by Dawn Calvert
Riding. She was horseback riding. Any kind of an accident could happen. And probably would. Unless… being the heroine came with some sort of immunity? Wouldn't do Mary much good to have a heroine with broken limbs.
Although… if it were her legs, no one would ever know because the damn skirts kept them completely out of sight, anyway. What was wrong with a woman having legs, anyway? Hers weren't perfect, but she'd always thought her knees and ankles were relatively nice.
Ow. That thing didn't feel great thumping against her thigh. "James!" she called.
He didn't answer.
"Hey, you," she said to the horse. He ignored her as well and continued his determined pace toward home. It seemed no more than a few minutes of bumping, thumping and otherwise lumping before they were riding up to the door of Afton House. Jane blinked hard and coughed as the dust swirled and settled around her.
James jumped down and was swiftly at her side to help her down. As he reached up, he frowned. "What the devil?"
She glanced down. Her skirts didn't hide the fact that she'd thrown her other leg over the horse, and she was now hanging on for dear life, her knees pressed so tightly into the saddle, he might have a few bruises of his own. She gave him an awkward pat, feeling bad about that. As if in answer, he shifted his weight from leg to leg, waiting. James continued to frown.
"It seemed like I'd be able to ride better this way," she said with an innocent shrug. "Ride fast, anyway. We were going very fast."
"Jane." He held his arms up again.
She nodded and then attempted to descend the way Book Jane would: gracefully and with a skill that said she'd been doing it for years and expected nothing, at all, to happen.
But then… She wasn't Book Jane at the moment. One leg hung up on the saddle's pommel, helped along by an abundance of skirts, while the other leg slid toward the ground and Jane's head fell back toward the rear portion of the horse. Only took a few seconds for her to be dangling, half-on, half-off the horse while James sputtered and tried turning her first one way and then the other. He barked out a command to a nearby groom, who also fumbled with getting Jane off while she struggled to hold her skirts down so they didn't fly over her head. After all, there was shocking. And there was shocking. Another groom held the horse's head, keeping him steady.
From her nearly upside-down position, it seemed that at least three people and one horse were annoyed with her. Somewhat smaller than the usual count.
After a minute or so, they managed to get her down from the horse and right-side up on the ground. Having had a certain amount of practice in the area of recovery after embarrassing incidents, she calmly brushed back her hair and straightened her skirts.
"Jane." He stated the fact of her name.
She cleared her throat. "Yes?"
"I am off." With that, he covered the distance to his horse in a few quick strides and mounted, turning the horse and urging it into pursuit. Of the esteemed Lord Thunder.
Jane turned to the two grooms. "Thank you," she said, with all the dignity she could muster. "You may return my horse to the stable now." They didn't need to know her heart pulsed with disappointment that, without Mary's pen at work, Jane would be Jane.
The house seemed deserted, except for servants, when Jane began to roam the halls. She'd taken off her riding clothes and changed into the closest "something more comfortable" she could find among the dresses that seemed to be hers. The corset had remained, simply because it didn't seem much more comfortable to wear a dress that was too tight without it.
She had taken one un-Victorian liberty, though, by discarding her shoes to walk barefoot. It felt good, even a little decadent, to have just said no to the odd boots that seemed to be everyday wear. She let her toes wriggle into the wooden floor as she padded down the hallway.
Before long, she found herself near Benton Dempsey's chambers. As she came to the portrait of the woman with the heart-shaped face, she stopped to look at it again. On closer inspection, she thought she saw a resemblance to Violet, though the woman in the picture didn't have the resigned look of defeat that permeated Violet's delicate features.
This woman looked gentle, even hopeful as she posed. But there was that pinky finger sticking straight out and away, as though its owner longed to follow. "Did you get your happy ending?" Jane whispered. "Maybe you knew how to navigate your way through an author's head." There really should be road signs of some kind, WARNING. DANGEROUS PLOT AHEAD. YIELD TO AUTHOR'S WILL.
"Who's there?" she heard an imperious voice call.
The guy might be sick, but his hearing was intact Jane walked down the hall until she reached the open door to Benton Dempsey's room. "Jane Ellingson."
"Come to see if James is a wealthy man, as yet?"
As though that was first and foremost on her mind. "Once again, you don't look close to death to me."
"A matter of some disappointment to you, I presume."
She lifted a shoulder. "I think it's more disappointing to you, actually. Are you waiting for your big, dramatic death scene?"
He looked startled for a minute and then chortled, ending with a coughing fit. When it had finished, he acknowledged, "It is a bit tiresome, being confined to bed with this miserable cough until such time as our author sees fit to put me in my grave."
"May I come in?"
Impatiently, he motioned her inside. "Provided you are not that wretched nurse. She may not enter here."
"What if she suddenly brings a miracle medicine because Mary has decided you shouldn't be written out, after all?" It could happen. She thought.
This time he gave her a look that clearly branded her naive.
She decided to regroup. "The picture in the hallway. Of the young woman in a white dress, who looks like Violet. Who is she?"
