The beleaguered Lord Bourne Read online

  CHAPTER TEN

  IT WAS A MIRACLE the two of them were even speaking to each other. Heaven only knew Jennie had a full budget of woes, thanks to Kit; and his life had not exactly been a bed of thornless roses since her advent into it. But they were both young, both strongly attracted to each other, and, at this comfortably romantic time of night, disposed to putting their squabbles aside for the moment and simply enjoying the fact that, for the moment at least, they seemed to be in harmony with each other. Youth had many drawbacks, but the ability to adapt readily to most any situation certainly couldn’t be termed one of them.

  So it was a conspiratorially merry pair that ascended the stairway of the Bourne mansion shoes in hand, alternately giggling and shushing each other as they made their way to the master bedchamber, Kit pushing up the tip of his aristocratic nose and oinking under his breath and Jennie giggling behind her hand as she pleaded halfheartedly for him to stop being such a goose.

  It was only once they were in Kit’s chamber, the door safely closed behind them, that Jennie began to feel the first tremors of uncertainty. She had been here before, as if she could forget, and even now, even with her feelings running so deliciously high, she was not quite sure that she should be here again. Each time they had been together it had ended badly. So why was she taking yet a third chance at heartache?

  Kit could sense Jennie’s sudden reluctance, even as he was mentally stripping her of her lovely evening gown and planning his strategy meant toward getting her into his bed with as little fuss as possible. “What’s amiss, kitten?” he asked, trying for normalcy. “If you’re worried about undoing that long line of buttons marching up your back, never fear. I am more than willing to act the lady’s maid for the evening. Don’t be shy, kitten,” he coaxed, smiling as he walked toward her. “I promise to close my eyes if that’s what’s bothering you. I am nothing, you see, if not discreet.”

  Taking refuge in anger, Jennie sniffed and retorted, “Discreet, is it, Kit? Oh, aren’t you just? That’s pitching it rather high for a man who was just this evening cavorting about in public with that horrid actress. If you had an ounce of decency you’d be down on your knees begging forgiveness for your indiscretion, and not standing there grinning like a bear and trying to get me into your bed!”

  Jennie’s plain speaking effectively doused Kit’s ardor, and conversely ignited his temper. “You picked a plaguey queer time to be splitting hairs over which of us was indiscreet, madam. I did no more than any man, single or bracketed, has ever done. It was you, my dear, who set a precedent tonight by making a public scene the likes of which would put Caro Lamb’s worst folly in the light of a schoolgirl prank.” Considering the fact that Caro Lamb had been said to have once danced naked on a dining-room table in front of a roomful of titled gentlemen, that was really pitching it rather high, and Kit knew it the minute his words were out. But, he could see, the damage was already done. Jennie’s lower lip began to tremble, and it looked as if she was about to break into tears.

  But Jennie did not cry, although she was sorely tried not to burst into tears at Kit’s unfair insult. It took her a moment or two to get herself together, but in the end she tilted up her chin and decided to state her position once and for all and then walk out of the room, head held high, never to darken his lordship’s door again. “It appears, husband, you see me in the light of a resident freak. After my behavior tonight, for which I shall not apologize, I may just agree with you. However, I will not take this blame alone. Did it never occur to you that I was left to fend for myself in London, having never been offered any assistance from you? And what is a great deal more to the point,” she went on, clearly extremely incensed, “I believe I have managed extremely well on my own, having assembled a staff and found someone of good standing who agreed to shepherd me about London whilst my erstwhile husband was off behaving like a mongrel dog who had slipped his leash. So don’t you tyrannize over me, Kit Wilde!”

  Jennie in a heat was a treat to Kit’s eyes, and he almost made the fatal error of saying so. Instead, common sense intervened and he struck a pose of husbandly penitence. “It was my fault that we had such an unfortunate incident tonight. I only went with Ozzy because he’d been badgering me to accompany him. If I had only known that you planned to attend the theater tonight…”

  “You would have volunteered to drag me along like a good husband?” Jennie finished for him, crossing her arms over her chest and allowing her slipper-clad toe to tap out a lively tattoo on the floor.

