Barnes walked spryly to his side, smiling widely. “We hear your lordship and Lady Jane was leg-shackled last night. The lads and I wanted to wish you both happy. There’s no better woman on earth than her ladyship, if you’ll pardon my saying so. A regular trooper, that one. Has been since she was a bit of a girl.”
“Thank you, Barnes. We appreciate your kind thoughts.”
“Did you want me to saddle him?” Barnes asked with a nod toward Ascot.
“Yes. I’ll take him out for a run.”
“You know, there’ve been those as has asked about that one for a stud since he won the race. I mean, what with the other two being his offspring and all. Just offhand questions, like, and I didn’t want to bother your lordship unless you was interested. He’s a wild one to be put to stud.”
“Hmm. I hadn’t really thought of it. Who’s approached you?”
Barnes scratched his head. “Rivers from over Lockley way. And Sir Giles Carson’s man just happened to come by this way.”
“Sir Giles Carson? He must live more than fifty miles from here.” Rossmere was instantly alert. Sir Giles was known for his keen horse sense; he’d been breeding winning racehorses for twenty years. “Does his man often come by here?”
“Never before, to my knowledge. But we all know of him.”
“Did he look at Ascot?”
“Asked after him, but your lordship was away with the horse. Seemed real eager to have a look-see. I said I’d tell your lordship and send a message if you was interested.”
This last was delivered more in the nature of a question than a statement. Rossmere regarded the black stallion stamping impatiently in his loose box. Why had he never thought of putting Ascot to stud? Probably because he’d never actually raced him before. It was one thing to believe a horse was incredibly fast, another to prove it. There were a lot of people who would pay healthy sums to have a horse of Ascot’s attributes service their mares.
“I’ll think about it,” he said.
But he was already thinking that he had had a way of getting himself out of debt and he hadn’t even recognized it. It might not have best pleased him to have Ascot raced regularly, but it hadn’t best pleased him to be without a shilling to his name, either. His face remained impassive as he watched Barnes put a bridle on the magnificent beast. When Ascot stood ready, Rossmere swung into the saddle with an excess of energy. He would need a good, hard ride to rid himself of this new sense of dissatisfaction.
* * * *
Jane was relieved to find herself alone in the huge bed. She thought it was considerate of Rossmere to absent himself this morning when she felt so in need of a warm bath to restore her. So that was what losing one’s virginity was all about. Not a very appealing business. There was dried blood on the sheets and on her thighs. Really, whoever invented this ritual might have gotten it a little less messy.
When she rang, Tilly arrived quickly, as though she’d been awaiting the summons. The maid tapped lightly on the door and stuck her head cautiously around it when Jane called to her to come in. “Will you be having your tea now, milady?” she asked.
“Not until I’ve had a bath. Would you have them send up cans of hot water, please?”
“Right away. And his lordship?” Tilly allowed her eyes to wander toward the door into the dressing room.
“I think he’s gone out.” Jane could now hear the sound of rapid hoofbeats coming from the direction of the Home Wood. Rossmere’s favorite ride, the trail along the wood. She wouldn’t have thought of going riding at dawn on the morning after her wedding, but it seemed strangely appropriate for her new spouse. “If he comes in and wants a cup of tea, I’ll ring you.”
“Very good, ma’am.”
Jane was relieved that Rossmere didn’t reappear when she was having her bath, but she began to feel a bit uncertain about appearing at the breakfast table to face her Aunt Mabel, Nancy, and her father when her husband hadn’t hung around to wish her a good morning. Ah, well, she thought as she allowed Tilly to choose her most youthful walking dress of jonquil muslin, this is not an ordinary marriage and I mustn’t expect it to conform to any old-fashioned ideas. And just to add a finishing touch to this sterling piece of rationalization, she added— not aloud of course—that Stephen was not, in truth, the man she would have chosen to marry in the ordinary course of her life.
A man, after all, who knew nothing about antiquities, she reminded herself with a smile. Her humor restored, she proceeded downstairs to breakfast after her usual fashion, ignoring any unspoken questions about where her new mate had gotten himself.
* * * *
They moved into Graywood two days later. The tenants had treated the house and its contents with remarkable consideration. As Jane walked through the manor, she could see that the Browns had kept the staff at their duties, cleaning and polishing, dusting and rubbing. Though she’d called a few times during the last year, Jane hadn’t gone beyond the morning room, with its lovely rosewood sideboard and cabinets.
Now she led Rossmere through the entire house, explaining the history of a portrait or the significance of a ceiling cornice in the form of the Vitruvian scroll. He had visited Richard here and would likely not care about the background she gave, but she felt overwhelmed by the memories that assailed her, and she found it impossible to hide her anxiety in any way other than by imparting this useless information. It never occurred to her that Rossmere would wonder at her intimacy with the house.
As they climbed the staircase, she pointed to a niche, a Georgian addition to the medieval manor house, where a small collection of ornaments in pottery and porcelain rested. “Richard’s father was an avid fisherman, and he collected pieces that represented every aspect of fishing. Richard wasn’t quite as keen on fishing, but he enjoyed the collection.”
