The Other Countess (26 page)

‘Don’t be afraid, love. Just a kiss. You can’t go running round my park like that without paying a penalty.’

His kiss started light but soon turned serious as they clung together, their mutual passion flaring up. Feeling his hands sweeping down her spine, Ellie knew she was in serious trouble, close to forgetting all that stood between them.

‘Will,’ she pleaded, turning her face so that her cheek lay on his chest, mouth out of his reach.

‘Ellie, I … I want to make you mine.’ He ran his hands through her hair, which, thanks to his encouragement, had worked its way free of all pins and tumbled down to her hips.

‘You can’t.’

He took a shuddering sigh. ‘No, I can’t.’ With an effort, he pushed her away from his body and picked up her skirt, not looking at her as he held it out. ‘Put this on, please.’

Quietly, she slipped back into her outer clothes, wondering at their behaviour. If he hadn’t cared enough about her to stop, she might well have succumbed, and then she would’ve added her own ruin to the rest of her problems. It was wrong to behave like that with any but a husband, but somehow her feelings for Will twisted all her normal beliefs and made wrong seem right.

‘You’re dangerous,’ he commented softly.

‘So are you,’ she retorted.

‘We’ve got ourselves into a fix, haven’t we, love?’

She nodded.

‘I can’t have you. If it were just me, I’d say, let’s run away together and forget the rest, but there’s my family …’

‘I know.’

‘I have to think of them.’

‘I understand.’ She sighed. Long experience made it easy to accept that no one, not even the man who said he loved her, was ever going to put her first. ‘I apologize for my behaviour.’

A spark of his old mischief came back. ‘No apologies. I think I shall make today a holiday on the Lacey estate – a day when naked tree-climbing is obligatory for all tenants.’

‘I wasn’t naked!’

‘I’m sticking to my version of events. Besides I have a very powerful imagination.’ He picked up her poor ruff. ‘Sadly, I think this has now expired.’

In her haste, she’d ripped the light linen cloth nearly in two. She didn’t have another and now could not go about properly
dressed unless she begged one off Jane or the countess. That would make for an interesting conversation when it came to explaining how she had spoiled the old. She tweaked the ruff from his fingers and did her best to tuck it under her collar. He watched her in silence until she felt uncomfortable under his scrutiny.

‘What?’ she asked, rubbing her nose on the back of her hand in case she’d picked up a smudge.

‘I’m going to marry Lady Jane, if she’ll have me.’

She’d known, of course, but to hear it stated felt like a knife in the gut. ‘I … I wish you both happy.’

‘Happy?’ Will held out a hand to her then dropped it. ‘Happy, no. Contentment perhaps?’

‘I like Jane.’

‘Good. That helps. I don’t know her yet, but if you like her, then there’s something there.’

‘You should try to love her, Will, if you marry her. It’s not fair otherwise.’ Ellie wished she didn’t feel she owed it to them to be so understanding, so noble about this. Really she wanted to scream at him that he should choose her and hang the consequences.

Will stared at her like a starving man at a feast set out of reach. ‘I love you.’

I love you too
, she echoed silently. ‘That … that will fade once I’m gone.’

His frown deepened. ‘No, it won’t. You can’t dismiss what I’m feeling so lightly. And you’re not leaving.’

‘I have to.’
Staying would kill me
.

He glared at her, all Earl of Dorset. ‘Where exactly do you think you are going?’

She gave a brittle laugh. ‘Oh, I don’t know. That depends on Father: Oxford, another nobleman’s house, a barn – you never can tell with him.’

‘A barn!’

‘Will, what did you think happened when you turned us out four years ago?’

‘You’ve been at Mountjoy’s.’

‘For the last six months.’

He shook his head, as if denying it would make it untrue. ‘No, not a barn.’

‘There are worse fates.’
Like living in a house where the man you love is married to another
. She gestured across the park to the roofs visible above the trees. ‘This is as good as it will ever be for me – Lacey Hall, this village.’ And she knew it was true; even her optimism was unable to light the bleak future ahead. ‘I’m not saying this to make you feel sad for me; I’ve known all along our stay here is merely delaying my father’s next spiral down. He’s not quite well, you see. This alchemy – it’s a kind of illness, resists all rational arguments.’

