Elizabeth Mansfield (28 page)

More blue-deviled than he remembered ever having been before, he entered the house and absently handed his hat and cane to Parks. He was so absorbed in his own misery that he didn't notice the butler's quivering chins. But Parks could not contain his excitement. "She's here, my lord," he whispered urgently. "Our Miss Jane. She's been waiting for you in the library."

Luke, on his way to the stairs, froze in mid-motion. Then he turned slowly, as if his butler were holding a gun to his back. "Jane
Douglas?"
he asked in a voice so hoarse he did not recognize it.

"Yes, my lord," Parks said, agog with all sorts of promising speculations, "she arrived just after you left for the club."

Luke's brows rose, and he peered at his butler for a moment as if the man had spoken in a foreign language. Then, without a word, he turned and strode quickly toward the library.

Parks ran after him. "She would not say if she's staying," he said. "I don't know if I should have a room prepared for her or order the carriage."

"Later, Parks," Luke said shortly and, crossing over the threshold of the library, closed the door in the butler's eager face.

Jane was standing high up on the library ladder, reaching for a book. His pulse began to race at the charming sight she made, but he warned himself not to let down his guard. She'd probably come on a mundane matter of business, not for any personal reason. "I seem to remember discovering you this way before," Luke remarked, studiedly casual.

Jane gasped and, clinging to the side of the ladder, blinked down at him. "I did not expect you so early, my lord," she said, breathless and discomposed. "I was trying to find something to read while I waited."

"What? Had you no accounts to review?" the Viscount asked coldly.

"I... did not come to work on your accounts."

"Indeed? Then perhaps you should come down and tell me why you're here." He took the few steps necessary to bring him to the ladder. "Do you wish to fall down into my arms again, or will you climb down on your own?"

"Since you said, the last time, that I was too fat to hold, I shall climb down on my own, thank you."

"I never said you were too fat." He reached up, lifted her by her waist and set her down on the floor. "I said you were an armful. Quite another thing."

"Oh?" She looked up at him, blushing. "A more flattering thing?"

Not in the mood for badinage, he turned away from the flirtatious glint in her eyes. "If not to do the accounts, ma'am, why are you here?" he asked.

"I would like to tell you," she said timidly, "but not to your back."

"I'm sorry," he muttered, not turning, "but I haven't the courage to face any more of your frontal assaults."

She put a light, imploring hand on his shoulder. "This is no assault, Luke, I promise you."

"I hope not," he said, turning to face her, but with obvious reluctance. "I've not yet recovered from your last broadside."

"Was my refusal really so painful to you?"

"Good God, woman," he said in disgust, "how do you think a man feels when, for the first time in his life he

declares his love for a girl, and that declaration is thrown back in his face because she finds him degenerate?"

"I would think the blow would be softened by his realization that she loves him anyway."

He gulped. "Does she?" He grasped her shoulders and fixed her with a look of frightening intensity. "Don't play with me, Jane!" he commanded. "My emotions are too raw to endure these no-I-don't, yes-I-do games. What are you trying to tell me?"

"Oh, Luke"—she sighed—"I do love the look of you when you're angry."

He glared at her. "That is no answer!"

"Yes, it is. Part of the answer. I love the look of you when you laugh, too." She loosed one arm from his hold and lifted her hand to smooth the frown from his face. "I love you so much I don't care if you're degenerate or not."

He expelled a long, deep breath. He wasn't sure she'd said what he thought she'd said, but something inside him had heard the words well enough, for the stone of Sisyphus rolled off his chest and melted away. The sudden lightness made him dizzy. He pulled her into his arms. "Did you say you loved me?"

She hid her face on his shoulder. "Yes, I said it. I love you. My very words. I've been saying them to myself from that very first day, when I was an armful to you."

He made her look at him. "I can't believe it!" he exclaimed, studying her face as if he'd never seen it before. "All that time? Through all my excesses, my gambling, my drunkenness, my stolen kisses?"

"Especially the kisses," she said, reddening again.

