‘Home,’ Jack said, as the coach came to a stop outside the porticoed main entrance. He opened the carriage door and jumped down almost before the wheels had come to a stop and ran up the steps just as the door opened and a footman appeared.
‘My lord! Oh, her ladyship will be so pleased to see you safe. She is in the blue parlour.’
‘Oh, no, she is not,’ said a female voice in a slight French accent. Kitty, who was being helped from the coach by James, looked up to see a woman, of perhaps a little over fifty, run and throw her arms about Jack. She was slim and elegant in a round gown of dark blue silk trimmed with bands of coloured ribbon. Her dark hair, with hardly a trace of grey, was piled high, on top of which was perched a tiny lace cap from which floated more ribbons. ‘When did you get back? Oh, I am so glad to see you safe.’
She caught sight of the trio on the gravel beside coach. ‘Who are these people?’
He smiled. ‘Mother, here is Nanette. You remember her, don’t you?’
‘Nanette! Quelle surprise! Of course I remember you. Come ‘ere, child, let me kiss you. Why, it must be seven or eight years since I saw you at Haute Saint-Gilbert. You are quite grown up. I am so pleased to see you safe. Is my sister with you? And the Marquis?’
Nanette curtsied and kissed her aunt. ‘No, Aunt, Papa would not come, he feels his place is at home. Maman would not leave him.’
‘No, she would not. But you are ‘ere and for that I give thanks.’
Nanette turned towards James. ‘Aunt Justine, this is my husband, James Harston.’
James swept an elegant bow. ‘Your obedient, my lady.’
‘‘Arston? Are you not the young man who saved my son in France?’
‘It was fortuitous that I was in the right place at the right time, my lady.’
‘Then you are doubly welcome.’
Jack reached out to take Kitty’s hand and draw her forward. The gentle pressure of his hand, the warmth of his smile, made her insides melt, as they always did whenever he touched her. It was pleasure and torment together, heightening her sense of isolation and loss, feeding her desire. If he took her violently again, she would welcome it, welcome any sign that he wanted her for his true wife. If that was what the marriage bed was all about, so be it. But she could never tell him that.
‘Mother, this is James’s sister, Kitty. She is my wife.’
‘Wife?’ She looked from one to the other in confusion. ‘‘Ow can she be? Gabrielle …’
‘Gabrielle is dead, Mother. She died over a year ago.’
‘Oh. Then I am sorry for it, but to marry again so soon …’ She sighed. ‘But I suppose you know what you are about.’
Did he? Kitty wondered as she curtsied. ‘My lady, my presence must be a shock to you and I am sorry for that …’
‘Oh, Jack is always giving me shocks. I am used to them,’ Lady Beauworth said. Her smile was so like Jack’s and her eyes were so like reflections of her son’s that Kitty found herself warming to her. ‘You are welcome. Come in and tell me all about it. But first some refreshment.’ She led the way as she spoke.
‘No, Mother,’ Jack said. ‘First a bath and clean clothes and then we can think of refreshment.’
‘Of course,’ she said. She turned to the footman. ‘Fletcher, fetch Mrs Gordon.’
When the housekeeper arrived, crying with pleasure to see Jack safely home, her ladyship issued instructions one after another; fires were to be lit, water heated, beds made, food prepared. Servants ran hither and thither, obeying her commands, and, in no time at all, Kitty was in a vast bedroom being helped out of her filthy clothes and into a scented bath by her ladyship’s own maid, Susan, whom she had brought with her from France when she married and who had never managed to get her tongue round the English language.
An hour later, with her blue gown cleaned, mended and pressed and her hair looking surprisingly neat after being washed, brushed and dressed, she ventured downstairs. Now she could converse with her hostess in a civilised fashion, to try and reverse what must have been a very poor first impression.
Her mother-in-law had taken the news of Gabrielle’s death very calmly. It was almost as if she had half-expected it. And not a word of censure, only a warm welcome for her new daughter-in-law. If she and Jack had married in normal circumstances, if they had loved one another, she could be very happy here.
