by Jen YatesNZ
Bart had scarcely been able to look at Jassie when he’d entered the office, so intense was the hope and anticipation in her warm golden eyes. When she realized the packet contained only a short missive from Windermere and had probably guessed something of what the rest contained, he’d been unable to watch while the glow, the hope faded from those eyes and an insidious trembling began to invade her body.
Abandoning her as she’d agreed she wanted, he’d left the house faster than a rat deserting a burning ship and taken refuge in the large tack room off the stables. He needed to talk with Buckton, Windermere’s head groom to ascertain there had been no problems integrating the stock and staff from Brantleigh Manor into the Windermere Stables. It was the ideal opportunity.
The sound of Her Ladyship’s voice, abnormally pitched and on the edge of control, took him to the door where he could watch without being seen. It was quite obvious Windermere’s communication had not been to her liking. When she threw herself into the saddle with the ease of a seasoned cavalryman and put her horse to the fences about the stable instead of using the gates, he knew old Dobbie was right in his troubled mutterings.
The mistress should not be riding alone in that state of mind.
‘Buckton, I think you’d better saddle a horse for me. That grey of Windermere’s. I don’t think Mayfair is fresh enough to stay in sight of that big red fellow after the long run he had this morning.’
The grey was not Mayfair but he was a fair ride nevertheless. When he entered the vast expanse of the Home Park in a much more sedate fashion than Jassie had a few minutes earlier, he set the horse to an easy canter. Not wanting to catch the flying red horse, just keep it in sight, he headed into the shadow of the trees. The new Countess wouldn’t appreciate knowing she was being shadowed but Windermere’s only hope of salvation would be useless with a broken neck.
When the red horse emerged from the trees at the south end of Home Park and galloped at breakneck pace towards the stone wall and the fields that lay between the Park and Neave Tor, Bart nudged the grey in that direction and picked up the pace so he wouldn’t lose sight of his quarry. As the red rose up and over the dry stone wall he couldn’t suppress a mutter of appreciation—for horse and rider. The animal was beautiful to watch, poetry in transit, flowing and rhythmic, while his rider was possibly the most efficient female equestrian he’d ever watched. Thank God, she was not too proper to dress for the style of riding she obviously preferred.
By the time he and Grey Cloud leapt the stone wall at the south end of the Park, Jassie and her horse were a flying speck in the distance, lifting and soaring over the stone wall at the base of Neave Tor. Realizing now that the Tor was her likely goal, he relaxed his pace a little. He wasn’t crass enough to intrude when the woman wanted to be alone but he did want to keep her in sight.
He put the grey to the stone fence beneath the Tor, trotted along the base of the hill and into the patch of woodland on the western toe. From the shadow of the trees he watched the red horse appear from behind the Tor again, still galloping tirelessly up the spiral track. He would remain where he was and hopefully she’d find some solace up there that would ease the fury that rode her so relentlessly. Dismounting and with reins in hand, he leant against a sturdy oak and closed his eyes for a moment.
He’d had little sleep last night after failing to convince Windermere that he should be heading to Neave to do something about his marriage instead of firing himself like cannon fodder into a war that just seemed as if it would go on into eternity. And he’d definitely gone with the intention of not coming back. Windermere’s estate business and political concerns had also become his. He didn’t like to think what he’d do if Windermere was successful in getting himself killed. He could only focus on the fact that his cousin had not cared for his own existence for some years now and that despite the risks he took in a very risky occupation, he had always escaped unharmed.
He was not going to start panicking.—The thought was broken off by a distant, long drawn-out yelling that floated down the hillside on the wind. What the hell? Throwing himself back up into the saddle, he rode out from the trees and put the grey to an oblique though reasonably direct route up the face of Neave Tor. Leaving the horse lipping grass alongside the big red, he climbed a little higher to find Lady Jassinda sitting in a small indentation in the ground, sobbing as if her heart would break.
She didn’t appear to be hurt as the yelling had suggested she might be. And what the hell did a man do with a woman in tears? Perhaps he could just sneak away.
‘Why are you here?’
Obviously she was more aware of her surroundings than he’d thought.
With a sigh of inevitability, Bart said, ‘Making sure you stayed safe. I was keeping my distance—until I heard you yelling. Are you all right, Jass?’
Neither of them noticed he’d slipped into the familiar use of the name he’d known her by since childhood.
Those topaz eyes sparkling with tears just widened with incredulity as she gazed up at him.
‘Oh—yes thank you, Bart, I‘m in absolutely fine fettle!’
Her pseudo-polite, lady-like speech was spoiled by a hiccup of abject misery at the end.
‘Ah, Jassie, we both know that for the Banbury tale it is.’
She swiped a hand across her eyes and dragged a kerchief out of her breeches pocket to blow her nose.
‘Do you know what was in that packet, Bart?’
He held her gaze, all the while wondering whether he could get away with denying any such knowledge and then decided she deserved better from him.
‘I knew about the marriage settlements and I know he enclosed a personal missive. I don’t know what was in that, though I could probably make a good guess.’
