The Earl of Windermere Takes a Wife (Lords of the Matrix Club #1)

by Jen YatesNZ

  Never needing to be told anything twice, Fran hurried to open the door and stand back for Jassie to lead the way.

  The Dowager, for such she was now, was seated at her dressing table, a warm shawl about her thin shoulders while Lucy drew a brush rhythmically through her soft white hair. Her deep blue eyes fixed directly on her new daughter-in-law as she opened the door. Caught in a moment of panic, Jassie’s legs trembled alarmingly beneath her and there was nothing to support her except the door handle, to which she clung in desperation.

  Lord knows what the older woman saw in her face for she immediately struggled to come upright and go to Jassie’s assistance. Francine, seeing Lady O’s alarm, swiftly slid an arm round Jassie’s waist and ushered her across the room to a chair by the window.

  Struck silent, the Dowager watched for several seconds before quietly asking Lucy to leave them. As soon as she was gone the older woman pushed herself slowly upright and crossed the room to drop into the other chair in the window embrasure, while Fran knelt at Jassie’s side and began gently massaging her frozen fingers.

  ‘What’s wrong, Jassie? Where’s Rogan?’ Lady Windermere asked, her voice thready with apprehension.

  ‘He’s likely in London by now,’ Jassie whispered. ‘He left—not long after—after we went up last night.’

  Her face suddenly deathly white, the Dowager struggled to her feet and stood on shaking legs, gripping the arms of her chair. Her blue eyes blazed with a fury Jassie had never seen her display before.

  ‘Windermere did what?’ she snapped, albeit in a raspy whisper.

  Fran leapt to the Dowager’s side to hold her steady.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Jassie whispered, closing her eyes and biting her lip hard to contain her emotions. ‘I—I—’

  Helplessly she dropped her face into her hands. She really thought she had more strength than this, but the Dowager’s distress was more than she could bear.

  Accepting Fran’s arm, the frail woman dropped back into her chair but her eyes continued to blaze like blue fires in her head.

  ‘Windermere will answer to me for this.’

  ‘No, Lady O, no!’ Jassie whispered. ‘It’s—I need to talk to you—’

  Lady Windermere snapped her mouth shut and sat for a moment breathing deeply to calm herself. Patting Fran’s hand to let her know she could go back to Jassie’s side, she smoothed the folds of her dressing robe over her knees then clasped her hands tightly in her lap.

  ‘Jassie, from now on I insist that you call me ‘Mama’. I’ve waited so long for you to become my daughter, and regardless of the actions of my infamous son, you are now that.—Won’t you bring your chair over here so I can hold your hands and maybe we can help each other through this.’

  Francine helped Jassie get settled at the Dowager’s side, then asked, ‘Would you like me to leave you alone, Jass?’

  ‘Lord no! Why would you think that? We’ve never had any secrets from one another and I won’t start now. I need all the help I can get—and so does R—Rogan. Bring another chair here Fran,’ Jassie said, indicating her other side and impatiently brushing the tears from her face.

  When they were settled, the Dowager took Jassie’s hands firmly between her own bird-like ones and said, ‘Now explain why Windermere is not with you, if you please, child.’

  Jassie looked down at their clasped hands then gently began massaging Lady O’s delicate skin. This would be as painful for Rogan’s mother as it was for his wife. She hated to hurt a woman who’d given her every consideration that a mother would have, the woman who’d been the feminine strength and guidance she’d fallen back on all her life.

  Fran’s arm settled across Jassie’s tense shoulders as Lady O continued speaking from her other side.

  ‘We all understand there’s some sort of problem, Jassie, so there’s no point in being embarrassed to speak of what happened. We have long known something is not right with Windermere and I’m guessing you now know a lot more than you did. So just spill it and we can start to piece together a plan for handling it.’

  Fran squeezed her shoulder in agreement.

  Jassie closed her eyes tightly for a moment then whispered fiercely, ‘Thank goodness I have you two. I know I could handle it on my own—somehow—but with your support I feel so much stronger.—I cried for ages after he left me last night and then of course I couldn’t sleep. I remember hearing a blackbird and thinking ‘dear God it’s morning’ and then I must’ve fallen asleep after all.’

