Heiress in Love (Ministry of Marriage Novels)

by Christina Brooke

  “You’re right,” she whispered. “You’re absolutely right. I don’t know you at all, do I, Constantine?” She put her fingertips to her temple, feeling lost, like a tiny cork floating in a vast sea. “I’m afraid I can’t…”

  Like a sleepwalker, blindly, she turned and left him alone.

  * * *

  Though she wished for nothing more than solitude and a good bout of weeping, Jane returned to the drawing room, determined to give the best performance of her life. She needed Montford to believe she was content in this marriage, when in fact, she viewed it with something very near despair.

  When had Constantine become more to her than a means to secure a future with Luke?

  The gentlemen rose at her entrance. “Where’s my nephew?” demanded deVere.

  “Oh. Is he not here?” said Jane vaguely. “Mr. Trent and Lord Roxdale had, ah, words up in the gallery. I believe Mr. Trent must have gone home.”

  Montford’s lips twitched. Lady Arden gave a small choke, as if she stifled a laugh.

  “Gone home?” DeVere erupted, launching out of his chair. “Be damned to him!”

  Without taking his leave, deVere strode off, leaving Lady Arden shaking with mirth. “Oh, I ought not to laugh, but he entertains me vastly.” She fluttered her hands, gesturing for Jane to be seated. “Now, at last we can get to business. Montford, I have happy news. Jane and Constantine are to wed.”

  There was a pause. Softly, Montford said, “Then it appears I must congratulate you, Lady Roxdale.”

  Jane rushed into speech. “I know it is against your wish, Your Grace, but I believe this alliance is best for everyone and vital for the estate.”

  The duke watched her with a meditative air, the kind of contemplation that had made her squirm and babble all her secrets as a child. Indeed, even now, the effect of that mild, inquiring stare was much the same.

  “Eminently sensible, my dear!” chimed in Lady Arden, saving her from speaking. “Don’t, I beg you, allow Montford to put you off. We’ve agreed, have we not, to a short engagement? Your Grace, I believe that by the time those months pass your fears will be allayed. In fact,” she added with a glinting smile, “I prophesy that you shall eat your words about Constantine.”

  The supreme confidence with which her ladyship spoke only made Jane’s heart sink lower. She excused herself as soon as she could.

  As she left the drawing room, she heard Lady Arden invite Montford to stay for dinner.

  Wonderful! What an interminable ordeal that was going to be.

  * * *

  Jane didn’t find the solitude she craved in her bedchamber. Luke lay in wait for her in her sitting room, an accusing look darkening his features.

  Not now, she thought. Please. Not now.

  “You forgot our picnic,” Luke said without preamble. “And now it’s coming on to storm!”

  “Picnic?” Jane pinched the bridge of her nose. “I don’t recall planning a picnic.”

  He regarded her with the pitiless eyes of a child denied a promised treat. “On the next fine day, you said. And Lord Roxdale was to come, too. He said he’d ask Marthe to pack a hamper ’specially and we were going to visit some ruins. And now it’s too late to go, besides the fact it’s wizzling down outside. And I wanted to see those ruins something awful, Aunt Jane, and now it’ll rain for weeks and weeks and I’ll never go!”

  Ordinarily, Jane would tease him out of a mood like this, but the torrent of childish recriminations filled her cup to the brim.

  Quickly, she turned her back on Luke, biting her lip in the struggle to stop herself bursting into tears. She couldn’t let him see her weep.

  She drew air into her lungs in great, shuddery gulps and waited until she had command over herself. Then she turned back to answer him.

  “Luke,” she managed in a low, calm voice, “it is a pity that you fixed your sights on today but didn’t inform either me or Lord Roxdale of the fact. You should have reminded me sooner and then perhaps we could have gone.”

  She wished Luke had reminded her. She wished the three of them had tripped off merrily on an expedition with no thought in their heads beyond pleasure. She might then have been spared a vast deal of pain.

  But no. She’d been overdue for a rude awakening, hadn’t she? An excursion today would merely have postponed the inevitable.

