Historical Romance Boxed Set (89 page)

He wanted Lady St. Ives. And now that he knew what he wanted, he had to decide how to get it.

Chapter 25

“Maman, the duke has sent me a message. I am to meet him and his daughter, Catherine, this afternoon.” Jeannette put the elegant stationery the butler had delivered to her just a few moments earlier on her mother’s dressing table.

Sitting before the mirror in her wrap, Rose Marie glanced at the note as though it were a snake. “So soon,
ma petite?
”

“
Oui
. Why not? You, father, and Henri will be busy settling into the house you found last week. I will beg a few days to help you, but then there is nothing to stop me from working. A post like this is very difficult to find.”

Her mother picked up the brush she had been using and went back to work on her hair. It was early, not yet time for breakfast, but the men had already left for Black’s Coffee House, where they liked to sit and read the newspaper. “I am afraid your father will not be pleased. He is convinced you will be happier with a husband and children.”

Jeannette sighed. “And I can tell that you agree with him. But who would you have me marry, Maman? Another old man? Another stranger?”

“The duke’s son seemed quite taken with you last night.”

“He was merely being polite. I do not exactly understand his and the duke’s sudden interest, but I am no longer in the market for marriage.”

“Jeannette, I know how you feel about the lieutenant—or is it captain now?—but with time—”

“Time is exactly what I am giving myself, Maman.”

“How much time?”

“Lady Catherine wants a four-year commitment.”

Rose Marie’s brush clattered onto the table. “
Four years
, Jeannette? You will be an old maid before you are free to carry on with your life.”

“I will only be twenty-three.”

Her mother rubbed her face before looking at Jeannette in the mirror. “If I cannot talk you out of it, then I will support you in it.”

Jeannette knew it took considerable effort for her to say those words. They were enough.

“Thank you, Maman.” Dropping a kiss on the top of her head, Jeannette smiled. “This will be a good thing for me. You will see.”

* * *

Brought to the door by Darby’s footman, Jeannette entered the duke’s house feeling conspicuous without a lady’s maid. One had always accompanied her in France. But Lord Darby ran his house with a minimum of servants. Short of taking a scullery maid, Jeannette had no one to attend her.

There were worse things to worry about, however. She excused the footman to wait with the coach and followed the duke’s butler through a large marble entry into a front parlor tastefully decorated with brocade furniture, several family portraits, fabric-covered walls, and a high ceiling with thick crown molding.

Fresh-cut peonies filled several vases, perfuming the air and adding to the room’s spacious elegance.

“His Grace and Lady Catherine will be with you shortly, Madame,” the butler said and bowed himself out.

Dressed in a purposely plain blue dress, Jeannette perched on a settee in the center of the room and told herself that she was doing the right thing. She wanted a husband and a family, eventually, but she couldn’t think of that now, not after Treynor.

The door clicked and Jeannette looked up, expecting to see the Duke of Ellsborough and Lady Catherine. Instead, the butler came to stand before her. “Madame, before His Grace and Lady Catherine come down, the duke’s son begs a word with you.”

Surprised, Jeannette inclined her head. “Of course, I would be pleased to speak with Lord Baldwin.”

“Oh, but it isn’t Lord Baldwin, Madame, it is Captain Sir—”

“I will take over from here, Hodges,” a familiar voice drawled, coming from the entrance.

“Yes, sir.”

Jeannette looked around the butler to see Lieutenant—no, Captain—Treynor walk into the room. The surprise of it nearly knocked her from her perch. What was he doing here?

The butler’s steps receeded in the hall outside as Treynor stood looking at her with an inscrutable expression on his face. “My father tells me—”

“Your
father?
” Jeannette echoed. The last she had heard, he didn’t know who his father was. Evidently that had changed.

He gave her a wry smile. “Yes, my mother finally told me the truth—I thought the gossip was all over the ball last night, but evidently you left before you heard the news. The Duke of Ellsborough is my father.” His grin widened. “A bastard could do worse, eh?”

Jeannette felt some of the tension leave her and smiled, hoping, for Treynor’s sake, that he had been able to put the devils of his past behind him at last. “I am happy for you,” she admitted. “Truly happy.”

He shrugged as though this latest development didn’t affect him, but she could tell it did, deeply, and that he was pleased. “Nothing essential has changed.”

“He is publicly recognizing you as his son. That is something.”

“Now that he knows I exist, he is willing to do what he can, but legally I am still a bastard. That will never change.” He paused, watching her. “Does it bother you, Jeannette?”

Jeannette considered the question. From the first, Treynor had proven himself to be an extraordinary man. What difference did the circumstances of his birth make?

She shook her head. “If I have learned one thing since the Revolution, Captain Treynor, it is that high birth and wealth are not the measure of a man.”

“And what is the measure of a man, to you, my lovely Jeannette?” He dropped down on one knee in front of her, and Jeannette thought she would drown in the depths of his eyes as he took her hand and gazed up at her.

“His heart, of course.”

“And my heart, Jeannette? Is it good enough for you?”

Jeannette felt her throat tighten. How could he doubt that it was? “You are a man of honor,” she told him honestly. “I care not whether your heart is perfect, Treynor. The only thing that matters to me is whether it is mine.”

He raised both her hands to his lips and kissed each one in turn. “Ah, Jeannette. What have you done to me? My heart was yours the night you left me writhing in my bed, and though I have done my best to wrest it back, I have finally realized there is no hope of that. Not ever.”

His eyes appealed to her, holding a wealth of emotions: hope, admiration, vulnerability. “Will you marry me? Wait for me when I am at sea? Welcome me when I come eagerly home to your arms?”

