Season for Scandal

by Theresa Romain

That was a bit of an adventure. But it felt just as dreadful as being draped in scandal. Bellamy might think the queen was fine on her own, but Jane was no queen, graceful and strong. She was barely a baroness. And she was lonely, and tired, and hurt.

  And there was only one person she wanted to be with.

  Edmund had, no doubt, been embarrassed by her behavior. His pride might be wounded, or he might be resentful. She had stolen her own dowry from him, then left him with neither wife nor money nor heir.

  When she thought of it like that, he’d had reason to lose his good humor with her the day before. And she shouldn’t have been quite so forceful when she said she’d never return to his house again.

  But he wasn’t just her abandoned husband. He was also Lord Kirkpatrick, who had never failed to help a woman in need—whether a stranger whose favorite hat had been wind-whipped away, or an old friend who had lost ten thousand pounds.

  How desperately she wanted to see a friendly face. Just for a while. A very short while, until she remembered how to be strong again.

  Surely he would not turn her away now.

  Chapter 19

  Concerning Toast

  Late that night, Edmund arrived home from the House of Lords. Hungry and bone-weary, he piled his cloak, hat, and gloves into Pye’s waiting hands. “Have some bread sent round to the drawing room, would you? I’ll make a bit of toast before I turn in.”

  Instead of the usual “yes, my lord,” Pye’s mouth simply opened and closed several times. Anxiety gnawed Edmund’s insides, but he tried for levity. “You look a bit ghastly, Pye. What has happened? Surely my wife cannot have left me again.”

  “No, my lord. Your wife”—the butler gulped—“is decorating the drawing room.”

  Edmund’s walking stick clattered to the floor. He wasn’t sure which of them had dropped it. “The devil, you say.”

  Pounding up the stairs, he wasn’t sure what sight would greet his eyes. Jane, penitent, hanging wallpaper and begging to be received under his roof again? Jane, saucy as a serving wench, shoving the furniture about?

  Actually, it was neither. Jane, oblivious, was standing on a sofa to hang a sprig of holly atop a painting. This was apparently not her first athletic feat, since every painting in the room was trimmed with holly, and a garland swooped across the front of the mantel.

  Edmund cleared his throat loudly. Jane peeked over her shoulder. “Oh, hullo, Edmund. I thought you’d be home ages ago.”

  She hopped down, still holding a sprig of holly in one hand. Her simple blue gown was dusty, and her straight hair was falling from its pins.

  “Yes. Well.” His throat felt uncommonly dry. “The Lord Chancellor wasn’t particularly concerned with being concise. Devil of a long day. But Parliament won’t be in session over the weekend, so I’ll have a little time to recover.”

  She blinked up at him. He blinked down at her. “You win, Jane. I’ll ask: what are you doing here? Are you—back?”

  “Only for a visit. I thought you needed a bit of holiday cheer around. Doesn’t it look nice?” She gestured widely at the drawing room.

  “You came back because you thought we needed holly shoved up onto our paintings.”

  “Your paintings,” she muttered. “I shouldn’t have come.”

  She made as though to brush by him, but luckily, a servant knocked at the door just then. Edmund accepted the platter of bread and toasting fork he had requested, then dragged a footstool close to the hearth and settled himself.

  All the while, his mind outraced his body, wondering how to treat his unexpected guest who should never have been a guest at all. He had to tread carefully, as one would when trying to lay a snare for a fox.

  Well. A vixen, to be more accurate.

  He speared a piece of bread on the long fork, then extended it over the flames. “Do you want some toast, Jane? I don’t see a tea tray in here. If you’ve been waiting a while, you must be hungry.”

  Not looking away from the bread, which was turning a lovely brown at the corners, he sensed her drawing a bit closer. “I didn’t mean to stay so long.”

  “Oh, well. As I said, I didn’t mean to be gone so long. Glad we bumped into one another.”

  She was silent for rather a long time. “Yes.”

  Pulling the fork from the fire, he examined his handiwork. “Needs a bit more toasting on the one side, doesn’t it? Would you ring for tea?”

