Salt Bride (28 page)

Anne curbed the desire to burst into tears to reply haltingly, “Her ladyship—her ladyship hasn’t had her womanly courses since-since marrying his lordship.” She prattled on because Diana St. John’s face had taken on a deathly hue, “And she is off her food, my lady. And this past week she’s been feeling queasy and faint, more so in the mornings. She’s more herself after she’s nibbled on a dry biscuit and taken a cup of weak black tea, though she hardly sips more than a mouthful at best…”

“His lordship doesn’t suspect does he?” she added anxiously, giving the maid’s arm a shake. “She hasn’t told him?”

“No, my lady.”

Diana St. John breathed an audible sigh, “
That’s
something to be thankful for in the creature’s reticence! No doubt waiting for just the right moment to give him the good news,” she said sarcastically and laughed. “Fool!” She stared at Anne, saying matter-of-factly, “Tomorrow morning I will send a lackey with a small package. Inside the package you will find a blue bottle of medicinal syrup. You are to put a teaspoon of this medicine in the dish of black tea you prepare for the Countess. Make certain you stir it thoroughly. You may have to give her another dose the following morning. All being well, the medicine will do its job to everyone’s satisfaction.” She looked the maid up and down with a haughty frown. “You don’t have any questions, do you?”

Anne shook her head and dropped her chin. “No, my lady,” she answered obediently and curtseyed. “I understand you perfectly.”

Diana St. John gave the girl’s reddened cheek a perfunctory pat and swept out of the Countess’s apartments and down the wide staircase to rejoin the dinner guests in the Long Gallery, wretched that her worst fears had been confirmed, that the Countess of Salt Hendon was with child, yet relieved that the wait was over and she was now able to do something about it.

No sooner had Anne closed over the door to the closet than she rushed across to the darkest corner of the room where out into the candlelight stepped Mr. Rufus Willis, grim-faced and determined. He had wedged himself in the space between two mahogany tall boys, out of sight, yet well able to hear the conversation between his betrothed and the Lady St. John. It was the first time he had ever eavesdropped on his betters, but he had put aside his principles deciding that the seriousness of the allegations Anne had brought against the Earl’s cousin called for drastic measures.

He gathered the weeping Anne to him and after a few moments of holding her, stepped back and handed her his handkerchief.

“Wipe your tears, my dear,” he said calmly. “We don’t want her ladyship to suspect.”

“I can’t take much more of that horrid woman, Rufus.” Anne sniffed. “I know you have cautioned me not to talk about his lordship’s cousin in such a fashion but do you not now see what a horrid, nasty creature she truly is? I wish I could tell her to her face. I wish I wasn’t such a coward. She knows now about the babe and that’s what we wanted to avoid all along!” She gripped the under-butler’s sleeve convulsively. “Now do you believe me, Rufus? Now do you see that she means her ladyship harm.”

“Yes, my dear. I believe you,” confessed a grim-faced Willis. “And you are not a coward. It took great courage to tell me about Lady St. John. Now I must return to my duties before I am missed. On no account are you to administer the medicinal syrup to her ladyship. As soon as the opportunity arises bring it to me.”

Anne followed her betrothed to the servant door. “You mean to give it to his lordship?”

“Yes, my dear. Have no fear, when the time is right, his lordship will be provided with all the evidence required to know his cousin is an extremely wicked and treacherous woman.” He lightly kissed Anne’s reddened cheek. “Be brave, dearest Anne. The Countess needs our support now more than ever.”

Anne smiled shyly but said fearfully, “Be careful, Rufus. Lady St. John is capable of hurting whoever stands in her way; she is so blinded with love for his lordship.”

“Yes,” Willis agreed. “But Lady St. John is not in love with his lordship, my dear. She is obsessed with him. That makes the situation far more perilous for those he cares about, and even more dangerous for Lady Salt now she is with child.”