  Kit had been a soldier long enough to know when defeat was inevitable. So realizing, he opted for a dignified surrender in the hope he would be allowed to keep his sword, as the saying went, and retain at least a semblance of honor. “I’ve neglected you terribly, haven’t I, kitten,” he soothed, gathering her into his loose embrace and stroking her back as a child strokes a favorite pet.

  “You’ve been horrid,” Jennie mumbled into his chest, not seeing any reason to dress the thing up in fine linen.

  “That’s my kitten,” Kit said, a laugh rumbling deep in his chest, “not drawing in her claws until she’s sure she’s drawn blood. All right, sweetings, I’ve been horrid. But am I completely beyond forgiveness? Even if I solemnly promise to mend my ways? After all, I haven’t been so bad, have I? I haven’t cut up nasty about Montague once since he took that cleaver to me. And didn’t I only cuff Del’s ear for copping my gold watch the other day, when I could just as easily have tossed him out on his dishonest rump?”

  “He said he was only keeping his hand in, so to speak,” Jennie protested feebly, “so as not to get rusty.”

  Kit knew Jennie was weakening, and he immediately took advantage of the situation, slowly maneuvering them toward the wide bed as his hands made short work of the line of covered buttons that represented his last barrier to her capitulation. “Of course he was, kitten,” he concurred easily, nuzzling her ear with his warm, talented lips. He had her on the coverlet now, and by the way her soft arms were encircling his neck, he was certain that this evening would have a more than satisfactory conclusion. Nothing, he mused self-satisfyingly, was so bad that a little lovemaking couldn’t make it right.

  There came a sudden knock at the door, followed by the sound of a low-pitched argument going on in the hallway. Kit muttered a violent oath and rolled over onto his back, searching his memory once again for some sin he had committed that he was being tortured this way. Recognizing Miss Bundy’s voice, he called out, “Bundy! What in thunder are you about out there? Can’t a man have a little peace in his own bed?” The inadvertent double-entendre caused him to chuckle a moment before his temper regained the upper hand. “Damn it, woman, speak up! You were loud enough before.”

  Being no more pleased by the interruption than her husband, Jennie was still quicker than he to realize that Bundy would not disturb them unless something very important was happening. Struggling back into her gown, which gaped badly now that its buttons were all undone, she scrambled off the bed and opened the door. “This had better be good,” she gritted between clenched teeth, surprising herself by realizing she was feeling more than a little deprived at being interrupted.

  “Oh laws,” Goldie whined from her position slightly to the rear of Miss Bundy. “I knowed it was wrong ta bother his lordship when he was frolickin’, and so I told Miss Busybody here.”

  Miss Bundy, who did not look lightly upon being termed a busybody, was quick to put an end to the maid’s lamentations. “Goldie,” she said with a hard edge to her voice, “you haven’t the wit of a flea. And it’s not as if there were anything else to do, what with the tweeny bawling like a sick calf and calling for Miss Jane.”

  Jennie deciphered enough of this interchange to realize that Charity, that poor dear thing, was the reason for this late-night intrusion. “What’s wrong with Charity?” she questioned the agitated Miss Bundy, drawing the woman inside and closing the door on the teary-eyed Goldie. “Did she have a bad dream?”

  Miss Bundy’s ex
acerbated nerves did not need this naive assumption to push them beyond the point of no return. Having had Jennie in her charge since the girl was in soggy drawers, Miss Bundy now addressed the grown woman as if she were still a child. “Is she having a bad dream? If that isn’t foolish beyond permission—as if I wouldn’t know how to deal with such a thing without banging down his lordship’s door in the middle of the night. No, she is not having a bad dream. The chit is a bad dream, and now she’s about to do just what I warned you she would do when you took her in. She’s about to, er…” And here Miss Bundy’s resolve deserted her, seeing as how the earl, wrapped now in his maroon dressing gown, was standing there staring at her as if she were the oddest creature in the world.

  “What’s wrong?” Jennie persisted, clearly perplexed. “What could Charity have done that’s so upset the household? After all, she’s only a baby.”

