Salt Bride

by Lucinda Brant

  Jane tried her best to bring the dish up to her mouth but the curl of steam that rose from the milky liquid and assailed her nose made her pull back, return the dish to its saucer and close her eyes. It was too much for Arthur Ellis, and for Sir Antony, who both stepped forward as one and almost collided, the secretary stepping back to allow Sir Antony to play knight-errant.

  Such was his annoyance with his sister’s pigheadedness that Sir Antony inadvertently snatched the tea dish and saucer from Jane’s hand. In so doing, the tea dish toppled and its hot milky contents splashed across the front of his exquisite silver-threaded velvet waistcoat before he had a hand to the dish to set it to rights on the saucer. What was not soaked up by the plush velvet dripped onto his highly polished shoes with their enormous silver buckles and into his left shoe, soaking his stockinged foot.

  Diana St. John was on her feet in furious disbelief. She stared at the tea-soaked front of her brother’s ruined waistcoat and then down at his shoes. “You idiot! You fool,” she seethed. “I could kill you! All that effort. It was the perfect opportunity! You have no idea, no idea at all, what you’ve just done!”

  “But I do,” the Earl announced from the doorway and strolled further into his wife’s pretty sitting room crowded with his relatives, and immediately dominated the space.

  “Well, Arthur, what part of escort Lady St. John to my bookroom at once did you not understand? It doesn’t matter now,” Salt said dismissively to his secretary’s red-faced and incomprehensible garbled apology. “Take a breath and sit down before you lose consciousness.” He placed two folded parchments, one with a freshly broken seal, upon the mantle shelf between several propped up cards of invitation then turned to stare Sir Antony up and down. “Dear me, Tony. A waistcoat ruined. But for the greater good, I assure you.” Over his shoulder he sensed Diana St. John had taken a step toward him. “Sit down,” he snarled. “At once.” Then turned a bright smile on his godchildren. “Merry. Ron. Be so good as to follow me.”

  Jane watched her husband move away from the fireplace to stand by the narrow door hidden in the patterned Chinoiserie wallpaper of peonies that provided access to the servant passageway and stairs that lead to the nursery above. She found it difficult to believe that he had ever suffered a collapse in his life, and just hours ago on the tennis court. If not for the clench to his square jaw, he appeared at ease, and as strong and as healthy as ever. His brown eyes were alert and there was a healthy color in his clean-shaven cheeks, which made her breathe a sigh of relief. But that clench bothered her. It was a sign she had come to read very well indeed. He might appear to the world to be untroubled, but in truth he was doing his best to keep his emotions well and truly under control. She did not envy him the task that lay ahead. And she was just as anxious for him, and the children.

  That Tom had followed Salt into the sitting room, gave her some comfort. Yet Tom looked as worried as the Earl appeared unruffled. Her stepbrother was not good at hiding his feelings. As soon he saw Jane he ignored the room full of people and went straight over to bow over her hand. It was only when he was seated beside her in the window seat that he nodded to the assembled company before looking to the Earl for direction.

  Salt told Ron and Merry to bring with them the Countess’s furry four-legged fiend and waited while they scooped up Viscount Fourpaws, who did not want to be unsettled from the warmth to be had curled up on Lady Caroline’s lap. When Diana St. John half rose out of the wingchair in expectation of following her children across the room, one word from the Earl reluctantly sat her down again. Sir Antony, Lady Caroline and Arthur Ellis, who was red faced and still on his feet, remained silent. A quiet word from Jane and the secretary slowly sank back down onto the corner of the sofa, and like everyone else in the room, his gaze remained fixed on the Earl.

  Salt went down on his haunches before his godchildren.

  “I need you both to do me a great favor,” he said very quietly so only the twins could hear him. He looked from Ron to Merry and back to the pale-faced boy with his sunken wary eyes. “I know you were promised afternoon tea with her ladyship and me. But a matter of great importance has arisen that requires my immediate attention. So I need you to do me this favor: to spend a few hours in the nursery. I know that is not what you wanted and your disappointment is understandable, but it will help me enormously. I hate to break my promise at any time but most particularly to you both. I don’t do so lightly. Can you understand that?”