She was even more sure of it when she met the Earl of Beauworth, who was an older version of Jack, still very handsome though his hair was white. At dinner he questioned Jack carefully about the situation in France and what he had learned, especially about the situation around Lyons, his wife’s former home.
‘I hear Toulon has surrendered to Admiral Hood,’ he said. ‘And the revolutionary government has ordered every able-bodied man into the army. Do you suppose that is the beginning of the end of this dreadful business?’
‘No,’ Jack said. ‘I am convinced it will be worse before it is better. The revolt in the Vendée and Lyons has the government worried. They have tried to stir up more anti-Royalist hatred and ordered all the tombs and mausoleums of the kings to be destroyed. The bodies of Louis’s ancestors have been dragged out and tipped into a lime-filled common grave. And the Queen has been taken to the Conciergerie and reduced to the status of a common criminal.’
‘Oh, the poor, dear lady!’ the Countess cried. ‘And what of the Dauphin? Oh, but ‘e is not the heir anymore, is ‘e? ‘E is the King. ‘As ‘e gone with her?’
‘No one thinks of him as King; he is simply another Capet. By all accounts he was separated from his mother some time ago. He is still in the Temple, being brought up as a good sans-culottes.’
‘Poor child. ‘Ow can the world allow it? ‘Ow can Britain stand by and do nothing?’
‘We are doing what we can,’ the Earl said. ‘Now, tell us how you came to meet Kitty.’
This was a far happier subject and they listened with rapt attention as Jack gave them the facts in his dry, impassive voice. ‘I know it was perhaps not ideal that we had to travel so far unchaperoned,’ he said. ‘But, until I learned of Gabrielle’s death …’
‘Yes, how did she meet her death?’ his father asked.
‘She went to the guillotine,’ Jack said, his voice devoid of emotion. ‘Denouncing me did not save her.’
‘And have her parents been informed?’ the Earl asked, while Kitty digested this piece of information. Why had Jack never told her the manner of his wife’s demise? It must have made it doubly difficult to bear. No wonder he had been so crusty.
‘No, it is not something I could convey in a letter,’ Jack said. ‘I have decided to go with James and Nanette tomorrow and see them.’
‘Tomorrow?’ Kitty queried. ‘But I thought …’
‘It is not something that can be postponed, my love,’ he said, speaking gently. ‘They deserve to know the truth face to face. I will not be gone long and Mother will look after you until I return.’
‘Of course,’ her ladyship said. ‘We will send for my dressmaker and have ‘er make up some gowns, and then go into Winchester and shop for everything else. Then I shall show you all over the estate. We’ll go riding and visiting in the phaeton. Will you like that?’
‘Yes, very much. Thank you.’
‘No need to thank me. You are my daughter now and it will give me great pleasure. You must ‘ave a maid. Rose is a good girl and she ‘elped me when Susan was indisposed last year. She will suit you very well, I think. I will send ‘er up to you when you retire.’
Jack took his leave the very next day, kissing her goodbye at the front door with every appearance of tenderness. ‘I will be back,’ he said, looking into her violet eyes and wondering when the sparkle would return to them, when he would once again see the humour and spirit of her shining from them. It was his fault they had disappeared; perhaps absenting himself from her for a time might bring the roses back into her cheeks.
‘Mother, you will look after her, won’t you? She has been through so m
uch and is very tired.’
‘Of course, she shall have everything she needs and wants. Now, off you go. And God bring you swiftly back.’
He climbed into the family coach with James and Nanette who had already said their goodbyes. They were taking a letter from Kitty to her uncle and stepmother, telling them of her marriage and asking their forgiveness.
She waved them out of sight and then turned back to her mother-in-law, who put an arm about her shoulders and smiled. ‘Now, Kitty, you are not to grieve. ‘E is only going to fulfil an unpleasant task and will be back before you know it.’
‘What will your friends and neighbours think of me?’ Kitty asked the Countess, two days later, when they were enjoying a ride in the phaeton. The estate was very extensive and covered parkland, pasture, woods, several farms, the river bank where the fishing was exceptional and the whole village of Beauworth. The weather was dry and warm and the workers were in the fields cutting the corn.
‘They will love you, why should they not?’
