Jane forced her gaze back to Trelenny’s letter. Perhaps she would go to visit the Ashwickes as her friend suggested...after Lord Rossmere left Willow End, taking Ascot with him.
Chapter 2
Lord Rossmere returned to the house with some reluctance. His godmother, Lady Mabel Reedness, had specifically requested his presence in the north drawing room at four o’clock, and Rossmere barely had time to make himself presentable. Without Lady Mabel he would have been ruined years ago. She had lent him money when every banker he approached had refused him a loan. Rossmere suffered considerably under his burden of gratitude to Lady Mabel.
For some time he had managed to find excuses for turning down her invitations to visit Willow End, but he was in a financial bind again. There was another mortgage payment coming due, and improvements that simply had to be carried out on the estate if he was ever to lift himself out of debt. It would have been grossly uncivil of him to expect his godmother to provide the money he needed while at the same time refusing to accept her hospitality for a month.
For some reason it hadn’t even occurred to him that bringing Ascot would upset everyone, from Lord Barlow down to the stable hands. “Not to be trusted,” was the way they were given to phrasing it. What they meant was that Richard had met his death riding that horse, and no one was sure whether the horse or Richard’s illness was to blame. They preferred to think it was the horse. Rossmere had ridden Ascot for the last year, and he knew better.
The horse was half-wild, of course. Always had been. Rossmere remembered riding him several years ago when he’d visited Richard. There was no sign during his “good” times that Richard was sick at all. Actually, Rossmere had considered Ascot the sole indication. An odd concept, perhaps, but one he felt quite certain about. Ascot was infected with the untamed wildness that seized Richard during the black times. In the man this primitive turbulence was horrifying; in the horse it was awesome.
Ascot’s wildness was not a challenge to him. Rossmere had no interest in “conquering” the beast, or mastering its unruly temper. Quite the opposite, in fact. His blood raced with the excitement of allowing Ascot his head, of storming across fields and soaring over fences at a speed and height he’d not known before, even in his younger years, when the best of horses were available to him.
Rossmere liked to remember Richard in the “good” times, riding Ascot as he himself did now, filled with the glory of unrestricted movement. But he never forgot that Richard didn’t always have that freedom. From the first sign of an impending episode, he was locked safely in the farthest wing of Willow End, cared for by a stout manservant and no other. If Rossmere had wondered why Richard was imprisoned at Willow End and not his own estate of Graywood, he had never given voice to his question.
For this visit Rossmere had been given a suite in the east wing. Both the sitting room and the bedroom were hung with tapestries depicting various Greek and Roman myths, their predominant colors of brown and blue heavy against the tan walls. Various details lightened the rooms, though: the vases of summer flowers, the light draperies at the windows, the height and intricacy of the ceilings.
While he allowed Lord Barlow’s valet to adjust the fit of his coat, he gazed out over the park where the ground rose toward the downs. They had raced there once, he and Richard. Ascot had triumphed over his own hack without the slightest difficulty, and Rossmere had found himself longing to ride the huge black stallion. As though aware of his thoughts, a tendency Richard exhibited from time to time, he’d dismounted and beckoned the viscount to take over Ascot. “You’ll do well with him,” he’d said, though the general wisdom at the Graywood and Willow End stables even in those days was that no one but Richard could manage the wild horse. No doubt it was that incident that had prompted Richard to add the codicil to his will giving Rossmere the horse.
Because everything else had gone to Lady Jane.
For one brief moment, when the letter came from his godmother informing him of Richard’s death, he had allowed himself to hope that he would be his cousin’s beneficiary, that all his financial embarrassments were over. That tiny, suspended moment between reading one sentence and the next had betrayed him. To have considered his own situation when his poor cousin lay dead might have been human, but it disgusted him, showing him how poverty had eroded his humanity. Rossmere had vowed then that it wouldn’t happen again.
As he strode through the corridors of the house, he caught glimpses of the small army of servants who kept the place immaculate. He’d been raised to that kind of luxury, where his every whim was accommodated and his pockets were perpetually full. He was reduced now to two loyal family retainers who served him at Longborough Park, but he’d found that there were certain compensations for his present position.
One of them was that he wasn’t expected to fulfill any social obligations.
There were no balls, and few parties, that he regretted not attending, and he certainly didn’t mind not having to give them himself. He regretted not being able to maintain a stable of riding and carriage horses, and he wished there were the resources to hunt, but he preferred the freedom of his run-down seat to the straitlaced strictures of London...or even of Willow End.
He presented himself now to Lady Mabel with his usual polite attention. She was seated on a spoon-back chair that looked only marginally comfortable, though there were plenty of more commodious seats in the room. Her graying hair was pulled back tightly into a bun and her posture was rigid with resolution. She waved him imperatively to a chair and regarded him with a penetrating stare. Calculated to remind him of his indebtedness? Perhaps. He had only known her to be forthright, not manipulative. It was possible that she merely assessed him.
“I saw you on Ascot,” she said. “There’s a devil in the beast that’s not always controllable.”
“So I’ve noticed. I assure you I don’t underestimate him.”