  He hid a smile as Jane sighed and trudged over to the bell rope. But she located a few manners for the servant who answered the summons, requesting tea for the pair of them. She then came to stand by Edmund’s footstool. “There. Your bidding has been done.”

  “Would you like some toast?” he asked mildly. “Sometimes I get grumpy when I haven’t eaten for a long time.”

  “You are horrid. Shove over.” She grabbed the toast—perfectly browned, if he said so himself—from the extended fork, then wedged herself onto the footstool next to him.

  He began the process of toasting all over again as Jane crunched away. He mustn’t forget that this closeness was only temporary; some odd impulse of hers to bedeck the room with holly and pine-sharp garland, then take herself away again. Because the scent of warm bread, fresh and slightly sweet, and the soapy-clean scent of Jane at his side were making him ache in a new and dreadful way: not in his stomach, but his heart.

  “You make very good toast,” Jane said gruffly.

  “Thank you. You do very nice things with holly.”

  She snorted. “I knew it was stupid. I just had a rather bad day. It seems I’ve caused a scandal by leaving you.”

  “You always wanted a scandal,” he commented. “Should I offer congratulations?”

  Her shoulders shifted. “No. It’s—well. It’s not so nice. So I wanted to come put a few homey things around you, since I knew you wouldn’t have anyone with you at Christmas.”

  “Ah, you can twist the knife a bit harder than that.”

  He sensed her grow still. “I’m sorry, Edmund. I felt like I should do something to help.”

  “I see. You thought I wouldn’t miss you if you tossed a few Christmassy gewgaws about?”

  Her toast fell to the hearth. “You miss me?”

  Bending, he picked it up and tossed it into the fire. “You can have this next piece. It’s almost done.”

  Jane put a hand on Edmund’s arm. “You miss me?”

  It was so difficult to look at her face. Somehow, though this conversation had begun with her off balance, he had ceded her all the power.

  And all the toast.

  The thought brought a wry smile to his face. In the firelight, her hazel eyes looked gold; her hair, a ruddy flame. “How could I not miss you, Jane?”

  She frowned. “That’s not an answer.”

  “What would you consider an answer?” Impatience grew in him, the pressures of the day clamping like a vise on his temples. “It’s always a test with you, Jane, and I never know how to pass it. If I say I’m glad to see you, you think I’m lying. If I say that I’m annoyed by the very sight of you, I feel like the worst sort of villain. Maybe they’re both true at once, though. Maybe I don’t know what to make of you, and I never have. But overall, I’d much rather you stay than go. Is that a satisfactory answer for you?”

  She studied him with those liquid-gold eyes for a long moment. “The toast is burning.”

  Edmund cursed, knocking the smoking piece of bread into the coals.

  “The next piece should be for you,” she said. “You haven’t eaten yet.”

  “Such wifeliness.”

  “You’ve no idea,” she replied. “When the tea comes, I’m going to make your cup.”

  “As I take it black, that’s not much of a struggle.”

  “Nevertheless.” A servant entered with the tea tray then, and Jane clattered the cups around with great industry before bringing one to Edmund. Tea had slopped over the brim of the cup and filled the saucer.

  “Hold it for me,” he said. “I’m go
ing to get this next piece of toast right, or starve trying.”

  Again, she seated herself next to him. Her fingers wrapped tightly around the cup; the saucer balanced on her thighs.

  Edmund fixed his eyes determinedly on the toasting fork. The bread. The coals. “Why, Jane? Why are you back today?”

  “I told you. I had a bad day and wanted to end it by doing something nice. That’s what you do, isn’t it?”

  “It’s hardly nice for me to get a glimpse of my wife, then have her run off again. Am I to expect this sort of torment every time you take a whim into your head?”

  “It’s torment to see me?”

  His vision blurred as his eyes watched the flames dance. “A little, yes. And a little wonderful, too. I already told you that. But you have this habit of not believing anything I say unless it’s horrid.”

  “I believe you.”

  He almost dropped the toasting fork.

