by Noël Cades
Lord Elstone was quite oblivious to his daughter’s machinations. After riding around the park, he had suggested strolling a way on foot such that they might observe the flowers and shrubs more closely. Kitty sighed to overhear yet another exposition on the horticultural miracles of the rhododendron.
“Miss Pargeter must think that my father wishes to engage her as a gardener rather than a wife,” she said.
“I am sure that everything will be well,” Jemima reassured her.
“What if she does not accept him?” Kitty was anxious about her father’s merits as a suitor. Of his virtues as a father she had no doubt, but accustomed as she was to the gallantry of the young men she had become acquainted with, she feared Lord Elstone’s wooing might miss the mark.
“I do not think you need concern yourself, dearest,” Jemima said. “He managed to court your mamma, and I expect that when one is older, one has less interest in flattering words and verses.”
While Kitty’s dilemma was a diversion from Jemima’s own tortured thoughts about her guardian’s marriage prospects, visions of the odious Lady DeClere did not leave her entirely. Could it be that her guardian uttered flattering words to that lady, if and when they met in private? She could not imagine the kinds of things he might say. Or rather, she could not bring herself to imagine them.
"You are frowning, dearest," Kitty observed. "I hope that you do not have a headache."
"It is nothing, only the light is a little harsh away from the shade," Jemima said
Her friend knew her too well. "You think of Lady Caroline DeClere, do you not? I did not know if you wished to speak of it, for I saw that you were upset by Mrs Linton-Smythe’s revelations. I am sure it is only her speculation, however. You recall how affronted she was about his failing to dance with Selina."
"Would that I could believe it so. But I fear she has an intimate acquaintance with him, for she spoke of his gambling and drinking with George Gresham. And I do not think he wished me to hear it, for he hurried me away," Jemima told her.
Kitty was disappointed by this. "Always they keep such matters from our ears! But how are we to judge whether a suitor may be spendthrift or a wastrel if we are kept in such ignorance of these matters?"
Jemima adjusted her parasol. It was made of pale green silk, matching the trim of her spencer jacket. She was glad of its quilting, for it was proving to be a cold year so far. "I do not know. I cannot see the virtue in ignorance, myself."
Sleep evaded Jemima later that night. Her thoughts were too troubled and kept her awake. Time was surely running out, she felt. If her guardian were determined to marry and have heirs, he would not wish to delay his marriage long.
As she thought upon this, and the horrid prospect of his entering matrimony with Lady Caroline, a plan came to her. It was so outrageous that at first she was horrified with herself for having conceived it. Yet the more she thought upon it, and how it might be carried out, the more she felt that it was the only way.
If it failed, it would mean certain banishment, Jemima knew. But she had faced the prospect of worse before. Marriage to Sir Hubert, or being confined to an asylum, were no more dire a doom. She had survived the shadow of those threats.
There was no way she could reveal her plan even to Kitty. Kitty would be shocked and determined to dissuade her. For had Kitty been the one to dream up such a notion, Jemima knew she would have done anything she could to prevent her friend from pursuing it.
But she, Jemima, was not Kitty. She did not have family and fortune to consider. Any disgrace would be her own burden, and not materially affect her circumstances. After all, what was to become of her when her guardian married? His future wife would hardly wish a grown-up ward to become a perpetual member of the household at Southwell. Let alone a woman such as Lady Caroline, who had made her dislike and disdain quite apparent.
Chapter 32
On the following night, after the rest of the household had gone to bed, Jemima put her plan into action. She slipped out of her bed, and dressed herself in a gown that she did not need assistance to fasten. Everything felt hushed, and the merest creak of a floorboard as she crept down the stairs seemed as loud as a gunshot.
It took her back to that fateful night when she had first absconded from Aunt Harlington’s house. This would be easier, though, for she would not need to wait in the cold and dark until morning.
No matter how late or how early the hour, there were always people and movement in London, it was not like the country. Jemima was able to hire a hackney coach with little trouble. If the driver wondered at the young woman’s request to be driven to a private house in the middle of the night, he did not remark upon it. It was probably not the first time he had transported a lady in questionable circumstances.
It was late, but not so late that the servants would all be in bed, Jemima hoped. She tipped the driver handsomely when he pulled up at Grosvenor Square. The man grunted, a sour scowl on his face. Jemima knew that she had paid him more than generously, and that this was a ruse to encourage her to loosen her purse strings even further. He doubtless thought that she would be ignorant as to the fare.
Feeling as though she were marching into some final battle, Jemima approached the front steps. The door was opened by a footman, sleepy-eyed, who managed to mask his surprise at seeing the young, unaccompanied woman.
"Is the Earl of Southwell in?" Jemima asked.
"Yes, madam."
"It is urgent that I see him."
The servant looked worried. "I am not sure whether…" he tailed off.
Jemima could not waste time, lest she lost her nerve. "He is asleep, perhaps?"
"I do not believe so, madam. If you will wait here, I can inquire for you."