“Good.” She dismissed the subject with a slight flip of her hand. “I wanted you to come here so we could have a talk about your future, Rossmere.”
Though he disliked the sound of this topic, he continued to look agreeable, without offering a remark or asking a question. He was not a man to be easily intimidated. His godmother was forced to continue her discussion without his help.
“There’s the matter of my family obligations. I have five nieces and nephews in addition to you, my godchild. When I die, my brother’s children have some right to expect an inheritance from me. Not that they need it, any of them, but they’re blood ties. I’d feel more comfortable knowing that each of them was already provided for, and there’s one who isn’t, in some ways. Jane may have more than sufficient property, but she lacks that essential for any woman—a husband and family.”
“It’s most unfortunate Lady Jane was unable to marry Richard.” Rossmere knew precisely where his aunt was headed now and he refused to follow her there. He had been away from society too long. It hadn’t occurred to him, when the invitation came from Lady Mabel, that she would have this particular scheme in mind, though it should have. She had been determined for years to marry him off to an heiress. He was surprised she would consider her own niece, except for Lady Jane’s advanced age. Rossmere regarded his godmother with a slight frown of disapproval. “I don’t think she has recovered from my cousin’s death.”
“She may never,” Mabel informed him in her bluntest manner. “That’s hardly the point. Each month that passes reduces her chance of marrying. We’re not talking about a love match. We’re speaking strictly of a marriage of convenience. For both of you, Rossmere. You need a wife who has property. Jane needs a husband who can establish a place for her in society and give her children.”
“I can’t believe your niece would countenance such a match.”
“Perhaps not—just yet.” Mabel leaned toward him, gripping the arms of her chair with determined fingers. “You would have to convince her of the desirability of the match. She thinks she will be content as an aunt to her brothers’
and sisters’ children. It’s not enough. She needs to marry soon, before she can become entrenched in a spinster’s way of life.”
“What else has she been leading all these years?”
Mabel bestowed a scornful look on him. “Basically she’s led the life of a fiancée these past seven years. A fiancée who never intended to marry, it’s true, but a fiancée nonetheless. With all that entails.”
Rossmere couldn’t be sure exactly what his godmother meant to convey by this insistence on a pseudo-engagement. Surely not that the young woman wasn’t a virgin. After all, the reason the pair hadn’t wed was because of the possibility of her becoming pregnant with yet another mentally disturbed Bower. Richard Bower’s father had suffered from the illness; his son would likely have inherited the same weakness.
No, Lady Jane was undoubtedly as pure as any other young lady of refinement. Her aunt was merely indicating that there had been no possibility of her considering another man as a husband because of her intense attachment to Richard. Well, Rossmere could credit that, but it carried no weight with him in this argument.
“Your niece is a very fine young woman,” he told Mabel. “But I have no intention of marrying and I’m sure she wouldn’t have a pauper for a husband in any case. No woman of sensibility would. So let’s make an end to this project of yours, ma’am. Lady Jane wouldn’t thank you for it.”
“I’m convinced she would eventually.” Mabel sighed her impatience and plucked at the skirts of her gray Circassian cloth dress. “She needs something, someone, to make her forget Richard. She’s withdrawn from us this past year. An outsider might be a good distraction. Please, at least spend some time with her.”
“Of course.” Rossmere rose and laid a hand on Mabel’s shoulder. “I can’t be a suitor, but I can offer diversion. I was very fond of Richard, and your niece made his life worth living those last years. For his sake as well as yours, I’ll be happy to help.”
Mabel nodded, and thanked him. Rossmere hurriedly excused himself before a new line of attack should occur to his godmother. This was not the time to put forth his request for another loan. He bowed gracefully and strolled toward the door. He’d almost made it when she called out, “Your mother would have hated to see the title die out, Rossmere. And your father even more so. It’s a responsibility beyond the individual, a duty to your heritage and your country. It’s your own pride that’s standing in the way, my dear boy, and that’s no credit to you in this instance.”
Rossmere paused and directed a quelling stare at his godmother. “I think I have to be the one to decide on such personal matters, ma’am. If my decision doesn’t agree with the general opinion of the ton, I won’t be the least alarmed. It’s a great pity the title will become extinct with me, but then it’s a great pity there aren’t the funds to carry off the position with authority. If you will excuse me.”
He set a quick pace down the corridor to the doorway leading to the east garden. This area was sheltered from view by hedges on two sides, probably to provide a windless area in which to walk on blustery days. Willow End was rich in such amenities, as Longborough Park had been. There wasn’t even a decent walk on his estate now. Plantings of a decorative nature had become overgrown, since they called for more expenditure than he could afford. Well, what was the use of comparisons? These days there was no comparison between the ravaged Longborough Park and the beautiful Willow End.
The gravel crunched under his feet as he paced down the walk. He scarcely noticed the abundance of blooms that lined his path. His mind was on other matters, particularly this scheme of his aunt’s with regard to Lady Jane. She was not at all his style of woman. Rossmere had never come close to marrying, even before his father managed to gamble away practically every penny of what should have been his patrimony. Rossmere found the women of his social class profoundly boring.
