Scandalous Brides

by Annette Blair

  Before she realized what was happening, she was in Salt’s arms and he was tenderly wiping her face dry of tears with his white handkerchief. But she didn’t want him to hold her at that moment. She wasn’t sure how she felt about his affair with Abby Allenby and the part he had played in keeping from Caroline her true parentage. So she pulled out of his embrace and took the handkerchief to wipe her flushed face dry before staring at him resolutely.

  “Did you never think that the child growing up as your sister might not be your sister at all? Didn’t you think to do the sums? Did you never wonder why Caroline had the coloring of a Sinclair but the looks of an Allenby?”

  “No,” he answered simply. “Why would it occur to me?”

  “I should hazard a guess that the possibility of impregnating your lovers has never occurred to you!”

  “Jane, I do not understand why you are upsetting yourself over this. I grant the tale is a sordid one and Abby’s death a tragedy, but Caro has never suffered for being my sister, ever. My mother loved her as her own. I love her as any brother would love his sister. She wants for nothing. God, even Jacob Allenby showed he had a conscience in the end when he had the audacity to leave his only grandchild ten thousand pounds in his will; the dowry he had stripped from Abby when he disowned her.

  “Believe me or not, but I was five and twenty before I figured out for myself that Caro was not my sister. I’d come down to Salt Hall for Caro’s ninth birthday. She was running up the drive to greet me, as she always did, with her arms outstretched playing at being a swallow or robin red breast or some such bird that had taken her fancy at the time. Her copper curls were bouncing about her thin shoulders and she was so happy to see me. And then it hit me, literally in the chest. The breath was knocked out of me. She was the likeness of Abigail Allenby. And then I knew: My parents were not Caroline’s parents. Abby was Caro’s mother.” He gently touched Jane’s hair. “I just want you to understand—”

  She shifted out of his reach, along the chaise longue, not wanting the touch of him, white handkerchief twisted up in her hands. “What? That you learned your lesson with Abby Allenby’s ruin? That you took the advice your father beat into you and henceforth confined your whoring to women of your own class and paid courtesans who knew how to keep themselves from falling with your bastards?” She gave a little sob that broke in the middle. “How ironic that the one and only other time you allowed lust to rule good sense you again impregnated a gently bred girl from the counties! Though you quickly came to your noble senses. You weren’t fifteen anymore and you were the Earl, and once returned to London and your life here, Wiltshire could well have been the Americas for all you cared, so it would have been easy to forget me—”

  He came to life at that. He had been staring hard at her, trying to make sense of her emotionally charged denunciation, knowing she was overreacting but not knowing why. She was so pale and shivered in the thin chemise and dressing gown that he wondered if she had caught a chill the night before from the breeze blowing off the icy waters of the Thames. He heard her accuse him of not only impregnating Abigail Allenby but also impregnating her, and it was such an astonishing accusation that he was incapable of absorbing it there and then. So he seized on the one fact he could deal with and his anger extinguished all thoughts and consideration for her welfare.

  “For God’s sake, Jane!” he growled in frustration. “Abby wasn’t the Allenby I was rutting in that hayloft. It was your bloody stepmother Rachel!” He gave a huff of embarrassment as he took a turn about the room, stopped at the fireplace and set another log atop the burning embers for want of something to cover his mortification at blurting out such a confession. “Truth told, Abby wasn’t the only one to lose her innocence in that hayloft…”

  There was a long awkward silence between them; the only sound, the spit and hiss of coals as the fire leapt into new life. Jane stood beside him and lifted her palms to the radiant warmth. She stated what he had not.

  “St. John is Caroline’s father.”

  “Yes.” He looked down at her then. His smile was sad. “As a boy, St. John had a mop of red curls. Caroline has such a mop… She has his eyes.”

  “Did he know he had a daughter?”

  “Like me, he figured it out for himself much later. We made a promise never to tell anyone, never to tell Caroline. Now I have told you.”

  Jane nodded, as if it did not need to be said that she too would never divulge Caroline’s paternity.

  “So my stepmother knew you were not Caroline’s father, and yet she colluded with Jacob Allenby to try and force your father to have you marry Abby?”