She nipped at her bottom lip then released it and stared down the hillside to where the horses grazed contentedly.
‘Do you know he has gone to the Continent with the express purpose of getting himself killed?’
‘I wouldn’t put it as strongly as that, my dear,’ he tried to remonstrate.
‘Wouldn’t you? Well how would you interpret a request that I remember him as we were before—well—before—I forced him to marry me, and then hoped that sometime in the future I would find a man to love me as I deserve?—Sounds like—a death intention, to me.’
Realizing that leaving her to her cogitations now would be nothing short of churlish, he sank to his haunches beside her and began pulling idly at the grass.
‘Jass, Rogue has been—doing what he does—towards the war effort for many years now. From the very first mission he had no care for the danger or risk involved. Generally the more risky and dangerous the mission, the more likely Windermere would be asked to undertake it—and accept. There’s nothing different in the mission he has set out on now. Same level of risk and danger.
‘But whether he knows it or not, he has a very highly developed instinct for survival. It’s what makes him so good at what he does. Ultimately his goal is to gather the information required and see that it finds its way to where it will do the most good—for England. For us. If he’s killed and the information doesn’t get through he will have failed; himself, his over-developed sense of honor, and his country. That’s what has kept him alive all these years—and will continue to do so now. Windermere will be back. He just won’t be happy about it.’
He was deeply conscious of those topaz eyes fixed on him now, hope shining in their depths, like diamonds, pure and indestructible. God alone knew how Windermere could walk away from a woman who cared this deeply.
‘You give me hope—just when I had lost all shred of it. For a terrible moment I had lost sight of the fact I must always—always—trust and believe he will come home safely. He always has before. This time will be no different. Thank you.’
Her eyes dropped to where he pulled abstractedly at the grass, building a tiny stack between his boots. Then she continued, her voice more steady.
‘What will I do? How can I pe
rsuade him just to talk to me?—Bart, do you know why Rogan is—as he is?’
He swallowed, hard.
‘Yes I do. But it’s Windermere’s tale to tell, if you can persuade him to it.’
‘Obviously you did.’ She said flatly. ‘When? How?’
Her questions came at him like pistol shots. He never thought of not answering her.
‘The night after your wedding I was to wait for him at the stables while he saw you upstairs and told you he was leaving. I thought he was being an absolute ass—in fact he’d been behaving very strangely from the day he first told me of your betrothal—and as he came towards me out of the darkness I twitted him, asked if you’d got the better of him because I couldn’t imagine his plans were going to please you any! He punched me in the teeth and I replied in kind. Sat him on his backside. He was cursing like I’d never heard him. So I taunted him a bit about—stuff—and he got up and hit me again. So I flattened him again and told him if he wanted a damn good fight I was happy to give it to him. But he just sat there, calling himself all sorts of names and saying how he’d just proved he was right to resist marrying you all those years. How you’d still cared for him but he’d taken care of that now.
‘There was a tone in his voice I’d never heard before and I began to get a real bad feeling. I yanked his head up by the hair and demanded to know what he’d done to you. And he told me—in a flat, dead voice that made the hair stand up on my arms.’
A groan of embarrassment escaped her but he continued.
‘We had some pretty harsh words after that but I began to realize that something was seriously wrong and I threatened to thrash him senseless and leave his employ if he didn’t tell me what it was. It’s not a pretty tale—’
‘I need to know,’ Jassie ground out. ‘Tell me!’
‘—and it’s not my story to tell and I really only have a sketchy outline. Bear in mind also that he threatened to punch me senseless, even kill me if I uttered a word of it to anyone. I gave him my word. If you are ever to know, Jass, it must come from Windermere. I just hope you have the stomach for it.’
‘And that you can count on, if I can ever get the stubborn man to talk to me!’
‘It’s not a tale a man is likely to tell a woman—any woman—much less one raised as genteelly as yourself.’
She all but snorted in her impatience.
‘Not all that genteel, as it happens because Rogan and my brother had quite a hand in my raising, thankfully! I’d like to ask you to inform me when my husband comes home again please. As soon as he sets foot in the country. Before, if you happen to have prior notice of his arrival.’
There was a long silence while Bart considered where his loyalty lay. But it didn’t take him long to realize that loyalty to Rogue meant securing his happiness in any way he could. Jassie was the sum total of that happiness and he slowly came to his feet and held out a hand to help her up also.
‘I’ll send you word whenever I hear from him. It can be a long time when you’re waiting to hear if someone is alive or not. You’re not alone in wanting what’s best for Windermere.—Will you allow me to escort you home now, Jass? The clouds are beginning to look threatening. No point in getting drenched.’
She looked about her, as if suddenly aware of the world around her. The clouds were indeed massing and darkening to the southwest and they would probably be very lucky if they did reach the Abbey before the weather broke.
‘Thanks, Bart.’
With relief he proffered his arm and led her down the hill to the horses.
Weeks dragged by, dismally wet, sometimes for days on end. To add to her misery, regardless of the two times Windermere had succumbed to her desire for him, she was not with child. An heir for the Windermere title and estates would have pleased everyone. Jassie wouldn’t have cared whether it was a son or a daughter, she would just have been happy to have something else to focus on except the desperate hunger that tore at her body.
