From Waif to Gentleman's Wife

by Julia Justiss

  ‘What about Davie? He’s been counting on you!’

  That point struck home, for she looked away. ‘He’ll forget me,’ she said, fidgeting with her skirts. ‘Sir Edward can do so much more for him than I ever could.’

  ‘He’s far more attached to you than he is to me. You needn’t leave while a cottage is prepared. Stay in town—at the Hart and Hare! Mr Kirkbride would be happy to offer accommodation, which the estate would fund. As far as anyone at Blenhem knows, we could say it had been the plan all along to create quarters closer to the school for the mistress.’

  ‘Stay in town, once everyone learns of our…relationship?’ she cried. Cutting off his attempted denial of the possibility, she shot back, ‘Of course the word will spread! Perhaps not initiated by Mrs Winston or Myles, but can you expect the day maid or the laundry maid to keep such delicious gossip to themselves? If I leave immediately, perhaps the news will not seem worth the repeating, especially if you give out that Barksdale’s revelations propelled me to London immediately to enquire after my brother.’

  Though in truth, he couldn’t dispute any of her claims, every instinct urged him to find some way to hold her. ‘It’s never wise to make a decision when one is distraught,’ he threw out in desperation. ‘Leave if you feel you must, but please, Joanna, wait at least a few days. I can’t bear to think of us parting with you still so angry at me.’

  She looked back at him, her eyes glassy with the tears dripping down her cheeks. ‘Ned, if I give in to your persuasion and stay, even for a few days, I will become known as your mistress. I will end up despising myself—and you. Please, let me go.’

  If she was near the breaking point, her emotions scraped raw and bleeding, so was he. Even now, he had to restrain the strong compulsion to drive her beyond that point and force her to stay.

  Ned had never before met a challenge he hadn’t been able to master, circumstances that he could not, with determination and hard work and ingenuity and patience, bend to his will.

  But she was right. He couldn’t compel her to love him. The Joanna who had escaped Lord Masters, who’d insisted on going to the mill fire to treat the injured, who’d resisted Barksdale and nearly succeeding in escaping him, if pushed to decide right now for or against him, might well make a choice he wouldn’t like.

  Besides, if after she had time to reflect upon all she’d learned, she chose to believe that they had not truly created between them something beautiful, precious, and worth the effort to salvage, nothing he could do or say mattered.

  Finally, he forced to his lips the hardest words he’d ever spoken. ‘Go, then, if you must.’

  With a sigh, she closed her eyes. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

  He might have to let her go, but he didn’t want to be left without any allies whatsoever who might vouch for his character. Thinking rapidly, he said, ‘You spoke of going to London. Let me send you to Lord Englemere—’

  ‘Never!’ she cried, her eyes flying open as she cut off his plea. ‘The man who set this whole catastrophe in motion? Englemere is the last person in England I’d wish to contact! I shall go to Greville’s lawyer, who should know, if anyone does, how to reach him and the rest of my family.’

  ‘Lord Englemere is your family,’ Ned pointed out. ‘A cousin by blood—who happens to reside at present right in London.’

  She stiffened. ‘I would stay with those of my own rank.’

  ‘You would be. You’re a gentleman’s daughter; he a gentleman’s son. Besides, you mentioned wishing to seek out your brother. Contact his lawyer, by all means, but if his solicitor is not aware of his location, Englemere can offer additional resources to help you search for him, if you wish to locate him as quickly as possible.’

  Finally he’d hit upon something that distracted her. Straightening, she dashed the tears from her eyes and actually looked at him, worry replacing the distress on her face.

  ‘You cannot imagine how alarmed I am about him! I knew I could not have been that deceived in Greville’s character. Barksdale told me my brother discovered his double-dealing, and when Greville threatened to discharge him, Barksdale set up Martin to get Greville turned off first. After which, Barksdale boasted to me, he “took care” of Greville. I cannot imagine what he did, but given the vileness of Barksdale’s character, I fear that he might have done Greville some grave harm.’

