Читать книгу Nicola Cornick Collection: The Last Rake In London / Notorious / Desired - Nicola Cornick, Nicola Cornick - Страница 16

Sally was not sure how she got outside. She vaguely remembered running back down the staircase and seeing Jack’s and Stephen’s startled faces as she rushed past them. Jack put a hand out to her and called her name, but Sally brushed him aside and slammed the door open. She hurried across the terrace and stood with her palms resting on the flat top of the wall that bounded the moat, and breathed in deep breaths of the fresh night air in an attempt to still the whirling, giddy spin of sickness within her.

You mustn’t listen to all the gossip about his past, Lady Ottoline had said to her only the night before, but it was difficult not to listen to fiction when Jack himself refused to speak of his first love and Sally knew nothing beyond the fact that he had loved her and they had run away together and that she had been shot. To think that it might have been Jack who had killed Merle was shattering, impossible, even if it had been a tragic accident.

An icy trickle of despair ran down Sally’s spine. She could not believe it of Jack. She simply could not. It was not just because she loved him. She did not think she was so blinded to his faults because of that. She knew Jack could be ruthless. She knew that his mistress had died. But the rest …

It would explain the scale of the scandal, a little voice whispered inside her. It would explain why he was banished abroad. It would explain Jack’s silence …

‘Sally?’

With a start Sally realised that Jack had come to stand beside her. The night wind was ruffling his dark hair and he raised an absentminded hand to smooth it down in one of the gestures that she was coming to love. He was looking at her with concern and Sally realised that she was gripping the masonry so tightly that her knuckles were white and the stone was scoring her hands.

‘Sally?’ he said again. ‘What is the matter? What has happened? Did Connie say something to upset you?’

‘Yes,’ Sally said. She did not think of lying to him. She could not see a way of pretending that there was nothing the matter when suddenly there was this ugly, monstrous secret between them.

‘Yes,’ she said again. ‘She told me that Bertie had told her—’ She stopped and cleared her throat. ‘She told me that Bertie had told her you killed Merle Jameson,’ she said. ‘She said that you murdered her.’

There was a silence. Behind them the fountain in the courtyard splashed softly. A swan floated past on the smooth waters of the moat, its head tucked beneath its wing as it slept.

‘And did you believe her?’ Jack asked quietly.

Sally looked at him. ‘You told me yourself that she had died,’ she said slowly, knowing that it was no answer.

Jack took a step closer to her. ‘You don’t trust me,’ he said, and his voice was hard.

‘I don’t know!’ Sally spun around on him. Her heart felt torn. ‘God knows, I don’t want to believe you capable of murder. I cannot believe it! I cannot even imagine that you might hurt her by accident. But you have never told me the truth, Jack. You told me Merle died, but you never told me what happened.’

‘And because of my reticence you think I may be guilty?’ Jack’s icy tone flayed her to the bone.

‘No!’ Sally spoke, once again on instinct, and when he turned away from her she felt sick and dizzy all over again. She did not want to believe it, could not believe it was true …

‘Connie was right.’ Jack drove his hands into his trouser pockets and stood braced, staring out into the darkness. ‘I did kill Merle.’

‘No,’ Sally said again, but this time it came out as a whisper. She felt cold with shock.

‘I did not pull the trigger myself,’ Jack went on, as though she had not spoken. ‘But that does not matter. I was guilty. Her death was my fault. And I have carried that guilt ever since.’ He turned slightly towards Sally, but when she reached out a hand to touch his arm he drew back as though he could not bear it.

‘It was my fault,’ he repeated. His tone was violent. ‘You wanted to know the truth and now you have it.’

‘What happened?’ Sally felt cold through and through. She had thought she wanted to know the truth, but now she was desperately unsure. ‘Was there an accident?’

Jack folded his arms. ‘I told you before that I was young and foolish. I fell madly in love with Merle and was desperate for her to leave her husband and run away with me. When she agreed I thought I was the happiest man on earth. Merle wasn’t happy, though. She was afraid. She was afraid of what her husband would do when he found out. And I …’ he sighed ‘… I laughed off her fears. Jameson was frail and I was young and strong and arrogant and thought I could protect her.’

His face was bleak.

