“You will allow me to do this for you, my dear, and it will be my great joy to do so. I would be your benefactress and chaperone. Should it please you, I would have you stay with me in Town.” Lady Ashford grabbed Lady Margaret's hands in support. “I was not blessed with children and have no need to be buried one day with my monies. I fear your brother will not be of any help to you in this, so leave him to me. Much to my late husband's regret, he could not touch the inheritance left me by my own father. It has always brought me joy to use the funds as I please, especially when it displeased the late Earl. So I must insist you indulge me this matter, if for no other reason than that will give my not-so-dearly-departed husband another cause to turn wretched in his grave, may he rot in dyspeptic discomfort,” the Countess concluded with a grin.
Chapter Forty
Oft expectation fails, and most oft there where most it promises; and oft it hits where hope is coldest, and despair most fits.
William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well, Act 2, Scene 1
Juliet did what she always did when her emotions were in turmoil and she could not settle herself: she forgot her problems and her sorrows at the pianoforte. The house was finally quiet after a day beginning with waking in the Duke's chambers that progressed to a hastily announced betrothal. This seeming good news elicited felicitations from most guests, but also glares and whispered comments from some of the more dour matrons, Viscount Melville, and the thwarted Lady Phillipa. Added to this, an edict rained down from her aunt requiring Juliet's help picking strawberries the next morning; of course no one else was found qualified to help in this endeavor save the Duke. Juliet grimaced at the idea as she arranged her skirts on the playing bench. The music room was far enough removed from the guest chambers that she did not fear disturbing anyone. With all that had happened in the past twenty-four hours, however, she could honestly say she had no care if others in the house found the comfort of sleep or not. She shut all the open room doors and muffled the instrument just the same, as much to keep the music in for her emotional release alone as to prevent waking any guests.
How could she fix a problem without apparent solution? How could she apologize when there existed no words strong enough to convey the depth of sorrow felt for her actions and the resultant consequences? She lightly ran her hands over the ivory keys, stroking their cool and comforting smoothness, and gently began softly to play a melancholic melody, Beethoven's piano sonata 14, Quasi una Fantasia. She closed her eyes and let the notes swirl around her, the minor chords providing a fitting musical blanket that wrapped around her as if a tangible covering of despondency.
As she progressed into the second movement, she suddenly felt overwhelmed by the somber timbre of the music and the despair of her situation. Her fingers stilled and she felt her shoulders shake as quiet sobs finally broke over the dam she had built to contain her emotions over the course of the day. She felt the hot tears spill over her lashes as she hung her head, her hands braced at her sides on the bench. She let the tears fall freely to her lap, heedless of the damage she might do to the silk gown she still wore from supper. She prayed for a catharsis she knew would likely evade her.
"How has it come to this?" she whispered to the dark corners of the room, wiping her tears away with shaky hands. “What am I to do?”
"You are to marry me," answered the Duke quietly, slowly making his way across the room, emerging from the shadows near the door to the hall. His chest hurt to see Juliet crying with such anguish, and he worried she would never reconcile herself to their coming marriage. Another sob tore from her as he came to stand beside her at the instrument.
“Oh, Your Grace, I am so sorry,” she wailed. He could stand her distress no longer and he hauled her off the bench and into his arms. She protested slightly but he would not loosen his hold and she eventually sank into his chest. He tightened his arms about her even more and let his hand rub up and down her spine in comfort. How right she felt in his arms, their forms a perfect fit for each other.
“Juliet, we have discussed this. While all may not have occurred in the most conventional manner, I am far from being discontent. I assure you, it will be no hardship to marry you, and I hope you will one day be able to say the same of me.” He hugged her tighter to his chest before continuing with an attempt at levity. “And I thought we agreed you would forswear the use of my title as we are now betrothed.”
Her sobs slowed and she turned her face to the side though still rested her cheek on his chest. The steady beat of his heart began to calm her frayed nerves. “I so regret that the choice was taken from you. It should not have been so! Marriage is a lifelong commitment and you should have been allowed to choose your mate rather than have one foisted on you.” She hiccuped and felt herself begin to tremble anew. She struggled to stem the tears that again begged to fall.
Jonas gently pulled her shoulders back so he could look down into her face. “But I did choose you.” He moved his thumbs across her cheeks, erasing the tracks of her tears. “I could likely smother this situation with some threats and pressure, although some harm would undoubtedly come to both our reputations. I am a Duke, Juliet, and people would eventually forget to tie my name to a scandal in the hopes of currying my favor. With your looks, dowry, and family connections, there would be plenty of suitors that would pursue you after a time as well, although most for nefarious reasons. We could emerge, possibly as early as the Little Season, with the undeniable taint of scandal, but we could survive.”
