Brave New Earl

by Jane Ashford

  Their eyes met. Jean watched them share a moment of perfect kinship, perhaps the first they’d ever experienced. For this brief time, at least, they understood each other completely and agreed. Her throat grew tight, and tears stung. She blinked them back.

  Geoffrey gave a small nod. He picked up the metal box and held it to his chest. His father smiled.

  Jean wanted to savor their reconciliation, but the oppression she’d felt since entering this low space was increasing. She knew the walls of bramble and the low ceiling weren’t closing in on her. And yet it seemed as if they were. She had to get out into the open air. Turning, she looked for the path. A dizzying flash of panic suggested it was gone. Then she spotted the narrow opening and plunged through, snagging her hair on a spray of thorns as she hurried along. She ignored the pain as a few strands pulled out and rushed on. Her skirts tangled with more briars. She yanked them free and shoved at the final screen of branches.

  The relief when she broke out of the thicket was immense. The light and air and space opened around her like a benediction. She stepped away from the thicket and drank in the garden vista. She took deep breaths to control her frightened panting and fought the terror that she hated so much. She would win; always, she would win.

  Lord Furness emerged from the trees. “Are you all right?”

  “Perfectly.” Jean refused to admit her weakness. She twisted the bits of her hair that had pulled loose back into place. Her fingers did not tremble. As ever, the strands resisted her efforts. No doubt she looked as if she’d been pulled through a thicket backward, as her mother used to say. At least this time she actually had been.

  “Geoffrey is reburying the box in a new place that no one else will ever know.” He smiled, asking her to appreciate this.

  “Good.” She looked at open sky, the far horizon. She was free to go wherever she wished.

  “Funny the things one forgets,” he added. He bent to clean his hands on a tuft of damp grass.

  Forgetting was not the problem, Jean thought. There was so much she would be delighted to forget.

  “I hadn’t thought of that hideaway in years. I’m glad Geoffrey found it.”

  Jean nodded. She began to walk. Movement was helpful in these instances, a sign from her body to her mind that she was unfettered.

  Lord Furness fell into step beside her. Blessedly, he said no more. They walked in silence for a bit. Birds sang. Jean’s ruffled spirits settled. They passed a bench under a leafy arbor.

  “Would you care to sit?”

  They did. Bees hummed in the flowers above their heads. A sweet scent drifted down. After a while, Jean realized that she felt peaceful, which was surprising under the circumstances. Of course, this man also disturbed her peace. Was he going to talk of marriage again? She wanted him to, and yet she didn’t.

  “I must thank you for returning Geoffrey to me,” said Lord Furness.

  “What?” This wasn’t what she’d expected.

  “If you hadn’t come to kidnap him, well, who knows how things would have gone between us.”

  “I did not come to kidnap him!”

  “I seem to recall a swoop down out of nowhere to do exactly that,” he replied with a sidelong smile.

  He was teasing her. And, unexpectedly, she rather liked it.

  “Whatever we call it, you restored him to me,” he continued.

  “You did that yourself,” Jean answered. “You saw that a change was needed, and you made it.” Which was a rare gift, she thought.

  “I never would have done so without your…instigation.” Benjamin liked this word that had come to him. It was exactly right. Miss Jean Saunders was a lovely, lively, occasionally maddening instigator. She’d hurtled into his closed world and shaken him. Shaken him to depths he hadn’t known he possessed.

  Her lips were just a little parted. He ached to kiss her. Did she want that as much as he did? He leaned closer, exploratory.

  She moved at the same moment, more quickly, and their mouths met with an awkward bump. Benjamin steadied them into a kiss. One searching, tender kiss before he made himself draw back as he ought.

  She moved with him, plunging them into another, fiercer kiss. Her body pressed against his. Her arms slid under his coat, and he felt her fingertips on his ribs as if his shirt didn’t exist. Did she have any idea how thoroughly she roused him?

