by Mary Balogh
“Will you be going there, Lady Sara?” Lord Pottier asked.
“Oh, no, I think not,” Jane said. “I would rather spend the summer in the country.”
Viscount Kimble, seated at her side, caught her hand in his and raised it to his lips. “But Brighton would be empty of all attraction without you,” he told her, his eyes twinkling. “I shall simply kidnap you and take you there myself.”
“Oh, no, you will not,” Lady Heyward said, laughing. “If there is any kidnapping to be done, it is I who will be doing it—with Heyward’s help. Not that he would agree to do anything so dashing or dangerous, of course. With Ferdie’s aid, then. We will kidnap Lady Sara and Tresham and bear them off to St. George’s for a grand wedding. Will we not, Ferdie?”
Lord Ferdinand, seated across the table, next to Charles, grinned. “I would need the assistance of half a regiment of burly military types, Angie, if I were to try trussing up Tresham,” he said.
Viscount Kimble sighed soulfully. “Alas,” he said, “do not forget all about me or my heart will be broken, ma’am.”
Jane laughed at him, and the conversation would doubtless have moved on to another subject. But Charles, perhaps not recognizing the light, teasing tone of the conversation, chose to speak up.
“As Lady Sara has said,” he told the group, “she will be returning to the country for the summer. Perhaps sooner.”
“Oh, yes,” Lady Heyward agreed, laughing. “After the wedding. Now really, Ferdie—”
“Lady Sara will be returning to Cornwall. With me,” Charles said with enough emphasis to attract the attention of everyone seated at their table. “We have long had an understanding.”
“Charles!” Jane said sharply before explaining to the group at large. “We have been friends and neighbors all our lives.”
“Tresham might have a thing or two to say about your understanding,” Baron Pottier said. “Are you really going back to Cornwall, Lady Sara? Jardine notwithstanding?”
“I believe I will be able to protect my own betrothed from any further impertinences from that direction,” Charles said.
“Charles, please …”
“Oh, you are mistaken, sir,” Lady Heyward said merrily. “Lady Sara is going to marry my brother even though they have quarreled and have danced together only once this evening—”
“Stow it, Angie,” Lord Ferdinand said. “The lady is looking embarrassed. Let’s change the subject. Let’s talk about the weather.”
But Charles was not to be deterred. He actually stood up, scraping back his chair with his knees. And somehow the action attracted general notice in the crowded dining room and the noise level dropped noticeably.
“Lady Sara Illingsworth will not be the object of any London buck’s gallantries for much longer,” he said, indignation vibrating in his voice. “I will be taking her home where she belongs. Not to Candleford, but home.”
Jane would have closed her eyes in mortification, but she glanced first at a dark-clad figure standing in the dining room doorway. He must have been on his way out, but he was standing still now, his quizzing glass in one hand, his attention on Charles.
“Mr. Fortescue,” Lady Lansdowne asked from the end of their table, “are we to understand that you are announcing your betrothal to Sara?”
Jane’s eyes locked with Jocelyn’s in the doorway.
“Charles—” she said aloud.
“Yes, ma’am,” Charles said, raising his voice and speaking now to an audience of every single guest at the ball. “I have the honor of announcing my betrothal to Lady Sara Illingsworth. I trust everyone will wish us happy.”
A swell of sound in the dining room replaced the silence. But then Jocelyn took one step forward and a hush descended once more.
“No, no, no,” he said, every inch the Duke of Tresham again. “I would wager that Lady Sara has not consented, and it is not good ton, you know, Fortescue, to make such an announcement unless the prospective bride has done so.”
“Of course she has consented,” Charles said testily. “We have had an underst—”
“Have you, Jane?” The ducal quizzing glass swung her way. “How naughty of you, my love.”
Jane heard a feminine gasp at the duke’s use of the endearment. While Jocelyn was actually enjoying himself, Jane was wishing for a black hole to swallow her up.
