Scandalous Brides

by Annette Blair

  She glanced at the Countess, who was curled up in the window seat with her needlepoint, and saw an opportunity to aggravate Diana where it hurt most.

  “I love what you have done with the nursery, my lady. And I can’t tell you how happy I am that my brother has finally married because I was despairing of ever becoming an aunt.” She glanced at Sir Antony with a sweet smile that did not deceive him. “Salt will make a wonderfully devoted father to his own brood, don’t you agree, Tony?”

  “I am sure he will oblige you, Caro, by filling the nursery to overflowing,” agreed Sir Antony, ignoring the Countess, who blushed up with embarrassment, but not his sister who gave a huff of dismissal. “My dear Diana, swallow a stone?”

  “Good! I do so want lots of nephews and nieces,” Lady Caroline responded then changed the subject before Diana, who was glaring at her with slit-eyed hostility, had time to go in for the attack. “Tony, what was it you were saying about Willis? Surely Jenkins has it wrong?”

  “Had it from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.”

  “Rufus Willis has been with us since forever,” Lady Caroline argued, puzzled. “He was born at Salt Hall. His father and his grandfather were our stewards. He gave me my first pony ride. And Mamma sent him off to Rugby because he was so bookish. He was meant to go on to Cambridge but then Mamma died and his papa got ill. I said he should talk to Salt. His brain is wasted as an under-butler—”

  “Oh, don’t be utterly beetle-brained, Caroline!” Diana St. John said dismissively. “Waste money on a servant’s education? The man should be glad he has a roof over his head.” She gave Merry a plate of almond biscuits to offer Jane. “Care for a little biscuit, my lady?” When Jane instinctively pulled back from the strong smell of almond paste but still managed to smile and say thank you to the little girl for the offer, Diana smiled crookedly. “Perhaps a lemon tart would better suit your palate? Merry! Take this lemon tart to her ladyship.”

  “Rufus Willis is one of the most well-read men of my acquaintance,” Jane stated, taking a nibble of the lemon tart then putting it aside because she had lost her appetite for sweet pastries. She picked up her needlepoint again. “I hope Salt will do something for him, Caroline.”

  “Lord, yes, of your acquaintance, to be sure. You’re as buffle-headed as Caroline!” Diana replied, annoyed Jane had discarded the tart. “Next you’ll be telling us Salt married you for your sweet nature and not because he had a momentary lapse of reason.” She sipped at her tea thoughtfully. “In my experience, unquenchable lust for a beautiful object has often been the downfall of many a great and powerful man. I never thought to see Salt sink so low…”

  Lady Caroline was up on her heels. “How dare you speak about my brother and his wife in such a-a crude and-and undignified manner! Salt married Jane because he loves her; much you would know about that.”

  “Caroline, you are an overindulged, spoiled child who—”

  “Enough,” stated Sir Antony very quietly, glancing up from the carpet where he was helping Ron detach a thread from the ribbon that had caught in the kitten’s claw. “Caro is in the right, Di. You owe Lady Salt an apology.”

  “Please, we all must remember where we are,” Jane said quietly, a significant glance at Ron and Merry who had been riveted to the conversation. “Tony, what was it Jenkins told you about Willis? He has not taken ill I trust?”

  “Worse. Dismissed from his post. Willis is no longer under-butler in this household.”

  Just as Sir Antony said this, Anne, who had come through from the dressing room with a fresh reel of cotton for her mistress, burst into tears and fled the room on a strangled sob.

  “Thank God such a maudlin creature no longer lingers in my household,” Lady St. John announced with satisfaction as she busied herself pouring out milk into various tea dishes. “The woman’s a dripping spout of woes.”

  Lady Caroline stared in disbelief from the Countess to Diana St. John and then went up to Jane, mindful of the twins’ presence. “You can’t let her get away with making such horrid remarks about you and my brother,” she whispered. “She owes you an apology and if you don’t stand up to her she will think you weak and be forever managing you.”

