to the rest of the world, but my own dear Jenny, my heart, my life, to me?”
She looked deep into the brilliant blue of his eyes and saw only honesty and love there. He was Gerry, her own dear love, deep in his heart straight down to his soul. And he loved her. She moved closer and he held her close. She could hear his heart pound as she laid her head against the solid wall of his chest. It reminded her of her recurrent dream, of the man who held her close and loved her. It was Gerry. “I will,” she whispered. “I will marry you and I will love you forever.”
“Jenny!” He tipped her face up to look directly into her eyes.
She closed them as he lowered his face and the first reverential touch of his lips confirmed for her the love she had been afraid to admit into her heart. He pulled her even closer and the steady throb of his heart promised her that she was doing the right thing in marrying where her heart truly led her.
She pulled away a little, after a moment. She was breathless, but stammered, “Will you promise me one thing?”
“Anything, my heart.”
“Will you build me a snug little cottage in the woods, with a hearth and . . . and a little cradle, for our first baby?”
He laughed out loud and the joy in his voice boomed through the valley, down to the old priory, even, where a figure supported on a cane stood in one of the windows. He picked her up and spun her around until all she could see, all that was still, was the love and exultation in his eyes.
“I will go one better, my love. I will build one for our honeymoon, so that I can take you away from Haven Court for our first weeks as man and wife. I love my family, but for a fortnight at least, I only want to see you by my hearth every evening, in my bed every night and at the fire every morning.”
He kissed her soundly on the lips. “And then,” he continued, “forever after, when the strain of being Lord and Lady Haven becomes too much, it will be our retreat, the one place in the world where we can be just Jenny and Gerry.”
“Jenny and Gerry,” she echoed, locking her arms around his neck and knowing, for the first time, that she really was doing the right thing. “I think I shall like that. But I think that we will always be just Jenny and Gerry, even . . . even in our bedchamber in Haven Court.”
She saw the flame of desire alight in his blazing blue eyes and it took her breath away.
“Oh, Jenny,” he whispered. “Don’t make me wait too long.”
Happiness welled and gurgled like a spring, flooding her heart with hope. “Gerry, my own true love, my handsome farmer husband-to-be, we can be married the moment you build me that cottage.”
“I’ll start at dawn,” he murmured, and bent toward her, taking her lips in a kiss that became more demanding. Breathing heavily, he added, “Or sooner.”
Excerpt from A Rake’s Redemption
In case you missed it, keep reading
for an excerpt from another
Classic Regency Romance,
A Rake’s Redemption!
Phaedra Gillian, the spinster daughter of a vicar, is quietly content to manage the chores in the household she shares with her father and tend to the needs of the less fortunate in their small village. When she discovers the body of a man who’s been badly beaten and robbed on the road near their cottage, her compassionate nature compels her to take him in and nurse him back to health. But sheltered as she is from the depravities of the London ton, she’s dismayed to learn that the ruggedly handsome Hardcastle is a notorious rake and scoundrel—and a man who stirs unfamiliar and dangerous feelings of physical longing within her.
Lord Hardcastle has led a debauched and dissolute life, taking pleasure from women at his whim and shrewdly breaking the fortunes of lesser men in the gambling dens. While on his way to collect a debt from his latest victim at the card table, he’s beset by highwaymen and left for dead, only to be saved by an angelic creature as beautiful as she is virtuous. Captivated by the lovely Phaedra and shamed by her pure-hearted goodness, he’s nonetheless drawn to thoughts of seduction and concocts a fiendish scheme to coax her to his bed.
As Hardcastle skillfully leads her from genuine affection to mounting desire and Phaedra finds her resolve weakening, she must struggle to defend her virtue against the promise of a deeply tempting pleasure. And in a bold gamble that will change both their lives, Phaedra agrees to wager her innocence against Hardcastle’s dishonorable ways—as both come to realize that a true and lasting love hangs in the balance and rests on the turn of a card.