  The question was submerged by a deluge of kisses. Rational thought sank out of sight, unregretted. Benjamin’s hands found the curves beneath her clothes. She murmured lusciously at his touch. He wanted to hear more of that—much more. To make this woman cry out with pleasure would be as satisfying as sating the desire that thundered in his veins. If only they could be rid of all these blasted garments.

  “Hoorah!” Geoffrey came running up to them. He was astride his stick now, using it like a hobbyhorse rather than to execute innocent vegetation. “It’s time for a ride,” he cried. “Let’s go to the stables.”

  Miss Saunders pulled back. Benjamin did the same as he wrestled with a mixture of thwarted desire and anger and chagrin. “You go ahead.” He waved his son away. “I’ll come along in a while.”

  “Now,” declared Geoffrey. He pushed the end of the stick between them, jostling as if it really was a restive mount. “Fergus wants to see you.”

  “He’ll see me later,” Benjamin replied. He struggled to get his surging emotions under control.

  “But it’s time.”

  Miss Saunders rose. “I should go in.” She sounded a bit breathless.

  He stood beside her. “No, you should not. Go on to the stables, Geoffrey.” Benjamin was aware that his sharp tone was a step backward with his son. But it was the best he could do.

  The boy—hands and knees grubby from his excavations, mouth turned down and sullen—gazed at them for a moment, then curbed a revolt from his imaginary mount and ran away. They watched him go.

  “He’ll be all right,” Benjamin said as much to himself as to his companion.

  “You should go and watch his ride.”

  “I will watch Geoffrey ride on many future occasions. But not just now.” He sounded annoyed. He was annoyed at the interruption, but he mustn’t be. “I’ll speak to him later. He’s a child; he’ll forget.” Benjamin made himself take a deep breath. Miss Saunders was a guest in his house. He couldn’t ravish her in his garden arbor, or anywhere else. With that thought, a number of other tantalizing locations occurred to him.

  “We can’t go on this way,” she said as if reading his mind.

  “What way shall we go on?” popped out of his mouth. “Sorry. What I meant was, you should marry me.”

  “Should.”

  “Yes.” He struggled with impatience. To pull her back to him now would be a mistake. The spark in her eyes told him that. “It simply makes sense.”

  “Does it?”

  “Yes, Jean. It does. We enjoy each other’s company and have much in common. You care about Geoffrey. You like kissing me.”

  She started to speak.

  “You cannot honestly deny that. Not after the last few minutes.”

  She looked away, but not before he saw agreement on her face.

  “You could be happy here,” Benjamin continued, belatedly recalling that he was supposed to be wooing her. He didn’t need his uncle’s advice to know that ordering her to marry him was not wooing. “We could.”

  She shook her head, more as if to clear it than in contradiction.

  “What else do you intend to do?” he asked, irritation surfacing again.

  “I have plenty to do!”

  “Living the nomadic life you described to me? Wandering from house to house like a society gypsy. Will you still be doing that when you’re forty? Fifty?”

  She turned away from him. Benjamin hoped it was because he’d made a telling point. “I don’t know what to do,�
�� she said.

  She sounded almost anguished. Which was better than indifferent, but far from what Benjamin desired. She’d been ardent and willing in his arms. Once out of them, she became someone else. He had to find a way to make her eager there, too. But would he have an opportunity to do so? She looked on the verge of running away again. Plans he’d made earlier in the day came back to him. “I need your help,” he said before she could speak again.

  Blessedly, she turned back to him.

  “Clayton wants to cut my hair,” Benjamin went on. “What do you think?”

  Her dark eyes widened. She blinked at him in wordless astonishment.

  “My uncle’s valet, you know. Clayton.”

  “I know who he is.”

  “My unfashionable locks fill him with despair. He’s after me to cut them.” Had he actually said unfashionable locks? Benjamin gritted his teeth. Desire had scrambled his brain.

  “You want my help in getting a haircut?” she asked as if she couldn’t believe what she was saying.

