An Unacceptable Offer Read online

  “We will see you all later,” Sedgeworth said. ”I think we are going to row around the island to see what is on the other side.”

  “More water, Sedge,” Fairfax said, “and more sky.”

  “We shall go and look anyway, my lord,” Honor announced, her parasol firmly in place again.

  Jane sat on the bank on one of the towels, hugging her knees. Fairfax and his children were already swimming in the lake, the little girls calling and shrieking happily. She did not care that she should have found some excuse not to come. She did not care about the embarrassment of the boat ride over, sitting facing Michael as he rowed, both of them brightly talking to the girls but not to each other until he had relaxed a little in the presence of Honor and Joseph. She did not care that later today she must tell several people that she would be leaving tomorrow.

  She did not care. Now at this very moment she was living through an afternoon that she would remember for the rest of her life. Long after these girls were grown up and married, and probably long after Michael had remarried and produced sons to succeed him, she would live her life in Yorkshire, never seeing any of them again, perhaps never hearing of any of them again. But remembering. Remembering particularly this afternoon when they had come here, just the four of them, like a family.

  She would dream now that they were a family. There could be no harm in it. No one but her would ever know and be hurt by it. And she was not likely to be carried from reality for long. She looked at Fairfax, laughing as he held Claire, showing her the correct arm movements for a certain swimming stroke. His white shirt clung to his arms and shoulders like a second skin, showing even at this distance the firm muscles beneath. His dark hair was wet against his head and forehead. She loved him. She looked at him and quite consciously loved him. And it was not just his extraordinary good looks that attracted her now. She loved the affectionate family man that he quite obviously was. For the first time she did not feel a painful jealousy of Susan, whom he had loved. She loved him, and she grieved with him in his loss. It should be Susan sitting here now watching her family, not she. She felt privileged.

  She looked at the children and allowed herself to feel the full force of a mother’s love for them. Michael’s comparison of Claire in the water to a cork was an apt simile. The child was far out of her depth. Indeed, Jane had worried at first because they were all out of their depth as soon as they dived off the bank. There was no shallow water here. But Claire bobbed, floated, bounced, and even swam as if she had been born a water baby. And Amy swam quite gracefully back and forth in front of her father, constantly calling his attention to some new feat. And always he looked and made some comment or called encouragement.

  His attention was wholly given to his children, Jane noticed. He must long to swim free, out into the calm sparkling water of the lake. But he did not do so. And she had dared think of him once as a selfish and an arrogant man! Jane swallowed a lump in her throat. For this afternoon he was her husband and the girls her children. She loved them.

  “Aunt Jane!” Unnoticed, Amy had swum to the bank and was peering eagerly over its edge now. Her hair, lank and devoid of its ringlets, hung close to her head and down below her shoulders. She looked more than ever like her father. “I can dive right under. Watch me.”

  “Be careful, sweetheart!” Jane called, leaning forward with a smile.

  Amy bobbed up, hands in the air, and disappeared below the surface, legs kicking up behind. Jane waited anxiously for what seemed an eternity until she reappeared a short distance away, shaking her head and shoulders like a wet dog. Claire was shrieking with laughter somewhere off to the left.

  “I saw the stones on the bottom,” Amy said, swimming back to cling to the bank again. “Do you think I am clever, Aunt Jane?”

  “I am full of admiration,” Jane assured her. “I would not dare do such a thing.”

  “Papa would teach you,” the child said, but fortunately she did not pursue the idea. “Would you like to see me dive again?”

  “Be careful,” Jane said automatically.

  Any drew in a deep breath and plunged again, a little bottom and two feet appearing for a moment. Jane watched in some anxiety the spot where she had disappeared. The child came up some distance farther out.

  “Ouch!” she called. “I hit my head on the bottom.” And disappeared again.

  Jane scrambled to her feet, her eyes riveted to the empty lake, her heart beginning to pound heavily against her ribs, robbing her of breath. It seemed that she stood there for minutes before screaming out, “Michael!” and plunging headfirst into the water.

