Jack of Hearts

by Marjorie Farrell

  “You made me bring it, Papa,” Eliza protested.

  “Yes, and Eliza made me carry it,” he joked to Anne.

  “I am not a child anymore, Papa.”

  “I know,” Leighton said with real sadness. “And I hate to admit it, Eliza.” For a moment, Lady Eliza’s closed face opened as her father held out his hand and she grasped it, with a loving smile that brought a pang to Anne’s heart.

  “I remember becoming very exasperated with my father, Lady Eliza, when he would forget that I was almost a young lady.”

  Lady Eliza’s face closed again, and she said nothing in reply.

  When they reached the lake, the baron held out the bag to his daughter.

  “No, Papa, it was your idea. You feed the ducks yourself.” Lady Eliza’s statement was leavened by her teasing tone, and Anne was gratified to see some feeling under her sullen countenance.

  “We will sit down on the bench and watch you in dignified silence, my lord,” Anne said with a twinkle in her eye.

  Leighton heaved a dramatic sigh and said, “Well, then, I will go and make myself look foolish.” He wandered down to the water’s edge and began to sprinkle crumbs, which drew a covey of ducks away from a little boy and his nurse, farther down the bank.

  “I’ve run out of crumbs, luv,” the nurse told her charge, who had a heartbroken look on his face as his web-footed friends coldly deserted him. When the baron realized what had happened, he walked over and, kneeling down, offered the child his bag.

  “That was very sweet of your papa,” Anne said.

  “It won’t do, you know,” Lady Eliza said quietly. Anne was taken aback by the fierceness in her tone.

  “What won’t?” she asked calmly.

  “You know what I mean, Miss Heriot. I won’t let you buy Papa. He deserves better than someone in trade.”

  Anne sat quietly for a minute and then said, “If it is not me, it will be someone else, Lady Eliza. And that someone else will most likely also be a Cit’s daughter,” she added dryly.

  “Papa need not marry at all,” Lady Eliza declared.

  “I rather think he does. His title is old, but his estates are quite impoverished. And he wishes to do well by you,” Anne added in a softer tone. “To make sure you have a proper Season.”

  “I don’t need to find a husband. I have one in mind already. Lord David Spence and I have known each other for years and are very much in love. As soon as he comes of age next year we will be betrothed. And Papa will not have to marry anyone at all then. He will have all the money he needs.”

  “A lot can happen in a year, my lady. And then there are Lord David’s parents. They might have something to say about him marrying a dowerless young woman.” Anne hesitated. “I think I know how you feel, Lady Eliza,” she said kindly. “My mother died when I was young, and my father and I were each other’s only family for years. I would have found it hard had he ever planned to remarry.”

  “You can’t know how I feel, Miss Heriot. The situation of a mill owner’s daughter is quite different from mine.”

  “Tha has a lot to learn, lass, if tha thinks the human heart beats differently under different roofs,” Anne chided, stung into broad Yorkshire.

  “I don’t intend to learn it from you, Miss Heriot,” said Lady Eliza, and she got up and walked over to her father. With her sweetest smile on her face, she helped the little boy throw out the last crusts.

  Well, tha’rt soom actress, lass, thought Anne. I’ll bet tha father would never guess what a strong-willed lass he has on his hands. But I suppose with a doting father and grandparents, tha has never had anyone cross tha.

  Given Lady Eliza’s age and upbringing, Anne knew the girl’s meanness shouldn’t have bothered her. But it did, and though she was as good an actress as his daughter, she was very glad when the baron suggested they make their way back to the carriage.

  “I hope you both had a chance to get better acquainted?”

  “We did, Papa.”

  “Yes, I feel I know Lady Eliza very well now,” Anne told him, her face as bland as blancmange.

  They were halfway to the carriage when Anne heard a voice calling her.

  “Miss Heriot! Over here!”

  It was Lady Lydia, waving wildly, while her older sister was obviously trying to get her to behave in a more dignified manner.

  “How nice to see you,” said Anne. “May I introduce you to Lord Leighton and his daughter, Lady Eliza.”