  ‘What did he do, Jassie? What did my son do?’

  ‘Oh Lady O—’

  ‘Mama.’

  ‘M—Mama, I don’t want to cause you pain.’

  ‘Jassie, I need to know what ails my son. He is all I have left of my family. If there is anything I can do to help him—and you—find happiness, then please show me where I have to start.’

  Jassie nodded, swallowed, retrieved her hands and gripped them firmly together in her lap. She was likely to fracture the Dowager’s bird-like bones without realizing, given the intensity of her emotions.

  ‘When we went upstairs to our rooms last night he was quite grimly silent—though he was everything that was polite, giving me his arm and ensuring I didn’t trip over my gown. But as soon as we got to our rooms he stopped just inside the door and released my arm. When I turned to see why, he just stared at the floor and said in this dreadful, dead kind of voice that he was leaving immediately for London and couldn’t say when he’d be back. I thought at first he was joking but he looked too—awful—for that. As soon as I registered that he meant every word I became insensibly angry and rushed to stand against the door so he would have to physically manhandle me if he wanted to leave.

  ‘I was beyond thinking. All I knew was that finally, finally, he was my husband and he intended to abandon me on our wedding night and ride back to London!—Oooh, I wanted to scratch and kick and punch! I still do! I have never felt so out of control. I called him a coward and asked—oh God—I asked if I had to tie him to the bed to get him to make love to me.’

  Jassie hid her face in her hands to hide the wild tide of fire in her cheeks. Fran’s firm fingers caressed her shoulders and Lady Windermere asked quietly, ‘And what did Rogan say to that?’

  She couldn’t look up; she couldn’t watch his mother’s face when she told her of her son’s actions. But she knew she couldn’t withhold the information either.

  With her head bowed she said, ‘It was terrible. It was like—the Rogan I knew just disappeared and in his place stood this terrifying stranger. His eyes seemed to lose all color, turned a horrific burning silver. It happened that day up at the Tor too. Everything else about him became—dreadfully dark. Then—almost before I could blink—he slammed me against the door and sliced through the back of all my clothes with a knife that he must have had in his boot. I felt the cold of steel running down my spine and—I thought—Oh God, I thought he meant to kill me. I tried to speak, to call to him but he didn’t seem to hear. I don’t know. In one stunning movement he wrenched the clothes from me onto the floor and threw me on the bed. He tied my wrists with his neck cloth, gagged me with his handkerchief and then—then—he thrashed me like I’d done something—dreadfully iniquitous and—Oh, I can’t say the rest! Suffice it to say he did consummate the marriage.

  ‘When it was over he—just rose up, tidied his clothes, untied me and then he said, ‘Don’t-ever-threaten-to-restrain-me-or-I-will-not-be-responsible-for-my-actions’ in a rough, angry kind of voice I’ve never heard R—Rogan use.’

  She sat, face covered for several minutes, then raised her tear-blurred eyes to Lady O. ‘And you know, the worst, most heart-breaking thing about it all is that I love him still. I know I should be horrified, hate him, denounce him as a—an abuser of women. But I can’t. I’m not sure what kind of perverted person that makes me—but I just can’t stop loving him!’

  ‘Your love is not a terrible thing, child,’ the Dowager said, gently stroking Jassie’s hair. ‘
Your love is the most precious asset in all of this. Your love is a miracle and it’s my son’s only hope, like we said before. Dry your tears, daughter, and let us consider what might be done. It’s clear he understands this about himself and it’s why he has so long held off asking for your hand in marriage. Obviously he never intended to. I, at any rate, Jassie, am deeply grateful you had the strength of character and the depth of love to force the issue. But it cannot be left like this. We must formulate a plan. And if all else fails I’ll confront my son, demanding he explain himself and let you help him.’

  ‘Oh Lady—Mama! Please don’t tell him I’ve told you any of this. He’d be so mortified!’

  ‘And are you not mortified, my child?’ the Dowager demanded. ‘Why should you carry the burden all on your own? If he will not confront and deal with his own issues then I will take a mother’s prerogative and confront them for him!’

