Salt Bride Read online

  Even now, two years on, remembering how pitilessly he had whispered that hateful word, Jane shuddered and swallowed. He could very well have stabbed her in the heart; such was the hurt that came with that one word: harlot.

  She smiled resignedly at her stepbrother, all of one and twenty years of age and with so much responsibility resting on his thin young shoulders.

  “But what else were they to think, Tom? I, an unmarried girl cast out of her father’s house, living under the protection of an old widower, they could not take me for anything less than a harlot.”

  “No! No, you’re not! Never say so!” he commanded, a glance across the room at his mother, who was pouring out more tea in her dish. “You made one tiny error of judgment, that’s all,” he continued. “For that you must suffer the consequences for the rest of your life? I say, a thousand times, no.”

  “Dearest Tom. You’ve always been my stalwart defender, though I don’t deserve such devotion,” she said in a rallying tone. “You cannot dismiss what I did as a tiny error of judgment. After all, that error caused my father to disown me and brand me a whore.” When Tom made an impatient gesture and looked away, she smiled reassuringly and touched his flushed cheek. “I cannot—I do not—hide from that. If your uncle had not taken me in, I would have ended up in a Bristol poorhouse, or worse, dead in a ditch. I will always be grateful to Mr. Allenby for giving me shelter.”

  “I’d have looked after you, Jane. Always.”

  “Yes, Tom. Of course.”

  But they both knew the unspoken truth of that lie. Jane’s father, Sir Felix Despard, would never have permitted Tom to interfere in a father’s justifiable punishment of a disobedient and disgraced daughter. The past four years had given Jane time to reflect on the folly of her impetuousness in allowing her heart to rule her head. The loss of her virtue and its tragic consequences had bestowed upon her father the right to cast her out of the family home, alone, friendless, and destitute. She had disgraced not only her good name but also her family’s honor. Jane did not blame her father for her disgrace, but she would never forgive him for what he had ordered done to her.

  Regardless of what her father, Jacob Allenby and others thought of her, she still believed in upholding the moral principles of fairness, honesty and taking responsibility for her actions. The predicament she had found herself in had not been of her father’s making, it had been hers and hers alone. But Tom would never understand. Her father and his Uncle Jacob had spared her stepbrother the whole sordid story, for which she was grateful. Tom was an earnest young man who saw the good in everyone. Jane hoped he always would.

  “You’re the best of brothers, Tom,” she said sincerely and swiftly kissed his cheek.

  But Tom did not feel he had earned such praise. He should have protected her.

  Sir Felix Despard of Despard Park, Wiltshire, had wanted an earl for a son-in-law at the very least, a duke if he could get it. But he had gone about it all the wrong way, ignoring his daughter’s sheltered upbringing and ignorance of the ways of Polite Society and pushed his only child out onto the marriage mart defenseless and left to her own devices. Tom never forgave his weak-minded and overly ambitious stepfather and he blamed him for the inevitable and very calculated seduction of his stepsister.

  Tom grabbed Jane’s hand.

  “If you had accepted any man but Lord Salt!” he said fiercely. “He always has this look on his face—hard to describe—as if someone has dared break wind under his noble nose. The way his nostrils quiver, I just want to burst out laughing. You may giggle, Jane, but God help me to keep a straight face if the rest of the Sinclair family have the same noble nostrils. His sister the Lady Caroline Sinclair is said to be worth in excess of forty thousand pounds and receives at least three marriage proposals a week. The Earl keeps her locked up in the country for fear of her eloping to Gretna with the first fortune hunter who makes up to her, because she is so naïve as to believe these fools have fallen in love with her and not her fortune.”

  “Oh dear, Tom, you make me quite faint with anticipation at meeting my future sister-in-law,” Jane said with an indulgent smile. “But how do you know this about Caroline Sinclair?”

  Tom pulled at the points of his silk waistcoat with a smile of smug satisfaction. “I have my sources, Jane. High placed sources at that.”

