"I'm sorry. Good night, Gram," Jessalyn said to her grandmother's departing back. She stood unmoving, half in, half out the open door. A breeze blew in off the river, and she turned her face to it. She yearned suddenly for Cornwall and the sea. She wanted to go home.
There was such a weight of unshed tears in her chest that needed to come out. She was going to start crying soon, and when she did, she was not going to be able to stop. Her tears would flood the world until she drowned in them.
"Evenin', Mr. Tiltwell, sur," Becka said. "Ye be lookin' handsome this night. Done up to the nines ee be. 'Tes enough to set a girl's heart to fluctuatin' in her breast, just to look at ee." She giggled, then winked, then followed Lady Letty inside.
Clarence touched Jessalyn's arm. "Walk with me out on the terrace?"
"Unchaperoned?" she said, forcing a smile. "That wouldn't be proper. Think of your reputation."
Clarence didn't smile with her. As usual he had not understood her teasing. Poor Clarence, everything in his world was all so ponderously serious.
"Jessalyn, I have known you your entire life," he said. "When have I ever behaved toward you in any manner other than what is considered proper?"
She swallowed a sigh. "Never," she said. Almost never. He had kissed her twice. Once on the day she had accepted his proposal of marriage, and once before the Midsummer's Eve bonfire the summer she was sixteen. The summer she had been taught all about love, but not by him.
She allowed him to lead her toward the iron railing that faced the river. Beneath the terrace were great arched storage vaults, empty now except for the river scavengers who lived like moles within them. On calm nights she could hear the crackling of their fires and occasional snatches of drunken laughter. Tonight the river was flat and tinseled with silver ribbons from lanterns on the boats and bridges.
Clarence cleared his throat. "Jessalyn, I wonder if you have given any more thought to the idea of moving up the date of our wedding?"
"Oh, Clarence..." She spun around to face him. Then wished she hadn't, for she knew that even in the cloaking darkness he could see the dismay on her face.
"I had reason to believe that you were as anxious as I to begin our life together," he said stiffly.
"Oh, Clarence, I'm so sorry..." She laid a hand on his rigid arm. "You are my dearest friend, and I love you. But I have come to see that it is not in the way you want. In the way it should be between husband and wife. I—"
"Are you trying to tell me that you are experiencing second thoughts?"
She dragged in an aching breath. "I'm sorry."
"I see." He turned away from her. His gloved hands wrapped around the railing. He spoke into the night, his voice calm, assured. "Your debts here in London and at
Newmarket are mounting, although I know you've been trying to hide the direness of your circumstances from me and from your grandmother. But you cannot go on like this much longer, Jessalyn, and then what are your choices? To become a governess to a passel of screaming brats. Or the paid companion of a crotchety old dowager with smelly pug dogs and numerous disgusting ailments."
She thought of her silly self, riding around and around the rotunda at Vauxhall Gardens, turning somersaults in her bird mask with its wiggly beak. "I should run away and join the circus before it comes to that," she said, and a strange gurgle escaped out her tight throat.
He jerked around to glare at her. "Are you laughing at me?"
"No, I'm not. I'm sorry." That's all I seem able to say, she thought. I'm sorry, sorry, sorry... There was this thick, unrelenting ache in her chest. She tried to expel it by pushing out a sigh. But it remained, making it hard for her to breathe.
"My circumstances are not as dire as you make them out to be," she said. "We shall get by until spring, when we will go to End Cottage so that Gram can get a dose of the sea air. Then, if Blue Moon is recovered, we shall come back up to Epsom and race him in the Derby. The winning purse is a thousand pounds."
He barked a harsh laugh. "If you win it! Ah, God, Jessalyn..." His head fell back. He squeezed the bridge of his nose with his fingers, then let his hand fall helplessly to his side. "I love you. I've loved you for years. All that I've done—the seat in Parliament, the house in Berkeley Square, the fortune I am building, a possible knighthood— it was all done to make myself worthy of you." He clasped her upper arms, startling her with the strength of his grip and the fierceness in his voice. "Jessalyn, I love you."
