Elisa picked up the letter. “Cian wrote to confirm the arrival of the train in Truro on Saturday. He has hired the Truro charabanc for the entire week because there will be so many people there this year. Because…oh, Jenny, Sharla will be there!”
Jenny picked up her mother’s hand as Elisa’s eyes filled once more and the tears rolled down her cheeks. Jenny’s chest tightened. “She is coming? Oh, that is good news!” Sharla had not attended a gathering for two years—not since marrying Wakefield. “Why didn’t Sharla write and tell us herself?”
Elisa pressed her lips together and glanced at the closed door. “I am to blame for that,” she admitted, her voice low.
“Mama, no, you cannot be!”
“I am. I challenged her. About her marriage.”
Jenny stared at her mother. “Why on earth would you do that?”
“I didn’t think she loved him,” Elisa said. She brushed at one of the flounces on her skirt, settling it properly.
“No one believed it was a true love match,” Jenny said. “Why would you ask her such a thing?”
Elisa fussed with the lace on the edge of the flounce. “I hoped there might be respect, at least. Some semblance of a relationship.”
Jenny felt her heart squeeze. “You wanted her to be happy…”
Elisa lifted her head. “Of course I wanted her to be happy. I want all my children to be happy!”
“That is what is making you cry, then?”
Elisa picked up the letter and smoothed the folds. “If Sharla is coming to Cornwall for the gathering and her husband is coming with her, then their relationship is not as empty as I thought it to be. Even if she cannot stand to speak to me yet, there is hope.”
Jenny gripped her hands. “I don’t understand,” she said. “You’re not angry with her for not speaking to you for over two years?”
“Of course I am not angry!” Elisa folded the letter and held it in her hands. “I was unforgivably rude. She was right to snub me, although I had to ask because I am her…well, I love her and I want only good things for her, as I do for you.” Elisa smiled at Jenny, her smile warm and gentle. “I am very proud of her, you see.”
Jenny could find no words to form a suitable response. How could Elisa possibly be proud of Sharla for turning her back upon the family as she had?
Elisa patted her hand. “Sharla was put in an impossible position by her family. She chose to meet her responsibilities and marry as they wished. She is a good woman and I am sure fate will smile upon her for her strength of character.”
Coldness gripped Jenny. It was the same icy lump that had formed in her chest the night Jack had told her about Mary. It was the same hard, hurting mass that had locked her heart, when Jack had told her on the train that his parents would not compromise and that the only choice left was to elope and face the wrath of the family after the deed was done.
“It is good that Sharla chose to be unhappy?” Jenny said, forcing her lips to work properly.
“It is good that she chose the honorable course,” Elisa replied. “It is the harder path, one that many of us have faced.” She smiled, this time sadly. “Women in particular are often confronted by the dilemma. The choice each of us makes says much about our true values. Sharla has demonstrated how worthy she is of esteem. Now, all I can hope for is that she has somehow found happiness in her choice. That is why I cried, you see.”
Jenny drew back from her mother. She felt ill.
The sickness did not dissipate. It stayed with her for the last five days they remained at Fairleigh Manor. The train journey to Truro made it worse. The last time she had stood upon a swaying train was with Jack, when he had proposed they elope. The reminder increased her despair. She felt hot and cold at once and her temples were damp. Her heart would not stop thudding.
Reading was impossible and embroidery barely more tolerable.
Jack was waiting at Truro for them, standing upon the platform with Cian and Will. Blanche and Emma greeted Jack with shouts and screams as he lifted them and teased them.
Vaughn gripped Jack’s hand and rested his own on Jack’s shoulder. There was pleasure in her father’s eyes. Pleasure and pride.
Jenny turned away, clutching at her bodice with clawed fingers, her gorge rising.
With tottering steps, she climbed down to the road behind the station and into the smallest of the carriages. “Leave at once,” she told the driver, for she could not sit and wait for anyone else in the family to join her in the carriage. Jack would have noticed the carriage she chose. He would try to join her there.
