by Emily Royal
Henry’s groin hardened with exquisite agony at the sight of her. Falling in love with her was out of the question, but his body, and latterly his heart, had other ideas. If he didn’t take care, his soul would follow.
Oakville bent forward and whispered in her ear. She turned her head toward him and a smile played on her lips. What had he said to her?
He looked up, and his eyes met Henry’s, and their shared expressions hardened.
“My lord!” Jeanette rose to greet him, hurt and hope in her eyes.
Henry took her hand and kissed it before acknowledging the guests, the odious Green and the slightly more appealing Chantry, who at least recognized that whores were being murdered, even if he didn’t care enough to spur the Runners into a more active investigation. Sir Daniel approached him, his wife on his arm. Lady Charlotte blushed and glanced at Jeanette.
Oakville drew him aside.
“You’ve finally graced us with your presence. How long do you intend to continue your disgraceful behavior toward your wife?”
“Save your breath, Oakville, I’m not in the mood.”
“The least you can do is apologize. You abandoned her to the mercy of these people, yet she’s coped admirably considering how she must be feeling.”
Fueled by guilt, Henry lashed out. “You’re the villain, Oakville. You compromised her and left me to pick up the tatters and shackle myself to her.”
“Shackle yourself!” Oakville scoffed. “I’d give anything to be in your position. You don’t deserve her.”
“Stay away from her,” Henry growled, “she’s mine.”
“You don’t want her! Or is it that you don’t want anybody else to have her?” He gestured to the other guests. “Look around, Dray. Right now, you’re the only man in the room who’s not utterly, completely in love with her!”
Henry pushed past his friend and addressed the guests.
“Forgive my late appearance, but I trust you understand, I’m a little tired.”
“Of course.” Ever the diplomat, the Earl of Strathdean took the lead. “Come, my dear,” he said to his wife, “it’s time we left. I hadn’t realized how late it was.”
The Earl bowed over Jeanette’s hand and kissed it. “I hope to enjoy the pleasure of your company, and Lord Ravenwell’s, at our ball later this week. Having enjoyed your accomplishments at the pianoforte, I’m anxious to see you dance.”
Jeanette lifted her eyes in question, but Henry shook his head.
“My wife leaves for Sussex tomorrow.”
The Earl frowned, but his expression did not match the hurt and confusion in Jeanette’s eyes.
“Perhaps another time,” she said quietly, giving the earl a tight smile.
Like a receding tide, the rest of the party followed the earl’s lead, each taking Jeanette’s hand to bid her goodnight. Oakville, however, remained, puffing out his chest in a gesture of challenge. Henry ignored him and ushered the other guests out.
When he returned to the drawing room, Jeanette was busying herself tidying the coffee cups. He opened his mouth to admonish her, but when she lifted her gaze to him, his conscience silenced his tongue. He’d hurt her enough for one evening.
In that, at least, one person agreed. Oakville slid across the room, his eyes narrowed into slits.
“I’ve never been so ashamed to call you my friend.”
Porcelain clattered in the far end of the room. Jeanette moved about, seemingly absorbed in her task, but her spine had stiffened.
“Where would you be, Oakville, if it weren’t for my friendship?”
“On a more virtuous and prosperous path.”
“Nonsense! You’ve relished the chance to play the rake. How many mistresses have you serviced this season?”
“At least I have the tenacity not to grow bored after only a few fucks.”
“Why you…”
“Stop!” a female voice cried. Jeanette stood before him, body heaving, face flushed a distressed shade of red.
“Get out,” Henry snarled. “This is no place for you.”
“Do you mean I have no place in a dogfight between two foolish men or that I have no place in society?”
“Let your conscience decide.”
“Oh, that’s enough!” Oakville cried. He pushed Henry against the door, forcing the air from his lungs as his back met the solid wood.
“I’m calling you out.”
“Don’t be a fool.”
Oakville thrust his face close, his eyes dark with rage. “You think I jest?”
