The Westerby Inheritance

by M C Beaton

  She turned to Sir Anthony. “Let us promenade a little,” she said. “I saw Jane Lovelace and would like to speak to her. We shall go in search of her.”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” replied Sir Anthony hastily. “Thought you wasn’t on speaking terms.”

  “I intend to remedy that,” said Philadelphia with a faint edge to her voice. “Come.”

  Jane was performing the contredanse with Sir Felix and wondering how soon she could possibly leave. How absurd of her to have indulged a servant’s whim! But Bella looked so happy and so proud that Jane gritted her teeth and determined to stick it out for a little longer. Still, she felt, if only she could get away before she saw Lord Charles again! The wound had been beginning to heal. There had been hours during the past weeks when she had not thought of him at all.…

  Over her partner’s shoulder, she saw Philadelphia watching her. Jane’s face hardened, and she looked away. She saw Philadelphia turn and say something to Sir Anthony, and then both left the room. “She is probably telling him I am a monster,” thought Jane.

  Lord Charles had allowed himself to be led away into the more private part of the house by Mr. Osborne, who was anxious to secure his lordship’s opinion of a dinner service he had bought in Hanover. Lord Charles found himself liking Mr. Osborne immensely. He was a slight, elderly man with a childlike enthusiasm for the fine things he was able to afford. His life’s pleasure was in sharing these things with as many people as possible. His enthusiasm was infectious, and Lord Charles soon found, to his surprise, that he had passed a very interesting half-hour with Mr. Osborne, learning a great deal about the merits of china.

  At last Mr. Osborne glanced at the clock and flushed guiltily. “You have indulged me, my lord,” he said apologetically, “and now my wife will be furious at me for keeping you from the other guests.”

  “I enjoyed it,” said Lord Charles. “You have good taste and fine appreciation.”

  “You think so!” cried Mr. Osborne, turning pink with pleasure. His delight in the compliment was endearing. All at once, Lord Charles remembered calling Jane “pretty,” and how naively pleased she had been.

  His mind thrust away the thought, but he felt edgy and restless. He would return to the party and sun himself in Philadelphia’s beauty—making sure that he did not take too much of her attention away from Anthony.

  He hesitated on the threshold of the public rooms that led to the saloons where the party was being held.

  To the right, two rooms away, he could see Philadelphia, surrounded by a court of admirers. He looked to the left, over the heads of the chattering guests, and three rooms away, on that side, couples moved gracefully in the steps of a minuet.

  He went to the left.

  And, all at once, there was Lady Jane Lovelace.

  The dance had just ended, and she was curtsying to Sir Felix Beaton and smiling up at him.

  He let out a long, slow breath of relief.

  The smile quickly left her face. She was sadder, and her face was thinner than he had remembered. He felt not a thing. The sickness was well and truly over. Cheerfully he turned on his heel and went in search of some refreshment. He secured himself a glass of wine and stopped to exchange gossip with several old friends. He decided after some time to pay court to Philadelphia and then leave. It was only two in the morning, but he thought that an early night would make a pleasant change.

  At first he was unaware that the refreshment room had become very crowded indeed. But as he bowed to his friends and then backed away, he found his back pressed against someone in a group nearby. Ordinarily he would have immediately turned round and made his apologies.

  But he stood stock still. He felt as if a charge of electricity had been run through him, and for a few mad seconds thought that someone might be playing a practical joke.

  After all, electricity was all the rage. King Louis XV had only recently witnessed the administration of an electric shock to a mile-long line of monks, and had fallen about with laughter when the reverend brothers had leapt in the air—thereby proving to the common herd, who could not afford to indulge in such massive demonstrations, that science could be fun.

  He turned around very slowly and found himself looking down at the scented brown masses of Lady Jane Lovelace’s hair.

  Oblivious to the surrounding company, he gently put his hands on her shoulders and swung her around to face him.

  He had forgotten how much the changing color of her eyes fascinated him. They were shining up into his own, very wide and very dark—and full of a shocked realization of love.

