by Joan Smith
“Yes. Jennie–”
“Is all this your land?”
“As far as the eye can see. What I was going to—” He could not hold the jackknife position. He moved farther back on the rock, which helped the disposition of his legs but put his head twelve inches behind mine. He edged forward again.
“I wondered, as I do not see the hand of Capability Brown here.”
“Jennie!”
His peremptory tone required that I adopt an expression of surprise. “What is it, Marndale? Is something the matter?”
He stood up once more and leaned down to me. “I made a wretched botch of it this morning. It isn’t a companion for Jennie that I want. It is a wife.”
“Your visit to the Munson twins has reminded you of your duty to the estate and title, I collect?”
One hand flailed the air futilely. “I don’t want a son! Well—of course I want a son, but that is not what I am trying to say.”
I adopted my schoolmistress’s owl-like pose, for as the long-awaited moment approached, I found myself without a suitable expression to put on and did not wish to display my unbridled delight. “For goodness’ sake, Marndale, what are you trying to say? It is not so difficult after all. You either want a son or you don’t.”
He reached out his two hands and drew me up from the rock. “I want a son, and I want a mother for Victoria, and most of all, I want a wife.” His eyes burned into mine, and as he enumerated his wants his voice became husky.
“And you want these two ladies in one body?” I asked weakly.
“I want them in your body.” He was still holding on to both my hands. He released one, and his arm went around my waist.
“I have my own plans for this body, Marndale.”
“I would not require all twenty-four hours of its time. Perhaps we can work out some mutually satisfactory arrangement.” His other arm went around my shoulders in a disturbingly familiar way. A warbler, or perhaps it was a chiff-chaff, came to examine us with a glittering black eye, from the safety of a branch.
“What did you have in mind?”
He drew me insensibly closer, while his dark eyes hypnotized me into silence. “What I had in mind, Jennie, was—this,” he whispered. His lips alit on mine, softly as a breeze. The gentleness of his kiss surprised me. I had anticipated something more in the nature of a ravishment. This filial touch scarcely warranted anything in the nature of a reciprocation on my part. He lifted his head and peeped down at my questioning face.
What he saw there gave him confidence, and soon I was being embraced much more satisfactorily. I have read somewhere that when a lobster is brought to the boil from cold water, he does not realize he is being cooked alive. The reason I mention boiling a lobster at this seemingly inappropriate time is that Marndale’s attack was like that. He increased the heat of his embrace by insensible degrees till his lips were scalding mine.
I felt the touch of his jacket against me then gradually became aware of the firm wall of chest beneath it. All at the same time his lips moved on mine in such a distractingly delightful way that I forgot about his chest. I didn’t notice it again until my ribs started to ache from the pressure of his arms. At no particular instant did my mind alert me to danger, but I realized at some point that he was crushing me against him so fiercely that I couldn’t breathe. My lungs felt as if they would burst.
I made an ineffectual, token effort to release myself. This had the effect of increasing his ardor. When my head began to spin from a lack of air, I summoned all my strength and pushed him away. I was panting from the exertion—or perhaps from the sheer emotional exhaustion engendered by that embrace. In this breathless state speech was beyond me.
Marndale was made of sterner stuff. He blasted me with a smile of devastating intimacy and said, “I thought as much!”
“What on earth do you mean?” I panted out.
“Jennie Robsjohn, you are an imposter! An enchantress in prude’s clothing. I have not only found myself a wife and mother, I have also got a schoolmistress and hostess and—mmmm.” His head came closer as he enumerated my duties. That “mmmm” came from the throat, for his lips were on mine.
The chiff-chaff chirped his approval from the bough. The stream continued on its path toward the artistic serpentine of Capability Brown’s devising. The trees basked in the glory of golden sunlight, and I found myself betrothed to Lord Marndale without his having asked the question or my having formally agreed to anything.
We walked home through the park arm-in-arm with his mount following. “I hope you are not in the habit of picking up strange ladies in inns, Charles?” I asked in that proprietary way of a lady who is sure of a satisfactory reply.
“My scheme at the time was only to make you Vickie’s companion. I knew when I heard you lash out at me that you were the one to control her.”
“You make her sound like a lion. She is docile as a lamb, when she is handled properly. She takes after her papa in that respect.”
“I was not feeling so docile when Anselm landed in, claiming you as his long-lost friend.”
“Then why did you bring him back?”
“He was an integral part of the working weekend. That job was to have been done in London. I only changed the venue because I was afraid you would either find yourself another beau or shear off on me completely. I invited Rita Pogue to keep Anselm in check.” His quizzing smile held a hint of accusation.
“The coal scuttle was not my idea, Charles! I don’t want you harping on that for the next thirty years.”
“Whose idea was it that I was the gentleman she went calling on in the middle of the night?”
“That appeared to be a universal conclusion reached by us all. I understood she was a particular friend of yours.” It was my turn to give a quizzing, accusing smile.
“Merely an acquaintance. One meets her everywhere.” No stain of guilt colored his face. He was either an accomplished liar or innocent. I had fifty or so years, God willing, in which to determine the case, and if he was guilty, then I must put an end to such carrying on.