  Merry was the first to nod and say with a smile, “If it is important to you, Uncle Salt, then we understand. Don’t we, Ron?”

  Salt gently cupped her cheek. “Thank you, Merry. Ron?”

  Ron nodded, though his disappointment was evident. “Of course.”

  “Good man. I’ve sent for your clothes and favorite things from Audley Street because I have decided you will be staying here. So you will be able to take supper tonight in the Yellow Saloon and we may even have time for a round of charades before bedtime. Is that fair compensation for spending a few hours cooped up in the nursery, do you think?

  “Very fair! Are we truly to stay with you here?” Merry asked breathlessly and when the Earl nodded couldn’t suppress her excitement by jumping up and down on the spot. But she had a sudden awful thought. “Clary and Taylor aren’t coming here too?”

  Salt smiled at Merry’s look of wide-eyed dread. The dour governess and the cold-fish tutor were repellant beings that had no place caring for children; his stables of horses received better care.

  “No. You need never see those two again.”

  “No Clary and Taylor, Ron! Did you hear that?”

  Ron wasn’t so demonstrative and when he glanced fearfully across at his mother the Earl gently squeezed his thin arm, an encouraging smile at Merry, who was beaming with happiness and holding tightly to the kitten.

  “I gave your father my word that I would take good care of you, Ron, and I promise you that I mean to take better care of you from this day forward. You and Merry both.”

  “But you do take very good care of us, Uncle Salt,” Merry assured him and gently nudged her brother. “Doesn’t he, Ron?”

  “Yes. Always! I don’t need you to tell him for me,” Ron complained, acknowledging his sister’s prompting by nudging her in return. He frowned at the Earl, another quick, furtive glance at his mother, and said hesitantly, “You do mean it, don’t you, Uncle Salt, about staying here with you?” His voice dropped to a whisper. “You won’t—You won’t send me—send us—back? Last night you promised I’d never have to take Mamma’s medicine ever again. You did mean it? I don’t want to be ill. I don’t like being ill. I won’t have to take it again, will I?”

  Salt held the boy’s haunted gaze, so reminiscent of his father St. John that he felt a tightening in his throat and chest. He wanted to hug the boy and reassure him that he would never allow harm to come to him again, yet he refrained from doing so because he knew Ron would be embarrassed by such demonstrative behavior in public. Instead, he held out his hand.

  “Last night we shook hands on it, Ron,” he said quietly. “But I will gladly shake hands with you again if it will convince you that I mean it.”

  Again, Ron looked warily over at his mother before turning his gaze on the Countess. She was smiling at him. He liked her smile. It was sweet and understanding and so full of comfort. He would never tell his sister this, but secretly the Countess was just as he imagined a fairy to be if fairies really did live at the bottom of gardens. Unconsciously, his thin shoulders sagged with relief and he let out a small sigh. Finally, he thrust out his hand to the Earl and when it was taken allowed himself to be drawn into his godfather’s embrace. Overcome, he buried his face in the soft velvet of the Earl’s frockcoat. Merry put a comforting hand to her brother’s shaking back, saying in a confidential whisper to her uncle,

  “He’s tired or he wouldn’t be like this.”

  “You are quite right, Merry,” Salt agreed when he had mastered his emotions, the boy stil
l clinging tightly to him. He lightly brushed her cheek with one finger. “Tomorrow he will be more himself. We all will.”

  Sensing a presence loomed over them, he swiveled on a flat heel with Ron still in his arms and found petticoats of gold watered silk brushing up against his leg. It was Diana. Before Salt could disentangle himself and stand up, she lunged for Merry, frightening Viscount Fourpaws, who hissed and swiped his paw and scratched the back of her hand. She shrieked and let out an expletive and tried to pull the kitten by the scruff of the neck up out of her daughter’s arms, but Merry would not let go. She held on tightly to Viscount Fourpaws, who meowed his protests at such rough treatment, and pulled away from her mother, the frightened kitten trying to scramble out of her arms to safety.

  “Give me that disgusting little ferret, Magna!” Diana St. John hissed, making another lunge for the kitten. “It should’ve been drowned at birth! It will be drowned.”