  How could he have been so blind before? he thought wonderingly, he who had always been able to tell from a look, from a kiss, whether a woman was enamored of him.

  He felt consumed by a rising, bubbling feeling of elation. She loved him! He was sure of it. And nothing else mattered. James Bentley’s brains, spewed across the coffee-room floor, dwindled in his mind to a tiny image seen through the wrong end of a telescope, and then vanished.

  To Jane, his face seemed to blaze down at her, and, like a hypnotized sun-worshiper, she could not move or look away.

  All around them, fans fluttered and painted faces stared and penciled eyebrows rose.

  Sir Anthony followed the staring faces and stopped short in midsentence, his rouged mouth falling ludicrously open. Philadelphia quickly raised her fan to cover her look of disappointment. Her calculating mind carefully examined her own jealousy of Jane, tidied it firmly away as being a time-wasting emotion, and gave a mental shrug. Philadelphia noticed the jealousy on Fanny’s face, and the burning hate on Mrs. Bentley’s, and despised them both for not hiding their feelings. Anyway, excess of emotion caused wrinkles, and Philadelphia decided she would never indulge in anything that would mar her own beauty.

  “You were saying, Sir Anthony?” she prompted in a soft voice, and Sir Anthony tore his eyes away from the lovestruck couple, wondered briefly whether white silk and diamonds would be the best attire for a brideman, and then fell under the spell of Philadelphia’s beauty all over again.

  Bella was gossiping to Mr. Osborne’s second footman and so was unable to remove Jane from danger.

  Lord Charles suddenly became aware of the staring circle of faces. He held out his arm, and Jane silently put her hand on it, and together they moved through the saloons to the one at the far end, which was thin of company.

  He drew her down onto a small sofa, holding both her hands. “Jane,” he said in a low voice, “I was exceeding distressed to learn of the death of your father. Were you much grieved?”

  “Perhaps not,” said Jane. “I tried and tried to cry, but I could not. I could barely remember him when he was… normal. For so long he had been drunk, and then—oh, so changed and odd in character. I felt I had lost him such a long time before.”

  “There is a rumor that it was Lady Hetty who burned down the Chase. I find that hard to believe.”

  “Fortunately, so did the insurance company,” said Jane.

  He held her hands tighter. “Jane… that is really not what I want to ask. What I want—Zounds! Here is your watchdog, with eyes like daggers!”

  Bella could be seen wrathfully plowing toward them like a ship under full sail.

  “Jane,” he said urgently, “I must see you alone—soon. You know I must.”

  Jane nodded her head, a little shadow crossing her face. He wanted her to fulfill her part of the contract. Always the contract. And she had thought…

  Bella was nearly upon them.

  “Westerby House—the town house,” she whispered hurriedly. “Tomorrow, at midnight. It is locked and shuttered. I have the key.…”

  “I was looking for you, my lady,” said Bella unnecessarily, standing foursquare in front of them. “You was saying just a whiles back that you was anxious for to leave, my lady, and your Bella is ready to go.”

  “Very well, Bella,” said Jane meekly. She turned and gave Lord Charles her hand, looking rather sadly up into his face, and he
returned her gaze with a puzzled look. But as she walked away with Bella, his old elation returned. He would see her very soon, and alone. The yellow fog lay in thin bands across the room, giving Mr. Osborne’s party a dreamlike quality.

  He left the party shortly after Jane, with a tight, intense, exalted look on his face.

  Sir Anthony sadly watched him go. Women were the very devil, he reflected. He felt his friend Charles would never be the same again.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jane sat in the shadowed hall of the Westerby town house and awaited the arrival of Lord Charles Welbourne. All that day she had prepared for the night to come, in a numbed, unreal state. She would not admit to herself that she was about to fulfill her part of the bargain because now she would take him on any terms. Rather, she told herself, it was necessary to get it over and done with.