  So Anders had finally seen the culpability of his manager, Ned thought, momentarily diverted. Perhaps the man was worth saving. ‘Barksdale threatened your brother? Lord Englemere will want to know that. Your brother is his relation, too. If Anders was wrongfully discharged, Englemere will want to make restitution; if Barksdale committed some offence against your brother, he will certainly want to find him and have him give evidence against the villain.

  ‘Besides,’ Ned continued, mining this promising vein, ‘I owe you at least your first quarter’s pay, but as I mentioned after the fire, I have little cash remaining here.’ He made a wry grimace. ‘I was not exaggerating about needing to approach Englemere for a loan to rebuild the mill. If you agree to meet him, I can have him pay you what you are owed. Let me do at least that. Once you’ve spoken to him about your brother and received the wages due, you may, of course, proceed as you wish.’

  Ned knew if he could just get her to call at Stanhope House, his friend’s clever wife Sarah would find a way to persuade her to stay. He held his breath as she weighed the argument.

  ‘Very well,’ she conceded after a moment. ‘I will call on Lord Englemere. And I will consider your explanations—I can promise no more. Now, I believe we’ve said everything that is needful.’

  She drew herself up and made him a formal curtsy. ‘Good evening, Sir Edward. I must reluctantly accept passage money to London, but please do me one final favour and do not attempt to see me again before I leave.’

  He would have to let her go without even a final embrace? ‘Can we not at least shake hands and part as friends?’ he asked. Though a shake of the hand was far less than what he wanted, he would settle for that small touch, one crumb to give him hope that all his dreams had not been demolished this day.

  Refusing to meet his imploring gaze, she shook her head vigorously. ‘It would not be…w-wise,’ she replied, her voice breaking as she stumbled towards the door.

  In the face of her refusal, Ned found it hard to summon a reply, what with the crashing and clanging and shrieking within him as want collided with need, desire and honour, dreams shattered like poorly blown glass and his hopes fell to bits as the crumbling foundation of the school had dissolved beneath his boot. Ephemeral as a sandcastle on a beach disappearing beneath a wave, the joy of the last few weeks vanished in an instant.

  ‘A-as you wish, then,’ he said at last. ‘Please believe I never meant to hurt you, Joanna.’ It took him one more try before he could force a farewell through his lips. ‘God speed to you, my love.’

  Nodding, avoiding his gaze, she fled the room.

  Overwhelmed by the immensity of the disaster, Ned sank into a chair and put his head in his hands.

  Standing by the window the next morning, Ned watched as a groom drove Joanna away in the gig. Though he had much to do, wondering why he was torturing himself with the sight, nonetheless he’d been compelled to delay leaving for work on the farms so he might catch one last glimpse of her.He’d not slept all night, torn between trying to physically restrain her from leaving, pounding on her door to plead with her again, and allowing her to go unopposed as she’d wished. Eventually he’d settled on the latter.

  But a future without her stretched ahead like a desert. Faced with the catastrophe of losing her for good, even desire had withered away. Just as well it had. If this ended in the total break that was entirely possible, quite likely he would never feel the sweetness of her touch again.

  But, he rallied his exhausted spirits, he refused to give up yet. Since she’d offered no choice short of permanent alienation if he opposed her, he would give her time to calm down and
reflect on his words. In the interim, as promised, he would refurbish a cottage for the schoolmistress’s use, should she return to fulfil her obligations to the students.

  If she did not…He hoped Sarah’s ingenuity and Joanna’s quest to discover her brother’s whereabouts would keep her in London, but even if she set off to India to join her family—or if this incident had hardened the republican leanings she’d often expressed and sent her off to a new life in the Americas—he would track her down.

  Ned believed with all his heart in the rareness and irreplaceable worth of the love they’d shared. He would never turn his back on that without seeing Joanna one more time. Never give up unless, when they met again, she convinced him that for her, what they’d created between them was over, something she did not value enough to wish to try to revive.