  “Yes.”

  “And when that scheme did not work out, she and Allenby disowned Abby?”

  “Yes.”

  “I do not wonder why you detest her. Poor Abby.”

  She saw Salt give a start and turn his shoulder and realized they were not alone, that her maid stood in the doorway, eyes cast to the floorboards.

  “What is it, Anne?”

  “Lady Sedley’s carriage will be here on the hour, my lady.”

  “Oh!” Jane turned to the Earl. “I must bathe and dress or I will be late for our excursion to the Strand. Lady Elisabeth is taking me to view the Society’s picture exhibition. She tells me I must see the Death of General Wolfe, a piece by a new painter George… George Rom-Romney, as she thinks him such a prodigiously fine master of the brush and that I should sit to him.” When her husband frowned she added with a frown of her own, “Surely you cannot object to your wife being seen in the company of a married daughter of your political rival? After all, wives and daughters are above petty politics, surely?”

  Salt inclined his head. “As to that, my wife is certainly above anything petty.”

  Jane blushed at the compliment, adding with a smile as she sat before her looking glass and began to brush her hair, “I am told in confidence that Lord Bute is tired unto death of the slights against him when all he wants is what is best for the King—” She paused at Salt’s huff of disbelief “—and what is best for the country. Elisabeth believes it to be so and who am I to disabuse her? She is loyal to her father, which is as it should be. Caroline would defend you to her dying breath, would she not?”

  “Just so, my lady.”

  “Elisabeth also confided that her father is done with politics. Lord Bute means to resign all his commissions come April.”

  Salt lifted his brows in surprise. “Is that so, my lady? Then you have managed to discover what I and others on both sides of the political fence have been trying to do for months.”

  Jane stopped in mid-brushstroke and smiled sweetly at his reflection. “Perhaps his lordship should spend more time in the nursery.”

  He pulled aside the weight of hair from her neck and stooped to kiss her nape, murmuring, “Believe me, Jane, I would like nothing better in this world than to spend my time with you in the nursery.”

  Jane decided the moment had come to tell him about their baby and was about to do so when she caught sight of her maid’s reflection in the looking glass. Anne was still standing behind them, nervously wringing her hands and looking miserable. She was staring at the Earl and although her mouth was moving as if in speech, no words were audible. Jane realized she was rehearsing a monologue, so turned on her dressing stool, a warning glance up at her husband.

  Salt beckoned the woman forward, wondering what his wife’s maid could possibly have to say to him that could not be discussed with his butler or his housekeeper, or with her mistress the Countess.

  “My lord, I must speak with you,” Anne announced nervously and bobbed a curtsey before launching headlong into her speech for fear that if she drew breath, or looked up into the Earl’s face again, she would lose her way and not be able to deliver her very important message. The fear that Lady St. John was, at any moment, on her way to Grosvenor Square to find out if she had carried out her orders made her resolute. She could not take another interrogation by that evil woman, and as she
had not administered the contents of the small bottle to the Countess’s dish of tea as ordered, but given it unopened to Mr. Willis, Anne knew the time to act was now.

  “My lord, Mr. Willis craved an audience with you today and was told by Mr. Ellis that there was no possibility of Mr. Willis being admitted to your lordship’s bookroom, because your lordship had a prior engagement with the Russian ambassador and then her ladyship’s brother, Mr. Allenby, is to come to play at tennis and to stay to dinner. And what with the Lady Caroline come to stay so unexpectedly, and putting the servants in a minor commotion on account of finding places for the Wiltshire servants, Mr. Ellis advised Mr. Willis to take the matter to Mr. Jenkins, who as butler is the right and proper person to be admitted to your lordship’s bookroom to discuss servant matters. But as Mr. Willis explained to Mr. Ellis, the matter was not only urgent but was most certainly not for the ears of Mr. Jenkins or, for that matter, any servants’ ears, but only for your lordship’s ears.

  “Whereupon Mr. Ellis ordered Mr. Willis to tell him his business. Mr. Willis resolutely refused to do such a thing because, with all due respect to Mr. Ellis’s position as your lordship’s secretary, to divulge the matter to Mr. Ellis or any other person save your lordship, would not be right and proper on account of the matter being of such a particularly delicate nature. So you see, my lord, it is very, very important that Mr. Willis speaks with you today.”

