Lady Jane (22 page)

“What a time we shall have getting those grass stains out,” she scolded, “and I should like to know why them gowns is all tossed about on the bed in that harum-scarum way.”

“Oh—I couldn’t—which shall I wear for dinner, Betty?”

Betty didn’t pretend to misunderstand her. “Why this one becomes you best, to my way of thinking, Lady Jane. And so warm as ’tis, would be fine for tonight.”

She picked up a white spotted muslin of disarming simplicity. The sleeves were long and fitted, and the bodice, above the high waist, was so low cut as to be a mere scrap of fabric. Around the décolletage and the bottom of the skirt flounce were embroidered violets.

“It is not too—too—” Jane asked, blushing slightly.

“No,” pronounced Betty decidedly. “All right, girls, come away now.”

The two girls came out of the bathing room and with shy glances at Jane hurried out of the room. Betty went in to check the bath water. “Shall I help you into your bath, M’lady?” she asked, coming out.

“No—that’s all right, thank you, Betty.”

When the door closed behind the housekeeper, Jane wandered over to the full-length glass that stood in the corner. She pulled open her dressing gown and stood gazing at herself in the mirror. She noted that she was not so slim as she remembered her fourteen-year-old self as being. Anxious examination revealed nothing sagging or unsightly however, in spite of the added fullness at breast and hip. The sound of Clinton’s joyous laughter reached her through the open window and interrupted this rapt inspection. She pulled her robe around her and hurried into her bath.

She lowered herself into the warm, scented water and closed her eyes, surrendering blissfully to the singing rapture of being in love and knowing that the love was returned. She knew she was not mistaken in this, for his eyes told her of a deeper regard than was required for simple friendship. Time was suspended while she enjoyed this sweet moment, when love is first acknowledged but still unspoken, and before even dreams of future fulfillment begin to build in anticipation. These happy projections, however, hover only moments behind. The first one that curled its way into Jane’s consciousness brought with it a slowly growing chill that owed nothing to the cooling bath water. The picture of herself in his arms before an altar with all their friends crowding around to congratulate them brought with it the realization that such a scene must be preceded by a confession, a scene her mind stubbornly resisted.

She opened her eyes abruptly and began scrubbing herself vigorously. Now, she thought, I must think of all this sensibly and stop flopping about in this idiotish way. I am in love with him, and he shows a decided partiality for me, but what has that to say to anything? Is it possible for anything to come of prolonging our association? Now, what do I mean by that?

Come along, my girl, said her conscience sternly, stop havering and at least say what you mean to yourself!

Very well then, what I mean is, will marriage come of it?

Ah—then of course you propose to tell him?

Tell him! She dropped the soap in shock. Good God! I cannot. I
cannot!

Her conscience pursued her remorselessly. Then you would marry him—if he asks you—under false pretenses.

No, no! He would be marrying
me,
as I am now, not what I was. Not to tell him would not be false. I daresay he would not care if he did know. In any case he will be much happier not knowing.

Havering again, my girl, replied her conscience coldly, and she knew it was true. She could still remember the day her mother found out Jane had not dusted the top of the wardrobe in m’lady’s dressing room. “But, mam, she’s not to know. She never even looks up there,” the small Jane had protested. Her mother had simply looked straight into her eyes for a long, uncomfortable moment before saying, “But you will know,” and turned away. Jane had trudged upstairs immediately and dusted the unseen top of the wardrobe.

And there, of course, was her answer.
She
would always know. Her secret would always lie between them, gathering dust might eventually choke off their love, for marriage meant sharing of everything if it was to work. And this was not a secret she felt she had the right to share because of her guardianship of her son’s good name, as well as one she had no right to withhold from a man who proposed marriage.

That was it then, she decided, standing up quickly and reaching for the towel. I must forget this love, this churning need for the sweet fulfillment marriage brought. I’ve gotten along without it for nearly four years now and for Clinton’s sake I will just go on without it.

When she entered the drawing room before dinner she had herself well in hand. She ignored the admiration she saw in his eyes and pulled her hand sharply away from the warm lips pressed against her fingers, turning away to lead him into Sebastian’s study. She felt that there, with all its sustaining memories she would find strength to resist the desire he roused in her. She showed him the enormous collection of books, the globe, and the wondrous telescope.

“Your husband was a man of many interests,” he said agreeably.

“He was a very learned man; everything interested him,” she replied proudly.

“I can see that it must have.”

“And he shared all of it with me.”

“Good heavens, you quite frighten me,” he said teasingly, “have I found a bluestocking hiding beneath that entrancing exterior?”

