“Every man has his moments of foolishness. Only a foolish woman believes otherwise.” —The Dowager Marchioness of Wallingham to her son, Charles, upon hearing a certain widow’s rejection of his apology for believing scandalous—and inaccurate—rumors.
Two weeks after Colin left Blackmore Hall for London, Jane’s family arrived with no small amount of commotion. Lord and Lady Berne, Maureen, Genie, and Kate, all invaded her home with their jests and their squabbling and their many hugs. And, of course, Lady Wallingham, as well.
Truthfully, Jane had never needed them more.
“Jane, what is the matter? This is the fourth time you have pricked your finger with the needle. At this rate, your embroidery shall be solid red.”
Jane glanced up at Maureen, popping her finger free of her mouth. “It’s nothing, really.”
“Oh, come now,” said Mama. “We have all seen it, dearest.”
“You have?”
Every one of the women gathered in the rose parlor gave her sympathetic looks. Even Genie nodded. “I would be out of sorts as well, were I playing hostess to those women.”
“Lady Dunston is unpleasant, and I do not like how Lady Mary speaks to you, but I think Cornelius is charming. He is really quite clever, once you spend a bit of time with him,” said Kate, her small, rounded chin rising.
Genie rolled her eyes. “He is a dog, you ninny.”
“He is a menace,” interjected Lady Wallingham. “A flea-ridden, clumsy creature with little useful purpose outside of defecating on perfectly good floors.”
Kate took on a mutinous expression. “I think he is adorable.”
“Kate,” Mama said. “Come sit here and tell me which color to use next, won’t you?”
Jane let their comforting chatter drift and flow around her, easing the melancholy that held her in its iron-gray grip. This aching sense of loss was not caused by playing hostess to Lady Mary or her unpleasant mother. It was not even due to Colin’s departure on an admittedly dangerous mission.
It was him. Harrison. He was different. The Ice King had reemerged, replacing the man she loved as though he’d never been.
The night of her abduction, they had returned to Blackmore Hall, and he had slowly, deliberately stripped her of every piece of clothing. He had examined every inch of her skin, kissing and stroking and licking every bruise, every part of her, as if he wished to commit her to memory. Then, he had made love to her until she felt her very soul merge and soar with his.
By the next morning, everything had changed. She had awakened alone. After bathing and dressing, she had entered the dining room for breakfast, seeing him sitting at the end of the table, so handsome he made her ache. He’d been conversing with Lady Mary, who sat to his right. Though his greeting to Jane was polite enough, his eyes had been shuttered, his manner formal. She had assumed it was because of their guests. Surely later, when they were alone, it would be different. He would come to her bedchamber, come inside her again, let her love him again. Be the man he had been only the night before.
But no. She had fallen asleep waiting for him. The next night, determined to reestablish their closeness, wanting to feel his arms around her again, she had entered his chamber—a masculine mirror image of hers—through the adjoining door. He had turned in surprise, his valet pausing in the midst of helping him remove his coat.
“Give us a moment, Fillmore,” he had said.
A moment? she’d thought. Not nearly enough time.
But the valet had left, and she had approached her husband, who stiffened as though she held a sword to his belly. She’d stopped an arm’s length away. “Harrison, I … I thought you might like to join me. I have missed—”
He turned toward the mirror, fussing with his cravat. “I shall sleep here, as I am rather tired.”
“We could sleep together, as we did before.”
“No,” he’d said flatly. “Not tonight.”
Recoiling from the stark rejection, as well as the chill in his voice, she had swallowed. “What is the matter? Are you angry with me?”
Brows arching, he had turned to her briefly before carefully unraveling his cravat with crisp motions. “Not in the slightest.”
“Then, I—I don’t understand.”
“We are married, Jane, not tied together with ropes. There is little need to cling to one another.”
Stung, she had flinched. “I did not realize you perceived me as clinging—”
“We have guests now. You should turn your energies to making their stay pleasurable. As their hostess, you shall need your rest.”
Not knowing what else to do, she had retreated to her chamber. Alone.
He still had not returned to her bed. He had neither kissed her nor spoken anything more than casual pleasantries to her in a fortnight. In fact, he treated her much like a guest, their interactions cordial but also clogged with starch—and that was when he bothered to interact with her at all. During the days, he spent long hours riding with Dunston or meeting with the magistrate to receive news of Hodges and the other men, who had been captured and returned to London.