“I remember fishing with him once. As I recall, there’s a stream that runs through the very southernmost corner of the property.”
“Oh, yes, I keep forgetting that you’ve stayed here.” Jane clasped her hands behind her back and continued across the first-floor landing to the southwest room. This was a moderate-size bedroom with a carved beech four-poster bed and several mahogany chests of drawers. When Jane couldn’t find anything to say about the room, Rossmere commented, “This is the chamber I occupied. I remember the Dresden mirror. As I recall, Richard’s room was the one just down the hall.”
“The north room, yes.” Jane was terrified that he would suggest they take over the north room. “It’s the largest chamber, but not suited to a couple. There’s no dressing room or sitting room attached to it. I’m sure we’d be more comfortable in the southeast room.”
“Are you?”
“Yes,” she said firmly, meeting his bland gaze. “Richard’s parents used it, you know.”
“I didn’t know, actually. Let’s have a look at it.”
Since this offered the opportunity to skip Richard’s room altogether, Jane grabbed at the chance. “The view is out over the lawns and gardens, rather than over the woods,” she said as she hurried down the corridor with Rossmere at her heels. Why did she have the feeling he was toying with her? He really hadn’t said anything.
Probably it was all her imagination. He couldn’t possibly care which room they used. That sort of thing was almost inevitably a wife’s choice, in cases such as this, of a temporary nature. Not in an ancestral home, certainly, but Graywood was not his ancestral home. She’d be perfectly willing to share whichever room he chose at Longborough Park.
“I’m rather partial to woods myself, especially with autumn coming soon. The colors will be invigorating, whereas the gardens will be forlorn by then,” he suggested as they walked down the corridor side by side.
“Oh, not at all! There’s a wonderful burst of color in the autumn. The chrysanthemums and the Michaelmas daisies, the japonica and the Chinese lanterns. It’s quite a spectacular display. And before that, just after the main summer flowers are gone, there are the dahlias and sunflowers, the aster
s and gladioli, the phlox and monks-hood, the—”
“As you say,” he hastened to interrupt. “I’m sure the view from the southeast room will be everything I could wish for.”
“The woods look so desolate after the leaves are gone.”
He didn’t bother to answer her, but pushed open the door of the bedchamber with a decided negligence. Jane was relieved to see that the room was as delightful as she had remembered. There were beautiful oak floors and paneling, except for one wall, which had a leather wall hanging with a design of swags of fruit and flowers, eagles and monkeys in gold and black on an ivory background. It was a charming item, reputed to have been brought from Spain by Catherine of Aragon. Jane noticed that Rossmere was regarding it with great skepticism.
“Don’t you like it?” she asked, surprised. “It must be three hundred years old.”
“Not so old as your father’s antiquities,” he said, his voice light with amusement. “I’m sure I’ll come to be very fond of it, especially as it faces the bed.”
Jane frowned at the four-poster bed. “That’s not where the bed used to be. It would be much more pleasant with a view out the windows, don’t you think? Otherwise the hanging could be a bit overpowering.”
“An excellent idea.” Rossmere nodded at the two doors leading out of the room. “Which is the dressing room and which the sitting room?”
She led him first into the sitting room, with its walnut wardrobe, lady’s writing desk, and settee. “This would be my room. I’m particularly fond of the painted Norwegian dower chest, though it’s quite modern. From the turn of the century only.”
“Terribly modern,” he agreed as he followed her back out through the door and across the bedchamber to the other room. “And this would be my private room?”
“Yes.” She couldn’t tell whether he was pleased, by either his expression or his tone of voice, both of which were totally devoid of clues. She watched his gaze move from the mahogany desk to the bracket clock, from the hanging cabinet to the daybed. “The wardrobe is a Dutch piece.”
"How do you know these things?” he demanded, his voice indicating he had reached the end of his patience. “Is it obvious to you from looking at them, or is it family history you’re imparting? Richard’s family history, that is.”
Confused as to what had annoyed him, Jane shrugged off the question. “I’ve learned a bit about furniture. It’s another fascination of mine. Will the suite do?”
“Certainly it will do. Which room will your sister Nancy have?”
Relieved, Jane led him back out into the corridor and past the staircase to the opposite side of the house.
* * * *
Rossmere had sat down with Lord Barlow and his solicitor, after the wedding, to detail the marriage settlement, and he had gotten better terms than either Margaret’s or Nancy’s husbands. He knew this because Lord Barlow had attempted to hold him to exactly the same amount of dowry and similar arrangements.
But Jane’s was a different circumstance, as was Rossmere’s and he had bargained for a much larger amount up front so that he could restore Longborough Park and continue to reclaim it from its debt-ridden position. Jane had insisted on being a party to the final agreement. “It’s Graywood that will make the difference,” she’d said. “Its rents and its crop earnings will provide a steady income to apply against the Longborough mortgage. I want it agreed from the start that there will be no question of selling it without my full agreement.”
There could be no reason other than sentiment that she insisted on holding on to the property. Selling it would have instantly freed Longborough from its oppressive mortgage. Instead, Jane arranged that the estate would be passed on to her children, as if this were the most normal thing in the world. Which only meant that another generation would somehow be bound to Richard Bower and his family. It was almost, Rossmere thought, as if Jane were a widow, rather than a spinster.
