Salt Bride (14 page)

“Strange how matters can take a turn,” Lady Despard said wistfully. “I should have realized that even when Sir Felix banished her, even when he forced the baby to be quickened before its time, he still loved his daughter. He always used to say Jane was the image of her mother. His first wife was granddaughter of an Irish duke, don’t you know? But she married well beneath her by eloping with Sir Felix. It was her death that started his drinking and gambling. Poor Sir Felix. Tragic. Still,” she added in a rallying tone, “he wanted nothing less than an earl for Jane and an earl was what he got with his last breath; your precious earl to be precise.”

She frowned. Diana St. John looked on the verge of a nervous collapse. “Shall I call for your maid, my lady?”

“Maid?” Diana St. John repeated, dazed.

“Such news has made you unwell, my lady. Perhaps a brandy—”

Diana St. John’s fingers gripping the back of the upholstered wingchair were white at the knuckles. This woman had been sent here to do her harm. She was lying. Yes, that was it! She was lying. This was Jacob Allenby’s way of taunting her from the grave. She glared at her visitor with menacing intent. “Did Allenby put you up to this? Did he hope to punish me with this lie?”

“It is no lie. Though, when you think about it, it is a fitting punishment for what you had done to Jane.” Lady Despard had a flash of insight. “A natural justice of sorts.”

“Justice? Ha!” Diana St. John’s mind was spinning with a mixture of denial and possibilities. “Let Salt satisfy his lust with that creature, as many times as he likes, much I care, but then watch me have the little trollop banished back to her sodden corner of Wiltshire quicker than you can spell Ranelagh.”

“But surely that defeats your purpose, my lady?” Lady Despard asked, confused. “A virile man of Salt’s age and abilities is more than capable of making love to his wife several times over on his wedding night. And we both know they can breed. In all likelihood, as you stand there mourning his marriage, he’s already impregnated her.” She smiled at her own cleverness. “Isn’t that what you wanted to avoid all those years ago? If Jane begets an heir where does that leave your son?” She tittered. “And you call me the stupid cow!”

Diana St. John was stunned, as if the reality of the wedding night had never occurred to her. She remained upright and composed until Lady Despard was unceremoniously dismissed from her sight. She then collapsed in the wingchair and put her head in her hands and gave herself up to tears of intense hatred and mounting frustration. Much later, when she was wasted of self-pity and drained of all natural emotion, she began plotting her revenge.

Salt had no idea how many hours he remained awake in the big four-poster bed, lying on his side, staring at the little leaping flames amongst the crackling logs in the deep grate of the bedchamber fireplace. He just knew it was uncomfortable on his wide shoulders. But if he moved and lay flat on his back, or turned on to his other side, there was a very real possibility he would come in contact with his sleeping wife, and he wanted to avoid that at all costs.

The nightshirt definitely helped as a deterrent. What a ridiculous article of clothing! Wide, collarless and with billowing sleeves, it felt more like a sheet with a hole cut in it for his head. No wonder he’d given up wearing them as soon as he’d left Eton. He felt as if he’d been put into adult swaddling; the linen caught round his legs and there was no way of untangling himself without lifting his entire body off the bed several times. He really couldn’t bear wearing the ridiculous thing a moment longer. Surely the bed was wide enough that he could sleep naked and be comfortable without causing a disturbance to his bride?

Decided, he slid out of bed, wrenched the nightshirt up off his wide back and over his shoulders, and flung it in disgust into a darkened corner. Satisfied to be rid of one torment, he raked his shoulder-length hair out of his eyes and slid back under the covers to lie on his back. It was such a welcome relief to evenly distribute his weight that he only managed to stare at the pleated canopy for a handful of seconds before he finally drifted off into a welcome deep sleep.

Twenty minutes later he was wide-awake.

Blissfully asleep, Jane migrated to the middle of the bed in search of warmth. It was a big bed that allowed its equally large owner to sprawl out in comfort, but without the heavy curtains drawn about the four mahogany posts to keep out the still night air, nor the use of a bed warmer to take the chill off the linen sheets, there was little comfort for Jane’s slender frame, inadequately covered as it was by a thin nightshift. Even her white stockings were of little use in keeping her warm, stopping as they did just above the knees. But she found the perfect substitute for a hot brick in the form of her husband’s warm, naked body. Tall, wide and with plenty of well-exercised muscle, he radiated heat and comfort, and on such a cold winter’s night he was the ideal bed and body warmer. The sleeping Jane happily snuggled into him and instantly returned to a state of deep slumber.

The same could not be said for her husband, who kept as still as he possibly could, eyes on the canopy, and tried his best to ignore her soft, lithe female curves. She had her pink cheek nestled against his beefy shoulder and an arm across his torso, while one shapely stockinged leg straddled a brawny thigh. She clung to him like glued paper to a wall. And as if this wasn’t enough of a distraction, her raven hair, which had escaped the confines of its long braid, fell about the pillows in a wild mane and tickled his square, unshaven chin.

Ignoring his edict to remain still beside her because his arm and fingers were tingling from inertia, he shifted his weight amongst the pillows and covers, disturbing Jane enough for her to move with him then resettle with her head now resting against his chest and an arm about his neck. There was nothing for it but to drop his arm over her.