“Very well,” Henry snarled. “Choose your weapon.”
“No!” A high scream pierced the air. “Please!”
Why did she insist on remaining? A duel was a matter of honor between men, not women.
“This is no place for you, woman. You don’t understand.”
“Yes, I do.” Her quiet words cut into his heart more deeply than her scream. “Henry, please. A bullet wound is nothing I wish to see inflicted on anyone.”
For a moment, her eyes mirrored the image which seared through his mind; the flash of an explosion, the sting in his ears at the sound of the shot, blood spreading across white muslin, and finally her inert body, crumpled and broken in the middle of the field, the culmination of her ruination which his friend had plotted. And Henry had encouraged and profited from.
“Very well,” he said, “no pistols. But Oakville and I must settle this.”
“No…” Jeanette protested.
“Silence!” he roared. “You pledged to obey me. Do as I say and remain where you are while we finish this.”
“Come on then.” Oakville pulled Henry into the hall. He peeled his jacket off and threw it onto the floor.
Jerking loose from Oakville’s grip, Henry removed his own jacket and fisted his hands. Anger and frustration boiled within him, a coiled spring waiting to release. His superior boxing skills would flatten Oakville at the first strike.
“Do your worst,” Henry said.
Oakville circled him with the controlled motion of a predator, waiting for the moment to strike. Foolish man! Henry was ready for him, superior in everything—looks, wealth, and prowess. He even possessed the woman Oakville wanted.
“I need do very little to expose you for what you really are, Dray.”
“Words?” Henry laughed. “Is that all you have, the weapons of a woman?”
“All you have are your cock and your fists, the weapons of a savage,” Oakville replied. “It may have escaped your notice that society has evolved since the dark ages. This has been well overdue.”
“What has?”
“The opportunity to educate you.” Oakville’s mouth curled into a smile. “Time you learned how to be a man.”
The spring snapped. With a roar, Henry lunged forward and landed a punch on Oakville’s shoulder.
Oakville skipped to one side. “Is that all you can do, besides humiliate your wife in public?”
Henry threw his body at Oakville again, and the two men toppled to the floor, arms and legs thrashing against each other. He threw punch after punch, many of them striking the floor with a burst of pain in his fingers, but the occasional blow met its target. Oakville’s grunts of pain accentuated the pounding of bloodlust in Henry’s ears.
“Stop! Please!”
Oakville’s body stiffened at the sound of female distress. Curse the man, had he grown to care for her as well as lust after her? Henry scrambled to his feet, wiping his mouth while Oakville struggled to rise more slowly. A red mark just below his left eye was already beginning to swell.
“That’s enough, both of you!” Jeanette’s voice had the angry tone of a schoolmistress. “What are you thinking, brawling on the floor while you accuse me of being unfit for society? Is this how men settle their differences, using their bodies because their minds are too weak?”
Oakville brandished his fists, and she stepped between them.
“Stop! If you can’t respect my husband, try to respect yourself. I won’t
have bloodshed in my home.”
“Does the lady waver at the sight of blood?” Henry sneered, the invisible little devil lurking inside his brain willing him to taunt her for forcing him to lose self-control.
She turned to face him, defeat in her eyes. Behind her, Oakville tensed, his visceral reaction more vivid than Jeanette’s quiet sigh. He lunged toward Henry, drawing his arm back to deal the final blow.
But Jeanette was in the way.
“Jeanette!”
Henry pushed her aside just in time. Oakville’s blow connected with Henry’s jaw, and he staggered back as pain exploded in his head.
“Stop! I insist!” Jeanette cried. “I’ve had enough of this. I want you to leave. You’ve disgraced yourself and me more than enough for a lifetime.”
Her voice hardened. “I said leave. Now!”
Finally, the devil within Henry had succeeded. He’d lost her regard. Wiping his eyes to clear them, he nodded. It was better this way, to not to let himself fall in love with her.
