The Bargain

by Mary Jo Putney

  Jocelyn rose and gave her aunt a heartfelt hug. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, her voice choked with incipient tears. “I was going to travel down to Kennington tomorrow to see you. Is Uncle Andrew in London also?”

  “Yes, he had business at the Horse Guards. We are to meet later at a dinner party.” Eyes worried, Lady Laura guided her niece to the sofa so they could sit down together. “What’s wrong, darling? You look like death in the afternoon.”

  Jocelyn sat back on the sofa and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “It’s . . . complicated. Do you have time to talk before going out?”

  “You know that I always have time for you,” said her aunt, looking even more worried. “What do you wish to discuss?”

  Where to start? With the horrible mess she had made of her own and David’s lives? Or earlier, to the tragedy that had warped her life beyond repair?

  Face rigid, she said, “Tell me about my mother.”

  “You’ve always refused to talk about Cleo,” Laura said, startled. “Why do you ask now?”

  “Because I must understand,” Jocelyn answered harshly. “What kind of person was she? Why did my father divorce her? Was she as great a whore as everyone says?”

  “My dear girl, who ever told you that?” her aunt exclaimed, expression horrified.

  “Everyone! Do you remember the caricatures we saw in that print shop window?”

  The older woman winced. “I didn’t realize you were old enough to understand what the pictures and comments meant.”

  Lady Laura couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty when that episode had occurred, Jocelyn realized. She must have been as upset as her niece. More, perhaps, because she had to face vicious gossip in the salons and ballrooms of London every day. No wonder she had been eager to follow the drum with Andrew Kirkpatrick.

  “That day was hardly the only time.” Jocelyn’s mouth twisted. “Servants called her a harlot when they thought I couldn’t hear. So did the well-bred young ladies at that exclusive seminary in Bath my father sent me to, the one I ran away from. Then there was the noble lord who tried seducing me at his own daughter’s come-out ball because he assumed I was no better than I should be. ‘Like mother, like daughter,’ he said just before he shoved his tongue in my mouth.”

  “Dear God, why did you never tell me? Or your father?” Laura looked ill. “You always seemed so . . . so unconcerned. You were only four when your mother left, and you didn’t seem to miss her. If you ever asked what happened to her, I never heard of it. ”

  “Of course I didn’t ask!” Jocelyn began to tremble. “Even a small child knows what subjects are forbidden.”

  “Cleo was headstrong and she made some terrible mistakes, but she was no harlot,” Laura said emphatically. “She and your father had a whirlwind courtship and married within weeks of their meeting. When the first flames of passion burned out, they discovered they really had very little in common.”

  She shook her head sorrowfully. “They could have lived separate lives, like many fashionable people do, but each wanted the other to . . . to fulfill their dreams. Be a perfect lover. They could not accept each other as they were. The fights were extraordinary. They fought in public, they fought in private. There was some twisted kind of love between them that came out as anger and hatred. You don’t remember any of this?”

  “Oh, yes,” Jocelyn said, her voice a bare whisper. “I remember.” She squeezed her eyes shut as her father’s remembered shout sliced through her brain. “You’re a woman, which means you’re a greedy liar and a whore. God damn the hour I met you!”

  Her mother had responded with rage and smashed china, cursing her husband for his cruelty and faithlessness. Jocelyn had huddled unnoticed in a corner of the huge Charlton drawing room, riveted at the sight of her parents’ fury, too terrified to run away. The fight, and others, were seared into her soul.

  She pressed a hand to her midriff, trying to ease the pain that had been there for a lifetime. “My memories are patchy. Tell me what happened as you remember it.”

  Laura bit her lip. “By the time I made my come-out, your parents had reached the point of doing their utmost to hurt each other. Your father took one of the most notorious courtesans in London as his mistress, which was bad enough. The final explosion came when he dared flaunt her at one of Cleo’s balls, in this very house.