  Anne loudly drew breath and bobbed another curtsey and dared to bravely look up into the handsome impassive face above her before dropping her gaze again, wringing her hands and with her heart beating so hard against her ribs that the blood drummed in her ears. She wondered if it was a flicker of a smile the Earl displayed, or the beginnings of a frown; either way, she had managed to get his attention, which was all that mattered.

  “Well—Anne,” Salt replied, a quick glance over at Jane to see if he had correctly remembered the woman’s name, “if Willis is of the opinion that the matter is of such a particularly delicate nature that it cannot be dealt with by Jenkins or Mr. Ellis but is for my ears only, and that the matter is of some urgency, then see Willis I must. Be good enough to tell Willis to present himself at my bookroom at once, before the Russian Ambassador arrives, and he will find me alone and at leisure to speak with him.”

  Anne bobbed another curtsey but she was far from happy with this outcome. She glanced anxiously at the Countess and then raised her eyes to the Earl. Her throat was dry from extreme nervousness making her voice rasping and halting. “With the utmost respect, my lord, what you suggest is not possible. For you see, my lord, Mr. Willis always accompanies her ladyship everywhere whenever her ladyship ventures from the house unattended. That is to say that whenever your lordship is not with her ladyship, or Sir Antony is not with her ladyship, then Mr. Willis is-is duty bound to attend on her ladyship.”

  “Willis’ loyalty is to be commended. However, I am confident upon this occasion that her ladyship will spare Willis—”

  “No! Please, my lord, no. You cannot make Mr. Willis choose. He must do his duty by her ladyship and especially at this most particular time…” She dared not look at the Countess and kept her gaze on the Earl. “By doing his duty to her ladyship he does his duty to you, my lord.”

  Salt was stunned by such abruptness in a servant that he almost reeled back in shock. However, he managed to reply very quietly, “Have Willis present himself at my bookroom before dinner. He will find me there alone. Now off you go,” he added uncomfortably and when the maid had scurried away into the closet to gather together her mistress’s clothes for the outing, turned on Jane. “Good Lord! I’ve never heard such a tumble of words, and said with such sternness, from a maidservant. I don’t see why you should have a giggle at my expense at the recalcitrance of your maid!”

  “Climbing down off your pedestal wasn’t that difficult, was it?”

  “Difficult?” he replied, nostrils aquiver, trying his best to look offended. Yet, he couldn’t stop a lopsided grin. “Not if you are there to catch me should I have the misfortune to take a tumble from such a lofty height.”

  She smiled at his reflection. “Always.”

  “Then you had best come to the tennis court when you return from viewing pictures. Tom is sure to beat me at my own game, given I have had less than three hours sleep in the past twenty-four.”

  But it wasn’t Tom who next knocked the Earl from the dizzying heights of his noble plinth; it was his discarded mistress, Elizabeth, Lady Outram, come to call on the young Countess of Salt Hendon to open her eyes to the veracity of life as the wife of a lothario nobleman.

  ~ ~ ~

  “MR WRAXTON? Mr. Wraxton? Are you awake, sir?”

  It was Arthur Ellis and he was gently nudging Hilary Wraxton’s Malacca cane with the toe of his shoe, hoping to wake the poet. Hilary’s Wraxton’s snoring was so loud that his sonorous nasal blasts reverberated in the cavernous vestibule off the downstairs withdrawing room and out into the expanse of the main entrance hall. Lined with marble statues of Greek Gods and Roman emperors, and portraits of long dead noble Sinclairs, the vestibule was not a room in the cozy sense of the word that one would want to curl up in and fall asleep, but more a museum where one sauntered about to view the impressive life-size busts of the Emperor Augustus, Marcus Aurelius and Caesar or gazed at the Elizabethan and Stuart full-length pictures of previous Earls of Salt Hendon.

