“Merry said an odd thing to me at the tea party… Made me think. Made me think damn hard,” he mused, turning over his closed snuffbox in his left hand. “Observation of a child, but acute nonetheless. Not that she would have had the foggiest notion of its importance…”
Salt sat forward on the upholstered bench and adjusted his cravat in anticipation of the carriage door opening and the steps being put in place for them to alight. “Out with it, Tony! This isn’t the time or place for a fireside chat.”
“Merry predicted Ron would be ill that very night.”
“Not surprised with three games of skittles and two slices of pie!”
The Earl’s flippant remark was ignored.
“What did she say to you, Tony?” Jane asked quietly.
Sir Antony glanced down at his snuffbox then across at Jane. “To be precise she said a couple of things. Told me matter-of-factly that Ron would be ill later that night all because Uncle Salt was so happy; that it was always like that. Whenever you are happy,” he said, addressing the Earl, “Ron is ill. Can you believe it? Words out of the mouth of a babe!”
“What did you say by way of reply?” asked Jane.
Sir Antony threw up a lace-covered wrist. “Don’t recall; some tripe to dismiss such a notion as absurd.”
“It is absurd!” Salt stated angrily. “Merry and Ron are children with childish thoughts. The idea that Ron becomes ill all because I am happy is in itself laughable, in the worst possible sense of the word!”
“Is it?” Sir Antony enquired levelly. “Is it truly that absurd? Think about it. I have; long and hard. I’ve put some twos together. You said yourself that Ron has been ill too many times.”
“Tony, what else did Merry tell you?”
Salt looked at Jane in some surprise. “You believe there is some truth to Merry’s prattle, my lady?”
Jane and Sir Antony exchanged a look before she said calmly, “Yes. Now that Tony has voiced his concerns, I will add mine to his. And I cannot dismiss out of hand a child’s remarks, not when that child is Merry, who is wise beyond her years and suffers to see her brother ill.”
It was the Earl’s turn to throw up a lace-covered wrist. He sat back against the upholstered headboard and ignored the rapping on the carriage door. “Well, Tony? What else did Merry say?”
Sir Antony took snuff and sniffed. Finally composed he met his best friend’s expectant, if slightly skeptical, look and did not baulk. “That her mother did not like to see you happy; it made her angry and gave her the megrim.” He glanced at Jane but addressed the Earl. “And that since marrying Jane you are always happy, which means her mother is always angry, and that because she is angry she makes Ron sick.”
The rapping on the carriage door became insistent but Salt ignored it, hard gaze fixed on Sir Antony. “You realize you are talking about your sister.”
“I am unlikely to forget the connection. And as her brother I do believe I am able to see her more clearly than, and you will pardon my bluntness, you do, who will always see her as St. John’s widow and mother of his children. I believe there is substance to Merry’s chatter.” He glanced at Jane, “And so does your Countess.”
“I do not want to discuss this any further here or now. It is my wife’s first public engagement and I want it to be a pleasant one.”
Sir Antony inclined his powdered head. “As you wish, but this state of affairs must be discussed at some time, and soon. As you rightly pointed out, we are talking about my sister and, let us not forget, the welfare of my niece and nephew.”
“Ron and Merry’s health and happiness are my prime concern.”
“Then on that we agree. Now do open that door before the poor fellow loses what’s left of the skin on his knuckles.”
The carriage door swung wide and the steps set in place by a liveried footman. Another footman handed the Countess out of the carriage, and Salt wrapped her arm around his and led her across the forecourt to join the queue of guests filing into Richmond House. Sir Antony took his leave of the noble couple, and spying two cronies from the Northern Department, sauntered away to talk politics.
Jane barely noticed his departure, such was her distraction with the noise and bustle of carriages arriving and departing, of linkboys with tapers lighting the way for the many guests, resplendent in silks, powdered wigs and elaborate hairstyles, all making their way inside the Duke of Richmond’s waterside mansion.