  Jane put aside her needlepoint and drew Caroline to sit beside her in the window seat. “If I thought it would be of any use I would do as you suggest, but…” She glanced over at Diana St. John who was absorbed with corking a small blue bottle that she then slipped into her reticule. “She is not well. Anything I say will only inflame her. I do not expect you to fully understand but please we must wait for your brother, who is the only person capable of controlling her.” She looked over at Sir Antony and asked about the under-butler.

  “Kitchen gossip,” Sir Antony apologized. “Willis left the house without telling Jenkins his direction and when he returned he was summonsed to Salt’s private apartments where he spent over an hour locked up in close conversation. When he emerged his face was so white it looked as if it had been dipped in flour and he was shaking like a Jelly Surprise and he couldn’t put two words together. Whereupon he again left the house and has not been seen since. I might add, that whatever Willis said in that interview left Salt in a blind rage. Andrews confided to Jenkins he had never heard such a vulgar tongue expressed with such eloquence.”

  Lady Caroline smiled at Jane and glanced slyly at Sir Antony, saying with feigned thoughtfulness, “Perhaps I will ask dear Captain Beresford to employ Willis…?”

  Sir Antony did not rise to the bait. He put his dish back on its saucer, saying charmingly, “You do that, sweetheart. Perhaps, given the circumstances of this love affair, your Captain might even take on her ladyship’s personal maid so Willis and she can be together again. Now wouldn’t that make for a romantic foursome?”

  “Yes, how romantic indeed!” Lady Caroline threw at Sir Antony as if he had made the best suggestion in the world. “I must write to the dear Captain at once about poor Willis. He is so understanding about such matters. No doubt when I inform him of the circumstances behind Willis’ dismissal he will jump at the chance to be of service to me.”

  “I believe a note to the dear Captain is just what you should do, Caroline.” Jane dimpled, entering into the girl’s teasing of Sir Antony. “And be certain to inform him that the romantic notion of keeping Anne and Rufus together was the idea of Sir Antony Templestowe.”

  Sir Antony bowed. “I aim to please you both, dear ladies.”

  “When did the feelings of servants ever amount to anything?” Diana St. John said dismissively and smiled at Jane. “You have not touched your tart, my lady. Perhaps the dish of tea my daughter graciously gave you will help you feel more the thing. Merry! Don’t hover! Offer the cakes to your uncle then you may stand here beside my chair. No, Ron! Merry!” she snapped when her daughter offered cake to her brother. “No cake. Your brother is still too weak to digest any food. Remember what the physician advised.”

  Jane picked up the dish of tea Merry had placed on the window seat beside her, ignoring Diana St. John’s intense gaze.

  “You truly do not look at all well, my lady,” Diana St. John said silkily when Jane hesitated to drink the contents of her tea dish. “Tea is most beneficial when one is out of sorts. Don’t you agree, Antony?”

  “Merry, if you would be so kind as to return this dish to your mamma.” Jane smiled at the little girl. “I do not take milk.”

  “My dear Lady Salt, I assure you that with milk, the tea will do you a great deal of good,” Diana St. John insisted. “Merry! Lady Salt will drink the tea with milk.”

  “No. I will not,” Jane stated firmly, holding Diana St. John’s gaze, and the tea dish on its saucer at arm’s length for Merry to return to the tea trolley. “Thank you, Merry.”

  “Merry! Do not take that dish!” her mother ordered. “My lady, I insist that you at least try my tea. After all the trouble I took to make it on your behalf.”

  “I am mindful of the effort, my lady, but I am unable to drink the tea.
”

  “And why are you unable to drink tea with milk, my lady?”

  “Di, it is of no importance why Lady Salt cannot drink tea with milk,” Sir Antony said on sigh of exasperation. “That her ladyship does not wish it should suffice. Merry, take the tea dish back to the trolley forthwith.”

  “No, Merry, do not touch that dish,” her mother enunciated. “Lady Salt will do me the courtesy of drinking the tea.”

  The little girl hesitated, halfway between her mother and the Countess, not knowing which way to turn. Wanting to take the tea dish from the Countess yet afraid of her mother’s wrath if she did. Ron saw his sister’s distress and went toward her, but Sir Antony, exchanging a look of exasperation with Lady Caroline, stayed his nephew with a hand on his shoulder and came to his niece’s rescue.