  Meanwhile, during his sleepless night, he had composed and already dispatched by private courier several missives to London which, since Joanna had refused the extra money he’d left for her to travel by private vehicle, were guaranteed to arrive before she finished her journey by stage coach.

  In one, he’d poured out the whole sorry situation to Sarah, begging her aid in keeping Joanna from leaving London and asking that she let Ned know when the time might be right to approach Joanna again.

  A second note addressed to Nicky detailed Barksdale’s threat against Greville and asked his friend to involve Bow Street and ask his contacts in the Home Office to investigate, if Joanna discovered that her brother had indeed gone missing. He also begged for Nicky’s help on behalf of the men Barksdale had informed against, if it became necessary.

  As the carriage carrying Joanna away from him turned out of sight around the corner, Ned left his post beside the window. Taking a deep breath, he strode towards the door.

  He would go on, as he must. And between his tenacity and Sarah’s cleverness, he refused to believe all was lost for good.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  A few days later, after a much swifter journey than the one that had taken her from Selbourne Abbey to Hazelwick, the stage coach deposited Joanna at the posting inn in London.

  She’d thought upon leaving the Masters’ estate that nothing could be worse than being forced from her position, disgraced and penniless. On this trip, she’d had coin enough to purchase meals and an inside seat on the coach for the whole transit, a loquacious lawyer and his giggling wife the only intrusions upon her comfort.But though she had sufficient funds for the journey and her sojourn in the city, even the expectation of being able to finally locate her brother had not kept Joanna’s spirits throughout from being lower than the mud beneath the carriage wheels.

  It seemed turning your back on the man you’d just begun to believe would be your lover and companion for the rest of your days had a way of crushing all anticipation, enthusiasm and joy from your life as effectively as the coach smashed a package fallen into its path.

  It was with feelings still as flattened as that packet that, soon after her arrival in the city, she engaged a jarvey to transport her from the posting inn across London to the Englemere residence on Curzon Street.

  After clambering down from the vehicle a half-hour later, while the driver extracted her single trunk from the boot, Joanna stopped short, her gaze tracking upwards. The impressive classical façade of the town house surprised a jolt of emotion even from her deadened spirits.The majestic dwelling before her exemplified the power and wealth her brother had always coveted when he talked of their cousin’s good fortune in being born heir to a marquisate. And the owner of this vast demesne was the man Ned—Sir Edward—had called one of his closest friends.

  Suddenly feeling almost as ill as she’d been that first moment in the Hazelwick courtroom after Barksdale had detonated his cannonball about Ned’s true identity, for an instant Joanna thought of recalling the hackney.

  But she’d promised she would at least call upon her exalted cousin before visiting the office of Greville’s lawyer. Stiffening her spine, she walked up the steps.

  Mostly likely, a marquess would not even receive someone as insignificant as a widowed cousin several times removed, she thought as she plied the door knocker. If she were admitted at all, probably some secretary or man of business would meet her to exchange the promissory note Sir Edward had sent with her for the salary she was owed, funds essential for her to hire rooms after she consulted with the lawyer about Greville’s whereabouts.

  Perhaps, she thought, her dull spirits brightening a bit, the lawyer might be able to tell her this very day where her brother now resided. Perhaps Barksdale had only meant to frighten and discourage her, and had in reality done nothing to harm her brother.

  A footman resplendent in gilded livery and powdered wig answered the door. Upon hearing her name, he bid her enter and beckoned her down the hall, intoning that he would inform the master of her presence.

  Mutely Joanna followed the servant into an anteroom. After walking through the marble entry down a corridor decorated with classical Greek busts she suspected to be genuine, all displayed on intricately worked marquetry tables, then passing through a pedimented and pilastered doorway into a drawing room ornamented in Adamesque style, she urgently hoped she would be received by a simple secretary.

  She was already awed enough by the surroundings and the footman.

