Salt Bride (30 page)

Yet, from the reports regularly given him by Arthur Ellis, Willis the under-butler, and by Sir Antony, Jane never put herself forward, never flirted with these young men and never had her head turned by their constant compliments of her beauty. In fact, she treated such worship with the grain of sand it deserved, maintaining a cool, if kind-hearted, distance from her admirers. His own observations of his wife at dinner parties and the like confirmed this, and yet he still felt ill at ease, that if he allowed his defenses to drop completely his hopes and dreams would again be shattered.

He had no real basis for his apprehension, only the past experience of their broken engagement, which she emphatically denied she had instigated. It’s not that he disbelieved her, but it did not make sense: one and one did not make two. Yet the more time he spent in Jane’s company the less he cared about the details of the broken engagement and what had occurred in the past; who was in the wrong. He just knew that his future happiness, that if he was ever to feel contented with life, rested with his wife.

He repeated his question just as the horses slowed and the carriage turned into the forecourt of Richmond House.

“I was thinking about Ron,” Jane replied and turned from the window to look at him, “and how well he has been looking these past few weeks.”

Salt was surprised. “Ron?”

“Yes. He had color in his cheeks at the nursery party, and he played
three
games of skittles with the Spencer boys.
And
he ate two slices of pie.”

“
And
he was rolling around on the floor laughing along with the rest of us at Wraxton’s absurd poetry,” Sir Antony stuck in. “
Ode to a Well-Sprung Carriage
, indeed! God help us all when we have to listen to his next piece of piffle!” When the noble couple looked at him as if seeing him for the first time he grinned sheepishly. “You did offer me a seat in your carriage. Can I help it if I have eyes and ears?”

“He had no color whatsoever at three in the morning!” Salt said with asperity.

Sir Antony glanced at Jane before looking at the Earl. “Called out to his bedside
again
?”

“Yes.”

“How many times has he been ill these past few months?”

Salt shrugged at the question and was ashen-faced. “Too many times. Last night he had one of his worst attacks yet.”

“I’m sorry to hear it,” Sir Antony said grimly. “Poor little chap. Poor you, to be inconvenienced at such an hour,” he added with a huff of laughter thinking the Earl had to be the unluckiest bridegroom in London to be dragged from the arms of his beautiful bride at such an inauspicious hour to attend on a sick little boy who had no consideration for his uncle’s newly married state. Yet, he was all admiration for Salt’s devotion to the boy, and for the Countess’s tolerance.

“Er—Apologies,” he muttered in response to the Earl’s embarrassed glare of disapproval, and turned his profile to the undraped window and the view of the congested line of horses and carriages with crests upon their doors queuing up one behind the other to deposit their noble occupants at the wide steps of Richmond House, and where Jane was staring, a blush to her cheeks. Still, he could not help voicing a thought that had been niggling at him for sometime now. He was surprised when Jane stared at him with wide blue eyes of shock, as if she, too, had had the same thought, yet had dared not voice it aloud for fear of it being true.

“Merry said an odd thing to me at the tea party… Made me think. Made me think damn hard,” he mused, turning over his closed snuffbox in his left hand. “Observation of a child, but acute nonetheless. Not that she would have had the foggiest notion of its importance…”

Salt sat forward on the upholstered bench and adjusted his cravat in anticipation of the carriage door opening and the steps being put in place for them to alight. “Out with it, Tony! This isn’t the time or place for a fireside chat.”

“Merry predicted Ron would be ill that very night.”

“Not surprised with three games of skittles and two slices of pie!”

The Earl’s flippant remark was ignored.

“What did she say to you, Tony?” Jane asked quietly.

Sir Antony glanced down at his snuffbox then across at Jane. “To be precise she said a couple of things. Told me matter-of-factly that Ron would be ill later that night all because Uncle Salt was so happy; that it was always like that. Whenever you are happy,” he said, addressing the Earl, “Ron is ill. Can you believe it? Words out of the mouth of a babe!”

“What did you say by way of reply?” asked Jane.

Sir Antony threw up a lace-covered wrist. “Don’t recall; some tripe to dismiss such a notion as absurd.”

“It is absurd!” Salt stated angrily. “Merry and Ron are children with childish thoughts. The idea that Ron becomes ill all because I am happy is in itself laughable, in the worst possible sense of the word!”