The type of woman he was attracted to was not some tame thing, trained to play the pianoforte and manage a household competently. She was a flamboyant woman, beautiful and amusing. Outrageous in her outlook on life. Someone who could laugh at the rules, who had the intelligence to see beyond the little parlor games society played. Someone who felt a real excitement about living each day. Rossmere had never met a woman of his class who matched this description.
But he had once had a mistress who did.
That was in the old days, though. It had been a long time since he’d been able to afford the luxury of a mistress. Not that any physical need would drive him to take a wife now. He had no wish to put himself under an obligation to any woman, except the necessary one to his godmother. If he married a rich woman, the weight of his indebtedness would crush him. It didn’t matter that he would be offering a title in exchange, or that legally the property would become his. Rossmere had a very deep sense of pride, and it didn’t allow him the latitude of a less-principled man. The possibility that this high-mindedness was perhaps excessive had never occurred to him.
“Lord Rossmere.”
Until her voice broke into his thoughts, he hadn’t noticed Lady Jane seated on a stone bench at the joining of two paths. Coming on her suddenly this way after his godmother’s suggestion, he took in her appearance with fresh eyes. The most impressive thing about her was her height, which gave her an unconscious elegance. Though her features were less than classical, she had humorous hazel eyes and a warm smile. There was nothing unique about her brown hair, which she wore braided and wound around the crown of her head for this hot summer day. An attractive woman, but nothing out of the ordinary.
“Lady Jane. Forgive me for being so oblivious. May I join you?”
“Certainly.” She tucked her skirts in under her to make room for him on the bench. “You’ve been talking with Mabel,” she suggested.
“How did you know? Does one wear an especially stricken look after being with your aunt?”
Jane laughed. “No, it was your survey of me which gave you away.” She waved a hand to dismiss any apology on his part. “I daresay she approached you with her unrealistic plan. She offered it to me earlier, you see. I told her she should abandon her efforts, but I know her better than to believe she would.”
Rossmere’s reply was cautious. “I realize her intentions are for the best. She has been remarkably kind to me over the last few years and I would hesitate to cause her any distress, but her scheme seems, as you say, unrealistic.”
“Totally impractical. For my part, I have no intention of marrying.”
“Nor I."
“Excellent. Then we shan’t find it necessary to discuss the matter further.” Jane’s mischievous smile made a dimple appear in her cheek. “I would be perfectly willing to be the one to pass on the bad news to her.”
“Perhaps you shouldn’t do it immediately,” Rossmere said, remembering the promise he’d made. “She’ll be more accepting of our decision if we spend a little time together and then assure her that we wouldn’t suit.”
Jane lifted her shoulders in a slight shrug. “As you wish. I’ve always found it best to be entirely forthright with Aunt Mabel, else she’s likely to press her advantage.”
“I thought we might ride out together tomorrow or drive into the village, something that would indicate our making an effort.”
“I’d prefer driving to the village, I think. Ascot might make my mare a bit skittish. She’s young and we haven’t had her long."
Another of them objecting to Ascot, he thought with a touch of annoyance. Driving would mean his having to borrow a curricle from Lord Barlow, as he hadn’t one of his own. Still, he refused to retract the invitation. “In the morning, perhaps? Say, ten o’clock?”
“That would be fine.” Jane rose from the stone bench and patted out her skirts. Rossmere heard the rustle of a piece of paper in her pocket. Jane’s long, thin fingers drew a letter partially out and she asked, “Do you know the Ashwickes, Lord Rossmere?”
It took him a moment to place the name. “Cranford, of course. From Westmoreland, isn’t it?”
“Yes. He’s married now and his wife has written to say they have a baby boy. Odd, how these things work out,” she mused. “When I first met her, she thought he was intolerably stuffy, and he thought she was a hopeless imp. Whereas, Nancy..." She stopped abruptly and jammed the letter back into her pocket. “Forgive me. My mind was wandering. Until dinner, Lord Rossmere.”
He dipped his head in a gesture of acknowledgment, but his eyes had become wary. What had been the point of those strange remarks? It was almost as if she’d forgotten to whom she was speaking for a moment. He frowned after her as she walked away from him.
Her graceful carriage drew his notice. To his surprise he discovered that Lady Jane had a fully developed figure that was quite pleasing to the eye. He had failed to remark it previously because he had paid so little heed to her. He decided, with a rueful shake of his head, that he wouldn’t make the same mistake in the future. If he was going to spend some time in her company, he might as well derive what enjoyment he could from the experience.
Chapter 3
Jane’s father, Lord Barlow, was subject to attacks of gout. She was accustomed to accompanying him to Bath now and again, where the waters did something to aid him, but not as much as the company they found there. At fifty-five the earl was still active when the gout wasn’t bothering him, and his mind was always alert to his favorite subject, the antiquities of Greece and Rome. Jane’s own fascination with these ancient treasures had been generated by his, and was almost as strong.
Willow End was a repository of actual artifacts from the old civilizations, as well as of reproductions of Lord Barlow’s favorite statues. Few of them were without their missing arms or legs, and Rossmere, unaware of the seriousness with which such matters were viewed in the household, had one night remarked that the ones in the gold drawing room were “quite a motley crew.”
The Proud Viscount Page 2