For her part, she spent her days arranging entertainments for the hostile and ungrateful Lady Mary and her equally unpleasant mother. Cards and games and music, picnics and rides and walks over the lovely countryside—none of these seemed to satisfy the ladies, who instead often found their own amusements, separate from her. Thankful for the reprieve, she nevertheless felt her failure as a hostess keenly. A better duchess would know how to smooth the wrinkles in this particular bolt of social fabric.
It made her wonder if this was not the reason for Harrison’s withdrawal. She had already gone over other possible causes in her mind: his concern over Colin, preoccupation with estate matters or hosting duties or magistrate meetings. None of it made sense. But if he was just beginning to fully realize her deficiencies, and how they could affect his standing with his friends and the rest of the beau monde, it might explain the sudden onset of winter in their marriage.
“Dearest, perhaps you should wait to do needlework until you are better able to concentrate on your task.”
Jane glanced up at her mother’s worried grimace, then back down at the droplets of blood that dotted her emerging rosebuds. Sighing, she tucked the needle into the linen kerchief and folded it neatly. “Yes. Later, perhaps,” she said listlessly.
Footfalls in the corridor brought their heads around to the open doors. Lord Dunston and Papa entered, looking flushed and excited after their ride. “Lovely to see you, ladies,” said Dunston, with his charming smile aimed at Maureen, who fluttered and blushed.
“My word, if this is not the finest summer we have seen in ages,” said Papa, moving to sit beside Mama and leaning over to kiss her cheek, which she readily presented for him. “A far sight better than last year’s. The crops still haven’t recovered.”
“Precisely why one should plan for such contingencies in advance.”
The sound of her husband’s voice jerked her head around, drove the air from her lungs. He was magnificent today, his riding jacket blue as night, his hair a golden crown, his jaw a line as clean and crisp as a blade’s. How she longed for him, for the strength of his arms around her, for the break in his voice as he spoke her name. She missed him as she would miss her own heart, should it be taken from her body.
Presently, his eyes, blank and cold, met hers briefly before deliberately moving on. He advanced into the room, his hands clasped at the small of his back. “A disaster is best mitigated by preparation and discipline,” he continued, sounding like the duke she remembered from before their wedding.
The voices around her grew fainter as the gentlemen postulated theories on proper agricultural management. She dropped her gaze to her lap, where red seeped from her finger, wicking into white linen.
“Blackmore lands are surely proof of your masterful governance, your grace,” came the unwelcome voice of the newly arrived Lady Mary, followed by the tapping presence of clumsy, brown Cornelius. The pup loped into the room, ears flopping, tongue lolling, droopy eyes shining with excitement. He headed directly for Lady Wallingham, much to the dowager’s dismay. Jane watched the byplay, as it was preferable to watching Mary, Queen of Sweets, flatter and flirt with her husband.
The dragon’s initial strategy was to ignore the pup, sniffing disdainfully at his antics as he rolled over onto his back, presenting his round belly for her inspection and possible affection. Cornelius was not easily dissuaded, however, and began snuffling the floor around Lady Wallingham’s amethyst skirt, one of his ears comically draped inside-out over his head.
“You are a ridiculous creature,” she declared. The pup sat and looked up at her longingly. Her sharp green eyes met the dog’s, her white brows drawn low in disapproval. “Your ears are too large. Your legs are too short. You are nothing but loose wrinkles and fleas.”
The insults did not seem to faze the dog, who raised his snout and howled mournfully. “Oh, do be quiet, you wretched creature,” the dowager ordered. He gave another howl, and Lady Wallingham, quite at her limit of patience, released a hiss of irritation, pushed herself from her chair, and left the room in a huff. Initially confused, Cornelius soon followed, his nose hard at work tracking the dragon’s trail.
“Leave off, you brown, wrinkled pest. My skirts are neither a bone nor a privy. If you treat them as such, I shall not be responsible for …” The old woman’s cantankerous voice faded as she made her way down the corridor with Cornelius in pursuit.
Almost against her will, Jane was drawn back to Harrison. He was smiling faintly at something Mary was saying. Suddenly, his gaze collided with hers, stopping her breath. Her heart twisted painfully, an ache settling low in her belly. His lips flattened, nostrils flaring slightly. Then, with the precision of a rapier cut, he turned away from Jane and back to the woman at his side.
The woman he should have married.
All at once, Jane felt the weight of her grief as a gaping wound in her chest. She could not be the wife he needed. The wife he deserved. And, now, he had obviously realized it.
Blinking rapidly, she tried to stop the sobs that clawed to emerge.
But they were coming. And she must go.
*~*~*
“… and I told Miss Spencer that her gown was lovely, but she did not believe me! Perhaps next time she asks me to visit the shops with her, I shall simply cry off.”
