The Bastard (51 page)

Jeannette ignored him as the music ended. Turning, she headed off the floor almost before Lord Baldwin could escort her. “I am warm,” she said, feeling a desperate need to escape the room without having to negotiate her departure with her parents. “Perhaps a walk in the gardens would be nice. Would you care to join me, Lord Baldwin?”

He shot a glance over his shoulder at a glowering Treynor and smiled. “I would be delighted. Perhaps you would like something to drink first?”

Jeannette thought of dulling the razor-sharp edge of her emotions with wine, then decided against it. The last thing she needed was to lose one shred of her control. Pride was all she had left. “No, thank you.”

The garden offered the cool, quiet respite Jeannette needed. She turned about the well-manicured bushes and freshly blooming flowers, breathing in the heady scent of the roses that scaled the white lattice as she tried to clear her head.

“Are you feeling better, Lady St. Ives?”

“A little.” Jeannette bit back a sigh and kept walking, hoping she didn’t appear as pensive as she felt. “You have a lovely home,” she said in an attempt to provide at least some pleasant conversation.

“And never has a more beautiful woman graced it. I had heard tell of you, I must admit, but the realization is far better than the original promise.”

“Merci.”
She knew such a compliment deserved better than a tired thank-you, but couldn’t rouse herself to the occasion. Gentle strains of music filled the air; she focused on trying to let it ease her misery.

The duke’s son paused near a white iron chair. “Would you care to sit down for a moment?”

Jeannette felt no great need to sit and rest, but to accommodate him, she agreed.

Baldwin made a few comments about the weather and the war, which she tried to answer coherently, but her mind was consumed by the memory of Lady Hafton’s words.
He is courting Maude...he has been to the house several times over the past few weeks
.

She could see a corner of the ballroom through the open doors of the house. The silhouette of a tall form, standing in the shadows and gazing out, suddenly claimed her attention and made her miss what the duke’s son had said last.

“My apologies, Lord Baldwin. I am afraid I am not very good company tonight. What did you say?”

He laughed. “Nothing important. I merely mentioned that my father tells me you want to become a governess. I would tell you that it is a waste of your beauty and talents, but it is not my place. So I will settle for warning you that Catherine’s girls are hardly what you might expect.”

“My lord?”

“One would picture three little girls only ten, eight, and six as sweet and subdued.”

“Are they not?”

“No. Nor are they studious. All three have a rather, shall we say, tempestuous nature. And I am not sure my father mentioned this, but Catherine is demanding a four-year commitment. She hopes the children’s next governess—” he laughed “—yes, they have chased off quite a few already—will seriously apply herself instead of giving up on the girls.”

Lord Baldwin’s words were discouraging, but not overwhelmingly so, not when Jeannette remembered growing up with a similar “tempestuous nature.” “I consider such children a challenge,
monsieur,
nothing more.”

She glanced back at the house again. The man hovering near the doors had to be Treynor, for no one else stood so tall or so straight. Where was Lady Ambrose?

“What would motivate a woman like you to throw away her youth?” he persisted.

She did not reply.

“Forgive my impertinence, but governesses should be plain and without better option. You come from a good family. I know you have experienced difficult times, but you have a sponsor here in England. Lord Darby would see you remarried, I dare say, if you but gave the word. Is there not someone here you have met?”

The thought of Lord Darby selecting another husband for her chilled Jeannette to the bone. “Marriage no longer appeals to me,” she said simply, unwilling to lay her heart bare. “Shall we go back inside?”

As much as she wanted to flee the pain inflicted by Treynor’s presence, Lord Baldwin’s company and his pointed questions troubled her, too. Standing when he nodded, she allowed him to take her elbow and lead her back into the house.

They had scarcely entered the crush when Treynor cut them off. “There you are.”

“Growing a bit hot, Lieutenant?” Lord Baldwin asked. “May I suggest a turn about the gardens? The weather is lovely.”

“I am not interested in the gardens.” Treynor’s voice was a bit too brusque to warrant the chuckle that came from Baldwin. “I was wondering if Lady St. Ives would grant me the pleasure of the next dance.”

Jeannette shook her head, but Treynor pulled her away from the duke’s son before she could offer a refusal sufficient to stop him.

“I beg your pardon?” she snapped.

He led her almost forcibly to the dance floor. “A ‘turn about the gardens’ with Baldwin. Are you looking for another proposal, after all?”

“And if I was?” Jeannette challenged.

“You said you wanted to become a governess.”

“And you said you were returning to sea. We are both free to do as we please.”

“There you are, Sir Crawford.” Lady Ambrose had placed herself in their path. “I have been looking all over for you. Do you not remember that you promised me another dance?”

Treynor opened his mouth to speak, but Jeannette answered before he could. “He was just on his way to find you, Lady Ambrose. Good night, Captain.”

She pulled her elbow from his grasp and headed toward Lord Darby, who was standing next to the door and edging closer to it all the time. At least she wouldn’t have to talk him into leaving. They would simply send the carriage back for her parents.

“Jeannette—”

Treynor called after her, but a backward glance revealed Lady Ambrose at his side, wrapping a possessive hand around his arm.

“There is nothing left for us to say,” Jeannette muttered, mostly to herself. Then she hurried away—before the tears burning at the back of her eyes found their way down her cheeks.

Treynor cursed under his breath as he watched Jeannette and Darby pass through the door. Carefully detaching himself from Lady Ambrose, he mumbled an excuse he hoped wouldn’t offend her, without really caring if it did, and attempted to follow.

Baldwin’s hand on his arm stopped his forward motion. “The Lady St. Ives is a rare beauty,” he said, looking after her. “Now I can see why you would fight a duel for her.” He smiled. “But since you are so set on remaining unfettered by the fairer sex, perhaps you wouldn’t mind if I—”

“Stay away from her,” Treynor growled. The admiration on the other man’s face was worthy of a fight.

Baldwin laughed. “So Father was right. I thought so.”

“Right about what?”

“You are smitten with Lady St. Ives, and she with you. Now, you can continue to deny the truth and try to distract yourself with other women, fickle women like Lady Ambrose there, who would not have the warmth to capture a dog’s heart. Or you can make Lady St. Ives your wife and have her waiting for you, warm in your bed, every time you put in.”

Not wanting to let the thought of Jeannette waiting for him in any bed influence the decision he had made to go on without her, Treynor scowled. “I am trying to do the kindest thing I possibly can. She deserves more than what I can give her. What kind of life would she have, always waiting for me to return from sea?”

“The war will not last forever, my friend. Besides, there are worse things than being married to a sea captain. Teaching Catherine’s girls is one of them.” A mischievous sparkle entered Baldwin’s dark eyes as he shrugged. “It seems an easy decision to me, but then, I inherited my mother’s good judgment and not my father’s stubborn streak.” Bowing, he gave Treynor a jaunty smile and took himself off.

Treynor watched him go, then slipped through the crowd and out into the garden. Baldwin was right. For weeks he had immersed himself in trying to forget Jeannette. But just the sight of her was enough to let him know that all his efforts, especially the time he’d spent with Lady Ambrose, had been wasted.

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

“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.