Scandalous Brides

by Annette Blair

  For the second time that morning, Salt goggled at her. Not only that but he could not speak.

  Mr. Ellis, despite Jane’s accurate observation and wishes, thought it best to begin reading aloud before his lordship burst a blood vessel. He had seen his employer angry, he had seen him furious, but never had he seen him so angry that he was lost for words. In the three years he had been employed in the Earl’s household no one, not servant, retainer, friend or family member, had ever spoken so frankly to his lordship.

  Looking at Jane over the parchment that shook in his trembling hands, it was as if it was only yesterday that he had first gazed upon his friend’s beautiful stepsister and fallen under the spell of her loveliness on the spot. And so it was with the hint of a smile that Arthur began to read, though the smile soon disappeared when his concentration returned to the written word.

  He had not given much thought to the Earl’s strictures at the time of their dictation, except that they seemed just and necessary for the self-preservation of a great and wealthy nobleman about to marry a young woman who had lived unmarried with an old Bristol Blue Glass manufacturer. Yet, taking another glance over the sheaf of papers at the girl who sat ram-rod straight, hands clasped lightly in her lap, he felt acute discomfort to be reading out what was nothing less than a sentence of life imprisonment; albeit in a prison that was a magnificent sprawling Jacobean mansion in the heart of Wiltshire, but a prison nonetheless.

  “…As to the dowry Miss Jane Katherine Despard brings to the marriage, a dowry bequeathed to her by Jacob Allenby of Allenby Park, Wiltshire and Bristol, Lord Salt refuses to accept a guinea of the ten thousand pounds,” Arthur Ellis continued after a short pause to clear his throat of nervousness. “Further, Lord Salt instructs Miss Despard to bring to the marriage only those possessions that were hers at the time she was denied the protection of the house of her father, Sir Felix Despard, Squire of Despard Park, Wiltshire. Thus, everything that was gifted to her by Jacob Allenby: clothes, jewelry, money, writing instruments, china, linen, furniture, servants, horses, equipage, in fact anything at all that was purchased with Jacob Allenby’s coin, will not form any part of her dower. The said articles are to be discarded and disposed of before marriage.

  “Upon marriage, Lord Salt forbids Lady Salt to live in London, to visit Bath or its environs or to visit Bristol and its environs. Lord Salt directs Lady Salt to live year-round at his seat in Wiltshire: Salt Hall. Lady Salt will be confined to Salt Hall and may take exercise only in the immediate parkland surrounding the Hall’s main buildings. Lady Salt is not to venture beyond the lake or the gardens without the express written permission of her husband. Lady Salt is not to take it upon herself to visit any of Lord Salt’s tenants, the vicar and his good wife, or visit the local village of Salt Hendon.

  “Lady Salt has her husband’s permission to do with her apartments at the Hall as she so pleases. Her apartments will consist of bedchamber and six adjoining rooms plus a room and closet for her personal maid, but the remainder of the one hundred and sixty-seven rooms are to be left as she finds them; so too the grounds; so too the summerhouse by the lake, a place within the parkland expressly forbidden her ladyship. Once a year, when his lordship opens his house for the Salt Hunt, Lady Salt will confine herself to her apartments and the small rose garden and courtyard thereto attached. From time to time, Lady Salt may have visitors to Salt Hall, but Lord Salt must approve them in writing before their intended stay. None by the name of Allenby may trespass on Lord Salt’s lands. Furthermore and finally—”

  “No!” Jane interrupted, up off the chair. “I will endure much, my lord, but that I will not tolerate! You may strip me of every material possession given to me by Mr. Allenby, though that is no great loss, but you cannot strip me of my memories. You can lock me away in your hideous house and dictate my movements, but as I am quite used to my own company, that will be no great deprivation. But you will not take from me the only family I have.” She sniffed back tears; it was a prosaic action, yet it caused the secretary to drop his gaze from her lovely face. “Tom is my brother,” she continued in a calmer voice, turning her head to look at the Earl who had not moved from his position by the window. “You may argue that he is my brother in law only, but he is the only brother, the only close relative, who has cared anything for me since the death of my mother when I was not quite a year old. And he was the only relative to continue to own me after I left my father’s house. I love him dearly. I will not allow you to banish him. He may visit me whenever he chooses or-or-or—”

  “—or what, Miss Despard?” Salt drawled to the rain-spattered window. “You will stamp your pretty foot and refuse to go through with the wedding? Please, say the word…”

  Jane stared at the broad back for a good ten seconds and then sat down again, in defeat. She shut her eyes hard to stop the tears and dropped her head, hands clasped tightly in her lap.

