Noble Satyr: A Georgian Historical Romance (61 page)

Instantly, she mentally pulled herself
up.

It didn’t do to let her thoughts wander to
the summerhouse by the lake and what had occurred there. The
summerhouse made her acutely aware of the consequences of her
impulsive actions and that only brought forth darker, more
unspeakable memories, memories she tried desperately to suppress.
Nurse had told her not to dwell, she must go forward, not look
back. That was the last piece of advice Nurse had given her before
her death. She missed her nurse terribly. She wished with all her
heart she was with her today. She needed her strength and her
no-nonsense approach to life. Go forward, don’t look back, child!
Looking forward meant accepting the Earl of Salt Hendon as he was
now, not as he had been during that fateful autumn.

“I will take your silence as assent and not
stubborn disobedience,” he stated, circling her once more. “You are
not unintelligent and thus you will see that if you play your part
in public, if you adhere to the strict upbringing you had as the
daughter of a county squire, society will, given time, come to
accept you not only as my wife but as the new Countess of Salt
Hendon. As Lady Salt, you will soon be invited everywhere. As for
Polite Society’s private opinion of you, that is of supreme
indifference to me.” He signaled impatiently for his secretary to
step forward. “But how you conduct yourself as my wife is very
important to me and to my family. To this end, I have had a
document drawn up which sets out the rules that will govern how you
will live as Lady Salt. Ellis will read it aloud and you, Miss
Despard, will sign it as evidence of your understanding of how your
life will be conducted from this day forward.”

“This document, my lord,” asked Jane with
studious enquiry, but unable to hide a sardonic dimple in her left
cheek, “does it state terms by which you will conduct yourself as
my husband?”

The choking sound came from Mr. Arthur
Ellis.

Salt’s lip curled. “Don’t take me for a
fool, Miss Despard. You will listen to Ellis and when he’s done put
your signature—”

“Oh, this is all very unnecessary!” Jane
complained with an impatient sigh, annoyed beyond endurance by such
insufferable arrogance. She sat down upon the chair. “You said
yourself, my lord, that once we are married we become one and that
you are that one. Then what is the purpose of my signature to a
document that you could very well sign in my stead? You have made
it perfectly clear that I cannot do or say anything without your
permission. Is there not some wording in the marriage vows about
obeying? That should suffice, surely? Besides, if you’ve no thought
for me, then spare one for your secretary, who, anyone with eyes
can see, is as uncomfortable with this wretched business as I
am!”

For the second time that morning, Salt
goggled at her. Not only that but he could not speak.

Mr. Ellis, despite Jane’s accurate
observation and wishes, thought it best to begin reading aloud
before his lordship burst a blood vessel. He had seen his employer
angry, he had seen him furious, but never had he seen him so angry
that he was lost for words. In the three years he had been employed
in the Earl’s household no one, not servant, retainer, friend or
family member, had ever spoken so frankly to his lordship.

Looking at Jane over the parchment that
shook in his trembling hands, it was as if it was only yesterday
that he had first gazed upon his friend’s beautiful stepsister and
fallen under the spell of her loveliness on the spot. And so it was
with the hint of a smile that Arthur began to read, though the
smile soon disappeared when his concentration returned to the
written word. He had not given much thought to the Earl’s
strictures at the time of their dictation, except that they seemed
just and necessary for the self-preservation of a great and wealthy
nobleman about to marry a young woman who had lived unmarried with
an old Bristol Blue Glass manufacturer. Yet, taking another glance
over the sheaf of papers at the girl who sat ram-rod straight,
hands clasped lightly in her lap, he felt acute discomfort to be
reading out what was nothing less than a sentence of life
imprisonment; albeit in a prison that was a magnificent sprawling
Jacobean mansion in the heart of Wiltshire, but a prison
nonetheless.

“…As to the dowry Miss Jane Katherine
Despard brings to the marriage, a dowry bequeathed to her by Jacob
Allenby of Allenby Park, Wiltshire and Bristol, Lord Salt refuses
to accept a guinea of the ten thousand pounds,” Arthur Ellis
continued after a short pause to clear his throat of nervousness.
“Further, Lord Salt instructs Miss Despard to bring to the marriage
only those possessions that were hers at the time she was denied
the protection of the house of her father, Sir Felix Despard,
Squire of Despard Park, Wiltshire. Thus, everything that was gifted
to her by Jacob Allenby: clothes, jewelry, money, writing
instruments, china, linen, furniture, servants, horses, equipage,
in fact anything at all that was purchased with Jacob Allenby’s
coin, will not form any part of her dower. The said articles are to
be discarded and disposed of before marriage.

