Snelgrove’s eyes narrowed when he caught sight of Lord Lensborough, lounging at the green baize table beside the hearth, then widened when Captain Fawley abruptly straightened up and walked steadily across to the sideboard to pour himself a drink, all trace of the pathetic drunken cripple that he’d half-dragged back from the tavern in the East End where they’d met having vanished.
‘I believe you have something you wish to ask me, Snelgrove.’ Lord Lensborough’s voice was cold. ‘A matter of five thousand pounds, I believe.’
Snelgrove’s eyes darted furtively about the room, noting that his only escape route was blocked by the athletic-looking Mr Farrar.
‘I am sure you don’t wish to discuss this matter before witnesses, my lord.’ Snelgrove’s voice was oily, like his smile.
‘Oh?’ Lensborough’s left eyebrow rose the merest fraction. ‘But I thought you particularly wished as many people as possible to hear your version of events.’
‘What I wish, and what you wish, are not necessarily the same, though, are they, my lord? Hence the request for five thousand pounds to keep my mouth shut regarding what I know about your intended.’
‘You know nothing I do not know myself. Lady Hester has no secrets from me.’ He paused, as though considering the matter, though he had long since decided how he would handle this cur. ‘Shall we regard these two gentlemen as…seconds?’
At the implication that this meeting had been arranged for the sole purpose of arranging a duel, some of Lionel’s bluster ebbed away.
‘Although, I shouldn’t wonder if, by the time we have concluded this interview, you wouldn’t like to pay me five thousand pounds to keep my mouth shut regarding what I know about you.’
‘That’s preposterous.’
‘Is it, though? I wonder how many doors would remain open to you once the tale got out that you attempted the rape of a little girl, the sister of your closest friend, no less, under whose roof you were staying at the time? That tale, coupled with my own very public denunciation of you as a man without honour would be enough to finish you. My influence is considerable, as is that of those I consider friends.’
‘You wouldn’t do that.’ Snelgrove’s face flushed angrily. ‘If you bring me down, I take your wife down with me.’
Lensborough appeared to consider this, then shook his head. ‘Possibly, although what proof can you offer that anything actually occurred? It would be your word against hers.’ He took delight in flinging the very taunt Snelgrove had employed against Hester back in his own face. ‘And since I have documented proof that Hester is a virgin, all you would succeed in doing is make yourself look like the filthy, lying scoundrel that you are. You would destroy yourself from your own lips.’
‘Proof? You can’t have proof.’
‘Oh, but I have. As soon as Hester arrived in London, I had a doctor check her…credentials for becoming my wife most meticulously. I can supply you with his name, if you like.’
‘You cold-hearted bastard. What kind of a man does a thing like that to his fiancée?’
‘As you have said.’ Lensborough’s smile at Snelgrove’s obvious horror was positively cruel. ‘Do you know nothing of the Challinor family’s reputation? Do you think a man of my station would walk into marriage without knowing exactly what I was getting? I wouldn’t even buy a horse for my stud without having it thoroughly checked over.’
Snelgrove was sweating now as he looked from one implacably hostile face to another. ‘So, you do mean to force me to a duel?’
‘Well, I should like to shoot you like the dog you are,’ Lensborough drawled, ‘but since technically that would be murder, and as a peer of the realm my duty is to uphold the law…’ he tapped the deck of cards that lay on the table before him with his forefinger ‘…perhaps we should let the cards decide your fate.’
‘The cards?’
‘Yes, we’ll cut, shall we? Whoever cuts highest, wins.’
‘Agreed.’ Snelgrove had sat at the table, had even reached out his hand for the pack, before realisation dawned. He swallowed. ‘Who wins what, exactly?’
‘Exactly?’ Lensborough’s malicious smile sent a shiver of dread down Snelgrove’s spine.
‘How about, if you win, you have the right to say whatever you like about my wife, and I will not contest it?’
Snelgrove’s brain reeled. ‘Hang on! You have just said that if I do that, nobody will believe me, that I would be ruined.’
Lensborough shrugged indifferently. ‘It was your idea in the first place. I would just be letting you do as you wish and taking the consequences.’
‘I w…wouldn’t have really gone through with it. I just needed the money—’ Snelgrove bleated.
‘Don’t you want to know what happens if I draw the higher card?’ Lensborough cut him off.
Thoroughly disconcerted, Snelgrove nodded his head.
‘Well, the thing is, I don’t want my wife troubled by your nasty insinuations. Ever again. What I really want is for you to leave the country altogether. So if I cut the higher card, I shall pay off your debts and buy you a commission in some regiment currently serving overseas. On the strict understanding that you never return. Should you ever set foot on English soil again, however…’ His smile put Snelgrove in mind of a crouched tiger greedily eyeing a nervous gazelle.
With a hand that trembled, Snelgrove reached for the pack, and took a card. With his eyes still fixed on his enemy, Lensborough drew another.
Snelgrove glanced at his card, and licked his chalk-white lips. ‘Ah, we never determined…are aces high or low?’
Lensborough looked at his card, a smile slowly spreading across his face.
‘It is really not for me to decide. Fawley? What say you?’
