Chapter Twenty-Five
On the following day, Jonathan was able to come down to breakfast in something other than a much chopped about shirt and a banyan. He’d managed to get himself, with the aid of William who was enjoying his promotion to valet, into a proper shirt over which he’d draped his coat.
His shoulder wound was paining him less, mainly because of the fact that it hadn’t damaged any bone and was just a flesh wound, according to Dr. Collins when he came to call that morning and found him sitting out on the terrace in the sunshine at a stone table.
The good doctor also insisted that he should be careful with his broken arm, a fact which annoyed Jonathan, who was itching to be back to normal, and not only because the doctor had thought to caution him about it.
Verity had spent some time that morning upstairs with his grandmother, who’d sent several worried messages down via the servants and had had to be reassured by a visit from both Kitty and Verity.
The thought of struggling to speak to her himself, didn’t appeal, so he’d turned down Kitty’s eager offer to accompany him to her rooms. He’d wait a few days for that.
His present appearance might not be enough to convince her he was on the mend.
Best to wait until his facial bruising lessened and he could have a much-needed shave.
If she saw him now, she might think she was having a visitation from a pirate.
“Nevertheless,” Verity said, before going up there, “I shall assure the dowager that you are in fine form and improving. I wouldn’t want to upset her with the details though, of how you came upon your injuries.
” She was probably thinking that as his uncle was also his grandmother’s younger son, it wouldn’t do to go revealing his part in the assassination attempt.
For now that he’d spoken with Walter, on Verity’s advice, he was very much aware of what had happened and who had orchestrated the attack.
In fact, with Walter’s gentle prodding, the entire debacle had begun to return and he was able to recall a fair bit of that night for himself, up until he’d hit the ground and someone had kicked him in the head.
He’d laughed uproariously when he’d heard about the deposition of Teesdale’s body on Sylvester’s doorstep, and the informing of the Bow Street Runners.
And now he was sitting outside with a book in the warm sunshine.
A nice respite from Kitty’s continuous chatter.
She was clearly trying to make up for the past year when he’d not been even once to see her.
Playfully, he’d suggested to her that the reason for his long absence had been her overactive tongue, but she’d just laughed and not believed him.
Perhaps he was bad at lying. No doubt she was at present talking her grandmother’s stockings down instead of his.
But sitting outside with his book did not in any way mean that he was reading.
Or, at any rate, that he was digesting the words of his book, a treatise on horsemanship he’d read several times before.
He’d been reading the same page over and over again and nothing had so far penetrated further into his brain than the outer barrier of his eyes.
He set the book on his lap and squinted into the sun across the wide, rolling acres of Luxborough towards the hazy horizon.
Now he was back, the love he’d always had for the place burgeoned in his heart.
It was easy, when living life to the full in Town, to forget how lovely the estate was.
He frowned. How close had he come to losing this?
He didn’t really want to think about it, but now he knew that Walter was convinced Sylvester was behind the attack, that was the only thing in his mind.
Of course, he wasn’t stupid and he’d always known his uncle was jealous.
Jealous of his father, and also jealous of him.
He’d been very young when he’d realized this.
And of course, his mother had warned him as he grew older.
When his father had been alive and his mother had been in residence, Sylvester had called infrequently, but every time he’d done so he’d given Jonathan the most malevolent of looks.
The sort of looks it had been easy to read as a death wish, even as a small child.
Then all the bad things had happened, and his father had died.
He didn’t want to dwell on that for long.
His mother, too, had gone, although not quite so far and to a less hot place, swearing she wouldn’t stay under the same roof as…
No. He was definitely not going there. Nothing would induce him to conjure up Mary’s image again.
Nor his mother’s. He did, of course, pay his mother his respects in the briefest of possible manners whenever he came down, but that didn’t mean he had to think about her now.
But he found he couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened all those years ago, no matter how he tried.
After his father’s death, he’d refused to return to school.
With his mother gone, only his grandmother had needed overcoming, and she’d already commenced her slow decline into senility.