She had to turn away from the blandishment of those warmly smiling eyes before she found the strength to say coldly, “My husband taught me a great deal, my lord, but I’ve still a great deal to learn before I could be satisfied that I had conquered ignorance.”

“That was a happy time for you, I think?”

“Very, my lord.”

“You loved him very much,” he went on, making it a statement, not a question.

“Yes. Very much.”

“Hmm,” was his only answer to this. He reached out a long slender finger to spin the globe and watched it revolve with no further comment.

She stiffened. “Do you doubt me, sir?”

“What? Oh—oh, no indeed. On the contrary. I am all too eager to believe you.”

“Why should you be?”

“Because it has been my observation that people are always eager to repeat a happy experience. I had felt that you were one of those rare people who had experienced marital happiness.”

“Do you imply that you have changed your mind?”

“Well, the last hour has seen a vast change somehow. There’s a certain chill that was not between us before you went to change for dinner. Which seems very hard when I have worked so hard for your smiles since we’ve met, and to erase that fearful look from your eyes when you saw me. Though I thought I understood the reason for that.”

“What—what reason?”

He studied her for a long moment, long enough for her to feel panic rising. She had been so confident that her fear of his remembering was groundless, but now—

“Why, only that you were nervous of gentlemen who made a push to engage your affection,” he replied blandly.

At this cool avowal of his intentions she felt the heat of a blush rising from her breast and flooding uncheckably up her throat into her face. She wished desperately that she had not worn this revealing gown, and turned away, ashamed of being so exposed.

He came up behind her, and though he didn’t touch her, he stood so close his breath stirred the tendril of hair fluttering before her ear.

“Now you know my feelings, my love, and I hope that beautiful blush tells me yours.”

She jerked away from him and nearly ran across the room to the door. “We must go in to dinner, my lord.”

“Jane—!”

“No, no—don’t say any more! You must not speak of this again.” Without waiting for him she fled into the dining room.

22

Sleep did not
come easily that night, though Jane pleaded her need for it as her excuse for bidding Jaspar good night immediately after dinner. The meal had been torture for her, though Jaspar seemed easy enough, maintaining throughout an easy, pleasant monologue, pretending not to notice her restraint and discomfort.

Jane’s downcast eyes could not help being confronted with a great deal of bare skin, the firm, white mounds of her breasts seeming to be determined to expose more and more of themselves. She finally asked that her shawl be fetched and spent a great deal of time nervously arranging and rearranging its gauzy folds over her bosom. She caught Jaspar regarding this operation with a quizzical, amused interest at one point and felt the surge of hot blood rising as before to stain her cheeks. Very soon after that she pushed back her chair and begged him to forgive her early retirement, but the long ramble with her son that day had made her too sleepy to be a good hostess.

He had kissed her fingers and taken his leave without demur, promising to arrive early the next morning, with her permission, to assist Clinton with his riding lesson.

Now as she turned from side to side in her bed in a fruitless quest of sleep and escape, her mind was a jumble of images of him and stray scraps of his conversation. The most riveting image, the one that interposed itself into and upon everything else, was the picture of his hands: extended to spin the globe, cupped around his wine glass, firmly manipulating his knife and fork; long, bony, lightly tanned and devastatingly masculine. Each image of them caused a small frisson of pleasure that became, finally, a torment When sleep at last overcame her, the hands pursued her there, only now more intimately, caressing her into the most exquisite excitement.

This dream had disappeared into the innermost reaches of her consciousness by the time she woke the next morning, but later, when she went out to watch Clinton on his pony with Jaspar in attendance, the first thing she saw was his brown hand run down the pony’s back and her own back quivered responsively. Then the dream flooded back into her memory in its entirety. She turned abruptly back into the house, saying she found the morning air chill. She took herself silently, and severely, to task, and managed to regain her composure enough to return. She wished desperately that he would go back to London and leave her in peace, but could not bring herself to suggest it after his great kindness to Clinton.

They all ate an alfresco luncheon on the grass terrace, and afterward Clinton, Jaspar, and Wellington romped with a ball. She remembered another romp with this same dear, old Wellington and herself with Sebastian, and marveled at how very much her son resembled his father in spite of his rounded infant cheeks and the rosy little mouth.

After a time Clinton, red-cheeked and rumpled, flung himself into her lap. She pushed the damp curls from his forehead and watched as his eyes began to close, before calling Nurse to come and take him for a nap. Clinton went without too much protest. Jane, realizing she dare not allow herself to be alone with her guest, quickly rose and shook out her skirts, saying that she too would have a nap.

