An Unacceptable Offer Page 18

  Jane found herself seated between Sedgeworth and Mrs. Beasley at dinner and listened with grateful attention to the almost ceaseless monologue of the latter. Mrs. Beasley was a large, comfortable-looking woman whose conversation centered almost entirely around her family and the endearing weakness her husband had of giving his money away to beggars.

  “But there, my dear Miss Matthews,” she said, turning to accept another spoonful of potatoes from a footman, “if we had more money perhaps we would have less love in our family. And where would we be without love? It is the greatest wealth one can possess, you know.”

  “I am sure you are right, ma’am,” Jane agreed.

  “Oh, take my word for it, my dear,” the matron said. She lowered her voice and leaned closer to murmur confidentially, “Poor Lady Fairfax, you know. Had all the money in the world, dear lady. And as unhappy a person as you would care to meet. Poor dear.”

  Jane looked at her neighbor, startled.

  “I don’t believe dear Lord Fairfax was to blame,” Mrs. Beasley said, continuing the confidence. “That poor lady could not love, I have always told the reverend. Spoiled as a child, no doubt. Always had everything she asked for and never learned to love. Poor lady. And such beautiful little babies that she could have loved. But there. It might have been different if she had had a boy. Another girl it was, you know. The one that killed her, I mean. Poor lady.”

  Jane felt uncomfortable and intrigued at the same time. She had never even dreamed of the possibility of Michael’s first marriage being anything but perfect. But then Mrs. Beasley could not have known. Not really. She was very probably wrong. How could Susan not have loved Michael? And her two daughters. It was absurd to imagine that she had not. She had been bearing him another child when she died.

  Mrs. Beasley turned at that moment to talk to Fairfax on her left at the head of the table, and Jane was free to talk to Sedgeworth.

  “You look none the worse for your ordeal, Jane,” he said. “Did you sleep?”

  “I had little choice,” she said. “You and Mrs. Pringle positively insisted that I lie down. What else was there to do but sleep?”

  He chuckled. “Were we really such tyrants?” he asked. “If there is a chance later, Jane, shall we walk in the garden? We need to talk, do we not? And I believe we will both sleep easier tonight if we do not postpone it until tomorrow.”.

  He knew, then. She had thought that afternoon that perhaps he had misunderstood and thought she was miserable merely over her wet state. But he knew. And he was still treating her with courtesy and even affection. Dear Joseph. Was she going to hurt him terribly? She knew he did not love her. Not in the way that a man can love a woman, anyway. But he had wanted to marry her. And from what he and Michael had said, it seemed that he had never thought of marriage before, had intended never to marry. She was really going to confirm him in his bachelorhood now.

  She smiled warily. “Yes, you are right, Joseph,” she said.

  But it was much later in the evening before they could politely leave the gathering. There was music first in the music room and then charades in the drawing room. The latter was Honor’s idea, of course, but the Beasleys greeted it with loud enthusiasm. Honor, with Percival Beasley on her team, won by a narrow margin, but only because Sedgeworth, the leader of the other team, seemed preoccupied, as Honor was loud in admitting herself.

  “Go and fetch a shawl,” Sedgeworth said to Jane eventually, when Fairfax had sent for the tea tray. “It may be cool outside by now. Jane and I are going to stroll in the garden for a while,” he explained to the gathering.

  “I say,” young Mr. Beasley said, “what a perfectly splendid idea. Would you care to take a turn about the garden too, Miss Jamieson?”

  “How delightful!” she exclaimed, fluttering her eyelashes at the young man. “Of course, I would be afraid to venture out at night without a gentleman to protect me. But with you, sir, I shall feel quite safe.”

  Sedgeworth could not prevent a secret smile, though he was not feeling particularly amused. He led Jane to the west side of the house, where there was a large rose garden, and was somewhat relieved to see a determined Honor leading her admirer into the formal gardens. The young pup was probably congratulating himself on his great good fortune.