Fawley let him sweat for a full five minutes, before glaring at him from his one good eye, and announcing, ‘Low.’
Snelgrove ran his finger round the neck of his cravat and laid the eight of spades upon the table. At the sight of Lensborough’s king of clubs, he slumped over the table, whimpering with relief. When Lensborough rose from his chair, Farrar took Snelgrove by one arm, and Fawley the other, lifted him to his feet, and marched him into the bedroom.
Lensborough knew they would not let the man out of their sight until his papers were duly signed. They had both sworn to do whatever was necessary to protect Lady Hester.
‘You do not need me to tell you that I will never forget this,’ he had vowed in his turn. ‘If there is ever anything I can do to repay you, you have only to ask.’
Now he couldn’t wait for the morning to come, so that he could release Hester from the foul shadow that had hung over her for so many years. This was the best wedding present he could give her.
* * *
There was an air of suppressed elation about him this morning, Hester decided as they cantered towards what she had come to regard as their stand of beech trees. Perhaps he was not quite so averse to the idea of marrying her as she had begun to fear.
‘I have something for you,’ he said, swinging her down from the saddle the moment she brought Strawberry to a halt behind the screen of foliage.
‘It is only a token, but it will serve as an excuse for my insistence on this meeting. That, and the chance to snatch a few clandestine kisses, of course.’
Before she had a chance to register what he had said, Jasper drew her into his arms and brought his mouth down upon hers, in a kiss of such fierce possessiveness that it left her gasping.
‘Here,’ he said, reaching into his pocket while she made a feeble attempt to straighten her skewed riding hat. ‘It is something I hope will remind you of me.’
Her heart, which had been beating wildly with hope, skipped a beat altogether. If he wished to give her a reminder of him, did this mean he was planning to leave her? But then why had he kissed her like that?
She opened the lid of the box he was holding out to her warily, wondering what sort of thing a man gave to his bride as a parting gift. Inside, nestling on a bed of bl
ack velvet, was a brooch. A cluster of yellow diamonds, surrounding…
‘Your tiger’s-eye pin,’ she exclaimed, running her finger over its smooth surface. How often she had compared Jasper to that fierce, untameable creature, until just having him near made all other terrors pale in comparison.
‘Well, you seemed so fond of it.’
She shot him a puzzled look.
‘I thought at one time you were cured of the habit of addressing my neckcloth, but of late you have reverted to a fascination with that item of my apparel. So…’ He shrugged eloquently.
‘I have been abominably rude, haven’t I?’ Hester hung her head. ‘It is just that after…that is, I feel so aware of you.’
‘Aware,’ he echoed with a sigh. The poor girl was still terrified of the full act of intimacy. Even after coming apart in his arms. She was trembling, red-faced, flustered, but at least she hadn’t drawn back from the kiss he hadn’t been able to resist giving her. She had her face averted from him now, though. He smiled fondly at the top of her head, a feature which she had presented to him with regularity.
‘The gem was a gift from my brother Bertram,’ he explained as she ran her finger over the jewel that had always reminded her of the colour of his knowing dark eyes. ‘I cannot say it is the most expensive among my collection, but it has always been my favourite. He bought it out of his army pay, when he could scarce afford to.’
‘Oh.’ Hester’s eyes misted. ‘And you have given it to me.’ She looked up at him with a heart full of hope again. He must care about her to some degree if he could give her something of such value to him. ‘I shall always treasure it.’ He had worn that pin close to his heart. Was this his way of showing her that he knew how to value what was only semi-precious, when it was given with true affection? That he accepted she came to him with a heart full of love, even though she was not a diamond of the first water?
‘This is not my real wedding present to you, though,’ he said, throwing her into confusion again.
‘Last night, we…that is, I,’ he hastily amended, not wishing her to know that others had become privy to some of the distressing details of her past, ‘dispatched Snelgrove. He will never bother you again.’
Her reaction was not what he had hoped for. Going ghostly pale, she swayed on her feet. ‘You have killed him.’
‘What? No.’ He caught her about the waist and drew her to his chest when it appeared she would have recoiled. ‘Not that I wasn’t sorely tempted, believe me.’ He tipped her chin up with one forefinger. ‘Do you really believe me capable of cold-blooded murder?’ He studied her anxious face with a feeling of foreboding. If she thought that of him, how was he ever going to get near enough to her to teach her that physical love could bring joy, rather than shame?
She then promptly flung her arms about his waist, burying her face in the folds of his riding coat, presenting the top of her head to his bemused gaze once again.
She believed he could commit murder, yet she clung to him like a limpet. Perhaps there was hope for him after all. With patience, by showing her the utmost consideration, in time he would break down the barriers she had erected in her mind to protect herself from Snelgrove’s vile influence.
‘If you didn’t kill him,’ she breathed into his waistcoat, ‘then how can you be really sure?’ He felt a shudder rack her body. ‘He has this nasty habit of appearing to go away and then popping up again when you least expect him.’
‘Hester, Hester.’ He sighed, rocking her as he might a frightened child. ‘I can assure you that I gave him no alternative. He will never dare so much as set foot in England again.’