  Luke looked far from mollified. Patience was almost beyond her at the moment, but she did her best.

  In a rallying tone, she said, “Come here, you silly sausage.” She draped an arm around him and gave him a hug. “There’s no need for you to be so cross. We’ll go another day.”

  “It won’t be the same.” He shrugged out of her hold and folded his arms across his skinny chest, glowering at her from beneath lowered brows like a malignant pixie.

  Exasperation warred with the strong urge to laugh. She knew he’d only get madder if she gave way to hilarity, so she bit her lip again to stifle the threatening guffaw.

  Why was she the only one to receive the brunt of Luke’s displeasure? Constantine should be here to get a taste of it, too.

  “Where is Lord Roxdale?” she asked.

  “He’s ridden off somewhere without me,” muttered Luke.

  Ah. So that’s what this was about. Constantine had taken to letting Luke accompany him on his hacks around the estate. Luke had come to depend on those jaunts with his idol.

  Heroically sacrificing herself in return for some peace, she said, “I’m sure Lord Roxdale wanted more than anything for you to go with him, but I daresay he knew I’d skin him alive if he kept you out in a storm.”

  Luke’s brow cleared a little. Then he rolled his eyes. “I won’t melt, you know, Aunt Jane.”

  And he sounded so much like his guardian that Jane’s laugh had a catch in it. She ruffled Luke’s hair and sent him off to wash his hands for supper.

  She turned to gaze out the window. To the west, the sky looked blacker than the pits of hell. She hoped Constantine would find shelter when the storm hit.

  * * *

  Constantine was soaking wet when he returned home that night. He’d gone up to Bronson’s dam to check the water level again, or that’s what he’d told himself. In truth, he was spoiling for a fight and hoped Trent or one of his henchmen would give him one.

  But the guards Trent had posted must have deserted their posts in the worsening weather. In the teeming rain, there was no one to be found.

  The dam looked dangerously high. Clearly, Trent meant to do nothing to stop it flooding the surrounding area.

  Some rebellious impulse urged Constantine to forget the whole business. What did it matter to him if Bronson’s mill flooded, or if Trent’s tenants suffered in the deluge? It wasn’t his mill. They weren’t his people. Once the dam broke, his mill would be back in business. Why couldn’t he let sleeping dogs lie?

  But even as the thought occurred to him, he knew he would have that engineer there tomorrow, that he would fight tooth and nail to do the work that must be done. He hoped to God it could wait that long.

  He rode. He knew not how many miles he covered before the storm hit with a vengeance, forcing him to turn back. As the lightning flashed around him, he galloped across country until it grew too dark to see. Fool that he was, he’d been obliged to dismount and lead his horse, trudge all the weary way home.

  Penance, was it? What was he punishing himself for? He could only hope the long, sodden walk had done his threadbare soul some good.

  He’d known what Jane wanted when she’d asked him for an explanation of that long-ago scandal. She wanted a surety, something to bank against her trust. Well, it was a bit late for all that. He’d never bleated excuses or justifications for his conduct at the time of Amanda’s disgrace and he wouldn’t begin now.

  He and Jane had been going on so well together. Couldn’t she see that was what mattered, not a folly that had occurred years ago? The present was sweet; the future was theirs for the taking. Why stir all the murky waters of the past?
>
  But he’d railed at fate too often to revisit those tired old arguments. In the end, one needed to stop complaining about the injustice of life and get on with living. Jane would learn to trust him, or she wouldn’t, and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about that. After all these years of silence on the subject, he refused to start sniveling into her sleeve now.

  The dinner hour was long past when Constantine reached Lazenby Hall. He ate a large, hasty meal, dripping on the kitchen floor, while hot water was drawn for his bath.

  He took the stairs two at a time, stripping as he went. The bath that awaited him stung his extremities as they thawed, but it was a good pain, a satisfying one. He laid his head against the high back of the tub and closed his eyes.

  Jane. He’d failed to thrust her from his mind during that long, idiotic ride in the storm. Now she was on the other side of the communicating door, perhaps undressing, preparing for bed. A shudder of visceral longing shot through him. God, how he wanted her.

