Salt Bride (39 page)

“Climbing down off your pedestal wasn’t that difficult, was it?”

“Difficult?” he replied, nostrils aquiver, trying his best to look offended. Yet, he couldn’t stop a lopsided grin. “Not if you are there to catch me should I have the misfortune to take a tumble from such a lofty height.”

She smiled at his reflection. “Always.”

“Then you had best come to the tennis court when you return from viewing pictures. Tom is sure to beat me at my own game, given I have had less than three hours sleep in the past twenty-four.”

But it wasn’t Tom who next knocked the Earl from the dizzying heights of his noble plinth; it was his discarded mistress, Elizabeth Lady Outram, come to call on the young Countess of Salt Hendon to open her eyes to the veracity of life as the wife of a lothario nobleman.

“Mr. Wraxton? Mr. Wraxton? Are you awake, sir?”

It was Arthur Ellis and he was gently nudging Hilary Wraxton’s Malacca cane with the toe of his shoe, hoping to wake the poet. Hilary’s Wraxton’s snoring was so loud that his sonorous nasal blasts reverberated in the cavernous vestibule off the downstairs withdrawing room and out into the expanse of the main entrance hall. Lined with marble statues of Greek Gods and Roman emperors, and portraits of long dead noble Sinclairs, the vestibule was not a room in the cozy sense of the word that one would want to curl up in and fall asleep, but more a museum where one sauntered about to view the impressive life-size busts of the Emperor Augustus, Marcus Aurelius and Caesar or gazed at the Elizabethan and Stuart full-length pictures of previous Earls of Salt Hendon.

The secretary had just come from his employer’s bookroom where the Russian Ambassador and two of his equerries, Lord Salt and Sir Antony had been ensconced speaking in the French tongue for three hours. Mr. Ellis prided himself on his fluency in the French language, after all he had a first in languages from Oxford, but the flow of conversation had tested his linguistic powers and given him the headache. His Excellency the Count had stayed to nuncheon and enjoyed himself so much that he invited his noble host and Sir Antony to dine with him the following week. And to bring the oh so vivacious Lady Caroline Sinclair with them, and of course Lady Salt, whose company he had not had the pleasure, although he had the pleasure of an introduction at the Richmond House ball - such astonishing beauty was forever remembered.

Salt had graciously accepted His Excellency’s invitation, though privately he was not so certain Caroline would be alive to see the light of another day, he so wanted to strangle the life out of her for coming into the bookroom uninvited. His annoyance was tempered by Sir Antony’s acute observation that Caroline’s behavior was no less reprehensible than that of his own dear sister Diana, who made it her business to interrupt the Earl’s at home days every Tuesday; and Diana didn’t have the excuse of the over-confidence of youth and naivety. And as Count Vorontsov seemed very taken with Caroline’s enthusiasm for all things Russian, and the fact she was attentive and laughed very prettily at all His Excellency’s long-winded stories, Sir Antony told Salt he really had nothing to complain about. To which the Earl wanted to retort that love was blind and the sooner Sir Antony ordered Caroline to stop encouraging the attentions of Captain Big-Boots Beresford, married her and swept her off to St. Petersburg the better for his peace of mind.

Peace of mind.

That’s what he craved most these days. The thought of the Easter break and taking Jane and the children to Wiltshire to muck about on the estate occupied his thoughts as the butler and two footmen helped the Count with his sword and sash and into his mink-lined great coat; Sir Antony having a last word with one of the Russian equerries. Salt nodded distractedly when Sir Antony mentioned he was taking Caroline for a turn about the park for some fresh air before dinner but came out of his abstraction when he saw his secretary disappear into the vestibule where emanated the discordant sounds of what could only be described as a muffled bugle but was in fact heavy snoring.

“Salt! Good! Wanted a word,” Hilary Wraxton announced, wide-awake and staring beyond the secretary at the Earl who strode into the vestibule with a quick look around. “Here! You! Be useful. Hold this,” he ordered the secretary and pushed his Malacca cane onto Arthur Ellis. From an inner pocket of his blue watered silk waistcoat he produced a thick sheaf of small parchment squares tied up with a pink ribbon. “Poems for her ladyship. One a week for a year,” he announced proudly and held them out to the Earl. “Would have penned more; no time. Pascoe says I can write more from Paris and Venice and Constantinople, if we get that far.”

“Thank you, Hilary,” the Earl said placidly, accepting the wad of poetical writings and instantly handing them off to his secretary. “Why must her ladyship have one a week?”

“She looks forward to my recitals. Told me so. I admit reading ’em herself ain’t the same as me reading ’em to her, but she’ll just have to bear up under the disappointment.”

Salt suppressed a grin. “Yes. She will be disappointed. Paris. Venice. Constantinople?”

“Pascoe is taking me, well
us
. Actually, come to think on it,” he mused with a frown, as if the idea had just popped into his head, “I invited myself. Lizzie don’t mind. Says I’ll be company for Pascoe when she’s sleeping. Sleeps a lot, Lizzie. Dare say that’s the price of fading beauty: beauty sleep at two in the afternoon. You know the type, Salt. Pascoe’s turn to put up with her.” He gave a sudden snort of laughter that startled the secretary into dropping the Malacca cane to the marble floor, clattering loudly. “Sporting of you to let Pascoe have her all to himself. Between us, he’s always been ears over toes for Lizzie; wouldn’t let on to you. Not while you and she were—
you know
…”

The Earl wondered if Hilary Wraxton was being more obtuse than usual or whether it was just over-tiredness on his part that made the poet’s conversation even more unfathomable. But mention of Lizzie and Pascoe in the same breath and Salt realized the poet was talking about Elizabeth, Lady Outram, whom he had not thought about since he left her drawing room in Half Moon Street the day before his marriage to Jane three months ago; it could well have been another lifetime.

