CHAPTER FIFTEEN #2
Jack smiled as she ran her hand along the stems and brought her fingers up to her nose, inhaling blissfully. “I’ve seen my mother do that many a time,” he said. “After roses, I believe lavender is her favourite flower.”
“My mother loves it too. Wellstead’s flower gardens are mostly her creation, and Burns takes care of the kitchen garden.”
“And the farm is your responsibility, I believe you said. What does that entail, exactly?” They had come to the intersection of two paths and he stood looking searchingly at her.
Laura found her eyes going repeatedly to that errant lock of chestnut hair that persisted in straying on to his brow sooner or later.
She administered a mental rebuke for silliness, and fixed her mind on trying to explain herself to the one man among those she’d met who refused to keep their acquaintance on the conventionally superficial level, but seemed intent on fathoming her nature.
“I do not physically plough the fields, of course, though I help with planting and weeding. I read the agricultural papers and test the soil and calculate the amendments needed for various crops. I plan the selection and rotation of crops so no fields need lie fallow. Mr. Judson, who has farmed for my father for many years, does most of the heavy work, and his wife and children help me take care of the animals and the chickens and run the dairy. And I conduct all the business, buying and selling and keeping the accounts. The farm is our livelihood, you understand.”
“Yes, of course, and I comprehend that your father’s demise has placed much responsibility on your shoulders, but how did it all begin? When did it begin?”
“As a young child I adored running free out of doors, and rather chafed at the discipline of lessons, but of course it would never have come about if my father had not treated me like a son.” She stopped short, a look of uncertainty spreading across her countenance as she met his questioning gaze.
“I never really considered it before, but my mother pointed out recently that my father had little appreciation for what one would term female accomplishments. I must have sensed that as a youngster and, since I desired his approval, I suppose I scorned them also.” Her words were coming more slowly now.
She made a wry face and hunched one shoulder.
“With the result you see before you — a female utterly lacking in feminine accomplishments and very much out of step with the rest of her sex.”
Jack shook his head deliberately. “No, I see before me a lovely girl utterly lacking the usual airs and graces that most young women adopt these days, one whose good sense, modesty and kind heart will endear her to the rest of her sex. I see other things too, but mostly I see a pair of astonishingly beautiful eyes that have bewitched me from the moment I came to my senses in a darkened bedchamber in Hertfordshire.”
He was moving toward her, and panic inundated Laura. Her heart was pounding in her chest and her breathing was constricted. Movement seemed impossible, but she had to stop him! “No, please, no,” she stammered. “You must not.”
“Why mustn’t I? Why, in this lovely peaceful garden can I not remind you that we are better acquainted now and you still have not answered my question? Shall I refresh your memory?”
His voice was gentle and he was smiling at her in a way that derailed her thinking processes.
It wasn’t fair, Laura’s brain protested, and her body twitched as she became aware that his arms, also gentle, were around her.
She was oblivious to the setting, indeed to anything except the urgent need to flee from this man whose very existence challenged her carefully crafted plan for her future.
“No, Jack,” she protested, twisting out of his embrace and backing away. “I told you I had no thought of marriage. My life is at Wellstead Farm with my mother.”
“Well, naturally it has been so until now,” he agreed, a puzzled look coming into his eyes, “but from what I have observed these past weeks, Exton intends to ask your mother to marry him, if it is not already settled between them.”
At his words Laura’s face went completely blank, then she said quickly, “Then I shall run the farm alone.”
“What? Why would you wish to do anything so unnatural?”
Laura’s chin went up and she glared at his astounded expression. “I find it infinitely more natural than submitting my entire life to the domination and will of a man.”
“That’s rank nonsense and you know it!” Jack declared, sounding exasperated.
“Wives are not slaves. Can you deny that we have always been happy in each other’s company?
That is natural. This is natural.” Quick as a whip he reached out and hauled the defiant girl into his arms. This time he was not gentle.
Nor was the kiss he pressed on her protesting mouth.
Her rigid resistance cooled his temper almost at once, however, and he released her, feeling like a bully.