  “La, Tom, will you stop spreading idle gossip like an old maiden aunt!” Lady Despard lectured disapprovingly, though she had finally opened her ears hearing mention of the noble Sinclair family. She stood before the ornate looking glass above the fireplace. A fading beauty on the other side of forty, she preened herself in the reflection, gently patting into place her blonde powdered and pomaded upswept coiffure, adjusting one of the tiny bows scattered strategically amongst this greased confection. “Lady Caroline Sinclair is Wiltshire’s premier beauty and not yet eighteen so I’m not surprised Lord Salt keeps her locked up. Look what happened to you the one and only time you was let off the leash, Jane!”

  “Mamma.”

  “What high placed sources, Tom?” Jane asked, ignoring her stepmother and hoping Tom would do the same.

  “Why do you never defend yourself against her petty taunts?” Tom whispered fiercely.

  “I cannot defend the indefensible,” Jane answered simply. When Tom continued to stare angrily at his mother, she touched the upturned close-fitting cuff of his velvet frockcoat. “Please, Tom. What sources?”

  “Do you remember Mr. Arthur Ellis who came to Despard Park just before your come out? It was a long time ago now but he was a very particular friend of mine up at Oxford. Thin, freckle-faced chap with big ears. No? You must remember Art! He spent the entire sennight gazing at you. Well, Art had the good fortune to obtain the post of secretary to Lord Salt. Who’d have thought it back then! Although, I wouldn’t call it good fortune to be appointed scribbler to a thin nosed iceberg. But in Art’s case, beggars can’t be choosers, as they say. His family are all terribly clever but odiously poor.”

  “But surely Mr. Ellis didn’t abuse his post as secretary and confide in you about Lady Caroline?”

  “Of course not,” Tom answered indignantly, feeling acute embarrassment for breaching his friend’s confidence. “I pressed Art to tell me about Lady Caroline because of Uncle’s startling bequest to her. Mamma and I do not understand in the least why a young lady my uncle never met in his entire life, who was the daughter of his estranged neighbor—”

  “A spoiled beauty worth in excess of forty thousand pounds,” reiterated Lady Despard.

  “—was bequeathed ten thousand pounds of Uncle’s money. It’s a mighty odd circumstance and one Uncle’s lawyers cannot fathom either. Can you blame me for being curious, Jane?”

  Jane could not. She did not pretend to understand the hatred between neighbors, merchant and noble, or what had caused the age-old feud between the Earls of Salt Hendon and the Allenbys. As for the merchant’s startling bequest to the Lady Caroline, it created more questions in Jane’s mind than she cared to speculate on and was glad that the butler chose that moment to interrupt.

  “What is it, Springer?” she asked politely, hearing the door open and turning to look at the butler over her bare shoulder.

  “Lord Salt and Mr. Ellis, ma’am.”

  Stepbrother and sister exchanged a wide-eyed stare, as if caught out by the very object of their gossiping.

  “What? He is here now?” Lady Despard blurted out rudely and before the butler could confirm that indeed the Earl of Salt Hendon and his freckle-faced secretary waited downstairs, added with a trill of breathless anticipation, “What a high treat for us all! What a pity Sir Felix isn’t here to receive his lordship.” She looked at Jane; all resentment momentarily suspended in the excitement of the moment, and exclaimed, “Brother Jacob was used to say he’d take a shotgun to that hellborn rake if he came within a mile of an Allenby female. Shall I order up more tea?”

  Jane informed the butler in a perfectly controlled voice that he was to show
his lordship and Mr. Ellis up at once, and to bring a fresh pot of tea and clean dishes. But no sooner had the door closed on the servant’s back than she sank back on the window seat, as if her knees were unable to support her waif-like frame. She was deaf to her stepmother’s entreaties that she go at once to the looking glass and there tidy her hair and straighten the square neckline of her bodice, and blind to her stepbrother’s frown of concern, thinking that if she’d brought her needlework to the drawing room she could at least pretend occupation and never need look the nobleman in the eye.

  Coming face to face with the Earl of Salt Hendon, Jane lost the facility of speech.