Something in his eyes melted, but then was gone in a flash. "My wife."
"She was lovely."
He nodded, as though that was a given. The wife of Benton Dempsey could be nothing but lovely. It occurred to Jane that it was pretty easy to see where James came by his pompous side.
"You were married for quite a while. And had children together."
Again, he nodded. "James and Violet."
"So when did you start up with Curran's mother? Before or after you were married?"
His eyes widened and his face hardened. "Young woman, you have—"
"I know. An impudent tongue," she interrupted. "But there's no reason to waste what time you may have left by dancing around the edges."
Benton Dempsey made a sound between a groan and a growl, lifting his palms. "In my final days," he complained to no one in particular, "I am to tolerate such impertinence from a woman whose future is dependent largely on me."
"I have a future," Jane protested, hoping it was true.
"Indeed you do, if you wed my son."
A little thrill ran up her spine until she reminded herself that he meant James, not Curran. She pulled over a chair and sat down beside his bed. "We were talking about your mistress."
He gave his signature humph and looked away.
"Fine." She stood. "I would think it gets pretty lonely up here with no one but the nurse to throw things at because I don't think your children are coming to see you. But if that's how you want it, I'll gladly leave."
An impatient wave of his hand. "Be gone."
"I am. Right now." She turned to leave.
When she'd nearly reached the door, he called out, "So that is how you would have it? An old man left to his bed, with none but the nurse to occasionally jab at him to see if he is yet dead?" He added a fit of coughing at the end, for good measure.
Jane stopped, stared at the door for a minute and then slowly turned. "You want me to stay."
"It is of no consequence to me. It is you I would think unwilling to behave in such a deplorable manner. Your father would not approve."
With a sigh Jane said, "I'm not worried about the approval of someone who would put me on the marriage auction block. Sell m
e to the highest bidder."
Benton's razor-sharp gaze belied his illness. He indicated the chair. "There is but one bidder."
Ow. A shot straight to the heart. "You don't have to be so blunt," she mumbled, walking back to the chair and slumping into it.
"I believe in stating the facts of the matter. As you yourself say, there is little time."
For some reason, her thoughts zeroed straight in on Byron and the memory of that last night with him. Had she thought there was only one bidder for her then? Had she climbed right up on that marriage auction block and practically begged him to take her? It was an awful thought.
She deserved better than that.
"Are you distressed, Miss Ellingson?"
She shook off all thoughts of Byron, and bidders, turning her attention back to the sick old man. "No," she lied. "No reason to be. No reason at all." Jane got up and began to pace back and forth. Her determination built with each step.
"Entirely true—"
"I mean, here I am, in Victorian England, where my future rests with a woman who writes me as articulate, graceful, beautiful…" She cast a narrowed gaze at Benton. "She is writing me as beautiful, right?"
He gave a grudging acknowledgment. "No more so than—"
She put up her palm. "No comparisons to dead wives or mistresses. Please."
After a brief cough, he shrugged agreement.
"I should never have to worry again about what I'll do or say because I'm close to perfect, am I not? I wouldn't be the heroine, otherwise." Her steps were getting faster now, her pacing more brisk. "And because I'm the heroine, she'll pay attention if I can somehow make her see what I see."
"You are causing my head to spin," complained the man in the bed. "Stand in one place, if you please."
She'd nearly forgotten he was in the room. "I don't please," she said, but not unkindly. She pulled to a stop, though, and began tapping her finger on her chin. "There is someone here who's better for me. I just have to make her see that."
From the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Benton Dempsey trying to sit up straighter, an eyebrow raised in what looked like hope. "Oh, no you don't," she said, wagging her index finger at him. "You've already put two women in the ground. And you don't even seem that broken up about it."
As soon as the words were out, she regretted them. The man was dying, for God's sake. The thunderclouds forming on his face looked a lot like a storm front she'd seen moving in on Curran's a time or two. So much for the theory that the Devil side of the oldest son all came from his mother. "What I meant to say is that you're a key part of the story. She wouldn't change your circumstances just for the heroine." How many times had she begun a sentence with "What I meant to say" and seen the same skeptical look Benton was aiming at her right this second? "And I didn't mean—I'm sure you miss your wife and the… other woman. Curran's mother."
"Do not be quite so certain." His tone had a loftiness to it that almost made her smile. Almost.
"You still haven't answered my question about her. Why would you have a mistress when you had a wife right here, taking care of the life you'd built together?"
"You presume to know much about the life of others."
"I'm not presuming. I'm asking."
He sighed, turning his face to the wall. "It was simply a matter of fire and water."
Jane absorbed this, trying to understand. "And that means… ?"
"My wife Lydia was raised to be a lady. Her task was to put fire out wherever she found it. To drench it until nothing remained."
Not a very pretty picture of a lady, Jane thought. "Curran's mother was the fire."
"She was that. And he just like her. But while fire provides the heat we need to survive, it also injures. Destroys."
Jane stayed quiet, hoping he would go on talking, even if it was to the wall.