“I protest, madam. You cannot consign me to an afternoon alone on such a lovely day! That would be too cruel. Do come for a walk with me. I long to inspect some of the countryside, now I’m here. Do come,” he said coaxingly, very like Sarah at her most persuasive.

Jane knew it was wrong to give in, but could not produce a single objection that didn’t sound disobliging or patently false. Perhaps the part of her that wanted to go with him prevented her mind from working out a genteel-sounding refusal. At any rate, she found herself meekly pacing along beside him as they wandered away across the grass and into the speckled shade of the newly leaved trees. A breeze danced fitfully through the branches, bringing with it the scent of the joyfully awakened earth and its promise of barely leashed eagerness to set about the task of renewal. This sense of suspense in nature added to Jane’s own feelings, creating a breathless dreaminess that stilled all the defensive alarms that should have been sounding. Her brain seemed to have withdrawn its function, leaving her body one great sensory, pulsing organ, able only to feel without analysis or criticism.

The soft warmth of the air with the intermittent, hectic little breeze, seemed to form a substance that she swam through effortlessly but slowly. The small copse of trees became an endless avenue that she could hope might go on forever. Jaspar also seemed caught up in the spell, for he didn’t speak. From time to time their eyes met and they exchanged gentle smiles.

They crossed several fields in bright sunshine and came to a small forest, the trees older and thicker, the ground beneath spongy and damp. He took her hand so naturally that she had no thought of pulling away. Her hand curled around his and its warmth spread up her arm and pervaded her whole body. She was intensely aware of the source, that strong, masculine hand whose image had invaded her waking and sleeping dreams.

In the very center of the woods they emerged into a small, sunlit glade, tree-ringed in an almost perfect circle, carpeted in wild grass, already well-grown, with stately Queen Anne’s lace bending graciously in waves as the breeze chased across the glade.

They advanced, still hand in hand, into the center and after a moment turned wordlessly to one another, eyes locked together in a long, searching look. Then without any conscious volition her arms came up around his neck as his own pulled her against him. Slowly, languorously, her lids fluttered closed and she raised her mouth hungrily to his as his bent to seek hers. That instant, as their lips touched, sent such piercing pleasure through her that tears started beneath her closed lids. His arms tightened, holding her ever more closely, but not enough, not nearly enough, her body protested, attempting to become even more one with his.

Without any sense of movement, she found they were lying together in the wild grass, his hard body pressing her into the earth, and she was looking up through the delicacy of Queen Anne’s lace outlined against the tender blue of the spring sky, Jaspar’s lips at her throat as he murmured her name over and over. She pressed his head closer and found herself breathing “Yes—yes—yes—yes.”

Jaspar raised himself on an elbow, his need to see her overriding his need to kiss her. Her head on his arm was still bonneted. He pulled at the wide taffeta ribands and removed the bonnet and bent to kiss the dark curls and then her face and neck before pulling away to look at her again. His long, articulate fingers unbuttoned, one by one, the tiny buttons at the bodice of her gown and he pushed it down over her shoulders as she lay quiescent. Her breasts and shoulders were a satiny rose-pink in the sunshine and his fingers brushed over her flesh in wonder. She quivered at his touch, and then gasped as he cupped one breast in his hand and bent to kiss it, murmuring between kisses, “Ah God—I love you Jane—I’ve loved you so long—waited for this so long—since the moment I first saw you—”

Incapable of speech, she pulled him close urgently, arching her aching body against him demandingly. After that it was all movement and sensation, their feverish need demolishing all barriers so that even the constriction of clothing could not withstand it. She climaxed with a joyous cry almost as he entered her, and he followed almost instantly.

They lay throbbingly together, drawing out the moment deliriously, before the hunger, unsatiated, moved them again and their bodies deliberately, sensuously began to explore the possibilities of more pleasure they could give one another.

He freed his arms to hold her full satiny breasts in each hand, burying his face between their softness, touching his lips to her nipples and biting them gently, teasingly, until she moaned ecstatically, frantic for more and more—and then more. He pushed deeply into her, deliberately slow, again and again, before pausing, for a moment of torture for both of them, to hold the final fulfillment at bay for a few more exquisite moments. At last, with a moan that admitted defeat, he drove against her frantically and felt her body respond, seeming to rise from the ground to clasp him as he exploded within her. Consciousness receded for a moment leaving only the wild beating matched by that inside her.