She gazed up at him questioningly, her lustrous eyes huge against her pale face, their color almost transmuted to a pale, pearled gray. “If that is so, then why are we marrying?” she asked tremulously, a return to crying not far from reality.
He moved his hands from her shoulders to cup her face. “Because I choose you.” He paused to let his words sink in. “I have always known you to be lively and intelligent, possibly from our first meeting as children. Since your come-out two years ago, I have watched you as you danced and held court at many balls and musicales, and was impressed by your manners and comportment. We have known each other forever, but something has changed, even progressed, in our relationship. This past week I feel I have come to know you much better. I enjoy our conversations, disagreements, and debates. I like to hear your laugh. I marvel at how your presence transforms a room, and your wit enlivens even the most dreary of conversations. Juliet, I want to marry you.”
She simply stared into his eyes, which had turned from their normal icy blue into a dark-rimmed stormy cobalt in the subdued light of the room. He had not spoken of love but his statements had echoed those she had already thought of him. She was under no illusion, however, as to their survival of the scandal should they not marry. As a gentleman and a Duke he would come forth with much less taint, but there would be those amongst the ton who would never let the matter fade. She likewise knew she would attract only the basest of suitors: the fortune hunters, the dissolute wastrels, the jaded rakes. She took a deep, shuddering breath but could not make any words coalesce into a reply.
“Juliet, let me show you how well we get along. Let me show you that our marriage could be much more than a forced union. Let me prove to you that marrying me would not be the worst thing to happen to you,” he pleaded, his thumbs tracing a tender path on her cheeks. “Let us honor our earlier accord and take this next week to court. We will spend our time learning even more about each other. This week shall be for us, to see if I am proved correct and we do suit.”
She blinked, breaking her spellbound stare with his enigmatic eyes. She inhaled a deep, calming breath before she spoke. “I am so afraid that you will come to resent me and our marriage, to resent the way it began. I only wish to start out without the spectre of force and compromise and duty overshadowing us.”
Jonas dropped his touch and turned slightly away, running his fingers through his hair, leaving several strands sticking up at odd angles. Juliet thought his agitated gesture endearing and she started slightly
at the realization that she was learning to read his moods and motions already. He rubbed his eyes before turning around to speak again. “I cannot stress enough that I do not feel forced to marry you. It was a surprise that it happened so quickly and caused our parents such chagrin, but perhaps it will reassure you to know I had begun to think on you as a possible marriage partner. For the reasons I outlined before, and for so many more, I have come to admire you. The only obstacle I had seen to my pursuit was your standing as the sister of two of my closest friends.” He paused to give a sardonic laugh. “I will further confess that I was beginning to consider a sound beating from your brothers as worth the price of courting you, Juliet.”
She struggled to process this new information in the midst of her previous torment over thinking him disappointed and ill-used. She began to feel tentacles of hope stealing over her as she realized he did hold her in some measure of true affection and esteem. Surely that can grow into love, she thought. I am halfway there myself, if not yet already, if I be honest. She reached out and grabbed one of his large hands with her slender fingers.
“If it is time for confession I must make some of my own. I have come to relish spending time with you, whether we are conversing or even competing together. I have caught myself looking for you when I enter a room and watching for your return when we separate after supper. I find myself wondering after your opinion on a certain subject, or thinking how you might react to a situation that has brought me mirth. I have been confused because you have always been Miranda's brother to me, always seeming to relegate me to the status of a little child, the best friend of your sister only. I had presumed you indifferent.” She looked down at his hand and drug her fingers across his knuckles without thought. “Your words give me great comfort and hope, Jonas. Hope for our future.”
He took her in his arms with a speed she did not know he possessed, one arm wrapping around her waist while the other came up to cup her face. “You finally said my name!” he announced triumphantly before leaning in to brush his lips to her cheek. “Say it again. Please.”
Juliet blew out a tiny breath with a half laugh as she looked at his earnest expression and his stormy sea-blue eyes. “Jonas,” she breathed, her voice lower than its usual tone.
He smiled, both dimples appearing deep in his cheeks. “I think I have waited my whole life to hear my name spoken that way.” He brought both hands up to her face and tilted her head slightly as his lips came down to meet hers. His mouth was hot, his lips as soft as velvet as they moved gently across hers. Juliet was awash in sensation as she felt warmth travel through her whole body, radiating out from every point where they touched. She stepped closer to him and placed her hands on his chest, reveling in the heat that she felt even through the many layers of his clothing.
Jonas broke their kiss and rested his forehead on hers as he took in several breaths. “My first kiss,” Juliet mused aloud as she brushed her fingers against her still-warm lips.