  Magnus Vernon Templestowe Sinclair, ninth Baron Trevelyan, eighth Viscount Lacey and fifth Earl of Salt Hendon, strode into the drawing room on the butler’s announcement and immediately filled the space with his presence. The papered walls and ornate plastered ceiling shrunk inwards, or so it seemed to Jane who had grown accustomed to the Allenbys, who were all short and narrow-shouldered. The Earl was neither. He was dressed in what Jane presumed to be the height of London elegance: A Venetian blue frockcoat with elaborate Chinoiserie embroidery on tight cuffs and short skirts; an oyster silk waistcoat that cut away to a pair of thigh-tight black silk breeches rolled over the knees and secured with diamond knee buckles; white clocked stockings encased muscular calves and enormous diamond encrusted buckles in the tongues of a pair of low heeled black leather shoes. Lace at wrists and throat completed this magnificent toilette. Yet, neither ruffled lace or expertly cut cloth could hide the well-exercised muscle in the strong legs or the depth of chest and width of shoulder. But he did not dominate by size alone. There was purpose in his stride, and when he took a quick commanding glance about the room the intensity in his brown eyes demanded that those who fell under his gaze pay attention or suffer the consequences of his displeasure.

  Lady Despard, standing near the fireplace, brought him up short. She dropped into a low curtsey, giving his lordship a spectacular view of her deep cleavage. When the Earl tore his gaze from her over-ripe bosom, it was to turn and regard Jane with a disdainful glare. A look, hard to read, passed across the nobleman’s square face and then it was if he suddenly realized he was being less than polite. He bowed slightly as Lady Despard rose up and with her son crossed the carpet to greet him.

  Formal introductions gave Jane time to find her composure. She stood frozen, awed by the sheer physicality of the man, unable to bend her stiff knees into the desired respectful curtsey. She appeared calm enough but inwardly she felt sick to her stomach and relieved at the same time. She was glad that he barely looked at her. When he did, it was with tacit disapproval and as if to make certain she was paying attention. This expression stayed with him when he spoke a few words with Tom. Jane saw it in the clench of his strong jaw and the way in which his lips pressed together in a thin line, giving his classical features a hard, uncompromising edge. Yet, no amount of cold disdain could diminish the fact he was a ruggedly handsome man.

  Tom managed only a few words with the Earl before his mother interrupted. She looked up expectantly at the nobleman from under her darkened lashes and endeavored to engage his interest with a run of small talk; her inanities about the inclement weather, particularly the unusual severity of the frosts for the start to the new year, receiving polite but monosyllabic replies. Jane frowned and was embarrassed by her stepmother’s blatant flirting with this jaded nobleman who was obviously accustomed and thoroughly bored by the wiles of women who constantly threw themselves at him.

  When he turned his powdered head and stared straight at her, as if he was well aware she was taking full measure of his person, Jane was so startled to be caught out that she felt the heat rush up into her white throat. The fire burned more brightly in her cheeks when he had the bad manners to look her over, starting at her thick black braids caught up in a silver net at her shoulders, lingering on her breasts covered by a plain muslin bodice before traveling down the length of her petticoats to her matching silk slippers. When he frowned, as if she did not meet his expectations, Jane dared to put up her chin and stare back at him before turning to the window in dismissal.

  Her gaze remained steadfastly to the driving rain, despite being aware that her stepmother was now droning on at the freckle-faced secretary, Mr. Ellis, whom Jane had failed to notice standing a few steps behind his noble employer, and who was now doing his best to be polite and interested in Lady Despard’s London sightseeing forays. Then, close at her back, she heard Tom’s eager response to the Earl’s invitation to take part in a game of Royal Tennis being held at his lordship’s private court at his Grosvenor Square mansion the day after next. Tom said he would be honored to be included in his lordship’s tournament.

  His lordship’s tournament indeed, thought Jane, when only ten minutes earlier Tom had been poking fun of his lordship’s noble nostrils!

  The Earl drawled something banal about hoping this Arlington Street address, usually occupied by his lordship when Parliamentary sittings continued on through the night, was proving satisfactory accommodation for Tom and his mother. Tom thanked his lordship for the use of his townhouse, saying that as soon as it could be arranged he and his mother would let a suitable residence of their own for a month or two to enjoy what London had to offer before returning to Bristol. The Earl told him to take his time. There was no immediate rush for them to vacate. And then the room fell silent.

