The Heart's Companion (14 page)

Jane looked down at her plate in time to see the coffee stream into it.

"Oh, I say, I am sorry, Miss Grantley!"

"That’s quite all right, Lord Willoughby. Do not concern yourself. I wasn’t hungry, anyway," she said with a rueful sigh.

 

The first rays of afternoon sunlight that struck the tall west-facing Gothic parlor window cut a knife-edged swath across the brilliantly colored carpet. Motes glittered and danced in the sun like a sprinkling of fairy dust in the air. There was a lazy stillness to the house, to the room. Indeed, for Jane, such calm was a long forgotten treat, redolent with memories.

Sir Helmsdon was gone, the Willoughbys off jaunting, Mr. Burry napping, Millicent still keeping to her room, and Lady Serena somewhere, anywhere, it didn’t matter, but in Jane’s vicinity. The children had coaxed Cook into preparing another picnic. Nurse Twinkleham was resting easily while Elsbeth worked in the stillroom. The marquis and the earl were closeted in the earl’s room playing cards and blowing a cloud.

A sense of peace settled into Jane, smoothing the faint traces of tension in her brow, at the corners of her lips, in the set of her shoulders. She sat on one of the long settees, her shoes off, her feet drawn up under her, an open book lying forgotten under her hand. She savored the stillness for its implicit, ephemeral nature. It gave time and space for her thoughts to settle and expand. Since she’d heard Lady Serena and Millicent were to visit, her mind had been buzzing and darting about, frantically and to no purpose, a bee seeking nectar from all the wrong flowers.

For almost three years they have been manipulating her life. Three years! Not directly through explicit actions, but by the continuing canker on her soul; the canker formed by her naiveté and their deceit.

She leaned her head back against the upholstery, willing her body to relax. She let her thoughts melt and flow.

The manipulation of her life had begun with David Hedgeworth.

Or had it. Had it actually begun then, or with the death of her mother? Yes, the history of their interference went back further.

She remembered herself as a fragile child, burdened with myriad uncertainties, which were fed by Lady Serena and dear Cousin Millicent. Then, as she grew older and began displaying a sense of her own self, there were the carefully contrived insults and snubs followed disorientingly by warm solicitation and advice. Lady Serena often told Jane that she could not be blamed for her defects. Serena’s actions and words were all so insidious—wispy, like smoke in the wind. There was not a specific action or set of words that could be pointed to and declaimed. That was why the history of their influence in her life eluded Jane so. That, and the lack of motive. Why?

Somehow, by clinging tenaciously to her mother’s memory and hearing again her words, even if only in her own mind, she'd matured. If not unscathed, then honed. She was the quintessential homely child turned beautiful on maturity. More importantly, she grew strong, though not, she ruefully conceded, necessarily any smarter.

Then there was Mr. David Hedgeworth. She remembered she met him at eccentric Lady Oakley’s annual ball. It was early in the season. He was new in town, returning to England after two years spent between the West Indies sugar plantation he stood to inherit, and traveling about the Americas. The War of 1812 with the United States had brought him back to England.

He was a tall, slender young man of some five and twenty years. An easy smile and a chivalrous nature made him popular throughout London. It was odd, but all she could distinctly remember was his distinctive lopsided smile. She supposed, when she thought of it long and hard, that his hair and eyes had been brown—light brown. But she could not conjure a face to put with that hair, or to his name. It made her feel oddly guilty. She shook her head bemusedly.

That season, Jane was often in his company. Their interests had ostensibly been the same. They visited London like tourists, she with guidebook in hand, dutifully reading some historical or architectural note while her companion trailed after them, muttering of her blistering feet. Theirs was a comfortable relationship and she, with the ice of aloneness still in her soul, craved—nay, loved!—comfort. Dreams of a lifetime of comfort began drifting, like gossamer threads in the wind. It was mesmerizing. She began mental plans, gentle dreams, for their future.

Then came the Bridlingtons’ house party.