  “It is a pleasure,” Helen said shyly, while Liddy bobbed up and down in a curtsy.

  “Were you feeding the ducks?” she asked when she saw the empty sack in the baron’s hands.

  “We were,” he said with a grin.

  “You were, Papa,” Eliza said, rolling her eyes and sighing.

  Lady Helen looked at her with sympathy while Liddy chattered about the clutch of ducklings that had swum over to them.

  “Surely you are not here alone, Lady Helen,” Anne asked.

  “No, no, Miss Heriot. My cousin is with us, but he met someone and let us go on ahead.”

  “Here is Aldborough now,” said the baron.

  Jack hurried across the grass toward them. “I cannot believe you girls deserted me like that,” he teased.

  “I couldn’t stand the way Miss Perry and Lady Mary were batting their eyes at you, Jack,” said the irrepressible Lydia.

  “Neither could I, Liddy, but at least I was polite,” Jack laughed.

  Having established that their carriages were in the same direction, the three grown-ups fell behind while the girls walked ahead.

  “Do you know Miss Heriot well?” Lady Eliza asked Helen.

  “We spent a day sight-seeing together. I liked her very much.”

  “I suppose she is nice enough for someone of so common a background,” Eliza said coolly.

  Helen was shocked into silence by Lady Eliza’s dislike.

  “My cousin Jack is trying to get her to marry him, so she cannot be that common,” said Liddy, warmly defending her relative.

  “My father is also hoping to marry her,” said Eliza, “but I hope your cousin wins her, for I have no need of a stepmama.”

  “Well, we hope she marries him, too, don’t we, Helen?”

  Helen grabbed her sister’s hand and squeezed it tight. “It is not ladylike to be indulging in such common gossip,” she said pointedly and, turning the subject to something more innocent, noted Lady Eliza’s flush of embarrassment with pleasure.

  * * * *

  Later, when they had finished their tea and Liddy was in the corner with her mother playing a hand of piquet, Helen looked over at Jack. “May I ask you something personal, cousin?”

  “Of course,” he said, looking at her curiously.

  “Do you think Miss Heriot intends to accept you?”

  “I don’t know, Helen. What do you think?” he responded, a quizzical look on his face.

  Helen did not immediately answer his question. “Lady Eliza says her father wants to marry Miss Heriot also.”

  “Since we are speaking frankly, I may as well tell you that Lord Windham is yet another suitor.”

  Helen looked serious for a moment. “Oh, dear, that is a problem. Lord Richard is so handsome,” she said, without thinking.

  “And I thought only Liddy was brutally frank!” said Jack with a laugh. Helen rushed in to reassure him. “Oh, but he is not rumored to have captured as many hearts as you have, Cousin Jack. And you have that brooding look that ladies like.”

  “Another hit!”

  “Why, that was not an insult!”

  “In Miss Heriot’s view it is, my dear. The very thing she likes least about me is my ability to collect ladies’ hearts.”

  Helen patted his hand reassuringly. “Well, I don’t think you will have to worry about Lord Leighton.”

  “Oh, and why is that? They were walking along as though they were a family already.”

  “Lady Eliza is the reason. She was quite insulting to Miss Heriot. I th
ink she is a spoiled girl who will not tolerate anyone else’s claims to her father’s attention.”

  “I certainly hope you are right,” said Jack, regarding his young cousin with respect. “And may I say that I have always appreciated your good sense and lack of spoiled behavior.”

  Helen laughed. “Who could be self-important with Liddy around!”

  Jack chuckled. “Yes, I see what you mean.” he hesitated. “So you like Miss Heriot?”

  “I do. But the more important question is, do you?”

  Jack felt himself grow warm under her inquiring gaze. “As a matter of fact, very much. But the most important question before us is whether she will accept Windham because of his blindingly handsome face!”

  “You are very handsome in your own way,” Helen began seriously and then saw the twinkle in her cousin’s eye. “You are funning me!”

  “Only a little. I do hope you are right about the baron, but I suspect I am still last on Miss Heriot’s list.”

