At The Stroke Of Midnight (18 page)

Then he turned on his heel and
stalked out the same way Rockville had two nights previous.
 
The only thing Sebastian could do was watch
him depart in silence.

The man was a contradiction.
 
Truly.
 
On one hand, it was evident that the earl loved his daughter
deeply.
 
He had, after all, thrown Rockville
out of the house party when he had acted inappropriately.
 
He had placed a Christmas tree in the corner
of the portrait gallery, knowing that Jane frequented the room, something that
she had confessed to him on their sleigh ride a few days prior.
 
At the same time, that love was tempered by
duty to the Devonmont line and a deep fear of losing another wife.

Sebastian was not unsympathetic to
the man's plight.
 
He did understand,
probably better than Devonmont realized.
 
Yet at the same time, the very idea of tossing Jane aside and essentially
selling her in marriage to another man did not sit well in Sebastian's
gut.
 
There had to be another, better
plan, though at the moment, he could not think of one.
 
He also realized that once Jane was gone
from Blackstone, she would be out of his reach.
 
She would probably be married to whomever she was being sent to
the moment she arrived.
 
She would not
be a governess, but rather a wife.
 
And
she would then be forever beyond Sebastian's reach.
 
For he knew that much as she might desire him, she would never
betray her marriage vows, even if they were forced.
 
Jane had more honor and dignity than that.

He also knew that in many ways, he
was no better than her father, placing duty before her.

Sebastian's blood ran cold at the
very idea of Jane in another man's bed, banished from her home by a father who
was still so blinded by grief over his first wife that he could not see what
his new wife and daughter were scheming.
 
There had to be another way, one that did not involve marriage to a
crusty old Scottish laird.
 
He could not
allow that to happen.

Yet was he not in the same
predicament as Devonmont in many ways?
 
Was he not sacrificing Jane and whatever was growing between them
because of his own duty - both to the earldom and those who depended upon it?

In a moment of clarity, Sebastian
understood that the old earl was correct.
 
He was doing the very thing that he so vilified Devonmont for.
 
There was no difference in reality - only in
Sebastian's mind.
 
He was choosing
another path and other people over Jane.
 
Over her happiness.
 
Over her
very life.
 
And Jane herself?
 
She did not have a voice in the matter.
 
She did not get an opportunity to choose.

She was trying to be strong,
claiming that she would fight for what she wanted, what she desired.
 
She said that she would choose her own path.

But she would not.
 
She could not.
 
She did not have that power.
 
Others did.
 
And those decisions
had already been made for her.
 

Oh, he knew that was the way of
things.
 
Women were at the mercy of men
and it had always been thus.
 
Yet is
seemed a crime to Sebastian, in more ways than one.
 
Jane had been correct the night she had referred to herself,
however jokingly, as a jewel among women.
 
She had not been serious.
 
Yet
she was also correct.
 
More so than she
probably knew.
 
Even more than he had
realized at the time.

She was perfection incarnate.
 
She deserved better than what life had dealt
her.
 
In fact, she probably deserved
someone better than Sebastian, someone who did not waiver and would choose her
from the beginning each and every time, no matter the cost.
 
He was not that man, but he wanted to be.

For the first time in her life,
someone needed to put Jane first.
 
They
needed to choose her health and happiness before their own.
 
It was time for someone to make a stand on her
behalf.
 
It needed to be him.
 
Even though he had no earthly idea how to go
about it.

Looking up at the portrait of
Catronia Ashford, Sebastian sent a small prayer skyward in the hopes that
mother might still be watching over daughter, even after death.
 
"Please help me," he whispered as
he looked at the face of the woman who had given Jane life.
 
"Or, if you don't want to help me, help
her.
 
She deserves better.
 
And, at the moment, I am running out of
people to turn to for that help.
 
You
are, I'm afraid, my last, best chance."

It was foolish, he knew, begging a
painting for help, and it might well be the first sign of madness sweeping over
him.
 
At the same time, he would swear
on his father's grave that he heard a softly whispered
I will
answer his
plea.

Perhaps it was just the wind, his
mind filling in the sound of air passing through the old glass panes with what
he wanted to hear.
 
What he longed to
hear - that someone, somewhere would help Jane at least, if not him.
 
Then again, it was the Christmas season so
perhaps, just perhaps, there was a miracle about to occur.
 
An idea had just come to him with perfect
clarity.
 
Perhaps someone was watching
over Jane from above after all.

By the time the servants began
clearing the breakfast room, Jane decided that it would be a miracle if she did
not murder someone by the end of the day.
 
A pity, since it was Christmas Eve and she did not think that was
precisely the appropriate way to spend the holiday season.

Then again, as she was being sent
away anyhow, essentially sold to a man she did not know, she saw so reason not to
indulge herself.
 
Just a bit.

That anger was her mother's temper
coming out in her and she had long since learned to curb it.
 
Today, however, was testing the limits of
her patience.
 
Very much so.

After spending a glorious hour in
Sebastian's embrace the previous night, while she had not expected to be able
to throw herself at him the next morning, she had hoped to be able to glance at
him occasionally over the family breakfast table while the other guests milled
about elsewhere.
 
