She wasn’t sure how he would respond to the news that she was marrying him for no other reason than to allow her stepbrother to inherit what was rightfully his and thus free him up to pay his workers their long overdue wages, but she certainly never expected him to react in the way he did.
“You could marry any man and immediately forfeit the hundred thousand pounds that by rights should have gone to your stepbrother?” he said in disbelief. “By not stipulating Tom by name that unscrupulous merchant was hoist by his own petard. How fitting!” He then burst into incredulous laughter, as if told a good joke.
If she had not been nonplussed by his reaction Jane would have delighted in his good humor because it stripped away his resentment, revealing the man she remembered and loved. She couldn’t help smiling.
The rest of the party assembled in the library breathed easier at this turn of events and the Earl remained in a surprisingly good humor throughout the ceremony, notwithstanding the presence of Lady Despard, who glowed with self-importance and had the satisfaction of knowing that the Earl had been forced to capitulate to her presence.
The ceremony concluded, the Earl bowed over his bride’s hand, and as he straightened he winked at Jane, though there was nothing playful in his demeanor, and his gaze held a menacing intent.
“Now Tom has his hundred thousand I want payment in kind,” he murmured near her ear. “I’ll be home late, but I expect my wife to be up waiting and ready to perform her wifely duty.”
The new Countess of Salt Hendon did not wait up for her husband. She was exhausted, emotionally and physically from a day that seemed to go on forever. She had entered the bookroom thought by all in the anteroom to be just another petitioner, indeed a newly employed domestic in the Earl’s household, and left its warmth as the sixth Countess of Salt Hendon, feeling no different, yet immediately whisked off to a suite of rooms on the second floor that smelled of fresh paint, glue from newly hung wallpaper and that teemed with industry. A dressmaker, a milliner, a corsetiere, a shoemaker, a number of seamstresses, and several assistants all toiled away at their various tasks, while workmen busied themselves with arranging beautifully carved mahogany furniture and hanging heavy damask drapes around a new and enormous four-poster bed.
Jane had never seen a bed quite like it. She was told there was one other, its twin in fact, in the Earl’s bedchamber. The intricately carved mahogany posts stretched up to the ornately plastered ceiling and there was an elaborately carved headboard that incorporated the coat of arms of the House of Sinclair. Unlike the drapes about the Earl’s bed that were dark crimson velvet, Jane’s drapes were decidedly more feminine, being pale blue and yellow damask, and a match for the curtains covering the sash windows and complimenting the coverings on chaise longue and the dressing table stool in the spacious closet.
The housekeeper apologized for the lack of a fire in the grates of the fireplaces in the closet and the bedchamber. A chimney sweep had been called to investigate what was blocking the flues, possibly old birds nests from the previous spring. Like most of the rooms and furniture on the second floor, this suite had never been used since the Earl’s purchase of the house some four years before. The only occupant on this floor was the Earl himself, but as he spent most of his time when Parliament was sitting at the Arlington Street townhouse he shared with Sir Antony Templestowe, this thoroughly modern and spacious mansion was sadly neglected.
Of course that would all change for the better now. The house was in desperate need of a mistress, opinioned the housekeeper with a kind smile at Jane, who blushed and quickly walked on into the next room, a pretty, light-filled sitting room fitted out in the Chinese manner, with peonies and stork wallpaper, matching silk curtains and a carved mahogany Chinoiserie over-mantle. The housekeeper hoped her ladyship would not object to being fitted for her gowns and necessaries in this room where there was a good fire in the grate. An ornate screen had been set up in a corner for just this purpose, and beside this screen, looking nervous and selfconscious, stood a young woman not much older, but considerably taller, than Jane. The young woman quickly bobbed a curtsey and was introduced by the housekeeper as her ladyship’s newly employed personal maid, Springer.
“Oh, that name will never do, Mrs. Jenkins,” said Jane, a smile at the nervous woman who again bobbed a curtsey. “I once owned a beagle who answered to Springer. You must have a Christian name?”
“Anne. It’s Anne, my lady,” the maid shyly volunteered.
