Noble Satyr: A Georgian Historical Romance (60 page)

When he turned his powdered head and stared
straight at her, as if he was well aware she was taking full
measure of his person, Jane was so startled to be caught out that
she felt the heat rush up into her white throat. The fire burned
more brightly in her cheeks when he had the bad manners to look her
over, starting at her thick black braids caught up in a silver net
at her shoulders, lingering on her breasts covered by a plain
muslin bodice before traveling down the length of her petticoats to
her matching silk slippers. When he frowned, as if she did not meet
his expectations, Jane dared to put up her chin and stare back at
him before turning to the window in dismissal.

Her gaze remained steadfastly to the driving
rain, despite being aware that her stepmother was now droning on at
the freckle-faced secretary, Mr. Ellis, whom Jane had failed to
notice standing a few steps behind his noble employer, and who was
now doing his best to be polite and interested in Lady Despard’s
London sightseeing forays. Then, close at her back, she heard Tom’s
eager response to the Earl’s invitation to take part in a game of
Royal Tennis being held at his lordship’s private court at his
Grosvenor Square mansion the day after next. Tom said he would be
honored to be included in his lordship’s tournament.

His lordship’s tournament indeed
,
thought Jane, when only ten minutes earlier Tom had been poking fun
of his lordship’s noble nostrils!

The Earl drawled something banal about
hoping this Arlington Street address, usually occupied by his
lordship when Parliamentary sittings continued on through the
night, was proving satisfactory accommodation for Tom and his
mother. Tom thanked his lordship for the use of his townhouse,
saying that as soon as it could be arranged he and his mother would
let a suitable residence of their own for a month or two to enjoy
what London had to offer before returning to Bristol. The Earl told
him to take his time. There was no immediate rush for them to
vacate. And then the room fell silent.

The silence went on for so long that
curiosity made Jane turn away from the window. Had there been a
chair close by she would have sat down upon it from shock. Tom had
deserted her, settling with his mother and the secretary, his
friend from Oxford days, in the far corner of the drawing room to
take tea and talk over old times. They had left Jane to face Lord
Salt alone.

His lordship stared over her head and out
the window.

“Miss Despard, it is customary to permit me
to bow over your hand,” he drawled with just that touch of
insolence required to bring immediate obedience.

But Jane was too much affected by his
closeness and his earlier unfavorable appraisal to be bothered with
the niceties of a formal introduction and her hands remained firmly
clasped in front of her. She told herself she was being obstinately
bad mannered, but for the first time in years she allowed emotion
to rule her tongue and spoke her thoughts.

“I am fully sensible to the honor you do me,
my lord,” she answered in a clear voice, gaze riveted to the
engraved silver buttons of his waistcoat. “But I am not ignorant of
the fact it was forced upon you in a most ungentlemanly manner. It
is a circumstance I bitterly regret and wish I could alter.”

There was the smallest of pauses before Salt
said in his insolent way, “You’ve had ample opportunity to release
me from such a damnable circumstance. You merely had to refuse the
honor. Still, there are some eighteen hours before the
ceremony…”

This blunt speech did tilt Jane’s chin to
his face, blue eyes wide with astonishment. He was offering her the
opportunity to give him an eleventh hour reprieve; indeed his very
manner suggested he expected her to do so there and then. That she
wanted to release him from his forced obligation with all her heart
was momentarily forgotten with the wound to her feminine pride.
That he did not even have the good manners to disguise his
abhorrence for a match that was of her father’s making, not hers,
angered her into giving an impudent reply.

“You cannot imagine, my lord, that I leapt
at your backhanded offer of marriage,” she stated with as much
coldness in her voice as she could muster. “Doubtless there are
dozens of females eager to take their place at your side as
Countess of Salt Hendon. I wholeheartedly wish you’d offered for
one these ladies, then this horrid situation would never have
presented itself.”

“I am not in the habit of making
life-altering decisions merely to oblige others,” he replied
coldly, gaze remaining fixed to the wet windowpane. “Yet… knowing
you for a fickle female with no heart and even less brain, who has
the bare-faced cheek to accept a
backhanded
offer of
marriage, I should indeed have married the next fresh-faced virgin
who presented herself for mounting.”

Jane staggered back a pace, mind reeling and
hand out to the heavy brocade curtains for support at such crude
speech. “How… How
dare
you speak to me in such a repulsive
manner!” she whispered indignantly, a fervent glance at her
tea-drinking relatives at the far end of the room. “I am not one of
your whores who you can—”

This brought his hard gaze down to her
beautiful face. “Come now, Miss Despard,” he said with bored
indifference. “Your show of offended sensibilities insults my
intelligence. It is a bit late in the day to exhibit virginal
outrage.” He watched her throat constrict and when she turned her
fine nose to the window, giving him a view of her lovely profile,
he smiled crookedly. How well she played the part of indignant
female! As if she was the injured party. “By the way, I don’t waste
conversation on whores.”

“If you hope to unsettle me with
your-your—by
that
then you are vastly mistaken in my—in my—”
She stopped herself and bit her full lower lip, for how could she
say the word
character
when she had none?

He seemed to read her mind for he said so
softly that she could only just hear him, “You were wise not to say
it. You lost what little character you possessed when you thumbed
your nose at constancy and decency to take up with a conscienceless
old merchant. But as you are your father’s daughter I am inclined
to believe Sir Felix never taught you the meaning of such words.
Thus I will own that the fault lies with me for being taken in by
your beautiful face.”

