The Rogue's Return (7 page)

Then he remembered that the narrow bed was because Isaiah had lovingly furnished this for two. When Jane had arrived alone, the extra bed, chest of drawers, and chair had been removed to spare her grief. It would seem that she'd not chosen to change anything.

She'd made it her own, but probably without spending much money. Why, when Isaiah would have delighted to buy her anything she desired?

The quilt on the bed was a patchwork of scraps—pretty enough, but not elegant—and the fine carpet was protected by the sort of country rug again made of scraps. A knitted blanket was folded over the chair. Perhaps she wrapped herself in it on the coldest days. A pleasant enough thought, but it reminded him of the dull, knitted shawl she often wore. Isaiah would have bought her the finest kashmir.

He realized the room felt like one in a simple house, or even in a cottage. If she was uneasy in Trewitt House, what would she make of Brideswell? And yet it was
strangely comfortable. With bits and scraps and the work of her own hands, Jane had created a pleasant nest.

She'd surrounded herself with pictures from her past. That was hardly surprising. He had a picture of Brideswell on his own wall along with miniatures of his parents.

Hers were all crudely framed, however, apart from the not-very-good painting of Archibald Otterburn. No mistaking father and daughter even though Simon suspected that she had more energy and strength in one finger than her father had ever possessed. He'd died from getting caught out in the rain. That didn't surprise.

She got her strength from her mother, as was obvious in the pencil portrait of Martha Otterburn that he hadn't seen before. Here, caught in her kitchen, she looked more relaxed and kindly.

Beside that was a less successful work that must be a self-portrait by the cousin. The quality of the drawing equaled the others, but the pose had the awkwardness common in self-portraits. She looked so wooden it was impossible to imagine what she'd been like, but even so, the resemblance to Jane was remarkable between distant cousins. Nan Otterburn's face had been a little longer, perhaps her nose a little straighter, but assuming the coloring was the same, they must have seemed like twins.

Nan's talent had been remarkable for her age. A tragic loss of perhaps a genius. He saw no signature, but her drawings were finer work than the painting, which was boldly signed
B K McKee
.

Then he spotted one other small drawing sitting framed on the desk. He picked it up to see a two-story house that was clearly part of a terrace, even though the image faded to nothing on either side.

Their home in Carlisle, he assumed. Decent but modest. Very modest. Otterburn's school had apparently been well respected and had prepared many boys for
grander ones, but he'd clearly not made a fortune at it. There was something in the front window. He held the drawing closer and made out a card saying:
Mrs. Otterburn. Haberdasher.

He couldn't help it. His first thought was that Jane must never show the picture to his family or to anyone in her new circle.

He pushed the thought away, but it lingered like grit in a wound. He'd married a shopkeeper's daughter, one who'd worked in the shop, and though he could tell himself he didn't mind, he minded that others would.

He put the picture down, reminding himself that the Otterburns were respectable Scottish gentry headed, he gathered, by a Sir David Otterburn, a philanthropist of some note. Simon could make some comment about charity beginning at home, since Sir David had not taken in Nan, but still, it was a decent connection. Even her relationship with Isaiah was in her favor, for he'd done well for himself in the New World and mixed with the highest levels here in York.

He wasn't ashamed of his wife's origins, he assured himself.

It would simply be better if no one back home knew about the shop.

T
hey worked through the evening as if, thought Simon, it all had to be done in the one day. Or because work was escape from grief.

When the hall clock tinkled nine, however, Hal rose. “I should return to the hotel.”

Something made Simon think that Hal had realized this was their wedding night. He was tempted to laugh.

“I thank you for your help. Will we be able to impose on you tomorrow?”

“Certainly, and all the morrows.”

When Simon returned from showing Hal out, Jane was still working through papers. He drew her to her feet. “Enough of that. You'll wear out your eyes.”

“The writing is beginning to swim.”

“Come on, then. It's been a long and difficult day.”

Simon locked the room. He had no reason to think anyone would pry or steal, but all these things were his responsibility now. Then he was unsure what to do next. As Jane had said, no one would expect them to treat this as a normal wedding night, but without rituals, what did one do?

Then Mrs. Gunn marched into the hall, strange to his eyes in a good dress, black bonnet, and gloves. “If you don't mind, sir, ma'am, I'll pay my respects to Mr. Trewitt for a while. I put a plain supper in your room, sir,
so you take your wife up there and have some peace and quiet.”

An unlikely guiding light, but it didn't sound like a bad idea. There were matters to talk of. Simon thanked the cook, took Jane's hand, and drew her up the stairs. He felt her reluctance. “We need to talk, and then we can go to our separate beds.”

“You must think me silly.”

“Not to want to consummate such a marriage on such a day? Not at all. There's no hurry, after all. Come along.”