‘But they knew Gabrielle and that Jack loved her …’
‘Jack was a fool.’ It was said with such vehemence Kitty turned to look at her in surprise.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’
‘‘As Jack not told you?’
Kitty smiled. ‘He is hardly going to admit being a fool, is he?’
The Countess smiled. ‘No, I suppose not. But ‘e should ‘ave said something instead of leaving you to think it was a happy marriage.’
‘Nanette seemed to think it was. She said Jack was devoted to Gabrielle.’
‘What does Nanette know of it? She only saw them together very briefly at the start of the marriage when she was only a child. And Jack would never complain. ‘E is very good at ‘iding his feelings, but that does not mean ‘e does not feel deeply. Only we who are close to ‘im know how much she made ‘im suffer.’
Suffering. She had detected that in his eyes on several occasions. ‘What did she do?’
‘She was a virago, a taker. She gave nothing. Poor Jack tried to satisfy her, but the more ‘e gave, the more she demanded. She would not live ‘ere, said it was too dull, quarrelled with me, made Jack quarrel with me too …’
‘But it is Jack’s home,’ Kitty exclaimed. ‘And it is so beautiful and so peaceful, I cannot think how anyone could dislike it.’
‘She did not want peace, Kitty, she wanted excitement. She could not live without it and turned to anyone who could give it to her. She loved risk …’
‘She gambled?’
‘Yes, and not just with money, Jack could have borne that in moderation. She gambled with ‘is love, made ‘im live in France and, when the war came and the family was forced to flee, she spent more time with ‘er parents in London than ‘ere.’
‘It was from there she was abducted, wasn’t it? Nanette told me she was kidnapped by someone from the French Embassy.’
‘Abducted!’ Her ladyship gave a short bark of a laugh. ‘Jack told his cousin that, I expect. ‘Is pride. No, Kitty, you should know the truth. The man was her lover. She ran off with ‘im back to France. Her parents were distraught, as you can imagine, and they persuaded Jack to go after ‘er, to try and bring ‘er back. She betrayed ‘is whereabouts to the Revolutionary government and ‘e was arrested for ‘elping the comte de Malincourt to escape the year previously.’
‘That was when my brother saved him.’
‘Yes. Jack came back without Gabrielle, but ‘e was a changed man. His former sunny disposition turned to bitterness and anger. ‘E could not settle to anything. ‘E offered his services to the government as an agent and made several trips to France. Whether ‘e was still looking for ‘er, I do not know.’ She sighed heavily. ‘I was desolate every time ‘e went, afraid ‘e would never return.’
‘Why did he never tell me all this?’ Kitty asked. ‘It would have explained so much.’
‘‘E is a proud man, chérie. And you must not tell him of this conversation. ‘E would see it as betrayal. No doubt ‘e will tell you ‘imself in time.’
‘It does not matter. Now you have told me I understand.’ She could understand why he found it so difficult to love, to give his heart to someone else. When he came home, she would make a special effort to be loving, to make him see that he could trust her and she would not fail him.
‘I am so pleased ‘e ‘as found you,’ her ladyship said, squeezing her hand. ‘‘E deserves a little ‘appiness.’
Kitty stared down at their two hands, one heavily ringed and the other with none at all, wondering if she ought to tell this dear, kind lady that the marriage was no more than one of convenience, that her husband disliked her and that, if it had not been for that one terrible night, it could have been annulled. She looked at her and smiled wanly, but remained silent.
‘I can see you are still tired after your ordeal,’ her ladyship said. ‘We will forgo our visits today and go ‘ome so that you can rest. And, Kitty, I know Jack could not buy you a proper wedding ring, but I think you ought to wear one. I will find one for you, until Jack comes ‘ome and can buy you one.’
Kitty could hardly thank her for the tears which choked her.
A week passed in which she grew closer to her mother-in-law, learned the names of all the servants and was accepted by them and bought a wardrobe of new clothes, more than she needed or felt she ought to have, but the Countess would not listen to her protests. ‘You must dress befitting your rank, my dear,’ she said. ‘There is no question that Jack can afford it. And it will please me.’
