The Belligerent Miss Boynton AND The Lurid Lady Lockport (Two Companion Full-Length Regency Novels) (18 page)

"Not so," the bleary–eyed Bo protested. "Sober as a judge.
Hic
."

"Ha! And I'm Richard the Lionhearted at your service," Jared retorted, laughing. "There's my coach, gentlemen. Where to now?"

"Home for me, I think, Jared, old friend. I crave my bed."

Bo agreed. "Go with you, Kevin. Don't feel too well. Feel dashed queer, in fact." He then proved his point by making a mad rush for the gutter.

"What a pair of deadheads you are. Very well, come along. I'll drop you off before I go on to my club if you're so chicken-livered."

"Don't, please. No chicken livers. Couldn't right now, thank you," Bo pleaded as he rejoined the group.

After leaving his two friends at Kevin's lodgings, Jared changed his mind about visiting his club and directed his driver to take him to Lady Wade's. Blanche was sure to be home, for it was almost dawn. Maybe with Blanche he would find the release he was seeking. After all, she and her lush body had never failed him before. She was his last hope.

Damn Amanda anyway! When would she go away and leave him in peace?

As his coach made its way to Grosvenor Square, Jared's disgustingly clear head went back over the events of the past months, long soulless months of drinking and gambling, of ton parties and low dives. He had amused himself in visits to his old haunts, culping wafers at Manton's, inspecting the new stock at Tattersall's, trading punches with other male members of the ton at Cribb's Parlor, and drinking himself into oblivion at the Daffy Club. At night he would gamble at White's or Watier's, and—much to his agitation—he rarely lost. He fell heavily into his bed each dawn after drinking himself past remembering, only to wake from nightmares in which Amanda always took the leading role.

Kevin and Bo had welcomed him back into their bachelor circle without question, although he knew they were bursting with curiosity about his hasty marriage, about the now curiously absent bride. All he had told them was that his wife was at Storm Haven with his aunt. His friends hadn't pushed for more information, and for that Jared was grateful.

He had seen Blanche one night at a small dinner party, but she had gone out of her way to cut him dead. It was obvious she had heard of his marriage and did not approval of the union, or his desertion of her, not that she had returned the diamond necklace he'd sent her as a farewell gift. He really didn't care about her one way or the other—she had been well paid—but it rankled him that her escort had been none other than his cousin Freddie who, Jared thought at the time, wouldn't know what to do with someone like Blanche even if she did invite him into her bed.

The hatred blazing from Cousin Freddie's eyes when he'd first spied Jared stemmed from several reasons, he knew. Even if he could be sure Jared was never to father an heir, he still would hate his cousin with all the malice he could muster—which was considerable.

Yet when they'd crossed paths a second time, at a small dinner party, Freddie had been much more forthcoming, offering his congratulations on the marriage while withholding any sly innuendoes as to the bride's very notable absence. Wasn't a bit like Freddie to do that, Jared had thought at the time, but perhaps their encounter at the inn had taught Freddie to hold his tongue.

Finally getting some brains in his pointed little head
, Jared concluded as the carriage halted in front of the Wade residence. A sleepy footman opened the door, recognized Jared, and let him in as if it were a matter of course, which for several months it had been.

"I know the way, thank you." Jared unhooked his evening cloak with only slightly fumbling fingers—he was a little well-to-go, he knew, but he hadn't drunk that deep, had he? He handed the cape over to the man, then made his way upstairs. When he entered the widow Wade's chamber without knocking, it was to find her sitting on a chair in front of her dressing table, a maid combing out her long blonde hair.

She frowned into the mirror. "Leave us, Nora," she ordered the maid, and then turned on the low bench, her hungry gaze sweeping over him. "So, Jared, you think you can come tripping back here after all this time as if things were as they were before? Go home to your little bride, why don't you? Or is she already as sick of you as I am?" She stood, giving him a full view of her body, plainly visible through a palest pink, diaphanous nightgown. Her green eyes blazed as she reached behind her, her fingers closing on a hand mirror she abruptly flung at him. "
Get out
!"

