Season for Scandal (11 page)

He knocked the book back into place, then turned to face Edmund. “No. Indifference would be better, wouldn’t it? When I’m done with her, she’ll never think of you at all, unless it’s with disappointment.”

“You won’t be able to trick the baroness.”

“Already have, haven’t I? She thinks I’m Daniel Bellamy, full of stories and charm.”

“You’re certainly full of sh—”

“Tell me, boyo,” Turner cut him off. “Do you know where she is right this very moment?”

Edmund frowned. “The location of my wife is no business of yours.”

“You don’t know, though, do you? She could be anywhere. She could be in her bedchamber. She could be fiddling about in the kitchens. She could be . . .” Turner’s eyes narrowed. “Meeting a lover.”

“She’s not.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But you don’t know. And you’ll think about that now, won’t you? I’ll work at her the same way. That’s all the beginning I need—the not knowing. Then comes the not trusting. And then comes the not loving.” Turner shrugged. “Simple as can be.”

Acid rose into Edmund’s throat. With an effort, he forced it down. “I would consider such games a great wrong against a woman who’s done nothing to harm you.”

“Chose you, didn’t she? People are punished every day for their
dobhránta
choices.”

Stupid
. Edmund knew that word well. Turner had once been his tutor, after all, and not overgenerous with praise.

Yet he could not let this stand. “Lady Kirkpatrick had no choice but to marry me. She is innocent.”

“Just depends on how we define innocent, doesn’t it?” Turner considered. “If she’d no choice in the matter, mayhap she’d already given up her innocence.”

“I won’t discuss it.”

The man laughed so hard that his queue shook like the clapper of a bell. “So she did, did she? Hope she was good enough to be worth a leg shackle.”

“This marriage was my decision,” Edmund said through gritted teeth. “It’s a way to take care of my own.”

Turner’s laughter cut off abruptly. “Your own. Ah, yes. That’s the heart of the matter, isn’t it?”

Again Turner paced the small confines of the study. Corner to corner, back again, as though trailing a web behind him. Edmund felt like nothing so much as a fly, wrapped and trapped. “
You took my family and rent it apart. I haven’t been to Cornwall in twenty years.
”

“Is there some reason you’re repeating my words?”

“Yes. Yes.” Turner stopped his pacing and turned on his heel, facing Edmund. “I told you ‘likewise,’ didn’t I? You could have gone back anytime you wanted. Me, I’d no choice but to stay away.”

“You made the choices; the law kept you away.” Fury knotted his stomach. “You should never be allowed to touch them. If you leave England, I’ll give you sufficient money for—”

“I don’t want your money,” Turner said quietly. “I want your family.
My
family.”

“What?” Edmund’s lips felt so cold, he could hardly speak the word.

“Your sisters,” Turner said. “They’re my daughters. And when I’ve done with you and your wife, I’m going back to Cornwall.”

Chapter 9

Concerning an Apology and a Local Journey

Jane spent the morning waiting.

After arising from a broken sleep, she waited as her maid took the curl papers from her hair and coaxed it into a fashionable twist. Then she waited upstairs for her husband’s morning caller to leave.

Now she waited for Edmund to answer her scratch at the study door. She knew he was in there; why didn’t he answer? She needed to tell him something important, and the delay was causing it to grow heavier on her shoulders.

Her nerves were fairly strong as a rule, but she couldn’t keep herself politely still right now. So she kicked the door.

“Come,” he called at once.

Hmph.

When she turned the handle and stepped into the room, the small size of the study surprised her. It was dark, too; a high-ceilinged, narrow space paneled in varnished wood. The study was dominated by a massive desk, the wood glossy but scarred. Bookcases set into the walls held a jumble of volumes. It looked like a room both well used and ill cared for.

And behind the desk sat Edmund, scribbling away at a letter. “Pye,” he said, “see that this is posted at—oh. Jane?”

He squinted up at her, as though he might possibly have mistaken the spare figure of their butler for Jane’s much shorter form.

