Scandalous Brides

by Annette Blair

  Salt smiled uncomfortably and casually flicked her flushed cheek. “God help me, Jane, but your disturbingly frank questions would unnerve a lesser man. First you lecture me on catching a social disease and now you raise the possibility that I may have unintentionally fathered a bastard or two. Is no topic sacred?”

  “Not between husband and wife,” Jane answered with a bashful smile, but her smile faded thinking how best to explain the rest of her thoughts.

  She was utterly convinced he had never received the locket with her note telling him of her pregnancy. But how to broach this topic without blurting out the truth and revealing the whole heartbreaking story and the very real possibility of not being believed? He might even think her demented! Perhaps it was best if she just plunged in at another point that might help convince him that he was every bit as fertile as the next man. It was only halfway through her disjointed speech that she realized she had taken the wrong approach altogether, but by then the damage was done.

  “From the little I overheard yesterday at the tennis tournament, there is a great deal about the activities of the nobility I do not understand,” she said conversationally, taking a turn about her husband’s expansive closet, the kitten now asleep in the crook of her folded arms. “It seems that as long as a married woman is discreet she can have an affair with, say for argument’s sake, her husband’s best friend if she so wishes and no one bats an eyelid. Surely, if this is the case, and the woman becomes pregnant, how does she know who is the father of her baby; her husband or her lover?”

  Salt loosely folded his arms across his chest, brown eyes fixed to Jane’s slightly flushed face. There was an edge to his voice. “I would know.”

  “But that’s just it. If the physicians have got it wrong and you are fertile, then you wouldn’t know. You could very well be Ron and Merry’s father and how would you know? Only if their mother confessed the truth to you, and she’s unlikely to do that because her husband was your best friend.” She was rattling on now because Salt was staring at her, face devoid of natural color. “Ron does have a great look of you, and that could easily be explained because his father and you were first cousins. Of course I never met St. John so I don’t know if you and he were much alike and he may very well be their father, but I’m not the only one it seems who has asked the question. So you see, you could be able to father a child but because you believe the physicians you haven’t suspected that you are just as virile as the next man.”

  “When you accused me of breach of promise I thought I could stoop no lower in your eyes. I see that I was wrong,” he enunciated very quietly, and in a voice that froze Jane’s marrow as he came towards her, “Now you accuse me of cuckolding my best friend and closest cousin. Not only that, but impregnating his wife with my offspring. If it was not so despicable it would be laughable.”

  “But if you and Lady St. John were lovers and you can father a child—”

  “It is immaterial to this argument whether I can father a child or not!” he spat out, grabbing her shoulders hard and jolting the sleeping kitten awake. “I may be blind but it’s you who needs spectacles of comprehension! What you fail to see, what has failed to penetrate beyond your beautiful façade to your brain, is that St. John was my best friend.”

  “That does not stop Diana St. John being ears over toes in love with you!”

  “Regardless of his wife’s infatuation for me, I would never cuckold St. John, even in death,” Salt stated flatly, backing her towards the door. “St. John knew this. To his bitter disappointment he also knew he could trust me better than he could his own wife! So, Madam, your argument about my fertility falls flat.”

  Jane stared up into his brown eyes. “Ron and Merry are two lovely children and if not St. John’s then I wish they were yours.”

  “They are not,” he stated emphatically. “That statement of fact should snuff any flame of hope you may have held that I could give you a child.” He let her go, a sudden dryness in his throat, and jerked opened the door that led back to her apartments. “You’ll have to content yourself with mothering that little brute in your arms. He’s mewing for milk. You’d best do your duty by him. Now, please, be good enough to leave me in peace with my deficiencies.”

  Jane did not move. She did not take her gaze from her husband. Absently, she stroked the kitten, hoping to distract it from its hunger pains a little longer.

  “Do you not sometimes harbor doubts about the physician’s opinion?” she persisted, adding in a halting voice, “That perhaps—if two people love one another deeply enough—their prayer for a child will be answered?”