Jane would have been greatly surprised but oddly comforted to know Willis’s opinion of the Lady St. John because it so matched her own feelings of apprehension, for herself, her husband and most importantly for the new life she was now carrying. She dared not confide to a soul that she was with child. Not until she had told the Earl. She was so happy to think they were to have a child, but the fear of losing this baby as she had the first, and of her husband’s incredulous reaction to the news, made her wary and hesitant. First she had to break him of the stubborn belief that he was infertile.

She had considered confiding in Sir Antony to whom she had become close since he had been appointed to watch over her. She had teased him several times about his new role and he had insisted that he much preferred to be in her company than return to Paris. If the truth be told, shopping in Oxford Street and attending readings of Hilary Wraxton’s absurdly odd poetry while the poet sported an iron wig were vastly more entertaining than listening to the monologues of the parsimonious Duke of Bedford. Besides, the longer he remained in London the more likely the chance he would be invited to Salt Hall for the Easter break, and there see the Lady Caroline Sinclair. Of course, this hope he kept secret until he found himself confiding his muddled feelings for Salt’s sister to Jane.

“Salt doesn’t want Caroline to have her come out until next Season,” explained Sir Antony, stretched out on the chaise longue in Jane’s pretty sitting room. He was watching her seated in the window seat, head bent over her needlepoint. “That’s understandable given she don’t turn eighteen until the summer. He thinks her too young.”

“What do you think?”

Sir Antony gave an involuntary laugh. He still found Jane’s blunt questions disconcerting, though refreshing. “It doesn’t matter what I think.”

Jane glanced up at that, needle and thread suspended. “But if you love Lady Caroline it matters a great deal, doesn’t it?”

“It’s not that simple, my dear,” said Sir Antony and sat up, dropping his stockinged legs to the floor and disrupting Viscount Fourpaws in the process, who had been curled up asleep on a cushion at his feet. When Jane smiled he confessed hesitantly, “I am in love with Caroline. But I don’t know if she is
in love
with me. She thinks she is but she is young and lived a sheltered life at Salt Hall. I cannot be certain that her feelings are fixed. Salt’s very protective; treats her like a daughter. Well, that’s to be expected given old Salt up and died when Caroline was still in swaddling. She was barely six years old when her mother passed away. So Salt’s the only parent she’s ever had.” Sir Antony was suddenly bashful and scooped up Viscount Fourpaws, who had been brushing up against his stockinged leg, to absently scratch his ears. “Salt’s in the right, regardless of Caroline’s protests to the contrary. She should have her Season in London, go out in Society, meet gentlemen, dance at assemblies and balls and have young bucks falling at her feet. She needs to discover where her true heart lies.”

“And while she is having her Season, you will wait in the wings hoping she will grow up a little and, in the end, choose you?”

“Yes. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? I think I will go away. Take a posting to the Hague or St. Petersburg.”

“Will I like Caroline?”

Sir Antony smiled. “I hope so. In many ways she’s much like her peers. Loves a party, adores clothes, knows how to use her feminine charm to wrap a gentleman round her little finger; Salt in particular. But in other respects she different from other females, but that may be a consequence of her sheltered upbringing. She loves nothing better than to have her dogs to heel and go mucking about on the estate or galloping off around the countryside with her brother. Between you and me, I believe Salt encourages her boyish pursuits. Wants to keep her reined in for as long as possible before he unleashes her on the unsuspecting male populace.” He smiled at a memory and added, “No two siblings could be so different and yet have greater affection for each other. Whereas Salt is serious and hard working, one would think on first meeting Caroline that she is feather-headed and indolent. But they do share a quick brain and she’s just as conscientious as Salt about the tenants’ welfare and those who rely on the Sinclair largesse. And they both have kind hearts.”

He put Viscount Fourpaws back on the chaise longue and leaned forward, still rapt in his topic.

“She informed me only last summer that she wants to travel and that my chosen career as a diplomat will suit us both perfectly; the managing baggage!” he added lovingly and sat back with a huff of laughter. “Hasn’t stepped outside Wiltshire but already has our passage booked for the Bosphorus! Have you ever heard the like?”