Lady Mary’s voice resembled the bothersome whine of a midge in his ear. He did not care a whit what she said. Jane was gone. His wife had turned white, her lips losing all color, then had covered her mouth and left the room with some haste. He wanted to howl and follow after her like that daft pup.
“Harrison.”
He did not know how much longer he could bear being away from her.
“Are you listening to me?”
He felt sick with longing. His stomach knotted, his chest torn by a relentless, grinding pain. Truly, it was like some exotic illness. One he must recover from, else be afflicted forever.
“Harrison—”
“Pardon me, Lady Mary. I must speak with Dunston.”
Ignoring her offended gape, he stood and joined Dunston and Lord Berne where they chatted near the entrance. He nodded at their greeting, but his eyes were pulled to the corridor, his neck craning to glimpse where she had gone.
“I say, son, that is one fine piece of horseflesh in your stable. Little wonder Wallingham was tempted into parting with one of Remington’s get.” Lord Berne clapped Harrison’s shoulder, snapping his attention back to the older man. When he met those hazel eyes, he saw something he did not like. Knowledge. And compassion.
“Ulysses is as fast as any Ascot champion, I’ll wager,” added Dunston. “Incomprehensible why you never set him to the turf.”
Lord Berne continued to hold his gaze, his hand planted firmly on his shoulder. “Some horses, you prefer to keep close at hand, eh, son? All yours. No one else’s.”
Harrison struggled to control his breathing. Berne could not possibly understand. No one could. He wanted to shake off that fatherly hand and shove him away. He wanted to find Jane, to take her, to make her his again.
“That is irrational,” he said, glad that his voice was steady. “Sentimentality should have no part in such decisions.”
Lord Berne smiled, his eyes taking on a familiar twinkle. Jane often wore the same expression when she was teasing him about having too much starch. “Nonsense. Sentiment is merely a reflection of our truest devotion. We may attempt to control it, to civilize it. Perhaps to disguise it, even to ourselves. But it is not so tame a creature.”
“Er—are we still discussing Ulysses?” Dunston queried. “I fear I have lost a thread somewhere.”
Lord Berne gave Harrison a wink and slid his hand from his shoulder. “Now, then. I must lie down for a while. All this riding has exhausted me. Perhaps I will see if Lady Berne needs a rest, as well.”
As his father-in-law ambled over to where Lady Berne sat working her needle and chatting with her daughters, Dunston looked at Harrison askance. “What was that all about?”
“Nothing.”
“It seemed like something.”
His teeth ground together until his jaw ached. “It is not important.”
“Hmm. The duchess has been looking a bit pale of late.”
He did not reply. She had been, he knew. Her face was also thinner. He did not like it.
“Perhaps you should find her and ask if she needs a lie-down, as well.”
“Dunston,” he growled.
“Merely a suggestion.”
Lord and Lady Berne paused as they made their way to the door. Lady Berne reached for Harrison’s hands, grasping them tightly in hers. “Such a dear boy,” she said fondly.
Harrison did not know how to respond. She had been doing these things since her arrival yesterday, hugging him, kissing his cheek, telling him how proud his mother would have been. Was he supposed to thank her? The gestures were both odd and disconcerting to him. Even his own mother had rarely behaved so … maternally.
He finally settled on, “It is good you are here, Lady Berne.”
She grinned up at him, her eyes much like Jane’s, dark and rich and alive. “I agree.” With that cryptic answer, she squeezed one last time, and accompanied her husband into the corridor.
He did not see Jane again until hours later, at dinner. She entered the dining room—late, of course—wearing an exquisite gown of emerald-green silk. The bodice hugged her breasts lovingly, scooping low to reveal her milky skin. The sleeves came to her elbows, and she wore a loosely woven shawl over her arms.
Her gown was perfect. But Jane was quite obviously miserable. Her eyes, red-rimmed and dull, refused to meet his. She was seated at the head of the table, passing near him so that he could detect a faint whiff of apples.
As the dinner proceeded, he carried on polite conversation with Lady Wallingham, who opined that apricots were “the poor man’s peach.” But he listened with only half an ear. His eyes were riveted on his wife.
Jane was not eating. She pushed the food around her plate, occasionally nodding at something Dunston said, but mainly, she kept her eyes down and pretended to eat. He had thought by inviting her family to visit, that she would improve. But, if anything, she appeared worse than before.