  * * * *

  Anne had done a very good job of hiding her anger and hurt on the way home, but once she was inside the house, she went looking for Sarah. She found her in the library, in front of the fire.

  “It has grown surprisingly chilly this afternoon,” said Sarah, “so I came in here.”

  “Yes, I was very glad of my pelisse,” murmured Anne. She sat down for a moment and then popped up again, walking over to her desk and riffling through some papers.

  “You seem restless, Anne. Wasn’t the walk enough exercise for you?” Sarah asked, knowing Anne’s love for long tramps.

  “We stopped to feed the ducks,” Anne told her with a wry smile.

  “Why, that is very sweet. I would have thought Lady Eliza a little too old for that.”

  “Oh, Lady Eliza is too old for it. Her papa did the honors while she and I sat on a bench and watched. And got to know one another better. Believe me, Sarah, Lady Eliza is not sweet at all.”

  “What did she say to you?”

  “Oh, only that she would not want to see her well-bred papa married to someone as common as a mill owner’s daughter.”

  “Why, what a disrespectful little chit!” exclaimed Sarah. She could hear the pain as well as the anger in Anne’s voice.

  “Yes,” Anne said dryly. “I was prepared to overlook a lot, for you know I can understand it would be difficult to share her father. But she threw my sympathy right back in my face!” Anne sighed. “I don’t think I could live with that kind of meanness. It might be different if the baron and I were making a love match. But as much as I think he likes me, I suspect his loyalty will always be with his daughter.” She was quiet for a moment. “We met Lady Helen and Lady Lydia on the way out of the park.” Anne smiled. “Lydia is so adorably natural. And Helen a real lady.”

  “I could imagine you becoming Cousin Anne very easily.”

  “If only it didn’t mean marrying their Cousin Jack!”

  “So it is to be Windham after all?”

  “It would seem so. I just wish he had understood my concerns about the mills better. But I am sure he will come around.”

  “Yet Lord Aldborough was very much in sympathy on that score,” Sarah said pointedly. “You like his nieces, and he is certainly not physically repellent to you!”

  “Give over, Sarah. I know you favor him, but I’m sure Windham will make the better husband. Even without love—especially if there is not love—there needs to be trust in a marriage.”

  * * * *

  But later, as Anne dressed for supper, she thought about the two men. Lord Windham had everything to recommend him. He was a handsome, intelligent man who had treated her with great respect. They had become comfortable with one another almost immediately, despite the differences in their temperaments. And she felt safe with him, for he had never done anything to impose himself on her physically. He may have described himself as a passionate man, but he had never let passion intrude upon their companionship.

  That was a good thing, she told herself. In a marriage of convenience, mutual affection was preferable to one-sided passion. Surely she didn’t want Lord Richard to feel passionate about her? No, but she had to be honest; she might not want that, but she wondered, albeit illogically, why she didn’t inspire it.

  Jack Belden, on the other hand… Anne was not sure if he was a passionate man. He had certainly never described himself that way. The fact that his fingers seemed to burn through her, and that he had prolonged his kiss under the mistletoe, meant nothing. How else does a man go about collecting hearts than by convincing a woman that only she makes him feel this warmth and desire?

  Be fair, lass, she admonished herself. Maybe ‘tis nowt but tha own desire. She grew warm thinking about it. But a moment of lust meant nothing. It wasn’t a safe way to choose a husband.

  That was it, realized Anne. She wished to feel safe. She was drawn to the baron and Windham because she knew they could never touch her deeply. And that made good sense, for if a man was going to marry her for money, she didn’t want to be vulnerable to him.

  She wouldn’t be safe with Jack Belden. She would be vulnerable, if only on a purely physical level. When he touched her, he touched her. She could not afford that. And since she was, after all, the buyer, she would buy what she could afford: a kind man whom she could bed safely and keep at a distance.