  “What a lot of bother over a trifle! Let Merry take the dish and be done with it.”

  “Don’t interfere! This is none of your concern! Lady Salt will drink the tea Merry so graciously gave her. It would be the height of bad manners not to do so. Would it not, my lady?”

  Jane suppressed her own exasperation and reasoned that if one sip of milky tea would put an end to all the fuss and make Merry comfortable again, then she would do her best to oblige Diana St. John. Surely she could conquer her nausea for a matter of mere moments. But just the thought of milk made her queasy. Perhaps if she held her breath…

  Arthur Ellis, who was silently perched on a corner of the sofa, his presence forgotten, now rose up, intent on rescuing the Countess from the misery of being forced to drink a substance that clearly even the thought of which was making her wilt. Merry still stood in the middle of the room her distress evident though she felt a huge relief when the Countess lifted the dish from its saucer.

  Jane tried her best to bring the dish up to her mouth but the curl of steam that rose from the milky liquid and assailed her nose made her pull back, return the dish to its saucer and close her eyes. It was too much for Arthur Ellis, and for Sir Antony, who both stepped forward as one and almost collided, the secretary stepping back to allow Sir Antony to play knight-errant.

  Such was his annoyance with his sister’s pigheadedness that Sir Antony inadvertently snatched the tea dish and saucer from Jane’s hand. In so doing, the tea dish toppled and its hot milky contents splashed across the front of his exquisite silver-threaded velvet waistcoat before he had a hand to the dish to set it to rights on the saucer. What was not soaked up by the plush velvet dripped onto his highly polished shoes with their enormous silver buckles and into his left shoe, soaking his stockinged foot.

  Diana St. John was on her feet in furious disbelief. She stared at the tea-soaked front of her brother’s ruined waistcoat and then down at his shoes. “You idiot! You fool,” she seethed. “I could kill you! All that effort. It was the perfect opportunity! You have no idea, no idea at all, what you’ve just done!”

  “But I do,” the Earl announced from the doorway and strolled further into his wife’s pretty sitting room crowded with his relatives, and immediately dominated the space.

  EIGHTEEN

  ‘WELL, ARTHUR, what part of escort Lady St. John to my bookroom at once did you not understand? It doesn’t matter now,” Salt said dismissively to his secretary’s red-faced and incomprehensible garbled apology. “Take a breath and sit down before you lose consciousness.” He placed two folded parchments, one with a freshly broken seal, upon the mantle shelf between several propped up cards of invitation then turned to stare Sir Antony up and down. “Dear me, Tony. A waistcoat ruined. But for the greater good, I assure you.” Over his shoulder he sensed Diana St. John had taken a step toward him. “Sit down,” he snarled. “At once.” Then turned a bright smile on his godchildren. “Merry. Ron. Be so good as to follow me.”

  Jane watched her husband move away from the fireplace to stand by the narrow door hidden in the patterned chinoiserie wallpaper of peonies that provided access to the servant passageway and stairs that led to the nursery above. She found it difficult to believe that he had ever suffered a collapse in his life, and just hours ago on the tennis court. If not for the clench to his square jaw, he appeared at ease, and as strong and as healthy as ever. His brown eyes were alert and there was a healthy color in his clean-shaven cheeks, which made her breathe a sigh of relief. But that clench bothered her. It was a sign she had come to read very well indeed. He might appear to the world to be untroubled, but in truth he was doing his best to keep his emotions well and truly under control. She did not envy him the task that lay ahead. And she was just as anxious for him, and the children.

  That Tom had followed Salt into the sitting room, gave her some comfort. Yet Tom looked as worried as the Earl appeared unruffled. Her stepbrother was not good at hiding his feelings. As soon he saw Jane he ignored the room full of people and went straight over to bow over her hand. It was only when he was seated beside her in the window seat that he nodded to the assembled company before looking to the Earl for direction.