“Relation of Springer the butler at Arlington Street?”
Anne smiled. “Yes, my lady. That would be my father. He and my mother look after his lordship when he cares to stay at that address,” and received such a scowling look from the housekeeper for prattling on that she bobbed another curtsey saying, “Shall I fetch in the dressmaker, my lady? And there’s a jeweler come to fix your wedding band, and the shoemaker needs one of your shoes, if your ladyship wouldn’t mind… But perhaps your ladyship would care for a dish of tea first, before we begin the fittings?”
“Yes. Tea, and the jeweler. Thank you, Anne,” said Jane.
“If you don’t need me, my lady, I must get back to the kitchen,” apologized the housekeeper. “Cook needs me to finish up the arrangements for tomorrow’s dinner after his lordship’s tennis tournament, and what with a house full of guests—”
“A houseful? Here? Tomorrow?”
“Yes, my lady. His lordship said not to bother you with the arrangements,” explained the housekeeper, “on account of your ladyship having enough to do today. But if you would like to see the menu?”
Jane shook her head. “No. That will be all, Mrs. Jenkins. And thank you for all you’ve done to make me feel welcome.” And gave herself up into the hands of the dozen or so people employed by the Earl to ensure she had a wardrobe befitting a Countess come the arrival of the first guests for the annual Royal Tennis tournament and dinner.
By the time she was well and truly ready for sleep she had lost count of the number of gowns she had been pinned in and out of, and the yards and yards of silks, velvets, damasks, Chinese and Indian cottons and various other fine materials that were too numerous to remember, that had been wrapped around her slim frame and over panniers that encased her slender hips then expertly tacked and trimmed and taken away to be sewn up by industrious seamstresses.
From behind the ornate dressing screen, the corsetiere and her two assistants laced her into various low-cut stays and bodices until she thought her ribs were cracked. Some were of buckram and whalebone covered in silk and linen, others were embroidered, and many matched the petticoats and were to be worn to be seen. The two French female émigrés then presented for her selection diaphanous chemises, nightgowns with tiny pearl buttons and low cut necklines trimmed with satin bows and lace, exquisitely embroidered silk dressing gowns of matching fabrics and a mountain of silk stockings and garters, all, they assured her with knowing smiles, guaranteed to please husbands and lovers alike.
Jane blushed rosily, pulling the coverlet up to her chin, as she recalled their sly smiles and confidential giggles, as she had blushed in their company, and drifted off to sleep on the chaise longue in the cold bedchamber. She was not in her enormous new four poster bed because it lacked its new mattress of duck and geese feathers which had failed to arrive that day; an oversight the housekeeper could not apologize for enough, until Jane assured her she would be just as comfortable and warm if a bed was made up for her on the chaise.
The Earl found her here an hour later, in the glow of a guttering candelabrum.
The hum of voices and industry came from behind the sitting room door, where various tradesmen and women were only too happy to work by candlelight in shifts through the night to accommodate his wishes. The covers had slid to the floor, leaving Jane cold and curled up in a ball trying to find warmth in the thin linen nightshift that was bunched up around her knees, giving him an appreciative view of her slim stockinged ankles and slender feet.
With her hair braided in one long th
ick rope down her back, and dressed in a nightshift that covered her from throat to wrists, she looked absurdly youthful and untouched. In fact, she did not look a day older than his sister Caroline, who was all of seventeen and half years of age, a comparison that froze his ardor better than a hipbath of cold water. Not that it had been his intention to disturb her so late. But he was curious to see how she had got on in her new surroundings, and if she had indeed waited up for him as he had ordered.
He really hadn’t expected her to obey him and was glad to find her asleep. Though why she was on the chaise longue… No mattress on the bed… and no fire in the grate. He would have words with Jenkins in the morning. No wonder the room was as cold as the deserted square outside.
She would surely freeze if she slept in here all night.
