After The Storm (5 page)

“Oh, Lavvy, I want so much more for you out of life,”
Jenny said sadly.

“Love? You want me to fall in love.” Lavvy sighed. “I
do too. I certainly have tried. Kissed any number of handsome bucks
in London, and one or two made me want to do more, much more, for
being with a man, making love, has me very curious. However, I was
not attached to any of the bucks that caught my interest.”

“But a marriage of convenience seems such a cold
alliance.” Jenny clucked.

“Yes, and of course it is disconcerting to think of
getting into bed with a stranger, unless he is very good at what he
does, but what does give me room for doubt is the question—what if
I married and then met the man of my dreams? That is what is
stopping me from genuinely considering such a situation.”

“You are very right, Lavvy,” agreed Jenny.

“It is just that Papa and Mama think I should accept
if he does indeed propose and are pushing me in that direction. I
hate to disappoint them, but …”

“But nothing. They love you and will understand,”
Jenny said, not totally sure they would want to understand.

“Hush now, here he comes!” announced her friend on a
hiss.

Jenny raised her eyes to find him crossing the room
towards them, and her heart fluttered in spite of her low opinion
of him. He was a rogue, yes, but such a rogue. Everything about him
was commanding.

He regarded them both quizzically before inclining
his head to say, “Miss Digby, Miss Ashley, I would be honored if
you would both accept an invitation to ride out with me in the
morning and give me a tour of your lovely countryside.”

A stark refusal started from Jenny’s lips but was
superseded by her friend, who clapped her hands and offered, “Oh,
that would be fun. We could show you the old mill and have Cook
prepare us some boxed lunches.” She turned her face full with
merriment to Jenny and admonished. “No, Jen, do not look like that,
for I see you wish to cry off, but I shan’t let you. You must come,
and you can ride your Whisper! I know you need to do that.”

“I can’t ride him yet, ’tis … too soon,” Jenny
answered on a hushed plea.

“Nonsense. Your papa says you started riding a month
ago, and ’tis time you ride your own horse. You love Whisper, and
it isn’t fair to him
, is it, that you won’t ride him?” Lavvy
said gently.

“Papa put you up to this,” Jenny accused. “I know he
thinks I should ride Whisper, and he is right, ’tis unfair to my
poor horse after all the training he was given.”

“Indeed, ’tis necessary for you and for your
Whisper.” Lavvy laughed affectionately and hugged her before
letting her go and watching her for a reaction.

Jenny looked stricken. “Yes, you are right, but
perhaps another day.”

The earl looked about to say something, but Lavvy
waved off Jenny’s objection and said on a note of exasperation,
“Have done, my dear, dear friend, please have done. Johnny would
want you to ride out on Whisper again, and so you shall. It is my
duty to him as well as to you.”

Jenny felt a moment’s irritation with her long-time
friend. Johnny shouldn’t be discussed like that in front of the
earl, but, she had to admit the truth to herself, and the truth
was, she wanted to ride Whisper again. Though it surprised her, she
discovered that she did indeed want to join them on this little
outing.

Without enthusiasm she capitulated. A nagging voice
murmured in her head.
Should you be enjoying yourself so soon?
Is it right? Is it fair to Johnny’s memory?
She tried banishing
this voice, but its words had succeeded in eliciting a sad sigh
from her.

The earl regarded her from knit brows before taking
his leave of them, and Jenny could see he was curious about her.
She turned on her friend as he left and began berating her until
Lavvy, as only Lavvy could, made her laugh at her foolish self.

* * *

The earl heard the two girls as he left them in the
background and wondered what the trouble was with Jennifer Ashley.
Who was Johnny? And damn his father’s cursed will!

Certes
! He thought irritably, wasn’t it just
like his father to try and control him. He had died seven years
ago, leaving him the title and the estate with an easy competence.
The bulk of his fortune, however, was held in trust until he
married, which he must do by the time he turned nine and twenty.
That was looming its hoary tentacles, and he was in trouble.

He could of course thumb his nose at the fortune and
allow it to go to his half-brother, Bradley. He had really always
loved his younger brother. He sighed, remembering how outraged he
and his sister Gwen had been when they heard the conditions of the
will.