I love you.
She squeezed her eyes shut. He was her friend and she was hurting him and she couldn't bear this. "P-perhaps I just need a little more time," she said, and knew she was being a coward. But she just couldn't bear any more pain right now.
His grip tightened, hurting her. "How much? How much time does it take to decide if you want to become a man's wife?"
She opened her eyes. His face showed everything: bewilderment and despair, and the last desperate glimmerings of hope. She had known this man since she was six years old. They were friends. They were...
"Just a little more time, Clarence. Please. Give me until spring, like we planned."
McCady... Lord Caerhays would be married to his heiress by then. She would have accepted it by then. She would be used to it—oh, God, how was she ever going to get used to it?
Clarence released her, straightening his cravat and the lapels of his coat, as if he had to put himself back into order again after that uncharacteristic outburst. "I know that you will give all that I have said fair consideration, Jessalyn," he said. "You're only experiencing those nuptial eve fears that all young brides go through. They'll soon pass. You'll see if I'm not right." She heard the relief in his voice and felt ashamed.
He cupped her cheek, tilting her head back. "Just think of the life I can offer you and your grandmother. But most important, think about how much I love you."
She looked up into Clarence Tiltwell's earnest face. She could feel the cracks in her heart widening. The pain was coming now, and it was unbearable.
Great pots of golden chrysanthemums decorated the choir and high altar of St. Margaret's, Westminster. The sun shone through the stained glass window of Christ Crucified, casting red and blue and yellow patterns on the stone floor. It was, the guests all agreed, a beautiful day for a wedding.
The bride stood before the chancel rail, looking radiantly beautiful in a dress of white and silver lace and a veil weighted with hundreds of seed pearls that flowed over her arms to sweep the floor. The groom looked dashingly handsome in a blue town coat with long tails and straw-colored trousers. His hair hanging long beneath his silk top hat and the gold ring flashing in his ear gave him a piratical air that stirred the heart in more than one feminine breast.
There was to be a breakfast after the ceremony, and most of London that counted had received the engraved gilt-edged invitations. But only the Hamiltons' most intimate friends were at the church for the ceremony. They stood now within boxed pews, and the men envied the groom the dowry he was getting. The women envied the bride her groom. Fifty intimate friends invited to witness the indissoluble bond of matrimony.
And one who was not invited.
She stood to the side, half hidden behind a pillar and a pair of tall iron candlesticks. Up until this moment she had not really believed the wedding would take place. It was as if someone had told her she was about to die.
Although she had come, now she could not bear to watch it. She looked up at the twisted face of the stained glass Christ. Her eyes squeezed shut. Oh, God, I do want to die. Please, God, let me die.
The pastor's voice echoed in the stony, hollow emptiness. "By the laws of God and the British Commonwealth, I pronounce you man and wife."
McCady Trelawny, twelfth earl of Caerhays, did not look at his countess. He turned, his eyes searching, as if he sensed her presence. Across the gray shadowed church their gazes met. Her heart lurched as she saw his face change, saw it become raw and naked with despair...
As if his soul had been stolen.
She walked away from him, down the long nave, the soles of her kid slippers making no sound on the stone floor. She began to run.
She was halfway down the steps when the bells began to toll.
CHAPTER 18
The first primroses of spring were blooming the week she came home to Cornwall.
Jessalyn walked to church that Sunday morning down a lane lined with high hedges exploding with the yellow blossoms. Seeing no one about, she picked up her skirts and climbed on top of the stone wall. She spread her arms wide and tilted her face to the sun, filling her lungs with a deep breath. The air had an applelike smell, crisp and green. Laughing aloud, she spun around and took off running along the top of the hedge the way she used to do as a child, and the wind whipped her hair and numbed her cheeks and carried her laughter out to sea.
The first primroses of the year. It meant that winter would be over soon. It meant a new beginning. She would pick one later, she thought, to show Gram. There hadn't been any primroses in London.