The driver tugged his brim and clicked the horse into moving and the carriage rattled down the unevenly cobbled street.
Relief touched her. Sooner or later, though, she must face Jack. The knowledge tempered her relief.
True to form, Jack found her shortly after the charabanc arrived at the house. He pushed through the trunks and people littering the gravel in front of the big house and caught her elbow. “Inside,” he murmured and guided her into the house.
There was a cupboard under the stairs that every child in the family had hidden in at least once over the years. It was a huge space, filled with dark corners and spiderwebs, old cricket gear and a rusty cutlass, riding crops and old coats that had been long forgotten.
Jack pulled her into the cupboard and shut the door.
“They’ll see us leave,” Jenny pointed out. “Everyone stands about the entrance for ages.”
“We’ll wait until they’re gone,” Jack said patiently. He pulled her closer. “You look ill, Jenny. You avoided me, at the train station.”
Jenny stepped away from him and pressed her glove to her lips. “Not now. Not here,” she pleaded.
“Then when? You know how little privacy there is, anywhere.”
It burst from her, with raw words she had never intended to use. “I can’t marry you, Jack.”
The harsh, cold fact, spoken aloud, made her cry.
“Shh….” He pulled her against him once more, this time purely for comfort. “You’ve made yourself sick over this. Tell me.”
Jenny couldn’t help it. She clung to him, gripping the fine broadcloth of his jacket, feeling the silk edging through the lace of her glove. With sentences broken by her hiccups and sniffles, she told him about her conversation with her mother, and Elisa’s extraordinary pride in Sharla.
“Everyone in the family looks up to you, Jack,” she finished. “Father in particular. If we elope, then we take all that away.”
He was silent for a long time. Then he spoke in a low voice. “That is my choice to make. I made it, on the train in August. And you may be wrong about what the family will think of us, Jenny. I’m sure you’re wrong. The family forgive almost anything, eventually.”
“Oh, they’ll accept it,” Jenny said. “They will have to accept it and they’ll put a good face on it for anyone outside the family. They always do, no matter what someone does or what they really think of it. Only, I don’t care what the rest of the world thinks of us. I do care what the family think about us and they will think less of us if we sidle behind their backs and force the issue.”
Again, Jack was silent. She could hear his heart against her cheek, strong and heavy.
“You are choosing to please the family, over my love,” he said at last.
She drew back from him. “No, Jack. Never. I am choosing to let the family continue to respect you, over my own happiness.”
“You have no idea how they will react if we eloped. You’re making assumptions based on fear.” Anger stirred in his voice.
“I might be,” Jenny admitted. “Tell me you don’t have the same fear.”
He stirred. In the light that was pouring through the chinks around the door, his eyes glittered. “I can’t,” he said heavily.
Her eyes stung with fresh tears. “Well, then,” she whispered.
Outside, in the entrance, silence settled. Everyone had moved onward, into the big room with the tall windows.
“I must go,” Jenny said.
“Meet me in the maze after lunch,” he said quickly.
“Why?”
“I want to see your face. I won’t end this in a musty cupboard. If we are to do the honorable thing, Jenny, then let us end it with dignity.”
She could not dispute him. “Very well,” she said woodenly.
Jack opened the cupboard door with cautious slowness, while she wiped her cheeks dry with her gloves.
He nodded. She slipped out onto the flagstones in the entrance, then moved into the big drawing room where everyone was gathered. Her heart was a heavy lump of iron. Later, she would have to face squarely the decision she had just made. Only, there could be no introspection now. The first day of any gather was always a loud one, full of excited conversations as everyone circulated the room and spoke to everyone else.
The excitement level spiraled when, in the middle of lunch, Sharla arrived with Wakefield at her shoulder.