“Is it?” Sir Antony enquired levelly. “Is it truly that absurd? Think about it. I have; long and hard. I’ve put some twos together. You said yourself that Ron has been ill too many times.”

“Tony, what else did Merry tell you?”

Salt looked at Jane in some surprise. “You believe there is some truth to Merry’s prattle, my lady?”

Jane and Sir Antony exchanged a look before she said calmly, “Yes. Now that Tony has voiced his concerns, I will add mine to his. And I cannot dismiss out of hand a child’s remarks, not when that child is Merry, who is wise beyond her years and suffers to see her brother ill.”

It was the Earl’s turn to throw up a lace-covered wrist. He sat back against the upholstered headboard and ignored the rapping on the carriage door. “Well, Tony? What else did Merry say?”

Sir Antony took snuff and sniffed. Finally composed he met his best friend’s expectant if slightly skeptical look and did not baulk. “That her mother did not like to see you happy; it made her angry and gave her the megrim.” He glanced at Jane but addressed the Earl, “And that since marrying Jane you are always happy, which means her mother is always angry, and that because she is angry she makes Ron sick.”

The rapping on the carriage door became insistent but Salt ignored it, hard gaze fixed on Sir Antony. “You realize you are talking about your sister.”

“I am unlikely to forget the connection. And as her brother I do believe I am able to see her more clearly than, and you will pardon my bluntness, you do, who will always see her as St. John’s widow and mother of his children. I believe there is substance to Merry’s chatter.” He glanced at Jane, “And so does your Countess.”

“I do not want to discuss this any further here or now. It is my wife’s first public engagement and I want it to be a pleasant one.”

Sir Antony inclined his powdered head. “As you wish, but this state of affairs must be discussed at some time, and soon. As you rightly pointed out, we are talking about my sister and, let us not forget, the welfare of my niece and nephew.”

“Ron and Merry’s health and happiness are my prime concern.”

“Then on that we agree. Now do open that door before the poor fellow loses what’s left of the skin on his knuckles.”

The carriage door swung wide and the steps set in place by a liveried footman. Another footman handed the Countess out of the carriage, and Salt wrapped her arm around his and led her across the forecourt to join the queue of guests filing into Richmond House. Sir Antony took his leave of the noble couple, and spying two cronies from the Northern Department, sauntered away to talk politics. Jane barely noticed his departure, such was her distraction with the noise and bustle of carriages arriving and departing, of link boys with tapers lighting the way for the many guests, a resplendent sea of silks, powdered wigs and elaborate hairstyles, that snaked their way inside this waterside mansion owned by the Duke of Richmond.

She was determined to enjoy this her first ball in London, but knew also she must be on her best behavior, that it would not do to wear her excitement on her sleeve. As this was her first official engagement as the Countess of Salt Hendon, she was acutely aware that all eyes would be upon her. Not all eyes would be friendly, particularly the friends of Diana St. John, who would be waiting for the young Lady Salt to commit some social faux pas so they could commiserate with Lady St. John on the Earl’s misfortune in marrying such a rustic miss.

Jane glanced up at her husband and seeing his frown realized he must still be ruminating over Merry’s confidences to her Uncle Tony, and was determined to divert him. After all if she was to enjoy herself tonight at this fireworks ball in honor of the Peace of Paris, he must enjoy himself too.

“Do you know, my lord, I have just come to the sudden realization that I have no political conversation and know even less people than Viscount Fourpaws! Who, I might add, is the only Viscount of my acquaintance who literally purrs when I prattle. Will your friends think me dull company?”

“I am not entirely happy to discover my wife is being purred over,” he said with a laugh, brow clearing, and held her close as a couple of liveried footmen dashed across their path and disappeared between two carriages to assist new arrivals. “I do not think you dull company, and that’s all that matters.”

She gave a practiced sigh. “But unlike Viscount Fourpaws, you never seek my company during the daylight hours so you cannot know if I am a dull conversationalist or not.”

“That’s unfair, you little wretch!” Salt replied, ignoring the smiling nods of several noble powdered heads in the queue up ahead that were trying to catch his eye. He spoke close to her ear, so she could hear him over the din. “We talk every night in bed.”