“She is not your love,” Charles retorted, “and I would thank you for not—”
“Ah, but she is,” Jocelyn said, taking a few more steps forward and lowering his glass. “And I must protest most forcefully against your imagined betrothal to her, my dear fellow. You see, much as I commend you for the concern you have shown for her well-being, I really cannot permit you to marry my wife.”
There was another swell of sound, but it died away quickly to a chorus of hushing noises. No one wanted to miss a word of this drama, which would be repeated endlessly and with blissful relish in dozens of drawing rooms and gentlemen’s clubs for days, even weeks to come.
“What?” Charles had turned pale, Jane saw in a quick glance at him. He was looking at her across the table. “Is this true? Sara?”
She nodded almost imperceptibly.
He stared at her for a few moments while there was another small swell of sound and more hushing noises, and then he turned without another word and stalked from the room, brushing past the duke as he went.
“Come, Jane.” Jocelyn held out a hand toward her and she went to him on legs that were not quite steady. He was smiling as she had never seen him smile before—openly, warmly, radiantly.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said as his hand closed about hers, “allow me, please, to present my wife, the Duchess of Tresham. Ma’am?” He bowed to Lady Webb. “I do beg your pardon that my hand has been forced. Jane insisted that nothing be allowed to spoil yesterday and today for you since you have worked so tirelessly to plan her presentation and her come-out. Both, of course, would have had to change for a married lady. And so I agreed that we would delay our announcement until tomorrow.”
He settled Jane’s hand on his arm and covered it with his free hand before looking around at all the gathered guests, though his eyes rested on his brother and sister as he spoke again. “We were married by special license this morning. We had a quiet wedding, as we both wished, with only my secretary and her grace’s maid in attendance as witnesses.”
He smiled down at Jane—that warm, wonderful, defenseless smile again—and raised her hand to his lips. There was already noise and movement in response to his announcement.
“My love,” he murmured while he still could, “I was already quite determined to have my bride in my own home and my own bed for what will remain of our wedding night when your ball is over. I am no saint, you see.”
“I have never wanted a saint,” she told him. “I have only ever wanted you, Jocelyn.”
He leaned toward her, his eyes on fire, and whispered with passionate intensity in her ear. “My love and my life. My Jane. And at last and forever my wife.”
There was only a moment—a timeless moment—in which to smile radiantly at him and to realize with a shock of reality that it was really true. She was married to Jocelyn, her love, her heart’s desire, her soul’s mate. She was happier than anyone had any right to be. He was her husband.
And there was no further need to hide the fact.
Then Aunt Harriet was hugging her and shedding tears over her and scolding her and laughing. And Lady Heyward was catching her in her arms and talking a mile a minute. Lord Ferdinand was grinning at her and kissing her cheek and calling her sister. Viscount Kimble was pretending to clutch his broken heart and was also kissing her cheek. Jocelyn’s friends were all pumping his hand and slapping his shoulder. His sister was crying all over his waistcoat despite his protests and declaring that her nerves would not stand the shock and she had never been more happy in her life and she would organize a grand wedding ball for next week and just let Heyward try to stop her, provoking man.
Finally they were alone in the dining room with Lady Webb, Lord and Lady Lansdowne, Lord and Lady Heyward, and Lord Ferdinand. Jocelyn drew Jane’s shining new wedding ring from a pocket of his waistcoat, lifted her left hand, and slid it onto her ring finger, where it had resided so briefly during the morning.
“With this ring, my love,” he said, and dipped his head to kiss her lips in full view of their small audience. He looked up at Lady Webb. “Now, ma’am, do you suppose the orchestra can be coerced into playing another waltz?”
“Absolutely,” Aunt Harriet said.
And so they waltzed again—alone for the first five minutes, while everyone watched.
“I repeat,” Jocelyn said as the music began—a slow, dreamy waltz tune this time, “you look almost like a bride, Jane. In fact, you look exactly like a bride. Mine.”