She was determined to enjoy this her first ball in London, but knew also she must be on her best behavior, that it would not do to wear her excitement on her sleeve. As this was her first official engagement as the Countess of Salt Hendon, she was acutely aware that all eyes would be upon her. Not all eyes would be friendly, particularly the friends of Diana St. John, who would be waiting for the young Lady Salt to commit some social faux pas so they could commiserate with Lady St. John on the Earl’s misfortune in marrying such a rustic miss.
Jane glanced up at her husband and seeing his frown realized he must still be ruminating over Merry’s confidences to her Uncle Tony, and was determined to divert him. After all, if she was to enjoy herself tonight at this fireworks ball in honor of the Peace of Paris, he must enjoy himself too.
“Do you know, my lord, I have just come to the sudden realization that I have no political conversation and know even less people than Viscount Fourpaws! Who, I might add, is the only Viscount of my acquaintance who literally purrs when I prattle. Will your friends think me dull company?”
“I am not entirely happy to discover my wife is being purred over,” he said with a laugh, brow clearing, and held her close as a couple of liveried footmen dashed across their path and disappeared between two carriages to assist new arrivals. “I do not think you dull company, and that’s all that matters.”
She gave a practiced sigh. “But unlike Viscount Fourpaws, you never seek my company during the daylight hours so you cannot know if I am a dull conversationalist or not.”
“That’s unfair, you little wretch!” Salt replied, ignoring the smiling nods of several noble powdered heads in the queue up ahead who were trying to catch his eye. He spoke close to her ear, so she could hear him over the din. “We talk every night in bed.”
“That is of no account,” Jane threw at him, pretending an interest in the long line of stony-faced liveried footmen standing shoulder to shoulder, like marble statues along the gravel path and up the wide steps, though she was very pleased he was put out by her accusation. She hoped he could not detect the blush to her cheeks in the dusky light. “Conversation is not the reason for your visits. Though I have no complaints about the order in which you conduct business.”
“Business? Good God, you think I view my nightly visits to your bed as-as business? Another item on the agenda to be marked off when completed?”
Wide-eyed, Jane blinked up at him, gouache fan brought out from under her cloak to flutter prettily and stir the wispy tendrils of silken black hair about her beautiful face. She pretended ignorance. “Don’t you, my lord?”
“Of course not!” he blustered.
“Oh? But I am reliably informed that making love to one’s wife is a husband’s tedious obligation.”
“You certainly know how to pick your moment for one of your frank conversations, my lady,” he stated in a clipped voice, finding it difficult to express himself in the middle of a public space surrounded by a hundred faces known to him. “It’s never been an obligation to make love to you, and it is anything but tedious,” he replied earnestly. “It is a pleasure and a privilege.” When she dropped her chin into her shoulder, he added gently, “Jane, I come to your bed because I want to—very much.”
Jane did not trust herself to speak and clung to his silken arm more tightly. She stared blindly out across the activity of footmen running here and there, of ladies adjusting the useless novelty of flimsy aprons tied loosely over petticoats, and of gentlemen giving a tug to the points of their elaborate waistcoats, and saw it all through a mist of hap
piness. Despite the excitement of her first public social engagement in her husband’s company, she wished they were at home before the fire in his bookroom, alone. There she could freely throw her arms about his neck and tell him how much she loved him… Had always and only loved him.
Salt, misinterpreting her silence because he had said more than he had intended, but nothing he did not hold as truth, self-consciously stretched his neck, wrapped in its tightly bound cravat of intricate Brussels lace, and swallowed.
“If I’m becoming a nuisance you need only say so.”
“Oh, I will,” she answered with her ready sense of the ridiculous, composure returned. This brought his head down with a snap to stare at her hard. She tried not to giggle at his look of self-conscious contrition. Impulsively, she went up on tiptoe and swiftly kissed his cheek, saying with a gurgle of laughter, “Absurd man! The day I consider you a nuisance, consign me to Bedlam.”
He grinned and pinched her chin.