“Upon marriage, Lord Salt forbids Lady Salt
to live in London, to visit Bath or its environs or to visit
Bristol and its environs. Lord Salt directs Lady Salt to live
year-round at his seat in Wiltshire: Salt Hall. Lady Salt will be
confined to Salt Hall and may take exercise only in the immediate
parkland surrounding the Hall’s main buildings. Lady Salt is not to
venture beyond the lake or the gardens without the express written
permission of her husband. Lady Salt is not to take it upon herself
to visit any of Lord Salt’s tenants, the vicar and his good wife,
or visit the local village of Salt Hendon.

“Lady Salt has her husband’s permission to
do with her apartments at the Hall as she so pleases. Her
apartments will consist of bedchamber and six adjoining rooms plus
a room and closet for her personal maid, but the remainder of the
one hundred and sixty-seven rooms are to be left as she finds them;
so too the grounds; so too the summerhouse by the lake, a place
within the parkland expressly forbidden her ladyship. Once a year,
when his lordship opens his house for the Salt Hunt, Lady Salt will
confine herself to her apartments and the small rose garden and
courtyard thereto attached. From time to time, Lady Salt may have
visitors to Salt Hall, but Lord Salt must approve them in writing
before their intended stay. None by the name of Allenby may
trespass on Lord Salt’s lands. Furthermore and finally—”

“No!” Jane interrupted, up off the chair. “I
will endure much, my lord, but that I will not tolerate! You may
strip me of every material possession given to me by Mr. Allenby,
though that is no great loss, but you cannot strip me of my
memories. You can lock me away in your hideous house and dictate my
movements, but as I am quite used to my own company, that will be
no great deprivation. But you will not take from me the only family
I have.” She sniffed back tears; it was a prosaic action, yet it
caused the secretary to drop his gaze from her lovely face. “Tom is
my brother,” she continued in a calmer voice, turning her head to
look at the Earl who had not moved from his position by the window.
“You may argue that he is my brother
in law
only, but he is
the only brother, the only close relative, who has cared anything
for me since the death of my mother when I was not quite a year
old. And he was the only relative to continue to own me after I
left my father’s house. I love him dearly. I will not allow you to
banish him. He may visit me whenever he chooses or-or-or—”

“—or what, Miss Despard?” Salt drawled to
the rain-spattered window. “You will stamp your pretty foot and
refuse to go through with the wedding? Please, say the word…”

Jane stared at the broad back for a good ten
seconds and then sat down again, in defeat. She shut her eyes hard
to stop the tears and dropped her head, hands clasped tightly in
her lap.

The secretary felt his stomach turn
over.

Finally, the Earl turned his wide back on
the clearing sky and propped himself on the sill.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Despard,” he said
quietly. “At the time the document was drawn up I was unaware that
Mr. Thomas Wilson had been required to take the name of Allenby
under the terms of his uncle’s will. Ellis will correct the
document to read ‘no Allenby but Mr. Thomas Wilson Allenby, her
ladyship’s brother etc and so forth’.”

“Thank you, my lord,” Jane replied,
unconsciously twisting the unfamiliar oversized betrothal ring and
audibly sighing with relief.

The Earl inclined his powdered head and
turned again to the window, but not before his secretary saw the
crooked smile that twisted his mouth. “Ellis? Have you lost the
facility of speech? Pray continue. You’re forgetting I have a prior
engagement that requires I be elsewhere within the half hour.”

“Yes, my lord, of course,” the secretary
mumbled and coughed, for he had been glancing at the next and final
paragraph to be read aloud and wished himself anywhere but in this
drawing room standing before this lovely young woman. Jane’s
impassioned interruption had broken his flow of words and as such
would only highlight this next stipulation all the more.
“Furthermore, when his lordship is in residence at Salt Hall, Lady
Salt will not seek to question, interfere or acknowledge her
husband’s domestic arrangements—”

“You mean to bring your lovers to Salt
Hall.”