It was held at the end of the season, and she stopped there on her way home to Speerford Hall. Mr. Hedgeworth was to accompany her. It was understood between them that he would speak to her father before making his declaration to her. That was why he was coming to Speerford, to catch Sir Grantley while he yet remained in England, and secure his consent before he approached Jane. Mr. Hedgeworth was a stickler for conventions, for adhering to society’s rules. Once, when she’d made some mention of that fact, he answered solemnly that he liked order in his life. After experiencing the disorder of the Americas, he craved England’s ordered life.

He was not a man society gossiped about. There was nothing in his nature that would generate gossip. He was a quiet, comfortable man. Excesses of emotion were alien to his nature. Jane smiled in remembrance. He certainly was not one to drive her to the anger the Earl of Royce could engender. Nor, that she recalled, had she felt any of the strangely exciting prickly tingles she experienced in the earl’s company.

Perhaps Millicent had not been so fortunate, after all.

The thought drifted, unbidden into Jane’s mind. Annoyed, she angrily shunted it aside. It was beneath her! Mr. Hedgeworth was everything she had desired in a man.

Once, amended that gentle voice.

Perhaps Mr. Hedgeworth’s staid disposition (for there could be no other word to describe it) was the reason Millicent now pursued livelier game. Jane squirmed and shifted in her seat, her thoughts embarrassing.

Lady Serena considered Mr. Hedgeworth a good marital catch. She early identified his passion for propriety, his abhorrence for romantic intrigue. She decided to use his characteristics to her and her daughter’s advantage. Her first effort was to compromise Jane with another man. Failing that, to arrange for an embarrassing situation that would give Mr. Hedgeworth a disgust of Jane. In that she all but failed.

Serena arranged for an inebriated young man to take a wrong turn down the rabbit warren halls of Bridlington House and to find himself in Jane’s room. The plan was that she would discover him there and raise a hue and cry. Fortunately for Jane, she’d been sleeping restlessly. Finally in disgust she rose and, putting on her wrapper, descended the great staircase to the ground floor. She made her way soundlessly to the library. She stayed there an hour, perusing the Bridlingtons’ books and mementos. Finally, chosen book in hand, she turned to go back to her room.

The sound of shouting voices echoed in the Great Hall, their words indistinct. She hurried upward. Outside her room stood Lady Serena, Millicent, Mr. Hedgeworth, and some others Jane did not know. She remembered her aunt’s words.

"He’s in there! I tell you, I saw him go in there as bold as brass not five minutes ago. My poor niece, she’s ruined!"

The door to her bedchamber opened then, and out stepped the inebriated gentleman, swaying gently. "That’s not my room," he lisped softly.

Lady Serena wailed at Jane’s misfortune. She turned to Mr. Hedgeworth, offering sympathy for his ill luck. It was then that Jane made her presence known by requesting to know what was happening. Millicent shrieked, as if she were seeing a ghost. Lady Serena demanded to know what she was doing there. Confused, Jane told them of her lack of sleep and her trip to the library over an hour ago.

"And you’ve been there ever since?" queried Lady Serena.

When she responded affirmatively, she noted her aunt’s dissatisfied expression. Mr. Hedgeworth, after only a moment’s hesitation, came over to her to squeeze her hand and tell her how glad he was. Catastrophe averted and no spice for the scandal broth, everyone wandered back to their own rooms. Jane locked her door.

Later in the night, Millicent found herself in Mr. Hedgeworth’s room. Claiming and cursing sleepwalking, she began sobbing hysterically. He tried to soothe her and shoo her out of his rooms. He was too late. Lady Serena flew in, dressed in affronted matronly dignity. So Millicent won Mr. Hedgeworth by arranging a compromising assignation with him for herself. Horrified at the gossip and rumors that would circulate society, he quickly proposed marriage. Instead of traveling to Speerford Hall with Jane, he left the Bridlingtons’ for London to place a notice in the Morning Gazette and to arrange a suitable and proper wedding. His chief concern was to scotch talk.

He scarcely said another word to Jane, for he said it wouldn’t be proper.