The conversation around the lunch table descended into silliness as the excitement loosened tongues. Jenny barely listened. She ate her soup mechanically. Despite knowing it would be the very last time she would ever be alone with Jack and that their meeting was to formalize the end of their relationship, she looked forward to seeing him in the maze with a powerful anticipation. All she had to do was get through the meal and the endless enquiries about her year.
Then Sharla spoke, catching Jenny’s attention. “Tell me, Cian, are you still determined to marry into the family, now you have us perched on your doorstep?”
Everyone about the table groaned or rolled their eyes.
“And Sharla is back amongst us once more, with her direct questions,” Lilly said.
Cian frowned. “I told Lilly that…years ago.”
“I warned the rest of the family,” Lilly said, with a smile. “Even the grouse get to hear the dog when it draws near.”
Will shook his head. “Marriage and motherhood haven’t softened you, either,” he teased.
“Thank God,” Jasper added, his hand on Lilly’s shoulder.
Lilly rested her hand over his, with a warm smile.
“How is little Seth?” Sharla asked.
“Pining for brothers,” Jasper said.
“Which he’ll have before the end of the year,” Lilly added, her hand pressing against her waist.
Jenny gripped the napkin in her lap, as a spurt of hot, horrible resentment spilled through her at Lilly’s news.
As everyone in the pavilion congratulated Lilly and Jasper, Jenny kept her gaze in her lap, trying to contain the misery building in her.
She wanted Jack. She wanted his children.
How could she refuse him? Oh…but she must, for his sake!
“May I ask, Lord Innesford,” Wakefield said, raise his voice above the murmur of a dozen conversations. “Are you still committed to marrying inside the family?”
Cian’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you ask, Lord Wakefield?”
“Oh, Wakefield will do,” he replied. “Especially in this casual environment. I ask, because I am curious to know how many of your extended cousins will be forced to search outside the family for spouses, if everyone is as keen to find a husband or wife from among you.”
Jenny drew in a miasmic breath. She would be one of those unfortunates! In choosing to do the right thing, she would give up a secured place in the family, with one of the family. She would give up Jack, whom she knew and loved and trusted because she had grown up with him.
“He has you there,” Princess Annalies said. “Simple mathematics and a calendar prove not everyone can share that wish.”
“Not everyone here wants a husband from amongst us,” Lilly said.
From where Jenny was sitting, she could see Jasper was holding Lilly’s hand beneath the table.
Cian shook his head. “Jasper was nearly family.”
“We don’t want to marry cousins,” Mairin said, her arched brows lifting even higher.
Bridget, her twin, and sitting next to her as usual, nodded. “It would be like marrying your brother!”
“Ugh,” someone whispered.
Jenny turned her head, trying to see who had made that disgusted sound. Her heart hammered, the sickness that had gripped her for days swooping back to settle in her stomach and her chest.
Did everyone feel that way about marrying cousins?
What would they have thought about Jenny marrying Jack? They were practically brother and sister!
“There are benefits to marrying someone whom you once thought of in brotherly ways,” Aunt Natasha said.
“Exactly,” Cian said. “Although, I much prefer a cousin of the sisterly variety, of course.”
“Which is why I warned everyone,” Lilly added.
Everybody laughed.
“Well, I won’t marry you, cousin,” Bronwen called from the far end of the table. “I have no intention of ever getting married.”
“You will never be asked, if you don’t put up your hair and wear shoes occasionally,” Cian shot back.
“A corset would help, too,” Annalies added, with a despairing sigh.
The rest of the family teased Bronwen for her wild ways. Jenny sat back, unable to eat another spoonful of soup, her thoughts swooping and diving, batting at her like nesting birds, to peck and prick her conscience.
Before the meal had ended, Jenny moved out of the tent. If she left before anyone thought about what they might do after lunch, she could avoid claims for her attention and becoming entangled in any games or adventures.