But the smile died on Jane’s face the instant her heels were back on firm ground. By kissing her husband in public she had committed, what Mr. Willis had warned her, two of the cardinal sins of Polite Society: That of allowing emotion to rule good breeding, and of showing genuine affection for one’s spouse in public. She went to apologize, flustered and embarrassed, thinking Salt would not appreciate her spontaneous and very public display, acutely aware that more than a dozen powdered heads had caught the kiss and with raised eyebrows were staring at her with curious disapproval from behind fluttering fans and beribboned quizzing glasses.
Her one small impulsive kiss had the opposite effect on the Earl. Caught up in the moment, he saw only his wife and was completely oblivious to everyone and everything else. He bent to nuzzle and whisper near her ear. “If this wasn’t Lady Salt’s first ball,” he murmured, removing her cloak to hand to an attentive footman, for they had arrived indoors, “I’d take her to the carriage and have my way with her, here and now.”
Momentarily forgetting her embarrassment, Jane faced him, all wide-eyed fascination. “In the carriage? Here and-and now?”
He pretended a sudden interest in the sit of one of a dozen small silk bows sewn down the front of her low cut water-silk bodice. Deftly, he straightened the largest bow at the neckline of her bodice and allowed his pinky to lightly caress the swell of her bare breasts. His words were all for her.
“Unfortunately, my lady will have to wait that delight until the end of the ball. I have poor Andrews’ bloodied fingers to think about. I’d never get these orders pinned back in place.”
As he surreptitiously caressed her breasts, Jane was gripped with a sudden frisson of desire and she quickly moved back into line and picked up a handful of her silk petticoats to ascend the wide stairs into the ballroom of Richmond House, without ever remembering her feet touching the floorboards. To her shame and surprise she couldn’t wait for the ball to be over before it started. Nor could she resist an impudent remark to her husband while they waited in line to be announced by the sonorous, nose-in-the-air butler.
“Do you think we would be missed if we gave our excuses and departed early?”
Salt was unable to hide his grin as they stepped forward at the butler’s announcement to the assembled company of the arrival of the Earl and Countess of Salt Hendon. He kept his square chin perfectly level and stared out into the void of dazzling light from hundreds of candles and colorful movement that was the noble crowd, yet he managed to wink at Jane. “Behave yourself tonight, Madam wife, and I’ll make certain the ride home is worth every dip in the road.”
Jane would have been hard pressed to give an accurate account of her first ball of her first London Season because from the moment she moved into the blaze of candlelight of the ballroom, with its blur of color and light, noise and music, and endless chatter, she was swept up into an evening of introduction, conversation, and dance. Not since the Salt Hunt Ball on her eighteenth birthday had she enjoyed herself so much. The four years of somber solitude and austerity as the charitable ward of the crippled merchant manufacturer Jacob Allenby were finally laid to rest with her husband by her side and the crème de la crème of Polite Society welcoming the new Countess of Salt Hendon with open arms.
Everyone agreed that the handsome colossus that was the Earl of Salt Hendon and his exceptionally beautiful and very graceful bride made the perfect couple. That is, everyone except the Lady St. John.
~ ~ ~
DIANA ST. JOHN kept her distance from her noble cousin for most of the Richmond Ball while he remained by his wife’s side. She flitted from group to group seemingly oblivious to the Earl’s existence, which, friend and foe alike agreed, was most uncharacteristic. It was universally expected that at Society functions Lady St. John remained only one person removed from the Earl of Salt Hendon at all times. No one knew if he noticed her always in his orbit, or not. For the most part he seemed to treat her as if she was part of his shadow and got on with his life. Everyone wondered if she would remain part of his shadow now he had a bride, more beautiful and much younger than the handsome statuesque Lady St. John.
