Salt Bride (8 page)

“It’s Jane Despard,” Salt interrupted quietly.

Sir Antony’s gaze never wavered from the Earl’s handsome angular face but his mouth hovered between an absurdly stupid grin and blank amazement so that he looked stunned, as if someone or something had smacked him across the back of the head. Mute stupefaction made him drink his wine in one gulp, realizing now why his elder sister and the Lady Caroline had been kept in ignorance of the Earl’s imminent marriage. The bride was so far off the social register, indeed being disowned by her father was as nothing when compared to her depraved lifestyle living unmarried under the roof of an old Bristol merchant, that if the truth was ever revealed to family and friends they would wonder at the Head of the Family’s mental stability, and if it ever got out to the world, well, the Sinclair family would be forever ridiculed and thus socially ruined.

Not one to shirk responsibilities and being genuinely fond of Salt, Sir Antony was glad he had been recalled home early from the finalization of the Paris peace negotiations to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Earl at this difficult time.

“I thought… given the circumstances surrounding the offer… That she broke off the previous engagement…”

“Miss Despard informs me she must marry me.”

Sir Antony’s jaw swung open. “What? After thumbing her nose at your previous offer? The bare-faced cheek of the little cat!” and then suddenly realized he was describing his friend’s future wife. “I thought Miss Despard might have a shred of decency left and refuse you,” he added, much subdued.

Salt’s features were rigid and pale. It was an effort for him to speak. “God help me, Tony, so did I.”

When Arthur Ellis returned upstairs to the drawing room he found Jane alone, seated by the fire, face turned to the flames as they crackled with new life amongst the blackened logs. For one heart stopping moment the secretary thought she had tossed into the fire the sheaf of papers he had labored over for hours, and his shoulders slumped at the thought of having to rewrite all four pages of closely written script. But it said much about his own gentle nature that when he realized the Earl’s betrothed had been crying, he was of the opinion that she really couldn’t be blamed for destroying a document that clearly set out to humiliate and imprison her.

He offered her his plain white handkerchief saying solemnly, “Should I call for Lady Despard?”

Jane shook her head and patted dry her cheeks before turning to the secretary with a bright smile. “No, Mr. Ellis. Thank you. I am quite all right. In fact I feel less apprehensive about tomorrow than I have in weeks. It was something he said… If he believes what the physicians advised, and that was ten years ago, then… It stands to reason that the locket never reached him. And if the locket never reached him… He can’t have known what happened to me… But forgive me, Mr. Ellis, you must think me cotton-headed. I am raving on at you about matters you cannot know the first thing about.”

“Less apprehensive? You are not troubled by the contents of Lord Salt’s document?” Uninvited, the secretary sat opposite Jane and unconsciously took back his handkerchief. “You feel better about tomorrow, Miss Despard?”

Jane smiled behind her hand at his look of total confusion. “Mr. Ellis, I do believe your loyalty should be with his lordship and his sad predicament in being forced into a marriage he does not want in the least. Forgive me. I have disconcerted you, again. Have you been ordered to collect that document with my signature upon it or face dire consequences? Oh! Mr. Ellis,” she added when he glanced swiftly over at the little escoitre and a huge relief showed itself on his freckled face, “did you think I had burned it? For shame. When you have undoubtedly spent many hours deliberating over every word, and your handwriting so immaculate.”

“I am only sorry that it was I who had to read it out loud,” the secretary confessed, gaze riveted to her lovely face. “If there had been any other way, if it had not been necessary for me to be present, to save you the embarrassment, but unfortunately—”

Jane touched the young man’s hand. “—Lord Salt cannot read the printed page without the aid of his eyeglasses. If he reads unaided for any length of time, particularly the newsprint, he suffers from the most unbearable megrims. He should wear his rims, but refuses to do so in public because his pride and vanity prevent him. Obstinate man. But I have said too much and you are looking at me as if I have sprouted a second head!”

The secretary was so taken aback that the Earl’s betrothed knew about his employer’s debilitating eyesight that he nodded his agreement and stood up when she rose from the chair. Very few people knew that it was an exceptional retentive memory that enabled the Earl to hide his disability upon most occasions, particularly when delivering speeches in the Lords or serving on committees where papers had been distributed beforehand. As for seeing his lordship wearing his gold-rimmed spectacles across the bridge of his long, boney nose, Arthur Ellis was quite certain the number of persons granted this privilege amounted to less than half a dozen. It was only when he was shut away in his bookroom with only Arthur in attendance, would the Earl sit hunched over a document reading with the aid of his magnified lenses. It begged the question how Miss Despard could know such an intimate detail about her future husband, but instead of asking he said diffidently,

“His lordship has instructed me to offer you my assistance with the sorting of your belongings; those that are to remain with the Allenbys and those requiring removal to your new home in Grosvenor Square.”

“Thank you for the offer, Mr. Ellis,” Jane replied, picking up the document off the escritoire, “but I anticipated his lordship’s directive and have only brought with me one portmanteau and two hat boxes. My petticoats and shoes, such as I had, I left in Wiltshire to be distributed amongst the wives and daughters of the parish poor.” She handed the unsigned document to the secretary with an apologetic smile. “I’m afraid I have no intention of signing this hateful epistle, Mr. Ellis. I’m only sorry you must deliver the news to his lordship. Hopefully his misdirected wrath will be of a short duration and he can bottle the rest until he has the opportunity to vent it on me.”

Arthur Ellis gave an involuntary laugh and shook his head. He couldn’t blame her but he was surprised that this delicate beauty had the strength of character not to be frightened to stand her ground with his strong-willed employer. Arthur predicted interesting times ahead for the Earl once married to Miss Jane Despard. The anticipation of the upcoming nuptials put a decided spring in his step as he went about his usual business the next day, despite an anteroom full of petitioners and the day’s appointments already substantially delayed with the arrival of Lady St. John with her two children in tow.