Decided, he picked her up off the chaise longue, careful not to wake her and was surprised when, in her sleep, she wrapped a slim arm about his neck and pressed herself against him invitingly, finding warmth in his waistcoat. He was all too well aware that under her thin linen nightshift she was naked but for her stockinged legs. Yet, bedding his bride tonight was not his intent. He just wanted to get her warm and go to sleep himself after a tiring day. But as he carried her effortlessly through the opened door that connected her apartment to his, he could not ignore the alluring feel of her garters under his fingers, or the knowledge that from the knees up her lovely thighs were completely bare.
She was so light. He’d forgotten that about her, or perhaps he had made himself forget with the help of a string of casual lovers, all of whom, despite their skill in pleasuring him, were forgotten in the coolness of morning. It was in the coolness of morning that the memory of Miss Jane Katherine Despard was most acute. Kissing her, pleasuring her, the memory of her sweet-smelling skin and the adorable smile and laughing blue eyes that she kept for him haunted him in his half-waking state. Not tomorrow morning, or any morning after that. He was going to make certain of that.
His bedchamber was warm and inviting, with plenty of light and a roaring fire in the grate. His valet was busying himself in the closet, where two footmen were filling a hipbath with hot water. Andrews was unaware of his master’s return until he came through to the bedchamber to turn down the sheets of the enormous four-poster bed and there discovered tucked up under the covers a sleeping beauty. He saw this vision of loveliness before he saw his master, who stood on the other side of the bed slowly unbuttoning his waistcoat, gaze very much fixed on his bride.
Without a word or a look, the valet turned on a heel and went back into the closet where he threw back in one mouthful the nightly drop of brandy he set out for the Earl.
“Andrews, is there the remotest possibility I own a nightshirt?”
“A nightshirt, my lord?” repeated the valet, pouring the Earl out a fresh glass of brandy and taking from him his divested waistcoat. He knew full well the Earl had never worn that particular article of clothing a day (or more precisely, a night) in his adult life. Still, he managed to keep the surprise out of his voice. “I do believe I may be able to find a nightshirt, though as to its condition…”
“Just get it,” Salt said abruptly as he pulled his shirt up over his square set shoulders and dropped it into his valet’s willing hands. He went over to the hipbath and stared at his reflection in the warm still water, hands on narrow hips, wide flared bare back displayed for his valet’s admiration. “I must be mad,” he muttered at himself. “What man on his wedding night puts clothes on to go to bed with his bride? Mad!”
The valet thought so too.
The Post boy ringing his eleven o’clock bell signaled the last collection of mail for the day, and shattered the still and freezing night air. It was much too cold in this fashionable quarter surrounding Grosvenor Square for itinerate sellers, thieves, pickpockets and drunken Merry-Andrews who usually roamed the streets, even at this late hour. Even the chairmen were scarce. But then a carriage pulled up outside a particular townhouse in Audley Street and out stepped a lady in fur-lined hooded cape and wearing pattens to keep the muck off her satin slippers.
She had just come from Drury Lane theatre, where she had enjoyed the attentions of her son’s circle of male friends and the admiration of one or two gentlemen nearer her own age, who left their cards and asked permission to call on her the following day. She had no idea what the play was about or the names of its actors, but she had spent the evening surrounded by titled and wealthy males so was more than satisfied with her foray to the theatre.
Her buoyant mood dissolved, however, as soon as the nose-in-the-air porter of this fashionable establishment admitted her. She was not welcome; she saw it on the faces of the porter, the butler and the lady’s maid who were all lemon and lime faced. She was made to feel inferior and cheap and her clothes not quite the thing under their steely, disapproving gazes. But she had waited all day for this interview with the high and mighty Diana, Lady St. John, daughter of a Baron, cousin of an Earl, mother of his heir, and related to at least three ducal houses.
This doyen of fashion and darling of Polite Society had graciously granted Lady Despard five minutes of her time, but only under cover of darkness. But Lady Despard didn’t care that she was unwelcome, nor would she have cared had she been shown in via the tradesmen’s entrance. She had a message to convey and important news to share with her ladyship and she couldn’t wait to see her reaction. She hoped for venomous tears, at the very least. She got much more.
