Salt Bride (32 page)

Diana shrugged a bare shoulder and changed tack. “You think I give a groat about that insipid milkmaid being Countess of Salt Hendon? My dear Tony, what I do I do, and have always done, for Ron.”

Sir Antony was skeptical. “It’s what you do to Ron that bothers me.”

“I beg you pardon?” Diana St. John was uncharacteristically startled.

For the first time in their conversation, Sir Antony sensed that his sister was paying attention. “Here’s another warning you should heed, Di. If your son continues to be ill; if you continue to have Salt called out at all hours of the night, you may find your children removed from your care.”

“Are you
drunk
? I am their
mother
. Salt would never take them from me.
Never
.”

Sir Antony held her gaze. His mouth was grim. “Fair warning, Di.”

She turned her chin and out of the corner of her eye spied the Earl at the edge of the dance floor in relaxed conversation with that old roué Lord March, the perverse wit George Selwyn, and his mentor and good friend Lord Waldegrave, the Countess nowhere to be seen. He was happier and more content than she had seen him in many years, in fact since that fateful Hunt Ball at Salt Hall when he had proposed to Jane Despard. It made Diana St. John sick to her stomach.

It was time she made her move on the Countess and stopped squandering her time in vapid conversation with her brother. Still, she couldn’t resist a parting remark, to exert her superiority over him, as always, and calculated to send his mind into a spin of conjecture. She snatched her fan from an obliging footman, who had scooped it up off the polished floorboards, flicked it open and, with a bunch of her silk petticoats in one hand, said to Sir Antony, with a smug smile, before she swept off to the ballroom, “Salt’s whore-bride has a dirty little secret. She’s with child. But whose brat is it?”

Sir Antony’s jaw swung wide at this startling pronouncement and he watched his sister traverse the ballroom, stopping to say hello to an old Dowager Duchess with gout here, kissing the powdered and patched cheek of a dear friend in a towering toupée there, playfully rapping her fan across the knuckles of an old roué who bowed over her outstretched hand, then exchanging smiles and pleasantries with a Lord of the Admiralty before disappearing from view out on to the terrace. She was the most amiable and animated beauty in the vast sea of noble silks and powder, and an altogether different being from the one Sir Antony knew as his sister, and it bothered him greatly.

Her throw away news that the Countess of Salt Hendon was with child made him oblivious to the footman who stood waiting at his elbow. The servant had been standing there for sometime. Indeed, he had been the one to retrieve Lady St. John’s fan from the floorboards. The only sign that he had heard the whole of the heated discussion between brother and sister was the redness to his ears. In every other respect he remained blank-faced. Inside he was bursting with news and couldn’t wait for the ball to end to exchange these juicy tidbits with the staff below stairs. He now stepped forward and presented the still gaping Sir Antony with a sealed letter.

Sir Antony had the letter in his hand a full minute before he realized it was there and when he turned to enquire of the servant who had sent it, found himself alone by the French window. He broke the seal, mind still abuzz, but when he opened out the single sheet of paper and saw the familiar handwriting his mind cleared of all else. Reading the two sentences caused his heart to flutter, and he beamed from ear to ear. Quickly, he put the letter in an inner pocket of his frockcoat.

Five minutes later he was making his apologies to his hosts, the Duke and Duchess of Richmond, and before a powdered head could turn to wonder why the diplomat was making a hasty retreat from the social event of the winter thaw, Sir Antony was out the front door and in a hackney headed for Grosvenor Square.

Jane left the glittering ballroom for the fresh air of the expansive terrace with its breathtaking views of the Thames, her mind bubbling over with so many new faces and names that she was sure she would forget them all by morning. She was in search of her stepbrother, whom she spied earlier in the ballroom in company with Billy Church. He had waved to her but she had been caught up in a round of endless introductions and small talk, everyone it seemed who was anyone eager to meet the Earl of Salt Hendon’s bride. She had lost sight of Tom in the press of the crowd and it was only later, after Pascoe Lord Church had taken her out for a country-dance, and Salt was busily engaged in conversation with Lord Waldegrave, did she feel able to slip away.