His room lay at the far end of the corridor, so they had to pass Isaiah's door. Simon stopped. It seemed impossible that his friend wouldn't emerge with a genial smile and a cheery comment. “He'll never sleep there again.”

“And everything in there has to be dealt with,” she wearily pointed out.

All Isaiah's little treasures. He'd kept the horn buttons from the coat in which he'd arrived in Canada, and some rough whittled figures a friend had made up in the north. There were eagle feathers, a beaded belt, corn husk dolls, a scarred knife with a carved bone handle . . .

“I want to bury them with him,” Simon abruptly said.

Jane's eyes met his, bright—with tears, he thought, but also with approval. “I'll get a candle.”

She returned in a moment and they entered the room. The bed was still disordered from Isaiah's rising, and his nightshirt lay over a chair. The whole room spoke of a person leaving it who intended to return. Death could strike like a scythe into grass on a sunlit day.

Simon went to the chest of drawers and mantelpiece where the treasures sat. Jane picked up a porcupine quill basket and he put the items in. She added Isaiah's favorite ivory snuffbox, a new pipe, and some tobacco.

“The rest still has to be dealt with,” Simon said, “but I'll be glad to send him on his way with these things for his journey.”

They shared a smile and left the chilly room to go on
to his bright, warm one. The fire had been built up and the promised food set on a small table between the two comfortable chairs. The curtains were discreetly drawn across the alcove bed. Tactful Mrs. Gunn.

Simon seated Jane in one chair and served her with food and wine. She took it, but didn't eat or drink. When he sat in the other chair, he said, “Wine settles the nerves. Try some.”

She shook her head. “I can't. I keep thinking that we should have found a decent way to avoid this marriage. Is there any way to escape it now?”

Simon was surprisingly hurt by the word “escape.” “I'll look into it, but I don't think so. Am I really so intolerable to you?”

She looked up, those blue eyes huge. “No, but you can't want it. I'm not a suitable bride for you.”

“I assure you, I could have had a
suitable
bride anytime I wished, here and in England, there being a remote chance I'll be an earl one day.”

It was something he often joked about, but from her reaction, she hadn't believed it.

“That's not true, is it?”

“Well, yes.”

She looked as if he'd announced he had the plague.

“It's not quite a fate worse than death.” His light tone misfired, so he spoke plainly. “Jane, don't be a goose. My father is a distant connection of the Earl of Marlowe, and yes, he does stand in line. But for him to inherit, the earl's current heir, Viscount Austrey, would have to die without a son. Austrey's only fifteen years older than I, and last I heard his young wife had given him a couple of daughters. There's bound to be a boy or two soon.”

“But if there isn't, you'll be an earl?”

“Yes, but far, far in the future. If Austrey doesn't sire a son, he'll still likely live another thirty or forty years. We St. Brides have staying power. His father's nearly ninety. So when doom descends on our heads, we'll be too old to care.”

She didn't look much comforted, so he added, “If he dies sooner, my father's in the predicament, not me. And Father's a hale and hearty fifty-one without any interest in risky activities like hunting.” He decided not to bother her with the detail that if his father did inherit the earldom, he would then have the heir's title, Viscount Austrey.

“If you don't care for the idea,” he added, “you'll be a kindred spirit to my parents. The thought of having to leave Brideswell would keep them awake at nights, if they thought it was a remote possibility.”

“You think me silly.”

“No.”

“You do, and with reason. But this is your world, Simon, not mine. It makes sense to you, but not to me. I won't know how to behave, how to fit in.”

“Of course you will.”

“I'll be an outcast.”

“You'll be my wife,” he said firmly.

“I'm a shopkeeper's daughter. I
helped
in the shop!”

“You certainly won't fit in if you keep throwing that like a handful of dung!”

A horrible silence gripped them, and then she looked down, biting her lip.

“Jane, I'm sorry, but truly, it doesn't matter.”

That was a lie, and they both knew it. Simon felt mentally exhausted, without any capacity to deal with this now, but he must try. “Listen, Hal isn't treating you like a peasant, is he?”

“No, but he doesn't know.”

“I'll tell him tomorrow. It won't matter.”

“He'll hide it, but it will,” she insisted. “I've avoided York society, but I know the finest here consider such as I a lower species of animal, no matter how graciously they condescend.”

That startled him. Did the village women in Monkton St. Brides feel like a lower species when his mother and
sisters stopped to talk to them? Did they feel condescension?

Did
he
make people feel that way? He didn't consider himself a higher being—but yes, sometimes he felt he was doing someone a kindness merely by taking an interest.

Hell.

“Drink some wine.” When she'd mutinously obeyed, he said, “You've heard me mention the Company of Rogues.”

She nodded warily. “Your school-day friends.”