“Dogs are useless animals,” said Lady Wallingham, continuing her litany of unsolicited opinions. “Anyone with the slightest degree of sense should realize they consume far more than they offer in recompense. And yet, somehow, these wily creatures have convinced us—well, not all of us, but those with lesser minds and too much sentimentality—that they are of benefit. Utter rubbish.”
Lady Mary, who sat several seats away, but who had overheard Lady Wallingham’s canine soliloquy, took offense. “Forgive me, Lady Wallingham, but I beg to disagree.”
The dowager raised her chin and slowly rotated her head until her imperious glare landed on its chosen target. “Do you?”
Harrison frowned. The two words did not bode well for Lady Mary.
“Y-yes. Cornelius is descended from a line of superior scent hounds. When he is grown, he will be capable of tracking a stag over as much as one hundred miles.”
“And how many stags must he track before he is worth the damage you have incurred to your skirts and your slippers and your furniture and your floors?”
Lady Mary shrank back in her chair. “Well,” she said. “There is a bit more to it than that. He is also a splendid companion.”
Lady Wallingham harrumphed. “Any real companion who similarly defiled my slippers as your vile animal did this afternoon would find himself promptly hauled off to Newgate.”
In that precise moment, the “vile animal” appeared, his paws tapping and sliding on the wood floors, then thumping on the carpet.
“Oh, dear,” said Lady Mary, noticing her dog making a beeline for Lady Wallingham. “Cornelius, come here, darling. Come, Cornelius!”
Dunston, noting the commotion, chided, “Mary, I told you if I gave you the pup, you must keep him confined.”
Rising from her chair to rush toward the scampering dog, Mary said, “I did confine him. He was in my chamber. One of the servants must have opened the door. Cornelius, no!”
The dog gleefully snuffled his way to Lady Wallingham’s feet, sitting and leaning worshipfully against the dowager’s leg. Then, he let out a howl of triumph, having apparently achieved a worthwhile goal.
“You see?” Lady Wallingham sniffed. “Useless. He does not even know his own name.”
Lady Mary scooped him up. “That’s because he is still a pup. Yes, you are just a babe, aren’t you, Cornelius?”
The dowager waved her hand dismissively. “Take him away. I have no desire for fleas in my soup.”
The girl looked like she wished to say more, but thought better of it, and carried her dog out of the room.
“Now then,” said Lady Wallingham. “Where was I? Oh, yes. Lady Berne simply adores cats. But Lord Berne sneezes every time they come near. Thank God for small mercies. If any creature could be of less value than a dog, it is a cat.”
Harrison let the woman’s relentless pontificating drift past him, preferring to watch Jane across the length of the table. Dunston leaned toward her and made a grinning comment. She returned his smile with a shy one of her own, her face gaining some much-needed color.
He should be happy. He should want her to smile and chuckle at something his friend said, some witticism or droll remark.
But he was not. It ate at his stomach, burned like coals, slow and deep. He wanted to be the one who made those dimples appear, the one who made her blush. The one who heard that dusky laugh and felt the answering tug in his groin.
God help Dunston if he so much as glanced below her chin.
“If you wish to murder your friend, there are more effective methods,” came the arch comment from Lady Wallingham. “I have heard you are skilled with a dueling pistol, for example.” The dowager calmly slid a forkful of veal into her mouth.
Harrison lowered his brows. “I am not a violent man.”
She swallowed then took a sip of wine. “Hmmph. That is precisely what your father used to say. And it was no more true for him than it is for you.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You should. I do not countenance lies.”
“What do you know of my father?”
“I know he nearly beat a man to death over your mother. What do you know of your father?”
Harrison carefully set his wineglass back on the table. It had been halfway to his mouth when she had begun talking about the seventh Duke of Blackmore. His father. The coldest man he had ever known. “I do not believe you.”
“And yet, it is true. Richard Lacey, Lord Branstoke at the time, of course, was mad for Lady Judith. Everyone knew. She was a third daughter of some upstart Whig with more wealth than sense. Personally, I never understood the attraction. But that is neither here nor there. He thought the sun rose in her eyes or some such nonsense.”
He had never heard this. Any of it. To the best of his knowledge, his father had chosen his mother the same way he did everything else: with cold calculation. Judith Clyde had been passably pretty, graceful, and above all, proper. She had been the most appropriate match for his father, chosen because of her family’s wealth and her carefully composed demeanor. The idea that his father had chosen her based on infatuation, much less the kind of madness Lady Wallingham spoke of, was simply ludicrous.
“Perhaps you have him confused with someone else. Details can become difficult to recall after so many years.”
“I am not daft, nor am I senile, boy. The year you entered this misbegotten world, I was already sending my son to Eton. I have seen more than you can imagine.”