But Jeanette wasn’t addressing Henry. She prodded Oakville in the chest.
“Go.”
Oakville cast Henry a look of disgust, picked up his jacket, and limped out of the hall.
Soft, warm fingers curled around Henry’s hand.
“Let me take you to the kitchen.”
The heat from Mrs. Pratt’s cooking had yet to disperse. Henry sat at the kitchen table while Jeanette peeled off his shirt, tutting at the marks on his skin where Oakville’s punches had hit home. His chin throbbed, each heartbeat intensifying the pain.
She held a cloth against his jaw. The tangy scent of herbs sharpened in his nostrils before he registered the sting of pain and drew a hiss of air between his teeth.
“Shh…” she whispered. “Keep still.”
She took his hand and lifted it to the poultice.
“Hold this.”
Henry complied, his body too weary to argue.
His heart also.
His skin tightened at the delicate brush of fingertips against his chest. Closing his eyes only served to heighten his other senses, her floral scent not completely masked by the woody aroma of the salve.
“Henry…”
The almost inaudible whisper caused a ripple of sensation to course through his body. It was not the lust he battled with each time she was near, but another enemy threatening to break through the barriers he’d constructed around his heart.
Love.
He dropped the poultice and took her hands.
“Henry, your jaw. You must…”
“Hush.” He pulled her close and pressed his mouth against hers. He sought entrance with his tongue, and with a whimper, she welcomed him. Moisture glistened in the corners of her eyes and a low groan bubbled in her throat.
She was a woman starved. He was the one who’d starved her, yet now, he gladly quenched her hunger, a simple kiss expressing more love than he ever could with words.
Jeanette. His Jeanette. She belonged to him. Only him. Like a warrior, she’d stepped into the fray and defended him, even though Oakville had been the more deserving. What would his life be with such a woman by his side? What might she become if she knew he was beginning to love her?
She must never know. Love was a weakness. He must pack her off to Sussex before he succumbed. She might view Ravenwell Hall as a prison, isolated from the world, but at least she’d be safe there thinking, as the world thought, that he cared nothing for her.
Chapter Twenty-One
During the ride to Sussex, Jeanette’s husband returned to the cold dispassionate man of her wedding day. What had happened to the tender moment they’d shared last night? Her heart and body had melted as he’d kissed her for the first time since their marriage, then carried her to bed. Reverently, he’d peeled off her clothes before claiming her body, worshipping her with his hands and mouth.
Whispered words of love had turned into hoarse cries of passion until he shouted his release and pulled her close while his body shuddered with the aftershocks of his lovemaking.
And lovemaking it had been. His eyes had never left hers, their dark blue depths baring his soul. After finishing inside her, he’d nestled his head against her chest, murmuring her name while his mouth once more sought her breast, his warm sigh caressing her skin as he fell into a contented sleep. But in the morning, she’d woken with only the memory of his tenderness and the imprint of his body on the bed.
The carriage drew to a halt and tipped sideways as Henry shifted his weight to climb out. Jeanette followed and stepped onto the gravel in front of Ravenwell Hall.
It was the biggest building she had ever seen.
Pale gray stone stretched across her eyeline, window after window three stories high. To the left, a neatly clipped lawn stretched into the distance where an intricate pattern of bushes had been trained into a maze. To her right, a path led to a lake across which the call of moorhens echoed. Beyond the lake, the driveway stretched back through the park.
The metallic taste of salt in the air caught in her throat. The hall was close to Brighton, the Regent’s seaside town of debauchery. Would Henry join him there, to indulge in whoring after he’d deposited Jeanette in her prison?
A stiff row of servants led toward the main doors. Jeanette moved along the line, addressing each one until she reached the housekeeper, Mrs. Barnes, who stood next to her husband, the steward. Though he paid Jeanette due reverence, his attention was constantly focused on his wife, the devotion evident in his eyes and the way he touched her arm unconsciously.