  “Oh, let me finish the toast.” She reached for the fork; the movement set the saucer atop her thighs to rocking. Tea dripped onto her gown.

  “Damn,” they both said at once, then smiled.

  “Here,” Edmund said. “I’ll give you a cup for a fork. We sound like footmen laying a table, don’t we?” He handed her the nearly done toast on its fork and took the teacup from her hand.

  He took a sip, realizing as the hot liquid soothed his throat just how thirsty he’d become. In silence they sat, until Jane handed him the finished toast.

  He took it, but instead of thanking her, he blurted, “I thought you might be coming back. For good, I mean. Because you left so many of your things here.”

  “Like what?” She looked puzzled.

  He tilted his head toward the small table on which her Chinese vase sat. “That vase you like so much, for one. Or your horse, stabled out in the mews, eating her head off.”

  “You bought that vase. It’s yours. And the horse, too. Besides, I don’t know how to ride.”

  He choked on a too-large gulp of tea. “You don’t?”

  “I wanted you to teach me, but you never—”

  “Never what? Never read your mind? Never knew what you didn’t tell me?”

  “I shouldn’t have come.” She made to rise, but he caught her arm.

  “No, Jane. We’re going to—what was your phrase? Discuss it. You seem to be angry at me about any number of things. I am uncovering new reasons all the time. Like an archaeologist, aren’t I? That sounds like the exotic sort of thing you would enjoy.”

  She set down the toasting fork on the marble hearth, then tucked loose strands of hair behind her ears. “You also bought the atlas. You forgot to mention that.”

  Edmund was sorely tempted to slosh more tea onto her gown. “It was a gift.”

  “Just because you buy someone a gift doesn’t mean she wants or needs it.”

  “But you did want it.”

  Jane made a rude noise.

  “That is not a response,” Edmund replied, stung. “Though if you want to look at the matter that way, then I bought you as well. Yet you’ve removed yourself from my household readily enough.”

  He wondered if she would fly into a rage at this; he almost hoped she would. But she only sighed. “I know. You own me, and I can never forget it.”

  Once again, he found himself wrong-footed in this conversation. “No, it’s not so, Jane. There’s payment, and then there are gifts. Everything I’ve bought for you is a gift, and that means it’s yours, and the cost doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “It matters to me.” She jabbed at the coals with the delicate tines of the toasting fork. “It’s just another way for me to be in your debt.”

  A startled laugh burst from Edmund’s throat. “You in my debt?”

  “Ten thousand pounds’ worth, and that’s before we married and you started buying me other things. That’s also assuming you don’t charge me interest.”

  He sprang to his feet, shoving the unwanted teacup onto the mantel and staring down at her. Lord, what terrible pride she had. “You insult me,” he said through gritted teeth, “by turning our lives together into a ledger. I am not keeping account.”

  “I didn’t mean to imply that. Only that I was keeping account. Otherwise how am I ever to know I’ve squared my debt to you?”

  “What on earth are you talking about?” He pressed a hand to his temple. A nice change, to have a headache instead of the gnawing pain in his stomach. “You left this house because you think you’re in debt to me? Are you going to move back when you’ve paid me, then? Because that makes just as much sense. And while you’re here, I must know how you intend to work off ten thousand pounds. Because any way I can think of . . .”

  “What? Finish your sentence.” Now she had stood, too, and was facing him with set jaw across the footstool on which they’d been seated. “What do you think?”

  He pulled in a deep breath. “I think,” he said in a measured tone, “that you are capable of doing anything you set your hand to, even if that means earning ten thousand pounds. But I cannot think of a way you could do that without placing yourself in danger. And that, my dear, is something I would regret very much indeed.”

  She seemed to wilt at these words. “Oh. You’re being kind again. I can never fight with you when you’re kind.”

  “Then we should never fight at all, because I’m always kind.” He tried not to sound bitter.

  “Not like that. Not with—oh, compliments and praise. I mean really kind, like . . .” She looked away. “Like I matter to you.”

  He knew instinctively that an “Of course you do” would seem pat in the way she disliked. So instead he returned a question. “What makes you feel you don’t?”