‘Ellie, I can’t let you go knowing that.’

‘You already knew it, Will, when you told me to go before – twice now; you just had not thought what it would really mean for me.’

He scrubbed his hand across his face. ‘I did, didn’t I? I’m a blind fool, Ellie. Forgive me.’

She shrugged, crossing her arms across her chest defensively. ‘Not your fault, Will. We’ll manage – we always have.’

‘No.’ He spoke the word softly, then repeated it more firmly. ‘No, that’s not good enough. No managing. No barns, ditches or God knows what.’ He seized her firmly by the
shoulders. ‘By my faith, Ellie, I’m not letting that happen to you. You’ll have to stay here. No engagement has been announced – I’ll marry you instead.’

Her heart performed a strange leap then swoop as her emotions shot from joy to despair. He was offering her dream, but with no way to realize it. And it was a proposal made only at the sword-point of necessity, pricking him to action. They both knew that a match between them was more than ineligible – it was laughable and would spell the end of his hopes of regaining the dignity of his house. A rash gesture, which if she accepted would lead them into misery. Her mind quickly conjured such a future – forget dreams of happiness despite darned clothes. Love was not always enough, as life with her father had taught her. She made herself wipe off the gilt of hope to see the solid, practical steel of the matter. Will’s feelings would sour, turning to resentment as he saw in his wife’s place, the girl who had brought nothing to his family but her love. His family would come to hate her as she dragged their fortunes down. Her love was better than that. She had to make him see reason.

‘And what of your family, your people?’

His face set in a grim expression. ‘They will have to tighten their belts.’

‘The dowries you promised your sisters? The funds to establish your brothers?’

‘I’ll manage.’

She gave a wry smile at the echo of her words. ‘But I won’t let your family be ruined again by a Hutton.’ She dipped a curtsy. ‘Thank you for your noble offer, my lord, but I fear I have to refuse.’

‘Ellie, I won’t allow this!’

‘You’ll have to. All-powerful lord you might be, but last time I looked they still required the bride to agree to the match.’

‘But I love you.’

‘And I you. That’s why I can’t marry you.’

He pulled her in his arms and hugged her, running his chin over the top of her head. ‘Stubborn wench. You’ve not heard the last of this.’

She squeezed him around the waist. ‘Obstinate lord. That’s my final word on the subject.’

From her window, Jane watched Will and Ellie walk back in from the garden. They’d dropped hands as they reached the path, not realizing they had been in sight of the house as they crossed the meadow, but still their bodies leant towards each other. There was a magic between them, the kind poets sung about, but Jane had not believed existed. She felt both jealous of their tenderness and sad for all of them that their paths were set away from love and bound for duty.

Nell appeared at her shoulder and gave a snort.

‘My lord dallies with the alchemist’s daughter, I see. You’ll have to send her away when you marry, my lady.’

‘Did I ask your opinion, Nell?’ Jane snapped. ‘And I would thank you not to slander my friend’s reputation with your loose tongue.’

Nell muttered something about loose tongues for loose women but didn’t press the matter.

Jane turned back to her window. Now she saw James hurrying after his brother, waving a letter in his hand. He was dressed in a smart blue doublet and hose that made the most of his
long, well-shaped legs. She smiled as he leapt a bench rather than take the more sedate detour. James was of an age with her – tall and with good-hearted manners. Attracted to him, Jane had found her thoughts turning to him rather more than they should. He made her laugh, bolstered her confidence with his outrageous flattery; even his matter-of-fact approach to life and love was a comfort. She knew she would have to confess her lapse with Ralegh to her husband before arriving at the marriage bed: if the groom were to have been James she imagined he would commiserate with her then try to exceed Ralegh’s performance; all she could picture of Will’s reaction was coldly polite disappointment.

‘Do you wish to wear the blue or the yellow gown today, mistress?’ Nell asked, holding up the choices.

‘The blue.’ Jane picked up her comb and began to dress for dinner. It was too bad they could not swap places: make James the eldest son, repair the family’s fortunes with her dowry, then Will, as the second son, could marry whom he wished. Life was never fair to the fools caught up in the messy business of surviving it.

A smash behind her caught her attention. She turned to find Nell staring weakly at a pitcher she had just dropped. Weakly? What was wrong with the girl? Normally she’d be putting the blame on the inadequate pottery as it hit the floor. Biting her tongue before she rapped out her usual reproof, Jane waited.