“And the ballroom looks as if it had been decked out for a wedding ball,” she said, giving him back look for look. “Ours.”
And then he did something truly outrageous. He dipped his head and kissed her hard. He lifted his head, smiled wickedly at her, and kissed her softly. And then again with all the yearning and all the hope and all the love Jane knew was in his heart—and her own.
“She will never reform the dangerous Duke of Tresham,” some unidentified voice said with startling clarity as Jocelyn twirled Jane into the dance.
“But whyever would she want to?” a female voice called back.
No Man’s Mistress
1
HE PICTURESQUE VILLAGE OF TRELLICK, NESTLED in a river valley in Somersetshire, was usually a quiet little backwater. But not on this particular day. By the middle of the afternoon it appeared that every villager and every country dweller for miles around must be out-of-doors, milling about the village green, enjoying the revelries.
The maypole at the center of the green, its colored ribbons fluttering in the breeze, proclaimed the occasion. It was May Day. Later, the young men would dance about the maypole with the partners of their choice, as they did with great energy and enthusiasm every year.
Meanwhile, there were races and other contests to draw attention to the green. Pitched about its perimeter were tented booths with their offerings of appetizing foods, eye-catching baubles, and challenging games of skill or strength or chance.
The weather had cooperated in magnificent fashion with warm sunshine and a cloudless blue sky. Women and girls had discarded shawls and pelisses they had worn in the morning. A few men and most boys remained in their shirtsleeves after engaging in one of the more strenuous contests. Tables and chairs had been carried from the church hall onto the lawn outside so that tea and cakes could be served in full view of all the merriment. Not to be outdone, on an adjacent side of the village green the Boar’s Head had its own tables and benches set up outside for the convenience of those folk who preferred ale to tea.
A few strangers, on their way past the village to destinations unknown, stopped off for varying periods of time to observe the fun and even in some cases to participate in it before continuing their journeys.
One such stranger was riding slowly down toward the green from the main road when Viola Thornhill glanced up from serving tea to the Misses Merrywether. She would not have seen him over the heads of the crowd if he had not been on horseback. As it was, she paused for a second, more leisurely look.
He was clearly a gentleman, and a fashionable one at that. His dark blue riding coat looked as if it might have been molded to his frame. His linen beneath it was white and crisp. His black leather breeches clung to his long legs like a second skin. His riding boots looked supple and must surely have been made by the very best of boot makers. But it was not so much the clothes as the man inside them who attracted and held Viola’s appreciative attention. He was young and slim and darkly handsome. He pushed back his tall hat even as she watched. He was smiling.
“You ought not to be serving us, Miss Thornhill,” Miss Prudence Merrywether said, a customary note of anxious apology in her voice. “We ought to be serving you. You have been rushed off your feet all day.”
Viola reassured her with a warm smile. “But I am having so much fun,” she said. “Are we not fortunate indeed that the weather has been so kind?”
When she looked again, the stranger had disappeared from view, though he had not ridden on his way. His horse was being led away by one of the lads who worked in the inn stables.
“Miss Vi,” a familiar voice said from behind her, and she turned to smile at the small, plump woman who had touched her on the shoulder. “The sack race is ready to begin, and you are needed to start it and award the prizes. I’ll take the teapot from you.”
“Will you, Hannah?” Viola handed it over and hurried onto the green, where a number of children were indeed wriggling into sacks and clutching them to their waists. Viola helped the stragglers and then directed them all as they hopped and shuffled into a roughly even line along the appointed starting point. Adults crowded about the four sides of the green to watch and cheer.
Viola had set out from home early in the morning looking ladylike and elegant in a muslin dress and shawl and straw bonnet, her hair in a neatly braided coronet about her head beneath it. She had even been wearing gloves. But she had long ago discarded all the accessories. Even her hair, slipping stubbornly out of its pins during the busy morning of rushing hither and yon, had been allowed finally to hang loose in a long braid down her back. She was feeling flushed and happy. She could not remember when she had enjoyed herself more.