  Her jaw jutted out. “Considering how you reacted when I told you one tiny thing on our wedding night—”

  “That you loved me?” He gave a harsh laugh. “That’s hardly a small revelation. Surely I can be forgiven for reacting badly.”

  When she continued to glare at him, he realized the truth. “I can’t be, can I? You’ve never forgiven me for turning away from you.”

  “Have you forgiven me for saying it?”

  “Love isn’t something to be forgiven, Jane. It’s to be . . .” He fumbled for the right word, then grimaced. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about love.”

  “That was made quite clear to me.” She sank, boneless, onto a chair. “Edmund. I left you because I could tell you would never love me. More than that: because I could tell you didn’t even want me to love you. I thought at first it was a problem with me. That you had a disgust of me for some reason.”

  He snapped upright. “Nothing of the sort.”

  “No,” she agreed. “Now I realize that. The problem is in you, Edmund. You’ve left your heart behind somewhere long ago, but you’ve never gone back to get it. You look for little pieces of it in everyone you meet. You make everyone love you, just a little. But what do you feel in return? Nothing, because you’re always looking for what’s next.”

  He felt dull, the blank of a man who has suffered a dreadful beating and knows the pain will crash upon him any second. “My dear Jane. You describe a terrible person.”

  “No. Not your Jane. I know our marriage license makes me yours in the eyes of the law, but I don’t think you’ve ever seen me as yours. And as for you thinking I described a terrible person—well, maybe that’s why you’ve never laid claim to me.”

  He made a strange sound in his throat, and her cheeks went red. “I’m not talking about physically. I mean—I don’t know how to say it. United in some profound way. If real intimacy was no more than the physical act, you’d have been married a long time ago.”

  Oh, he felt the blows now; every one of them, bruising his heart, his skin, pummeling him inside and out. Everything she said was a mirror held up to the worst of himself.

  No. Not quite the worst. Yet it was bad enough.

  He rather thought he ought to sit down.

  He made a production of fin
ding a chair; near hers, but not too near. And all the while she kept raining words on him. “I didn’t mean to describe someone terrible, Edmund. Just someone lonely. Like me. Someone who wants love, but doesn’t know how to get it. I didn’t understand that when I left. But now I do. And that’s why I come back to visit. But that’s also why I can never come back to stay.”

  At last, she seemed to be out of things to say. She blew a strand of hair out of her face. Crossed and uncrossed her ankles. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

  “Why? You’re talking, so I’m listening.”

  “Manners,” she muttered. “You carry them too far. I admit, I’ve never been in this situation before, but my guess is when one’s spouse is ranting about the state of one’s marriage, one ought to do more than just—”

  “Oh, stop, Jane. You’ll do yourself an injury if you try to finish that sentence.”

  Her mouth fell open. She looked at him as though he’d poked her with the toasting fork.

  “Don’t look so shocked. You said that sentence to me once before. I thought it was funny. I remembered it.” He tapped an ear with his index finger. “I listened, Jane. That doesn’t mean I’m just waiting for you to stop talking. It means I’m letting you finish, to be sure you’ve said everything you want to. It means I want to think about what you’ve said instead of flying into a rage at some misunderstanding. But if it will make you feel more valued, I can interrupt you every once in a while. I can rant at you a little and jump to conclusions and belittle your thoughts. I can speak to you sharply. I aim—I have always aimed—to please.”

  He said all this calmly. Summoning words of his own felt like putting ice on the bruises Jane had inflicted.

  “But why? Why do you aim to please?” Her brows yanked into a V.

  “Because I think it’s the right thing to do. Who would not think so?”

  “Most people.”

  He shrugged this off. “Then I don’t care about how most people behave. I care about what I think is right. And I care about why you left. And I care about you.”

  Her gaze skittered away. “But you don’t trust me.”

  A flash of red caught his eye; the berries on the last branch of holly. It lay on the floor between their chairs. She must have let it fall when he’d burned the toast. Or when the tea tray arrived. It didn’t matter.