  “I was chatting with Cleo when Edward brought his mistress into the ballroom. Cleo turned dead white. She was an expert shot, and I think that if she’d had a pistol, she would have put a bullet through his heart. Instead, after a blazing row in front of half of fashionable London, she left the ball with Baron von Rothenburg, a Prussian diplomat who had been pursuing her.

  “Cleo and Rothenburg began a flamboyant affair that gave your father an abundance of evidence for a divorce. She never set foot in this house after the night of the ball. Your father refused to allow her back inside, even to collect her personal belongings. He had everything packed and delivered to Rothenburg’s, along with a challenge to a duel. Edward wasn’t wounded, but Rothenburg took a bullet in the lungs that contributed to his death five years later.”

  Jocelyn rubbed her aching temples. “Dear God, how many lives did that woman destroy?”

  “You mustn’t blame your mother for the divorce. It was every bit as much your father’s fault. Perhaps more so,” her aunt said bleakly. “I loved both Cleo and Edward, but they were bound together in some catastrophic fashion that brought out the worst in both of them.”

  “So she ran off with another man,” Jocelyn said with dripping scorn. “What a wonderfully moral solution to her problems.”

  “Cleo was no lightskirt. She would never have taken a lover if your father hadn’t driven her to it. She came to love Rothenburg, but he was a Catholic and his family wouldn’t countenance a divorced woman. Though he would have married her anyhow, she didn’t want him to become estranged from his family, so she stayed with him as his mistress until his death.”

  Fighting a reluctant trace of admiration for her mother’s refusal to ruin her lover’s relationship with his family, Jocelyn asked, “How did she die?”

  “The day after Rothenburg’s funeral, she took his stallion out riding and . . . and tried to jump a gully that was too wide. Both she and the horse were killed.” Laura closed her eyes, pain on her face. “Please don’t think too ill of her, Jocelyn. She might not have loved wisely, but she had a good heart, and she gave it generously.”

  So that was the full story of the noble, beautiful, passionate Cleo, Countess of Cromarty. The anguish that had lived with Jocelyn since she was a child erupted in excruciating waves. Leaping from the sofa, she paced across the room, her hands tearing frantically at each other. Barely able to speak, she cried out in a voice of raw agony, “If she was so wonderful, then what was wrong with me?”

  She spun around to face her aunt, tears pouring from her eyes. “What was so horribly, damnably wrong with me, that my own mother could abandon me without a single word? Without a shred of remorse or regret?”

  She tried to say more, but couldn’t. Joint by joint, she folded to her knees and crumpled into a crouch, arms clutching herself in a frantic attempt to staunch the primal wound that ravaged her spirit. “What did I do wrong?” she gasped, feeling as if she was being torn in half. “What did I do wrong?”

  “Dear God in heaven!” Laura exclaimed, her voice shaking. An instant later, she dropped on the floor beside Jocelyn and enfolded her in her arms, rocking her as if she was an infant. “My darling girl, is that what you have believed all these years? Why didn’t you ever ask me? I could have told you the truth.”

  “I knew the truth.” Jocelyn’s mouth twisted. “That my mother was a whore, and that she left me without a single backward glance.”

  “That’s not how it happened! Cleo tried desperately to get custody of you. Once she rode out to Charlton to see you when she thought Edward was in London, but he was home, and he threatened her with a horse
whip. He said he’d kill her if she ever tried to come near you again.

  “She tried to convince him that since you could not inherit the title, you should be with her. When he refused, she dropped down on her knees and begged him to let her see you, but he wouldn’t allow it.” Laura began to cry. “I was horrified, but it wasn’t until I had children of my own that I recognized the full depths of what she was suffering.”

  “It sounds to me as if my father discovered that I was most useful as a weapon to punish his hated wife,” Jocelyn said bitterly. “And maybe she wanted me for the same reason—to hurt him. I was the pawn between the feuding king and queen.”

  “Don’t confuse Edward’s fury with Cleo with his genuine love for you,” Laura said. “He told me later that he was terrified that she would steal you away to the Continent with Rothenburg, and he was right to fear that. In a divorce, a woman has no rights at all. Cleo was branded an adulteress in the eyes of the world, and the law wouldn’t raise a hand to help her. If she could have abducted you, I’m sure she would have. For the next five years, until Cleo died, your father made sure there was always a footman or other servant he trusted to guard you.”