He had to kiss her then. And then once more. The third kiss was so fervent they were breathless when he let her go. Weak in the knees, she had to lean against him for support. He held her with both arms and put his lips on her hair. "I'm not really so degenerate, my love," he said softly. "I know I'm not worthy of you, that my life has been wasteful and frivolous and wild, but even at my worst I would never lie to you or use you ill. And I can change. I'm ready and eager to become anything you wish—a proper squire of my estates, a member of the Lords where I might do some good—anything to make you proud of me. But one thing is certain: if you wed me, I promise I shall never make a wager again, on anything."

Her head came up abruptly, and a look of alarm crossed her face. "No, no," she cried, "don't say that! I don't want to change you. Forgive me for calling you degenerate. You are no more a degenerate than I am a prude, although we seemed so to each other for a time. I don't want you ever again to think of me as a bad influence."

"How can my brilliant beloved speak so foolishly? You surely must have understood that, even when I called you a bad influence, I knew you were exerting the very best influence on me."

"No, you mustn't go on like this!" she begged, placing her fingers on his mouth to stop him. "Why should I wish to alter what I love so dearly? Please, Luke, let me be a loving wife to you, not the arbiter of your morals, and not your Constable of Finance."

Overwhelmed by her words, he gently took her face in his hands. "Very well, my love," he said, kissing away the worried look in her eyes, "I promise never again to think of you as my Constable of Finance. And I'll go to the club occasionally and drop a few hundred pounds at the gaming tables, to prove to you I'm still the reprobate you evidently want me to be—although I'm certain that I'll always prefer staying at home with my enchanting wife. And I'll hire a man to do the accounts. Of course, I imagine you'll look over the books occasionally, to make sure I'm not being diddled. After all, of what use is it to have a wife who's a genius with numbers if she never puts that talent to use?"

Jane threw her arms about his neck in delirious relief. "Oh, Luke," she said with a sigh, "I do love you so!"

He responded to this very satisfactory declaration with a passionate embrace. In the midst of it, however, they heard a discreet knocking at the door. He lifted his head. "It's Parks," he muttered in annoyance. "I suspect that everyone in this household is speculating on what is occurring in this room at this moment. Of course, Parks will only ask where you are to sleep tonight."

'Tell him I'll go to my usual bedroom."

"I don't see why the Rose Bedroom won't do. You are a special guest—my betrothed, in fact—not my business agent. And you needn't fear that I'd do any nighttime wandering until we are safely wed."

Jane, aglow at the word
betrothed,
felt incapable of sensible thought. "The Rose Bedroom? How lovely that would be! But then the whole staff would guess—"

"Let 'em!" Luke laughed. With a quick kiss on her hand, he went to the door and threw it open.

Parks stood in the doorway, his eyes flitting curiously from Luke's face to whatever he could see over his lordship's shoulder. "I regret to interrupt you, my lord," he said in exaggerated obsequiousness, "but Hodgkins doesn't know if he should keep the carriage in readiness. Is Miss Jane returning to Cheshire tonight?"

Luke gave the butler a bland, noncommittal and very small smile. "I wouldn't wager on it," he said.

EPILOGUE

Jane's heart thumped rapidly she ran up the stairway leading to the visitors' gallery of the House of Lords, the thumping caused not by her dash up the stairs but by fear—fear that she might be late. The baby had been fretful, and she hadn't been able to tear herself away from him until he'd settled down.
I
can't be late!
her inner voice cried as she lifted her skirts to race up the last few steps,
not today!
Luke was about to make his maiden speech before this august body, and the occasion was something she would hate to miss. It was too important an event not to be shared by both of them.

She found the narrow gallery more crowded with visitors than she'd expected. About two dozen strangers were crowded at the railing, looking down at the rows of peers seated on long benches in the hall down below. A quick glance along the row of visitors, and Jane spotted Lady Martha, with Taffy standing next to her. She edged her way over to them. "Am I late?" she asked breathlessly.

"No," her mother-in-law assured her. "They haven't called him yet. Lord Gavin has been prosing on for the past half hour. Is little Benjy all right?"

"He's fine," Jane said. "He was just a bit peevish. Meggie was putting him to bed when I left."