The same feeling occurred to him in bed with her. And yet there was no doubt whatsoever that she had been a virgin on their wedding night. Rossmere would have liked to rout Richard’s ghost by insisting that they take his bedchamber, but it was more than obvious that Jane found the idea repugnant. If he had insisted, he knew she would have complied, but at a cost to him as well as to herself. He realized that he was not going to banish Richard’s ghost by force.
Marriage had conferred on him the privilege of having intimate relations with Jane, but he was reluctant to press this privilege too far. Not that he wasn’t eager to indulge the passion that seemed to grow with each encounter. It was Jane’s attitude that stopped him, like an invisible barrier. She held her body in readiness for him, but she grew cooler and the less responsive with each experience. The night they moved into Graywood was the worst so far.
Jane wore a light cotton nightdress, nothing like the beautiful and inviting confection she’d worn on their wedding night. She was already in bed when he entered the room in his nightshirt. With careful deliberation she placed a book mark in the volume she was holding and slid it onto a table beside the bed. Her look at him was appraising rather than excited. It lessened his own desire, but didn’t extinguish it altogether. She was, to his awakened eyes, a very alluring woman. Her coolness could not penetrate the insistent strength of his need.
“What were you reading?” he asked as he snuffed the candles on the mantel and her table.
“Oh, just a novel my sister loaned to me. Nothing that would interest you.”
“You seem to think that nothing you do is of interest to me. My lack of knowledge about antiquities and furniture has misled you.”
“Of course it hasn’t.”
“I am not totally lacking in refinement, my sweet. I’m no stranger to the theater or the opera, and I’ve been known to read a work of fiction now and again. Recently my life has not offered many opportunities for the first diversions, and the last I somehow lost my taste for after steeping myself in the latest agricultural journals.” He climbed into bed but remained on his own side.
“I can quite understand that.” She extended her long, thin fingers to touch his shoulder softly. “It can’t have been easy to suddenly find yourself without the resources to enjoy London.”
He shrugged off her touch. “I hate being patronized, Jane. Wealth is scarcely a criterion for one’s value.”
She withdrew her fingers. “I think you know I didn’t mean that. You’ve become very prickly about any reference to your financial position. I wish you wouldn’t hold it against me that marrying me has changed that.”
“It seems to me you’re the one who’s changed since our marriage. I’ve always been prickly, as you call it, about having not a sou to my name.”
Jane shifted down under the covers. “How have I changed?” she asked.
“You’ve become cool and distant. Especially in bed.”
“I’m right here. You know very well that if you approach me, I will allow you whatever you wish.”
“Before we were married, you seemed eager for my approach.”
“Before we were married, you approached me in a more acceptable way.”
“What the devil is that supposed to mean?” he demanded.
“You were interested in pleasing me then. You aren’t any longer.”
“Nonsense. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Jane stared at him. “I beg your pardon. I know exactly what I’m talking about. Since we’ve been married, you've done nothing but please yourself. It’s hardly a fair exchange for my openness.”
“I’ve done precisely what a man is expected to do. If that doesn’t please you, it’s surely not my fault.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me, Stephen, if that’s what you’re implying. I’m familiar with my body’s ability to respond to the proper touch. You have provided very little of the proper touch since our wedding.”
“I suppose Richard provided the proper touch,” he said bitterly.
Jane refused to discuss that parti
cular matter. “You provided it yourself the night before we were married.”
“In lieu of a husband’s right to consummate our intimacy. You’ve been misled about what to expect, because of your particular situation. Since our wedding, I’ve taught you."
“I don’t like being patronized, either, Stephen. I’m trying to explain to you about what would please me. If you’re not interested, I won’t waste my breath.”
“I think you’d best have a talk with your sister,” he muttered as he turned his back to her.
“I will.’’
Chapter 18
Rossmere had been gone again when she awakened. Well, not exactly. She had awakened when he climbed out of bed, but she had pretended to be sound asleep. There was no sense in talking to him right now. They were both too irritated to reach any compromise. When Jane roused from sleep again, it was later than usual, and she rang for Tilly.
As her maid set down the tea, she asked, “Is my sister up yet, do you know?”
“I saw her going in to breakfast, Lady Ja—Rossmere.”
They had all switched to calling her Lady Rossmere, with the usual slips, of course. It sounded so formal, and so final. “Would you ask my sister to come up to me when she’s finished?”
As least Nancy hadn’t lost her own name by her marriage, since Parnham had no title. Jane sighed, realizing that Nancy had lost a great deal more than that. She was still thinking about her sister’s situation when there was a soft tap at the door and Nancy let herself in.
“You look very much the lady of leisure,” Nancy assured her as she took a seat at the foot of the bed.
Jane was sitting up against the pillows in her nightdress, sipping her tea. “I’m pretending it’s my honeymoon,” she said dryly.
“Pretending? I don’t understand.”
“Well, Rossmere never seems to be here, so I’m having a honeymoon of my own, you see,” Jane explained, not quite truthfully. “How are you settling in? Will you want William’s room painted?”
The Proud Viscount Page 17