A few minutes later Jemima was ushered into a drawing room, where her guardian rose to greet her as she entered. His first reaction was concern. "Are you here alone? What is wrong, has there been some accident?"
Jemima’s throat felt dry. Faced with him, she had no idea how to proceed. She had imagined him to be in quite a different state. He looked tired, but she had imagined he would much the worse for wear after a night of drinking and cards. "No, my lord."
Fortune favours the bold. She stepped towards the fireplace where he stood, the dying embers still providing some warmth. She slipped off her cloak and let it fall onto a chair, aware that her guardian’s eyes fell on her bare arms and the low neckline of her gown.
"Then why have you come here?"
Jemima faced him. In his eyes she saw the faint flicker she had seen on the occasions when he had embraced her. It gave her courage. "I am here to offer you your rights, my lord."
"My rights?" He frowned, his dark brows drawn together.
"Your droit de seigneur."
Marcus was silent for a moment, not trusting his own ears. Then he gasped in shock. "My what?"
"Your droit de seigneur. The jus primae noctis, as it is in Roman law."
Marcus still found himself unable to believe what he was hearing. "You are offering me droit de seigneur? Can it be that I heard you correctly?"
"Yes." Jemima kept her gaze resolutely on him. She had thought he would be more inebriated than he appeared, given he was supposed to have spent the evening at White’s. She had not reckoned on sobriety.
"Do you even know what that means?"
"Yes, my lord."
It was some joke or trick, surely. Or perhaps he was dreaming. Though he surely had not had that much to drink in the past few hours. As absurd as it was, Marcus suddenly imagined taking his ward at her word, and the image of her in his bedchamber had a painfully strong physical effect on him.
Jemima stepped towards him. He had kissed her before, surely he might do at least that again.
For Marcus it was almost too much to bear. For the past weeks he had been driven nearly mad with her proximity, dancing with her and conversing with her, and having to suffer the sight of so many other men courting her attention. He desired her more than he ever reca
lled desiring any woman. And now she stood before, apparently offering herself to him in an utterly outrageous way.
His resistance broke.
He put his hands on her shoulder, drawing her roughly towards him. His mouth descended hard and demanding on hers. He felt her briefly tense in resistance, then yield to his embrace. He felt as though he were quenching a thirst. He moulded her against him, his thumbs brushing the sides of her breasts. Droit de seigneur. If only…
The thought brought him up sharply and he broke off from her. He stared at her, his breathing ragged and his body aching for more of her. Somehow he collected himself. "Suppose you sit down and tell me what all this is about," he commanded.
Jemima, her head spinning from the force of his embrace and her own body’s wanton longing for him, did so. "You are not very much in your cups, then," she said.
"In my cups?" Marcus was again mystified.
His ward hurried to explain herself. "I had thought that since you had gone to your club earlier, that it was customary for men to imbibe… in a liberal fashion," she finished.
None of it was making any sense to Marcus. "You imagined I would be drunk?"
"I hoped so, yes."
"You hoped so?" Marcus almost laughed. "You had some wish to see me inebriated?"
Jemima fought down an urge to run from the room and flee into the night, never to see him again. "I had thought it might make you more amenable, my lord."
Marcus was gathering the threads together. "You come to my house, alone, hoping to find me 'in my cups', as you put it, and then come out with some absurd and improper suggestion of which I am quite sure you do not understand the import."
"I do understand. It was explained to me. I had thought that perhaps if you were amenable to such an offer, then that might mean, since I would be disgraced and compromised, that perhaps afterwards…" Jemima was horrifying herself just by trying to explain. What had she been thinking? Her plan had been deranged.
"I feel in need of the strongest libation now, if nothing else," Marcus said. "Do you mean to tell me that you wished me to compromise you, while in a drunken state, such that I might feel obliged to make you some form of reparation once sober?"
"I suppose so."
"But why? What exactly did you want, that you could not simply have asked for?"
It was time to confess. Jemima had lost everything, she was beyond humiliation. "I did not want you to marry Lady DeClere."
Marcus felt as though he had just been flung off another horse. "Lady Caroline DeClere? What on earth has she to do with anything?"
"Only that I know you are engaged to her. And I am sure I should be happy for you, but I cannot be."
The Earl of Southwell drew in a breath. "I am not, nor have ever been, affianced to Lady DeClere. Nor do I have any intention of being so."
"Oh." Jemima felt not inconsiderable relief at this.
Marcus saw her distress, and tried to speak more kindly. "You do realise that your plan, had I been so iniquitous as to go along with it, would have ruined you utterly? You would have had no option but to marry me."
He saw her face when he said this, and the first, very faint rays of light began to creep into his awareness.
"Am I to understand that you actually wished for such an outcome?"
Jemima hardly dared breathe. "Yes, my lord."
Marcus had long resigned himself to the fact that she was enamoured of another man. Even now he supposed it to be the case, but that it had gone wrong for some reason. "What of the suitor, the one whom you feared I would not approve of?"
"It was not exactly a suitor. It was you."
This revelation shocked Marcus even more than Jemima’s bizarre offer of herself. "You wish to marry me? But why?"