  At that Salt dropped his gaze from staring over her head to look directly into her eyes, big, blue eyes swimming with tears. She was utterly wretched and hopeful at one and the same time. He didn’t doubt her misery was genuine. It caused him to experience a stab of inadequacy so acute that it hurt his chest. How ironic that he’d had the same wishful thought as she’d just voiced after making love to her in the summerhouse. He had asked her to marry him, aware that he could not give her children and yet recklessly believing that perhaps, if they loved one another enough, their union would be blessed.

  What romantic claptrap!

  He was well aware of the ten year joke whispered amongst society that the lusty Earl of Salt Hendon couldn’t even get a whore with child. The odds entered in White’s betting book was a hundred to one that he would father a son; fifty to one he could get a mistress with child; two to one he would remain childless.

  Yet, he couldn’t help a twinge of wanting the impossible. What he wouldn’t give to make Jane pregnant, to see her grow plump and round with their child. But that possibility didn’t bear thinking about because that meant growing plump and round with another man’s child. And that, for him, would be hell on earth.

  He felt as wretched as she looked. With inadequacy came bitterness and anger.

  “But you do not love me, Madam. You married me for Tom’s sake and I obliged your father’s dying wish and made you a countess. There is the sum total of our union. That we enjoy physical pleasure as husband and wife is mere serendipity. Content yourself with that. It’s a rare commodity amongst our kind and more than most husbands and wives of noble marriages have in common.”

  Jane bowed her head to quickly wipe away tears then resolutely lifted her chin.

  “You know that’s not enough—for either of us.”

  “Don’t. Don’t goad me,” he said through his teeth. “I cannot father a child. I will never have a son. You will stay barren. Our marriage is destined to remain childless. How many ways do you want me to say it?” he added, gripping her upper arm, unintentionally twisting the silk of the tight sleeve under his long fingers and making her wince with pain. He jerked her closer. “Don’t ever play me for a fool. Understand? You belong to me, and only me. The males in my family have ever been uxorious, but I don’t believe in miracles. Find yourself pregnant and I won’t hesitate to kill the father of such ill-begotten offspring. Hold to that thought. It will keep you a faithful wife better than any chastity belt.” And with that he put her out into the connecting room and slammed the door.

  ~ ~ ~

  JANE DIDN’T SEE her husband for the rest of the day. She hadn’t really expected to receive a visit from him that night, he had been so angry with her. But he came to her bedchamber in the early hours of the morning and slipped under the covers. When she drowsily asked after his day he apologized for waking her, said he had read Jacob Allenby’s will and that Tom was very fortunate to have her as a sister, then told her to go back to sleep. Of course neither of them could, and they lay awake in the dark, each acutely aware of the other, yet unsure if physical contact was wanted after their acrimonious parting earlier that day. Still, Jane was reassured by the fact he had chosen to seek her out and not gone to his own bed, or worse, to another’s.

  She wasn’t sure who made the first move. All she remembered was that as she drifted off to sleep she was wrapped in the warmth of S
alt’s body. And later, in the dawn light, she was woken by his caresses and soon they were making love. Both craved touch, as if pleasuring one another was the only way of communicating forgiveness for the harsh words spoken earlier. Yet, nothing was said and when they finally drifted back off to sleep in each other’s arms, satisfied and satiated, it was with a bittersweet contentment; despite forgiveness, matters remained unresolved between them.

  And so they settled into a pattern of sorts in their first three months as husband and wife.

  The Earl spent his days caught up in the political machinations of Whig and Tory factions and the negotiated Peace Settlement with France; carrying out parliamentary obligations to committees and to those who owed their sinecures to his patronage; and the endless round of social engagements that did not require the presence of his wife.

  He confined himself to attending the male-only card parties and dinners of his friends, most of whom were unmarried or if married had been leg-shackled into arranged marriages where it was customary for husband and wife to lead separate lives, only coming together for a ball or a rout where social etiquette required that both parties of the union attend. Even Salt’s good friend the Earl Waldegrave, who was madly in love with his wife Maria, spent his social hours with his male friends at the Club, or at Strawberry Hill, the home of Waldegrave’s uncle-in-law Horace Walpole; he encouraged Salt to do likewise.