  Instinct had led her to suck in a lungful of air. It did not occur to her in her terror to shrink from having her head under the water or from opening her eyes. She swam with the strength of near-panic out to the spot where she had seen Amy disappear, and tried desperately to find the inert form of the child on the stones at the bottom. When she was finally forced to the surface, she had drawn in a gasp of air to enable her to go under again before seeing Amy treading water, arms outstretched, just a short distance away.

  Why she should have panicked just at the moment when she realized that no one else was in danger, Jane did not afterward know. But panic she did. The desperate breath she had drawn escaped her at the same moment as her head went under, and her hands clutched at air. She came up sputtering and clawing at the water in blind panic. She breathed in water as she went down again.

  And then there really was something solid to clutch at, something that hauled her above the surface and held her there. She clung on with a death grip, struggling desperately to draw air into her lungs again, finding it impossible to do so. She could draw it in only as far as her throat, no farther. She fought.

  “Steady, Jane. Steady,” a voice was saying. “Don’t fight me, love. I have you. You are quite safe. Let yourself relax. The breath will come. Steady, now.”

  She had fistfuls of wet shirt and flesh in her grasp. And still the breath would not come beyond her throat. It was Michael. Someone was crying out, “Aunt Jane!” Her mind was clearly placing her surroundings, and she tried to use it to impose calm on her body.

  “Steady, love.” His hands were firm at her waist. He would not let her drown. “We are at the bank. I will have you out of here in a moment.”

  And the breath came shuddering into her lungs, setting her to coughing as if all her insides were about to come up. And so she gasped and coughed and clung with about as much dignity as a babe at birth, the clear mind behind all the physical torment told her in disgust.

  “There! You will live now,” the warm, almost teasing voice of Viscount Fairfax said against her ear. And then the hands at her waist tightened and she was lifted from the water to sit dripping on the bank.

  While she coughed on, Jane was aware that he lifted his two daughters out of the water too before coming out himself.

  “Fetch Papa the biggest towel,” he said, and four bare legs raced past her toward the dry clothes a short distance down the bank. He knelt beside her, put an arm beneath her knees, and lifted her legs onto the bank. It had not occurred to her to do it for herself. “What were you trying to do, Jane? Join the fun? You have ruined your dress, I’m afraid. I like this one too. Pink suits you.” His voice was gently teasing. He was taking the towel from Amy with one hand and gathering Jane’s draggled curls together at the neck and squeezing out the water with the other.

  And then the final disgrace, that annoyingly clear mind told her as she put her hands over her face and failed to stifle a loud and quite unladylike sob.

  “Jane!” he said, throwing the towel around her shoulders and pulling her against him. He was quite as wet as she, but there was warmth somewhere seeping through the fabric of his shirt to her cheek. “What is it, love? You have had a thorough soaking, but you are safe now. It must have been a terrifying experience for you. But I would not have let you drown, you know.”

  “I thought ... I thought ..." Painful sobs prevented her from
getting the words out. “Amy ... She hit her head.”

  “Did you, poppet?” she heard him ask. “Did you hurt yourself?”

  “Only a little bit,” Amy said. “Did Aunt Jane think I was drownding?”

  “Yes,” he said. “She dived in to save you.” He lifted the towel from her shoulders and began to rub vigorously at her hair. “Let us get you as dry as we can, Jane, and back to the house before you take a chill. That was a very brave thing to do. Thank you, love.” Perhaps he was unaware of the fact that he kissed her cheek as he said the words.

  Jane pushed away from him and took the towel from his hands. “I made an utter fool of myself,” she said. “I might have known Amy was safe. How could I have helped her anyway? I would have drowned us both.” She hid her face in the towel as she rubbed at her hair. She began to shiver.

  “Were those shrieks ones of enjoyment or fright?” a voice called from out on the water.

  “Jane!” Honor shrieked. “You are soaked. You fell in. Oh, do pull in to the bank, Joseph.”