Jared dodged the mirror neatly, and watched as it splintered into a thousand pieces against the door. "Oh, that is too bad, darling. Now you shall have bad luck. I'm only here to talk. Friend to friend, as it were. We were friends once, weren't we?" Even as he said the words, he knew he was lying. He'd come to bed her, to rid his mind of thoughts of Amanda, if only for a little while.

Blanche had begun to back away from him, her angry look replaced by a confused frown, but then a slow smile curved her lips.

"Talk, Jared? Is that what you told yourself as you ordered your coachman to bring you here at this hour? Oh, I doubt that. It's my body you want, isn't it? That can be arranged, Jared darling. That can
always
be arranged, for the right price. I have missed you, you know. So what if you married some simple schoolgirl? It's me you came to tonight, isn't it? Did you miss me too, darling?"

Jared blinked at his one-time mistress. Where once Blanche had looked voluptuous, lush, inviting, she now seemed too obvious, over-blown, and even faintly coarse. A vision of Amanda's small, perfect body rose in front of his eyes and he felt as if he was going to be physically ill.

Blanche smiled at him and she appeared distorted, as if he were viewing her through flawed glass. He took a single step backwards. Why had he come here? Was he drunk? Was he
mad
?

As Blanche drew nearer, teetering on her ridiculous high-heeled slippers, Jared could smell her overpowering musk, so different from his wife's sweet lavender scent, and he compared the cold, glittering green eyes that laughed up at him now with the warm smoldering gold of Amanda's.

Blanche was talking to him, but Jared couldn't hear what she was saying for the pounding in his ears. All he could see was Amanda's small face as she looked up at him and declared that she trusted him.
Trusted him
. Dear God! He pushed Blanche's hands from him as she reached out to cup his sex and she went crashing backwards to the floor.

"A mistake. This was a mistake," he told her, his head pounding, his stomach roiling at the thought of why he really had come here, what he had almost done. Was he trying to destroy himself? Destroy Amanda? Could it take no more than a few short months for a man to reach the heights, and then fall to the nadir? And was it too late to reach for that happiness again, too late for one last gamble—betting that chance of happiness against his father's dark warnings?

"I'm sorry, Blanche. Truly sorry. My only excuse is my own drunken stupidity," he said, reaching down to help her to her feet. She shrank from his touch, spitting curses at him. He quickly emptied his pockets, depositing that night's considerable gaming winnings on a small table before he turned and quit the room.

"Jared!
Jared
!" Blanche screamed after him. "I'll kill you for this, you bastard!
Nobody
treats me like a common whore.
Nobody
! Do you hear me? Do you hear me, Jared Delaney? I'll see you
dead
!"

He grabbed his evening cloak from the startled footman and crashed out of the house and into his coach. When he reached Half Moon Street he went directly to his study, locked the door behind him, and spent the rest of the night consuming all the brandy in the room.

#

"Aunt Agatha, how do you think the roses look here? Would they perhaps be better in the music room?"

Lady Chezwick dutifully inspected Amanda's handiwork, and between them they decided to leave the roses where they were. The older woman looked around the once dreary salon, now flooded in sunlight and lit by creamy flocked walls and light blue furniture. "You've worked a small miracle with this room, my dear, and the crowning touch is to see my dear sister's portrait back where it belongs."

"Why, thank you, Aunt Agatha. I do think using the blue of her gown to cover the furniture we found in the attics was just the right touch. But I had no idea how lovely everything would look without those dreadful heavy draperies at the windows."

Lady Chezwick returned to her seat near the fireplace and beckoned for Amanda to join her. "I still can't quite get over your boundless energy, my dear. Ever since you had me summon that small army of workmen from London there has been nothing but hammering and banging from morning till night. Even the servant quarters have not been left untouched. Are there any rooms still to be done, do you think, or will you not rest until you have laid an Aubusson carpet in Tempest's stall?"

Amanda laughed at her aunt's joke and hastened to assure her that the worst was over. "I think all is in readiness now, but I shudder to think what Jared will say when he receives the trademens' bills." Her smile faded as she remembered her husband's last words to her before he mounted his horse and rode out of her life: "Why not play house, Amanda? You seem to wish to be domestic."