Gwen had since married, but she was his twin and felt
the same indignation he felt, as she had no wish for him to marry
before he was ready.

He fully intended to make certain that Bradley would
enjoy a comfortable living, but to just throw the fortune that was
rightfully his as the oldest son was not acceptable in his mind.
His father was still trying to control him from the grave, and it
was a tremendous irritant.

He had not been able to live within the meager
allowance his father had set up for him. He was a grown man, by
God, and his father had played him a dirty trick, although he
admitted to himself that his tastes since he ‘sold out’ of the
military were extravagant.

His sister had come up with the suggestion that he
should offer for the Digby chit, so he’d made this trip to see if
he would be able to tolerate Lavina Digby as a wife.

She was certainly a lovely young woman and knew how
to conduct herself to advantage, but … he couldn’t quite take
to her, not when he thought of spending a lifetime with her.

The odd thing was, he had always wanted a ‘love
match’. He would never say those words out loud, but he knew that
was what he had been holding out for. It did not appear, however,
that was in the cards for him.

And then the Ashley chit appeared out of nowhere, and
though she had rebuffed him from the start, he found himself
intrigued by her.

He was running out of time, and it appeared he was
trapped. He would have to make a decision and follow through
soon—too soon for his liking, but his back was now to the wall.

When the evening drew to a close, Sir Arthur offered
to drop him off at his inn. They tethered his horse at the boot,
and he climbed into the coach to sit beside Sir Arthur, facing
Lavina and her mother.

Lavina’s mother was chattering enough to make his
head spin, and he wished he had declined the ride. He had accepted
only to see what he would be getting into if he offered for her.
Now he wondered if he could even in his dire circumstances bring
himself to make an offer for her.

All he could think about was a beauty of a young
woman with green eyes that gazed up at him with such sadness. All
he wanted to do was banish that sadness and make her laugh. When
she laughed, it was musical, and she should laugh all the time. She
was too young to be so quiet. He had seen it. She would laugh and
then catch herself, as though she thought it wrong.

He liked so many things about her. She had quiet
manners. He liked the light that came into her eyes when she forgot
herself and giggled. He wondered what made her change so abruptly
from laughter into sadness. Something inside him was determined to
know more about her.

Coaxingly he smiled and said off-handedly, “I noticed
that the squire’s daughter seemed overly remote. Odd in someone so
young.”

“Oh?” said Sir Arthur.

“Yes, indeed, poor little thing,” said Lavina’s
mother.

He noticed that Lavina, who sat directly across from
him glanced at him with a speculative expression but said
nothing.

“Poor little thing? Why is that, Lady Digby—is she
ill?” the earl asked with some concern.

“Oh, you do not know,” Lady Digby returned in spite
of the glare her husband gave her. “Poor sweet girl, I suppose you
could say yes, at least in a manner of speaking, but I do believe
she will come around now that the year has passed.” Lady Digby made
a show of sighing, and Lavvy turned away from her mother and rolled
her eyes.

The earl saw this with some amusement but persisted.
“A year?” He frowned. “Oh, she lost someone close to her.”

“Her fiancé, and my very dear friend,” Lavvy stuck in
getting to the heart of the matter and cutting her mother off. “We
all grew up together, you see, and, she lost him at Waterloo.”

A flash of a scene of bloodied men—so many his dear
friends—as he fought the French shot through his mind. The eyes of
the Frenchmen
he’d
killed, who were doing no more than he
was, trying to stay alive. In the end, now, forgotten was their
mission, only the memory of their need to survive, and then the
aftermath …

He blinked as though shaking himself free, and his
voice was low. “I see.”

Lavina said, “It was heartbreaking for me to see the
change in her. She was the one who was always laughing and creating
commotion when there was none. She was a joy, a hoyden, a
mischievous thing. Why, only two years ago, Jen on her Whisper took
a fence poorly, fell and broke her arm, and then a week later, on
Johnny’s dare, up she got back on her horse and rode with her arm
still in a splint.” Lavvy shook her head. “That was Jenny—I don’t
see that girl in her now.”