  Jane had recovered sufficiently to rather wish that she could fall back into the lake and never come to the surface again. Soon she had three adults fussing around her, one child crying for some reason, and another standing silent and round-eyed with a thumb in her mouth.

  “Sedge,” Fairfax said, “Jane is soaked and has no dry clothes here. You must get her back to the house immediately. Miss Jamieson can come with us when we have dried off.”

  Jane’s teeth were chattering. She had scrambled to her feet. “Oh, my dear, whatever happened?” Sedgeworth said, pulling off his coat to wrap around her. “Come. I shall have you back at the house in no time at all.” His arm was warm and strong about her.

  “I shall r-ruin your c-coat,” she said, allowing him to lead her down to the boat and help her inside.

  “Nonsense,” he said. “We will leave my valet to worry about that.” He untied the boat, climbed in, and took the oars.

  “Here,” Fairfax said, kneeling on the bank and reaching across to Jane. “Take my coat too, love, to put over your knees. And the towel to wrap around your head. Away you go, Sedge. There are two large blankets in the boathouse that we use for sitting on on the beach. Wrap Jane in one of those when you reach the shore.”

  Sedgeworth gave his friend a long and measured look before giving his attention to getting Jane to a warm house and dry clothes as quickly as possible.

  Jane felt all the humiliation of having to face the exclamations and concern of Lord Dart and his family when the boat reached the shore. She felt very stupid. It was all just punishment for the fantasy she had been living out on the island, she thought. It was an afternoon she would remember for the rest of her life indeed! She recalled with deep mortification the way she had clutched at Fairfax and coughed and wheezed and sputtered all over him. She must have left bruises behind. How would she ever face him again even to say good-bye?

  The thought sobered her considerably. She looked up into Joseph’s eyes as he came rushing from the boathouse to wrap her warmly in a heavy blanket that smelled faintly musty. He put one arm firmly around her despite the audience that was dispensing sympathy and advice from close by.

  “Take her straight to the house, Joseph,” his sister advised unnecessarily. “And be sure that Mrs. Pringle prepares some hot milk for her. And a hot bath.”

  Jane allowed her head to drop wearily to his shoulder as they walked. “Joseph,” she said, “I have ruined your afternoon and everyone else’s.”

  He tightened his arm around her but said nothing. She began to cry again and seemed powerless to stop herself. “Joseph,” she said, “I am so very miserable.”

  “I know, Jane,” he said, laying his cheek against the top of her head. “Don’t worry about it now. We will talk later. Don’t worry about it, dear.”

  She felt comforted and mortally dejected all at the same time.

  Chapter 14

  FAIRFAX doodled with a dry quill pen on the leather of his desktop in the library. He should be on his way upstairs to get ready for dinner, as his guests had done fully half an hour before. They were even expecting outside visitors that night. He must be ready to receive them.

  His mind was still not calm after the scolding he had been forced to give Amy when they arrived home. He hated having to be angry with his children. He had never hit either one of them and knew that they could never do anything so bad that he would do so. But occasionally he had to scold and punish. He would not be fulfilling his obligation to help them grow into mature ladies if he did not. But he derived as much pain and misery from the ordeals as they did, he was sure.

  She should have known better already. She probably did. She had been upset at the time and not acting as she normally would, he supposed. She had been crying over Jane’s mishap, blaming herself after realizing that Jane had been trying to save her. And even the child must have realized the good sense of sending Jane home with Sedge instead of forcing her to wait while they dried themselves and changed into dry clothes.

  But she had not acted as if she had known. “I want Aunt Jane to come with us,” she had wailed as Sedge rowed the boat away from the bank.

  “Aunt Jane is going with Uncle Joe,” he had said firmly. “We will see them back at the house. Run and get yourself a towel, poppet.”

  “I don’t want her to come with us,” Amy had said fully within Miss Jamieson’s hearing. “I want Aunt Jane.”

  “Amy,” he had said in the tone that his daughters usually did not argue with, or anyone else for that matter, “go and get a towel now, my girl, and not another word from you.”

  “I don’t want to,” she had wailed. “I want Aunt Jane.”