‘I beg your pardon, my lady. I’m being clumsy today.’ Nell went on her knees to gather the pieces.

Jane’s concern deepened. ‘Are you feeling unwell?’

‘Nothing to speak of, just out of sorts.’

She gave Nell an encouraging smile. She guessed that her maid was due a visit from her monthly curse and she well knew how bad-tempered that could make a girl. ‘Don’t worry – I’ll tell them I broke it. It won’t be taken out of your pay.’

Nell gaped at her.

Had she really been so unkind to her maid that she did not expect even this small gesture from her?

‘Thank you, my lady.’ Her poor maid looked completely at sea with this side of her mistress so Jane decided to put her out of her misery.

She got to her feet, gesturing impatiently. ‘Then help me with my points or I’ll be late for dinner.’

Nell sprang back into her old manner at this command. Her face hardening, she dumped the shards into the washbasin and came to her mistress’s side. ‘At once, my lady.’

Standing at his study window, Will glared at the letter in his hand. The permission had come, the beautifully regal signature appended to the note, proper seal applied. Before Lady Jane had arrived, he had written to the Queen, as was his duty as one of her foremost peers, asking for her approval to court the Perceval daughter. Elizabeth had no objection. He had been hoping in one small corner of his heart that the Queen would throw an obstacle in his path, something to let him off this duty with no fault resting on him, though what good that would have been in the longer view, he did not know. If she had objected to Lady Jane, she would have laughed outright at the idea of marrying Ellie.

‘All well, Will?’ asked James astutely, watching his brother read the message.

‘Never better,’ Will replied glumly, passing him the letter. ‘Cry “Tally ho! Have at the rich bride!”’ He collapsed in a chair. ‘God, I feel terrible.’

‘Not up to the hunt?’

‘Hardly sport when she seems ready to walk into my trap.’

James placed the letter carefully on the desk. ‘She’s a good woman, Will. You’re lucky.’

‘Yes, I know. She’s a paragon. Beautiful, witty, wealthy – the noble trinity of virtues in the marriage market.’

‘But she’s not the Lady Eleanor. How bad have you caught it, Will?’

Will met his brother’s eyes. There was no mockery, only concern. ‘Bad, Jamie, really bad. She’s everything I want: the key to my lock, the arrow to my bow – oh, and ten thousand other such pathetic poetic tropes, none of which comes close to describing what she means to me. When I’m with her, she opens up such wonderful hopes and feelings. I’ve never felt anything the least like this before. I know I shouldn’t love her, but I do.’

It was a sign of how seriously James was taking this that he did not scorn Will’s lapse into the language of a lover. ‘And does she love you?’

Will picked up the tennis ball he kept on the desk and tossed it from hand to hand. ‘Yes.’

‘In truth, and not just because you’re the earl?’

Will threw the ball at James for that insult which, with admirable reflexes, his brother caught easily. ‘She loves me enough to turn down my rash offer of marriage this morning.’

That surprised James. ‘Why did she do that?’

He gave a hollow laugh. ‘Because she knows it would ruin us. She was the one to talk of dowries and you and Tobias.’

James tossed the ball back to Will. ‘I think I too love the lady for that.’

‘Don’t!’ growled Will.

‘Don’t what?’

‘I can’t … I can’t take being teased about this. You are free to try for the lady when I’m not, but I have to warn you, I’d be insanely jealous if you did so.’

James shook his head. ‘You have me all wrong, Will. I know her now and my feelings for the little Hutton are purely that of a brother. I wish her well.’ He cast a significant look at the Queen’s letter. ‘I would that you could marry her.’

‘But I can’t.’

‘No, you can’t. Instead, you’re getting a pearl of a lady – no bad bargain from where I stand.’

Will stood up, hearing the bell ring in the hall, the signal that dinner was ready to be served. James didn’t really understand. Not yet tortured over the fires of love, he could only imagine it as a weak glow, soon dismissed for another. There was little point trying to make him see.

‘I want this business settled. I’ll make a formal offer to Lady Jane today.’

His brother couldn’t resist the quip. ‘Two proposals in one day, Will? That’s impressive, even for an earl.’