The secretary paused, but as the sentence
was a statement and not a question he continued, though he couldn’t
stop the flush to his freckled cheeks.

“—This in no way negates Lady Salt from her
responsibilities as a dutiful and obedient wife. Should his
lordship desire to avail himself of his—of his conjugal rights, his
wife will oblige with mute servility. This document dated this day
and so forth etc, etc.”

Mr. Ellis noisily reshuffled the pages to
hide his embarrassment, not a glance at either party, and quickly
crossed to the small walnut escritoire in the far corner of the
room where it had been placed by the undraped window to catch the
muted rays of sunlight of a cold January day. He picked up the
inkpot but had not flicked open the silver lid when he was directly
addressed by Jane. Such was his surprise that he jumped and would
have spilled ink down the front of his fine linen waistcoat with
its polished horn buttons but for the fact his thumb remained
poised over the lip of the closed lid.

“Mr. Ellis?” Jane enquired with a frown of
puzzlement as she slowly rose to her feet but did not move away
from the chair. “This document makes no mention of any children of
the marriage.”

“Children?” the secretary repeated thinly,
voice breaking on the word, a swift telling glance at his employer
who remained inert. Slowly, he replaced the inkpot on the desk and
picked up the quill. “My lady, I-I—Ma’am—um—Miss Despard, there
is—there is no-no such paragraph dealing with such an-an
eventuality. No provision has been made for children of the
marriage.”

Jane’s frown deepened, more so because of
the note of nervous apology in the young man’s voice. “Mr. Ellis,
that document is most frank and therefore so must I be when I tell
you that it stands to reason that if a husband exercises his
conjugal—”

“Ellis, be so good as to wait a moment in
the passage,” Salt ordered, a rough jerk of his head at the door.
He watched his secretary hastily rearrange the sheets of parchment
and quill and ink before scurrying from the room with a short bow.
“Poor Arthur. You have disconcerted him, Miss Despard.”

Jane was frowning at the closed door but she
turned at this and regarded the Earl openly. “Yes, I must have. I
am sorry for he is a nice young man. But I don’t see why he should
be so coy when one must assume that if a husband and wife share a
bed—”

“Miss Despard, I am unable to father a
child.”

This statement was greeted with such an
expression of horrified disbelief that the Earl let out a deep
laugh of genuine good humor, finally allowing Jane to see his
lovely white smile.

“My dear Miss Despard! Priceless! The look
on your lovely face is—
priceless
. Dear me! I must own I’m
glad you’re not a virgin. Only a woman familiar with the carnal
delights of the bedchamber could so misinterpret such a statement.
Accept my apologies for disconcerting you.” He made her a bow,
smile vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. “I am still very
much a man, Miss Despard. What I should have said, to make myself
perfectly plain, is while I am more than capable of the act, the
physicians tell me I am unable to beget a woman with child.”

“How is that possible?”

Salt glanced up from drawing on his fine kid
gloves and saw that it was an earnest enquiry and not one designed
to unsettle him. He had to grudgingly admit he preferred her direct
approach to the timid dissimulation used by most females.

“Years ago I fell off a horse in full flight
over a fence. I landed very hard and awkwardly on a particularly
cherished part of my anatomy. It was excruciating.
My—er—
ballocks
swelled to the size of apples, turned black
and went hard. To say I was extremely worried for my manhood would
be a gross understatement. I was advised by the learned physicians
who attended on me that although the swelling and bruising would
subside I had in all likelihood suffered some internal injury that
would leave me barren. Since my recovery, I have had the hollow
satisfaction of rutting with impunity. Not one of a string of
mistresses has presented me with a bastard which would seem to
confirm the physicians’ learned opinion.”

“Years ago? How many years ago?”

“Ten.”

“
Ten
years ago?” Jane blanched. She
reached out for the ladder back of the chair to steady herself. If
he believed himself infertile then… He did not know he had
impregnated her that night in the summerhouse… Her note had never
reached him… He had not chosen to ignore her… He remained ignorant
after all these years… But surely… So many questions and
possibilities swirled about her mind that she felt herself sway and
thought it prudent to sink back onto the chair. She looked up at
him. “My lord, what you say is not possible.”