After The Storm (19 page)

The bold truth burrowed its way into her heart. She
loved him beyond thought, beyond all doubt, and he, she was sure,
had women willing to throw themselves at him. She knew he was not
the sort to live the life of a monk because his wife had rejected
his advances.

He was everything she wanted.

What should she do?

She had hoped he would come to her room, but she knew
better. He would not. And she? Could she go to his?

Perhaps, but not this night, not quite yet.

Soon, very soon, if he did not come to her, she would
go to him, and that notion made her entire body quiver with
anticipation.

~
Thirteen ~

It is better to lose your pride with someone you
love

rather than to lose That Someone You love with your
useless pride.

—John Ruskin

“GOOD MORNING, M’LADY,” Joan said, resting a tray on
the nightstand and standing with her hands folded into one another
and against her ample waist.

Jenny’s eyes opened at intervals, and she regarded
her new maid, rubbed one eye and then the next, and said, “Oh,
indeed … what have you there? It smells wonderful.”

Joan fussed around Jenny, setting her quilt in place
before putting the tray in her lap. “I’ll put out yer things,
m’lady … have ye a preference?”

“I prefer you sit here with me and enjoy a cup of
tea,” Jenny said, smiling.

“Oh, I couldn’t … and there is but one cup,”
said Joan, going to the wardrobe and retrieving a wrapper. “I’ll
just set this here for ye.”

Jenny pushed the tray aside and set her cup of half
finished tea on it. She then donned her wrapper and pushed her feet
into her slippers to pad over to the balcony door. It was a
beautiful, sunny day. Out of the corner of her eye she watched Joan
bustle about at her side, preparing the things she would need for
her day, and she sighed. What she really needed was her husband,
and then she saw him just beneath her balcony and nearly called out
with a wave.

The call and the wave all got stuck in intention.
Coming towards him on a prime bay gelding was a lovely rider in a
sky blue riding habit. Jenny was acutely aware of the friendly,
very friendly greeting the two exchanged.

The woman stopped her horse, and Jenny felt a flurry
of irritation as her husband helped the lady dismount. She watched
them walk towards the house and stepped onto her balcony to catch a
glimpse, as they were now out of view.

She couldn’t quite see them, but she heard them very
well.

The woman’s musical voice declared, “Jason, darling
Jason, kiss me!”

She heard her husband laugh. “Absurd woman, for all
the world to see? I think not.”

She sighed. “Well, ’tis just what I wanted—to find
you up and about already, and alone. I rode here on precisely that
hope.”

Jenny peeked from the corner of her balcony and saw
her husband lean against the tall oak they were standing under,
only twenty feet from her balcony.

She witnessed the woman plant a lingering kiss upon
near his ear and then link her arm through his. She did not hear
Jason’s response, perhaps because her heart was beating so
painfully that she fancied a drum was beating a war tune in her
ears? She did, however, hear them both laugh.

Jenny’s world went off kilter. And then she did hear
Jason say in a voice underlined with something—she was not sure
what—“I have heard about Sir Giles, Hester, and I am truly
sorry.”

“Ah, let us not go into that now.”

“Yes, but please accept my condolences. I would have
offered them sooner but did not hear of it till last evening.
Howard let me know.”

Jenny sensed an intimacy between this woman and the
earl, and it was as though hands had grabbed her heart and squeezed
the blood from it. She wanted to run. She turned, saw Joan eyeing
her, and said, ‘Thank you, Joan, I’ll just wash up, and you can
help me with my gown.”

Some twenty minutes later, Jenny thought she had set
a record even for herself. She was washed and dressed in a pretty
green muslin day gown. Her chestnut ringlets hung in cascading
profusion around her face, and she was heading with her shawl down
the hall. She nearly collided with Brad, who held her shoulders and
exclaimed, “I say there, Jen, you look fetching in that gown.” He
was merry as always.

“Brad, I am so very glad to bump into you, for you
are just the man I need to take care of something for me.”

“Aye, that I am—whatever your needs, I’m your man,”
he teased.

“Wonderful,” she answered.

He put a hand to his heart in a dramatic gesture.
“Ah, if only, Jen, I had found you first.”