Taffy, who'd been scanning the faces of the hundreds of peers seated below to find his friend, identified him at last.
"There
he is!" he cried, pointing. "Look at him! He seems cool as ice."

Jane looked down at her husband, her breast swelling with pride. Luke was quite impressive sitting there among the formally clothed peers, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes fixed on the speaker with rapt attention. Relieved that she'd apparently not missed anything important, Jane slipped her cloak from her shoulders and looked about. "Who are all these people?" she whispered to Taffy. "Are they here to hear Luke?"

"Most of them," Taffy replied. "Those fellows over there are a contingent of the Corinthian set. They've heard that Luke is to speak today, and they've come out in support of one of their own. And those elderly fellows grouped at your right are members of Brooke's club."

"Really?" Jane glanced over at them in surprise. "I shouldn't have expected gambling gentlemen to interest themselves in the arguments about the corn laws."

A bewhiskered gentleman standing behind her laughed. "No, that doesn't interest us," he declared, not at all embarrassed at having eavesdropped. "A number of us at Brooke's have wagered on the possibility that Kettering'11 make an ass of himself, and we want to see the outcome for ourselves."

"Indeed!" Lady Martha whirled about and fixed a cold eye on the gentleman's face. "If you've put money on
that
possibility, my good man, then
you're
the ass!" she snapped. She'd traveled down from Cheshire especially to hear her son's first public address, and she did not enjoy learning that some of the observers were hoping he'd fail.

Taffy glared at the fellow, too. He'd also come a long distance to be on hand for this occasion, despite Adela's objection. (His wife had called him cruel to leave her behind in Devon when she was just barely recovering from the birth of her second daughter, but he'd pointed out that, in the first place, he could not be expected to miss the debut in the Lords of his very best friend; that, in the second place, it wasn't his fault she'd given birth a full two weeks before the anticipated date; and, thirdly, that he would, in any case, be gone from her side for only two days.) "Seems to me, Colonel Foster," he scolded the gambler, "that we, fellow members of Brooke's, ought to stand together."

"Nothing personal, old man," Foster replied with a shrug. "We're all fond of Kettering. But any excuse for a wager, y'know."

Jane was paying no heed to this exchange. She stood at the railing with her hands clenched at her breast, gazing down at her husband, her eyes alight in anticipation. Her only regret was that her ten-month-old son was too young to be present at this significant moment of his father's life.

When Lord Gavin concluded his remarks, and the Lord High Chancellor rose to call Luke's name, Jane's chest tightened. She wondered if Luke, too, was clenched in his innards. After all, he intended to express opposition to the popular view of the corn-laws question—an extremely difficult stance to take in a maiden speech. But he rose to his feet with apparent calm, and his voice was firm as he stated at the outset that he was strongly opposed to the corn-laws proposal. Ignoring the shouts of disapproval that came from all around him, he proceeded to explain how the laws had, in their four-hundred-year-old history, produced more harm than good, proving his point with facts and figures so specific that, for the moment, the opposition was silenced. "History proves," he declared, "that the benefits would accrue only to the landed gentry at the expense of the farm laborers."

This bald statement enraged the peers, and they let the speaker know it by hooting, hissing, and stamping their feet in angry disapproval.

Jane wanted to slay them all.
Let him speak!
she cried to herself.
Open your selfish minds and listen to him!
She wanted him to shout them down, to assert himself, to express some of the fury she was feeling. But Luke only paused, held a hand out for silence, and waited with calm patience for the uproar to subside. Then he went on, giving a graphic description of the plight of a typical farm laborer, citing in exact numbers the dismal effect the new proposals would have on this bleak situation. "Yet if we vote
against
the com-laws proposal," he suggested, "we'd give evidence to the entire population that we, for once, are concerned more for the welfare of the country than for our own selfish gain."

A wave of murmured dissents filled the room. Luke ignored it. "Must we continue to uphold bad laws?" he asked, a quiet conviction underlining his remarks. "There is nothing noble in maintaining a superior position over powerless men," he concluded. "True nobility comes in being superior to our previous selves."