  She had put sheets on the bed herself, since the servants who had not gone over to Mrs. Bentley’s household had been sent down to the Chase to live in improvised quarters until the new servants’ wing had been completed.

  It had been difficult to escape Bella’s watchful eye, but at last the maid had seemed convinced that Jane really was retiring for an early night, as she had said, and had taken herself off to her own bed. Betty and Sally had contracted colds, and Hetty was occupied in nursing them and for once had no time to worry about Jane.

  Jane now had a chair of her own, and she had told her chairmen, after they had deposited her at the Westerby mansion, that she did not want anyone to know where she was, as she wanted some time to herself. She had already visited the house during the afternoon and, apart from preparing a bedchamber, had taken a hamper of food and wine.

  She had arrived that evening at 11:30, a full half-hour before Lord Charles was due to arrive, and had drunk a whole bottle of heavy, brandy-fortified wine very quickly, in case she might pause to think of the enormity of what she was doing.

  Her head had begun to nod when there came a soft scratching at the street door. On wobbly legs she went to open it, and his lorship slipped silently into the hall. He was heavily cloaked and masked, his eyes glinting strangely through the slits.

  “You look like a demon,” said Jane with a giggle and a hiccup.

  He removed his mask and stared thoughtfully at the empty bottle and empty glass on the hall table, and then back at Jane.

  “You are drunk, my little love,” he said in that old mocking voice.

  “No matter,” said Jane in a prim voice. “This way, my lord, I think.”

  With the stately tread of the drunk, she walked up the staircase, and, after one amused look, he followed her.

  She led him into a large bedchamber, where a fire crackled cheerfully on the hearth. The chairs and table were shrouded under holland covers, but the large fourposter bed had been freshly made and the curtains drawn back.

  “The dressing room is here, my lord,” said Jane in a very hostessy voice, holding the door open for him.

  He paused for a second. This was indeed getting down to brass tacks very quickly. But he was frightened of losing her, and she was wearing a delicate flower scent that was doing mad things to his senses.

  He undressed very hurriedly, amazed to find that his hands were shaking. He forced himself to wait, to give her time.

  At last he pushed open the door from the dressing room and went in.

  She was already in bed, wearing a singularly repellent flannel nightgown. Her hair lay about her shoulders in a shining cloud, and she looked very young and defenseless.

  She did not look up, but continued to stare straight ahead. Even when he climbed into bed beside her, she sat up against the pillows, unmoving.

  He gave a little sigh. He had made a mistake after all. But he no longer hated her, no longer wanted revenge. He could not seduce this terrified, drunken child.

  He took her gently into his arms to tell her so, but as his body touched her, all reason left him, and she wound her arms round his neck and moaned against his mouth, returning passion for passion until he felt he could not possibly draw back. Soon the nightgown was lying in a ball at the end of the bed, and he looked down at her slender body in the flickering candlelight and felt he would die if he did not have her.

  He began to kiss her as he had never kissed her before, intense passion sweetened with tenderness. Slowly his hands explored and caressed her body. She could feel his hard chest pressing against her small, high breasts, and his stirring, hardening manhood pressing into the softness of her thigh, and somewhere in the turmoil of her brain she realized she was not afraid of him or anything he might do to her. He covered her naked body with kisses from the soles of her feet to the top of her head, tense as a bowstring with desire, but holding back, always holding back, expecting her to cry out in fear.

  She turned and twisted and moaned under his busy hands and exploring mouth, never trying to escape, instinctively moving her body to allow him further intimacies.

  At last the bulk of his body loomed over her, curved and still and intense, his hands still at last. He found himself choking the words out, nearly stammering, “Jane, my sweet. Do you know what you are doing? What we are doing?”

  By way of answer, she gave a choked little cry in the back of her throat and pulled his mouth back down to hers.

  The pain of the loss of her virginity came as a sharp shock, and fear made her go rigid under him, thinking wildly he was deliberately hurting her, but his voice, deep and altered with passion and tenderness, was murmuring, “You are so beautiful, Jane, my life. The most beautiful and exquisite thing I have ever held in my arms. Relax, my darling. Move with me, my delight. I cannot draw back. I shall go mad an I do not take you now.”