She gave in and allowed the Countess to help her choose gowns, pelisses, cloaks, undergarments, shoes, boots, shawls, even things like fans and feathers and jewellery. ‘Of course, you will one day come into the family jewels,’ she told Kitty. ‘But, for now, I think a few pearls and simple gems will suffice, don’t you agree?’
‘Most assuredly I do. I am not used to so much.’
‘But you deserve it for making my son ‘appy.’
Kitty felt a fraud. She had not made Jack happy. He had shown no sign of being happy. Oh, he did not show his aversion to her in front of his parents or anyone else, but she knew it was there and it broke her heart.
Three days later, a letter arrived from her uncle. It was a long and loving letter. Jack had been to visit them and explained everything. They approved of the marriage and of course she was forgiven and the sooner she paid them a visit the happier they would be.
James and Nanette had arrived and were looking for a home in London. They had been most graciously received by Viscount Beresford, who had helped to find a publisher for James’s account of his travels in France, and now James was planning other works.
‘Jack has been to see Uncle William,’ Kitty told Lady Beauworth.
‘Well, naturally ‘e would,’ her ladyship said. ‘‘E would want to obtain your guardian’s blessing, even if it is a little late, and ‘e would want to smooth the way for you to go ‘ome for a visit. I would have expected nothing else from ‘im.’
The letter and Lady Beauworth’s comments cheered Kitty immensely and she began to look forward to making a visit to her old home. But not before Jack returned. Surely he would not have gone to see her uncle if he did not mean to remain her husband?
She began to watch for him every day. He would come home and they would make a fresh start. If she wanted her marriage to work, she must fight for it. She would risk a rejection and tell him she loved him, offer herself to him, tell him she asked nothing of him, but his good will. Love had blossomed from much less.
Her hopes were dashed when a letter arrived from Jack. She was in the breakfast parlour with her ladyship, when a servant brought the mail on a silver salver. The Earl had already left the house for the stables. One of his mares was foaling and he was particularly anxious over it.
Kitty turned the letter over in her hand, puzzled that Jack should write to her when he was expected home any day. But he wasn’t coming home, she discovered when she broke t
he seal and began to read.
‘Jack’s gone back to France,’ she gasped. ‘Oh, why did he do that? I can’t believe the War Department would make him go again.’
‘Oh, ma chérie, I am so sorry,’ her ladyship said. ‘‘E was always doing that to me, rushing off without a by-your-leave, but I never thought ‘e would do it to you. It is most inconsiderate of ‘im.’
‘And it’s dangerous,’ Kitty said. ‘If he’s caught …’
‘Oh, you must not think of that. ‘E will not take risks, not now ‘e ‘as you to come ‘ome to. We must be patient.’
But patience was not one of Kitty’s strong suits. She endured two days of idleness and then announced she was going to London. ‘I must find out why he went,’ she told Lord and Lady Beauworth. ‘I need to know what is so important that none but Jack may be trusted with it. It isn’t fair. He has already done enough.’
His lordship looked from Kitty to his wife, a question in his lifted brow. She nodded.
‘I think I should also like answers to those questions,’ he said. ‘I will accompany you. They will be more forthcoming with me at Horse Guards than with you. We will set off tomorrow.’
‘Take Rose to look after you,’ Lady Beauworth said. ‘I will go and tell ‘er to pack.’
On Jack’s instructions, the coachman had returned with the empty coach two days previously and it was soon made ready for the journey, with grooms sent ahead to arrange for changes of horses along the way.
The next day Kitty left her mother-in-law and Chiltern Hall, wondering if she would ever see them again.
Jack had obviously decided to absent himself so long as she was there and she could not be so selfish as to deprive him of his home. Her grand plans to welcome him back with love and forbearance, to be a proper wife to him, had fallen about her ears. There would be no reconciliation.
She sat in the corner of the comfortable coach, staring out of the window, hardly noticing the countryside they passed. Her mind was filled with Jack, going over and over things he had done and said on their travels through France, remembering the way he had protected her and made it possible for her to return to her home with her reputation intact. Her eyes filled with tears.
Jack Chiltern's Wife (1999) Page 20
