An Escapade and an Engagement (22 page)

‘Well, apart from the fact that they did not, they have far
more juicy gossip to discuss today, do they not? Our supposed night of drunken
debauchery.’

She hung her head. ‘At least my foolish behaviour has resulted
in some good, then. Everyone is so busy sniggering at me they have hardly
noticed Milly is missing.’

‘Well, nobody is ever very interested in the fate of a lady’s
companion. And Lord Halstead had the foresight to leave a message to the effect
that he had been called away on urgent business. But they will never connect her
disappearance with that of Lord Halstead anyway—not once she has married my
valet.’

‘Your valet? I don’t understand. Why would she do something
like that?’ As if it wasn’t bad enough for Milly to run off with another lord,
now he was telling her she was marrying someone else entirely.

He glanced up at the sky. ‘Shall we go inside? It looks as if
it’s going to rain any minute.’

He opened the door for her and she preceded him into the summer
house built to take advantage of the view down into the valley and the canal
that ran along its floor.

‘Yes, thank you, Richard. But… Well… Though I can see that
marriage was a better option for Milly than…’ She trailed off uncomfortably and
walked across to the window. ‘But to your valet?’

‘Don’t you recall me telling you that the man came hotfoot from
London when he thought Milly had disappeared? It turns out that the poor sap has
been head over ears in love with her for months, but never dared speak up
because he thought he had nothing to offer her. Which showed me that—’

‘Wait a minute… That is the end of the tale, to be sure. How
did you prise her away from Lord Halstead?’

‘With remarkable ease. He took one look at my face, understood
I meant what I said, and beat a hasty retreat.’

‘I suppose the pistol you took with you had nothing to do with
it?’

He grinned. ‘I might have had it in my hand when I told him I
took exception to his sneaking off in the middle of the night with one of my
guests.’

She could just picture the scene. Richard could be downright
intimidating when coming across couples meeting clandestinely—even without a
pistol to back up his words.

‘And then Milly decided she’d rather accept your valet’s
proposal?’ She frowned in perplexity.

‘Not quite. To start with I was just seeking a way to get Milly
out of Courtlands. I was so angry with her. I decided to track Fred down and get
him to take her back to Town. She didn’t want to go, needless to say. She even
tried to make me believe it would break her heart to be forced to leave my
side,’ he finished, with a distinct curl to his lip.

‘You didn’t believe her?’

‘I have known for some time that she doesn’t love me.’

‘No!’ She walked over to him and seized his hands, her eyes
full of sympathy.

‘Oh, yes. In fact I think she said it at first in a blind
panic. You know—when I told her and Fred that because I’d come into the title I
would have to remove to Lavenham House and find a suitable wife. I think she
really thought I would just turn my back on the pair of them. And she employed
the one weapon she knew I was powerless to resist.’

‘Oh, yes,’ she breathed. ‘I know
just
what you mean. If someone says they love you, when nobody else
ever has, it gives them a terrific hold over you…’

‘Exactly so.’ His voice gentled. He took her to the window seat
and they sat down, still holding hands. ‘She had got to know me well enough by
then to understand the power of such a declaration. But even when she first made
it I wasn’t completely sure I believed her. I had always thought I was…well, her
ticket out of a nasty situation. We were about to push into France. She’d seen
how brutally the Portuguese and Spanish peasants treated the French soldiers and
anyone associated with them. She was just starting to become a woman, and a
target for men’s lust. Her father wanted her safely out of the way in case the
French populace gave a similar reception to English troops. I don’t blame him
for that. Or her for going along with his plans. I couldn’t have asked for a
better nurse, or a more cheerful companion through all the months I spent
recovering. But she never wanted me for myself. Only what I could provide for
her.’

‘Cream horses and a box at the theatre,’ put in Jayne. ‘She was
just the same over the red-satin dress. She’d seen one once, and promised
herself if ever she had the means she’d get herself one just like it. Without
once thinking about how inappropriate it was, or what she might have to do to
earn it.’