  “You’re something of an expert on hair.” Clayton had made this point. It had sounded reasonable when he said it. Benjamin couldn’t imagine why just now.

  Miss Saunders put a hand to her luxuriant curls. She gazed at him as if she didn’t know whether to be offended or concerned.

  “But that wasn’t it.” Why had he listened to such an idiotic idea? Clearly, she thought it was daft. As it was. He needed something far better. “What I wanted help with. That’s something else.”

  “What then?”

  What? He had to come up with something sensible. Quickly. And then, in a flash, Benjamin saw the answer. This would sway her. And the best part was, his request was perfectly sincere. “Finding Geoffrey a new attendant,” he said. He nodded, agreeing with himself. “He needs someone more responsible than Lily until he’s old enough to go to school. Of course, Tom is welcome to stay if he wishes.”

  “You should do something for him,” she said.

  “I intend to. But Geoffrey needs a proper nanny. And she will have to be a rather special person, I think.”

  Miss Saunders considered. Benjamin thanked Providence that she looked interested now, not bewildered. “Active, not old,” she said.

  “Kind, but firm,” he said.

  “Intelligent and curious, to keep up with Geoffrey’s precocious mind.”

  “Tolerant,” said Benjamin. “I want him guided, not stifled.”

  “With a strong sense of humor,” his companion put in.

  “An ability to laugh is indispensable,” he agreed.

  She smiled. “I’m not sure where you’ll find such a paragon.”

  He might have said that she was standing right in front of him, but he refrained. He didn’t want this delectable woman as his son’s nanny. “Will you help me find her?” he asked instead.

  “I’m not sure how I can.”

  “By giving me your opinion on the candidates,” he replied promptly. “And on how Geoffrey seems to like them as well. You notice all sorts of things that I do not.”

  She looked flattered, which was good, though the compliment was honest. “I learned careful observation very young,” she answered.

  The sadness that never seemed far from her reappeared in her face. He needed to know the full story behind that expression, Benjamin realized. Things wouldn’t be right until he did. But this was not the moment to press her.

  “All right.” She nodded. “I’ll help you search for this marvelous creature. I’m glad to help.”

  Benjamin felt an unexpected rush of joy. She wasn’t leaving! When he met her eyes, he thought he saw a similar emotion there. Or perhaps he only hoped so.

  Fourteen

  As Sarah brushed out Jean’s obdurate hair that night, wrestling it into a braid for sleep, Jean couldn’t keep her mind from drifting back to kisses. She’d felt so utterly…marvelous when Benjamin was kissing her—marvelous through her whole body in a quite unprecedented way. She wanted to be back in his arms, this minute and every minute. She would gladly have offered more than kisses there in the arbor, in full view of anyone who passed by. Propriety be damned.

  With a profound shock, Jean realized that she could almost understand her mother’s disastrous slip those many years ago. If Mama had felt like this… But she couldn’t have, because she’d never cared for Papa, had scarcely known him, in fact, at the time of their indiscretion. Later, she’d positively hated him. Jean’s thoughts came to an abrupt halt. Did she care for Lord Furness then?

  “Are you all right, miss?” asked Sarah. She fastened the end of the braid with a bit of ribbon.

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “You looked so worried for a moment there.” The maid placed a hand on Jean’s shoulder.

  “I’m fine.” All right, perhaps she did care for him, Jean thought. Somewhat. In a way. She would still do just as she pleased.

  “Is there anything else?”

  “No, thank you, Sarah. Good night.”

  “Good night, miss.” Taking garments for the laundry, the maid went out.

  Did she care, or did she simply want, Jean wondered. Strong sensations—delirious kisses—seemed to overwhelm reason. How was she to know the difference?

  She rose from the dressing table and went over to climb into bed. Tab jumped up to curl on his customary corner of the coverlet. People made such a mystery of physical passion, Jean thought. For young ladies, at least. Based on her parents’ lives, Jean had assumed that it was crude and perilous. Rutting like one saw in the barnyard. But Benjamin’s kisses suggested something far sweeter. She wanted to know more, wanted it very, very much.