She made her way to the maze, her heart working too hard and her vision swimming. The conversation at lunch had opened her eyes to the way the family thought about marriages inside the family. How had she not known this before? Both she and Jack had dismissed the issue. Instead, they had focused upon loftier ideals, like honor and duty.
She reached the center of the maze and sat upon the stone bench, even though the last thing she wanted to do was sit. Despite the rows of hedging, the sounds of the family finishing their meal—calling for coffee and brandy, tea and more custard, please—was loud. It sounded as though they were just on the other side of the innermost layer of bushes. In fact, the pavilion was around the corner of the big house. The volume did not ease Jenny’s heart.
She leapt to her feet again as soft steps sounded from around the last turn of the maze.
Jack appeared. He saw her and breathed out a deep sigh of relief, as he glanced over his shoulder.
“Did anyone see you?” Jenny asked, keeping her voice low.
“I headed for the stables and came right around the house to get here.” He moved closer. He’d taken off his jacket and rolled his shirt sleeves out of the way. Jack liked cricket. He and Will were both bowlers. Jack had been bowling when Jenny had first noticed he had become a man, three years ago. She had watched his big body moving as he ran and tossed the ball, her heart quickening.
Her heart skittered even now, as Jack inched closer to the bench. “Their talk of marrying cousins…” She swallowed. “Oh, Jack, we’re more than that! We’re nearly brother and sister!”
He settled his hand against her waist. She could feel the heat of it through her corset, which did little to stifle her heart.
“We’re not related. Not at all,” he said, his voice low.
“We grew up in the same house.”
“That means we know each other better than most husbands and wives.” His lips brushed hers.
Jenny sighed as they pressed more insistently. His tongue touched her lips. Slid inside her mouth. She trembled as heated longing rushed through her. How could she deny this?
Jack stroked her cheek, then picked up her hand. “Come with me.”
“Where?”
“The carriage house.” His gaze met hers.
Jenny drew in a shaky breath. She understood what he was not saying. If she went with him, this moment would not end with the wild, desperate kisses with which all such moments ha
d ended, for a year now.
“What else is there, for us?” Jack said, as if he read her mind.
Indeed. What else was there? Any formal union between them was impossible. Jack’s real mother, Lady Victoria, had seen to that. Honor and duty dictated it, too.
Jenny’s eyes stung with building tears. She nodded and let Jack draw her through the maze. His instincts were sure, as they always were. Ending things this way would close the Pandora’s box they had opened with that first, damning kiss.
Chapter Eight
Five Years Ago: The Great Family Gathering, Innesford, Cornwall. October 1862
The steps up to the door of the modest carriage house were on the other side of the stables from the croquet court, the cricket pitch, and the salt bushes that lay between the garden and the cliffs down to the sea. It meant that no one would see Jack and her climbing them, with Jenny’s hand firmly in his.
Jenny thought she should shriek with trepidation over what they were about to do. At the least, she should be as nervous as any maiden on her wedding night, for that was what this was—a time for a wedding that would never be.
Yet all she felt was a sad calmness.
The single room was large enough for a bed and a wardrobe, a dressing table under the window and a stool in front of it. A chest of drawers sat against the remaining wall, and a faded carpet covered the floor in the middle of the room.
There was an equally faded and worn eiderdown covering the bed and no pillows. Jack lifted the corner of the eiderdown and Jenny saw bare mattress ticking. The bed was not made.
“I don’t care,” she said, when Jack grimaced.
“I do.” His voice was harsh and low. “In my mind, this time was always…there was always fine cotton sheets and satin covers, soft light and champagne.” He glanced around the room. “Instead, we have this, broad daylight and the smell of salt.”
Jenny stepped closer to him. “That is exactly how it should be. Don’t you see? We’re here, in Cornwall, and just beyond the walls are all the people we love and don’t want to disappoint. It is right that it happens here.”
Jack pressed his hands to her waist. “How do you do that? How do you make the hardest decision I’ve ever made feel right and good?”
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