  * * * *

  Having finally settled on Windham, Anne was eager to see him. When she received a bouquet of violets and a short note asking her to save him a waltz at the Preston rout, she was pleased. Perhaps Thursday night she could let him know that she preferred him. The formal arrangement would be made by Mr. Blaine, but if she dropped a hint to Lord Richard, she hoped he would make a more personal approach.

  * * * *

  “You look especially lovely tonight, Anne,” Elspeth told her when she and Sarah arrived at the Prestons’.

  “As do you.”

  Elspeth lowered her voice. “I have had all my gowns altered, for the bodices have all grown too small. I should be thankful, I suppose, that that is the only sign I am increasing,” she added with a wry smile. “Have you come any closer to a decision, Anne?” she asked as they waited for Val to join them.

  “I think I have, Elspeth. Leighton…”

  “Oh, not the baron!” Elspeth protested.

  “If you will let me finish! Leighton is no longer a candidate. But what did you have against him?”

  “Nothing personal, only I thought it would be more difficult to begin a marriage of convenience with the added complication of a stepdaughter.”

  “Well, you were right, Elspeth. Lady Eliza is spoiled and snobbish. She doesn’t want her father to marry at all. In fact, she assured me he will not have to, for she has an understanding of sorts with one of her neighbors,” Anne told her friend.

  “So she is headstrong as well. It sounds like you are well out of that family, Anne!”

  “What family is that?” asked Val as he joined them.

  “Anne has dropped the baron from her list,” Elspeth told him. “It seems Lady Eliza is dead set against having a stepmother.”

  “Then it is Windham or Jack?” asked Val.

  “It is Windham,” Anne informed them.

  Elspeth opened her mouth as if to say something, and Val gave her a quick, warning glance. “Does the lucky man know yet?”

  “I am hoping to drop a hint tonight. I may be a practical lass, but I find I would like a proposal before contracts are drawn up,” said Anne.

  “Here he comes now,” Val told her.

  “Yes, he has the first waltz.”

  As Anne and Windham moved off, Elspeth looked over at her husband. “Nothing is working out as I wish, Val. I know Jack and Anne would suit,” Elspeth complained.

  “Well, we did our best, my dear,” Val told her with a smile.

  “I know. But what will Jack do now, Val?”

  “He will have to find some other Cit’s daughter.”

  “But I’d like to
see both of them happy, not merely settling for what they can find.”

  “You don’t think Anne can be happy with Windham? He seems to hold her in the highest esteem. And there is no spoiled daughter to complicate things,” Val added with a grin.

  “But there is Lady Julia,” Elspeth said thoughtfully.

  “I know you were worried about his attachment, but she is rumored to become betrothed any day now. Whatever they felt for one another, I am sure it is over.”

  “Would you have forgotten me that quickly, Val?”

  “Never,” he said so fiercely that Elspeth grew warm.

  “And there is no reason to suppose we are the only passionately faithful lovers in the world, Val, much as I would like to think it.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Now that Anne had made a decision, she hoped to discover if Windham and she would be compatible physically. She might not want a grand passion, but neither did she want a sterile marriage.

  His hand felt pleasantly warm against her waist, and the fingers of her hand nestled comfortably in his.

  “We dance well together, Miss Heriot,” he said after a few turns around the floor.

  “I have always thought so, my lord.”

  Anne was pleasantly relaxed by the time the music stopped, and when Lord Richard suggested a stroll in the garden, she agreed happily. It seemed he was taking the initiative without her having to hint at all.

  There were other couples enjoying the air, but Windham guided her down one of the deserted paths. At the end was a small wooden bench, and he asked if she would like to sit for a while.

  “Thank you, my lord, my slippers are a bit tight tonight,” Anne told him. Her slippers, in fact, fit perfectly, but she would not turn down the opportunity of few minutes alone with him.

  He sat next to her and they were quiet for a moment, drinking in the sweet smell of lavender that perfumed the air around them.

  “I have always marveled that a Mediterranean plant does so well in our wet climate,” Anne remarked, breaking the silence.

  “At Windham, one whole side of the house is bordered with lavender, and in June we open the door to the breakfast room to let in the fragrance.”

  “It sounds lovely. I would love to see it.”