Tom was said to be on the terrace but so it seemed was half the guest list. Couples had spilled out of the house to walk the gravel paths or just stand by the iron railings to admire the view, considered of the finest in all London. Liveried footmen scurried about with trays of refreshments or to stand to attention either side of the wide steps that took guests from one flat expanse of terrace to the next until they finally arrived at the jetty where bobbed colorful barges and boats that had brought guests by water from lower down the Thames.

The enormous shoals of floating ice that had blocked the river in January were now melted so that all manner of water craft plied the congested breadth of the Thames, from small two man row boats, to ships under sail and covered barges festooned with colorful bunting. At the foreshore of the river to the horizon everywhere was brick and stone, the red roofs of buildings, and the church spires piercing the milky blue sky. Rising majestically above this conglomeration that was the city of London stood St. Paul’s, the cathedral’s glorious dome dwarfing everything that surrounded it, the magnificence of which never failed to draw a breath of amazement from this superlative vantage point, from residents and visitors to the metropolis alike.

Jane drew breath now as she took in the sprawling vista of river, city and darkening sky. She carefully descended the steps that led down to the next section of terrace closer to the water’s edge, a clutch of petticoats in her hand, and glad she had come outside before nightfall shrouded the view in a dark blanket, and the cold air finally penetrated her bones. But darkness, and to ward off the cold, had been accounted for with strategically placed tapers lining the terrace walks, ready to be lit by attending footmen, the moment the signal was given. And out in the water bobbed a flotilla of barges, packed with fire rockets and Catherine wheels, all intended to light up the night sky, however briefly, and shower the guests in flecks of tiny lights: the much anticipated finale to the Richmond Ball.

Music drifted out from the ballroom and laughter and conversation in the open air competed with the noise of water traffic and sounds of a city that never slept. Jane had at first thought she would never be able to sleep at night with the constant and varied noises around her, everything from carriage wheels rumbling along the cobbles, cattle being herded to market, sellers advertising their wares in their sing song voices, to the pitter pat of pattens that kept a lady’s silk shoes from town filth. But since her marriage, she had slept very well indeed, in no small part due to her husband’s warm embrace.

Instinctively, she lightly fingered the sapphire locket about her throat and wistfully thought about the baby she was carrying.

“You think that trinket holds any meaning for him?” a voice purred in her ear.

Jane spun about, saw a flash of red and gold silk and was suddenly nauseous. Dizzy and disorientated, she stuck out a hand to hard grip the iron railing that was the only barrier between her and the plunge to the embankment below. It was the overpowering scent of the woman’s perfume not the words hissed in her ear that had her flustered.

Diana St. John had cornered her where two iron railings met at right angles. She stood behind Jane, her wide-hooped petticoats penning her in and blocking her escape. To the casual observer it appeared as if the two women were admiring the view from opposite compass points while in conversation.

“That trinket has no more meaning for Salt than that garish wedding band he was forced to slip on your finger,” Diana St. John continued flatly, hazel-eyed gaze riveted to Jane’s face. “His mother wore the St. John locket on State occasions and to significant balls such as this because it was expected of her; another social trapping of her position in society. But she considered it an ugly heirloom. It suits you perfectly.”

“Is there anything I may do for you, my lady?” Jane asked quietly, blue eyes holding the woman’s gaze, while she stirred fresh air onto her face with her fan in an attempt to ward off the waves of nausea that came and went with Diana St. John’s strong scent carried on the river breeze. Perhaps if she let the woman say her piece she would then leave her alone?

Diana St. John’s painted mouth thinned and she cast a significant look over Jane’s shoulder at the flowing river. “Aside from drowning yourself? No.”

Jane swallowed. “If I have offended you in any way…”

“Offended me? Your existence offends me!”

“Why?”