The wind was blowing a gale by the time she arrived at the church, the sea running thick and heavy, presaging another storm. But for the moment the sun shone and the primroses bloomed, and Jessalyn rejoiced in being alive.
The church that served the tinners and fishermen in this corner of Cornwall was called St. Genny's after St. Genesius, an early Celtic saint who had been beheaded for his faith. It was said he haunted the moors with his head tucked like a bread loaf beneath his arm. Years ago Jessalyn and Clarence had once spent a summer night lurking among the gravestones with a fishing net, hoping to catch him. But instead all they'd caught had been a lecture from Reverend Troutbeck, and poor Clarence had gotten another thrashing.
Made of gray stone splotched with moss, the tiny church had a crenellated square tower that looked as if it would be more at home on a fortress. Inside, the squat nave smelled of mildew and of the bats that lived in the belfry. On rainy days one had to take care where one sat, for in spite of numerous grinning contests over the years, the roof still leaked.
Jessalyn brought a great gust of wind into the church with her that rattled the pages in the psalters and nearly snatched the wig from Dr. Humphrey's head. She slipped into a worm-eaten pew just as the Reverend Mrs. Trout-beck's wavering soprano launched into the final notes of "O come, let us sing to the Lord."
The Reverend Troutbeck, wearing a surplice stained with the muggety pie he'd eaten for breakfast, mounted the pulpit. He sucked in a deep breath, his corset creaking like an old pair of bellows, opened his mouth, and held it open as the door squealed and another great gust of wind filled the church.
Everyone turned in unison to stare, and Jessalyn's heart lurched up into her throat. The earl of Caerhays stood within the doorway. The morning sun shone full on his reckless face with its flaring cheekbones and shadowed eyes. In his snuff-colored riding coat and buckskins, he looked as if he'd decided only at the last minute to attend the service. His young wife stood beside him, bundled head to toe in a blue Angola hussar cloak and blushing prettily.
His gaze collided with Jessalyn's. She sat stiff-backed, her chin lifted high, refusing to look away, while the old familiar ache squeezed at her heart. Love was not a matter of will; she couldn't make what she felt for him lessen or go away. She could hate him, and she did, for hurting her, for leaving her, again and again. But she would go on loving him with each breath she took until she died. And even then it would not end. For if there was such a thing as a soul, then hers would go on loving him throughout eternity.
He stared back at her, and his face might have been carved of the same rock as the Cornish cliffs.
Just then Emily noticed her. The girl's face lightened with a surprised smile, and that was Jessalyn's undoing. She jerked around, dropping her psalter. As she bent over, fumbling for the book beneath the pew, she saw his glossy top boots and Emily's kid slippers walk together down the aisle. Tears filled her eyes. She stayed hunched over for a moment, blinking and swallowing hard, until she could raise her head and look dry-eyed at the Reverend Troutbeck in his pulpit.
Not an inspiring preacher in the best of times, the village parson was so disconcerted to have such an exalted personage as an earl in his church that he grew nearly incoherent. As he rambled through the lesson, Jessalyn sat in breathless tension, watching the sand trickle through the hourglass grain by grain. She didn't look at Lord Caerhays again, but he might as well have been sitting beside her, his shoulder and thigh pressing against hers, his breath stirring her hair, so aware was she of his presence.
The wind gusted against the church, rattling the loose shingles, as the reverend launched into a final prayer. "It seems, O Lord," he intoned, "that you are about to visit us with another storm. We pray thee that no wrecks should happen...." His voice dwindled to a squeak as he began to perceive the chasms opening beneath his feet. It wasn't too many generations ago that the notorious Trelawnys, always strapped for money, had been known to lure ships deliberately to their deaths on stormy nights by lighting false signals on the cliffs above Crookneck Cove.
Everyone—those who hadn't already been gawking at him throughout the service—turned to look at the earl. He had kept his eyes cast downward on the gloved hands folded across the ebony handle of his walking stick. Now he lifted his head and pinned the unfortunate curate with his fierce dark gaze, and his cynical drawl filled the tiny church. "We pray, of course, that no wrecks should happen," he said, "but if by chance a wreck should be ordained to happen, then we pray that God will guide it to happen at Crookneck Cove. Is that not so, Reverend?"