Harrison nodded his acknowledgement of her sharp rebuke. “My apologies.”
She sniffed her disdain then continued. “He was controlled, even then—much like you. But there were stories. I had my sources. Not as superb then as today, but sound nonetheless. They said her father wanted the match, but she resisted. She was in love with some baron’s penniless second son. Appallingly short-sighted of her, but youth is often blind to these things.
“Her father forced her to agree to the marriage. Richard believed her willing—until the day he spied her and the second son together, meeting in secret on the road between her father’s house and the baron’s. They had a terrible row, or so I heard. He threatened to call off the engagement, and she begged him to do so, as it would free her to wed her feckless swain.”
Harrison shook his head in disbelief, glancing down at his plate. It could not be. These people she described, they were strangers. Not his parents. His eyes returned to Jane, who was still talking with an attentive Dunston. Something twisted in his belly.
“When he discovered that she desired her freedom more than his wealth and title, your father did what any lovesick fool would do: He agreed. But, he made his offer conditional, for a man crying off a betrothal does great damage to his honor. He demanded that she allow a proper interval for him to win her affection. The swain protested, but it did not matter. She believed in his sincerity.
“Of course, he had no intention of allowing the object of his obsession to escape. But she did not suspect a thing, the poor, dim chit. And so, with time, his attentions, and lavish gifts, she was persuaded to allow the marriage to proceed. Unfortunately, her swain was not so easily moved. He approached her at her engagement ball, begged her to run away to Gretna with him.” Lady Wallingham snorted. “Preposterous. She had a future duke paying homage to her like some pagan goddess. Even the dimmest flame on the candelabra could see where her future lay.”
He could scarcely credit it. His father, so deeply infatuated that he had manipulated an unwilling bride into letting him court her. His mother, in love with another man, then seduced by his father into maintaining their engagement. “What happened?”
Lady Wallingham arched a single white brow. “Can you not guess? Your father came upon them just as the swain attempted to kiss her. He lost his head, thinking she intended to leave him. He beat that poor boy with his fists until little remained but porridge. It took three men to pull him off.”
Harrison pushed his plate away, feeling sickness wash over him in a wave.
“They married, naturally. And the beating was buried by your grandfather. But I remember everything. Your mother grew increasingly placid over the years, likely for fear of sparking a new conflagration. And your father grew increasingly cold. But you knew that part well, did you not?”
The old woman sipped her wine casually, apparently unaware of the cannon she had fired into the center of his chest.
For as long has he had known his father, the man had been as unfeeling as a block of stone. The seventh duke had behaved with icy politeness toward everyone, including his wife. With his children, he had been rigid and forbidding, insisting on a standard of discipline that did not leave room for laughter or playfulness or affection.
All his life, Harrison had comforted himself with one thing—that deep inside, he was nothing like his father. His father, he’d thought, had ice running clear to the bone.
Harrison, on the other hand, felt too much. He always had.
The sound of his baby sister sobbing for her mother had torn his heart out, while his father had stood over her bed with flat, steely eyes and refused to allow her to be comforted until she had stopped crying.
The sight of Colin, paralyzed and trembling before their grim-faced father, tears streaming down his babyish cheeks, apologizing over and over for bringing a fish into the house. His first fish, which he had caught while trailing after Harrison, as he was wont to do. Harrison had longed to hurt his father that day, had curled his young hands into fists, ready to teach the duke what it meant to be humiliated and scorned.
But he hadn’t. Instead, he had done what his father had taught him so well: He had controlled himself and his unruly emotions. He had delayed taking action until later, when he secretly crept into Victoria’s nursery long after everyone else had gone to sleep and cradled her in his arms, murmuring his love for her in her tiny ear. When he was not away at school, each day he had awakened before dawn, rousted a sleepy Colin, and taken him to the river, out of sight of the house, where he had patiently shown the boy everything he knew of angling.
All along, he had told himself that he could never be like his father. Because, even as he had worked to control his emotions, to carry himself in a way that would bring honor to his family’s legacy, his true nature had lived inside him, the riotous tempest of love and hate and need and ferocity battering his will to keep it contained.
That was what had reached out for Jane that day in the old library. That was what had pressed the barrel of a gun into the skull of another human being. That was what had come within a hair’s breadth of blowing a hole in the man who had taken what belonged to him.
That was what had so terrified him that he had known he must distance himself from her before his true nature caused him to do something he could never take back.
That was what he had inherited, as it turned out, from a father who was far more like him than he had ever suspected.
*~*~*