He closed his eyes, determined to ignore her soft curves and his stiffening erection, and set his mind to recalling the goings on at Parliament that afternoon, particularly Bute’s dreary speech about troop deployments, now the war with France was concluded and the Peace about to be signed in Paris; and there was that ridiculous debate over the Commons’ adjournment for the observance of St. George’s Day on the 31st because the 30th fell on a Sunday.

Ordinarily these musings were enough to put him to sleep faster than a dose of laudanum, but Jane’s light regular breathing and the delicious distraction of her body moving ever so gently against him did nothing to dampen his ardor. And when she turned and tried to straighten her bunched up nightshift to untangle her stockinged legs, but with little success, he did the gentlemanly thing and helped her out of the flimsy linen garment. He tossed it across the room to join his crumpled nightshirt.

Half awake, she remained sitting up in bed facing him, completely oblivious to her nakedness but for her white stockings that were held fast above the knee with silk ribbons tied in neat bows, and her tumble of lustrous raven-black hair that fell about her shoulders to the small of her back in alluring disarray. With a heavy-lidded drowsy thank you and a sleepy smile she promptly snuggled down beside him again to enjoy the warmth of his body. He wasn’t sure how much more of this glorious torture he could endure.

He was about to draw up the coverlet when he couldn’t resist admiring his bride’s feminine loveliness under the glow of the crackling firelight. From stockinged toes to shapely bare thigh, from the rise of her hips to the dip in her waist and up to her small firm breasts, she was utterly arousing and completely captivating—and his. Bland speeches about peace treaties and frustrating debates about the observance of saints’ days burst like bubbles as he gently brushed a long strand of soft curl from across the pale pink of her nipple and off her throat.

The scent of soap, of freshly scrubbed skin and the natural essence of her, made him hover and drink her in. She smelled as delicious as she looked, lying on her side with her hands tucked under her cheek, long black tresses falling all about her. He could almost convince himself that the intervening years had never happened and this was in truth the wedding night he had planned for them to enjoy at his Wiltshire estate. Perhaps if he kissed her the deception would be complete…

He brushed his mouth along her soft warm cheek and when she blinked and tilted her chin up to him he did what he had so very much wanted to do for four years, he kissed her mouth.

“What a lovely dream,” she murmured through half-open lids

“Yes, a dream.”

She put her arm up around his neck and drew him back down to kiss her again. “You smell nice. You always smell nice.”

He smiled. “Do I?”

She licked her top lip.

“Taste nice, too.”

He chuckled. “So do you.”

“No more talk. Kiss me.”

He obliged her, giving himself up to the luxury of a long, lingering and delightfully exploratory kiss as her mouth parted under the pressure of his. She had such soft plump lips that he wanted to go on kissing and caressing her for as long as he was able to resist entering her gloriously aroused flesh, the anticipation of what was to come almost as exciting as the act itself; for he had not kissed another woman the way he kissed Jane.

When he had forced a kiss on her that day on the Hunt two years ago, when she had trespassed onto his land, it was in the belief it would cure his want of her. That if he kissed her, held her in his arms, he would finally be done with her. But even a kiss forced upon her had merely increased his misery for it merely reaffirmed his inadequacy in wanting her. Just as these kisses now with her permission made the wanting of her excruciatingly urgent. If he did not have her there and then he was certain he would go mad.

“Touch me, Jane.
Hold me
.”

She willingly complied and his entire body ignited. They tumbled on the bed, and when he had her at the precipice of no return and she rose up to press herself against him, stockinged legs wrapped around his strong thighs, she whimpering for release, he had all the encouragement he needed. He could wait no longer. If he heard her gasp as he filled her completely it was in the deep recesses of his mind. Yet he was not so far beyond reach that her unguarded admission in the heat of the moment went unheard. It evoked for him the stark reality of their bittersweet union and served to remind him why they now shared a bed, not because they were passionately in love but because they were legally bound together as man and wife. There was no romance here. But there was definitely lust…

“How could I marry another when you’ve utterly ruined me…”

Why had she chosen that moment, while they were in the throws of passionate love making on their wedding night, to remind him of the past? Was she intent on emasculating him for defiling her? So be it. He
would
stop. He would leave her dissatisfied. He should… But he was beyond the point of caring. All that mattered was fulfillment. His fulfillment. In the heat of the moment, in the heat that turned to anger mingled with a cock-throbbing need for physical gratification, all he cared about was filling her, his wife, with his seed, seed barren and wasted, but his seed as her husband. And when release finally came, when they tumbled off the precipice into blissful oblivion, he had the hollow satisfaction of hearing her splinter the cold night air with his Christian name.

“You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t,” was Jenkins the butler’s gloomy prediction. He yawned loudly. “What time is it? Three in the morning and not a minute less.”

The Earl’s valet eyed him with drowsy resentment and again addressed the messenger. “How urgent is urgent?”

The messenger from Audley Street shrugged. “Urgent. With respect, sir, at this late ’our, none of us are in a position to argue the meaning of the word.”

The valet leaned his night-capped head back against the wall of the ill-lit servant passageway outside his master’s apartment and stared at the door opposite. Jenkins was right. He was damned either way. If he didn’t deliver Lady St. John’s message she would cause an almighty fuss and demand his immediate dismissal. If he did, and walked into his master’s bedchamber on this of all nights he was confident the Earl would dismiss him anyway. He was not a betting man but he was of the opinion that he would take his chances and incur Lady St. John’s wrath rather than disturb his master on his bridal night. Decided, he stepped away from the wall and snatched the sealed parchment from the messenger’s hand.