His senses gradually returned and he found himself cushioned still on her body, his face buried in the warm, sweet hollow of her neck. He remained there, happily breathing in the scent of her skin and the tangy smell of the crushed wild grasses on which they lay, too overcome by the complete torpor of his body to want ever to move. Presently Jane turned her head slightly until her mouth rested against his damp forehead. They stayed there, in such perfect peace and understanding they had no realization of how much time passed, whether only a few moments, an hour, or several. Presently, in unspoken agreement they stirred, rose and, without any show of false modesty, adjusted their clothing. Jaspar picked up her bonnet and placing it on her head with great delicacy, tied the ribands in a precise bow beneath her chin. Then, still without speaking, they wandered slowly back the way they had come, arms about one another. Occasionally they halted to lass as a reminder of their spent passion, a reassurance that they were still one.

When they reached the house she led him around to the French windows of Sebastian’s study to avoid any encounter with servants and showed him into the dressing room attached to what was once Sebastian’s bedroom.

“I’ll have some hot water sent in before I go to my room to change for dinner,” she said shyly.

He tilted up her chin with a long finger and kissed her. “You are a wonderful woman and I love you. Keep that in your mind as you change. Keep saying, ‘Jaspar loves me’ over and over until you come down, so you won’t forget me.”

Her little gurgling laugh was her only answer as she left him. In her room she stripped off the grass-stained muslin gown and wrapped a dressing robe around her before ringing for Betty Crews.

“Oh, Lady Jane, I’m so glad you’ve come!” Betty cried out as she entered the room. “A rider came galloping up with a message for Lord Montmorency an hour ago and I was that worrit, not knowing even which direction you took for your walk. I told him he would just have to wait. He’s below in the kitchen now, since I thought it likely his lordship would stay here for dinner, but I can send him on to the inn if—”

“No—er—you are right. Lord Montmorency decided to remain so I showed him to Lord Sebastian’s dressing room to wash before dinner. Please have Crew’s attend him there—and send the messenger to him, of course.” She raised her chin slightly as she spoke, anticipating some sign of disapproval, but Betty’s budget of news was not empty, and the remainder was too worrisome for her to be bothered about the niceties of where a guest washed his hands.

“Yes, m’lady, but—” she hesitated nervously.

Jane, thinking she was going to object to the arrangement, raised an eyebrow in what she hoped was a cool way, though her pulses were pounding. “Yes?”

“Well, it’s—now, you’re not to get all upset, Nurse says, but his little lordship was some feverish this afternoon and wouldn’t take his supper. Nurse has put him to—”

But Jane was already out of the room, running down the corridor to the nursery, her heart pounding frantically. She burst into the room, eyes starting wildly in her paper-white face. Nurse turned calmly from the bed, but came hurrying forward at the sight of Jane’s fear.

“There now! And I told Betty she was to say it was nothing to worry you,” she protested, leading Jane to a chair and pressing her into it, “just sit down for a spell, m’lady, and calm yourself. ’Tis nothing serious, for goodness sakes. Children have these turns when they are young—”

“But what—what—?”

“Over-excited about that pony is what it was. He got himself all worked up and brought on a little fever. But he’ll be right as a trivet by morning, mark my words.”

“You are sure?”

“Positive, m’lady.” Nurse fetched a glass of water. “Now, you drink this and calm yourself.” She pressed the glass into Jane’s hand and guided it to her mouth, coaxing her to take a sip and then another, clucking soothingly all the while just as she would have to Clinton.

Jane handed her the glass with a sigh, closing her eyes as her head sank against the back of the chair, her jerking pulses gradually slowing as Nurse moved quietly around the room, putting it to rights. After a time she came and put her hand on Jane’s shoulder. “Why don’t you go and lie down on your bed, m’lady. You look done up, and that’s the truth. You could do with some sleep before dinner.”

Jane sat up abruptly. “No, no. You go along to your supper, Nurse. I’ll just sit with him until you return.”

Nurse Watkyn attempted to protest, but Jane was adamant. “But what of Lord Montmorency, m’lady? He’ll be waiting for you to come down to dinner.”

Jane looked up startled, for impossible as it seemed, she had forgotten him completely. As memory returned, however, she was unable to prevent a deep tide of colour flushing up her neck and over her face. “Good heavens, how silly of me!” She laughed nervously, “I am a bad hostess, I fear. When you go to your supper, just ask Betty to go and extend my apologies for the delay and tell him I—I will come—that dinner will be somewhat delayed—”

“Now, there is no need for that, m’lady, I’ll—”

“No, no, Nurse. I will sit here until you have had your supper. Go along now.”

There was that in her tone which Nurse Watkyn knew better than to argue with. She went away to her supper.

Jane pulled her chair closer to the bedside and reached out to touch Clinton’s round pink cheek. Warm still, but not in an alarming way. She sighed with relief, and sat for some time, content just to watch him sleep.