Chapter Nineteen
The grounds at Thornwood Hall were bare and desolate. Winter on the moors was harsh and yet strangely beautiful. As Jane walked through the dreary garden, the skirt of her black mourning dress snagged on a rose bush, the thorns tugging at the fabric. She leaned down to try and extricate the dress without doing more damage, but a hand on her arm stopped her.
“Let me,” Marcus said. “You’ll prick yourself.”
She looked at him, still leaning heavily on his cane. “If you bend over here, then we’ll have to call the footmen to pick you up off the cold, hard ground. I can weather the sting of a few thorns,” she assured.
“You should not have to,” he said softly. “You’ve weathered enough already.”
Jane rose, her dress freed and only a few minor scratches for her troubles. They’d fled London, seeking solace in the country away from the gossipmongers. J.E. for the London Ladies’ Gazette had been curiously quiet on the front of the scandal-ridden Elsinghams. Jane had, in fact, retired her pseudonym but had allowed Lord Highcliff to have use of it should he ever need to flush out another criminal in the upper ranks of society. The former duchess had not gone quietly into the convent. She’d attempted to flee and Bow Street had been called after all. She’d been caught with jewels and silver taken from the family home.
She looked at the letter clutched in Marcus’ free hand. “I take it that is from Highcliff?”
“It is. There was no trial for Cassandra. He saw to it. By what means, I cannot say. Regardless, she has been committed to an asylum for the remainder of her days. No doubt, the convent looks infinitely better to her now. Pity she could not have had the foresight of her namesake.”
Jane shuddered at the thought. “They are horrible places, and she is a horrible person. I cannot feel sorry for her even though I know that if I were a better person, I would.”
“You are the best person I know,” Marcus offered. “You’ve certainly been unwaveringly kind and sympathetic with me when I have been the worst patient one could possibly have.”
She smiled at that. “You haven’t been so bad… of late. The first week, when you had to remain abed—well, it’s a thousand wonders I’m not in an asylum next to Cassandra.”
As she walked on ahead, he caught her hand and pulled her back. “Let’s stay here a moment longer,” he urged. They were hidden from the house by the tangled branches that comprised the maze. The house was barely visible over top of it.
“You are not up to whatever it is you have in mind,” she stated. “It’s too cold out here by far!”
He laughed. “You’d be surprised what I’m up for, my darling. There is something I need to say to you, Jane, and I’d prefer to say it in a garden. It seems many of our most meaningful conversations have taken place there.”
“Or in galleries,” she retorted.
“Yes, but our conversations in galleries tend more toward the wicked side of things,” he replied. “Do you recall the night of my return and our conversation in the garden?”
“I do. You asked to court me,” she said, “for us to get to know one another and then decide if we should wed.”
He grinned. “So, I did. Things did not work out quite that way, did they? We resolved your initial animosity to me but, sadly, my ability to offer you the time you had asked for to make a decision fled in the face of our families’ machinations was compromised.”
She nodded. “So it was… and so was I. What are you getting at, Marcus?”
“I only wish to ask… do you regret it?” He uttered the question softly, with far more hesitation than she typically saw from him. “Given that we shall forever be so scandalized we can do nothing more than rusticate in the country with only one another for company, I feel I ought to ask.”
Jane stepped closer to him and wrapped her arms about his middle, pressing close to his side. “I’ve many things to regret… my father’s unfortunate temper and even more unfortunate choice of bride, the sad circumstances that led to your inheritance of the title, the fact that Charles actually shot you at my refusal to do his bidding… but I do not regret that our courtship was interrupted by marriage. In truth, I feel I have the best of both worlds.”
It was true. He was forever making unexpected and romantic gestures toward her. Only the day before, he’d gifted her with a beautiful writing box of dark mahogany inlaid with mother of pearl. She had yet to confess to him her true ambition of writing a novel, but suspected that he was already aware.
“I should have said something sooner,” he whispered. “I offered to make a declaration of affections to you once, in exchange for your cooperation in going to a more secure location. You refused me. I would make that declaration now.”
Her heart was pounding. He’d shown her in a dozen ways the depth of his feelings. But neither of them had ever made a proclamation to one another of just where their hearts lay.
“And I would not stop you from doing so. Indeed, I am waiting with bated breath,” she murmured.
“There here it is, Jane, and it matters not if you feel you cannot yet say it in return. I believe that, in time, this marriage between us will offer us both the greatest of happiness. It’s already given it to me. I love you, Jane, and I’m content to wait forever until you feel inclined to return the sentiment.”
Jane laid her head against his shoulder, her ear pressed just above his heart. “You are the most foolish of men, Marcus. On the morning of our wedding, I questioned myself. Even then, I suspected that I had fallen in love with you. It would not have taken much as I’d spent the better part of my life quietly worshipping you from afar. But when Charles shot you, when I saw you bleeding so profusely and had to accept the possibility that I might very well lose you, then I was certain.”
“Certain that I am a foolish man or certain that I am the foolish man that you love?” he teased.
She laughed in spite of the serious nature of their exchange. She would always laugh with him, Jane realized. Their lives might never be perfect, but they would always be joyous. “I am hopelessly in love with you. And lord willing, I will remain that way until I die.”
His arms tightened about her, pulling her even closer. “Is that the book you’ll write then? A sweeping tale of love and romance? Will it be dashing?”
She looked him then and playfully smacked his arm. “You’ve been snooping!”
“Only a little. That was why I bought you the writing box. I found some of your discarded drafts tossed about the library in a fit of artistic pique,” he said. “Do you miss writing for the Gazette?”
“No. I do not miss having to bribe servants for gossip, having to conceal my identity and sneaking about in the mews to ferret out what I could from other households. I never liked gossip. It was simply the easiest thing to earn a decent wage at,” she muttered. “All in my ill-fated bid for freedom.”
“Would you really have run away on your own?”
“Yes,” she said. “I was imagining some little cottage on a cliff in Cornwall where I could stand against the wind and watch the angry sea. I thought it would be rather romantic. Now, I see it would only have been lonely. I’m far happier right where I am.”
“With me,” he finished.
“Always, my darling.”
The End
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