  “Did he discharge my nurse, Gilly, because he feared she was loyal to my mother rather than him?”

  Laura sighed. “I’m afraid so. I told him it would be cruel to both you and Gilly, but he was afraid she might take you to your mother. Perhaps she would have. The servants adored Cleo. You are like her in many ways.”

  Losing warm, nurturing Gilly had been like losing her mother for a second time. Then Aunt Laura had been lost to marriage. By the time Jocelyn was five, she had known that to love someone was to lose them.

  Wondering at her aunt’s knowledge, she asked, “How did you learn so much about my mother’s thoughts and feelings?”

  “She had become my sister, and I couldn’t bear to lose her. We corresponded until Cleo died. I sent her drawings you had made, told her how you grew. After I married and left Charlton, I had the housekeeper write me about how you were so I could pass on the information to your mother. Cleo would ask if you ever talked about her, but you never said a word,” Laura said softly. “I could not bear to add to her unhappiness, so I lied and said that you spoke of her often.”

  “I thought of her all the time, but I was afraid to ask,” Jocelyn whispered.

  Laura stroked her head gently. “Why were you afraid?”

  Jocelyn squeezed her eyes shut, trying to make sense of this new view of the world. “I think that . . . that I believed that if I ever asked about her, Papa would send me away, too.”

  “He would never have done anything like that.” Laura hugged her. “He loved you more than anyone or anything else in his life. Since you never asked about your mother and seemed content, he decided it would be better for you if he never raised the subject. He was grateful because he thought you had escaped unscathed.”

  “Unscathed?” Jocelyn laughed, an edge of hysteria in her voice. “My whole life has been about their divorce.”

  “Neither of us dreamed that you took it so badly, or that you were the victim of such taunts and insults.” Sitting back on her heels, Laura said gravely, “But never doubt that you were loved. I think the main reason Edward never remarried was to have more time and attention for you.”

  “And here I thought he just liked having a passing parade of mistresses,” Jocelyn said acidly. That, too, had shaped her view of the world: men were fickle by nature. “Has Uncle Andrew been a faithful husband? Does such a thing even exist?”

  She immediately wished that she hadn’t asked, but her aunt said calmly, “Yes, Drew has been faithful. He gave me his word, and I have never doubted it. Just as he has never had occasion to doubt me.”

  “Are you two as happy as you seem?” Jocelyn asked in a small voice. “I’ve wondered if any marriage for people of our order can ever be happy.”

  “Such a cynic you’ve become,” Laura said with a sigh. “Yes, my dear, Drew and I are happy. Oh, we’ve had our disagreements—all couples do. But the love that first drew us together has only become stronger with the years.”

  Jocelyn asked unsteadily, “You think my mother really loved me?”

  “I know that she did. Cleo wrote me a letter just before her death. Later I realized that . . . that she was saying good-bye.” Laura swallowed hard. “She said that the greatest regrets of her life were losing you, and that she would never see you grow up. She sent you a gift, but I hesitated to pass it on. Because you always refused to discuss your mother, I didn’t want to risk upsetting you. If only I had been wiser.”

  She rose and extended her hand to help Jocelyn up. “Come along. It’s time to do what I should have done years ago.”

  Chapter 33

  Silently Jocelyn followed her aunt upstairs to the chamber the Kirkpatricks shared whenever they stayed at Cromarty House. And they always did share a bed, not like most couples of their class. More proof that perhaps marriage really could be happy.

  Lady Laura opened her jewelry box, removed a flat, oval-shaped cloisonné box about four inches long, and handed it to Jocelyn. It was a portrait case, and an exquisitely lovely one.

  Fumbling a little, Jocelyn found the catch in the side and opened the case. Inside was a miniature of a golden-haired woman, a striking beauty with hazel eyes. Set in the frame opposite the portrait was a piece of parchment with a delicate script that said, “To my daughter Jocelyn, with all my love.”

