Chapter Sixteen

 

In that one moment the brilliant hope of her lifetime burned down to ashes, cold and dirty cinders. “Viscount Haven,” she repeated. Her voice was as bleak and barren as she felt. It echoed in the room, bounced back and taunted her with the desolate sound.

Gerry winced. “I am Lord Haven,” he admitted, “but I’m still just Gerry Neville, local farmer. Or at least I would be if I could, my love. Haven is just my title, not my soul. Can you not love me anyway?”

“But you asked me to marry you, knowing who I was, but not letting me know who you were! I don’t know you. You say you are the same man, but you aren’t!”

“We lied to each other! Can you not forgive me as I have forgiven you?”

“It is not the same thing at all,” she said, scrambling from the bed, dragging some of the bedclothes with her. “It is not the same.” She struggled to get her dress on without letting her blanket drop. “I was afraid . . . terrified of being coerced into a marriage I abhorred, afraid of a future of insipid days and unthinkable nights. So I ran. And I lied about who I was. But you!” Her voice trembled. She stood straight and glared accusingly at him in the dim light of the inn room. “You lied for no reason at all. Or . . . or you lied to bed me. It was only when you found out who I was that you asked me to marry you.”

What could he say that she would believe? He damned the caution that had made him wait, even though he had known he was going to ask her to marry him before he found out she was Miss Jane Dresden. But she would never believe him now.

He stood and faced her. “Jenny, I—”

“Don’t call me that!” she said, straightening. “I am not Jenny anymore. I am Miss Jane Dresden, to you, my lord.”

 

• • •

 

The ride back to Haven Court was achieved only after Haven offered to ride his horse back, leaving Miss Dresden—he called her that, knowing she would answer to nothing less—the carriage in solitary safety.

The household was awake and gathered in the great hall. Lady Mortimer let out a cry and made a great show of rushing at her niece; Jane dutifully allowed the embrace but there was no real warmth there. The introductions were even more uncomfortable.

“Mother,” Haven said, daring not to even take her arm as he would want when introducing the woman he would marry to his mother. “This is Miss Jane Dresden.”

“I do not understand any of this,” his mother said, irritability writ deep in the lines on her face. “Why was Miss Dresden at the inn? I could not make any sense at all of that brainless dolt from the inn stable, and Haven, why did you not tell us yourself before haring off to the Swan?”

Haven cringed inwardly at the impression Jane must be getting of his family.

“Something havey-cavey here,” Rachel said, her narrow, pretty face twisted into a frown.

“There’s nothing havey-cavey, it is a romance,” Pamela, adorably disheveled in her nightdress, said, before Haven could stop her. “Miss Dresden was masquerading as a servant girl and Haven fell in love with her thinking she was a maid.”

Lady Haven wheeled and faced her younger daughter. “What nonsense are you spouting, Pamela?”

“She’s all about in the head,” Rachel jeered, pinching her younger sister’s shoulder.

“I am not,” Pamela denied hotly, slapping at her sister’s hand. “It happened exactly that way, did it not, Haven? I met her at Mary’s cottage. I think it is romantic.” She turned shyly to Miss Dresden, who was standing, mute and frozen among the din echoing in the great hall. “How are you, Jenny? Or I suppose I must call you Miss Dresden now?”

“What on earth is she on about, Haven?” the viscount’s mother shrieked. “You met Miss Dresden? Where? And Pamela, too? How? And why . . .”

“And I want to know why my niece looks like she has been dragged through a thicket backward,” Lady Mortimer demanded. “What is wrong, that she should appear so disheveled?”

“If everyone will just keep silent for a moment!” Haven’s grandmother, unnoticed, had entered the hall from her suite. Silence did, indeed, fall. She tapped over to the newest arrival and looked her over. A sly smile stole over her wrinkled visage. “I can see why he mistook you for a maid.”

Lady Mortimer bridled but the dowager fixed her with a steely stare, and for once the baroness remained silent.

Jane was not sure who this old lady was and why she was saying such a thing, but anyone who could make her aunt shut her mouth was formidable. She met the woman’s direct and challenging gaze. If the experiences of the past few days had taught her anything, they had taught her that it was no good to be bullied in her life. It was the only life she was given and to live it any other way than by her own conscience would be a travesty. She straightened and defiantly glared directly into watery blue eyes that snapped with an intelligence that was unnerving, to say the least. But she would never be afraid again, least of all of these mad people. “I am not a maid.”

