Elizabeth Powell (18 page)

His resonant chuckle rippled like water over velvet. “Try what you will, wife, but you cannot drive me off so easily.”

“We shall see about that,” she muttered.

What had he done?

Sebastian groaned. The plaguey imp would have made one of the best Captain Sharps of his acquaintance; she
had gulled him like a green youth. He had been so certain that she had been bluffing, but she’d played her hand to the hilt.

As she had promised, one of the maids, a perky redheaded creature called Meg, had roused him at an ungodly early hour, informing him that Miss Jane needed him down in the main stable. He had uttered a blistering oath, then buried himself under the covers. Meg had persisted, puttering about his room while humming an offkey ditty, flinging open the curtains so the morning sun streamed through his east-facing window, until he could not take the torture any more. With a roar he had flung himself out of bed. He probably should have warned poor little Meg in advance that he slept in nothing but what God had given him; she had taken one look at his naked form, gasped in dismay, and fled.

He may have won that battle, but the war had only just begun. It had not taken him long at all to realize that the entire staff at Wellbourne, from the scullery maids to the coachman, knew who he was, and what he had done to “their Miss Jane.” Most of them, though properly polite and deferential, succeeded in making him feel like an unwanted intruder; conversations stopped mid-sentence at his approach, followed by stretches of glacial silence. Will, the head groom, took particular delight in giving him the dirtiest, most back-breaking jobs in the stable. After a week of doing nothing but mucking out stalls, Sebastian had little to show for it but a few blisters, a sunburn, and wretchedly aching muscles.

But he was not going to throw in his cards yet and admit that a slip of a girl and her servants had gotten the better of him. Although he resented the hard work, after a few days he found that he was beginning to enjoy it—once the worst of the aches had subsided, that is. He had
not touched a drop of anything stronger than Madeira in days and no longer woke each morning with a muzzy head. His body had begun to adapt; his muscles were beginning to harden and no longer protested with such vehemence when he picked up a pitchfork. His head seemed clearer, his mind sharper, than it had been in years.

And he would never have suspected that he would develop an affinity for the Leicestershire countryside. The slight breeze that ruffled his hair this morning smelled of freshly turned earth and new-mown hay, rather than the coal smoke and the stench of the Thames that hung heavily over the streets of London. Birdsong caroled from nearly every tree and hedge, far preferable to the constant cries of street vendors and the noisy rumble of cart and carriage wheels on cobbled streets. Dew lay heavy on the grass, gilded to a diamond brightness by the midmorning sun. He could not remember the last time he had seen dew in London.

Most importantly of all, he was beginning to learn a great deal about his wife. Although she had a small army of servants to run Wellbourne, she walked down to the stables every morning, going first to Mr. Finley’s office, then talking with the grooms and wandering down the rows of box stalls, giving a pat or a handful of oats to the horses lodged there. She spoke with Wellbourne’s head trainer, Mr. Monk, about the progress of their young horses. She inspected the paddocks and fences, then issued any necessary instructions; every man, from the most hulking laborer to the smallest stable boy, treated the tiny “Miss Jane” with the utmost respect. At first he had been piqued that no one referred to her as Lady Langley, but it made sense. Jane did not want the title any more than she had wanted this marriage.

In the afternoon, she would retreat back to the Jacobean style manor house, a lovely red brick construction ornamented with gables, turrets, and dozens of mullioned windows, to keep the accounts and greet callers from the neighborhood. After three o’clock she would don her dark green riding habit and mount Tamerlane, her longlegged gray gelding, and disappear into the fields at a breakneck gallop.

By the time the two of them sat down for dinner at opposite ends of the massive dining table, both were usually too tired to keep up much of a conversation. Which was just as well, he supposed—since he had come to Wellbourne, Jane had not shown much enthusiasm for talking to him at all. What they did manage to say to each other was stilted and awkward, at best.