Chapter One
One single bead of sweat trickled down the young man’s domed forehead, passed his fluttering eyelid and crossed his downy cheek to his receding chin. It dropped onto the rumpled and stained neckcloth that had been pulled from its owner’s waistcoat some time before. Lord Hardcastle could almost find it in his heart to pity the young cub. Almost.
“Your turn, Fossey,” Hardcastle said for the second time. The elegant card room of the Apollo Club was unusually hushed. Generally there was a murmur of voices, but it seemed that this particular card game had captured the interest of many.
Young Baron Fossey, trembling, plucked a card from his dwindling hand and laid it down, rallying a little as he did so. It was a queen, but a queen of the trump suit. He glanced up at his particular friend, the equally young Mr. Hawley, who stood by him smoking a cigar, and nodded. His eyes were wide and bright, and he clearly had hope. He had two out of the three tricks he needed to win this hand, the hand that would win or lose the game.
The tension of the onlookers perceptibly heightened as Hardcastle appeared to deliberate over his last two cards. The atmosphere of the club was smoky and revelry could be heard in a distant room, but here, all were silent. Until Hardcastle finally threw down his card with great aplomb—it was a king of that same trump suit—took Fossey’s, and slapped down his last card, an ace. Then a sigh whispered through the crowd of some fifteen or twenty gentlemen. Fossey stared at the card and licked his lips. His gaze wandered the room for a moment, as though he were looking for relief from some agency, but his gaze was unfocused, hopeless.
Then, with a shrug of his shoulders, he slid his remaining card across the table.
“My trick, I believe,” Hardcastle said, not bothering to hide the triumph in his voice.
“Your trick, my lord, and y-your game,” Fossey said politely. He stood, though his knees buckled slightly, and bowed before Hardcastle.
Well done, young ’un, Hardcastle thought, standing and offering his hand. Fossey returned the courtesy, though his hand lay as damp and limp as a flounder as the older man shook it.
“Shall I visit your rooms in the morning, Fossey, to settle up?”
“Y-yes, sir. The Claridge, sir.” The youthful baron, not above two and twenty, Hardcastle thought, turned and shambled away, stumbling and reaching out blindly for the support of a chair as his friends surrounded him to commiserate with his loss.
At least it was not alcohol that made him lurch that way. Hardcastle drew the line at gambling with drunken opponents. It was likely just an excess of emotion.
“You’ve beggared him, Hardcastle. You know that, don’t you?”
“Mercy, old man!” He turned to greet the speaker. “How are you? Haven’t seen you this age.”
Mercy Dandridge, a friend of Hardcastle’s since school days, nodded in answer to the other man’s greeting, but repeated his first words. “You’ve taken everything he owns,” he added, with a serious look in his mild blue eyes.
Hardcastle shrugged. “’Twasn’t me who made his terms.”
“But you set your own.” Dandridge pressed on where many a man would have let it drop. “You and everyone in this room know how mad young Fossey is for horseflesh. And knowing that, to wager the entire contents of your stable? It would have been irresistible. He must have had visions of Derby Day and himself as the proud owner of your Theseus, Pegasus and Arcturus. Intolerably tempting to one so green, and one who has, perhaps, not seen you at the euchre table before.”
Hardcastle gave his friend a look that warned that some imperceptible line was about to be crossed. Before answering, he made an attempt to master his flash of anger, tossing a guinea on the gambling table for the waiter and signaling for his coat and hat. He was not a man to be chastised, not by anyone, not even his closest and oldest friend, but his tone, when he spoke, was temperate. “And what purpose is the gambling table if what one gambles does not matter? I would have been sorely put out to lose my stable. It’s the work of a lifetime, and Pegasus’s sire was my father’s horse, and a champion.”
“But you would have had the wherewithal to purchase other horses; they are only animals, after all. You would still have had your fortune and your properties. Fossey gambled away his birthright!”
Hardcastle’s dark eyes flashed. “Mercy,” he said, his voice low and grating, “you know the rules and so does young Fossey. No man should wager so much if it is more than he can afford to lose. It is a lesson we all must learn.”
“My friend,” Dandridge said, putting one square hand on Hardcastle’s shoulder, “I know that old pain still rankles, what your father did to you, but you must—”
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