‘When Jameson caught up with us he had a gun. I thought he was going to challenge me—kill me, even. That would have been just. I never thought that he would kill Merle instead. Up until the last moment, his attention, his hatred, was focused entirely on me. I was afraid too by this point. I thought I was going to die. But he shot Merle, not me, and it was my fault. Her death was my responsibility.’

‘No,’ Sally said. Her lips shaped the word, but made no sound. ‘It was not your fault,’ she said. ‘You did not pull the trigger.’

‘As good as,’ Jack said. ‘I was the one who persuaded Merle to elope. I was the one who swore to protect her. I was the one who failed.’

‘She chose to go with you,’ Sally argued. ‘It was her decision, just as it was Jameson’s decision to pull the trigger. You cannot bear that blame, Jack.’

Jack’s expression was blank and Sally despaired of her words ever reaching him. He had kept his guilt and his misery locked away inside for ten years. At last she understood that part of him that was unreachable; the bitter part that had abandoned the idea of love. She felt hopeless of being able to change that now.

But she had to try.

‘You told me you loved Merle sincerely,’ she said, ashamed that even at a time like this she could feel jealousy over Jack’s deep love for the other woman. ‘You loved her and you wanted her to be happy. You thought that happiness could be achieved if the two of you ran away together. And who knows—you could have been right if matters had fallen out differently.’ She fixed her gaze on the dark trees etched against the night sky. ‘You knew that Michael Jameson was a dangerous and violent man. That was one of the things that you wanted to save Merle from, because you loved her. So you did what you thought was right. You asked her to elope with you and she agreed. She chose to go with you.’

Jack did not speak, but she sensed that his dark eyes were fixed on her face. ‘Neither of you could have foreseen what would happen,’ Sally said. ‘Neither of you knew what Michael Jameson would do. Merle’s death was his responsibility, Jack. It was his fault.’

‘You did not go with Gregory Holt,’ Jack said.

‘That was different,’ Sally said. ‘I did not love him. But if I had, I would have chosen to run away with him exactly as Merle did with you.’ She smiled at him, but his face was set hard in the moonlight. ‘I think that you could love again,’ she said softly, ‘though I expect it will be different from your feelings for Merle. But it need not be less profound.’

She took a deep breath. This was the hardest part. ‘Which is why,’ she said, ‘you should not marry, Jack, until you find someone you can love. Least of all should you marry me.’ She stopped, her voice threatening to break. She wished she had guarded her heart more carefully when they had first met instead of tumbling into love with him like a young girl fresh from the schoolroom. But it was too late for those regrets now. She loved Jack Kestrel, but he could not love her in return and, foolish as she might have been, she would not be so unwise as to marry him and then watch him fall in love with someone else when his heart had healed.

‘Good night, Jack,’ she said. ‘Think about what I have said. It was not your fault. Let it go.’

She heard him call her name, but she did not wait. She knew she had to get back inside the house and into the privacy of her room before she was tempted to reveal her most secret feelings. She could not tell Jack that she loved him and expose the deepest vulnerability of all.

Jack stood on the darkened terrace for a long time after Sally had gone. He could smell the faintest, most elusive hint of her fragrance still in the air and for a shocking moment he felt so bereft without her presence that he was hollow with longing. For the first time in ten years he felt at a loss, unsure of himself in his relationship with a woman. He had told her more of his feelings for Merle than he had ever told another living person. He had locked that pain and that grief away for all those long years, but Sally had gently brought him right to the edge of the precipice. He was so close to opening his heart to her and revealing his true feelings. Except that now he was not sure what those feelings were.

A few days ago it had all seemed so easy. He had desired Sally Bowes. He had felt so powerful a passion for her, but he had thought it no more than lust. He had told himself that he could manage his lusts. He had always done so before. His emotions had never been involved.

But one night with Sally had made him realise that he needed her as well as wanted her. Yet still he had not seen his danger. He had assumed that because he had kept the memory of Merle preserved so perfectly, because he had loved her with a youthful and idealistic first passion, that nothing and no one could ever match that. Now he was not so sure. He did not feel for Sally what he had felt for Merle. His first love had had an innocence about it, despite the circumstances. It had been rash, idealistic and magical. What he felt for Sally was deep; his desire for her was the least complicated part of his feelings. He had tried to pretend that they were his only feelings, but he knew now that he needed her. He wanted to spend his life with her. He wanted to grow old with her and for her to have his children.