“Why?” Diana St. John repeated, disconcerted. How dare this wisp of a woman, who had the bad manners to put up her chin, ask such a blunt question? Who did she think she was? “Surely you know the answer. Or are you as wafer-brained as you are scrawny? He deserves better than you. He deserves someone befitting his noble blood and rank, someone of whom he can be proud, who holds to the same convictions and ambitions. He deserves—”

“—you?” Jane interrupted simply. “I am sorry he did not marry you years ago, my lady. Then perhaps you would not hate him.”

“
Hate
him?” Diana St. John jabbed Jane’s beribboned stomacher with the closed sticks of her fan. “What do you mean, hate him? I
love
him. I’ve always loved him!”

“For a woman who professes love, you spend a great deal of your time needlessly interfering in his life—”

“How dare—”

“—and finding ways to punish him for not loving you in return.”

Diana St. John was rendered speechless. She itched to slap the Countess of Salt Hendon’s beautiful face. A terrace crowded with the crème de la crème of Polite Society forestalled her.

“Clever,” she finally managed to say in a low voice and held firm her fan to Jane’s belly. “Got a dirty little secret to tell me, my lady?” she taunted, again jabbing the fan into her. When Jane opened wide her eyes and instinctively tried to move away but was trapped by the iron railing in the small of her back, Diana St. John’s smug smile reappeared. “I’ll lay good odds he’s blissfully ignorant of the brat you’re carrying, just as he was four years ago.”

“Yes, I am pregnant with Lord Salt’s child, my lady,” Jane replied with a calmness that belied her anxiety. “You can be the first to congratulate us.”

“Congratulate you? Dear God, I’ll see you and the bastard burn in hell first!”

“How is that you know I conceived Salt’s child four years ago?” Jane asked in her blunt way, though it took all her self-control to remain calm, stunned as she was by the ferocity of the woman’s vitriol. “I told no one Magnus was the father of my child.”

“That was a dim-wit’s mistake, but one I applaud wholeheartedly. Had you sense you would’ve confessed all to Sir Felix, and your father would have run hot foot to London, and Salt been forced to marry you. By protecting
Magnus
you caused the death of his child. Good Lord! You didn’t even possess the guile to keep your legs closed to him until he had you up before parson. More fool you.”

“Perhaps I was a fool. Perhaps I am in some way to blame for my baby’s death but… I was naïve and so desperately in love, and believed myself loved in return…” When Diana St. John gave a snort of disbelief, Jane added quietly, hoping to see a spark of humanity in the beautiful painted face, “What about the birth of your twins; when you first held Ron and Merry in your arms? Did you not love your babies so much it hurt?”

“What sentimental tripe!” Diana St. John said dismissively then smiled knowingly, prodding Jane again with her fan. “My children are worth a great deal to me, a very great deal because Salt loves them as if they were his own. My son is Salt’s heir. He would do anything for my son; leave his bride in the middle of the night to comfort me by Ron’s sickbed. Don’t think he won’t continue to do so for as along as I want him there, out of your bed and beside me. In that there is no contest. You will never win.”

Jane regarded Diana St. John with horrified fascination to think she saw her children as merely a means to an end, that end being Lord Salt’s time and attentions; that it was a contest worth winning just to have the Earl attending on her sick son in the middle of the night.

Jane voiced a disturbing notion that had been forming in the back of her mind since that day in the freezing anteroom when she was overcome with nausea at the scent of Lady St. John’s perfume. “You were there the night I miscarried. Your voice—your perfume; I remember both distinctly.”

“Drink it in, my lady,” Diana St. John purred, enjoying intimidating the Countess, whose face had lost its healthy glow. Perhaps if she tormented her a little while longer the woman might collapse from nervous exhaustion that would bring on a miscarriage. “It’s a very distinctive scent, is it not? Most men adore it. It’s blended for me by a little apothecary on the Strand; very talented German; perfumer, apothecary and supplier of all manner of substances to rid oneself of unwanted ills. Does it make you feel very,
very
green? For shame! Let me give you something to expel your nausea. I assure you it works every time. Sir Felix was very grateful for my guidance, and of course he couldn’t have been more pleased with the medicinal I provided.”