  But as she sat nervously pleating the skirt of her gown while she rehearsed what she meant to say to the cousin whose relation to her seemed more distant by the minute, the soft swish of the opening door was followed by the entry of a tall, golden-haired woman. Her face warmed by a smile, she hurried over to Joanna.

  As Joanna wondered who this unannounced lady might be, her hands were seized by the newcomer, who raised her from the curtsy she’d automatically risen to offer. ‘Mrs Merrill, how very glad I am to meet you at last! Ned—Sir Edward, our dear friend, has told us so much about you.’

  Before Joanna could get her tongue to master some sort of response, the lady exclaimed, ‘But here I am, rattling on like a looby! Please, take a seat! I’m Sarah Stanhope, your cousin Nicky’s wife. Being presently occupied with his man of business, he sent me ahead to welcome you and will join us as soon as he is able. Ned told us when to expect you. Did you have a pleasant journey?’

  As she spoke, Lady Englemere motioned to an even more impressively liveried personage who’d followed her into the room. ‘Glendenning, bring tea, please? You would like some refreshment after your travels, I imagine. You must be famished as well after so long a trip! One never eats well on a journey. Some cakes and ham, too, if you please, Glendenning.’

  ‘At once, your ladyship,’ the servant said and withdrew.

  Joanna blinked, feeling as if she’d awakened from a dream to find herself inhabiting someone else’s body. She was having a very hard time comprehending that this lady chatting with her as unaffectedly as the nursery maid at Selbourne Abbey, who had greeted her with far more warmth than Mrs Winston had managed upon her arrival at Blenhem Hill, could actually be a Marchioness and mistress of this enormous dwelling.

  At least, this time, she was not wearing a cloak and bonnet that drooled rain all over the carpet.

  But she was sure she had heard the Glendenning person, whom she assumed must be the butler, address the blonde woman as ‘your ladyship’—so she must be…mustn’t she?

  Trying to sort through the other bits of intelligence conveyed by a woman who was so different from what she had expected of a high-born aristocrat’s wife, Joanna sat down abruptly, feeling a bit dizzy.

  ‘You—you said you were expecting me?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, Ned sent a message saying you were arriving by post today. Of course, we’ve known about you since you came to Blenhem and have been hoping you would pay us a visit! I have a large family, but Nicky is an only child and values his few relations. Ned has praised the work you’ve begun at Blenhem, establishing a school for the village children and the tenants. I do so admire you! Despite your important obligations, I hop
e you will be able to stay long enough that we may get to know you.’

  Ned had written to them that she was coming? Joanna felt her cheeks go pink. What else had he said about her?

  She had been prepared to have her exalted cousin ignore entirely the sister of his disgraced former manager. Or, if he deigned to acknowledge her, to do so coldly and grudgingly. But hard as she searched, she couldn’t read either irony or condescension into what appeared to be the sincere welcome Lady Englemere was offering her.

  She hardly knew how to respond to such open warmth.

  It seemed churlish to demand to see her cousin’s man of business, collect the salary due her, request assistance, if necessary, in locating her brother and take her leave without even meeting ‘Cousin Nicky’, as she’d resolved to do while she had sounded the door knocker.

  Among the jostling thoughts and impressions tumbling about in her head, another realisation fell into place like a faro ball in a slot. ‘I—don’t mean to stay here!’ she protested, belatedly understanding Lady Englemere’s implication. ‘You barely know me. It would be a complete presumption!’

  Her hostess’s eyes widened. ‘We know you are family—and that is all that matters. Oh, please say you will agree to stay with us! Knowing that your obligations must soon return you to Blenhem, ’twill be the only way we can find enough time to become as well acquainted as family should be. Besides, Ned said your brother might be in some difficulties. If so, surely it would be more convenient to remain here, so Nicky might be better able to advise and assist you? Have you any other family in London?’

  ‘Well, no,’ Joanna admitted, wondering with no little irritation if there was anything about her the prodigiously busy Sir Edward had not conveyed in the letter he’d apparently sent to arrive ahead of her.