“I’m an earl now,” he’d said. “And I don’t need any more education.
I know everything they could teach me, anyway, and none of it’s going to be useful to me as an earl. ”
Grandmama had, with very little resistance, conceded victory to him.
Walter, however, had been incensed at the unfairness that his best friend was not returning to the hallowed walls of Eton, but as he’d been invited over for the holidays with frequency, he’d put up with it.
“I don’t myself wish my own dear papa ill,” he’d said glumly, “but if having a title means one can do without school, then I freely admit to being jealous of you and wishing for a title.”
Jonathan smiled to himself. Walter had got over his jealousy and himself left school as soon as he could to join Jonathan in London where the two young bucks that they’d been had commenced living life to the full.
Wine, women, and song had been their aim, and with Jonathan’s seemingly endless funds behind them, they’d been able to fulfill this aim, Jonathan significantly more than Walter.
And all of that had silenced the dreams for a while.
He’d found early on that spending every night in someone else’s bed had kept his dreams to a minimum, and at the same time that he had a talent for pleasing women.
With his good looks, he’d had no trouble finding bed mates, and the life had suited him. At first. Well, for a long time.
And then Verity had come into his orbit.
Her father first, the old reprobate, and then her. And everything that could have gone wrong had gone wrong.
He sighed.
Verity. Truth. He’d seen a different side to her here at Luxborough.
A nurturing side. A less defensive side.
She no longer seemed to be the bane of his life, a woman he’d been forced to marry who’d then turned against him.
And wasn’t that his own fault, anyway? Hadn’t he insulted her in a thoughtless manner, the manner of a man who thought he could do and say just what he wanted.
Reprehensible behavior he should be ashamed of.
A flock of ducks flew overhead in a V shape in the direction of the lake.
The problem was, he found he now wanted her to like him. A lot.
He stopped chewing the nail on his left little finger, a habit he’d had as a child, and set that hand on his knee, out of harm’s way.
Well, they were married now so she couldn’t escape. Not really. And he could try a lot harder to be nice to her and see how far that got him. He liked her determination.
A swan rose up from the lake near where the ducks had landed, its great wings beating the air in a steady rhythm. He loved the noise made by swan’s wings. How much he’d missed that when he’d been in London.
But what about Kitty?
He had to consider her because she was his responsibility. She had no one else but him. And she loved him, despite all his drawbacks. She accepted his long absences and every time he returned treated him as though he’d only been away overnight.
Kitty, with her mother’s petite figure and heart-shaped face…
He could see her now, on the first day she arrived at Luxborough. It had been the school summer holidays and he’d been at home, sitting reading in a corner of the library when she’d come in to lay a fire in the hearth, ready to light later on. She’d been shocked to find him sitting there so early.
She bobbed a curtsy and made to hurry away, but he’d stopped her. “Don’t leave on my account.”
She’d hesitated. “I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t think anyone would be about so early.” She had a soft, country burr to her voice, and she was very pretty, with curling dark hair and a heart-shaped face…just like Kitty’s.
“I like to sit here and read when I can’t sleep,” he’d said, which had been more than he’d ever told anyone else.
She dimpled at him. “I’d do the same myself if I weren’t supposed to do so many chores before the family’s up.”
He was surprised. “You can read?”
She nodded. “My ma taught me when I was a little girl. She said it’d stand me in good stead later in life. She wants more for me than just being a housemaid.” Her voice dropped. “I think she fancies me being a housekeeper one day, and for that you need to be good at your reading and reckoning.”
He put his book down as this was much more interesting. The holidays had been long and boring so far, and he was missing the companionship of his friends at school. “A good ambition…so what’s your name?”
“Mary…sir.” It seemed she was conscious she should be addressing him respectfully.
He grinned at her. “No need to call me sir. My name’s Jonnie.”
Her eyes widened, presumably as she now realized who he was. She bobbed another curtsy. “I’m really sorry, Master Jonathan. I didn’t mean to be rude and disrespectful. I’ve not been here long, so I didn’t know as it was you.” So someone had told her his name.