Resplendent in a Venetian red and gold sack back gown with three tiers of lace cascading from elbows to plump wrists, Diana St. John spent the entire time the Earl and Countess of Salt Hendon danced the minuet with her back to the dancers. She engaged the Florentine Ambassador in conversation, who kept his gaze leveled at her breasts; magnificently displayed in a low square cut bodice, a string of rubies and diamonds nestled in her cleavage. A confection of powdered curls, a gouache painted fan, and her distinct perfume were the finishing touches to her resplendent ensemble. She laughed, she chatted, and she was witty and full of life, so much so that more than a few guests commented on her high spirits. The only person to see through the façade was her brother.
Sir Antony was confronted by his sister in an anteroom off the main vestibule as soon as his well-shod foot touched the marble parquetry inside Richmond House. She demanded to know why she had not been invited to share the carriage ride with he and Lord Salt. Sir Antony suffered in silence her barrage of verbal abuse. She was furious to be informed that the Earl had brought his wife to the Richmond Ball. To argue that their noble cousin had every right to bring his wife was pointless, so Sir Antony kept his opinions and his arguments to himself.
He never won with Diana, and he had long given up trying. He wasn’t by nature a coward, nor was he lazy, but he had learned from an early age that his elder sister had the ability to take a point of view and twist it to suit her own ends. It didn’t matter if her opponent had right on his side, by the time Diana had finished arguing, her opponent came round to her way of thinking, even if it was through sheer exhaustion and a need to escape her constant onslaught. Ethical considerations of right and wrong never entered her mind. It only mattered that she got her way. The only time Sir Antony ever saw her back down from a stubborn belief, indeed concede defeat in an argument, was with the Earl; and that was only because she had been besotted with their cousin since the schoolroom and would do anything to win his approval.
Many of their friends and family wondered why such a strong willed, handsome creature had settled on marriage with the mild-mannered Aubrey St. John. Sir Antony knew. St. John was Salt’s closest paternal cousin and best friend, and the pair was as inseparable as close-knit brothers. When it became clear to Diana that Salt would never offer for her, she chose the next best thing, or so she thought, in marrying Aubrey St. John. Lord St. John was not Salt, but he had been very much in love with Diana. The marriage was a disaster from the beginning, not least because, for all her outwardly overt sexual playfulness Sir Antony suspected his sister was frigid.
The marriage quickly soured, even before the birth of the twins. Sir Antony was in no doubts that it was Diana who had pushed a wedge of mistrust between her husband and the Earl, and so firmly that it was not until St. John was dying that the two men were reconciled. St. John had not said much about the rift at the time but once, when in
his cups, he had confided to Sir Antony that Salt had counseled him against marrying Diana but he would not listen; Salt had been right all along.
Sir Antony hoped that the Earl’s marriage would, at long last, throw the cold water of truth in his sister’s face, and awaken her to the indisputable fact that the Earl of Salt Hendon was forever beyond her reach. However, Diana’s response to the marriage not only surprised but also shocked Sir Antony to such a degree that he feared for her sanity. She conducted herself as if the Salt Hendon marriage was a small, not insurmountable, problem that could be overcome if she just put her mind to finding a solution. At her very worst, particularly in the company of their mutual friends, she put on a very public façade of careless indifference, acting as if Salt’s marriage had never taken place. She was acting that way tonight at the ball and he had to stop her before she made a fool of herself before three hundred people.
Just before the commencement of the country-dances, standing in the refreshment room by a Corinthian pillar and pretending an interest in the crowd through his quizzing glass, Sir Antony tried to reason with his sister. She was talking with Pascoe Church, amongst others, and Sir Antony deliberately bumped her elbow so that she swirled about to see whom it was. He nodded at Pascoe Church, smiled at his sister and took her firmly by the elbow, and led her to a quiet corner by a French window. Here he let her go and again took up his quizzing glass.
“How very sporting of you to allow Salt breathing room tonight,” he said chirpily.
Diana bristled. “Heard the expression give enough rope, brother dear?”
“Salt’s never danced at the end of any ropes.”
“Fool! Her. The moment he steps away she’s bound to hang herself.”
Sir Antony turned his quizzing glass from the glittering crowd to his sister. “It doesn’t look as if he wants to leave her side, does it?”
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