“When do you leave for the Continent, Hilary?”

The poet jerked his powdered head at the closed double doors leading into the blue withdrawing room where stood two blank faced livered footmen. “Any moment I shouldn’t wonder. Coach loaded up with portmanteaux; horses hitched for Dover. No sooner had I made my bow to Lady Salt than Pascoe shoves me out here to kick me heels with the cold marble so she can have a private word with her ladyship. What about is anybody’s guess. Females!”

“My lord,” Arthur Ellis interrupted, “there is the tennis match… and Mr. Allenby arrived some thirty minutes ago. Jenkins sent him directly to the tennis court…”

“Thank you, Arthur. Who is having a private word with Lady Salt?”

The poet seemed not to hear the question because he had suddenly noticed that Arthur Ellis was holding tight to the Malacca cane and grabbed it from him with a scowl, as if the secretary had meant to keep it. “Gift from Pascoe. Can’t have it. He’ll have my guts for garters.”

“Wraxton! Who is with Lady Salt?” the Earl demanded, though he had a fair idea who it was, he just didn’t want to believe the woman had the audacity to come to the house he shared with his wife, and that Pascoe had allowed it. Worse, that she had come with the specific intention of speaking to his bride.

The poet stared at the Earl as if he was the village idiot.

“Lizzie. Lizzie Outram. You
knew
her before Pascoe. Remember? Salt?”

But the Earl was not attending him. In five strides he was at the double doors. In three more he was inside the room unannounced. Standing by the fireplace was Pascoe Lord Church and a few feet away, by the arrangement of chairs, the under-butler Willis, grim-faced and with his hands behind his back. And there, standing by the striped sofa was his forsaken mistress Elizabeth Lady Outram in tête-à-tête with his wife. Both women looked about at the sudden intrusion; Elizabeth Outram to drop into a respectful curtsey, Jane to regard her husband with a tremulous smile and a deep blush to her throat and cheeks that sent his heart racing and his mind reeling.

An hour earlier, while the Earl was ensconced in his bookroom discussing theterms of the Peace and Continental politics, the Countess had returned from the Strand to the news that Pascoe Lord Church and his shadow Hilary Wraxton had come to call on her and were waiting patiently in the downstairs blue withdrawing room. It had been suggested by Jenkins that the guests return on a more suitable day, but as the butler pointed out to Willis who had come in off the square behind the Countess and her maid, the gentlemen were adamant that no other day would do; they were departing for foreign climes almost at once.

Willis would have excused himself to prepare for his meeting with his lordship, but when Jenkins added that there was a third occupant in the withdrawing room, and she a female unknown to any of the servants of his lordship’s household, but on sight looked an interesting individual Willis was alerted.
Interesting
in the butler’s vocabulary meant highly unsuitable company for the young Countess, and so exchanging a worried glance with Anne, Willis decided that it was in the best interests of the House of Sinclair to follow the Countess into the room. He made a lame excuse of having left the Countess’s appointment diary, of which he was keeper, in that very room and perhaps when the visitors had departed her ladyship would do him the kindness of going over one or two matters that required her urgent attention. Before the Countess could object, her maid piped up with the suggestion that she would bring her ladyship a dish of Bohea tea with a slice of lemon.

Jane had had such an enjoyable afternoon strolling the picture exhibition with Elisabeth Sedley that she was determined that the rest of the day would continue the same way. Even the inquisitive Society patrons, who jostled with one another to catch a glimpse of the beautiful Countess of Salt Hendon in the flesh, and whose closeness of perfume and pomade caused her morning sickness to be more acute, could not dampen her spirits. She had been grateful for the presence of Willis and Anne, for though they were distracted with one another (being on an outing together was truly a novelty) Willis always had one eye on the Countess and her comfort. So it was not in Jane’s nature to deflate the man’s concern by fobbing him off. She graciously accepted him at his word, though she found his excuse flimsy in the extreme, because she had a deep suspicion that Anne had confided her pregnancy to Rufus Willis and that her condition had brought out the man’s protective instincts; he had become her self-appointed guardian angel.

It was in this capacity that the under-butler entered the room, took a swift look about and seeing a couple by the French window with its view of the expansive square, took up a position by the clavichord which was left of center to the room. As the Countess came across the parquetry the couple moved towards her and they all met on the deep Aubusson rug under the chandelier. Pascoe Lord Church, in jockey boots and a traveling frockcoat of brown velvet, bowed over Jane’s outstretched hand and then introduced Lady Outram, who curtseyed to rank.

Jane smiled at them both, only briefly allowing her gaze to linger on Pascoe Church’s companion’s striped petticoats and bodice of Florentine apple green and cherry red silk that showed her ample breasts to best advantage. Carefully applied cosmetics made it difficult to determine her age, though she was not in the first flush of youth. That said she was still a very beautiful woman who knew her own worth and expected others to know it too.

“May I offer you tea?” Jane asked, indicating the arrangement of sofas by the fireplace. She sat down and the couple did likewise, side by side on the sofa opposite her. “I have been standing all morning looking at the most wonderful pictures and now my feet demand I rest. If you do not want tea I can send for coffee?”

“Thank you, my lady,” replied Elizabeth Outram. “A dish of Bohea would be most welcome before our journey.”