His lips were parting to apologise, but Laura forestalled him.
“That was a mistake,” she said with steely calm, “because you have now proved that you are like all men. You become infatuated with a face without knowing or caring to know the person behind the face, and then you blame the woman if she does not fit the picture you have of an adoring slave. I would like to go back now, please.” She turned her back on his appalled countenance and headed for the entrance, her stride purposeful.
If the stiff formality of Jack’s bearing on the silent drive to Mount Street was a true indication, any intention he might have had of apologising for his loss of control had fled in the wake of Laura’s attack. The only sounds from the curricle were made by its wheels on the cobblestones.
Laura’s first glance in his direction when the vehicle drew up to the Albright house was met by a cold mask of indifference. Any remark she might have made died a-borning, and she turned hastily away.
“Can you descend without assistance?” he inquired with chilly civility.
“Yes, thank you,” she replied, demonstrating the validity of her claim in an economical fashion.
He kept the horses still until she disappeared into the house.
She did not look back.
Jack shed the pose of indifference like a snakeskin as he headed for the mews where he kept his cattle.
A panorama of emotions crossed his face as he replayed the improbable scene with Laura in his mind, seeking an explanation for the disaster.
He concluded that it was indeed a disaster only after proceeding from his initial astonishment at Laura’s attitude and the acknowledged hurtfulness of her refusal, through the anger and stiff-necked pride that her insulting opinion of his character had aroused in him.
He thought he could claim with truth that he was not so puffed up in his own conceit that he would find it inconceivable that an offer from him could be refused by any woman.
But Laura was not any woman! He’d been speaking the simple truth as he found it when he’d declared that they had always been happy in each other’s society.
In his besotted state could he have mistaken mere politeness for pleasure on her part?
Could all the delight have been on his side?
As he strode from the mews to his house after depositing the curricle with his groom his footsteps rang on the pavement, but the sounds did not reach his ears.
Huckston had stared after him in surprise at his abrupt departure from the stables, but he’d been unaware of the groom’s eyes on his back.
Nor did any of the persons who passed him on the street make an impression on his consciousness, for his tormented vision was entirely inward.
When he came around the corner of Brook Street, however, the sight of a dusty traveling carriage in front of his house brought his unsatisfactory ruminations to a crashing halt.
“Mama!”
Jack broke into a near run and bounded up the steps, not even pausing to greet his faithful coachman, who stared after him open-mouthed from the box of the carriage.
“It’s good to see you, Hanks,” he said in the hall, shaking hands with his butler, who had obviously travelled from Rosehaven with his mistress. “Where is my mother?”
“It is good to be here again, sir,” Hanks said, beaming paternally. “Her ladyship is in the morning room drinking tea while Adams unpacks for her.”
“How did she do on the trip?” he inquired, referring to his parent’s invariable queasiness when traveling any distance in a closed carriage.
“Rather better than usual, though she is understandably a trifle fatigued,” came the reply as Hanks relieved his master of hat and gloves.
Jack dodged a footman carrying a trunk and headed down the hall with long strides. Lady Hastings was seated behind a tea table recruiting her strength with a strong hot brew and a plate of bread and butter, but she rose instantly on seeing her son. They embraced in the middle of the room.
After planting a hearty kiss on each soft cheek, Jack held her off a little, his hands lightly gripping her arms above the elbows while he searched her unlined face for signs of strain.
“I am delighted to see you survived the trip in good order, Mama, and thrilled that you have finally given in to my importunities. The Royal Academy’s annual exhibition is coming up and —”
“I did not come to London to see paintings, dearest. I came because Catherine Crofton wrote to me —” She stopped at the alerted expression in her son’s eyes and dropped her own to her hands, plucking at imaginary lint on his lapel.
“Yes? And what did my esteemed godmother write that has you hot-footing it to town when you were deaf to all my entreaties?”
Jack’s soft tones held an unfamiliar note that gave Lady Hastings pause for a moment, but her agitation was such that she ploughed ahead. “Catherine saw you at Almack’s in … in earnest conversation with her neighbour, Mrs. Marsh.”