Working in the stables had given him a unique perspective of her life and the people who shared it. While her employees doted on her with the familiarity of longstanding service, the local gentry showed her no such kindness. He ascertained that Mrs. Wingate, the mother of Jane’s nearest neighbor, and Lady Ainsley, the wife of the local baronet, were the worst. These two tabbies were responsible for the gossip running rampant, most of it about Jane, yet still they had the temerity to call on her and offer their sympathies for her plight. Sympathies—bah. He would wager they kept coming for the express purpose of finagling more information out of Jane, which they would then turn around and use against her. Sebastian found himself gritting his teeth whenever he spied either lady’s carriage coming up the drive.

He had attempted to talk to Jane after their latest visit, but she remained pale and tight-lipped.

“They came to spew their usual venom, my lord,” she said dismissively. “Lady Ainsley in particular was a
bosom-bow of my mother, so you would think I should be immune to such hypocrisy and ill will.”

“But I can see it still pains you,” he replied in a quiet voice. “Why have you told no one but your staff about my presence here? It might spare you any further distress.”

She turned on him, the stormy shade of her eyes a match for her thunderous expression. “And what will they say when you leave for London and do not return? It will only make matters worse. I do not need you to protect me, my lord.”

She strode away, her entire body stiff with outrage. He watched her go, fighting back his own anger. She did not need him? From what he had seen, she did not need anyone. She kept herself aloof and detached, immersing herself in the daily management of Wellbourne. Perhaps he had been mistaken; the imp was not lonely, after all. She was too busy to feel lonely—or feel much of anything, for that matter.

Exasperated, he stalked back down to the stables, picked up his pitchfork, and started in on the next stall with an excess of anger-fed energy. She did not need him. He tossed a forkful of soiled straw into the wheelbarrow. She did not need anyone. And she had simply assumed that he would return to London without a second thought. His coming to Wellbourne in the first place, his tolerance of being treated like a servant, all meant nothing to her. Damned irritating creature. Maddening, headstrong, stubborn, plaguesome … Forkful after forkful of straw went into the wheelbarrow with each word; he ran out of bedding before he ran out of epithets.

He leaned on his pitchfork, breathing hard from exertion. “Do not punish her,” his father had said. Punish her? ‘Twas
she
who was punishing
him
! He had come here to
mend his fences with her—devil take it, he had even agreed to do manual labor, of all things!—but she remained as unyielding and unforgiving as ever.

He had had enough. Come morning, he would pack up his things and return to London. Like a petulant child, she had done nothing but turn up her nose at his every overture of goodwill. He’d be damned if he’d stay here and make an even greater fool of himself.

He set his pitchfork aside and wandered out into the passageway between the rows of box stalls, kicking at the loose straw that littered the ground. Several horses stuck out their heads as he did so, their ears pricked forward. A blaze-faced bay whickered softly at him.

“Easy there, my girl,” he murmured, and gently rubbed at the whorl of hair on the horse’s broad forehead. He
would
miss this; he had grown fond of these beasts, this sweet-natured bay mare in particular. He had not been in the saddle since his own mare had pulled up lame, and that was over a month ago. Before he left, perhaps he could convince Mr. Finley to let him take this lady out for a brief gallop.

A noise distracted him. What was that? He cocked an ear. It sounded for all the world like a woman sobbing. No, he must be mistaken. A woman, in the stables? Jane was still up at the house. Must be one of the maids. Or was it?

Curious, Sebastian gave the bay mare a last, absent pat, then walked slowly toward the source of the sound. In the last stall, a small figure in a green riding habit leaned against Tamerlane’s withers, her arms thrown around the horse’s neck, sobbing as if her heart were broken.

“Jane?” he asked softly.

She gasped, then quickly ducked her head and brushed
the tears from her face. “I—I did not see you standing there, my lord,” she stammered.

“So I noticed.” He had learned early on in his labors that a jacket and waistcoat only got in the way when mucking out stalls; he stood before her in his shirtsleeves, his collar open at the throat, without even so much as a handkerchief to offer her.

Her hands shaking, she daubed at the lingering moisture with the cuff of one sleeve. “I suppose you would not believe me if I said I had something in my eye.”

“I would believe whatever you cared to tell me,” he replied in the gentlest tone at his command.