  He took Jane’s hand in a warm clasp, and they walked in silence for a while. “So, Jane,” he said at last, “you find that you wish to put an end to our betrothal?”

  “Oh,” she said, looking at him stricken. “It sounds quite dreadful when you put it into words like that.”

  “But true?” he prodded gently.

  She stared at him. “It is not because I do not like and respect you, Joseph,” she said. “In fact, I think it is because I feel a deep affection for you that I cannot marry you. I would make you unhappy.”

  “Yes, you would, dear,” he said. “It makes me very unhappy to see you miserable.”

  “I feel so wretched,” she said. “How can I do this to you? I was so sure that I wished to marry you and that I would be prepared to spend my life making you comfortable.”

  “Perhaps I do not wish to be comfortable after all, Jane,” he said. “Comfort can be pretty dull really, don’t you think? And don’t blame yourself, dear. You were honest with me, remember. You told me at the time you loved another man. You cannot forget him?”

  She shook her head.

  “Is there any hope, Jane?” he asked curiously. “Will you marry him now?”

  “Oh no,” she said earnestly. “No. I shall never marry, Joseph. I did not decide to break my engagement to you only because I saw a more desirable chance for myself. I would far prefer to marry you than to face the life I must now face. But I could not do it, you see.”

  “My offer still stands, Jane,” he said. “I will not ask more of you than you can give. If you wish to marry me, you must consider only our own desires. I have stated my wish to have you as my wife. On any terms that you dictate.”

  She stared at him. “How very dear you are, Joseph,” she said. “You deserve a wife who will love you with a whole and devoted heart. I hope you will meet her someday. I really do. Thank you. But no. I cannot do it.” She lifted his hand and laid it against her cheek. “I just wish I did not have to put you through the great embarrassment now of a publicly broken engagement. Oh, I do wish it.”

  He smiled. “I have never cared a fig for London gossip, Jane,” he said. “You must not worry about that. What will you do now?”

  “I shall leave tomorrow,” she said. “The mail coach leaves at noon. It will be better than the stage for Honor.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Miss Jamieson goes too?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “I told her before dinner. She did not seem nearly as upset as I expected. She must be missing Aunt Cynthia and Uncle Alfred. And the life of London, of course.”

  He nodded. “You have told Fairfax?”

  “No,” she said. “I had hoped to do so tonight, but I shall have to leave it until morning now.”

  “Does he know, Jane?”

  “No,” she said, bewildered. “I just said—”

  “I mean about your ending your engagement,” he said.

  “How could he?” she said. “I am only now speaking to you.”

  He looked searchingly into her eyes and nodded slightly. “Do you feel calm enough to go inside?” he asked. “I don’t think I do. Shall we sit in the rose garden for a while? You need not make conversation if you would rather not. We are friends enough to sit in comfortable silence for a while, are we not, Jane?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  They sat side by side on a wrought-iron seat, their shoulders touching, breathing in the heavy scent of the roses.

  “Jane,” he said, “I want to write to you. May I? I want to be sure that you are not terribly lonely and unhappy in Yorkshire. You are my friend, you know. And perhaps a little more than a friend.”

  “So I will share a little in your travels after all?” she said wi
th a wan smile. “Is this just kindness, Joseph?”

  “Not at all,” he said. “I do not see my friends nearly as much as I should perhaps. But I keep them through my letters. I am quite an expert correspondent, you know. Ask Fairfax. I shall continue my friendship with both of you through letters. Shall I? Perhaps I shall be able to give you some news of each other now and then. And give you news of the children. You love them, do you not?”

  She looked at him with some suspicion, but there was nothing in his eyes but his usual kindly smile.

  “I would like to hear from you, Joseph, and write to you,” she said. “Until you marry, that is. Not after that. I would not wish your wife to misunderstand.” He smiled and leaned across to kiss her very gently on the cheek.

  “Do you not think Percy a handsome boy, Jane?” Honor asked later. She was curled up on her cousin’s bed, her head propped on one hand, watching Jane pack her belongings for their departure the next day.