Jonas pulled back slightly to look her in the eye. “Your first kiss? How have you managed to dodge your previous suitors and lovesick swains?” he teased.
Juliet moved her hands to straighten and smooth the lapels of his coat. “I did exactly that – dodged them,” she said with a small laugh. “Most I had no desire to share any sort of intimacy with; a few sparked my curiosity but not enough that I wanted to encourage them falsely. After a time, it seemed too personal an act to waste on just any gentleman.” She blushed a little at her last statement and its implication, but she added no further explanation.
“Since we have been confessing much tonight, let me add that it was my first kiss as well,” the Duke offered. Juliet's head jerked up as she started over that statement.
“Saints and sinners, I know you are not serious! I will never believe for one instant that a member of the LOO has never kissed.”
Jonas chuckled at her curse then smiled ruefully. “Let me amend my statement, then. It was my first kiss on the lips. I have kissed countless hands, and the air above countless hands, as well as numerous cheeks, but never lips.”
Juliet's look of astonishment quickly changed into disbelief. “I know you are less enthusiastic, shall we say, than my brother and your other friends, in pursuit of debauchery, but I know you cannot be a saint and untouched.” She surprised herself with her candid statement and moved her hand to cover her mouth as if in effort to stem any other inappropriate comments.
“I am not, as you term it, untouched, but . . . well . . . I am not sure how to explain it.” He ran his hand through his hair again as he sought the words. “Men have needs and mine have been assuaged from time to time, but I never had any more motivation involved than just that. There was no attachment of feeling nor concern for another. I suppose the easy way to explain it is that I did not care to kiss anyone. Like you, it seemed too personal an act to bestow on someone without any feeling behind it.” Jonas began to look uncomfortable with this vein of their discourse and shifted to move away from her. Juliet blocked his path with a hand to his arm. He looked into her eyes and saw a gleam of something he could not define.
“So, what you are saying . . . what I am saying, is that we have finally found someone with whom sharing a kiss seems worthwhile. A good idea, if you will.” She moved her hand up to his face and lightly traced his lower lip with her finger. He breathed deeply at her touch and his eyes began to smolder in that darkened way she had noticed earlier.
“Oh, it is definitely a worthwhile idea. I had a tutor that used to repeat constantly that 'anything worth doing was worth doing well.' You, my worthwhile Juliet, do it well.” He began to lower his head back to her. “One more, and then I feel we should break for the night. We are quite alone. I should not want to compromise you further,” he joked.
“We are to marry. How much further action can you be compelled to take?' she questioned with a grin.
His eyes seemed to burn from some fire within as he groaned lightly. “You have no idea, my lady, how much further action I long to pursue. One week,” he murmured against her lips. “One more week.” He claimed her lips with his in a searing, soul-stealing kiss.
Chapter Forty-One
The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.
William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act 5, Scene 1
Juliet slept surprisingly well considering just one night prior she had sewn herself to the bed linens in a Duke's chamber and spent the entirety of her darkest hours mortified and worried, trapped on her knees by her own foolishness. But it was not the quantity of sleep she had just achieved but the quality. Her troubled heart and mind were blessedly too tired to continue vexing her with recriminations and what ifs. When she awoke at the intolerably early hour of seven of the clock, she found she could not stay abed and quickly dressed without the assistance of her maid in a simple morning gown of seafoam green with capped sleeves and squared bodice. This gown would suffice when on her berry-picking errand later as well. After donning stockings and slippers, and pinning her long braid into a simple coil at the nape of her neck, she moved to the door of her chamber and discovered a piece of vellum laying just inside on the floor. Written in a bold, authoritative script was a note from her affianced.
Juliet,
I have been informed I am to escort you to the strawberry fields later this morn. If it please you, I will have Cook pack a lunch, and we will picnic on the grounds as before.
I give you fair warning: I mean to court you in earnest, so prepare to reveal all your likes, dislikes, dreams, and desires. I shall meet you on the rear terrace at eleven of the clock if this meets with your approval.
Yours Always,
Jonas
Juliet smiled to herself, already anticipating their meeting later, before refolding the note and placing it on her dressing table. She left her chamber and quietly made down the stairs and into the music room at the rear of the house. The butler, Hastings, was already there giving instructions to a maid but broke off h
is conversation so both servants could make their proper greetings.
“Good morning, Hastings. I am sorry to be about so early. Will I bother anyone by playing for a while?” asked Juliet.
Hastings rose from his bow as he replied. “Good morning, my lady. You shall be in no one's way here. Bessie is just righting the grate now. Do you require a fire or perhaps some tea?” he inquired.
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