  Salt told Ron and Merry to bring with them the Countess’s furry four-legged fiend and waited while they scooped up Viscount Fourpaws, who did not want to be unsettled from the warmth to be had curled up on Lady Caroline’s lap. When Diana St. John half rose out of the wingchair in expectation of following her children across the room, one word from the Earl reluctantly sat her down again. Sir Antony, Lady Caroline and Arthur Ellis, who was red faced and still on his feet, remained silent. A quiet word from Jane and the secretary slowly sank back down onto the corner of the sofa. Like everyone else in the room, his gaze remained fixed on the Earl.

  Salt went down on his haunches before his godchildren.

  “I need you both to do me a great favor,” he said very quietly so only the twins could hear him. He looked from Ron to Merry and back to the pale-faced boy with his sunken wary eyes. “I know you were promised afternoon tea with her ladyship and me. But a matter of great importance has arisen that requires my immediate attention. So I need you to do me this favor: To spend a few hours in the nursery. I know that is not what you wanted and your disappointment is understandable, but it will help me enormously. I hate to break my promise at any time but most particularly to you both. I don’t do so lightly. Can you understand that?”

  Merry was the first to nod and say with a smile, “If it is important to you, Uncle Salt, then we understand. Don’t we, Ron?”

  Salt gently cupped her cheek. “Thank you, Merry. Ron?”

  Ron nodded, though his disappointment was evident. “Of course.”

  “Good man. I’ve sent for your clothes and favorite things from South Audley Street because I have decided you will be staying here. So you will be able to take supper tonight in the Yellow Saloon and we may even have time for a round of charades before bedtime. Is that fair compensation for spending a few hours cooped up in the nursery, do you think?

  “Very fair! Are we truly to stay with you here?” Merry asked breathlessly and when the Earl nodded couldn’t suppress her excitement by jumping up and down on the spot. But she had a sudden awful thought. “Clary and Taylor aren’t coming here too?”

  Salt smiled at Merry’s look of wide-eyed dread. The dour governess and the cold-fish tutor were repellent beings that had no place caring for children; his stables of horses received better care.

  “No. You need never see those two again.”

  “No Clary and Taylor, Ron! Did you hear that?”

  Ron wasn’t so demonstrative and when he glanced fearfully across at his mother the Earl gently squeezed his thin arm, an encouraging smile at Merry, who was beaming with happiness and holding tightly to the kitten.

  “I gave your father my word that I would take good care of you, Ron, and I promise you that I mean to take better care of you from this day forward. You and Merry both.”

  “But you do take very good care of us, Uncle Salt,” Merry assured him and gently nudged her brother. “Doesn’t he, Ron?”

  “Yes. Always! I don’t need you to tell him for me,�
� Ron complained, acknowledging his sister’s prompting by nudging her in return. He frowned at the Earl, another quick, furtive glance at his mother, and said hesitantly, “You do mean it, don’t you, Uncle Salt, about staying here with you?” His voice dropped to a whisper. “You won’t—You won’t send me—send us—back? Last night you promised I’d never have to take Mamma’s medicine ever again. You did mean it? I don’t want to be ill. I don’t like being ill. I won’t have to take it again, will I?”

  Salt held the boy’s haunted gaze, so reminiscent of his father St. John that he felt a tightening in his throat and chest. He wanted to hug the boy and reassure him that he would never allow harm to come to him again, yet he refrained from doing so because he knew Ron would be embarrassed by such demonstrative behavior in public. Instead, he held out his hand.

  “Last night we shook hands on it, Ron,” he said quietly. “But I will gladly shake hands with you again if it will convince you that I mean it.”

  Again, Ron looked warily over at his mother before turning his gaze on the Countess. She was smiling at him. He liked her smile. It was sweet and understanding and so full of comfort. He would never tell his sister this, but secretly the Countess was just as he imagined a fairy to be if fairies really did live at the bottom of gardens. Unconsciously, his thin shoulders sagged with relief and he let out a small sigh. Finally, he thrust out his hand to the Earl and when it was taken allowed himself to be drawn into his godfather’s embrace. Overcome, he buried his face in the soft velvet of the Earl’s frock coat. Merry put a comforting hand to her brother’s shaking back, saying in a confidential whisper to her uncle,