The Honorable Miss Millicent Tipton and Mr. David Hedgeworth were wed less than a month later. Out of duty, Jane attended the ceremony. She attended it swathed in her new society cloak designed to protect her from harm. It was not long afterwards that the sobriquet Ice Witch began to circulate polite society.

Ice Witch. Lady Elsbeth was correct. That name represented society’s love for rumor and scandal. They could make scandal out of less than whole cloth. Jane pulled her cloak of icy mien tighter around herself. The rumors grew more pervasive.

Rumors. Scandal. Gossip. She was caught up in the whirlwind. And as she was a part of it, so she became a part of it. She questioned and speculated on everyone’s behavior, offering her own insights, her beliefs. Hers, like everyone else’s, entered the vast vat of idle words and came out with knife-edged "truths." She never questioned the accuracy of society’s tales. She took them as truth and reacted accordingly, as society took her sobriquet as truth and treated her accordingly. She was guilty of a gross perpetuation of lies.

A frown pulled at the corners of her lips. That was not a flattering nor pleasant realization to make about oneself. But was totally ignoring all tales proper, either? For the past two days she’d refused to listen to anything that smacked of speculation and gossip. What was the name of that strange bird discovered in Africa? The one that hid its head in the sand at the approach of danger? As if denying the danger would make it nonexistent. Yes! It was the bird all the beautiful feathers came from. An ostrich. Was she behaving like that ostrich? Was she hiding her head in the sand by refusing to listen? If she was, then could she be wounded by complete inattention. Furthermore, if she was playing the ostrich, neither would she be able to defend the hapless subject of the gossip if she did not hear the tales. In the future she vowed she would learn to question, to evaluate. Gossip mongering was not stopped by inattention. It was defeated by the light of truth.

And what was the truth regarding the Earl of Royce? Any gentleman who could enjoy her nephews’ company, as he genuinely appeared to, could not have been cruel to another child, no matter the circumstance. Perhaps his sobriquet was as false as her own.

She considered that a moment. She’d used the name as a shield between them, something to keep him from getting close to her, something to block the strange attraction she felt. If she were to remove that impediment, what would happen?

A surge of prickly tingles swept her blood, then faded only to remain in the pit of her stomach. She raised her hand and placed it on her waist, awed by the lingering echo. A slow smile pulled her lips wide, her cheeks flushing delicately, and her eyes sparkling like cut emeralds.

She hugged herself excitedly, then picked up her discarded novel and tried to immerse herself in the story in an attempt to curb her burgeoning anticipation.

The faint rumble of deep voices from out in the hall pulled Jane’s attention away from the book in her hand. It wasn’t a difficult task. She doubted she could relate the events of the last five pages. She had been daydreaming, waiting for the stillness to break.

The door to the parlor opened to reveal Lord Royce, leaning heavily on Lord Conisbrough’s arm. Instantly Jane was on her feet and running to his side.

"My lord! Should you be up? Your ankle!"

"My ankle would do well for a little exercise, as would my body and mind. Besides, if my company is to continue to be limited to Conisbrough, I’ll go mad!"

"I’ve beaten him eight games out of ten and his pride’s hurt," drawled the marquis, turning his head to wink at Jane.

"Pride! I thought it was my pocketbook," Royce said with asperity, hobbling over to one of the matched settees. He stood by it. Jane looked at him perplexed. "Miss Grantley," he said with strained patience, "I cannot sit before you, and as the ankle is throbbing, I do so wish to."

Jane blushed, then bristled. "Fustian, my lord. To be thinking of silly conventions when one is injured is the height of—of—"

"Of?" he repeated.

"Oh, I don’t know. Just sit down."

A small smile captured the earl’s lips. He bowed his head in thanks and sank gingerly down on the settee. Jane was beside him in an instant, offering to help move the injured member on to the length of the broad cushions. Her hands burned when she touched him, the sensation traveling rapidly throughout her body. She stepped back hastily.

"Can I order any refreshments for you, my lord?"

"No, thank you. Just your company as a change from this fellow’s ugly phizz."