Jane frowned. “I didn’t say there was trouble.”
Fen’s glance was unimpressed. “You don’t have to. If you lose any more weight, poor Hugh will have to buy you a whole new wardrobe, and you work too hard showing everyone you’re having a good time to actually be having a good time. You look more brittle than that delicious sugar biscuit—which I might point out you didn’t deign to taste.”
“You…you’re very frank.” Jane stood up, her knees shaky. This attack wasn’t what she’d sought. “I can see I shouldn’t have come.”
“Don’t go. Please.” Fen caught her hand, before she could turn away. “You think I’m rushing in where angels fear to tread. But I hate knowing you’re unhappy.”
Jane was so close to breaking, the friendly gesture had her blinking back tears. “Is it obvious?”
“No, not at all. Most people wouldn’t have a clue.” She tugged Jane’s hand. “Sit down. Have some more tea.”
“I’ve spent my whole life hungering for some excitement,” she said, subsiding back onto the couch. “I envied Susan so much because she had a season, while I missed out.”
“Now you’re a grand success.” Fenella paused. “Yet it doesn’t matter a fig, because you’re in love with a man who loves someone else.”
Jane’s breath caught on an audible gasp. “I can’t talk about this.”
“You should. It would do you good. You can trust me, you know. I’d give anything to see Garson settled. He’s had a rum time of it and behaved like a complete hero throughout.”
“And all he has to show for his gallantry is a broken heart and a loveless marriage,” Jane said bitterly, before she thought to stop herself.
Fen’s eyes were searching. “Are you sure it’s loveless?”
“Well, I love him,” she admitted. Just saying the words aloud to someone, even if it wasn’t Hugh, felt like shifting a boulder off her soul.
Fen smiled. “Of course you do. But isn’t there any chance he loves you?”
“When he proposed, he told me that he’d always love Morwenna Nash.”
The name she’d come to hate hurtled into the conversation with a crash.
“My dear, I’m sorry.” Fenella’s lovely face glowed with compassion. “When I met you, he was obviously in alt that he’d married you. You seemed so perfect together.”
Jane shrugged, unable to force any words past the jagged lump in her throat. She and Hugh were perfect together, but he remained too mired in past disappointment to see that. Honestly, sometimes she wanted to bang that noble head against a wall until he saw sense.
She swallowed, then swallowed again, before she could ask the question that had tormented her since her marriage. “Please, can you tell me what she’s like? Nobody ever says. They just speak her name, then pause as if they’re in the presence of something holy.”
Fenella looked appalled. “You poor thing. Your imagination must be running wild.”
“It’s like fighting a ghost,” she said in a reedy voice.
Fenella squeezed her hand. “We all got into the habit of protecting Morwenna, after the news that Robert had died in a skirmish at sea. They were so in love, and she couldn’t move past her grief.”
“You did.”
Fenella sighed. “It took me a lot of years to start living again. You don’t shake real love off in an instant.”
“No.” Jane was discovering that, much as she wished it were otherwise. What a lot of misplaced love the world contained. Morwenna longing for Robert. Hugh longing for Morwenna. Fenella longing for her first husband. Jane longing for Hugh. It was like a game of chase, if one ignored the broken hearts littering the playground.
“We were all delighted, when she and Hugh became engaged. He’s a good man and perceptive enough not to push her too far too fast.”
Hugh was a good man. Jane braced to ask the question that she’d never been brave enough to ask her husband. “Do you know if Hugh and Morwenna were lovers?”
Fenella pondered before she answered. “I don’t believe so. In fact, I’m almost sure not.”
Jane shouldn’t be relieved to hear that. After all, the problem was his spiritual connection with his beloved, not anything physical they’d done. But nonetheless she was pleased.
Fenella went on. “That’s part of the problem. Garson never got to know Morwenna as a real woman with all the normal imperfections.”
“In his mind, she’s like an exquisite painting.”
