Chapter Three
Jerome sat staring into the fire, a glass of whisky in his hand and half an ear on his friend’s conversation.
He was in a nostalgic, slightly melancholy mood.
Two years ago, he and his friends Robert, Emrys, and Deo had sat like this in White’s before the fire and Robert had bemoaned his need to marry an heiress, to make a so-called marriage of convenience, instead of the love match he craved.
Jerome was the only bachelor among them now.
If he was honest, he envied them their marital happiness but couldn’t quite bring himself to believe that he could also enjoy the wedded bliss they seemed blessed with.
He didn’t deserve it, and the woman he wanted wasn’t for him.
Despite that lapse last year when he’d kissed her.
No, when it came time, and that time was rapidly getting closer—he would turn thirty-four this year—he would make a marriage of convenience. Choose a lady who understood the rules of such an arrangement. The undoubtedly beautiful Countess of Esberry, for example . . .
He was jerked out of his thoughts by Robert’s voice. “. . . match for Ava.”
His heart kicked and thudded, and his hand tensed on his glass of whisky. He raised it and swallowed a mouthful of the fiery spirit, trying to mask his reaction at the mere mention of her name.
“Who?” asked Emrys, casting a glance at Jerome that seemed to see through the deliberately nonchalant air he was trying to cultivate.
“I know you fellows will keep it to yourselves, for nothing is official yet, but I’ve been approached by the Duke of Silverly—”
“He’s seventy-five!” Jerome’s appalled tone was impossible to disguise as he stared at Robert horrified.
Rob shook his head. “He approached me for his son, Haldane.”
Jerome subsided back into his seat. The Marquess of Haldane was one of London’s most eligible bachelors, and the absolute perfect match for Ava.
A heaviness sat in his gut at the news, and he tried to shake it off, but it persisted. What did I expect? I’ve known this day would come. I should be happy for her.
“Has Ava consented?” asked Emrys.
“Not yet, but I’m hopeful she will,” said Robert.
“I couldn’t ask for a better match for her, and what reason would she have to refuse?
She promised me she would think about it.
She has certainly been allowing him to squire her about town.
I think we will have the thing settled in a couple of weeks. ”
He swallowed more whisky and joined the others in offering Robert congratulations on the match.
“What about you, Jerome?” asked Deo. “Is this your year?”
Jerome reached for the decanter and refilled his glass.
He was going to make his usual reply that he wasn’t cut out for marriage, but the words that came out were quite different.
“Yes, I think it is.” He smiled and offered his glass in a toast. “I know the Countess of Esberry knocked you back Rob—”
“Yes, thank God, or I’d never have married Sarah,” said the duke. “Are you thinking of tilting at that windmill?”
“I am,” said Jerome, with a smile that made his jaw ache.
“To your success!” Robert raised his glass, and the others echoed his sentiments. “You know,” he added, “Sarah said something to me about your interest in the countess. Let’s hope your address is a damned sight better than mine.”
“Of course it is,” said Deo with one of his rare smiles. “When did Jerome ever fail at anything?”
“True,” said Rob topping up their glasses from the decanter on the small table beside them.
Emrys threw Jerome a penetrating look, one eyebrow raised. Jerome met it blandly and drank.
*
Jerome left White’s some hours later. He was foxed.
Very foxed. Not that that was unusual lately, he reflected, given the thoughts that were increasingly plaguing him, so he’d taken to having a few before bed.
Even so, he’d outdone himself this time, he thought, with the vague smugness of the very inebriated.
He was not quite falling-down drunk, but he was close. The pavement under his feet had a tendency to dip and sway, and the gaslight from the nearest lamppost was damned bright and kept flickering in a most disturbing way.
He had ignored Deo’s and Emrys’s attempts to put him in a hackney carriage—Rob had gone home not long after their toast to his success—and left the club to walk home.
He had hoped the cool night air would clear his head a little.
So far, all it had done was make it spin.
He stopped by the lamppost and grasped it with a gloved hand to steady himself and consider his direction.
Am I going the right way? Does it matter?
Deciding that it didn’t, he continued on.
The night sky above him was unusually clear, and the stars winked at him with a cold, indifferent light that seemed to mock him.
Have they discovered me for the fraudster that I am?
Most likely. For some unfathomable reason, the notion seemed amusing.
Are the stars the eyes of God? Can they see into my soul and lay bare the secrets that I keep hidden there?
It would be an inestimable relief to share those secrets with someone, but that was a luxury he couldn’t afford.
Emrys had come close to guessing at least one of his secrets by the looks he kept throwing at him.