“Get ready,” she called, stepping to one side of the line of children. “Go!”
More than half the racers collapsed at their very first leap, their legs and feet all tangled up in sacking. They struggled to rise, to the accompaniment of good-natured laughter and shouted encouragement from relatives and neighbors. But inevitably there was one child who hopped across the green like a grasshopper and crossed the finish line before some of her less fortunate fellow contestants had recovered from their tumble.
Viola, laughing merrily, suddenly found herself locking eyes with the dark, handsome stranger, who was standing at the finish line, his own laughter emphasizing his extraordinary good looks. He looked her over frankly from head to toe before she turned away, but she discovered with pleased surprise that she felt amused, even exhilarated by his appreciation rather than repelled. She hurried forward to give out the prizes.
It was time then to hasten into the inn, where she was to judge the pie-baking contest with the Reverend Prewitt and Mr. Thomas Claypole.
“Eating pie is thirsty work,” the vicar declared more than half an hour later, chuckling and patting his stomach after they had sampled every pie and declared a winner. “And if my observations have been correct, you have not had a break all day, Miss Thornhill. You go over to the church lawn now and find a table in the shade. Mrs. Prewitt or one of the other ladies will pour you tea. Mr. Claypole will be pleased to escort you, will you not, sir?”
Viola could have done without the escort of Mr. Claypole, who because he had proposed marriage to her at least a dozen times during the past year appeared to believe that he had some claim on her and the right to speak plainly to her on any number of issues. The best that could be said of Thomas Claypole was that he was worthy—a solid citizen, a prudent manager of his property, a dutiful son.
He was dull company at best. Irritating company at worst.
“Forgive me, Miss Thornhill,” he began as soon as they were seated at one of the tables beneath the shade of a huge old oak tree and Hannah had poured their tea. “But you will not mind plain speaking from a friend, I daresay. Indeed, I flatter myself that I am more than a friend.”
“What criticism of a perfect day do you have, then, sir?” she asked, setting
her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand.
“Your willingness to organize the fête with the vicar’s committee and to work hard to see that it runs smoothly is admirable indeed,” he began, while Viola’s eyes and attention drifted to the stranger, whom she could see drinking ale at a table outside the inn. “It can do nothing but earn my highest esteem. However, I have been somewhat alarmed to discover that today you look almost indistinguishable from any country wench.”
“Oh, do I?” Viola laughed. “What a delightful thing to say. But you did not mean it as a compliment, did you?”
“You are hatless and your hair is down,” he pointed out. “You have daisies in it.”
She had forgotten. One of the children had presented her with a bunch gathered from the riverbank earlier in the day, and she had pushed the stems into her hair above her left ear. She touched the flowers lightly. Yes, they were still there.
“I believe it is your straw bonnet that is lying on the back pew of the church,” Mr. Claypole continued.
“Ah,” she said, “so that is where I left it, is it?”
“It should be protecting your complexion from the harmful rays of the sun,” he said with gentle reproof.
“So it should,” she agreed, finishing her tea and getting to her feet. “If you will excuse me, sir, I see that the fortune-teller is setting up her booth at last. I must go and see that she has everything she needs.”
But Mr. Claypole would not have recognized a dismissal if it had doubled up into a fist and collided with his nose. He rose too, bowed, and offered his arm. Viola took it with an inward sigh of resignation.
Actually, the fortune-teller was already doing a brisk business, as Viola had been able to see from across the green. What she had also noticed, though, was that the stranger had strolled over to the throwing booth, which had been popular with the young men earlier in the afternoon. He was talking with Jake Tulliver, the blacksmith, when Viola and Mr. Claypole drew near.
“I was about to close down the booth, seeing as how we have run out of prizes,” Jake said, raising his voice to address her. “But this gentleman wants a try.”