She had taken him at his word, and entered full-force into renovating Storm Haven, leaving only the ancestral marriage-bed unchanged. There, at night, she would relive her wedding night and weep into her pillow.

Sometimes she would ride Tempest to the old cemetery and sit next to the two simple stones she'd commissioned erected over Jared's parents graves. She had received a perverse pleasure from watching Lavinia's former marker taken away, and had ordered it smashed to bits. So much for old ghosts!

Lady Chezwick had asked her many times why she was driving herself like she was. But Amanda would just smile at her and continue choosing upholstery fabrics, or watching over the painter's shoulders as they mixed colors to her specifications.

She had hired a few new staff members from the village and renovated the stables to meet Harrow's suggestions. She met daily with the estate manager, and had taken over the keeping of records. Every afternoon she spent an hour with Tom, who had turned out to be a fairly handsome youth under his grime, teaching him his letters and sums. She sampled Cook's sauces in the kitchens, counted the linen with the laundress, and polished silver with the butler.

In the three months since her marriage and subsequent desertion by her husband Amanda had firmly entrenched herself as chatelaine of Storm Haven. The staff adored her. Didn't she regularly send baskets of food and materials to the village, and order the re-thatching of all the cottages on the estate? Wasn't it Lady Storm who knew all their names, and the names of all their children, and never hesitated to pass an hour sitting in the sun with one of the old ones?

It was only at night, lying alone in her marriage bed, that Amanda allowed herself to relax, that she gave in to her fears and memories. Lady Chezwick kept assuring her that Jared would soon come to his senses and return home, but Lady Chezwick didn't know exactly how her sister had died, or how her beloved nephew had lived his youth.

On this warm summer day, after a cold collation in the smaller dining room, Lady Chezwick retired to her rooms for a rest and Amanda drifted out into the gardens. The formal gardens were full of summer flowers, and she had made no alterations there—a decision which had endeared her to the ancient head gardener. She spent a few minutes talking with the man, exchanging hints on pruning the ancient rose hedge, before she moved off to her private haven, the kitchen garden.

It was in her mother's kitchen garden that she had learned about herbs, and flowers, and the sweet tranquility to be found in such welcoming places.

The homely smells of rosemary and thyme calmed her senses, and there was a peace here that she had discovered nowhere else. She had scandalized her aunt by working in the garden herself, often returning to the house with grubby hands and stains on her gown. Amanda smiled to herself now as she dropped to her knees and began pulling some weeds that threatened the young parsley, a childhood song coming to her lips as she worked.

When she raised her head the world tilted dizzily for a few moments and she grabbed onto a nearby bench for support. "I'm sufficiently aware of your presence, child," she whispered. "You can stop reminding me, thank you."

She quickly looked about her to make sure she had not been overheard, then placed her hands on her gently rounded stomach as she addressed her unborn child. "Your father is such an arrogant, headstrong man; I don't know if it was the possibility of bearing him a child or the fact that I dared to disobey him which sent him from me. We'll keep our secret a little while longer, in the hopes your father comes to his senses, but soon you'll make yourself known regardless of my wishes."

Amanda got up from her knees, brushed the dirt from her hands, and returned to the main salon. "You have a stubborn son, Lavinia, much as I love him," she said, smiling up at the portrait of Jared's mother as she stood in front of the mantel. "I understand his anger, his fears, but surely he's had time enough to realize where he belongs. I couldn't go on if I didn't believe that he'll return to me soon." She wiped a tear from her eye, succeeding in smudging her cheek with garden dirt. "I only wonder who will arrive at Storm Haven first—Jared, or this child I'm carrying."

#

"Dash it all, Jared, you've got to snap yourself out of this. You're living like a damned recluse. Look around you. How do you survive in such filth?" As if to give credence to his words, Kevin swept a pile of newspapers off a chair, along with two empty bottles, and sat down with a thump. "I can't believe you're a sane man any longer. Even Bo wouldn't act like this over a"—he searched for the proper word—"
female
."

Jared didn't so much as raise his chin from his chest, but his blue eyes sparkled in anger. "Why don't you shove yourself off, Kevin, and take that other long face with you." He pointed to Bo, who was standing next to the fireplace, wringing his hands and shaking his head in dismay.