  His body had been weary when he’d lowered himself into the bath. Now, all his senses were alert, his cock standing to attention.

  Down, boy, he ordered wryly. After the upheaval of today, there was no way Jane would take him into her bed.

  He picked up the soap and rubbed it over his chest.

  She’d been living in a lovely little soap sud, weaving dreams around him that did not fit with harsh reality. He’d disabused her; pricked that iridescent bubble. And now, he paid the price.

  Perhaps he should have acted the sly rogue and embroidered a tale of his own to win back into her good graces. If he had, she would have clung to it. All she’d been looking for was a secure peg upon which to hang her faith in him.

  Yet, she hadn’t broken the engagement, for all that he’d disappointed her, spoken too harshly. She was a sensible, dutiful woman, Jane. And she’d never pretended to care for him, had she? This marriage was all about keeping Luke.

  He rubbed his hands over his face and the rough stubble along his jaw scraped his palms. The thought of a shave made him give a snort of derision. Ah, the grandiose plans he’d made for tonight. All for naught.

  Yet … it was a serious tactical error to leave Jane to her own devices for too long. If he abstained from visiting her chamber now, he’d only find it more difficult to breach her defenses the next time. That overactive brain of hers would start working again when he needed her to simply let her will slip free of its moorings and trust him to guide her where she needed to go. If he delayed, he’d have to begin this lengthy process of seduction all over again. He didn’t think he could survive another night like the previous one.

  Constantine squeezed the excess moisture out of his sponge and set it aside. Then he rose and stepped out of the bath, reaching for a towel.

  He’d already dismissed Priddle, but the valet had thoughtfully laid out his dressing gown on the bed before he went. Having dried himself with a few swipes of the towel, Constantine shrugged into the silken garment.

  He moved to the communicating door, anticipation heightening with every step.

  Softly, he knocked on the panel, then turned the handle.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Jane’s door was locked.

  The plummet of his spirits made him bow his head and rest it against the panels. Again, that stupid, irrational optimism! He ought not to have hoped. What woman would open her door to him after the events of the day?

  Why did he expect differently of Jane?

  Footsteps approached in the corridor. With some presence of mind, he pushed away from the connecting door.

  “My lord!” Feather hurried through the antechamber and stood in the doorway. “You must come. Come quickly! Bronson’s dam has burst!”

  Constantine swore. “Call for my horse! Not Caesar, another one. Kiever will know. Send the other grooms to round up all the men they can. Tell Mrs. Higgins we’ll need linen and blankets and medical supplies and anything else she can think of. Get Cook and the women to gather provisions and tell Joseph to ready the cart.”

  Cold fear gripped Constantine as he yanked on his clothes. If the dam had burst, there was no time to waste. What if he was already too late?

  A hundred other directions tripped off his tongue. Larkin arrived, looking as if he’d just scrambled out of bed, and Constantine sent him to inform Trent of the state of affairs. “Tell him to get his men up there as soon as he can and don’t brook any argument!”

  Larkin’s eyes popped in alarm and Constantine knew a qualm at sending such a diffident fellow. Constantine ought to sort out Trent himself but there was no time.

  After making all the necessary preparations, he ran down the stairs, out into the rain, and vaulted onto the chestnut stallion that a groom held waiting for him.

  “If she wakes, tell her ladyship not to come out in this. She’s to sit tight until she hears from me. Understood?”

  “Yes, m’lud!”

  With a kick to the horse’s flanks, Constantine rode into the night.

  * * *

  Jane opened her door to see a maid running down the corridor toward her. The whole house bustled with noise and raised voices. She grabbed the maid’s arm. “Betsy! What’s the to-do?”

  “Oh, ma’am, Bronson’s dam’s burst and the master’s gone up there.”

  “And no one informed me of it?” She pulled Betsy into her bedchamber. “You must help me dress. Quickly, girl! Put down those linens and help!”

  In no time, Jane was garbed in her riding habit, her hair shoved into a severe knot.

  “His lordship has already gone, you say?”