“Yes. That makes it frightfully hard to live up to her image, I’m sure. And he’s such a knight in shining armor. Morwenna’s tragic loss made her doubly appealing, even if she wasn’t so beautiful.”
Of course Morwenna was beautiful. Fairytale princesses awaiting rescue from their towers always were.
“He’s always collected lame ducks, right from when he was a boy.” Jane sighed. “You could say I’m another lame duck. When he proposed, my father had died, and I was facing some unappealing choices after my cousin inherited my home.”
“You’re a very different woman from Morwenna, Jane.”
“Which doesn’t help.”
“Nonsense. Hugh and Morwenna weren’t meant to be. Morwenna never stopped loving Robert, and now they’re together and blissfully happy. Hugh has no hope of winning her back, even if honor permitted. You’re here. She isn’t.”
Jane’s lips turned down. “I’m here with all my faults.”
“All your warmth and gaiety and beauty.”
She shook her head. “It’s not enough.”
“Have you asked him if he still loves her?”
“No.” She shuddered at the idea. “I’m afraid to mention her name.”
“That only makes her more powerful,” Fenella said sharply. “I love Morwenna dearly, but she’s not superhuman.”
Jane shook her head again and pulled free of Fenella’s comforting hand. “In Hugh’s heart, she is superhuman. I can’t bear it.” Her voice broke on the last words, and she turned away toward the windows. She didn’t want Fen to see how close she was to breaking down.
“Jane?” Fenella asked, in sudden concern. “Are you all right?”
Jane fumbled for her handkerchief and dried the few stubborn tears she couldn’t stanch. She turned back to Fen. “It’s impossible, living with a man who loves someone else. Every moment feels like a punch in the face.”
“Oh, my dear…”
She stood on unsteady legs and stepped away from the sofa. If Fenella touched her in sympathy now, she really would lose control. If she did, she’d cry into next month. “I don’t know what to do.”
Fenella’s delicate features hardened in determination. “First, you must find out if you need to keep fighting this battle. Hugh feels something for you. That’s clear to everyone who cares about him. I’d hoped it was love—or at least its beginnings. But you say not, and you’re in a better position to know.”
“Love wasn’t part of our arrangement,” Jane said bleakly.
Fen made a dismissive sound. “Arrangements change as circumstances do. Believe me, when I met Anthony, the last thing I wanted was a new husband.”
Jane considered Fenella’s remark. Was she torturing herself over a phantom? “You’re right. All this silence only gives Morwenna more space in my marriage.”
“You won’t believe me, but if you met her, I think you’d like her. Most people do.”
Jane doubted it, although she was well aware that the real Morwenna wasn’t the same as the idealized Morwenna who set such a wedge between her and her husband. “I’d probably scratch her eyes out.”
Fen gave a huff of laughter. “Then it’s a good thing she rarely comes to Town.”
Jane hardly listened. “What do I do if I ask him, and he says he can never love me?”
That was the likely outcome, she knew.
“Then you have some thinking to do.” Fenella stood up next to Jane and placed her hand on her arm. “If you need a friend to talk to or some neutral territory to make your deci
sion, I’m always here. Remember you’re not alone in this, Jane. You have somewhere to go.”
Curse it, she was going to start crying again. Jane blinked back prickling tears and forced a wobbly smile to her lips. “Thank you, Fen. I don’t deserve your kindness.”
“Of course you do.” Fen smiled back, but concern clouded her blue eyes. “I’d give anything to see you and Garson resolve your problems.”
*
Chapter Thirty-Two
*
When Garson emerged from the bedroom the morning after the Jamesons’ dull musicale, he was puzzled to see Jane in the sitting room. Over recent weeks, he’d mostly breakfasted alone, then taken a long ride in Hyde Park. His wife’s late rising made perfect sense, given the hectic life she led. But he couldn’t help thinking that she lingered in bed to avoid him.
The sight of her lifted his mood. Perhaps she waited to tell him that she wanted to go to Derbyshire. He’d come to loathe London, which was strange as he’d always loved it before these last weeks. The prospect of a few quiet months at Beardsley Hall beckoned like heaven. But he’d be damned before he abandoned Jane to her admirers, while her husband limped away like a beaten hound. He and Jane left together, or they stayed to finish this purgatory of a season.