  That the newly married Earl of Salt Hendon was seen about town without his wife was not thought the least odd, except by those romantically minded ladies who considered it a crying shame that such a handsome, virile nobleman had not made a love match; and by a select few male friends who dined occasionally at the Earl’s Grosvenor Square mansion and thus had met the new Countess of Salt Hendon and were of the opinion the Earl was keeping his beautiful bride from the country locked up in his London residence to have her all to himself.

  It did not go unnoticed by close friends and political rivals alike that when the Countess of Salt Hendon did venture from her gilded cage she was mobbed by the admiring masses, eager to catch a glimpse of London’s latest beauty. And it was not the Earl by her side fending off the hordes but the Earl’s best friend. Be it a ride in the Green Park, attendance at a performance at Drury Lane Theatre, a shopping excursion up Oxford Street to purchase a half a dozen pairs of gloves and three new fans for her ladyship’s slender wrist, or even a visit to the tombs in Westminster Abbey, Sir Antony Templestowe was Lady Salt’s constant companion and champion.

  Eyebrows were raised, tongues began to wag and the venom to drip about the young Countess and her husband’s cousin the diplomat. Sir Antony did not return to Paris to rejoin Bedford’s entourage, but remained in London paying court to his best friend’s wife. That the Earl was not in the least concerned with this state of affairs and was rarely seen in public with his wife set Polite Society wondering if there was substance to the rumor that the Countess’s outstanding beauty was overshadowed by her dim-wittedness, and thus Salt kept her locked away for fear of what she might say or do in public that could embarrass him.

  Diana St. John fanned the flame of this rumor, commenting to all who enquired after the Countess that as there was nothing between her ears but wool, was it any wonder a nobleman of Salt’s intellect and political acumen considered his new wife dull in the extreme? That Jane was self-effacing, kind and always polite but not quite certain what to say when confronted with the verbose compliments of strangers, particularly the fawning attentions of gentlemen, only seemed to confirm Diana St. John’s spiteful précis.

  It did not help the Countess’s cause that when she was not out and about taking sight-seeing forays with Sir Antony, now the January frosts and a bracing February had given way to a warmer if blustery March, she liked nothing better than to spend time in her apartments. With Viscount Fourpaws curled up asleep on her lap she embroidered, sketched or read. Sometimes she was content to curl up in the window seat and watch the traffic and pedestrians in the busy square below her sitting room window; the activities of this vast, noisy city a never-ending source of fascination for a girl brought up entirely in a quiet corner of Wiltshire.

  Yet time alone was precious. Willis spent part of every day tutoring the new Countess in the ways of running a great household. He answered the all important questions of which upper servant held the keys to the wine cellar, to the precedence required at the dinner table: Did a Scottish Dowager Duchess outrank an English Baroness? A question easily answered by those brought up from the cradle knowing their place in society, but a complete mystery to the daughter of a country squire. Willis also proved a veritable font of information on important people and places he considered it necessary her ladyship should make it her business to know.

  And if Sir Antony considered it his duty to keep his best friend’s wife entertained while the Earl was taken up with parliamentary matters, Jane’s stepbrother, who had returned to London from Bristol at the end of February, came to afternoon tea every second day, to tell her all about his latest adventures out and about in the metropolis, but in truth to keep a brotherly eye on her. While Arthur Ellis would only hint to his Oxford chum that all was not satisfactory between husband and wife in the Salt household, Billy Church bluntly told Tom that the Countess was neglected by the Earl; was being secretly courted by Billy’s superior in the Foreign Office, Sir Antony Templestowe; and that her beauty had attracted every dapper dog on the town.