  The secretary felt his stomach turn over.

  Finally, the Earl turned his wide back on the clearing sky and propped himself on the sill.

  “I beg your pardon, Miss Despard,” he said quietly. “At the time the document was drawn up I was unaware that Mr. Thomas Wilson had been required to take the name of Allenby under the terms of his uncle’s will. Ellis will correct the document to read ‘no Allenby but Mr. Thomas Wilson Allenby, her ladyship’s brother etc and so forth’.”

  “Thank you, my lord,” Jane replied, unconsciously twisting the unfamiliar oversized betrothal ring and audibly sighing with relief.

  The Earl inclined his powdered head and turned again to the window, but not before his secretary saw the crooked smile that twisted his mouth. “Ellis? Have you lost the facility of speech? Pray continue. You’re forgetting I have a prior engagement that requires I be elsewhere within the half hour.”

  “Yes, my lord, of course,” the secretary mumbled and coughed, for he had been glancing at the next and final paragraph to be read aloud and wished himself anywhere but in this drawing room standing before this lovely young woman. Jane’s impassioned interruption had broken his flow of words and as such would only highlight this next stipulation all the more. “Furthermore, when his lordship is in residence at Salt Hall, Lady Salt will not seek to question, interfere or acknowledge her husband’s domestic arrangements—”

  “You mean to bring your lovers to Salt Hall.”

  The secretary paused, but as the sentence was a statement and not a question he continued, though he couldn’t stop the flush to his freckled cheeks.

  “—This in no way negates Lady Salt from her responsibilities as a dutiful and obedient wife. Should his lordship desire to avail himself of his—of his conjugal rights, his wife will oblige with mute servility. This document dated this day and so forth etc, etc.”

  Mr. Ellis noisily reshuffled the pages to hide his embarrassment, not a glance at either party, and quickly crossed to the small walnut escritoire in the far corner of the room where it had been placed by the undraped window to catch the muted rays of sunlight of a cold January day. He picked up the inkpot but had not flicked open the silver lid when he was directly addressed by Jane. Such was his surprise that he jumped and would have spilled ink down the front of his fine linen waistcoat with its polished horn buttons but for the fact his thumb remained poised over the lip of the closed lid.

  “Mr. Ellis?” Jane enquired with a frown of puzzlement as she slowly rose to her feet but did not move away from the chair. “This document makes no mention of any children of the marriage.”

  “Children?” the secretary repeated thinly, voice breaking on the word, a swift telling glance at his employer who remained inert. Slowly, he replaced the inkpot on the desk and picked up the quill. “My lady, I-I—Ma’am—um—Miss Despard, there is—there is no-no such paragraph dealing with such an-an eventuality. No provision has been made for children of the marriage.”

  Jane’s frown deepened, more so because of the note of nervous apology in the young man’s voice. “Mr. Ellis, th
at document is most frank and therefore so must I be when I tell you that it stands to reason that if a husband exercises his conjugal—”

  “Ellis, be so good as to wait a moment in the passage,” Salt ordered, a rough jerk of his head at the door. He watched his secretary hastily rearrange the sheets of parchment and quill and ink before scurrying from the room with a short bow. “Poor Arthur. You have disconcerted him, Miss Despard.”

  Jane was frowning at the closed door but she turned at this and regarded the Earl openly. “Yes, I must have. I am sorry, for he is a nice young man. But I don’t see why he should be so coy when one must assume that if a husband and wife share a bed—”

  “Miss Despard, I am unable to father a child.”