“Yes.” An unnecessary reply, but she couldn’t just stand there like an unneeded piece of furniture. She booted the leg of the desk with her slippered toe. This was a fine morning for kicking things.

He stood—manners, always manners—and indicated a seat across the desk. “I wish I had a different chair to offer you,” he murmured. “What brings you in here? Are you all right?”

“Yes.” She looked him up and down. “Are you?”

At the moment, he looked as ill cared for as his study. He must have tugged his cravat loose while writing, because it was flecked with ink and the careful starched folds were crushed. Under his eyes were dark shadows—or maybe that was only the effect of the lamplight and the inevitable gray sky.

“Fine, fine. Just thinking over a letter.”

“Do you need me to come back later?” She scooted to the edge of her seat.
Coward.

“No.” He sanded and shook off the letter, then took up the seal and wax. “I’ve written all that needs to be said.”

“Is it something important?”

His hands fumbled the letter; a blob of wax fell on it an inch away from the folded edge. Edmund frowned, dropping more wax over the fold and pressing his seal on it. “Nothing you need concern yourself with. I’m asking my steward in Cornwall to look into a few questions that have suddenly come up.”

When he looked up at her, he smiled. That sweet, lovely, I’m-thinking-of-nothing-but-your-pleasure smile. “We needn’t talk of that. How are you, Jane, after your first London ball?”

“I’m fine.” She took a deep breath. “And I owe you an apology.”

The ball the previous night had shown her the greed of her own heart: she wanted more from him than the kindness he shared with all others. Exactly as Edmund had predicted when she’d first admitted her love; exactly what she’d assured him would not happen.

Yet he had done everything he promised for her—everything, that is, except return to her side after precisely one hour. And considering how far in his debt she was, that was hardly a trespass at all.

So she had decided on a reasonable course of action. No fussing; no demands. Just simple friendship and separate lives, with the hope that one day soon, she’d stop hoping. If she didn’t speak of her unwanted love, or act on it, it would become a back-of-the-mind family secret, rather like having a mad aunt in the country. A bit embarrassing, yes, but certainly nothing that need interfere with their daily life.

As though she hadn’t spoken, his hand still pressed the seal to his letter.

“Edmund. Did you hear me? I apologize.”

“For what?”

She chose her words carefully. “Because I left the ball without you. Because I was jealous. Not in the way you assumed,” she added in a rush. “It’s not because I mind your attentions to other women. I know you’re being kind.”

When he lifted his seal, the Kirkpatrick crest was imprinted clearly in red wax. “Oh? How do you mean it, then?”

“I’ve never had a suitor, Edmund. I’ve never been to a ball, or anything more than one of Xavier’s country house parties. After my father died, I had a quiet village life. No lessons or instructors. Horrid clothes.” She gave him a thin smile. “I just felt I didn’t belong last night. And you always know how to set people at ease. I’d have liked your company. That’s all.”

Wariness fled his face; sympathy took its place. “I understand. And you’ve every right to expect that sort of consideration. I simply didn’t think.”

“Well. Marriage is new to us both.”

“You’re right. And we ought to do something more to celebrate it than we have.” When he stood, the clean scent of soap and starch caught her, made her want to bury her face in the hollow of his neck. “I can’t take you out of England right now, but is there somewhere in London you’d like to go?”

“Vauxhall Gardens,” she said promptly.

He looked at her with mock severity. “Yes, I can only imagine what you’d do with a cloak of shadows and a park full of drunkards. It’s a fortunate thing for the world that your taste for adventure stopped with gambling and never turned to pickpocketry.”

“You’ll give me the vapors with such praise.” How she hoarded these signs that he knew her, even a little.

“I regret that Vauxhall Gardens is closed in autumn and winter. Perhaps we can go in the spring.” His voice trailed off, and he straightened the items on his desk before adding, “Is there anywhere else?”

She considered. “Yesterday you suggested Bond Street. Why not there?”