  He had taken her then firmly by the arm and marched her at a brisk pace over to the towels and dry clothes. She had screamed with mingled rage and fright. “Hush now, Amy,” he had commanded. “Be a good girl for Papa and dress quickly. You do not need help, do you? I have to help Claire. We will talk about this at the house.”

  Claire had trailed after them, eyes solemn, thumb in mouth. “Amy cry?” she had asked. “Papa cross?”

  He had hugged her before toweling her and putting on her dry clothes. She had put her arms around his neck and kissed him wetly on the mouth. “Papa not cross with Amy,” she had coaxed.

  But he had been cross. He had had to walk over to where Miss Jamieson stood on the bank looking out across the lake, her parasol twirling above her head, and try to explain.

  “Please pardon Amy’s rudeness,” he had said. “She was very upset. Jane dived in thinking she was drowning, you see, and Amy feels responsible. She forgot her good manners in the process.”

  “Oh, think no more of it,” the girl had said airily. “I do not know how Jane does it, but she can always win the trust of children without even trying. I can’t. But then, Jane loves children, and I think them horrid little nuisances most of the time. And now I have been unpardonably rude.” She had laughed gaily. “Forgive me, please.”

  But that had not been the end of the matter. When they had got into the boat, Amy had refused to sit beside Miss Jamieson and had insisted on sitting at the bottom of the boat between his feet. Short of making a scene in which he sensed Amy would have begun screaming, he could do nothing. Claire had sat solemnly on Miss Jamieson’s lap, but she had sat upright and silent, not snuggling against this girl as she did with Jane.

  And so he had been forced to follow the children to the nursery as soon as he had ascertained that Jane was lying down resting, on the insistence of Mrs. Pringle and Sedgeworth. Amy, alone at her painting had cried as soon as she saw him and all the way to her room as he led her there by the hand. And there he had been forced to talk severely to her, knowing that the child was miserable and already punishing herself. And he had been forced to punish her so that she would know that such rudeness to a guest was a serious breach of the sort of behavior he expected of her. He had sentenced her to an evening spent alone in her room, dinner to be eaten in lone
state, no painting or other amusement allowed.

  And she was four years old! Sometimes it was hard to realize that. She was such a quiet, solemn child that she seemed older. And Claire’s existence did not help. One tended to forget that the elder child was herself little more than a baby. He had to force himself now to sit doodling invisible patterns in order to prevent himself from going up to Amy’s room again and telling her that an hour was long enough and she was free to go back to the nursery. Or from going to the kitchen and begging some treat from Cook to take up to his daughter. He hated having to punish.

  He threw the quill pen aside and got to his feet. He wished to heaven he had never met Miss Jane Matthews. Why had he gone to that infernal ball of Aunt Hazel’s? He had not wanted to go. And but for the accident of their meeting there, he doubted that he would have met her at all. He had not considered her beautiful when they first met—though how he could not have done so escaped his understanding now—and possibly would not have noticed her had he not been forced to do so. But of course he would have been attracted to that ninnyhammer of a cousin of hers under any circumstances, and through her he would have met Jane anyway. And loved her. One could not know Jane and not love her.

  Dammit! And he was going to be late for dinner too if he did not rush. Just after he had been lecturing Amy on the good manners due a guest in one’s home.

  Honor was flirting quite outrageously with Percival Beasley and behaving for all the world as if she did not have a brain in her head. Jane would have felt quite sorry for the poor boy if she had not been so relieved on her own account. Apart from having to answer everyone’s queries after her health when she came down to the drawing room before dinner, knowing that by now they would all know the full details of her stupidity, she had really escaped quite lightly.

  The Beasleys arrived soon after she came down, and Honor went into action. She was wearing one of the finer of her ball gowns, altogether too elaborate for a dinner in the country, though young Mr. Beasley seemed not to think her appearance inappropriate for the occasion. He was soon stammering out an account of his first year at university to a wide-eyed, admiring Honor. Miss Beasley was gazing at her new acquaintance, the same age as herself, with almost openmouthed awe.