“Brad, seriously now, would you take me about the
grounds? His lordship has company, and I do not want to interrupt
him.”

“Eh, company, you say?” he asked curiously.

“Yes, so do you think we can just go off on our own
and not bother them, for I would dearly love to explore.”

Brad’s eyes narrowed. “Jason has company, and you
want to go sneaking off? Sounds too smoky by half, my lovely Jenny.
Who is the company he is entertaining?”

“I wouldn’t know, as I have not been introduced to
her,” Jenny said in a small voice.

“By God, devil take the female. Is Lady Hester here
already? Very well, child, put your best smile on. I’ll take you
anywhere your sweet heart desires.” He bowed grandly. “Apparently
my brother is not as brilliant as I have thought him.” He tweaked
her nose. “I am at your command.”

Jenny felt at ease with Brad. He rarely seemed
serious, and she enjoyed his light-hearted conversation. He took up
her hand in a brotherly fashion and led her down the remainder of
the hall to the back staircase.

A small door led them to the back courtyard. This was
entirely closed in by a stone wall with only one exit gate. They
passed through to find the sea calmly splattering its waves against
Dover’s brilliantly white chalky cliffs.

Jenny moved to the edge of the cliff, awed by the
vastness of the irregular cliff heights that spanned the edge of
the sea. The spray was far below, but she still felt the salt in
the air. Sea gulls squawked incessantly above, and she shaded her
eyes as she looked up at them. It was all quite breathtakingly
beautiful in such a raw, natural way.

“This is glorious!” she said, beaming at her
brother-in-law. She hurried forward, but Brad grabbed hold of her
arm and objected grimly, “Jen! I say, love, not another step!”

“Why?” she rounded on him in some surprise. “I
thought we would work our way down and walk the beach.”

“And so we shall, but not by taking this path. ’Tis a
decidedly dangerous one, as it is forever crumbling.” He shrugged.
“Besides, it ends at a stone wall. If it’s the beach you intend to
walk, then take my hand and let me see you safely there.”

They walked for a bit in silence, with Brad
admonishing her not to be so clumsy as she tripped over various
jutting rocks in the sandy soil of the path. She rapped him across
his shoulder, and he grinned broadly at her.

As they reached the beach, Jenny exclaimed, “Oh, this
is just majestic, Brad. You must have loved growing up here.”

He frowned. “Yes, I did for quite a long time. Ah,
but then came Eton and Cambridge. Now, I have a notion to make
m’fortune in India and then return with it to London. I find it
dull sport at Danfield now.”

“Then what is stopping you?”

“Mother says she won’t join me, and I have this
notion that she would be miserable here now. Must convince her
first.” He frowned and then laughed. “She is a beauty, m’mother,
but she is nearly forty-five, you know. Where is she going to meet
anyone, stuck here at Danfield, I tell her, but for the time being
she won’t budge.” He shrugged. “Perhaps now that she will have to
leave the castle anyway, she will see things my way?”

She wanted to change his mood, which seemed suddenly
solemn. She shook his hand and said, “Come on … let’s have a
brisk walk.”

Walking turned into running, running turned into
racing, and they ended by falling exhausted against a large boulder
where they took turns laughing and catching their breath.

When they started back, Brad stopped her and asked,
“Do tell me, Jen, how did you, well, how came about this marriage
to my brother?”

She surveyed his face for a moment and asked, “Why,
do you mind?”

“Mind, you mean because of the inheritance thing?
Lord, Jen, it was never meant to be mine. T’was Father’s way of
making Jason toe the line.” He laughed. “If I mind at all, it is
because Jason found you and snapped you up before I had ever a
chance.”

“So, not even a twinge because of the inheritance?”
she pursued.

“I would be a liar if I said I hadn’t thought about
it from time to time, but Jason is a good sort, you know. He means
to set me up with an income more than suitable for a second son.”
He eyed her. “There is too much money for one not to think about
it, you know, but I have never wanted for a thing, and I don’t have
the grand notions m’mother has. My father left me very comfortable,
you know, and Jason has said he would deed me any one of the
properties other than Danfield I wish to settle in, so, no …
to answer you, not really, not even a twinge.” He surveyed her
face. “Now answer my question. How did Jason and you … in such
a short time, come to marry?”