  “No! No, Mamma! You can’t!” Merry implored, big brown eyes staring up at her mother. Her bottom lip quivered and tears pricked her eyelids. “You frightened him. You can’t drown him! Uncle Salt won’t let you! He belongs to Aunt Jane. He’s just a baby cat!”

  “Babies are offensive, vile creations!” Diana St. John spat out before she could stop herself. “No one deserves to have his babies. She doesn’t deserve to have his babies. She mustn’t. She won’t. She isn’t worthy. I won’t allow it! Mamma will be miserable. You don’t want Mamma to be miserable, do you, Magna? Now give me that odious creature!”

  Salt caught her wrist before she could grab again for the kitten and her daughter. He had sprung to his feet, as had everyone in the room, and quickly put Ron behind him. Merry darted to join her brother, the kitten meowing in protest as he was hugged tightly to her silk bodice. Both children huddled against the Earl’s broad back, little fingers grabbing on tightly to the silver trimmed short skirts of his frockcoat, their faces hidden in the soft cloth, eyes tightly shut, not daring to peer at their seething mother.

  Diana St. John swirled about, wild-eyed and panting, to stare up at the Earl who was ashen faced and thin-lipped, before looking about her uncomprehendingly at the still silent faces gathered around the tea trolley. When she wondered aloud why the Earl had her by the wrist, it was evident she was oblivious to the fact her rage had driven her to reveal her innermost thoughts, thoughts that appalled everyone in the room. Nor could she comprehend their horror or the effect her words had had on the Earl and Countess.

  “Let that be your last defiant act, Madam. Had you come to my bookroom as requested your brother would have been spared the humiliation of having his sister’s contemptible and reprehensible behavior aired in public. Apologies, Antony, but now I don’t care. Sit,” he ordered and let go of her wrist with a little push and an opening of his hand, as if he did not want the touch of her. “Caroline, be so good as to come here. The rest of you, sit down. You too, my lady,” he added gently when Jane took a step towards him.

  He dared to allow his gaze to focus on his wife for the first time since coming into her sitting room and he wished he had had the will power to refrain from doing so. Jane had been half way across the room, brow furrowed in concern for the twins, who still clung to either side of his short skirts, and it was only when he addressed her that she brought herself up short and her blue-eyed gaze flickered up to his brown eyes. A mix of emotions crossed her beautiful face and it took all his self-control to turn away and pray that she did as she was told because his overwhelming desire was to scoop her up in his arms and twirl her round and round and cover her face with kisses for making him the happiest man alive. Instead, he opened the servant door and went into the narrow passage where he gently disentangled Ron and Merry from his frockcoat and then spoke to someone out of view. Soothing words and hugs of reassurance and he let the twins go and returned to the sitting room to stand in the open doorway. He beckoned Lady Caroline to him and kissed her hand.

  “I want you to go up to the nursery and keep an eye on them. They shouldn’t be left with servants as their only company at this time. I’ll explain later. I can’t do that now. You will have to trust me, Caro. Please. Do this for me.”

  Lady Caroline pouted and opened her mouth to protest about being treated as a child and sent away when anything of interest occurred but something in the Earl’s brown eyes, in the set of his mouth and the tiredness in his face forestalled her. She nodded, obedient and remarkably composed for her seventeen and a half years of age. “Yes, of course. Will you—will you be all right? Will everything be all right?”

  He kissed her forehead and smiled down at her. “Yes. Before the day is out everything will be set to rights. That I promise you.”

  Lady Caroline nodded, curtseyed to the room, and was gone.

  Salt closed the door on her back and joined the rest of the silent group, all eyes upon him in mute expectation.

  Recovered from her extraordinary outburst, Diana St. John had resumed her place in front of the tea trolley and was languidly fanning herself and looking for the world as if nothing was amiss. To everyone’s amazement, she even went so far as to order Arthur Ellis to fetch the Countess’s dolt of a maid to go in search of the butler. The teapot needed replenishing and she couldn’t understand why Jenkins wasn’t in attendance on them for afternoon tea. Completely oblivious to the heavy air of tension in the light-filled sitting room, she began rearranging the tea dishes in anticipation of pouring out more tea when it arrived.