  “Very,” Jane said. “And a very pleasant young man too, Honor. Have you added him to your list of conquests?”

  Honor giggled. “He tried to kiss me in the garden,” she said, “and then spent all of ten minutes reviving me from a fit of the vapors and apologizing profusely. I really felt quite mean. It was mean, was it not, Jane?”

  “What?” Jane said. “Is this a new Honor, feeling remorse at breaking a young man’s heart?”

  “Oh, it cannot be as bad as that,” Honor said. “But I could not resist, Jane, when he was making such calf’s eyes at me all evening. Of course, that was my fault too. I set my cap at him from the start. Poor boy. What I need, Jane, is an older man of firm convictions who will not put up with my nonsense but force me to behave more sensibly and responsibly.”

  Jane looked at her cousin suspiciously, her heart slipping to somewhere in the area of her knees. “Fairfax?” she asked.

  “Heaven forbid!” Honor said with feeling. “I could never marry anyone so dull, Jane. Though I must confess I deeply regret his good looks. But what is the point of having a handsome husband if he never takes one anywhere that one might show him off?”

  “Ah,” Jane said. “So this older man is to be a future acquisition, is he?”

  “Probably,” Honor said. “Did you end your betrothal, Jane?”

  Jane paused in her packing and looked at her cousin, her face troubled. “Yes,” she said. She looked down again too late to see Honor’s eyes light up.

  “Was he very upset, Jane?” she asked.

  “It is hard to say,” Jane said. “He is so thoroughly the gentleman, Honor. With the emphasis on ‘gentle.’ ”

  “What did he say?”

  Jane smiled. “Nothing that was not thoroughly noble,” she said. “He wishes to write to me, Honor, and to retain me as a friend.”

  “Does he?” Honor said. “Jane, you did not tell me earlier why you decided to break off your engagement and leave here in such a hurry.”

  Jane shrugged. “Sometimes these things are hard to explain,” she said. “Perhaps I would not be happy with his way of life, Honor. I do not believe I would like to live without a settled home. And I do not think Joseph would want children. I could not be married and not want babies of my own.”

  “You should marry Fairfax,” Honor said carelessly. “He would probably want to do nothing but give you babies.”

  Jane hid her blushes by bending low over her valise as if to rearrange its contents. “Yes, I should,” she said lightly. “Will you be glad to leave, Honor? There is not much for you here, is there, now that you are no longer interested in the viscount.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Honor said airily. “I could always try to fix Mr. Sedgeworth’s interest now that he is free again. If we were staying, that is.”

  Jane laughed. “Poor Joseph,” she said. “I do not think he would approve of your type of flirtation one little bit, Honor. Shall we go to bed? We are facing two days on the road, and I have no idea what the quality of the inns might be where the mail coach will drop us off. We must sleep as much as we can tonight.”

  Jane closed her bags when Honor was gone and undressed for bed without summoning a maid. She did not believe she would be able to take her own advice. She would not sleep a wink tonight. She had severed her connection with Joseph already. It only remained to say good-bye to Michael and the children tomorrow morning. And then she would be gone. Forever. She would probably never set eyes on one of them ever again. And she was not going to dwell on it now. There had been enough of emotion in her life in the last few days. She had made her choices, and now she must learn to live by them. At least she would have memories. Many spinsters did not even have that much to make life tolerable.

  She pulled back the curtains and opened one of the windows. She climbed wearily into bed and stared up at the canopy above her head, dimly visible in the moonlight. She would have Joseph’s letters to look forward to. She did not think that he would neglect to write to her. He was a man of his word. She would be able to read about his travels. She would feel she had one interesting and dear friend outside the confines of her own neighborhood. And sometimes he would surely mention Michael and his daughters. She would know when he married again, and she would be able to follow the girls’ growing up. It would be something. Perhaps he would not remarry. Perhaps she would never have to live through that painful news.

  Jane slept very soon after lying down.