  This statement was greeted with such an expression of horrified disbelief that the Earl let out a deep laugh of genuine good humor, finally allowing Jane to see his lovely white smile.

  “My dear Miss Despard! Priceless! The look on your lovely face is—priceless. Dear me! I must own I’m glad you’re not a virgin. Only a woman familiar with the carnal delights of the bedchamber could so misinterpret such a statement. Accept my apologies for disconcerting you.” He made her a bow, smile vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. “I am still very much a man, Miss Despard. What I should have said, to make myself perfectly plain, is while I am more than capable of the act, the physicians tell me I am unable to beget a woman with child.”

  “How is that possible?”

  Salt glanced up from drawing on his fine kid gloves and saw it was an earnest enquiry and not one designed to unsettle him. He had to grudgingly admit he preferred her direct approach to the timid dissimulation used by most females.

  “Years ago I fell off a horse in full flight over a fence. I landed very hard and awkwardly on a particularly cherished part of my anatomy. It was excruciating. My—er—ballocks swelled to the size of apples, turned black and went hard. To say I was extremely worried for my manhood would be a gross understatement. I was advised by the learned physicians who attended on me that although the swelling and bruising would subside I had in all likelihood suffered some internal injury that would leave me barren. Since my recovery, I have had the hollow satisfaction of rutting with impunity. Not one of a string of mistresses has presented me with a bastard which would seem to confirm the physicians’ learned opinion.”

  “Years ago? How many years ago?”

  “Ten.”

  “Ten years ago?” Jane blanched. She reached out for the ladder back of the chair to steady herself. If he believed himself infertile then… He did not know he had impregnated her that night in the summerhouse… Her note had never reached him… He had not chosen to ignore her… He remained ignorant after all these years… But surely… So many questions and possibilities swirled about her mind that she felt herself sway and thought it prudent to sink back onto the chair. She looked up at him. “My lord, what you say is not possible.”

  Embarrassed by her acute disappointment to this news and annoyed that he should feel a stab of inadequacy at not being able to provide this heartless jezebel with a brood of brats, he snapped back impatiently, “Miss Despard, it is not only very possible, it is fact. Now you will excuse me. My carriage will collect you tomorrow at eleven and convey you to my house in Grosvenor Square where a private ceremony will be conducted without pomp and circumstance. And, God willing,” he muttered to himself as he crossed the Turkey rug, “with very few persons in attendance to witness my humiliation.”

  A blank-faced footman opened the door for the Earl.

  The sheaf of parchment on the little escritoire awaiting Jane’s signature fluttered but was ignored.

  Jane forced herself up off the chair and scurried after him, determined to say something but her thoughts were such a jumble of mixed emotions that she had no idea where to begin or what to tell him. She certainly couldn’t bring herself to inform him there and then that the physicians who had advised him he was barren had got it wrong. He would not believe her without proof. Jacob Allenby’s constant sermons about the wanton wicked ways of the nobility had her convinced that the Earl was not the sort of nobleman to concern himself with the fruits of his couplings and she had been given no reason to disbelieve him. But here was the Earl telling her that he was infertile and had believed himself to be so for the past ten years! Why then had Jacob Allenby lied to her? How then was she to disabuse the Earl of his conviction? And when?

  Jane did not know what to say, or how to tell the Earl that he was as fertile as the next man, without breaking down into a flood of tears for the loss she had suffered. So she kept her mouth shut. When the right time presented itself she would confess all to him, but that time was not now.

  At the door, the Earl hesitated, turned on a low heel, and almost collided with Jane who was close at his back. She managed to pull herself up only inches from falling into his arms, which he had instinctively thrust out to stop her falling forward. They were so close that her hooped petticoats crumpled against his long muscular legs and she caught a hint of his masculine cologne. It was such an evocative scent that she was gripped with a sudden frisson of desire and was so shocked by it that she quickly stepped away and hung her head.