  Her hand closed convulsively around the cloisonné case as the sight of her mother’s face triggered a flood of memories. Playing in the garden, her mother weaving flowers into her hair. Exhilarated rides on her mother’s lap on a horse that skimmed across the hills of Charlton. Playing in a silk-and-lace filled dressing room, her mother casually unconcerned when Jocelyn accidentally ruined a new bonnet.

  Tears pouring silently down her cheeks, Jocelyn welcomed the good memories she had buried along with the unendurable pain. Her mother had loved her. Though she had left, she had looked back, as ravaged by the separation as Jocelyn had been.

  Her aunt put an arm around her shoulders and let her cry. When the tears finally stilled, Laura asked, “Do you understand your mother better now?”

  Jocelyn nodded. “I don’t know if the scars will ever go away, but at least now I know where they are, and how they came to be.”

  “Shall I stay with you this evening? I can easily forgo the dinner party.”

  “I’d rather be alone. I have a great deal of thinking to do.” She sighed. “Perhaps now I can sort out the muddle I’ve made of my affairs.”

  “Trouble with David?”

  “I’m afraid so. Serious trouble.”

  “He’s another one like Andrew, my dear,” Laura said quietly. “If you make your marriage a real one, David will never let you down.”

  “It may be too late for that.” Not wanting to say more, Jocelyn changed the subject by gesturing at her aunt’s gown. “You’ll have to change. Your gown hasn’t been improved by my weeping all over it.”

  “A small price to pay for having cleared the air after too many years,” Laura said as she rang for her maid. “You’re sure you’ll be all right tonight?”

  “Quite sure.” She kissed her aunt’s cheek shyly. “I always thought of you as my real mother. Now, I have two.”

  Laura smiled. “I wanted a daughter, but I could not have loved one of my own more than you.”

  Tears threatened them both, but her aunt’s maid entered before emotion gained the upper hand. As the maid clucked over her mistress’s rumpled gown, Jocelyn made her escape. Now that she had recovered her past, she must untangle the complications it had created in the present.

  A happy Isis purring on her lap, Jocelyn stayed up very late as she thought about her life, and her parents. Perhaps she should be angry with her father for depriving her of all communication with her mother, but Lady Laura’s explanation made her understand his reasons. Though she had always feared that his love
was fragile and might be withdrawn if she didn’t please him, he had given her the best of himself. That she didn’t trust his love was her failing, not his.

  She even understood his blasted, manipulative will. Though she had never revealed her reservations about marriage to him, he must have guessed that left to her own devices, she’d probably have died a spinster. Never subtle, the earl had arranged her life so that she had little choice but to confront her fears.

  She had always thought of herself as being like Lady Laura, and it was true that the physical resemblance was strong. But there was also much of Cleo in her. That business about pistol shooting, for example, not to mention the intense, headstrong disposition. Jocelyn had spent her life suppressing that side of her nature, but it was an integral part of her. If she was to accept her mother, she must also accept herself.

  So be it.

  Yet understanding and accepting the past was only the first step. One long, anguished conversation was not enough to make her feel that she was worthy of love. Even with her father and her aunt, she’d never felt fully loved. Always there had been the vague, not quite conscious fear that she was flawed beyond redemption, and that anyone who saw her clearly would leave her.

  Yet she yearned for love, which meant she must learn to see herself as lovable. Not an easy task. In her mind, she knew that she was a decent example of womankind. She tried to live up to the spiritual values of her faith. She was generous with her time and money, and tried to be kind. She did her best to value people as they deserved, rather than scorning all but those who were born to the same station in life she was. But it would take a long time to believe in her heart that she deserved love, if indeed she ever succeeded at that.

  Lord, she didn’t even know what love was. She had thought she was a little bit in love with the Duke of Candover, and even after all that had happened with David, the duke still had a hold on her mind. Was that love, or an illusion she had spun because her rational mind thought he would make a suitable husband—one who would never be overcome by the kind of destructive passion that had doomed her parents’ marriage?