“I thought when you were so eager for me not to attend your dancing party that you required all your attention for Lady Pogue.”
“No, no. That was to keep you from Anselm. I knew he was carrying on with Rita, but that was not to say he wouldn’t snap up a wife if he met a lady his family would accept.”
“And keeping me from Anselm was also the reason you gave permission for that untimely wilderness excursion?”
“But of course. I didn’t want Anselm at you behind my back. When it rained all day, however, I was assailed by guilt, and decided to rescue you from the bog. No—don’t even think it! I did not know the woods were so wet. I hadn’t been through them since last autumn, when they were perfectly passable.”
Such was our conversation as we strolled at a leisurely pace. Had Marndale and I not come to an agreement, I would have been embarrassed to find Mrs. Irvine seated at her ease in the garden when she was supposed to be on the rack. To make matters worse, she jumped up when she saw us approaching and lit out for the back door with hardly a limp, though she did use a cane. Marndale called, and she stopped running.
“I am so happy to see you are feeling a little stouter, Mrs. Irvine,” I smiled.
She examined me for signs of irony or anger. “The day was so fine I just hobbled out for a breath of air,” she replied, with a simpering, apologetic smile at Marndale.
“You should not be standing on that ankle,” he said, and led her back to her chair. We sat beside her in the rose garden.
“No, no, her shoulder was the excuse for remaining,” I reminded him. “How is it, Mrs. Irvine?”
“Since I am revealed as a liar, I might as well admit it is fine, thank you very much.” Her sharp eyes darted from Marndale to myself in a knowing way. “You two look about as merry as grigs in May. Is there something you want to tell me?”
“We are engaged,” I told her. “I have captured Lord Marndale’s hear
t.”
“And a few other organs, from the sly grin on both your faces. Well, congratulations, Jennie. I didn’t think you’d ever pull it—”
“Is Victoria back yet?” I asked hastily.
“Her rig rattled down the road five minutes ago. Have you settled on a date?”
“No,” I said, too deep in love to think of such practical things.
“If you want me to attend, you must do it up soon and let me get back to Bath.”
“You will be leaving us then, Mrs. Irvine?” Marndale asked. He had the grace to try for an air of disappointment.
“If there is one thing that sets my teeth on edge, it is being around lovers. They are intolerable for the first few weeks, till the thrill of it all wears thin. Then they become conversable again. I’ll come back for a visit later on, if you’ll have me.”
“Don’t wait till we have fallen out of love, or we shan’t see you for a long, long time,” he smiled.
Mrs. Irvine shook her head ruefully. “At least the house is big enough for me to get lost in. Aboard the Prometheus we did not have that luxury. We had to watch the moonlings making cow eyes at each other.”
Victoria came running down the path, still in her bonnet. “I just passed a haywain on the main road, Papa!” she announced triumphantly. “It was as wide as a house. There was barely room for a mouse to get by, but I squeaked through without locking wheels or damaging the carriage. I have chosen the color I want to paint it, and—” She stopped chattering and just looked at us. “Why are you grinning? Papa, have you done it? Did she say yes?” she asked eagerly.
“Jennie has agreed to be my wife.”
“Splendid! When can I have my twin brothers? I want to call them James and John, since Mrs. Munson has already used the names Peter and Paul.”
“Twins?” Marndale exclaimed. “I will be happy with one boy. Two would be icing on the cake.”
“Mrs. Irvine knows how to do it,” Jennie said.
Mrs. Irvine turned a gimlet eye on me. “I trust we are looking at a wait of at least nine months for this son!”
“Really, Mrs. Irvine!” I gasped.
“Nine and a half,” Marndale said, unfazed. “It will take us two weeks to get the wedding prepared. Meanwhile, there will be no necessity for coal scuttles or any other foreign matter in our beds.”
“Indeed there will not, for I’ll lock her door and keep the key myself,” Mrs. Irvine announced in a voice of sour triumph.
“There is always the window and a ladder....” my fiancé said musingly.
“Marndale! Mrs. Irvine! For goodness’ sake. Are you forgetting Victoria?”
Victoria gave a precocious shake of her head, as if to say, what am I to do with these unruly children? I recognized it well, for it was a habit she had picked up from me. “A little decorum, if you please,” she said demurely. “I think this occasion calls for champagne. It will be served in the saloon in ten minutes. You will want to tidy your toilette, Jennie. Mama,” she added, with a smile. “Do you mind if I call you so?”
I took her hand and we walked toward the house. “Strictly speaking, I will not be your mama until Marndale and I are married. However, I see no harm in practicing.”
Marndale and Mrs. Irvine followed close behind us. I heard him say, “What was Vickie saying about twins?”
“Why, Marndale, I am surprised you don’t know. What you have to do—”
I didn’t bother trying to divert her. Enforcing social decorum was a job for a schoolmistress. I had to begin practicing the much freer manners of a marchioness.
Copyright © 1991 by Joan Smith
Electronically published in 2010 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads
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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.