  She’d heard the commotion from Constantine’s bedchamber. Why hadn’t he told her the news?

  “Yes, ma’am.” Betsy’s hands twisted and she moved from one foot to the other. “My sister lives up there by the mill and I’m that worried about her, ma’am. She has three children.”

  Jane paused and gripped Betsy’s shoulder. “Then we must trust in the master to save them. And pray.”

  In the meantime, there was much to be done. “Tell Mrs. Higgins I want to see her. And Cook, too.”

  These redoubtable women had all in hand on Constantine’s orders, so Jane assisted in wrapping the provisions, blankets, and supplies in brown paper. A poor protection from the wet, but they’d throw a tarpaulin over the lot when it was stowed.

  Lady Arden, who had rushed downstairs shortly after Jane, rolled up her sleeves and helped.

  “How could Trent let this happen?” she said.

  “Sheer pigheadedness,” said Jane. She looked up as Larkin burst into the room.

  “My lady, it’s no good! Mr. Trent says he’ll not send anyone to help in this weather. They’ll see what’s to do in the morning.”

  “The morning will be too late! Send Mr. Trent my compliments and tell him if he doesn’t get his men up there, I shall make him wish he was never born.”

  Larkin goggled at her.

  “Well? What are you waiting for? Go!” She watched Larkin hightail it, then muttered, “Not that it will do any good.”

  “This is the last bundle that will fit in the cart, my lady,” said the footman, hefting another package.

  “Right.” Stripping off her apron, Jane ripped off her scarf and tied it over her head like a peasant woman.

  “What are you doing?” said Lady Arden.

  “I’m riding up there with the cart.”

  “But Roxdale gave orders that you were to stay here. Can’t Mrs. Higgins go?”

  “I need to be there,” said Jane. “There’s nothing more for me to do here.” She gave Lady Arden a long, compelling look. “You would do the same in my shoes.”

  Lady Arden hesitated. Then she said, “Yes, I suppose I would.”

  Jane gave her a grateful smile. “Please, will you direct things while I’m gone?”

  “I’ll do that. And tell Constantine…” Lady Arden’s smile went awry. “No, never mind. I shall see him soon enough.”

  * * *

>   The devastation was worse than Jane had feared. The mill itself was under three feet of water, but no one had been inside the building when the flooding occurred. The surrounding cottages had borne the brunt, as Constantine had predicted they would.

  People were everywhere, running, milling, wading in to salvage belongings from the flood. Jane directed the groom to pull up and called down to one man, “Have you seen Lord Roxdale?”

  “He were over yonder, my lady,” the man said, indicating the opposite bank of the stream. “But the bridge is out, swept away. Ye’ll never get ’cross there with that cart.”

  Jane saw immediately that it was hopeless. A horseman might wade his horse across, but the cart would never survive.

  “We’ll set up on this side, then. Will you direct me to a barn, or some other large building? Somewhere dry?”

  They found an outbuilding that looked like some kind of storage shed. Mercifully, it was on higher ground and had escaped the flooding. Jane delegated duties to the women who were able to help her, and soon the injured and the suffering streamed in.

  She did not see Constantine for many hours, though she heard people speak of him with awe in their voices. Jane’s throat tightened as she listened. Tonight, he’d become a hero to them.

  She wondered where he was now, and if he was safe. She hadn’t heard anything to the contrary, so she remained collected, despite her anxiety. She longed to go and try to commandeer a horse to find him, but she would only get in his way. Here, she could be useful.

  Resolutely, she labored on.

  Mr. Larkin arrived, bearing another load of blankets. Jane dispatched a few of the women to help him unload the cart.

  “Mr. Larkin, have you news of Mr. Trent?”

  “No, ma’am, but Lord deVere and His Grace are up at the mill and Lord Roxdale says you are to go home. It’s not a fit place for you.”

  Jane put her hands on her hips. “Then you go and tell Lord Roxdale from me that I’m not leaving until he comes to fetch me.” She had no intention of abandoning her post, but at least if he came she could get some food into him and check whether he had any injuries that needed attention.