He did not want to have to live without her.

He admitted to himself that he was afraid. He, who had fought for his country in the cause of freedom and justice, who had shown extreme physical bravery and made difficult decisions of life and death, did not have the moral courage to confront his fears of love.

‘You should not marry, Jack, until you find someone you can love. Least of all should you marry me.’

Sally’s words seemed to hang on the night air. She had been generous, just as she had been to Gregory Holt when she had refused to take advantage of his love for her. Jack had misjudged her and insulted her, yet now she was generous enough to try to help him and to prevent him from making an error that could conceivably lead him to repeating the mistakes of the past. She had thought that he might marry her and then fall in love with another woman and be trapped.

Except that he could not imagine wanting to be with anyone other than Sally …

Jack swore softly under his breath and started to walk slowly back towards the house. He knew where his thoughts were leading him and he did not like it. He did not like it because he was not in control. Sally had the power in their relationship now. He thought about the power that she had over him because of his emerging feelings for her. He was afraid to confront them.

They terrified him.

Sally slept badly and awoke to a bright, sunny Sunday morning that seemed an ill match for her feelings. They rode to church by horse-drawn carriage—Lady Ottoline would not dream of permitting anyone to be conveyed to the service in a motorcar—and immediately the difficulties of precedence raised their head again when Connie insisted on riding in the first barouche with Lady Ottoline and Charlotte, leaving no space for Sally.

‘As a widow woman,’ Connie said to her sister, ‘you must become accustomed to taking a step back, Sally.’

‘I am a spinster, Mrs Basset,’ Lady Ottoline said sharply, her bright gaze fixed on Connie’s petulant little face, ‘not even a widow, and I have never been accustomed to taking a step back in my life.’

‘Oh, but it is different for you, ma’am,’ Connie said blithely, ‘for you are the daughter of a duke.’

‘And Miss Bowes is your elder sister,’ Lady Ottoline said, ‘and, for reasons that I cannot quite fathom but that do her great credit, she has wanted the best for you all your life. The least that you can do is show her a little respect.’ And she patted the seat in the barouche beside her and gestured to Sally to join her.

Not even Connie’s elephant hide was proof against such a set-down and she rode in the second carriage with Bertie and the Harringtons, all the while shooting venomous glances at Sally and Lady Ottoline and waving her hand in ostentatious display at the villagers so that everyone could see her enormous diamond ring.

‘Truly, Sally, I do not know how you tolerate her,’ Charley whispered to Sally as they slipped into the family box pew in the little fifteenth-century church and Connie’s complaining tones bounced off the rafters as she sent the hapless Bertie off to find her extra cushions. ‘I am afraid that I would have strangled her long since if she was my sister!’

‘I know,’ Sally whispered. ‘I am sorry. She has become much worse since the wedding. I think that her status has gone to her head.’

Charley snorted. ‘Bertie is no great catch! Not like Jack. And it is not for you to apologise for her, Sally. It’s not your fault! Besides—’ she shot Sally a mischievous look from her dark eyes ‘—I think that Aunt Otto will utterly crush her. I know Aunt Otto, and I am not taken in by her quietness. She is working up to something tremendous!’

Sally did not have a great deal of spare energy to worry about Connie and her discourtesy. She was far more concerned about Jack. The pleasure that they had taken in each other’s company the previous day had vanished. Jack had sat across from her in the barouche, moody and withdrawn, and once again Sally had felt a helplessness that she could not reach him and barely knew him at all. Charley had also noticed Jack’s bad mood and had sought to reassure her:

‘It is just a way that men have, you know,’ she confided. ‘I have observed that if Stephen is wrestling with a problem he barely speaks to me at all until the matter is solved.’ She opened her eyes wide. ‘Such silence is quite incomprehensible to me and it used to worry me dreadfully in the early days of our marriage, until I realised that it was just his way. Jack is the same.’

Sally smiled, but was not reassured. She knew the nature of the problem that must be troubling Jack. It was the same matter that had kept her tossing and turning all night. Their engagement was surely at an end now. She had finished it the previous night when she had told Jack he should not marry until he had found love again. When they travelled back to London the following morning they would go their separate ways.