Jane had not and if Sir Antony’s extolling of the Lady Caroline’s virtues were to the life then Jane couldn’t wait to meet this fascinating girl. She finished a stitch and wove her needle lightly into the fabric to hold it in place for another day. “So Salt is prepared to allow Caroline to choose her husband?” she asked with practiced indifference. “I thought, perhaps, she being a great heiress, he might consider an arranged marriage. One of those political matches between two wealthy noble houses.”

“Ha! Now that’s the sort of cold-blooded union Diana encourages Salt to make for his sister. But not Salt. Deep beneath our Earl’s wide noble chest beats the heart of a hopeless romantic. Not that he lets on. Besides,” added Sir Antony, oblivious to the ready blush to Jane’s cheeks, “Caroline wouldn’t be party to such a union, even if Salt threatened to beat her into submission. Not that he ever would; but you get my meaning.”

“Does…does Salt know about Caroline’s plans to marry her diplomat?”

“Know? He has a fair notion of my feelings,” Sir Antony confessed. “But as to knowing Caroline’s wishes… I dread Caroline falling in love with someone else, but in many respects I dread the day I ask Salt for Caroline’s hand in marriage. He and Caroline are as close as father and daughter, and like the stern, protective father, he’ll be reluctant to give her hand to me, despite me being one of his closest friends.”

“Every father is apprehensive about giving his daughter into the care of another man. That’s to be expected. But he’ll recover.”

“I’m eight years her senior, my dear.”

Jane laid aside her needlepoint. “Twelve years separate Salt and I, and never once did I contemplate age as a barrier to falling in love with him. Neither should it bother you, if you truly love Caroline, and she you.”

Sir Antony threw up a lace-ruffled wrist with a huff of disbelief. “That’s all very easy for you to say, but I vividly recall Salt citing the age difference between the two of you, and the fact you lived a sheltered existence at Despard Park and never had a London Season, as prime examples of why you baulked at marrying him all those years ago, and why he is determined Caroline must have a London Season. He will not permit her to marry until she is one and twenty, and thus is old enough to know her mind well and truly. I’m prepared to wait out those three years, if it means she has well and truly settled her affections on me.”

“For a gentleman who professes to being a diplomat, you are woefully tactless. By the by, even at eighteen years of age I
well and truly
knew Salt was the only man for me. So the argument about age does not wash.”

Sir Antony’s jaw swung wide and in two strides he was beside Jane on the window seat and holding her hands.

“God, I’m an unthinking ass. Forgive me. I should be stripped of my sinecures and made to walk the diplomatic plank for—”

“—speaking candidly? Not by me. But I suppose frank speech is not seen as part of the diplomatic armory, is it?”

“No, for upsetting you, my dear. The last thing I wish to do on this earth is distress you.” He kissed her hands and pressed them gently and would not let them go. “I should not have been so flippant with your feelings. We have been enough in each other’s company now that I feel we have become good friends.” He smiled into her blue eyes. “And I know that you truly do love my cousin. I see that love reflected in your face every time he walks into a room. If one day I receive but a thimbleful of such emotion from my wife I will be a contented man. No. Don’t hang your head. I want to offer you my help. Perhaps if you would allow me to understand what went wrong between you and Salt all those years ago we could put our heads together and clear the mire…”

Jane took a few moments to find her composure, Sir Antony’s kind words drying her throat, but she wasn’t given the opportunity to respond because the sitting room door opened and in walked her husband dressed magnificently in a dark blue velvet frockcoat with silver lacings. His hair was powdered and tied with a black ribbon and across his chest was the blue riband of the Most Noble Order of the Garter; a number of lesser orders and decorations pinned to the breast of his silver embroidered waistcoat. He looked up from the flat rectangular box in his hand and frowned as Sir Antony and Jane sprang apart and were uncomfortable; Sir Antony on his feet and Jane to pick up her discarded needlepoint.