As he stood, his answering smile was worth the heartburn of all her swallowed pride. “An excellent plan.”

“We don’t have to,” she said. “I know gentlemen don’t like to go to Bond Street until after dinner, when they can buy themselves a . . . um, fancy lady.”

“Do you honestly think I would do that?”

“No, I guess not.” Jane scuffed the toe of her slipper on the carpet, then made herself stop. “But. Well. I don’t mind if you don’t want to go.”

“As it was my idea, I fully intend to accompany you. A lady of quality must have a chaperone, and I know of no lady of better quality than yourself.”

A few steps brought him around the desk to face her; then he raised her hand to his lips. Just a quick brush, light as a moth wing.

Jane felt as though she had fallen into a flame.

His hand on hers; those sweet words; his mouth. This tiny politeness seemed more intimate than the marital acts they had engaged in over the past weeks.

She drew her hand free of his grasp. “Don’t be ridiculous.” She must convince him that he didn’t need to reassure her. If she were strong enough to lean on, one day he might rely on her. And that—that would be enough.

She could hope.

“I’ll get a bonnet,” she said. And before she could say something else, something that would ruin the moment, she darted from the room.

“I’ve had the carriage brought around,” Edmund said when she joined him in the entrance hall a little while later, a drab-colored poke bonnet now atop her head. Jane noted that he had used the time to put on a fresh cravat. Thoughtful of him.

She hadn’t expected the carriage, though. “You don’t want to walk?”

“In late November? You’d be chilled in an instant. As it is, you can hardly be warm enough even while we’re in the house.” His fingers stroked the fur cuff of her long sleeve. “This is nothing like enough covering, is it? Your hands must be cold. Or your neck, with your hair piled up under your hat like that.”

“It’s not a
hat
. It’s a bonnet. And it’s meant to be fashionable. Comfort has nothing to do with it.”

He frowned. “Surely you could have both fashion and comfort.”

She had gooseflesh on her arms, less from cold than the fact that he sounded genuinely interested in her welfare. “You think so? Then talk to the modistes of the world about that. In the meantime, I need my pelisse.”

While she wrapped herself up, Edmund said, “You must be wanting new clothes, though. We could visit a modiste’s. Or a milliner’s?”

“Why must I be wanting new clothes?”

He looked at her askance. “Women always want new clothes.”

She looked askance at him right back.

He tilted his head. “Don’t they?”

“I
have
new clothes. Don’t you remember? I had them made before we were married.”

“Well, you could get more.” At her ferocious expression, he lifted his hands. “All right, Jane. It’s your outing. Let us go to Bond Street and see what strikes your fancy.”

Edmund gave instructions to the coachman, and off they rolled. Rather than sit on the backward-facing seat, he sat next to Jane on the plush squabs of the closed carriage.

She flinched when his sleeve brushed against the edge of her breast.

“I’m sorry, I should have asked if I might sit by you,” he said. “If it doesn’t crowd you too much, may I?”

Yes yes yes yes yes.
“If you like.”

“We can talk more easily if we’re next to each other.”

Jane disagreed with this about as much as a person could disagree with any statement. When Edmund sat this close to her, her senses became so full of him that talk was impossible. The faint shush and thump of his boot heels shifting on the carriage floor. The shadows that his tall form cast in the carriage interior. Even a hum of heat as he sat close, as her body yearned toward his.

She made herself pull back. “Is something on your mind, then?” she asked lightly.

“Not at all,” he said at once. “I just want to make certain you have a nice time. Are you having a nice time?”

“Er. That’s not your responsibility, Edmund.”

Her blunt words must have startled him, because he leaned away from her so he could look her in the face.

The small distance made it easier to muster an explanation. “You’re taking me to Bond Street, which is very kind of you. But if I should decide to be in a temper, that wouldn’t be your fault. Nor could you likely talk me out of it. And if you keep asking me whether I’m having a nice time, I
will
be in a temper.”