  The silence went on for so long that curiosity made Jane turn away from the window. Had there been a chair close by she would have sat down upon it from shock. Tom had deserted her, settling with his mother and the secretary, his friend from Oxford days, in the far corner of the drawing room to take tea and talk over old times. They had left Jane to face Lord Salt alone.

  His lordship stared over her head and out the window.

  “Miss Despard, it is customary to permit me to bow over your hand,” he drawled with just that touch of insolence required to bring immediate obedience.

  But Jane was too much affected by his closeness and his earlier unfavorable appraisal to be bothered with the niceties of a formal introduction and her hands remained firmly clasped in front of her. She told herself she was being obstinately bad mannered, but for the first time in years she allowed emotion to rule her tongue and spoke her thoughts.

  “I am fully sensible to the honor you do me, my lord,” she answered in a clear voice, gaze riveted to the engraved silver buttons of his waistcoat. “But I am not ignorant of the fact it was forced upon you in a most ungentlemanly manner. It is a circumstance I bitterly regret and wish I could alter.”

  There was the smallest of pauses before Salt said in his insolent way, “You’ve had ample opportunity to release me from such a damnable circumstance. You merely had to refuse the honor. Still, there are some eighteen hours before the ceremony…”

  This blunt speech did tilt Jane’s chin to his face, blue eyes wide with astonishment. He was offering her the opportunity to give him an eleventh hour reprieve; indeed his very manner suggested he expected her to do so there and then. That she wanted to release him from his forced obligation with all her heart was momentarily forgotten with the wound to her feminine pride. That he did not even have the good manners to disguise his abhorrence for a match that was of her father’s making, not hers, angered her into giving an impudent reply.

  “You cannot imagine, my lord, that I leapt at your backhanded offer of marriage,” she stated with as much coldness in her voice as she could muster. “Doubtless there are dozens of females eager to take their place at your side as Countess of Salt Hendon. I wholeheartedly wish you’d offered for one of these ladies, then this horrid situation would never have presented itself.”

  “I am not in the habit of making life-altering decisions merely to oblige others,” he replied coldly, gaze remaining fixed to the wet windowpane. “Yet… knowing you for a fickle female with no heart and even less brain, who has the bare-faced cheek to accept a backhanded offer of marriage,
I should indeed have married the next fresh-faced virgin who presented herself for mounting.”

  Jane staggered back a pace, mind reeling and hand out to the heavy brocade curtains for support at such crude speech. “How… How dare you speak to me in such a repulsive manner!” she whispered indignantly, a fervent glance at her tea-drinking relatives at the far end of the room. “I am not one of your whores who you can—”

  This brought his hard gaze down to her beautiful face. “Come now, Miss Despard,” he said with bored indifference. “Your show of offended sensibilities insults my intelligence. It is a bit late in the day to exhibit virginal outrage.” He watched her throat constrict and when she turned her fine nose to the window, giving him a view of her lovely profile, he smiled crookedly. How well she played the part of indignant female! As if she was the injured party. “By the way, I don’t waste conversation on whores.”

  “If you hope to unsettle me with your-your—by that then you are vastly mistaken in my—in my—” She stopped herself and bit her full lower lip, for how could she say the word character when she had none?

  He seemed to read her mind for he said so softly that she could only just hear him, “You were wise not to say it. You lost what little character you possessed when you thumbed your nose at constancy and decency to take up with a conscienceless old merchant. But as you are your father’s daughter I am inclined to believe Sir Felix never taught you the meaning of such words. Thus I will own that the fault lies with me for being taken in by your beautiful face.”

  Jane bravely met his gaze, and seeing the loathing in his eyes, a painful knot formed in her chest, making it difficult for her to breathe. She did not understand what she had done to deserve such hatred. He spoke of her not being constant or decent and yet if there was one thing she had been in those days, weeks, and months after the night in the summerhouse, it was constant. Nor did she understand why he had such an intense dislike for Jacob Allenby, the only person to offer her sanctuary. She knew there was no point defending her own character with this male colossus of unreasonableness, but there was no reason for him to besmirch her protector. She forced herself to remain outwardly calm, saying levelly,