The old woman nodded once.

“I am Haven’s grandmother, his father’s mother. I am, though I hate the title, the elder dowager Lady Haven. You understand, it is not the ‘Lady Haven’ part I despise, it is the ‘dowager’ appellation that makes me cringe. Makes me sound old. ’Specially since there is another dowager, my daughter-in-law.” She looked Jane over from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. “What an appalling mess you are. I am quite sure there is an interesting tale behind the straw in your hair. But to get to the point, you have led the entire county quite the dance, my girl. How did it suit you, living as one of the serving class?”

Jane considered her answer. She glanced over at Haven and her heart ached, remembering the carefree delight of falling in love, uninhibited by any class requirements or stuffy ballrooms, proscribed manners, elegant, stifling surroundings. Though she had accused him of lying to seduce her she had, during the carriage ride, reconsidered. That could not have been his motive. After all, what lord of the realm would have made himself less than he was to debauch a maidservant? Would he not have expected his position in life to have helped him, rather than hurt his chances at a liaison? So he would not have lied about his position for that purpose.

And there had been times when he was the one to pull back from the brink of impropriety. Why? If it was seduction on his mind, she had given him no reason to believe that she found his advances repulsive. It made her blush to recall how readily she had welcomed him into her arms.

“I learned much, my lady,” she said, turning her gaze back to the old woman. The collected group had remained silent, the force of the old lady’s personality holding them captive.

“I would wager you did, young miss, and I will want to hear some of what you have learned. But at what price knowledge, I wonder?” She turned to the rest of them. “This child is clearly exhausted and distraught by her experiences. She will become ill without proper care. I would recommend sending her to her bed with tea and toast and she can explain herself and her actions tomorrow.”

“I concur,” Haven said.

Lady Haven, arms across her bosom, said, “But I want to know . . .”

“Mother, no!” Haven glared at the woman, who bridled but remained silent for once. “We will take this up in the morning.” He turned to the butler, waiting at a discreet distance. “Bartlett, have a maid show Miss Dresden to her chamber.”

Jane was grateful and turned to go. But not before the elderly woman grasped her elbow with one crabbed hand. Her grip was steely. Voice low, she said, “I will see you in the morning, young miss. I want first crack at the explanation.”

 

• • •

 

It was like returning to someone else’s life, Jane thought. She awoke wrapped in luxurious Irish linen sheets, clothed in her best muslin nightrail. A young maid had peeked in and, seeing her awake, had entered and opened her curtains for her. It was another brilliant spring day but a world apart from the past week, sharing a bed with Mary Cooper and sleeping in her shift. Now, after dining on tea and toast in bed, she was gowned in one of her best dresses, an indigo silk with forget-me-not blue silk ribbon roses edging the low bosom and tiny cap sleeves. Feathery lace adorned her clothes, and the pink-cheeked maid assigned to her had combed out her ratted hair and pinned it up. Jane peeped out her bedroom door, not ready to meet with any of the household just yet.

She had been surprised after the events of the evening that she had slept so soundly, but she supposed she had been physically exhausted and that had taken over. But now all of the confusion of the previous day and night came back to trouble her mind. What was she going to do now?

A maidservant bustled by with a pile of linens in her arms.

“Excuse me,” Jane said softly. “But could you tell me where the elderly lady—his lordship’s grandmother, I mean—where her room is?”

The girl curtseyed. “Her ladyship has a suite down off th’great hall, miss.”

“Would she be awake at this hour? She asked me to see her first thing in the morning, but I do not want to disturb her if she is still abed.”

“Oh, no, miss. Her ladyship rarely sleeps. Dodd—that be her maid, miss—she says as how her ladyship hardly closes her eyes at night. I believe she has already breakfasted.”

“Thank you. Just off the great hall?”

“Yes, miss.”

Jane descended the winding staircase. She had almost reached the door to the suite off the great hall when she heard a noise from above. Her heart thudded. She did not want to meet anyone else yet. As acerbic as the old lady seemed the previous night, there was still some empathy in her old eyes. The viscount’s mother, on the other hand—

Jane flattened close to the wall and waited, but what she saw next astonished her. It was Pamela, and she was creeping down the stairs dressed in that same disreputable pair of breeches and old cambric shirt. She had a riding crop in her hand and moved stealthily.