‘She came to her senses when she saw the state Fred had drunk
himself into after he’d not been able to dissuade her from running off with Lord
Halstead. That reached her in a way perhaps nothing else could have done. He
absolutely worships the ground she walks on. And it turns out she needs a man to
worship her more than cream horses or red-satin dresses. Though it helped when I
promised to secure their future prosperity by buying them a tavern for a wedding
present,’ he added dryly.

‘A tavern?’

‘Yes. It is every soldier’s dream to leave the army and own his
own tavern. By the time I left Milly was full of plans for their new
venture.’

‘She will make a great success of it, I’m sure,’ said Lady
Jayne bleakly.

Milly was a competent person. Richard had told her once before
that she was well able to look after herself. And she could just see Milly
ordering supplies, bustling about and charming her customers.

‘But I warn you,’ he said sternly, ‘I don’t want you to go
seeking her out and having any kind of association with her in future. She is
capable of causing you no end of trouble.’

‘I don’t care about that!’ She reined in her flash of temper,
lest he think it was directed at him. ‘I just don’t think I will ever be able to
forgive her for the way she used you and betrayed you.’

His heart swelled with love. Though he was not going to read
too much into her reaction. She considered him her friend. He looked down at
their linked hands. She would feel as outraged on behalf of anyone she
considered her friend. It was the kind of person she was.

‘I am so sorry, Richard, for the way it has turned out,’ she
said, looking at his downbent head. ‘It is humiliating to discover that a person
who has said they love you has only been using you all along.’ And then to find
himself compromised into marriage, while he was still trying to recover from
Milly’s perfidy.

She wanted to put her arms round him and kiss away his hurt.
Milly had said all she would have to do would be to offer him that sort of
physical comfort and all would be right with his world.

But then Milly hadn’t really been in love. She didn’t
understand that there was no substitute for the person you loved. Besides, she
didn’t want to be a substitute for anyone else. She didn’t want Richard to be
thinking of Milly when he kissed her.

‘We’re trapped in such a terrible situation.’ She let go of his
hand to rub at her forehead.

He looked up at her sharply.

‘I only wish I could think of some way out.’

Panic chilled his gut into a block of ice. She was so
resourceful she would soon come up with dozens of ways to wriggle out of this
marriage—if he didn’t put a stop to it right now.

‘There is none. So do not even bother trying to think of
escaping,’ he said sternly. ‘Your reputation would never recover if I did not
put a ring upon your finger now. And mine would be irrevocably tarnished. People
would think I was the kind of man who would turn my back on a woman after
seducing her. Do you think I want that kind of notoriety?’

‘N-no. Of course you don’t. But it is so unfair! You did not
seduce me. And I do not want you to have to pay the price for my own
reckless…stupid… Oh!’ She leaped to her feet and began pacing up and down in
agitation. ‘There must be
some
way out.’

‘Well, there is not one. We have announced our betrothal to our
guests. In spite of his protests my grandfather will even now be sending the
official announcement to the papers. It is too late to stop him.’

She stopped pacing and hugged herself round the middle, head
bowed. He got to his feet, turned her round and laid his hands on her
shoulders.

‘Will it be such a terrible fate, Lady Jayne?’ he asked her
gently. ‘Don’t you think you could get used to being my wife? Could you not—’ he
squeezed her shoulders ‘—make the best of it?’

It would not be the least bit terrible being married to him—if
only he did not think it was a situation
he
had to
get used to.
Her lower lip began to tremble. She
caught it between her teeth.

He made a strangled sound in his throat, before grating, ‘Now,
now, don’t cry.’

He put his arms right round her awkwardly and she sagged
against him in despair. It was a pathetic parody of the kind of embrace a man
ought to give the woman to whom he had just become betrothed.

‘We have come to know each other pretty well over these past
few weeks,’ he said in such a reasonable tone it made her want to scream with
frustration. ‘I am sure we will be able to rub along tolerably well together, if
only we put our minds to it.’