How she envied Mrs. Barnes at that moment! The loveless existence of a marchioness paled in comparison to the honest partnership between a man and a woman in service.
The formalities concluded, and Henry ushered Jeanette into the building. “I’ll leave you in Mrs. Barnes’ capable hands, my dear. You’ll understand my anxiety to return to London.”
“You’re leaving? Now?”
“This very moment.”
“Then go,” she said coldly, no longer able to temper her frustration. “I care not.”
The steward exchanged a look with his wife, then addressed Henry.
“May I have a word, sir?”
“Not now, Barnes.”
“It’s important.”
“I said, not now!”
Mr. Barnes colored and exchanged another glance with his wife. Was Henry so eager to rid himself of Jeanette that he’d stoop to insulting the staff?
After the carriage disappeared between the trees, Jeanette turned her back and sighed.
“You must do something, John,” Mrs. Barnes whispered.
“I’ve never seen him in such a temper. Why did he leave so swiftly?”
The couple glanced toward Jeanette, and Mrs. Barnes dropped a curtsey.
“If you’d like to follow me, your ladyship, I’ll show you to the parlor in the west wing where you can take tea.”
*
The carriage swayed from side to side as it retraced its path along the driveway. Henry winced at the sound of the driver’s whip cracking, but they needed to maintain a swift pace to reach London before nightfall.
Better that than remain in Sussex. His family home reeked of memories of a loveless childhood exacerbated by the oppressive presence of dismal portraits of his ancestors which haunted the corridors. It would always serve as a mausoleum to mark the absence of love, an estate neglected while Father spent his time and money elsewhere.
He couldn’t even escape after he’d been packed off to Eton. Two years into his schooling, he’d been forced to return mid-term to bury his parents after they had been killed during one of Father’s brief visits to Sussex. Killed when their carriage overturned in a rut.
Henry couldn’t blame Mama for his parents’ failed marriage. The epitome of aristocratic perfection, she had possessed the qualities a marquis needed in a wife, including an absence of passion. The capacity to truly love had been bred and schooled out of her.
Were it not fo
r Mrs. Barnes, Henry would have assumed all wives were devoid of feeling toward their husbands. But the steward and his wife displayed a love not seen in society marriages, an equal partnership, strong in their own right, but united, an indestructible force. Witnessing them on the threshold of Ravenwell Hall only served to remind him of the relationship he could never have.
He closed his eyes only to be assaulted by Jeanette’s cold expression as she had dismissed him.
Go. I care not.
Better he remain detached; the price of falling in love was too great.
The wheels hit another rut, and Henry almost lost his seat as the carriage pitched sideways. The road was sorely in need of repair, but Henry knew better than to ask Barnes why he hadn’t seen to it. He glanced out the window as they passed a series of buildings, farms in various states of disrepair, others abandoned.
What better evidence was there of the price of love? At least in London he wouldn’t have to be confronted with it.
*
The following morning, after a solitary breakfast, Jeanette instructed the footman to show her to Henry’s study, then send for Mr. Barnes. To his credit, the footman’s expression hardly changed at such an unladylike request. But the time had come to assert herself.
She might not understand the duties of the lady of such a large estate, but it was no different from a business with assets, liabilities, and employed staff. Her existence here might not be completely pointless.
Henry’s study was as masculine as she’d expected. Dark oak panels lined the walls, the smell of ink and tobacco lingering on the furnishings. She settled into the studded leather chair behind the squat, rectangular desk and ran her finger along the carvings adorning the perimeter of the surface. Not a speck of dust. Someone tended to the room daily.
“Lady Ravenwell?”
The steward stood in the doorway. Jeanette gestured to the chair in front of the desk.
“Sit down.”
The leather creaked around his body as he complied.
“Mr. Barnes, I wish to understand the running of the estate as soon as possible.”
“Forgive me, but that’s the province of Lord Ravenwell.”
“Who chose to return to London without fulfilling his duty to it.”