  The secretary had just come from his employer’s bookroom where the Russian Ambassador and two of his equerries, Lord Salt and Sir Antony had been ensconced speaking in the French tongue for three hours. Mr. Ellis prided himself on his fluency in the French language, after all he had a first in languages from Oxford, but the flow of conversation had tested his linguistic powers and given him the headache. His Excellency the Count had stayed to nuncheon and enjoyed himself so much that he invited his noble host and Sir Antony to dine with him the following week. And to bring the oh so vivacious Lady Caroline Sinclair with them, and of course Lady Salt, whose company he had not had the pleasure, although he had the pleasure of an introduction at the Richmond House ball—such astonishing beauty was forever remembered.

  Salt had graciously accepted His Excellency’s invitation, though privately he was not so certain Caroline would be alive to see the light of another day, he so wanted to strangle the life out of her for coming into the bookroom uninvited. His annoyance was tempered by Sir Antony’s acute observation that Caroline’s behavior was no less reprehensible than that of his own dear sister Diana, who made it her business to interrupt the Earl’s at home days every Tuesday; and Diana didn’t have the excuse of the overconfidence of youth and naivety. And as Count Vorontsov seemed very taken with Caroline’s enthusiasm for all things Russian, and the fact she was attentive and laughed very prettily at all His Excellency’s long-winded stories, Sir Antony told Salt he really had nothing to complain about. To which the Earl wanted to retort that love was blind and the sooner Sir Antony ordered Caroline to stop encouraging the attentions of Captain Big-Boots Beresford, married her and swept her off to St. Petersburg the better for his peace of mind.

  Peace of mind.

  That’s what he craved most these days. The thought of the Easter break and taking Jane and the children to Wiltshire to muck about on the estate occupied his thoughts as the butler and two footmen helped the Count with his sword and sash and into his mink-lined great coat; Sir Antony having a last word with one of the Russian equerries. Salt nodded distractedly when Sir Antony mentioned he was taking Caroline for a turn about the park for some fresh air before dinner but came out of his abstraction when he saw his secretary disappear into the vestibule where emanated the discordant sounds of what could only be described as a muffled bugle but was in fact heavy snoring.

  “Salt! Good! Wanted a word,” Hilary Wraxton announced, wide-awake and staring beyond the secretary at the Earl who strode into the vestibule with a quick look around. “Here! You! Be useful. Hold this,” he ordered the secretary and pushed
his Malacca cane onto Arthur Ellis. From an inner pocket of his blue watered silk waistcoat he produced a thick sheaf of small parchment squares tied up with a pink ribbon. “Poems for her ladyship. One a week for a year,” he announced proudly and held them out to the Earl. “Would have penned more; no time. Pascoe says I can write more from Paris and Venice and Constantinople, if we get that far.”

  “Thank you, Hilary,” the Earl said placidly, accepting the wad of poetical writings and instantly handing them off to his secretary. “Why must her ladyship have one a week?”

  “She looks forward to my recitals. Told me so. I admit reading ’em herself ain’t the same as me reading ’em to her, but she’ll just have to bear up under the disappointment.”

  Salt suppressed a grin. “Yes. She will be disappointed. Paris. Venice. Constantinople?”

  “Pascoe is taking me, well us. Actually, come to think on it,” he mused with a frown, as if the idea had just popped into his head, “I invited myself. Lizzie don’t mind. Says I’ll be company for Pascoe when she’s sleeping. Sleeps a lot, Lizzie. Dare say that’s the price of fading beauty: Beauty sleep at two in the afternoon. You know the type, Salt. Pascoe’s turn to put up with her.” He gave a sudden snort of laughter that startled the secretary into dropping the Malacca cane, and it clattered loudly on the marble floor. “Sporting of you to let Pascoe have her all to himself. Between us, he’s always been ears over toes for Lizzie; wouldn’t let on to you. Not while you and she were—you know…”

  The Earl wondered if Hilary Wraxton was being more obtuse than usual or whether it was just overtiredness on his part that made the poet’s conversation even more unfathomable. But mention of Lizzie and Pascoe in the same breath and Salt realized the poet was talking about Elizabeth, Lady Outram, whom he had not thought about since he left her drawing room in Half Moon Street the day before his marriage to Jane three months ago; it could well have been another lifetime.