She smiled at the girl’s subterfuge. “So, Miss Pamela, this is how you manage to evade notice?”

The girl jumped and Jane could not keep from chuckling.

“You won’t give me up, will you?” the girl pleaded, coming into the great hall as Jane moved toward her into the huge, echoing area.

“Of course not,” Jane said. “But why do you feel compelled to creep out like this?”

Pamela rolled her eyes. “I would get an endless jaw-me-dead if my mother knew I still rode astride. It’s not ladylike, don’t you know,” she said with a wicked imitation of her mother’s querulous voice.

“I know how you feel,” Jane said, and the girl eyed her curiously. “I have often been accused of the same . . . of not being ladylike enough.”

“You? But you’re . . .” Pamela paused and cocked her head on one side, looking Jane over with sharp eyes. “I always knew there was something odd about you as a servant, you know. And when I said as much to Grand, she got that calculating look in her eyes, the one that makes m’mother shiver.”

“Grand?”

Pamela indicated, with a movement of her head, the suite Jane had been about to go to. “M’grandmother. We call her Grand.”

“You spoke of me?”

“Oh, Lord, yes. Grand was no end interested. Made me describe you, you know, when we thought you were Mary’s cousin. Made Haven describe you.” A noise in the hall above made her jump and her gray-green eyes grew huge in her tiny heart-shaped face. “I have to go,” she whispered and trotted off toward the back of the house. She paused, though, and glanced back over her shoulder. “Go see Grand. She’s what the old folk round here call a right knowin’ old ’un. Talk to her. But I want to know everything when I come back. Good-bye, Jenny!”

The noise from above was just a footman. Jane moved toward the door of the dowager’s suite and scratched on it, and was admitted by a hard-faced maid. The elderly Lady Haven was by the window, and she turned as Jane entered. “Ah, good. I see you took me at my word. I appreciate that. Shows good breeding, despite what I feared.”

Stung, Jane said, “What did you fear, my lady?”

“That you were in some way unworthy of my grandson.”

Her first instinct was to resent the dowager’s words, but curiously, she didn’t. They had the merit of being honest at least, as blunt as they were. “Why did that worry you?” The watery blue eyes were shrewdly assessing her, Jane knew, with every word and every movement. Would she be found lacking after all? Did she care?

“It worried me because I love my grandson. And he had fallen in love with a girl who was flighty enough to run away and silly enough to apparently play the part of a maid instead of take her rightful position as daughter of an old and well-placed family.”

Fall in love with? Did the woman know what she was talking about? Jane moved slowly toward the viscount’s grandmother, and so the window. The view was of the high fells and Jane recognized one rise as the moor over which Mary Cooper’s cottage lay. She looked back at the elderly Lady Haven and examined her seamed face. “Does that mean that you had gleaned the truth, my lady? That Mary Cooper’s visiting cousin was really Miss Jane Dresden?”

“Of course,” the old woman said acidly. She moved slowly over to a table and sat in a straight-backed gilt chair. “It was too great a coincidence, a young lady of your description arriving at Mary’s just as Miss Dresden disappeared.”

“But no one else caught on?”

“They, meaning Haven and Pamela, chose to believe that Mary was telling the truth. No one could imagine why she would lie. I can think of a hundred reasons why she would lie.”

Jane frowned. She joined the woman at the enameled table, sitting opposite her and watching the expression, the sharp intelligence, flicker through watery blue eyes, eyes so like Haven’s, only rheumy with age. “Such as?”

“You could have told her the truth and offered to pay her. There is never enough money when one has a fatherless child to feed and clothe. Or perhaps she did not know about the missing Miss Dresden, and she thought she was hiding you from some sort of persecution. Or possibly—”

Jane sat back. “All right, I understand. For your interest, I think the last is the most true. She did not know about the missing Miss Dresden and I made sure Lord Haven—Gerry the farm manager, as I thought of him then—did not have a chance to tell her.”

“Ah. I did so want to know the exact reason. Curiosity is my failing, especially when it accompanies infirmity.” The old woman eyed her with a sharp look and raised her white eyebrows. “That must have made for an uncomfortable week. Lying to your hostess. Lying to your lover.”

“He is not my lover,” Jane shot back, stung into a hasty reply.

“Is he not? Then you are a fool,” she said, disdain in her quavery voice. “More than I even thought you to be.” The dowager squinted. “He does love you, you know. Do you love him?”