“Good morning,” he said, hoping against hope that he was right about Derbyshire.
He tightened the belt of his dressing gown, then sat and poured himself a cup of strong coffee to clear a thick head. Although last night when he got home, he hadn’t done much beyond go to sleep. If Jane had shown the slightest interest in bed sport, he’d have responded with alacrity. But he was sick to the stomach of making all the running.
“Good morning, Hugh,” she said without smiling.
She wore a pretty light blue gown, and behind her, the window was open on a lovely day. Spring had arrived since they’d come to London. Unfortunately the bright sunlight revealed Jane looking tired and drawn. His spirits fell as swiftly as they’d risen. This wasn’t a woman anticipating a rural idyll.
Although he supposed in its way, her subdued manner was an improvement. Lately she’d been as glittering at home as she was in society. It wore him out. He couldn’t imagine that maintaining the relentless cheerfulness was any easier on her. Especially as he knew damn well that it was all an act.
He hated to see her looking as downcast as she did this morning, though. As he’d grudgingly admitted to Silas at Anthony and Fenella’s ball, he was conscious that so far, he made an utter hash of his marriage.
“Have you had breakfast?” he asked, seeing the crumbled roll on her plate. Lately, she didn’t eat enough to keep a sparrow alive. It hadn’t missed his notice that the blue dress hung more loosely than it had last time he’d seen her wear it.
“Yes, thank you.” Her perfect politeness reminded him of the large-eyed little girl she’d been, getting under his feet and suffering a bad case of hero worship. Devil take it, these days he’d give his right arm to be her hero again. He had a disagreeable suspicion that he’d proven a vast disappointment as a husband.
“I wondered if you could spare me a few minutes this morning,” Jane said, as though she addressed a stranger. “There’s something I’d like to talk about.”
He scowled at her. “You’re my bloody wife, Jane. You don’t need to make an appointment to see me like a tenant in arrears with the rent.”
Garson regretted his outburst the moment he made it. He regretted it even more when she flinched as though he’d hit her. “I’m sorry, Hugh. We’ve both been out and about so much, I thought I should check if you’ll be here.”
“Out and about” really meant staying out of one another’s way. How in hell had all the passion and laughter they’d shared led to this point? “No, I’m sorry. Would you like to talk now?”
Jane began to pleat her napkin. When she fiddled with the table linen, it was always a sign that she was troubled. “No, I’ll see you in the library, once you’re dressed and ready for the day.”
“This sounds serious,” he said, trying to make her smile.
The gray eyes she raised to his were as dull as a cloudy sky. “Yes, I rather think it is.”
Shaken, he watched as she stood and left the room without another word.
He stared after her in consternation. What in Hades was going on? Was she about to confess some wrongdoing? Silas had mentioned Harslett pursuing her. Was that by way of a warning?
Surely not. Jane wanted him. He’d lay his whole fortune that she did.
But did that mean she couldn’t want another man as well?
The thought of his wife in someone else’s arms made his empty stomach churn. He’d feared this, almost expected it. But not this soon. They’d only been married two months. She couldn’t have tired of him already.
Couldn’t she? Something was wrong. Had been wrong for weeks. Like a blockhead, he’d hoped the trouble would blow over. Now he couldn’t mistake the ax poised over his head, ready to fall.
His hand slammed down on the table, setting the china rattling and a knife bouncing to the floor. Be damned if he’d give up without a fight.
*
Within half an hour, Garson was downstairs. Only to find his wife already waiting in the library.
His gut knotting with inchoate dread, he paused in the doorway to study her. As she sat on the couch and stared into the fire, her expression was desolate. This wasn’t the glamorous beauty who set society in a spin. She looked, in fact, like a better dressed version of the wan creature he’d called on in Dorset. His gut gave up twisting. Instead, it constricted with creeping, freezing fear.