  Tom often brought Billy Church with him to afternoon tea and sometimes Arthur Ellis would join them. And when Hilary Wraxton and Pascoe Church made weekly visits on the pretext of enquiring how Viscount Fourpaws was getting along, Jane found herself in her sitting room surrounded by half a dozen young men. This was how Sir Antony discovered her when he poked his powdered head in to share a cup of tea, and quickly joined the group, a wary eye on Pascoe Church. But he was soon caught up in Tom and Billy’s retelling of their experiences in the riots at Covent Garden Theatre, and when Hilary Wraxton was invited to share one of his poems with the group, Sir Antony was laughing along with the rest of the assembled company.

  Salt never visited his wife’s public rooms during the day but most evenings he dined at home. Yet he and Jane never dined alone. Sir Antony, despite residing at the Arlington Street Townhouse, had most of his dinners at Salt’s Grosvenor Square mansion. Some nights Arthur Ellis joined them, usually to go over Salt’s appointments of the next day, and once a week Diana St. John deigned to come to dinner with her two children. On other days, she made a point of arriving in company when Salt had open house dinners and at least ten of his colleagues and friends sat down at his table.

  On these occasions, Lady St. John sat herself on Salt’s left hand and was content to leave Ron and Merry to the Countess. She would then spend the entire meal monopolizing the conversation with witty anecdotes about politics and people unknown to Jane. She was determined to outshine the new Countess, but Jane never rose to her bait, showed not the slightest annoyance that her husband’s cousin dominated the assembled company, or that the Earl, Sir Antony and Lady St. John frequently indulged in a politically charged argument for the sake of it.

  Instead, Jane quietly listened to the conversations around the table, gave her opinion if asked, and spent most of the meal listening to Ron and Merry prattle on about their days. She took a keen interest in their activities and had become such a favorite of theirs since the hide ‘n’ seek incident under the dining room table that when they visited their uncle on Tuesdays, they would asked to be excused from the bookroom so that they might visit the Countess’s sitting room where, as they told the Earl, they were permitted to play with Viscount Fourpaws and listen to sickly poetry delivered by a fop in an iron wig.

  Diana St. John was all for her children annoying the Countess. It meant she could monopolize the Earl’s time. It was on one such open Tuesday, with the cold anteroom full of hopeful men patiently waiting the Earl’s pleasure and Ron and Merry gone upstairs, that Diana half-reclined amongst the
cushions on the chaise longue by the warmth from the fireplace closest to the Earl, who sat writing at his mahogany desk, his secretary standing silent at his left shoulder.

  Her richly embroidered velvet petticoats of silver thread fell in a sweep to the floor and she had kicked off her matching mules, bare stockinged toes pointed to the flames. Her careful coiffure rested against a closed fist, a fat auburn ringlet falling across her low cut décolletage, while she languidly fluttered a filigreed ivory fan and prattled on about the latest on-dits swirling about drawing rooms concerning the Princess Augusta’s affair with Lord Bute.

  This was how Sir Antony discovered the occupants of the bookroom when he put a diamond shoe buckle across the warm threshold. That his sister was holding court did not surprise him; that his cousin continued to indulge her did. He raised an eyebrow at the low cut to her bodice that revealed the dark pink tinge of her nipples, and the manner in which she reclined on the chaise was a clear invitation to seduce. That his friend continued to write without once looking up, and was providing monosyllabic replies to her questions, was evidence enough of his level of interest. It never ceased to amaze Sir Antony that for an intelligent woman his sister was a complete dunce when it came to the feelings of their cousin the Earl.

  “Good God! It’s a Tuesday and you’re wearing your eyeglasses,” Sir Antony exclaimed in awe, making his presence known with an outburst that was far from the measured question he had had in mind to ask.

  “Oh! So you are,” Diana commented with surprise, a glance at her brother who had sat uninvited opposite her.

  Salt peered over his gold rims then returned to reading the final paragraph before putting his signature to the document. He then stood to allow his secretary to take his place to set the ink with a sprinkle of pounce powder, and came around to sit on a corner of his desk, eyeglasses still perched on the end of his long bony nose. “It appears that I was being stubbornly unreasonable about wearing my eyeglasses in public—”