“Hal's one. Some of them are married now, and not to particularly highborn women. Your father was a schoolmaster. The Marquess of Arden married a schoolteacher. That's no higher, and he's the heir to the Duke of Belcraven. I very much doubt that anyone's making Beth Arden feel like a lower species. Lucien would gut them.”

“But she's a marchioness.”

“Eat some cake,” he said, heartened by the story himself. “Lee, the Earl of Charrington, married the impoverished widow of a poet, and if I remember aright, she had been a curate's daughter before her first marriage. I don't think a curate rates higher than a schoolmaster, does he?”

“You're making fun of me.”

“I'm merely showing that your fears are overblown.”

She fired a look at him. “Then why say I should keep the shop a secret?”

“Oh, dammit, talk about it if you want. Open a shop if you bloody well want.” He inhaled. “I apologize.”

She was scarlet, with mortification or anger.

He raised her from her chair, carrying her hands to his lips. “Forgive me. We're insane to try to talk about this now. It will all sort out, I promise. In a couple of months we'll be back in England and you'll see that your sordid origins will not matter.”

He'd meant “sordid” as a joke, but she burst into tears. After a helpless moment, he pulled her into his arms and patted her back. “Come, come now. I didn't mean it. There's nothing sordid in your birth. Even Isaiah's family are respectable people.”

She went on weeping in such a deeply anguished way, he was at a loss. He backed into his chair and took her on his knee, where he rocked her as he would a disconsolate child. He could understand the need to weep, but he didn't understand the trigger.

“Jane, Jane, even if the whole world discovers that your widowed mother made ends meet by selling ribbon and lace, and that you helped in her shop, only the most particular will mind, and who cares about them? Is it being a countess?” he asked desperately. “Truly, it can't happen for decades.”

Oh, shut up, you idiot.
This was exhaustion and grief over Isaiah. He could almost weep himself. He remembered then that Jane had found Isaiah and then been forced into a marriage. And dammit, perhaps the prospect of meeting marquesses and earls
was
terrifying for her.

He rubbed her back, silently begging her to calm.

What were the grounds for annulling a marriage? Insanity, he thought. Fraud. If a person pretended to be someone they weren't. One of the parties being under twenty-one. But Isaiah had been Jane's legal guardian and he'd clearly given his consent in front of a room full of witnesses.

There'd been no banns or license, but he knew that here, where ministers and churches were scarce, the laws were relaxed. A prayer book marriage freely entered into in front of so many and presided over by the parish clergyman was probably ironclad.

Her sobs subsided, so he eased her straighter and looked into her blotched and swollen-eyed face. The crying had marred her looks, but that only made him feel
more protective. If there was a way out of this, and if she truly wanted it, he'd find it.

“Jane, for now, think of me as your brother. I have four sisters, so I'm highly experienced at the job. If my sisters were here I'm sure they'd give me excellent references. You shall have my protection, guidance, and care.” He risked a joke again. “All I require in return is that you kneel three times a day and bow down before me as if I were the Grand Panjandrum himself.”

This time his humor worked. The reference to the nonsensical potentate brought a weak smile. “ ‘With the little round button a-top,” ' she quoted, sitting up straighter and pulling out a handkerchief to wipe her face. “I've made a terrible mess of your jacket.”

“A sister's privilege. Though I'd say my jacket has made a terrible mess of your face.” He touched her cheek. “I see a clear impression of a button.”

She rubbed the spot and struggled off his knees to stand. “I'm so very sorry. For everything.” She looked at him with intent seriousness. “There
could
be a way out of this marriage—”

“Hush.” He rose and put a finger on her lips. “If there is, we can't do anything yet. Wisely or not, I let it be known that we intended to marry. We can't go back on that without reviving scandal. Let's cope with the immediate and consider the rest later.”

Her fingers tangled in the damp handkerchief. “What if McArthur comes back before we leave? Oh, I wish women were allowed to issue challenges!”

“Can you handle a pistol?”

“I could learn.”

“I'm sure you could.”

Despite her conventional middle-class upbringing, he meant it. He saw her again, charging across a rough field and yelling scathing commands, hair flying loose.

Knowing it to be unwise, he untied the laces beneath her chin and pulled off her mourning cap. It took very
little work to remove pins so that her hair fell heavily down her back.

She stared at him, wide-eyed, lips parted.

Kissable.

“Why do you keep it hidden?”

But his soul knew why. So her hair wouldn't drive men mad as it threatened to do to him. He wanted to gather it in his hands like an avaricious thief clutching guineas.

She grabbed it on one side—like a miser guarding guineas. As if she knew. “I've been in mourning.”

Mourning didn't require a woman to hide her hair. Another puzzle, but this was no time to badger her with questions. He escorted her to her bedroom and then returned to his own room, wanting to tear things apart.