A silence followed this pronouncement, a silence so still Jessalyn could hear the bats rustling overhead. Then someone emitted a smothered giggle, and a second later the entire congregation of tinners and fishermen was laughing. The Reverend Troutbeck flushed and hemmed and launched into another prayer wherein he dropped a broad hint about the need for a new roof.
Jessalyn bolted from the pew before the last notes of the closing hymn had faded into echoes. The sun, pale in a paler sky, dazzled her eyes, and she kept having to blink away tears as she hurried from the church down the stony path. The wind shrieked like a demented witch. It was thick with the coming storm, tasting of sea salt and sand and chilling rain. She had just reached the lych-gate when she heard her name.
"Jessalyn? Miss Letty?"
Jessalyn turned. Emily Hamilton—Emily Trelawny— emerged from the shelter of the portico. The wind whipped off the fur-lined hood of her cloak, and her fair hair glittered like a crown. She came alone. The earl had stayed behind to speak to the reverend.
Jessalyn stood beneath the lych-gate, waiting. She would not be a coward. But it had become so hard for her to breathe through the heaviness in her chest, and the sun and wind kept making her eyes water.
"Lady Caerhays," she said as Emily stopped before her.
Emily's smile faltered a bit. "Oh, no, you mustn't do that—you mustn't call me Lady Caerhays. I had thought... well, that we were friends."
Somehow Jessalyn was able to dredge up an answering smile. "Hullo then, Emily."
"We thought you still in London, my lord and I." Emily looked behind her, as if seeking her husband's confirmation. Jessalyn couldn't stop herself from looking as well. He had his back to them; she couldn't even see his face. It didn't matter. He would forever have the ability to make her blood run hot and thick simply at the mere thought of him. More than ever she would have to take care not to let it show. Dear life, she mustn't ever again let it show.
"The country air must agree with you," Emily was saying. "For you are looking splendid. My lord said as much."
"Did he?" This was so unlike the man she knew that Jessalyn could not believe it.
Emily's soft laugh was snatched away by the wind. "Well, I said as much. But he agreed with me. How long have you been in Cornwall? Ourselves we've been at the hall nearly three months now, since after Christmas." She sighed and looked around her, her rosebud mouth curling into a smile. "It is so
beautiful here, and yet so wild.... When Caerhays said he wished to take up residence at his principal seat, well, I confess I didn't want to come. But now I don't think I shall ever want to leave."
Jessalyn drew in a deep breath, trying to loosen her throat. She had known, for Clarence had told her, that McCady had come to Cornwall with his new wife. He had been borrowing heavily again, to make the hall livable and to build at the foundry in Penzance a new locomotive for competing in the upcoming trials. He was even reopening an old played-out mine, Clarence had added, shaking his head in dismay. "He's trying to save his railway company by starting up a mining venture of all things. Only a Trelawny would dare such a risk."
Jessalyn looked now at the woman who had married the man she loved. A serenity softened Emily's face, a quiescence that was at once both steely and gentle and that had drawn Jessalyn to the other woman since first they met. She shouldn't hate Emily or blame her for her own pain. But it was so hard, so hard.
"I am glad you have found happiness here," Jessalyn said.
"Happiness? Yes, I suppose I have...." But Emily's gaze sought out her husband, and an odd sort of anguish darkened her eyes.
A gust slammed against them. Emily swayed, nearly falling, and Jessalyn grabbed her arm. The wind caught the edge of the girl's blue cloak, whipping it open, and revealing a belly swollen with child.
"We are expecting a baby in four months' time," Emily said, color rising in her cheeks.
We... Pain wrenched at Jessalyn's chest, so sharp she thought it must have cracked in two. For a moment she was back in the Hamilton ballroom, hearing Clarence's censorious voice above the shattering of her heart. He only got enough upon the betrothal to pay off his brother's gaming vowels. The rest of the settlement won't be his until after the heir is born.
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