She tipped her head back then, gazing up into his face with a frown pleating her forehead. ‘It must have cost you a great deal to send him abroad. The least you can let me do is to reimburse you.’
Shock sent him reeling back from her. ‘Reimburse me?’ he roared. ‘Why in Hades should I wish you to do that? You are my wife. It is my duty to protect you.’
‘I know,’ she moaned, turning from him. ‘Don’t think I am unaware of just how much trouble you are always having to go to for my sake. Especially when I am not the bride you would have chosen.’
‘Not the bride…what do you mean? Of course I chose you, Hester.’
‘Yes, but only because being in that inn together compromised you. I know that, and I don’t mind so much now.’ She turned her face to his, desperate to make him understand. ‘I know you only came to The Holme to find a woman who would simply be a mother to your children, and not disrupt your present mode of life. And all I have done so far is cause you disruption. At least let me settle the debt myself, as a pledge that I will not—’
‘For God’s sake, woman,’ Jasper groaned, closing his eyes on her anguished expression. Guilt flayed him when he went back over their association, and he saw how she had reached that erroneous conclusion about his feelings for her. He had shouted at her, barked orders at her, said and thought the most insulting things. In his desperate, overwhelming desire to possess her he’d acted like the worst sort of bully.
Clenching his fists, he roared, ‘When will you get it through that stubborn head of yours that I want to take care of you?’
‘But you can’t possibly. I am nothing like the kind of wife you said you wanted.’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I was full of foolish notions when I came to The Holme, till you knocked them out of my thick skull with your forthright comments and your queenly disdain. Nobody has attempted to correct my manners since I was out of short coats, and even then, my pride was fostered as a very fitting attribute for my rank. You…you turned me upside down that very first time we ran into each other.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be,’ he grated, grasping her by the shoulders and pulling her back into his arms. ‘Don’t ever be sorry we met, Hester.’
And then, because she was looking at him with such hope, such longing, and she felt so warm and pliant in his arms, he kissed her again. And again.
‘We will be married again tomorrow,’ he reminded himself, trying to regain control. ‘When the ceremony is over, you and I must have a long talk.’ Resting his forehead against hers, he groaned, ‘You have a busy day ahead of you. I promised to have you home in good time. Besides, if we linger here much longer…’ He gave a rueful laugh as Hester ducked out of his arms, her face flaming.
He didn’t want her to be sorry they had met, she reflected, mounting Strawberry in a daze. That must mean he wasn’t sorry, mustn’t it? And he had kissed her. Really kissed her. Remembering his unfeigned ardour sent her blushing all over each time she recalled it. She floated through all the last-minute preparations, the final fitting, in a kind of dream. A man could not fake that reaction to the woman he held in his arms. Jasper wanted her.
He really did.
* * *
And somehow her wedding day was upon her, and she was standing before the mirror checking her appearance one last time before going down to the hall where Uncle Thomas was waiting to escort her to church. Her aunt and cousins and Em had all told her how lovely she looked.
But all she cared about was what Jasper would think of her appearance. She knew she wasn’t beautiful, but there was something about her today that was, oh, she didn’t know, at least elegant. The pale gold silk of her gown seemed to flow like liquid sunshine over her slender figure, while the diamond tiara that Lady Augusta had insisted she wore atop the rich, glossy waves that flowed over her pale shoulders made her feel like a princess.
Her eyes sought him the minute she set foot in the church. She was oblivious to the faces of the great and good of the land craning to examine her dress, deaf to the comments being whispered behind gloved hands. She only had eyes for Jasper, the man she was so proud to call her husband. And when he turned to glance at her over his shoulder, it was all she could do to keep herself from flying down the aisle, flinging her arms round his neck, and thanking him for being there for her, in spite of everything. She
wasn’t sure how she managed to keep to the languid pace Madame Pichot had told her befitted a marchioness—and which, incidentally, displayed the fluid cut of the gown to best effect.
She wasn’t quite sure how she managed to get through the very long, and very public, celebrations that her mother-in-law had deemed necessary, either. Being so close to Jasper was driving her insane. He had only to take her hand for her nipples to peak dramatically at the memory of how those callused palms had felt gliding over her soap-slicked breasts. Every time he brought a morsel of food to his lips, she recalled how delicious his kisses had been.
She was so very much in love with her husband that her entire body pulsed with a longing that she was ashamed to think must be transparent to everyone.
‘You are being dreadfully unfashionable, you know,’ Lady Augusta chided her when at last, at long last, the time came for her to leave with Jasper and gain the privacy of Challinor house. ‘You too.’ She turned towards her son.
From the moment he had turned and seen her walking down the aisle towards him, he had been unable to conceal the depth of his emotions a moment longer. It was plain for all to see the pair were besotted with each other.
‘Didn’t Hester make a radiant bride, Mama?’ was his only response to her teasing. He took her arm then, and steered her through the crowd of well-wishers, his jaw determinedly set.
He tried not to read too much into her apparent eagerness to leave the scene of the wedding breakfast, and embark on their new life together. He couldn’t forget the way she had begun to tear her own clothes off in determination to get the dreadful deed over with on their first wedding night.
His Cinderella Bride Page 27