  ‘You must not upset yourself,’ Jassie begged. ‘You’re not well enough—’

  ‘Psshaw!’ Lady Windermere exploded inelegantly. ‘If I was going to die I would’ve gone with my dear Jonathan. Not a day has passed since his death when I haven’t longed to be with him. That I’m still here means there’s still work for me to do. I’m not without resources, you know, Jassie. I might appear to be helpless and just waiting my time out here in the peace and rustic seclusion of the Abbey but I still have several friends in London I keep in touch with. And Augusta returns there today.—Let us have lunch and—let it be known that Windermere was called back to London urgently—something to do with the war effort. That will still the wagging tongues for there’s not a true Englishman anywhere who doesn’t want to see a victorious end to this dreadful war.’

  Jassie felt her eyes widen.

  ‘You know of that?’ she whispered.

  ‘It’s my body that’s weak, not my mind,’ the Dowager asserted astringently. ‘It’s not hard to work out when you consider his way of playing least in sight for days, even weeks, at a time and then fobbing one off with vague and nonsensical notions of where he’s been. Too bad if he doesn’t want his involvement generally known. T’would be infinitely worse to expose any hint of why he really left you to return to London before the ink was dry on the marriage lines!—Does anyone else know anything? Ruby?’

  ‘Ruby saw the marks on my—rear end when she was helping with my bath. I’m afraid there is a bruise that is the unmistakable imprint of Windermere’s hand. I th—threatened her with dismissal should she mention anything to anybody. I trust Ruby.’

  There was a gasp of outrage from Fran, but Jassie patted her knee to calm her.

  The Dowager was not so easily subdued however.

  ‘Windermere bruised you?’ she whispered, her eyes wide with horror.

  ‘T’is only a bruise, Mama. It will heal.’

  A huff of disgust escaped the Dowager then she said, ‘We’ll talk again this evening before dinner. But for now perhaps Fran can help repair the ravages of your face and we’ll try to act as nothing other than disappointed that Windermere was called away so urgently. It should be enough to explain your lowered spirits. It’s fortunate that Gussy and Sheri are planning to leave straight after luncheon as they still have some engagements in London they are promised for. They are the most likely to sense something is wrong. Do you think you can hold up through luncheon, daughter?’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  Chapter 6

  Days had never passed so slowly. She decided to reinstate the afternoon reading, writing and figuring lessons for children of the staff on both estates, which had been put on hold until after the wedding. Though her heart wasn’t really in it and her mind had a distressing tendency to wander off in search of Windermere, she knew it was better to keep occupied.

  Unable to ride, she spent the first few mornings walking with Francine or practicing the archery they were both quite adept at. But it didn’t seem to matter what she did, she was constantly consumed by a restless energy that kept her on edge, feeling there was something more she should be doing. Staying tamely at Windermere Abbey waiting for Rogan to remember his obligations and return was an agonizing strain on her nerves. Especially when she was reasonably certain he had no intention of returning at all.

  Exasperated with the treadmill of her mind that continually worried at the problem of her marriage, Jassie climbed out of bed at sunrise on Wednesday morning. She needed to ride, had been fretting for the freedom and the mental release it always gave her. The bruising on her behind should have healed enough to handle it and if not—she’d just endure. She needed the wildness, maybe the luxury of screaming in the wind, high on the Downs where no one could hear. The walls of the Abbey were suffocating her.

  Clad in buckskin trousers and with boots in hand, she ran down the service stairs, only stopping at the outer door to pull on her footwear. The grounds of the Abbey were more extensive than those of Brantleigh Manor but just as familiar. It was only a matter of minutes and she was letting herself into the dimness of the stable. Her own carriage horses were stabled here now along with the beautiful team of blacks who pulled the Windermere travelling coach. They whuffled a greeting and shuffled about in their stalls, but Jassie knew the stomping she heard would be coming from Chester’s stall. The big red was not used to going so long without being ridden.

  ‘Morning Miss—um—my Lady.’

  Jem hurried down the aisle of horses towards her.

  ‘Morning, Jem. I think Chester has missed me.’

  Jem grinned his toothy smile and said, ‘Yep. He’s right antsy. I’ll get him ready for you, my Lady.’

