The Earl's Marriage Bargain (Liberated Ladies)

‘Or an arch,’ she suggested, sketching the shape on the tablecloth with one finger as she spoke. Ivo wondered if she even realised she was doing it.

She has quality and tact, Ivo thought as Jane encouraged his grandfather to enlarge on his landscaping schemes. She must have guessed that Aunt was talking about the elopement that led to my beating, but she said nothing. But has she taken in what Augusta was hinting at?

She would have to be dense not to realise that his aunt was implying that he was—or had been—in love with Daphne.

He asked a direct question about his two female cousins, Alfred’s sisters, forcing a change of subject that his aunt could not avoid without her spite becoming completely obvious.

The meal was coming to its end when a footman came in with a letter on a silver salver. ‘The man is waiting for a reply, my lord,’ he said, presenting it to the Marquess.

‘This is addressed to you, Miss Newnham,’ his grandfather said after a glance at the note.

Jane took it, ‘Excuse me.’ She read it rapidly, then dropped the sheet. ‘Oh, poor thing! My cousin Violet writes in haste to say she has been called to her sister’s side. She has just given birth earlier than expected and both she and the baby are sickly. Her husband has written to Violet to say that he cannot persuade his wife to rest as she should because of her anxiety over the child. Violet is packing to leave for London immediately—she hopes to catch the late afternoon Mail coach. She says her maid, Charity, will accompany me to my parents in Dorset and she hopes your secretary can continue to look after the arrangements for the wedding that she was making.’

She pushed back her chair. ‘If you will excuse me, my lord. Perhaps someone could drive me back to Batheaston at once?’

‘I will, of course.’ Ivo tossed aside his napkin. ‘Sir, the travelling carriage would make Jane’s journey home more comfortable.’

‘I think we can do rather better than that. James, send a message to the stables immediately. The travelling carriage, driver and groom to go to Miss Lowry’s house. They will take the note I shall write now and perhaps one from Miss Newnham. They are to convey Miss Lowry and her maid to London and to remain at her disposal for as long as she requires them.’ He stood up. ‘Jane, if you will come to my study, you can write to your cousin to explain that you will be staying here. If she has one of her women pack your things, I will send a gig to collect them.’

‘Stay here with two gentlemen and without a chaperon?’ Aunt Augusta enquired. ‘I would have thought there was quite enough talk already around this marriage without adding to it.’ They all turned to her and she raised her eyebrows. ‘Do not look to me to remain! I have a household and family to return to and I intend doing so immediately.’

‘I would not dream of troubling you, Augusta,’ his grandfather said. ‘I shall send to Honoria.’

‘The Dowager Lady Gravestock, my great-aunt and Grandfather’s sister,’ Ivo murmured to Jane. ‘She lives in Bath and is utterly respectable and amazingly lazy. Do say you will stay.’

‘If you really want me to,’ she murmured back, warily watching his aunt and grandfather sniping at each other.

‘Yes, of course, I do. Off you go and write to your cousin and please give her my best wishes for her sister’s speedy recovery and that of the child.’

He sat down again as she went out, his gaze unfocused on the bowl of fruit in front of him. Did he really want Jane to be here, day and night, until the wedding? He had offered to marry her because it was the honourable thing to do. She had been severely compromised because she had selflessly rescued him from a severe beating, if not worse. And he liked her and found her attractive. But it would be a marriage of convenience, an amiable agreement. He had felt no desire to get to know her better beforehand or to let her become closer to himself either.

Marriage, surely, could be managed as a polite, civilised arrangement. She would look after the household, raise the children, amuse herself with her painting. He would manage the estates. They would come together in the bedchamber, over the dining table and on social occasions. It was a form of relationship that appeared to have worked perfectly well for his parents and his grandparents.

But now Jane was becoming closer. He found he wanted to be with her and discuss things. He wanted to kiss her, to do more than kiss. But that felt wrong. He did not love her and, if he allowed this closeness to persist she might grow fond of him—more than fond—and that would be unfair. Unkind. He loved Daphne and he had failed her. He could not fail another young woman who should be under his protection.

‘...a word I have been saying, Kendall!’

‘Aunt Augusta, my apologies. I was wool-gathering.’

‘Daydreaming, more like, which is doubtless how you got yourself into this mess in the first place.’ She stood up in a rustle of fabrics and gestured irritably at the footman who was a fraction too late to pull back her chair.

Ivo stood again. ‘I cannot imagine to what you refer, Aunt. May I send for your carriage in, shall we say, half an hour?’

‘You may send for it now, I have no reason to dally. There is something havey-cavey about that young woman, you mark my words. She is one of the new Duchess of Aylsham’s bosom friends and that was a most peculiar affair, I cannot imagine what Aylsham thought he was doing. Getting married on an island, bridesmaids and guests arriving in rowing boats, the bride a positive bluestocking? The man is becoming as eccentric as his father. Where will this girl want to be wed? In a hot air balloon?’

Ivo sank down into his chair as she swept out, the two footmen jumping to catch the double doors just in time. At least they had managed to keep their faces blank throughout that utterly indiscreet tirade, but the servants’ hall would doubtless be enlivened by an account of it soon enough.

When a sufficient amount of time had elapsed after each contact with his aunt he could understand her bitterness and tolerate it. A philandering husband who had died just in time to save the family from ruin, a son who would never live up to her ambitions for him and whose lifestyle put his reputation and safety at constant risk and two mousey daughters who had so far failed to secure husbands their mama considered worthy of them: all were burdens that would have overset a less robust woman.

But face to face, and with her cutting at Jane with every word, he found he had no tolerance at all.

* * *

‘I apologise for my relatives,’ he said when he emerged into the hall and found Jane coming out of the study.

‘I have met only two of

them and I like your grandfather very well,’ she said with a faint smile that spoke volumes of her opinion of Augusta. ‘I do hope I am not putting your great-aunt to a lot of trouble and at such short notice.’