After a few minutes, he did. "Lydia discovered the existence of Curran's mother—"
"Why don't you ever call her by her name?" So much for remaining quiet.
He turned to look at her. "I made a vow to never again speak her name."
"But Lydia is gone now." She kept her voice low, gentle.
"I am a man of my word."
That did it. Benton Dempsey was just a little too holier-than-thou for Jane's taste, given the situation he'd single-handedly created with his three children. Three children, not two. "So you kept a promise to Curran's mother to raise her son as your own and you kept a promise to your wife to never speak the name of Curran's mother and to not treat Curran as your own son. Do you see a conflict between the two? You weren't keeping your word to either of those women, were you?"
The old man's face contorted, with what looked like both pain and anger. "1 shall give you the benefit of my years, Miss Ellingson. Listen closely."
He'd gone back to addressing her formally.
"Yes, Mr. Dempsey?"
"Regret," he said, his mouth twisting on the word, "is something you can not turn your back on. It remains with you each day of your life, as a black hole that can never be filled, no matter how you attempt to do so."
"I—Oh." She drew back, not sure how to respond to the vehemence of his words.
"You would do well, Miss Ellingson, not to allow your heart to get the best of you, to give in to weaknesses that will only hurt you and those around you."
He knew. Somehow he knew what had happened between her and Curran. No. He couldn't. He had to be guessing or just giving advice because he thought she had asked for it. Or because she hadn't. Regret. Choices. She didn't want to hear this right now.
"What is wrong? You have gone quite pale, Miss Ellingson." There was a deliberate sting in his voice, she could hear it.
"Nothing is wrong. You're the one who is pale—"
She stopped when a by-now familiar feeling came over her, lifting her chin and straightening her shoulders. A flash of light and she found herself in the hallway outside Benton's bedroom, behind James, who strode into his father's bedroom.
Jane stayed at the doorway, hands clasped in front of her. Obedient fiancée-to-be.
"Father."
Benton Dempsey, who a moment ago had been sitting up and feeling scrappy enough to engage in verbal sword-play, now lay back against the pillows, his face pinched with illness. "James," he whispered.
"Sir, it is my duty to inform you that Curran today attempted to make off with Lord Thunder."
Make off with the horse? Curran wouldn't have done that. And besides, he hadn't been anywhere near that horse when it bolted past Jane and James, hell-bent on escape. What was James doing, setting up Curran for punishment? Inventing a lie and then tattling about it? Anger formed in Jane's stomach, aching because she was powerless to do anything about it. Mary had a firm hold on her. She could only stand and watch and she suspected the expression on her face was dead-on supportive of James.
The older man's eyelids fluttered and he struggled to pull himself upward.
Immediately, James was at his side, reaching toward him. "Do not, Father. You mustn't strain yourself."
Benton's movement stopped and he turned questioning eyes on his son.
"The horse is recovered. "James drew himself up to his full height, which didn't exactly have him towering over the bed. "I have gone after him and he is again safely in the stable."
Relief crossed the father's face. He whispered some-thing Jane could not hear.
James bent over him and then straightened again. "You are most welcome, sir. I shall ensure that Curran is never again near Lord Thunder."
When he turned away from the bed and strode back toward the door, the look on his face was one of concern. But Jane looked harder at him. She, after all, had the bird's-eye view the author didn't. There was something else in his face. Confidence.
And an almost, but not quite hidden triumph.
Chapter 15
Jane walked to the gardens of Afton House to begin searching the grounds inch by inch. She hadn't found the stone earlier, she decided, be
cause she hadn't been thorough enough. Instead, she'd allowed herself to become distracted and only look in stops and starts.
Not going to happen now. She had to find that stone. There was only so much time, since it didn't seem Mary was one for a lot of sleep.
The day was mild and calm, with hardly a breath of air stirring. It appeared she had the gardens all to herself, which was surprising, she thought, since they were really very beautiful. Maybe in this day, people took a place like this for granted. Coming from the cramped city life of Seattle, where she had one small terra-cotta pot of flowers on her three-by-four-foot concrete patio, she didn't.
The flowers and shrubs in the gardens were meticulously tended and laid out in rows of deep green, with colorful flowers as exclamation points and a placid pool of water at one end. It would be a place as comfortable with reverent pageantry as quiet reflection. Or a frantic search.
She zeroed in her gaze on the ground, inch by inch. Examining every blade of grass, each rock. Since the corset was again cinching her flesh in epic proportions, she suspected she was going to have to throw herself down again and drag herself across the ground, dress be damned. Not finding the stone was not an option.
She'd gone only a few feet when she heard someone come up behind her. Turning, she saw Anne, shoulders hunched and hair in tangles, her face distraught. "What is it?" Jane asked.
"I have," the girl wrung her hands, "committed a grave error." Her voice sounded small and far younger than her fifteen years.
Little did Anne know that she'd come to the inventor of grave errors. The diva of unintended drama. The— never mind. "It can't be that bad." She laid a hand on Anne's arm.
The girl nodded miserably. "But it can."
"Tell me what's happened."