However, he had not been
seen all morning, other than by the servants who had spotted him roaming the
halls of Blackstone rather aimlessly for several hours around dawn.

In Jane's experience, that was not
a good sign.
 
From what she knew,
Sebastian was driven and purposeful.
 
He
did not wander, for lack of a better word.
 
He set his mind to something and then accomplished it.
 
If he had taken to strolling the halls
before dawn, then something was amiss.
 
She had a very bad feeling that it also had to do with her.

And, quite possibly, the news her
father had imparted that morning before the other guests had arrived in the
breakfast room.

A few moments ago, Jane learned
that she was to wed as soon as she reached Scotland - to the man whose children
- not child, as there were four in total - she was supposed to oversee as
governess.
 
The man was a local laird,
Duncan McKenna, the current Viscount Gladston, who was well on his way to his
dotage but had somehow managed to sire four unruly children to a young wife who
had passed away only a few months previous.
 
Well, there were five children if you counted his eldest son, Lachlan,
though Jane would not be responsible for him, for at eight and twenty, he was
already well into adulthood.
 
That, she
thought, went without saying.

Angeline and Lizzie were both
delighted beyond measure, of course.
 
A
marriage to a man like McKenna would ensue that Jane never returned to England
again.
 
There would be no possible way
that she could interfere with whatever plans the two of them had regarding Sebastian
and the Duke of Hathaway.
 
The two women
were practically giddy with delight at the prospect of Jane being forced into
exile in Scotland and were not precisely silent about it.

As for her father, Charles Ashford
appeared both mildly ashamed and yet somehow relieved at the same time.
 
As if by sending Jane away, the part of his
life that had involved Catronia could finally be over and he could move on.

There was a tiny part of Jane that
had hoped, stupidly it now seemed, that someone might intervene on her
behalf.
 
She had no illusions that she
would be permitted to marry Sebastian.
 
That was a fairy tale and in her experience, fairy tales did not come
true.
 
However she had thought that she
might prevail upon someone to be allowed to remain in London.
 
Or at the very least England.
 
All so she could continue to see Sebastian.

Lying in bed alone in the early
morning hours, she had come to a decision.
 
If Sebastian offered, she would become his mistress.
 
It was not a position she would have
willingly sought out, and certainly, it would prevent her from ever entering
polite society again.
 
She would be cut
off from the
ton
, including her friends Amy and Caroline.
 
Then again, she was fairly certain that, as
a whole, society would not miss her in the least.

It would not be possible at first,
she knew, especially since she had to find a new position in town or else find
a way to extricate herself from the role of governess that awaited her in
Scotland.
 
But if she was married?
 
There would be no escape.
 
There would be no return to London where she
could see Sebastian in secret and give him all that she was, including her
love.

There would only be a lifetime of
loneliness and longing, a hole inside of her that only Sebastian had been able
to fill.

She had hoped to see him that
morning, to let him know of her father's plans, though her father had hinted
that Sebastian already knew and had accepted his decision.
 
Jane wanted someone to confide in and tell
her all would be well.
 
Or at the very
least, offer an encouraging glance as she sat awash in misery, her plate of
poached eggs and toast congealing in front of her.

But Sebastian never appeared and,
now that breakfasting hours were over, she was alone again at the table, left
with her own thoughts.

Then, as she watched the guests
begin to file out in search of the entertainments that Angeline had planned for
the day, the anger from the previous evening flared inside of her again, as if
someone had ignited it without her knowledge.

No.
 
She was tired of being meek and mild, of doing what was expected
of her.
 
She might go to Scotland and be
wed against her will, but she would not go quietly.

Though how she would stop it was
another matter entirely.
 
Still, there
had to be a way, and she was determined to find it.
 
Then again, her family could always do with a good scandal, she
supposed.

Several hours later as she helped
to decorate one of the many Christmas trees scattered about Blackstone, she had
yet to discover a way out of her predicament or devise a scandal suitable to
end this mad plan of her father's.
 
And
she had tried.
 
Each time she came up
with an idea or plan, she was forced to discard it.
 
Every single idea that popped into her head required help -
including running away - and she had a very strong suspicion that her father,
or at the very least Angeline, had demanded that the servants not provide her
assistance.
 
Else they would be
sacked.
 
She cared about them too much
to ask them to risk their jobs for her.
 
She was not worth it.
 
She never
had been, no matter what Sebastian said.

She was not even permitted outside
to search the estate grounds for the greenery that was now being draped over
every mantle and stairway.
 
Probably out
of fear that she might abscond with a horse and never be seen again.
 
The idea had crossed her mind - more than
once.
 
She would admit that much at
least.

Instead she was kept inside under
the watchful eye of servants loyal to Angeline, making red velvet bows to
attach to the greens that the other guests brought back to the house.
 
By the time they reached the middle of the
afternoon, she was sticky with pine pitch and reeked of it as well.
 
Her gown, another ugly "pewter"
thing was also stained with it, but Jane did not care.
 
If it was bound for the rag bag, it was just
as well.
 
Once she left Blackstone, she
would never wear the horrid color again as long as she lived.
 
She would insist upon that if nothing else
once she reached Scotland, and she doubted that her soon-to-be husband would
much care as long as she dealt with the children.