A fresh wave of moisture glittered on her lashes; she quickly blotted it away. “I … wanted to get away from the house for a time.”

Apparently she was not immune to the harpies’ venom. The thought heartened him. Maybe she
did
need someone, after all.

He stepped closer and stroked the gray’s neck. “I will wager this fellow makes a very good listener.”

That earned him a watery smile. “He does. He never passes judgment, never gossips, and never interrupts.”

The gelding snuffled him, then lipped at his sleeve.

“He is a fine horse,” Sebastian commented. “I first admired him when we met in Hyde Park, but upon closer inspection he is nothing short of magnificent. If you had another like him, I would snap him up in an instant.”

“Then I fear you would have to wait a rather long time,” she said. “Most of our most promising three- and four-year-olds have already been purchased in preparation for the next hunting season. We have a few older horses that my father bred, but I cannot bring myself to part with them.”

“You must miss him very much.”

“More than you can imagine.” Her tentative smile faded. The gray nickered and nudged at her shoulder. “The farm will never be the same without him, and although I do my best to manage things as he would have wanted, we are not doing as well as I should like; gentlemen are not accustomed to purchasing their hunters from a lady.”

“I wish you would let me help you,” he murmured.

She averted her gaze and reached up to twirl a lock of the gelding’s mane between her fingers. “Do you know how my father died, my lord?”

“I confess I do not.”

A single, silvery tear trailed down her cheek. “Papa was one of the most even-tempered men in the world; rarely did anything trouble him. Except, that is, for my mother and her constant carping. You see, breeding horses for the hunt may be a genteel occupation, but it is too close to trade for a high stickler like her. No matter how hard my father tried to please her, nothing was ever good enough—not the renovations to the manor house, not her wardrobe full of fashionable clothes, not her case full of jewels.” Bitterness limned her words.

“Go on,” he coaxed.

“About three years ago she began to visit London for weeks at a time. She told my father that she went to visit a cousin of hers who was feeling poorly and needed her care.”

Sebastian raised an eyebrow. Never in his brief acquaintance with Lady Portia had he known the woman to care for anyone but herself.

“My father may have been a mere ‘Honorable,’ my lord, but he was not blind, nor was he a fool. He knew exactly what she was doing, and it crushed him. He loved my mother. I cannot explain why, but he did.

“Soon after he made that discovery, he took to the bottle. Not that I noticed, at first, but gradually he began to drink so much that he could not rise before noon, and some days he could not get out of bed at all.”

“So you stood in for him,” Sebastian guessed.

She nodded. “Mama would not. Pen could not. I was the only one left.”

“How old were you?”

“Sixteen.”

Sebastian muttered a hot, utterly scathing imprecation beneath his breath.

“But I was not alone—not entirely,” she hastened to add. “Mr. Finley saw what was happening, too, and did what he could to help, although we were not able to conceal the problem from the staff for long. In the end, the servants knew to come to me instead of my father.”

The viscount’s fingers tightened into a fist. Heat sizzled through his veins. What sort of man relied on his schoolroom-aged daughter to run his estate? And what sort of mother allowed it to happen? Small wonder the imp was so serious; she had had responsibility thrust upon her at an early age. “How long did this go on?”

“A year, perhaps a little longer; I lost track of time after a while. The stables began to suffer as fewer and fewer gentlemen wanted to deal with my father.”

“That must have been very painful for you to watch.”

“It was. Then one night my father decided he wanted to ride Pharaoh, one of our young stallions. Drinking made him belligerent, and he was already half-seas over. A few of the grooms tried to stop him but could not. Will still bears a scar from where my father struck him with his riding crop.”

“What happened, Jane?” he asked softly.

“Pharaoh was young and not used to being manhandled,
much less whipped. He threw my father, then trampled him before we could pull him away.”

Sebastian felt the blood drain from his face. “God in heaven.”

“Papa was dead, and we had to put Pharaoh down that same night. When I woke my mother and told her what had happened, she simply shrugged and said, ‘It was bound to happen,’ then went back to bed. Bound to happen! She felt no remorse. None at all.” Her voice trembled with anger.