  And why not? Jean sat straight up as the astonishing idea expanded in her consciousness. Why not indulge these dizzying new desires? Hadn’t she vowed to make her own decisions for the rest of her life, and never to be shut in by anything ever again? And didn’t that include the bonds of convention?

  Her mother’s shrill protests tried to rise in her mind—deriding, threatening catastrophe. Jean fought them down, a struggle she’d mastered with so much effort and pain. She’d do as she wished, and she’d manage the consequences on her own terms. She wasn’t seventeen and under the sway of a tyrannical father. No one could make her marry. No one could make her do anything. That was the point of her life now. And if she indulged—Jean shivered at the luscious word—Lord Furness wouldn’t tell what she’d done. He was an honorable man.

  A beguiling man, a dizzyingly attractive man. He valued her opinion and abilities; he’d said so. Marriage might even be possible. Probably not, declared an immediate inner commentator. Most likely not. Marriage still seemed like a trap, and Jean would never be trapped again. She would evade all traps.

  Tab was sitting up, tail curled around his front paws, staring at her.

  “I’ll be clever as a fox, wily as…can be,” Jean told him. She’d arrange matters just as she wished, find the perfect place and time for secret passion. And then she would know many delicious, important things. After that, well, she would see. She lay down again, head full of the memory of kisses and imaginings of more.

  Jean went downstairs a little later than usual the next morning, with her lips curving in a secret smile. Sarah had commented on the expression as she did her hair. Keeping her plans from her maid was going to be one of the greatest challenges, Jean thought. Sarah’s omniscience, usually welcome, was an obstacle. Yet the difficulties in getting what she wanted added another kind of zest to her efforts.

  At the foot of the stairs, Jean’s path was blocked by two servants carrying a large picture frame. When she stepped aside to let them pass upward, she saw that it was Alice’s portrait from the library. Jean stood still as her second cousin’s image moved slowly past her. Alice looked outward with serene unconsciousness. How odd to encounter her just at this moment, when Jean was so intent on her h
usband.

  “I’m simply moving it to the gallery with the other family pictures,” said a familiar resonant voice, sending a thrill through her. Lord Furness emerged from the archway that led to the library. His uncle followed him. “It was always meant to hang there.”

  “Why just now?” asked Lord Macklin.

  “It’s past time.” In fact, Benjamin was tired of being overlooked by his dead wife. He knew that a few months ago he would have raged at the idea of removing her. But much had changed since then. “You accused me of being stuck in the past,” he added.

  “I?” said his uncle.

  Benjamin stopped short as the servants moved on, revealing Miss Saunders pressed against the wall. He realized that she had thrown that taunt at him, not his uncle. So much had come to revolve around her.

  And now she was looking at him in a way that sent a wild crackle of energy down his spine. What was that look? He couldn’t think of anything but how fiercely he wanted her.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  Why he should be reminded of a cat crouched over a mousehole, Benjamin did not know.

  “Good morning,” said his uncle. “I trust you slept well.”

  “Wonderfully.”

  A throaty overtone in that single word shivered through him. She looked fresh and lovely in sprigged muslin. Not a single curl escaped her hairpins. That was too bad.

  “Benjamin is making a change,” the older man observed. He watched the servants move up the stairs with their burden.

  People seemed to be ripe with implication this morning, Benjamin thought. It only needed Mrs. Thorpe to join them with some suggestive remark. “I’m sending Alice’s portrait to the family gallery. Where she…it belongs. It’s no great matter.” Although he knew it was.

  “What will Geoffrey think?” asked Miss Saunders.

  She never shied away from the hard questions. She never would, Benjamin thought, and for some reason that only increased her allure. “He’ll be delighted. He can go and see her…her picture whenever he likes. No need to ask permission to enter the library.” At their expressions, he added, “It’s my workroom.”