  Kit rubbed his nose and chuckled softly, shaking his head. “She certainly is, kitten,” he concurred easily. “And it appears the baby is about to have a baby. Am I correct, Miss Bundy?”

  The older woman, now looking as if she were about to have a spasm any moment, only nodded her head. “I know absolutely nothing about such things,” she whined, wringing her hands.

  “Yes,” Kit smiled, taking the woman’s arm and leading her out of the room, “I was reasonably certain that you didn’t. Never fear, Miss Bundy, all shall be well. You just go wake Renfrew and tell him what’s going on, and then you go back to bed. You look as if you need to rest a bit. Renfrew will take it from here.”

  Closing the door firmly on Miss Bundy’s back, Kit turned to face his wife, his mind now firmly locked on the subject at hand—getting her back into his bed and taking up where they had left off when they were so rudely interrupted. But at the sight of Jennie, sitting on the edge of the bed and putting on her satin slippers, his brow furrowed and he was forced to ask her just what she was about.

  “I’m going to Charity, of course,” she answered civilly. “She needs me, I know she does, because she made me promise to stay with her when her time came. She’s so dreadfully young, you know.”

  “And you’re so very old?” Kit questioned, pushing her back down on the bed by the simple expedient of placing his hands firmly on her shoulders. “Renfrew will call in a doctor,” he reasoned patiently. “I arranged the whole thing with him when I first saw Charity’s condition. The doctor is probably on his way already. Besides, you’re much too young to be witness to such a thing.”

  “Oh, stuff!” Jennie protested, removing his hands and rising once more to her feet. “If ever I heard a faint heart, it is you, Kit Wilde. I’ve seen kittens and puppies born a hundred times. There can be little difference between the species.”

  Kit smiled evilly. “I don’t know about that, sweetings. If Charity has a litter, though, I’ll be the first to admit to your reasoning.” His handsome face hardened when he realized that Jennie was serious; she had every intention of being a witness to the birth. Grabbing her elbow as she made her way purposefully to the door, he acknowledged her loyalty but at the same time insisted she listen to reason. She had no place in any room where a birth was about to take place. A conception, he mused to himself without so much as one single pang for his selfishness, was quite another matter!

  Looking down at Kit’s hand, her expression telling him that she was not best pleased to see his fingers still clutching her person, Jennie told him coldly, “You can either detach that hand, my lord, or grace us with your presence in Charity’s room. These affecting demonstrations meant to impress on me the delicacy of my station do nothing but highlight your own self-interest. Now,” she ended regally, “I suggest you either unhand me or prepare to witness the birth yourself, because I am going to sit with Charity!”

  Kit was tempted, sorely tempted, to take up Jennie’s challenge, but in the end his eyes slid away from her penetrating stare and his hand slipped from her arm. Jennie marched from the room with the look of someone going off on a mission of destiny, and Kit, desperately wishing there were someone about he could lay violent hands on and so rid himself of this nasty urge to crush something, stomped off downstairs to the drawing room and proceeded to get roaringly, messily drunk.

  JENNIE WAS SPENDING the morning at home, having been kept up most of the night attending the birth of Charity’s son, George, named after the Prince Regent, and not his natural father—a man Jennie had commented was anything but natural. Renfrew had been a brick through the whole thing, calmly ordering everyone about and then, once the hubbub was over and the doctor gone, taking charge of having the softly snoring earl carried to his bedchamber, very much the worse for the prodigious amount of brandy he had consumed.

  Having given Renfrew the morning off, telling him he deserved a lie-down in his quarters, and finding that Bob, Ben and Del had deserted their posts in favor of the kitchen where Montague was busily whipping up some strawberry tarts, Jennie was forced to answer the knocker herself, which is the only reason she was now sitting across the tea table from the smiling Dean Ives. At their first meeting she had thought the man handsome, but closer inspection revealed the man’s rather mean-looking, close-set, ice-blue eyes, and his looks fell off rather sadly once her own eyes concentrated on the man’s single bad feature. Perhaps she was just tired, she thought charitably; after all, it wasn’t as if the man had ever done anything to put her off.