  Salt gently tilted up her chin with one gloved finger, forcing her to look him in the eyes. Wordlessly, he searched her beautiful face, a knot between his brows. Her liquid blue eyes stared back at him with such frankness that he could almost deceive himself she was without guile. The pouty curve to her lovely lips was so rosebud red and made for kissing that he wanted to crush her mouth under his until they were bruised and numb.

  Bruised and numb…

  That’s how he felt, had been feeling for so many years now that he was drained of hope. He wanted to blame her and the false promises of love and devotion he had tasted in her kisses. Beauty such as she possessed was utterly beguiling and yet so wretchedly deceptive. He reviled everything about this young woman who was to become his wife and countess and yet there was no mistaking her inherent allure. She had captivated him four years ago, trapped him, made him lose his head, forget all that he had been taught about being a gentleman and what he owed his name, and made him cast caution to the four winds.

  He had allowed his heart to rule his head.

  In a single night of passion he had ruined a gently bred girl of good family, destroyed his honor and given Jacob Allenby the means by which to have his revenge on him. He hated himself for what he had done to Jane, but he reviled her for not having the strength of character to believe in him; to wait for him; to be constant and true. She had not waited. Worse, she had not kept secret their night of passion as she had promised and was rightly disowned by her humiliated father. Even more appalling, she had run to the protection of Jacob Allenby, a man he loathed and despised, a reprobate who masqueraded as a moralizing windbag.

  The passage of time and countless lovers and he convinced himself he was cured of Miss Jane Despard. And then, two years ago while on the hunt, he had come across her gathering mushrooms in a field scattered with awakening wildflowers. With a sickening thud of realization he knew he had been fooling himself. He was not cured. He festered with guilt for ruining her and for still wanting her. He sunk lower still by giving his word to her dying father that he would indeed honor the pledge made to her in the summerhouse on her eighteenth birthday and marry her.

  Marriage, if it did nothing else but expunge the burden of guilt and restore his sense of honor, was worth the humiliation of friends and family. He could at least get on with his life with a clear conscience of righting a serious wrong. That he still wanted her, desperately, he could easily cure. He would make her his wife, bed her, and then banish her to his estate, lust and honor both satisfied. Yet, the gentleman in him made one last futile attempt to force her to realize what sort of union she was entering into.

  “Miss Despard, you are a young woman with many child-bearing years ahead of you. With your face and figure, you could easily ensnare yourself a wealthy hus
band capable of giving you children. Release this barren earl from his obligation.”

  Jane curtsied but kept her gaze lowered because her eyes were brimming with hot tears of shame. Real regret sounded in her voice. “I am sorry to disoblige you, my lord, but I must marry you.”

  There was the briefest of silences and then the Earl was gone, the door slammed so hard that Jane jumped and took an involuntary step back fearing it had come off its hinges. Alone, she crumpled to the floor in a billowing balloon of petticoats and gave in to her disordered emotions.

  THREE

  ‘MUST?” Salt repeated at the end of the landing, still frowning.

  “I beg your pardon, my lord?”

  Startled to receive a response, the Earl brought his gaze down from the far wall of the stairwell void to find his secretary squashed up against the mahogany balustrade trying to be inconspicuous. Poor Arthur, reading that document aloud had taken it out of him. Still, Salt couldn’t help teasing his secretary.

  “Well, Ellis, what do you make of the lovely Miss Despard?”

  But Arthur Ellis had been long enough in the Earl’s employ not to be surprised by anything that was asked of him. “I have no thoughts about Miss Despard, my lord,” he said blandly as he followed his noble employer down the stairs to the entrance foyer.

  Salt put out a hand to the butler for his sword and sash, gaze firmly fixed on his secretary. “Very good, Arthur. Now tell me what you think.”

  “Miss Despard is little altered since last we met.”

  “Meaning?”

  “She presents to the world the same well-bred young lady now as four years ago, my lord.”

  The Earl was shrugged into his heavy greatcoat by the butler.

  “You ignore her intervening history perhaps?”

  “No, my lord. But you asked for my thoughts.”

  “What else?”

  “My lord?” said the secretary, stepping out of the way as the Earl adjusted his ornately sheathed sword before buttoning his greatcoat.