How Jerome had kept his countenance when Rob announced the match between Ava and the Marquess of Haldane, he didn’t know, but he must have succeeded, because nobody said anything.
It was a piece of devastating news that just confirmed what he had already decided over Christmas: that he needed a nice, safe marriage of convenience.
The beautiful Isabella Mortimer, Countess of Esberry, was the perfect candidate for the role, if he could only bring himself to the sticking point.
He hadn’t meant to blurt out his intentions in that direction, but the news about Ava and Haldane was the final impetus he needed to take action.
And telling his friends of his intention made it that much harder for him to back away from it.
He stopped at the end of the street and discovered he had reached Hyde Park Corner. Definitely the wrong direction.
A nice metaphor for his life, really, he reflected, turning right to skirt the park. At this rate, by the time I get home, I might have sobered up.
Would he be sober enough to call upon the countess tomorrow?
Or had he got himself so successfully soused he’d have to put it off one more day?
He sighed, weaving on the pavement in an attempt to avoid a pile of dog detritus and almost stepping in it anyway.
Another metaphor. The thought provoked a drunken chuckle.
The chuckle evaporated in a flood of melancholy, and he plunged on. Even if he did put it off, it wouldn’t alter the fact that he needed to marry. While he wasn’t in his dotage, he owed it to his lineage to beget an heir. He had ignored his duty long enough. If not the countess, then someone else.
The image of Ava Layne swam in his inner vision, golden, glorious, vivacious, joyful, adorable, Ava, and his heart clenched with an ache of longing he didn’t usually allow himself to feel. That’s the problem with alcohol. It lets the feelings in.
He took a breath to ease the ache and swallowed, his throat tight. He shoved the longing down.
But it could never be Ava for him. Not when she had a chance of happiness with Haldane.
“No.” He spoke aloud to emphasize the point and shook his head. “Not Ava. Anyone but Ava.” That kiss had been such a mistake.
He came to another stop at the Grosvenor Gate entrance to the park.
The park was in darkness beyond, and the lodge was also just a black square shape.
The trees of the avenue rustled in a breeze that had picked up and brought with it the scent of flowers and cut grass, to overlay the ever-present coal-smoke laden air of London’s streets, even here in the clean part of the city.
Something about the trees beckoned to him, and on impulse he climbed the gate and dropped over the other side with the ease of an athlete, drunk though he was.
He ventured up to the nearest tree, a large oak, like its sisters, marching in a straight line of two and two on either side of the wide, grassed avenue.
Even the trees are in pairs . . . He hugged the great trunk, leaning his cheek against the rough bark, and smelled the resin.
He laughed, retaining just enough self-awareness to picture how ridiculous he must look.
Overcome suddenly with weariness, he settled under the tree’s canopy, his back against the trunk and went to sleep.
*
The Marques of R. was found asleep under a tree in Hyde Park by a groundsman at six am on Wednesday morning.
The groundsman was mystified how he got there as the gates were all locked overnight, and the gentleman was clearly the worse for wear.
It is whispered that the marquess is on the verge of offering for the Countess of E.
Has he just ruined his chances with the lady, or will the gentleman’s other attributes outweigh a lapse of this kind?
The Chronicle waits with bated breath to see the sequel to this unfortunate incident.
We are reminded of certain indiscretions of his youth.
The man is, after all, a lady-killer . . .
Ava dropped her toast with a cold wash of horror as her eyes read this tidbit from the gossip columns of The Chronicle, which confirmed what she had been fearing since last year.
Her stomach swooped as she reread the fatal words.
It is whispered that the marquess is on the verge of offering for the Countess of E.
The Countess of E. Esberry. Ava conjured the willowy form of the tall, dark-haired beauty with a violent stab of jealousy that made her feel sick.
She could present no stronger contrast with Ava, who was short, blonde, generously curved, and vivacious, rather than serenely elegant.
It would seem that the countess did indeed embody the type of woman he admired.
They certainly made a striking couple, both dark and beautiful.
Her eyes stung as a wave of unaccustomed inadequacy swamped her.
Ava was wont to think of herself as attractive, not simply because of her blonde prettiness, but because of her joyful, warm personality.
But if Jerome is truly attracted to an entirely different style of woman—what hope do I have?
She swallowed the lump in her throat. Did that kiss at Lady Bellingham’s ball really mean nothing?
Gentlemen kiss easily, you ninny! It might have turned your world upside down but it wouldn’t have even caused a ripple in his.
I have been living in a dream, refusing to face the truth, always believing that with time he would see me differently.
And now it is too late! I have run out of time to convince him that I am the right woman.