“That is of no account,” Jane threw at him, pretending an interest in the long line of stony-faced liveried footmen standing shoulder to shoulder like marble statues along the gravel path and up the wide steps, though she was very pleased he was put out by her accusation. She hoped he could not detect the blush to her cheeks in the dusky light. “Conversation is not the reason for your visits. Though I have no complaints about the order in which you conduct business.”

“Business? Good God, you think I view my nightly visits to your bed as-as
business
? Another item on the agenda to be marked off when completed?”

Wide-eyed, Jane blinked up at him, gouache fan brought out from under her cloak to flutter prettily and stir the wispy tendrils of silken black hair about her beautiful face. She pretended ignorance. “Don’t you, my lord?”

“Of course not!” he blustered.

“Oh? But I am reliably informed that making love to one’s wife is a husband’s
tedious obligation
.”

“You certainly know how to pick your moment for one of your frank conversations, my lady,” he stated in a clipped voice, finding it difficult to express himself in the middle of a public space surrounded by a hundred faces known to him. “It’s never been an obligation to make love to you, and it is anything but tedious,” he replied earnestly. “It is a pleasure and a privilege.” When she dropped her chin into her shoulder, he added gently, “Jane, I come to your bed because I want to—
very much
.”

Jane did not trust herself to speak and she clung to his silken arm more tightly and stared blindly out across the activity of footmen running here and there, of ladies adjusting the useless novelty of flimsy aprons draped over panniers, and of gentlemen giving a tug to the points of their elaborate waistcoats, and saw it all through a mist of happiness. Despite the excitement of her first public social engagement in her husband’s company, she wished they were at home before the fire in his bookroom, alone. Then she could freely throw her arms about his neck and tell him how much she loved him… Had always and only loved him.

Salt, misinterpreting her silence because he had said more than he had intended, but nothing he did not hold as truth, self-consciously stretched his neck, wrapped in its tightly bound cravat of intricate Brussels lace, and swallowed.

“If I’m becoming a nuisance you need only say so.”

“Oh, I will,” she answered with her ready sense of the ridiculous, composure returned, and which brought his head down with a snap to stare at her hard. She tried not to giggle at his look of self-conscious contrition. Impulsively, she went up on tiptoe and swiftly kissed his cheek, saying with a gurgle of laughter, “Absurd man! The day I consider you a nuisance, consign me to Bedlam.”

He grinned and pinched her chin.

But the smile died on Jane’s face the instant her heels were back on firm ground. By kissing her husband in public she had committed, what Mr. Willis had told her, two of the cardinal sins of Polite Society: that of allowing emotion to rule good breeding, and of showing genuine affection for one’s spouse in public. She went to apologize, flustered and embarrassed, thinking Salt would not appreciate her spontaneous and very public display, acutely aware that more than a dozen powdered heads had caught the kiss and with raised eyebrows were staring at her with curious disapproval from behind fluttering fans and beribboned quizzing glasses.

Her one small impulsive kiss had the opposite effect on the Earl. Caught up in the moment, he saw only his wife and was completely oblivious to everyone and everything else. He bent to nuzzle and whisper near her ear. “If this wasn’t Lady Salt’s first ball,” he murmured, removing her cloak to hand to an attentive footman, for they had arrived indoors, “I’d take her to the carriage and have my way with her, here and now.”

Momentarily forgetting her embarrassment, Jane faced him, all wide-eyed fascination. “In the carriage? Here and-and now?”

He pretended a sudden interest in the sit of one of a dozen small silk bows sewn down the front of her low cut water-silk bodice. Deftly, he straightened the smallest bow at the neckline of her bodice and allowed his pinky to lightly caress the swell of her bare breasts. His words were all for her. “Unfortunately, my lady will have to wait that delight until the end of the ball. I have poor Andrews’ bloodied fingers to think about. I’d never get these orders pinned back in place.”

As he surreptitiously caressed her breasts, Jane was gripped with a sudden frisson of desire and she quickly moved back into line and picked up a handful of her silk petticoats to ascend the wide stairs into the ballroom of Richmond House, without ever remembering her feet touching the floorboards. To her shame and surprise she couldn’t wait for the ball to be over before it started. Nor could she resist an impudent remark to her husband while they waited in line to be announced by the sonorous, nose-in-the-air butler.