  Still in shock, no one bothered to reply, not even Jane. She was preoccupied with watching her husband, whose inscrutable gaze remained fixed on Diana St. John. It was only when Tom squeezed her fingers that Jane reluctantly tore her gaze from the Earl. When Tom winked conspiratorially and smiled warmly she wondered why and what he knew, though his seeming buoyancy helped ease her mind, but it did not dissipate the crescendo of anticipation that something of significance was about to occur here in her sitting room.

  The silence was broken by Sir Antony taking snuff.

  It was the spur Arthur Ellis needed to come to life and he shot to his feet, unable to take another moment of the suspense and silent forced restraint. Diana St. John thought he had done so at her command to fetch the Countess’s maid and looked up at the Earl expectantly.

  “Shall you take a dish of tea when it comes, Salt?” she asked pleasantly. “Or would you prefer claret? You look tired unto death. Hardly surprising, is it, when we spent another all night vigil at Ron’s bedside. Did you manage to get a few hours sleep? Ellis, when you find that insipid creature have her get Jenkins to fetch up a bottle of claret for his lordship.”

  The secretary, instead of doing her bidding, looked to his employer and then at the Countess, seeking direction, completely at a loss to know what he should do, or what he should say.

  The Earl came to his rescue.

  He was staring at Diana St. John but thinking about the day he had met Jane Despard. He thought about the hollowness of his existence these past four years without her. With his hopes of marrying her so cruelly dashed and caught up in the political machinations of Westminster, the social events of Polite Society and the running of his estates, he had convinced himself that domesticity was unimportant to him, all because of his malaise of the heart. Yet, since marrying Jane he had come to regard his domestic arrangements as vital to his health and happiness. Tom’s astonishing revelations had provided him with proof of his ability to father a child with Jane, but such welcome news had come at a heartbreaking cost; the loss of a much wanted child, maliciously destroyed, and that brought him back to Diana St. John and her interference in his life. The more he had ruminated the more he realized St. John’s wife had meddled in his life more years then he cared to contemplate. That she had interfered where it mattered most to him, with Jane and her happiness and wellbeing, made him livid.

  “I had hoped to make this as painless as possible, and without an audience,” he said with great forbearance, standing by the fireplace. “Never mind. Pe
rhaps this way is for the best. If one is to humbly atone then it is appropriate that those who matter most should bear witness. But I’m afraid, Arthur, that you must leave us. It is not that I do not trust you. I do, implicitly. It is for the sake of her ladyship and my need to have you run a number of important errands without delay that you cannot remain. I have left instructions on my desk for what I need from you. There are also letters that require immediate delivery: one to Rockingham, one to Bute. A third is addressed to His Majesty. Deliver them yourself and do so at once. There are copies of my correspondence, which you are welcome to read and digest. If you then decide to reconsider your present employment, and what ambitious man would not, I will understand and recommend you with a glowing reference.”

  Arthur Ellis gave a start, looked swiftly at his friend Tom, who smiled at him, before composing himself and bowing to his lordship. “Yes, of course, my lord. I will see to matters at once,” he replied obediently and deposited his dish and saucer on the silver tray. He hesitated and crossed to Jane to make her a deep bow. “I am, my lady, your humble and most obedient servant, always.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Ellis. Your loyalty means a great deal to me and,” Jane added with a smile at the Earl, “to my husband.”

  What her husband said next truly surprised her.

  “Oh, and Arthur,” added the Earl, “send her ladyship’s maid to the nursery. Mr. Willis will join her there shortly. I presume Miss Anne Springer is lurking in some nether room?”

  “Listening at the keyhole if the truth be told,” Diana St. John grumbled.

  As the secretary departed, he left the door ajar, allowing Jane a glimpse into the passageway. To her astonishment and consternation there lingered just outside her sitting room what appeared to be a battalion of liveried footmen kicking their heels in wait, and with them was Mr. Jenkins and Rufus Willis. The butler closing over the door and Lady St. John’s exuberance brought her gaze back into the room, where the woman was holding court.