He’d promised to make Jane happy. Given what he saw now when she believed herself unobserved, he’d abjectly failed. Guilt rose until it tasted like bile on his tongue, and he shifted on his feet.
The movement alerted her to his presence, and she looked up. “Hugh, you’re early.”
“So are you,” he said, grimly noting that she didn’t even try to smile. He checked her hands, but they weren’t doing their nervous dance. Jane was still and composed—and that suddenly seemed the most worrying aspect of all. He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. He was so on edge that the click of the latch rang like a death knell in his ears.
He moved to sit beside her, but she stopped him with a curiously truncated gesture. “No. Please. Sit…sit over there.”
With bad grace, he shifted to where she indicated. The chair was a few feet away, yet he felt like she exiled him to Siberia in the depths of winter. Only when he sat did he realize that the stark light streaming through the window lit him like he was on a stage and left Jane in the shadows.
“What the devil is going on, Jane?” His roiling panic flared into annoyance. He folded his arms and scowled at her. “You look like you’re about to make a dreadful confession.”
Her mouth flattened in dismal acknowledgment. “I am.”
That rancid feeling in his gut turned nastier than ever. She didn’t look like she was joking.
“Is it someone else?” To his shame, he sounded like he suffocated.
Jane’s eyes were like mirrors. The pause before her answer shredded his heart into ragged gobbets. Until this moment, he hadn’t really believed she’d taken a lover. Yet why the hell wouldn’t she? It was clear that her husband didn’t make her happy.
His raging bitterness almost made him miss her soft response. “I suppose it is.”
Garson’s world turned black as pitch, and the blood in his ears pounded like an angry ocean. “Jane?” he asked through the gathering storm.
He wasn’t even angry—yet—the hurt was too grievous. He started to rise on unsteady legs, but she made another of those keep off gestures, and he slumped back into his chair.
“Hugh, if I ask you a question, will you answer me honestly?”
He felt disoriented, awaiting a disclosure, not this calm inquiry. Despite everything, he just couldn’t believe that she’d gone to another man’s bed. “I’ve always
been honest with you.”
He hoped to hell it was true.
Another of those bitter little twists of her lips. “Yes, you have.”
A longer pause that felt like the silence before an execution. When her question came, it was from such an unexpected direction, it left him at a loss.
“Are you still in love with Morwenna Nash?”
He lurched to his feet. “What in Hades…”
The temper that flashed in her eyes was the first sign that Jane wasn’t as self-possessed as she strove to appear. “Please answer me.”
His brows lowered, and he glared at her. “Has someone been talking? I warned you there would be gossip.”
Her gaze remained uncompromising. “Answer my question.”
Garson ground his teeth. He hated talking about Morwenna and his old engagement. To date, the greatest failure in his life. Although his marriage promised to become a fiasco on an even grander scale. “I told you when I asked you to marry me…”
Jane rose abruptly and stepped forward into the light. He bit back an appalled exclamation. She looked strained to the point of breaking, her features bleached white beneath the deep red banner of her piled-up hair. “Yes, you did. But a lot has happened since then. I wondered if you’d changed.”
“I don’t change,” he said flatly, even as with reluctance, he visited the shrine in his heart where a beautiful black-haired woman would always reign. Did he love Morwenna? Of course he did. “‘Loyalty unto death,’ remember?”
Jane’s expression didn’t alter. She still looked like she faced the gallows. But somehow he knew that a light inside her had flickered into darkness. She twined her hands together at her waist, so tightly that her knuckles turned bloodless. “That’s what I thought.”
Gradually he found his feet in this bizarre conversation, and his brain began to link the facts together. He should be relieved she wasn’t confessing to taking a lover—by God, he was. But he found no consolation otherwise. “What’s all this about, Jane?”
She lowered her shoulders and met his eyes. The misery he read there made him flinch. “I thought perhaps if you didn’t love Morwenna anymore, there might be a chance you could come to love me.”
Lord Garson’s Bride Page 23