She was shown up to her ladyship’s boudoir because there was a fire in the grate. Ordinarily, provincial visitors were granted an audience in the drawing room at the front of the house, if they were granted an interview at all. Her pattens she left in the hall, along with her cloak. No refreshment was offered her and the porter was instructed to tell the driver to wait; Lady St. John’s visitor would not be staying above a few minutes.
Lady Despard was standing by the fireplace warming her gloved hands when Diana St. John came quietly into the room. She was in dishabille, a brocade dressing gown thrown negligently over her nightgown, and her light auburn hair, full of curling papers, fell to her shoulders. Yet, her face, as always, was perfectly made up, even down to the carefully applied mouche at the corner of her painted lips.
Diana St. John took one look at the woman by the fireplace in her revealing, low-cut bodice and outrageously upswept powdered hair and smiled thinly. Her exceptional memory had not failed her. She would not have been able to recall the woman’s name, but her butler had supplied that. Yet she knew who she was: the wife of a nobody squire and sister of a Bristol merchant – Allenby was his name, and she was stepmother of that creature. How gratifying that Lady Despard’s beauty had faded more rapidly than her own in the four years since their one and only meeting during the Salt Hunt.
“Been on the town, Madam?” Diana St. John enquired with a crooked smile as she came further into the room.
She did not sit, nor did she offer her visitor a chair, and was displeased when the woman did not show her rank the proper respect and curtsey.
“Drury Lane theatre, where I saw a most marvelous play by a well-known playwright, but I can’t remember either,” Lady Despard replied, the inference to her loose morals lost on her. She openly looked Diana St. John up and down. “I was surprised not to see you, my lady. Everyone who was anyone was there tonight. Still, ladies of our age must have at least one night off a week to recover our looks. The London Season must be so fatiguing for you, whereas in Bristol—”
“I don’t give a damn about Bristol, nor do I have time for your inconsequential small talk. What is it you want?”
“Fie, my lady! There’s no need to be vulgar, to be sure,” Lady Despard commented with a pout and, spying her reflection in the looking glass by the fireplace, couldn’t resist an admiring glance. “Particularly when I have made the effort to come here at such a late hour with news of interest to you, and suffered a considerable loss to my social calendar—”
“If you’ve yet to
scratch his itch your prospective lover will look you up tomorrow if you pay him enough. So why have you come?”
Lady Despard took a moment to adjust a small bow in a powdered curl. “Are you aware that my dear brother Jacob was buried a mere three months ago?”
Diana St. John lifted her brow. “And how would one know that, Madam, when you’ve already dispensed with your mourning? Or didn’t you even bother to put on your black?”
Lady Despard was put out. She puckered her painted lips. “Black does not become me. I wore grey to mourn Sir Felix, and that was quite enough. Poor Jacob,” she added with a sigh, as if her sad regret made up for her lack of mourning. “He survived the smallpox only to die from complications of the lung. Such a loss to me and my son…”
Diana St. John shrugged a shoulder in callous indifference. “Three months or three years. Allenby’s death is supremely unimportant. You don’t require my sympathy. No doubt he left you more than you deserve.”
Her visitor looked smug. “Twenty thousand, to do with as I please.”
Diana St. John dismissed the inheritance with a contemptuous sniff. “Pin money. So? The reason you are here?”
“Twenty thousand to do with as I please once I have delivered you a message from Jacob. A lawyer awaits in my carriage to ensure I have done as stipulated in my dear brother’s will.”
“Oh, please. Not a message from beyond the grave! What could that moralizing puff piece possibly have to say to me?”
Lady Despard smiled thinly. “I know what you had done to Jane. Jacob told me.”
Silence fell upon the room. The only sound, the ticking of the mantle clock.
Lady Despard waited and watched.
Finally, Diana St. John yawned, as if bored and said levelly, “So your brother felt a twinge of regret and was weak enough to confess his part in that tedious melodrama to you. My conscience is clear. I merely carried out Sir Felix’s wishes to have the rotten fruit of his daughter’s disgraceful behavior got rid of as expediently as possible.”
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