She liked Bradley, but she wasn’t about to confide
too much to him. He was, after all, connected to the dowager in
whom she had no trust whatsoever. Saucily she answered, “We met in
that outlandish place we call Devon. We met quite by accident, and
I picked up the handkerchief he dropped at my feet.” With this she
giggled and hurried forward, dragging him along.

When they had climbed back quite a distance closer to
the castle grounds, she turned back to eye the view and whispered
admiringly, “Oh, Brad, it is beautiful here. I do wish my room
overlooked this view.”

“So do I,” he agreed at once, gazing at her intently
so she would not miss his meaning.

She felt the color flood her cheeks and turned away.
He said at her back, as though trying to set her back at ease, “Do
you know, Jenny, on a clear night you can actually see the lights
from Calais?”

“From all the way across to France? Oh, how
wonderful.”

He sighed. “Come on, sister of mine, I had better get
you back before they send out the Bow Street Runners to hunt us
down. This is quite unorthodox—stealing m’brother’s bride on their
honeymoon.”

They climbed up the path to the unkempt lawns of
Danfield, past a glass house Jenny assumed had once been a hot
house. “Brad, was this used as a hot house?”

“Aye, though no one has maintained it in maybe six
years or so. Funny thing about this place—heard a story that some
tunnel or other connects the castle and this building. Never found
it, though. Had a notion Jason knows where it is, but he never let
on, not even as far as I know to Gwen.”

“This is thrilling,” Jenny said excitedly.

“Hmm, I thought so. It makes a rare tale. Rumor had
it that one of our illustrious ancestors was a Jacobite, or perhaps
a Jacobite sympathizer, more than likely. At any rate, he was the
devil who supposedly had the tunnel constructed as a means of
escape.”

“Pray, Bradley, we must find it,” Jenny
exclaimed.

“Told you, love, looked for the maddening thing.
Never could find a trace.’

“Well, then, you did not look thoroughly enough,”
Jenny retorted, pulling a face at him.

“I did, and what’s more, you are not to go searching
for the thing ever by yourself. Likely break your neck, and
remember, I will get the blame for it.” He wagged a finger at her,
at which point a low whistle escaped him. “Oh, oh, nothing for it.
Must plod on, steady now,” he said in a low warning voice.

Jenny brought her gaze up and saw her husband and his
female companion making their unhurried way across the lawn toward
them. Jenny noted with a sickening feeling the manner in which the
woman held Jason’s arm. She had, in fact, a very unladylike urge to
grab hold of the woman’s bright locks and pull her away from the
earl, forgetting that she, in fact, still held tightly to her
brother-in-law’s large, ungloved hand.

She suddenly became aware of this fact and gently
tried to withdraw her fingers from Brad’s, but he held her firm and
whispered, “Buck up, m’girl. We’ll brush through this
creditably—see if we don’t.”

“He looks angry, Brad, very angry,” Jenny whispered
back.

“Aye, he does—
splendid
,” answered Bradley
Danfield with a boyish grin.

* * *

“Where have you two been?” the earl demanded in a
voice hinting of deeper shades of annoyance. His glance could not
help but take in the fact that his wife seemed on more than
friendly terms with his brother. He regarded their locked hands,
and his glaring scrutiny forced them both to part.

However, Jenny returned his glare with a defiant
glint in her beautiful green eyes that made him want to scoop her
up, hold her close, and never let her go.

It suddenly occurred to him that Lady Hester was all
too close, and he pulled away a bit so that she was forced to drop
her hold on him.

Jenny looked furious, and she actually glared at him.
Damn, but she was beautifully spirited. Her face held him captive,
and then she answered his question with one of her perfectly shaped
brows raised, and in a voice that was dripping with a challenge,
“Brad was kind enough to take me for a walk along the beach and
show me some of the grounds.”

He should have been there for her when she got up her
first day at Danfield. He would have been there for her had he not
wanted to talk with Hester and make her understand that he was
married and it was over.