  She grasped his shoulders then, longing to cry out that she loved him with all her heart and soul, and that she would do anything he wanted, but somehow the words would not come. But he seemed to sense her compliance, seemed to feel the slow, burning return of her desire as her fear ebbed, and soon he was moving inside her, above her, and she gave herself up to him, totally, heart and body and soul, crying and dying with love and passion, every nerve of her body straining for fulfillment, every part of her mind knowing that she would love this man until the end of time, and never, ever could she escape from him again.

  She awoke as the first finger of dawn crept through a small gap in the curtains, and climbed stiffly from the bed. Her head ached abominably and her mouth was dry, and she felt sore and degraded. His lordship slept peacefully and neatly, lying on his side, his black hair, freed from its ribbon, spread over the pillow.

  The blankets lay in a heap on the floor, and the sheet in a crumpled knot at the foot of the bed.

  Jane went quietly into the dressing room, grateful that she had had the foresight to lay in a supply of towels and several pitchers of water. Standing naked in the dressing room, she thirstily drank several glasses of water and scrubbed herself meticulously.

  Holding one of the larger towels around her, she went back to the bedroom. Now all she had to do was put on her clothes and leave.

  But her head hurt so terribly, and she felt so tired and alone and miserable.

  Instead, she picked up her nightgown and put it on, straightened the sheet over Lord Charles’s body, and then very gently put the blankets on the bed.

  Then she stood for a long time looking down at him, as if saying good-bye.

  As if aware of her gaze, he awoke suddenly and then smiled. “Hey! You have put that abomination on again, my darling. And why so sad?”

  “My head hurts,” said Jane, her eyes filling with tears at his seeming callousness.

  “Of course it does, my drunken wench,” he laughed. “And ’fore George! When we are married I shall make sure the keys to my cellar are kept away from you.”

  “Married?” whispered Jane.

  “My love,” he said slowly, “the contract. The curst contract. You thought I took you because of that?”

  Jane nodded dumbly.

  “Oh, my love! My
love!” he said, sitting up and taking her face between his long hands. “I am in love with you. My pretty Jane. My darling Jane. No other man will lay a finger on you. I want you day and night for myself. Do you love me, Jane? I thought I saw it in your eyes the night at the Osbornes’. That is what drove me silly and crazy. I should have asked Lady Hetty for your hand in marriage. But you suggested this meeting, and I forgot all about the damned contract and hoped you were being romantic. Oh, Jane! Say you love me! I could not bear to have such a love as mine unrequited.”

  “I love you, my lord,” said Jane, her eyes beginning to shine like silver. “Oh, so very much.”

  He gave an exultant laugh and, moving over, pulled her into bed beside him. “Tell me,” he said, hugging her close, “did I hurt you very much last night. It cannot have been so very enjoyable, it being the first time.”

  Jane gulped and swallowed. “My lord,” she said shyly, “I—I cannot remember much of it.”

  He gave a shout of laughter. “Then I shall start to refresh your memory. But how can I, while you are protected by that singularly horrible garment? We shall get rid of it, so.… Oh, Jane! Your body seduces my eyes.

  “Now, do you remember, I kissed you so… and so… and so. And then I kissed you there… and here.… And oh, Jane, Jane, I am drunk with you.…”

  Hetty walked out of Jane’s bedroom at Number Ten, walked slowly along the corridor to the landing, and, leaning over the banister, looked at the clock in the hall. Ten o’clock in the morning, and no Jane.

  Then she heard a knock at the door and saw Sanders, the butler, going across the hall to answer it, and then she heard Bella’s impatient voice saying, “Hurry up, Mr. Sanders, I ain’t got all day.”

  Hetty breathed a sigh of relief. Of course! Jane had been out walking with her maid.

  But Sanders opened the door to reveal Bella alone, and Hetty felt the beginnings of fear.