"The usual reasons."
There was an amused light in his eye. "The usual reasons? Money, and a title?"
Jemima took exception to this. "Not at all. If you had lost Southwell on a dice roll tonight, it would not change anything."
Marcus hardly dared to ask his next question. "Are you in love with me, Jemima?"
She closed her eyes in response. He could see in the candlelight that her cheeks were flushed rose, and she turned her face away.
"Yes."
"My darling." He came over to her, taking her hands in his, and then tilting her face to look at him. "I had no idea. You had so many men - younger men - swarming all around you that I assumed your heart was given to one of them, or soon would be."
"But are you not in love with Lady DeClere?" Jemima asked.
"I am in love with you. And only you," Marcus told her. His lips came down on hers, firmly but with more tenderness than before. Jemima wound her arms around him and clung to him. Marcus ran his fingers through her hair, down her neck, clasping her waist, tracing the form of her. His, finally.
When at last they came apart, he looked at her. There was a new, softer light in his eyes, as well as the darkness of desire. "So you see, I am afraid I cannot take up my feudal rights, as gracious as it was for you to offer them so willingly. For I fully intend to have you as my wife."
“You really wish to marry me?” After the weeks of torment, Jemima could scarce believe it.
“Indeed. Why should I not?” Marcus asked her.
“I had feared that you found my behaviour too… unruly,” she told him.
Marcus smiled. “I am afraid I have been forced to revise my opinion on certain aspects of character that I should look for in a wife.” He grew serious. “But when it comes to the main qualities that any man or woman should demand from a spouse, you have them all. I can only hope that I can meet your expectations.”
She answered him with a kiss, and he held her closely. Drawing back, Jemima regarded him. “When did you first decide that you wished to marry me?” she asked.
Before he realised the implications, Marcus answered with honesty: “The moment you unveiled yourself at Harlington House, if not before. Though I did not realise it until that moment.”
Jemima was confused. “Then why did you insist that I should marry Sir Hubert Frobisher?”
Marcus was forced to confess. “I never had any such intentions. I merely said that it was time for you to be married, and you reached that conclusion yourself.”
“But you did not disabuse me of it!”
It was one of the few occasions when the Earl of Southwell had reason to look shamefaced. “I fear I did not.”
Jemima was indignant. “All those months I endured the horrid prospect of such a match! And you were deliberately deceiving me!”
“Or rather I allowed you to deceive yourself,” Marcus attempted to excuse himself. “I do not believe his name actually passed my lips. I referred only to ‘your future husband’, by which I meant myself.”
“It amounts to exactly the same thing!”
Marcus tried to explain. “Every time I intended to tell you, something happened to prevent it. And then, when you spoke of a suitor, I assumed you had some other man in mind.”
Jemima recalled various conversations. “I do not think that excuses your cruelty. You have seen Sir Hubert, after all. To be affianced to such a man - or to think such - was to live in a nightmare.”
If Marcus had felt some guilt before, he felt utterly ashamed at this moment. “If you will marry me, I will make it up you a hundred times over.”
Jemima looked at him, satisfied by the remorse he displayed, and a smile played upon her lips. “There will be certain conditions, if I am to accept your hand in marriage,” she informed him.
“Name them.”
“The first is that I may ride Satan whenever I wish. And however I wish,” Jemima said.
“I shall make you a wedding present of him,” Marcus told her.
“The second is that I will travel with you to Spain, or wherever else you journey to.”
Since Marcus had already decided he did not wish her to ever again be out of his eyesight, he accepted this condition. He had one proviso. “So lo
ng as you are not in a delicate condition, that may prevent travel.”
“A delicate condition?” Jemima suddenly understood, and blushed. “That is something you are hopeful for, then?”
“It is something that I consider inevitable, given my feelings towards you.”
His words and the look in his eye gave Jemima a sensation of heat throughout her body. Yet, though she had been willing to offer him the droit de seigneur, she nonetheless felt a momentary tremor at the prospect.
Marcus, aware that the longer she remained alone with him at this hour, the harder it was to preserve any good intention, took her hands. "Now that matters are settled between us, we must return you to St James’s as quickly as possible, in the hope that no one has noticed your absence."
"You do not wish me to stay with you?" Jemima asked. She was loath to leave him. There was so much more she wanted to ask him, and so much she wanted to say.
"The temptation to take you into my bedchamber now and make you mine is almost too compelling to resist. But I am determined to do this properly, for your sake if not for mine. Even with the protection of my name, I do not wish you to suffer from whispers and slights, if it became known that you had spent a night in my home, unwed and unchaperoned."
"So you are tempted at least?" Jemima was delighted by this. She reached up to him and pulled him down to kiss her, arching her body to fit as closely as possible against his. For a while she succeeded in distracting him. His embrace became more demanding, his caresses more intimate. His hands went to cup her rear, pressing her against him, where she could feel the strength of his own arousal.
Disengaging himself was almost painful. “I will obtain a special license first thing tomorrow. Given the circumstances, I do not think either of us desires an extended engagement.”