  He disappeared into the stall and led the big red horse out and Jassie patted his nose and offered him an apple from the flat of her hand.

  ‘There Chester, I’m sorry. But we’ll have a really good run today to make up for it.’

  ‘You want I sh’d ride with you, my Lady?’ Jem asked hopefully. ‘He could be a bit frisky.’

  ‘No thanks, Jem. We’ll be fine. My Chester is the best mannered horse I’ve ever known.’

  As soon as they were clear of the Abbey Home Park, Jassie nudged Chester with her heels and finally they were flying up the hillside and across the tops, the wind whipping at her cheeks and grabbing at her small riding top hat, which was firmly anchored to her head with a length of gold silk. Somehow she had to outride this deep-seated sense of edgy frustration before it drove her to do something ill-considered and foolish.

  Francine was seated in Jassie’s private sitting room quietly reading when Jassie returned from riding.

  ‘You had a good long ride. You must’ve been feeling—comfortable in the saddle?’

  Fran’s delicate brows rose enquiringly and a concerned smile curved her lips as Jassie strode into the room.

  ‘I just needed to ride—regardless! Lord, Fran! I hate this inaction, the uncertainty. I can’t get past feeling angry with Windermere and I think it’s time I went up to London and bearded the monster in his den! This waiting about for him to come to his senses is intolerable. What am I supposed to do? Say? People will start calling again soon. It’s going to look very odd that he’s not here. I’m married but a few days—to avoid a scandal—and what am I facing? Scandal like I believe Windermere hasn’t even stopped to think about!’

  Jassie threw herself inelegantly down on a delicate chaise longue by the window and pulled off her hat.

  ‘He certainly hasn’t given any thought to your position, Jassie. It would seem he has his own agenda in all of this,’ Fran agreed in her quiet way.

  ‘Yes! To abandon me here like unwanted baggage while he—what do you suppose he does in London, Fran? For he’s not always sneaking about the Continent. I’ve not been able to discover that he has any kind of rakish reputation.’

  Jassie stared out beyond the Abbey gardens to the wooded hills that hid Brantleigh Manor from view. Homesickness tugged at her heart. It was only her consideration for Lady Windermere and her own reputation that prevented her packing up all her
belongings and returning there. And if something didn’t change soon she still could, scandal be damned!

  ‘Forbidden discussion coming up, Fran,’ Jassie muttered, turning back to watch as her friend marked the place in her book and set it aside.

  Her blue eyes lightened as she settled back on her chair and said, ‘Oooh, we haven’t had one of those since—well, at least since yesterday! I’m feeling quite staid and proper which is not entertaining at all!’

  ‘Oh you!’ Jassie laughed and waved a hand at her. Then solemnity overtook her as she fixed her gaze on Fran’s. ‘Do you think Windermere has a secret sexual life? Do you remember the lewd tales Lady Lara Oswald used to tell us after lights-out at Mrs. Rabone’s? If she was to be believed, most gentlemen live a life in the city no woman would consider in the least gentlemanly! She even hinted there were Clubs and Societies for certain—proclivities like—like bondage and sp—spanking. I’ve not thought of her in all these years but, you know, I’m now wishing I’d asked her a few more questions. Problem was, back then I had no idea what questions to ask nor any real need to know. Now I have a bit more of an idea but I’m kind of afraid what I might learn.’

  Fran’s gaze had turned solemn.

  ‘Jass, you’re going to make yourself ill worrying over Windermere,’ she said.

  Jassie knew Fran was trying to divert her but she was tired of the restless tangle of her thoughts and needed to air them, needed to try and find some answers. Fran’s experience of life in general and gentlemen in particular was a lot broader than Jassie’s own. She was a fount of astonishing salacious facts when Jassie was able to get her to open up. She’d been married after all, to a Lord who’d turned out to be nothing more than a juddering rake and a card sharp. This last had cost him his life in a duel, leaving his wife mired in scandal and poverty. These days she never used the title, preferring to hide behind the anonymity of plain Mrs. Lyndon.

  ‘No I’m not, Fran. But I can’t sit still here much longer. Who do you know in London that would know about the kind of circles Windermere might move in? Or be able to find out?’