He shook his head. “You’re not being disrespectful.” He got up from his window seat. “And to show you that, I’ll help you lay the fire. I’m very good at that. My nursemaid taught me how when I was just a little boy and I often laid the nursery fire for her.”
She backed up a step, clutching her basket of fire materials closer. “I can’t let you do that. It’s not right you should do it. Not with you being His Lordship’s son.”
He went to the fire. “Why not? Don’t I benefit from the fire when it’s lit? It gets quite chilly in here even in the summer, and my mother likes to sit in here after luncheon sometimes. She lets me set light to it. I might as well lay it as well.”
And so had begun their friendship.
Mary was two years older than he was, but that mattered nothing.
She was a country girl from one of the bigger farms and had tales that made him laugh of misbehaving cows and contrary pigs and chickens.
He enjoyed her company and, very soon, on her half day off, they were meeting in secret to go walking in the woods where no one would tell her off for fraternizing with the nobility when she shouldn’t be.
And one thing had inevitably led to another.
He’d fallen in love with her, and she with him. They’d discovered one another’s bodies in a mossy clearing under dappling sunlight, as two young people should. And he’d been happier than he’d ever been.
Until.
He snatched himself out of his reverie as it was heading to a place of nightmare where he didn’t want to go.
In the distance he could just make out the shapes of deer grazing near the wood where he and Mary had… No. Wrong direction again. He must think of something else entirely.
Luckily for him it must have been approaching luncheon, for footsteps sounded on the gravel and Kitty’s laughter carried to him. She was not a girl to ever miss a meal. Perhaps she was another, much better, reminder of that time, one he could hold close and allow himself to enjoy.
She ran across the gravel, kissed him on the cheek, and sat down on one of the spare chairs.
“You’re out here, and I was in there in Grandmama’s stuffy old rooms playing draughts with her.
You lucky thing. I wish I was already grown up.
So much easier if I didn’t have to always do as I’m told.
Grandmama was on fine form today and understood everything we told her.
For now. I daresay she’ll have forgotten it all by tomorrow, though and Verity and I will have to go up there and repeat it. ”
He smiled, glad of the distraction. “And if you do, it won’t be a chore, will it? For you love our grandmama.”
“I do.” Kitty nodded firmly. “Very much, but I do wish she was like she was today every day. So unfair that I didn’t know her when she was younger.”
“One of the perils of having a grandmother,” Jonnie said. “They are almost always old.” He indicated one of the spare seats. “Why don’t you sit down and let me look at you? You’re so like a little whirlwind it’s hard to focus on you.”
For answer, she laughed and leaned over to throw her arms around him, completely missing his wince. And only then did she sit down. “And I love you, too. I miss you so much when you’re in London. I wish…” She hesitated.
“What do you wish?”
“That you and Verity would stay here forever. I already love her dearly. She’s been so kind to me. Just like you, but better than you for she is here, and you hardly ever are.”
Did he want that? Was it possible?
He smiled. “How about next year, when you’re seventeen, you come up to stay in London with me?” Would that even work? Although, no one but Walter knew about Kitty’s existence and her illegitimacy. It might be possible to hide her origins and give her a proper season.
Kitty’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not at all sure I would like that, you know.
Not after living here. Verity says London is all houses and paved streets and hardly any grass and no wide-open spaces like here at all.
The best you have is Hyde Park, she says.
And I don’t think that sounds a very nice place to be.
She says it gets crowded and everyone is looking at everyone else and criticizing them.
She says that’s why people go there. Because they want to be looked at. I shouldn’t like that at all.”
He shrugged, which didn’t hurt quite so much as the last time he’d done so. Still hurt quite a lot though. “She may well be right. But for now, I’m here at Luxborough, and I have no intention of going anywhere else at the moment. You can rest assured of that.”
She leaned in for another kiss. “Do you promise?”
He nodded. “I promise.”