Hunger for the love she longed to share with Rogan; hunger for the sound of his voice, the solid bulk of his presence; hunger just for a sight of his dark, windblown hair, midnight blue eyes, and lithe, muscular figure. Some days the pain within her heart almost kept her in bed. Only the vague memory of her mother, pale and languid amid heaped pillows on a high bed, goaded her into action each day—and Fran. She was not some pitiful, spineless thing to give in to the darkness that assailed her from within.
Self-pity was not allowed around Fran, nor any vapid moping and staring longingly out rain-streaked windows. Every morning, if it was too wet for Jassie to ride, Fran insisted they take their exercise with the swords in the old tilt-yard or challenged Jassie into competing against her at the archery butts set up in the ancient refectory. The afternoons when there were no school lessons were more difficult. They were both accomplished needlewomen but Jassie found it very hard to be still, to focus on setting the tiny stitches required for the delicate embroidery she’d decided to undertake on a waistcoat for her husband in a shade of blue as dark as his eyes.
It was all too easy for her mind to wander and her fingers to fall still and often she’d jolt back to awareness to find herself staring blankly at whatever was in front of her. Usually it was Fran or the Dowager who’d pull her out of her thoughts and worries of Windermere with a loud question or demand for an opinion on some discussion or other. None of it seemed important to Jassie.
The only bright days were those when a brief note would arrive from Bart telling her he’d heard from Windermere—which meant the wretched torment of her heart still lived. For a few hours on those days she could maintain a lightness of spirit that pleased those around her. She knew they worried for her but she couldn’t pull herself out of her maunderings long enough to really make an effort.
It was the second week after Bart’s brief visit that Fran suggested now might be a good time to undertake the redecoration of Brantleigh Manor. It was a project Jassie had been mulling over for some time but had kept putting off because of the disruption it would cause to the household. But now they were not actually living there would be the perfect time to embark on such a project. At first Jassie had struggled to find her previous enthusiasm for the undertaking, but Fran had kept returning to the idea, sending to London for pattern books and samples until Jassie was inevitably drawn into involvement.
Though she couldn’t help wondering whether her real interest lay in the fact it was the perfect excuse to spend many dismal afternoons back in her old home. Whatever the reason she was glad to feel an interest for something that would help fill the long, dull days.
When word came of the Duke of Wellington’s victory at Waterloo and the welcome end to a war that had dragged on for nigh on twenty years, it brought a feeling of festivity to the Abbey for a few days and a flurry of visitors. The wet weather and the polite society habit of waiting a month before calling on a newly married couple had spared Jassie this ordeal until now.
But in the excitement of victory in Europe, people took to their carriages, braved the weather and called on their neighbors in order to share the joy of it. Any surprise at the absence of Windermere was quickly dispersed by the brief intimation that he was assisting the War Office in some secret capacity in Europe. While some appeared a little startled by this information, several nodded their heads sagely, as if to imply they’d known Windermere would be up to something of the kind—even though it was the first anyone had heard of it.
Thus Windermere’s absence was accepted, even applauded and none needed to know that he’d been gone since the evening of their marriage. Both Jassie and the Dowager became quite adept at turning the conversation to other topics at this point. Nevertheless the constant need to project the aura of a happy bride awaiting the return of her husband was wearing and as the weeks of celebration drifted by, Jassie simply refused all invitations to the endless soirées, fêtes, and dance evenings, citing her husband’s absence and his mother’s health as her excuse.
Windermere had to
return from the continent soon. Even Bart admitted there were business matters piling up that needed his urgent attention and he couldn’t put off coming home to deal with his affairs for much longer.
But it was still at least four tedious weeks after the victory at Waterloo before Bart’s note arrived, advising her that Windermere was back in London and aware that he must visit the Abbey in the very near future. Jassie thought she might faint from the violent leap of her heart as she read the brief missive. Bart was never one to waste words.
But then no more words were needed, unless it was to tell her of the state of her husband’s mind. Knowing Windermere however, it was very likely Bart was not being given any opportunity to assess it. If patience was her lesson in life then she was getting plenty of practice.
The only communication from her husband was a formal note advising of his planned arrival at the Abbey four days hence in time for luncheon on July 24th.
Jassie knew she was foolish to hope but regardless of what she told herself that emotion took a strong hold of her mind. Perhaps Windermere had done some deep thinking while in Brussels and was ready to talk about their marriage at least. A deep inner voice rose up to mock within her and she ruthlessly tamped it down. Hope was all that was keeping her going and she would not relinquish it.
The morning of the 24th dawned clear and sunny, a rare day in a summer that had felt more like a milder version of winter. Almost whooping with joy at the sight of clear skies, Jassie was out and riding as the birds began their first chirrups. Heeding Dobbie’s advice, she skirted the low-lying flat ground of the Park where water still lay in the hollows and headed up onto the Downs, roaming far over both Brantleigh and Windermere lands and dreaming of how she and Rogan would talk, patch their differences and live happily ever after.