“Really, Lady Haven, you can hardly expect—”

“But I do expect you to answer me,” she said with a rap of her cane on the floor. “It is why I asked you here. In a few hours, when the household is awake, Haven’s mother and your aunt will decide what to do about you. You have made yourself notorious and they will, between them, decide on your fate. Should you marry Lord Haven? Have you made yourself unfit for him with this wild kidnap story and your disappearance? What scandal will ensue?”

Jane covered her face with her hands. It was true, every word of it. Lady Mortimer and Lady Haven, between them, would hold a council of war to determine her fate. But what should she do about it?

As if in answer to her thoughts, the old lady said, “Do not let them do it!”

Jane uncovered her face and gazed steadily at the old woman who faced her across the table, arthritis-knotted hands flat on the tabletop. “How do I stop them? They are two very determined women.”

“Are you a woman or a child?” The dowager’s tone was impatient, bracing. “Make up your mind what you want, and take it!” She put out her hand and closed it into a fist. “It is your life. Take what you want and be damned to the world. If you want Haven, take him.”

“Why are you saying this to me, my lady?”

There was silence for a moment, but then, “I think my grandson is in love with you. Again I ask, do you love him?”

“How can I know? He is not the same Gerry that I . . . that I f-fell in love with.”

“Idiot girl. Are you not the same young woman, though now you are Miss Jane Dresden and then you were plain Jenny, maidservant?”

Jane thought about it. Gerry had taken the chance of asking her to marry him after finding out that she was not who she said she was. But it was not the same! Was it? She shook her head, feeling like she had cobwebs forming, clouding her thoughts, bundling them up in a gauzy wrapping until she couldn’t sort out the truth.

“I don’t know. I don’t know!”

The dowager made an exclamation of disgust. “Then figure it out, or you will be coerced and bullied again into a life you are not sure of. Make your own decisions, young miss, or your life will never be your own.”

 

• • •

 

That advice stayed with Jane as she sat in the morning parlor awaiting, as she had been commanded, Lady Haven and Lady Mortimer’s presence. She was staring out the window, when she heard the door open and then close. She turned her head to see, staring at her, a young woman of surprising beauty and elegance. Her loveliness was spoiled only by a haughty look in her eyes and a proud tilt to her head.

“You are Miss Dresden,” the young woman said.

“I am. We met last night, but I do not believe I caught your name,” Jane said. “And you are . . . ?”

“Miss Rachel Neville, Haven’s sister.”

Ah, yes, Jane thought, the unpleasant sister. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Neville,” Jane said, standing and offering her hand.

The young lady took it but only briefly clutched it before dropping it again. “Are you going to marry my brother?”

Stunned, Jane did not know quite how to answer such an impertinent question—the family seemed expert in that area—and was saved when the butler opened the door, bowed and said, “Sir Colin Varens, to see the ladies.” He bowed again and exited as a young man came in, his homely face lighting to a glow when he found himself in the presence of Miss Neville.

“Miss Neville, what a pleasant surprise. I had not hoped . . . that is, I had not dared to hope—”

“What is it, Colin?”

His eyes wandered finally to Jane and he bowed before her, but his gaze was curious and just a shade bold. “Sir Colin Varens, at your service . . . Miss Dresden? Am I correct?”

“You are, sir,” Jane said, rising and dropping a brief curtsey.

Just then Lady Mortimer and Lady Haven swept into the room after Sir Colin. “We wish to speak with you alone, Jane,” Lady Mortimer said to her niece. “Come.”

“May I speak with you ladies first,” Sir Colin said, casting a sidelong glance at Jane.

“What is it, Sir Colin?” Lady Haven said impatiently.

He moved toward them and whispered something to her and Jane’s aunt. There was a hiss of displeasure and both women talked in low, furious voices at once. He shrugged and whispered again, and all three stopped and looked at Jane.

She moved uneasily under their unfriendly scrutiny. Jane could not like the calculation in her aunt’s eyes, but that moment Lady Mortimer moved away from the two others. Standing apart from them but facing her niece she declaimed, in a loud and ringing tone, “I did not know this before and it changes everything. Jane, you did not tell me that you had been compromised by his lordship, that he forced himself on you and that it was witnessed. I must demand, now, that the viscount make speedy plans to marry you and save your poor reputation!”