Rub along tolerably well?
Oh, it
hurt so much to hear his opinion of what their marriage would be like that it
was actually growing hard to breathe.

She kept her face buried in the front of his waistcoat, since
she could not bear to see the look of stoicism that must be on his face.

‘I know you are a brave girl,’ he said, running his hand up and
down her spine in a soothing gesture. ‘I know you have experienced a bitter
disappointment quite recently, and that it is too soon to talk of anything more
than friendship between us. But we have become quite
good
friends over the past few weeks, have we not? We have learned
that we can trust one another. At least I trust you, Lady Jayne. I know that
once we are married you will stay true to your vows. And I promise you I will be
faithful to mine.’

It was no consolation at all to hear him declare that he
intended to stay faithful to his vows. It was the kind of thing an honourable
man did. Stuck to vows made in church.

But she wanted him to love her so much he would not
dream
of looking at another woman.

‘We can make it work, this marriage of ours. I am sure we can.
In fact, if you tell me what you want, I swear I will do all in my power to give
it to you. What do you want from marriage?’

‘Me?’ She blinked up at him wide-eyed. Nobody had
ever
asked her what she wanted from marriage. Only
insisted that it was her duty to marry well.

No wonder she couldn’t help loving him.

‘When Grandpapa sent me to Town to find a husband, I was so
determined to thwart him that I never thought about what might actually tempt me
into taking such a step. Though I have always known,’ she said on a surge of
certainty, ‘what I don’t want. And that is to end up living in a state of open
warfare, like my parents did.’

He frowned. ‘I have heard that your father was not the most
pleasant of fellows.’

‘He was perfectly beastly to Mama. He despised her for her
inability to give him the heir he felt she owed him. She became dreadfully ill,
with all the miscarriages she had. As long as I can remember she was practically
an invalid. But she refused to lie down and die, and leave him free to marry
again. I’m sure it was only her hatred of him that kept her going. For she did
not outlive him by more than a few weeks.’

‘That is appalling.’ God, what she must have suffered as a
child. ‘I thought my own parents’ marriage had been a disaster, but that…’

‘Your parents’ marriage was unhappy?’

‘It was a pale imitation of your own parents’, in some ways. My
father was an incorrigible womanizer and my mother soon grew to despise him.
And, then… Well, because he adored my older brother, his firstborn and heir, she
despised him, too. But for some reason she took a shine to my baby brother.
Which made my father, in his turn, despise Charlie. So it wasn’t just the two of
them involved in the battles, but the entire family.’

She noted he’d left himself out of the picture, and asked in a
soft voice, ‘Which of them either loved or despised you, Richard?’

‘Me? Oh, neither of them bothered about me in the least,’ he
informed her, in a matter-of-fact tone that she could tell concealed a world of
hurt.

For she remembered him saying that nobody had come to his aid
when he’d been so ill—and the look on his face when he’d told her about all
those letters that had gone unanswered while he lay hovering between life and
death.

‘They were quite wrong to treat you so,’ she said
indignantly.

‘They were quite wrong to make my other brothers pawns in their
ongoing war, as well. But never mind them. One thing I can certainly promise
you. We won’t end up like any of our parents. I…I like you too much to ever
treat you with the disrespect my father showed my mother. In fact, I…’ He took a
deep breath.

Was now the time to tell her he loved her?

He hesitated. She’d said that having someone say the words gave
them a kind of power over you. A kind of power she clearly didn’t like.

And she’d already had one man tell her he loved her and prove
false.

Dammit, if he’d only paved the way for such a declaration he
might have stood some chance she would believe him. But as things stood… He
would hate doing anything that might make her look upon him with suspicion,
instead of the trust that was blazing from her eyes right now. Besides, every
time he’d tried to start telling her how he felt he’d made a complete mull of
it. Making plans and barking orders at troops were a far cry from uttering words
of love. Especially when he was so unfamiliar with the emotion. When it made him
never sure whether he was on his head or his heels.