If not for the solid feel of him touching her and the intensity of his gaze, Jeannette might have thought she was dreaming. She had come to the duke’s to give four years of her life away as a governess and instead found the fulfillment of her fondest hopes. “Is marriage really what you want, Captain?”

“
You
are what I want,” he replied, “as my wife and the mother of my children.”

“But you once told me you have no use for a virgin,” she teased.

“That is a problem I shall fix at the first opportunity.” Reaching up to palm the back of her head, he drew her to him for a searching kiss.

Jeannette parted her lips, welcoming the warm, velvety sensation of his tongue as it entered her mouth and delved deeper and deeper still, until she felt completely consumed with him and could imagine nothing better on earth.

After a moment, he pulled away. “Tell me you love me, that you will be my wife,” he said, his breathing ragged. “I want to hear the words from your lips, not just the welcome of your body.”

Jeannette tried to laugh, but her heart was pounding too hard and her lungs hadn’t the air for it. “My body does not lie, Sir Crawford,” she said. “I will love you always and forever. I am already praying that the war will end so you will never have to leave me.”

“Then I will tell my father that Catherine will have to find another governess.”

She laughed and abandoned herself to the joy of feeling his arms close tightly about her, never to let her go again.

* * *

Jeannette waited with her parents and Henri at the fine old church on Piccadilly. She wore a watered-silk gown of the palest pink and held a simple bouquet in her hands. That her wedding was to be a quick, private affair suited her. Indeed, she doubted she could have waited a second longer.

The door boomed shut, and the Duke of Ellsborough and Lord Baldwin made their way up the aisle, but they weren’t whom Jeannette wanted to see. Where was Treynor?

Her mother patted her arm. “He will be here, ma petite. He is not even late. Calm down.”

Her parents stood to greet the duke and his son. They bowed over her mother’s hand before kissing Jeannette’s as well.

“I can see you are as eager for this marriage as the groom, young lady, and I cannot tell you how well it pleases me,” the duke said. “I knew you were perfect for each other the moment I met you.”

Jeannette smiled. “Without your matchmaking efforts, I fear we would not be here, Your Grace. Treynor and I both owe you a great debt.”

“Just make him happy,” he said. “That is all I ask.”

Another thud signaled the entrance of someone else and drew Jeannette’s attention once again to the door. There, dressed in a black cloth coat, an embroidered waistcoat, and a white, lace-trimmed neckcloth above a snug-fitting pair of knee breeches, was Captain Sir Crawford Treynor.

As he strode up the aisle, Jeannette thought he had never looked more handsome. His hair was neatly groomed, his face tan and clean shaven. A ready smile showed his teeth.

He bowed when he reached her parents, but his eyes strayed to her as though she were the only one in the church. “Good morning, Lord and Lady Lumfere. I trust you slept well?”

“Better now that we know our daughter will not spend her life pining away,” Jacques said. “You will treat her well, no?”

“Indeed I shall.” He turned to Jeannette and lifted her hand to his lips. “Are you happy, my love?”

“How could I be anything less?” she asked as the warmth of his strong fingers gently caressing her own sent shivers up her arm.

Treynor cleared his throat. “Shall we get on with it?” he asked the others.

The duke laughed. “I am glad you are so eager, my son, but I fear we must wait for the vicar, special license or no.”

Treynor scowled, but the vicar soon appeared and greeted them all. “Have a seat everyone. Are we ready to begin?”

Just then light came streaming into the dim interior as the door opened again and the Marchioness of Bedford entered.

“Mother.” Treynor left Jeannette’s side to meet the stately woman coming up the aisle. He placed a gentle kiss on her cheek. “I thought you couldn’t make it.”

The marchioness held him for a few moments, smiling. “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

“Lady Bedford.” The duke stood, drawing the woman’s attention at last from her son.

“Your Grace.”

Their eyes held for a moment as something passed between them. Then the duke took and kissed her hand. “We created a fine son, despite everyone and everything,” he said. “Thank you for letting us know each other at last.”

She nodded. “The truth has brought me peace.”

“Then let us begin.”

She greeted Jeannette and Jeannette’s family, took a seat next to the duke and Lord Baldwin, and turned an expectant smile on the vicar.

The ceremony began and Treynor’s hand, warm and powerful, closed around Jeannette’s. He towered at her side, his energy filling her at that single point of contact, fusing them together as if they were already one.

Jeannette reveled in the sight and the feel of him, and in the tingle of anticipation that came with knowing they would soon be man and wife.

“Wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy state of matrimony? Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honor, and keep him in sickness and in health? And forsaking all others keep thee only to him so long as you both shall live?” the vicar asked.

Jeannette looked at Treynor and thought her heart would burst with loving him. “I will.”

About the Author

It was a shocking experience that jump-started Brenda Novak’s author career. “I caught my day-care provider drugging my children with cough syrup to get them to sleep while I was away,” Brenda says.  “It was then that I decided that I needed to do something from home.”

What was that something? Brenda decided to write a book, and the rest is history. Now a
New York Times
and
USA Today
bestseller, Brenda is a three-time Rita finalist. Her books have won numerous awards, including the National Reader’s Choice, the Bookseller’s Best, The Write Touch Reader’s Award, the Bookbuyer’s Best, the Holt Medallion and the Award of Excellence.

Publisher’s Weekly
says Brenda’s novels are “richly dramatic.” According to
The Library Journal
, her work will appeal to those who like their romances with a “sophisticated touch.” And
RT Book Review Magazine
says, “Brenda Novak skillfully blends richly developed characters and emotionally intense issues to create a powerful romance. This is an author destined for stardom.”