Jane bravely met his gaze, and seeing the
loathing in his eyes, a painful knot formed in her chest, making it
difficult for her to breath. She did not understand what she had
done to deserve such hatred. He spoke of her not being constant or
decent and yet if there was one thing she had been in those days,
weeks, and months after the night in the summerhouse, it was
constant. Nor did she understand why he had such an intense dislike
for Jacob Allenby the only person to offer her sanctuary. She knew
there was no point defending her own character with this male
colossus of unreasonableness, but there was no reason for him to
besmirch her protector. She forced herself to remain outwardly
calm, saying levelly,

“Your vast experience of the type may give
you some latitude to speak to me as you would any whore of your
acquaintance,” she said in a steady voice, “but it does not give
you leave to besmirch Mr. Allenby’s unblemished character. I have
never heard an unkind word spoken about him. And despite the
difficult circumstances in which I lived under his roof, I never
had cause to—”

Salt goggled at her, appalled. “I won’t
stand here and listen to you praise—”

“—
slap
his face!”

There was a moment’s heavy silence and then
the Earl let out such a bark of genuine laughter that he startled
those taking tea to momentary silence. “My dear Miss Despard, pride
still smarting?”

“I have no idea to what you are referring,
my lord.”

“Don’t you?” he asked curiously, the anger
gone from his deep voice. “I’d wager my best Hunter you were sorely
disappointed when your merchant protector intervened that day on
the Hunt. Truth be told, you had no need to lash out as you did. I
wasn’t about to offer you a second helping of my vast
experience.”

“What a
dull, hollow existence
you
must lead to hold to the memory of such a trifling incident. I
assure you I had not recalled it until now.”

His smile was sardonic. “It was to your
dull, hollow existence I was referring, Madam. Your hand hasn’t
been the only one to have slapped this noble cheek.”

“What a comfort to know there are females
who have spurned Wiltshire’s libertine lord!”

“No. I never said that. Every other slap
invited pursuit; yours I’d no desire to satisfy. Easy game doesn’t
interest me. No, don’t turn your face away,” he commanded in a low
voice, pinching her small chin between thumb and forefinger and
forcing her to look up at him. “Do we go before parson tomorrow or
not?”

To her shame and embarrassment, Jane felt
hot tears sting her eyelids and she swallowed hard, unable to give
him an immediate response. He had exposed the raw nerve of her life
under Jacob Allenby’s protection by stating the painfully obvious.
The old Bristol merchant had kept her fed and clothed and in return
whenever he visited the little thatched cottage that nestled in a
grove between the Sinclair lands and the Allenby estate she was at
his beck and call. If it hadn’t been for Tom’s supervised quarterly
visits, her life would’ve been unbearable. And now this arrogant
nobleman dared to sneer at her and expect release from an
obligation he had given in good faith.

It humiliated her to think that on his
deathbed her estranged father had forced Lord Salt to honor a
promise made to her years earlier. Her father had fulfilled his
life’s ambition in bringing about her marriage to this arrogant
nobleman by means of blackmail, with no thought to her feelings in
the matter or the mortification she would endure as wife of a
reluctant husband. It humiliated her further that Jacob Allenby had
written up a despicable will leaving her no choice but to accept
the Earl’s offer of marriage or watch her stepbrother face
financial ruin. And as much as she wanted to release Lord Salt from
his forced obligation, as much as she wanted to tell him why she
must accept his backhanded offer of marriage, she could not; it was
with an aching heart and a halting voice that she gave the Earl the
answer she knew he did not in the least want to hear.

“There are factors—circumstances—Yes, my
lord, we will go before parson tomorrow.”

“You surprise me,” he said with an ugly pull
to his mouth. “But what female could resist the lure of a coronet?
Be good enough to hold out your left hand.”

Listlessly, Jane did as she was told and was
rewarded by having an old gold filigreed band set with sapphires
and diamonds slipped over her ring finger. She did not look at it
nor was she aware the band was too large for her slender finger
until the Earl mentioned he would have the ring resized once they
were married. She thought her mortification complete until she was
ordered to sit on a ribbon back chair placed in the center of the
Turkey rug by the fire. It was only then that she realized she was
alone in the drawing room with the Earl and his unobtrusive
secretary.

Tom and his mother had abandoned her.

“You will sit, Miss Despard.”

It was a command Jane ignored.

“Very well. Let that be your last act of
defiance,” Salt replied coldly, taking a turn about the room,
circling her as a lion did its prey. “Tomorrow, once you and I have
been up before parson, spiritually and legally we become one. Make
no mistake, Miss Despard, I am that one. As that one, you, as my
wife, will act in accordance with what is in my best interests.
Never forget: wherever you go, whomever you see, however you
conduct yourself, it is me that society sees, not you. You will not
do or say anything that I do not want you to do or say. You will
not go anywhere that I do not want you to go. You will do precisely
as you are bid. Do I make myself perfectly understandable?”

Jane understood. He was intent on making her
realize how thoroughly undeserving she was of the social position
to which he was reluctantly elevating her. And yet, what she was
thinking was how much he had altered since they had danced at the
Salt Hunt Ball four years ago. It had been her eighteenth birthday
that day and her first proper social engagement, her coming out as
a young lady.

During the hunting season and later the Salt
Hunt Ball, indeed during the whole of that wonderful autumn month
preceding her eighteenth birthday, he had been an entirely
different being from the one standing before her now. She
remembered that behind those thin uncompromising lips there were
beautiful white teeth, and that he possessed an infectious,
good-humored laugh that made his brown eyes crinkle at the corners.
And then there was the summerhouse…