“Lavina,” said her mother on a sharp note, and then
hurriedly smiled at the earl. “I am certain his lordship doesn’t
need to know all that.”

“Johnny, I take it was her fiancé?” the earl
inquired.

“Yes, John Dillingham. His estate runs parallel to
hers, and they were constant companions. You rarely saw one without
the other, even though he was two years older.” Lavina shook her
head. “You wouldn’t know it to look at her now, but I was told that
on the eve of Waterloo, Jenny was out on the streets, tending to
the wounded through the night and into the next day. She got the
news about Johnny from his friend, Mac.” Lavina stopped and
swallowed before she looked away, obviously affected by the
memory.

“Enough—we must not dampen the spirit of the evening
with all this. ’Tis past,” said her mother.

The earl digested this in silence. He pressed a fist
to his chin and thought of the chit’s grave eyes. Fleetingly it
occurred to him that it might be satisfying to banish that sadness
from her eyes, and then he quickly chided himself. What had he to
do with a woman mourning a lost love? Bah! Foolishness. He had
problems of his own.

~
Three ~

They mourn, but smile at length; and smiling,
mourn;

The tree will wither long before it fall;

The hull drives on, though mast and sail be
torn;

And thus, the heart will break, yet brokenly live
on.

—Lord Byron, 1816

“JENNY … OH, MY dear heart, look at you!” Aunt
Beth clapped her hands together and dropped a kiss on her niece’s
cheek.

Jenny twirled for her, feeling much like her old self
for the moment. “Do you think it will be too warm for this
velvet?”

“Oh no, and I love this shade of blue—peacock, isn’t
it? Simply perfect how the riding jacket fits your little waist,
and the style of it slightly hiked at one ankle, naughty, yes, but
not too … and your hair? Put on the matching top hat—I want to
see the entire ensemble.”

Jenny dropped it unceremoniously on her head and
pinned it in place but asked, “Do you think it too much … for
here in the country?”

Beth walked a circle around her niece and sat with a
satisfied sigh on the pretty yellow print quilt on her niece’s bed.
“What I think is that it is perfect.” She got up and pulled at one
curl, draping it over her niece’s shoulder. “There, my dear, you
are ravishing.” She stood back and clicked her tongue with
approval. “And the black band on the hat, yes, instead of a long,
gauzy ribbon, so much more tailored. I had quite forgotten about
this riding ensemble.”

Jenny laughed and said, “What a relief, for I
couldn’t find anything that didn’t look quite out of fashion. This
was the only riding habit that was more the thing.”

Beth betrayed her surprise with wide eyes. “Well, it
is quite refreshing to hear you speak so. You always did have an
eye for fashion, but these last few months, I had quite given up
hope—” She cut herself off.

Jenny laughed and hugged her aunt. “Don’t walk on
eggshells, my dearest Auntie. It isn’t necessary. I know I must
have been a sore trial to you and Papa.” She turned to the mirror.
“Very well then, yes, I was worried that perhaps this might look a
bit shabby, but if you don’t think so, I must allow it to be a very
pretty color at least.”

“Indeed, and the weather seems to be cooperating. I
have just come in from cutting some of our roses, and it is
wonderfully airy. Quite lovely for a ride.” She paused and touched
her niece’s cheek. “Do you know, there is a decided bloom in your
cheeks. Very becoming, child. Well, I almost forgot. I came up to
tell you that Lavvy and the earl are downstairs waiting for
you.”

Jenny suddenly felt her knees tremble. A dreaded ache
crept into her throat as she thought of riding her Whisper again
and going out as though her life hadn’t so tragically been
altered.

Her aunt saved the moment by saying, “Tsk tsk, child,
don’t stand there looking as though you were about to be
eaten!”

This made Jenny laugh, and she followed her aunt out
the door and down the stairs to come up short when she saw the
earl, holding his hat, his blue eyes bright as he watched her and
his lips curved in a welcoming smile. All at once, she felt a
shyness skim through her mind and body. His presence always had
such a tremendous effect on her. He stood there, looking almost
larger than life, as though he had usurped even the air around him.
It was difficult to look away.