  She woke up suddenly, feeling that something had woken her. She listened intently. A hand shook her shoulder again. She turned her head sharply, to find herself looking into a pair of eyes on a level with her own.

  “Aunt Jane,” Amy said. A sob followed the words.

  Jane turned sharply onto her side and sat up. “Amy, sweetheart, what is the matter?” she asked. “Is something wrong?”

  “Aunt Jane,” the child wailed, and began to cry in earnest. She was standing barefoot in a long white nightgown, her hair hanging loose about her face and reaching to below her shoulders.

  Jane swung her legs over the side of the bed and gathered the child into her arms. She felt like little more than a baby. “What is the matter, sweetheart?” she said, her mouth against the girl’s hair. “Oh, you are cold. Come under the blankets for a minute and get warm. Then you shall tell me what is the matter. Is Claire sleeping?”

  The child nodded and pressed herself against Jane, crying her heart out. Jane covered her warmly with the blankets and held her close until the sobs quietened to the occasional involuntary gasp and shudder.

  “Do you want to tell me, sweetheart?” she asked.

  “I hate her,” Amy said. “I don’t want Papa to marry her.”

  “Whom?” Jane asked. “Whom is Papa going to marry?”

  “The pretty lady,” Amy said. “Miss Jamieson.”

  “No,” Jane said. “I don’t think so, sweetheart. Papa is not going to marry Miss Jamieson.”

  “He made me stay in my room tonight because I was rude to her,” Amy said. “And I was not even allowed to paint.”

  Jane smoothed the hair from Amy’s forehead and kissed it. “Did he?” she said. “And were you rude, Amy? If you were, Papa punished you because he loves you and wants you to be the best little girl you possibly can be. It is not because he is going to marry Miss Jamieson.”

  “Promise?” the child begged, looking up with pleading eyes.

  Jane hesitated. “I cannot quite do that, sweetheart,” she said. “But I am as sure as I can be. Would it be so bad if he did? Would you not like to have a new mama?”

  The child’s eyes widened in horror. “No!” she said, and she began to cry again. “Not another mama, Aunt Jane. I don’t want another mama. She will hate me!”

  “Hate you?” Jane said. “Whatever gave you that idea, Amy? Mamas always love their little girls. Your mama loved you. Do you not believe a new mama would do so too?”

  “No,” Amy wailed. “Mama hated me. She said I was ugly and a nuisance and I wasn’t a boy. She said Papa did not love
me because I was not a boy. But that is not true. Papa loves me. He does love me, Aunt Jane, doesn’t he? Papa does love me.”

  She was crying with loud sobs again. Jane hugged her close, rubbing a hand soothingly over her back.

  Chapter 15

  JANE said nothing for a long while. She felt almost paralyzed by shock. And what could she say to undo the harm that a mother had done to a child who was no more than three years old when she died?

  “Of course Papa loves you, sweetheart,” she said eventually. “You do not really need me to say that, do you? You know it for yourself. And I know that Papa could not possibly love you or Claire one bit more if you were boys. Of course Papa loves you.”

  “Am I ugly, Aunt Jane?” the child asked, her sobs having subsided again.

  “You certainly are not, Amy,” Jane said. She chose her words with care. It was important to be quite honest with the girl, she knew. “You are not pretty either, you know, not in the way Claire is. But I am going to tell you something important. You are going to grow up to be a very handsome young lady. I will wager that by the time you are sixteen Papa will be beating the young men back from the door.”

  Amy snorted with mirth, her laughter somehow getting all tied up with a leftover sob.

  “And handsome ladies usually stay handsome all their lives,” Jane said. “Pretty ladies have to work hard to keep their prettiness once they grow older.”

  “Older than twenty?” Amy asked.

  “Yes,” Jane agreed gravely.

  “Aunt Jane,” the child asked, her hands playing with a button on Jane’s nightgown, “do you love me?”

  “Well, Amy,” Jane said, her voice amazed, “of course I do. Did you not know it without asking me?”