  “I’m sorry Lord Bourne is not up and about yet this morning,” she apologized sweetly, pouring tea, and then making a great show of yawning behind her hand, “but we had a bit of a to-do here last night and the whole household is at sixs and sevens this morning.” If she thought Mr. Ives would take the hint and cut his visit short she soon saw that she had sadly mistaken her man, for he merely nodded his understanding and then sat back comfortably, looking as if he had every intention of taking up permanent residence on the red satin Sheraton chair.

  “Yes,” he said, looking at her quite oddly out of the corners of his eyes, “I can imagine it was not the most tranquil of evenings once you and Bourne got around to discussing that little contretemps at Covent Garden. But not to worry,” he consoled her, waving his hand negligently as Jennie stiffened in her seat. “I for one will not let it be bruited about town. Besides, it was probably Miss Gladwin, that bold piece, who put you up to it in the first place.”

  “You are above yourself, sir!” Jennie shot back, clearly intending to order the man from her house, but she was not able to finish what she had intended to be a thundering scold by Ben (his mouth circled with white flour and bits of sugar), who entered the room and announced that Miss Gladwin, that “right rum blowen,” was without.

  And so it was that Jennie had to content herself with giving Mr. Ives a look that would blister paint before rising to greet her cousin, whose woebegone face served to drive anything but concern for the other girl out of her mind. “Lucy, pet,” she commiserated, drawing the girl down beside her on the settee, “you’re looking burnt to the socket. It was I who was up all night, not you.”

  While Jennie and Lucy held hands and whispered under their breath, totally ignoring the man who should have had enough sense to excuse himself from this intimate family gathering, Dean took the time to observe the pair and adjust his ideas accordingly. He had thought Jennie to be an easy touch, but she had shown him that she could be a cool hand when one of her own was attacked. Indeed, if that hellcat Gladwin chit hadn’t shown up so conveniently he knew he’d be out on his ear by now, no doubt with a sound admonition never to darken the Wilde door again. Since that possibility did not at all suit his plans for staying close as sticking plaster to the young, wealthy earl and his beautiful wife, he immediately set about the task of making amends for his verbal faux pas.

  He tried flattery first, thinking to work his way back into the countess’s good books by waxing almost poetic over the beauty of Miss Gladwin’s bonnet; but when Lucy merely wrinkled her nose and said, “What, this old thing? Are you losing your eyesight, M
r. Ives?” he knew that Lucy at least was too smart to let fine words cut any wheedle with her, and he once more retired from the field but, unfortunately for the ladies, not from the premises.

  Jennie had the softest heart in creation, but she became a tiger in the defense of her friends, and therefore she felt not a single qualm as she persisted in whispering to Lucy, pointedly excluding Mr. Ives from the conversation. Wilde has the devil’s own luck, that neglected gentleman was left to think, filling his ice-blue eyes with the sight of an animated Jennie describing the wonder of Charity’s new son. From his observation last night at the theater, Mr. Ives felt that his lordship had deep feelings for his bride, no matter how sadly he neglected her, and he wondered if that affection could be turned to his own advantage.

  As this new train of thought interested him to the exclusion of milking whatever he could from a ridiculous conversation consisting mostly of exclamations about the tininess of infant fingernails and the softness of infant skin, Mr. Ives stood, bowed gracefully from the waist, and took his leave, an action that caused Jennie to mutter feelingly, “One can only hope he plans a prolonged sojourn to the Antipodes.”

  But the ladies were not to be left alone for long, as Del, bits of sticky strawberry hanging from his livery, soon arrived to announce that Mr. Norwood, “that cater-cousin to the guv’nor, is ’angin’ about in the ’all, and iffen the pantler don’t get ’is arse ata anchor in the ’all soon there’ll be no tellin’ who all will soon be ’ammerin’ down the door.” His dire warning delivered, Del rubbed a finger along the front of his jacket, and turned to depart, leaving Ozzy to ask what in the world was a pantler, and did her ladyship know she had thieves for footmen?

  “Thieves, Mr. Norwood?” Jennie repeated coldly, clearly taking exception to his bald statement.