The secretary did not approve of Lady St. John and her mischievous offspring but it was not his place or right to say so. Nor did it surprise him that she always chose to visit on the only day in the week when the Earl received petitioners, and thus his busiest at-home day.

Tuesdays were open house day at Lord Salt’s Grosvenor Square mansion, providing an opportunity to anyone who wished to put his case to the Earl of Salt Hendon, be it on a matter regarding a sinecure, patronage for a literary work or some such artistic endeavor, a hawker representing the wares of his manufacturer, or persons with some minor connection to the Sinclair family or the Earl’s estates seeking assistance in some way. Petitioners rarely managed to make it to interview on the first Tuesday of their petitioning and waited all day in the freezing and cavernous anteroom with its marble floor and no fire in the grate. There were never enough chairs to go round and people stood for hours only to be told to return the following Tuesday to wait all over again. The more persistent returned three or four Tuesdays in a row all for the privilege of stating their case in the fifteen minutes allotted to them for an audience with the Earl.

None of this meant anything to Lady St. John and she sailed into the Earl’s bookroom in a billow of exquisitely embroidered Italian olive velvet petticoats, her retinue behind her and without a single glance at the nameless silent and shivering crowd queued up either side of the double doors guarded over by two footmen regaled in the Sinclair blue and gold livery.

Arthur tried to continue on with his work as if she was not there but of course this was an impossible task when she immediately draped herself on a corner of the Earl’s massive mahogany desk with no regard for the piles of important papers her petticoats swept to the floor in the process. As for her two children, the boy and girl clambered up onto Uncle Salt’s lap and demanded his attention. And of course Lady St. John’s visits invariably required the involvement of most of the household staff to provide for her and her children’s care and nourishment. The kitchen was sent into a whirlwind of activity to make and bake the little almond biscuits she liked so much and the particular Bohea tea at the strength her palate would approve; the butler was called upon to provide his undivided attention to her ladyship’s whims and at least four liveried footmen were dispatched to keep an eye on the children to ensure there was minimal disruption to carpets, leather bound volumes lining the walls, mahogany furniture and soft furnishings. All this despite Lady St. John arriving with her own lady-in-waiting, the children’s tutor, a governess and a Negro pageboy whose arduous task it was to go before her ladyship carrying a silk cushion which had upon it her ladyship’s fan.

Jane was set down at the door to the Earl’s Palladian mansion in Grosvenor Square in the midst of this mid-morning disruption. The under-butler sized her up. From her simply dressed hair without powder, to her unseasonable silk gown of old gold with light lace petticoats that lacked the requisite fashionable hoop, over which was a wool cloak with frayed collar, and the fact she had arrived without her maid in tow, put this haughty little man in two minds whether to close the door in her face.

Never mind the indisputable fact that she was the most breathtakingly beautiful female he had ever set eyes on. He had a job to do. It was all very well to admit groveling petitioners on Tuesdays, but a beautiful female without her maid was another matter entirely. One, Rufus Willis, under-butler in this noble household, wasn’t too sure he wanted to tackle. Only the fact Jane had arrived in the Earl’s carriage decided him that it was best to let her come inside out of the intense cold. Perhaps she was the new maid, Mr. Jenkins the butler had told him to be on the lookout for? But he hadn’t expected the girl to use the front entrance. Without a bow and with a small wave of dismissal, Willis ordered Jane to follow a footman to the anteroom off the bookroom. She could wait with the rest of the needy masses clamoring for his lordship’s attention and deep pockets until he had spoken with Mr. Jenkins to sort out what they were to do with her. Expect a long wait.

In the cavernous anteroom, Jane was deserted by the footman without so much as a bow of acknowledgement, which surely indicated to the waiting crowd, along with her shabby wool cloak, that she was no one of importance, and in all probability a newly employed domestic. But in the midst of a crowd of half-frozen men, her beauty was a welcome distraction and she was immediately offered the rare commodity of a chair by several gentlemen who leapt to their heels, instantly captivated by such exquisite loveliness and effortless grace. A sprightly middle-aged gent with a Malacca cane won out and Jane sat down beside this gentleman’s wife.

It was not lost on Jane that as soon as she entered the anteroom every bewigged head turned to gaze directly at her. Bravely, she bestowed a kind smile on them all; as she had been advised to do by the soft-spoken stranger she and Tom had met while visiting the Tower Zoo. The stranger had in tow his nephew and niece and was showing them the lion enclosure, but every visitor was more interested in gazing on Jane and she had no idea why. Although, the sight of such majestic creatures so far from their homeland and kept in such a horrid space was quite depressingly sad, and perhaps this was why the tourists had turned their attention elsewhere? Yet this did not explain why every time she and Tom had ventured from Arlington Street in search of tourist spots, they had found themselves swamped by a veritable crowd of onlookers.

The soft-spoken stranger had enlightened them, saying that in this city it was perfectly acceptable for its citizens, gentlemen and ladies alike, to stare at a pretty young woman as a matter of course. No one thought it at all ill mannered. In fact, it was considered an honor to be thus singled out and so the object of everyone’s admiration was expected to bestow a smile on all who admired her beauty.

How bored all these men are, Jane thought as she finally dropped her gaze to her cold hands, and how icy it was in this massive room of marble and wood without adequate light and warmth. She wished she owned a muff such as the one the lady beside her possessed. She enquired of the lady and her husband why there was no fire in the grate of the large fireplace, to which the middle-aged man with the Malacca cane laughed and shook his bewigged head.