‘Thank goodness that Greg Holt has gone,’ Charley added irrepressibly as the choir procession heralded the start of the service. ‘I think his continued compliments to you would have made Jack intolerably bad-tempered!’

It did not help Sally that the vicar preached on the benefits of a happy marriage and Connie beamed and sat with her wedding and engagement bands on prominent display. Lady Ottoline nodded sagely at various points in the sermon and when the vicar quoted that the value of a good woman was above that of rubies, she shot Connie a very hard look indeed.

Jack excused himself immediately after Sunday lunch and he and Stephen went off to look at the hedge-laying work on the home farm, whilst Connie and Bertie set out to look at properties for sale in the neighbouring villages. Charlotte had turned pale at the news that she might have Connie as a neighbour and had sworn to bribe anyone with property on the market not to sell. She and Sally and Lady Ottoline took their parasols and took afternoon tea on the terrace overlooking the lake.

‘It is entirely delightful,’ Lady Ottoline opined, as she watched Lucy playing by the lake, ‘to see children enjoying themselves here at Dauntsey. When you and Jack are married, you must encourage your sister Petronella to bring her children here. Jack is very good with children.’

‘I have observed it,’ Sally said. The sadness clutched at her heart.

‘Perhaps,’ Lady Ottoline continued, ‘you have talked about setting up your own nursery?’

‘Great-Aunt Otto!’ Charley said, laughing. ‘Sally and Jack are but recently engaged!’

‘I am only asking,’ Lady Ottoline said mildly. She turned her bright stare on Charlotte. ‘If Sally were to become enceinte, it might even encourage you to increase your nursery, Charlotte!’

Charley laughed again. ‘Stephen and I have only been married for four years, Aunt Otto, and we have already produced Lucy. Give us time.’

‘You could have had at least three children in that time,’ Lady Ottoline observed. ‘I cannot think why you delay.’

‘Perhaps,’ Charley said, her mouth full of sultana scones and jam, ‘because we are simply enjoying one another’s company, Aunt.’

Lady Ottoline sniffed. ‘If you enjoy each other’s company that much, Charlotte, you would definitely have more children by now!’

Charley caught Sally’s eye and rolled her eyes. Sally hid her smile in her teacup. It was pleasant sitting here by the lake in the afternoon sunshine—so soothing that she could almost forget that her engagement to Jack was a sham that would shortly be at an end and there would certainly be no children for them, not now, not ever. It was even more pleasant to be wearing one of Charley’s tea gowns, blessedly free of the constraints of the corset beneath. Its loose and flowing lines were cool on such a hot day and made her feel relaxed and sleepy.

‘I expect that Jack will be purchasing a country estate for the pair of you shortly,’ Lady Ottoline said, turning her observant dark gaze on Sally. ‘Of course, he will have both Saltires and Kestrel Court in Suffolk one day, but a man cannot have too much land, I always say, and at least he has the income to support it.’

‘We have not discussed it, your ladyship,’ Sally said truthfully, wishing that Lady Ottoline would leave all questions relating to their imaginary future.

Lady Ottoline snorted. ‘You seem to have discussed nothing! Young people today are remarkably lax in their planning!’

Charley opened her mouth to spring to Sally’s defence again, but there was a sudden scream from the lake where the nursemaid was supervising Lucy’s games. They all turned to see what was going on. The maid was shrieking ineffectually and running along the edge of the water. Of Lucy there was no sign other than her bonnet floating out on the lake.

‘Lucy!’ Charlotte said in a horrified whisper. She was half-out of her seat, the china cup falling from her hand to smash on the terrace. ‘She’s fallen off the jetty into the deep water! What can we do? I can’t swim.’

Sally did not hesitate. She ran down from the terrace towards the lake. All she could see was a hot day in June on the River Isis so many years ago, and her father losing his footing in the punt and toppling backwards, oh so slowly, into the water. She had waited then, waited for him to surface and swim to the bank, but as several frantic moments had passed there had been no sign of him. She had never seen him alive again.

That had been her mistake, to take no action, to wait. She had blamed herself for failing him and she had been terrified of water ever since. But she could not afford to let that fear rule her now.

Sally could feel the planks of the wooden jetty hot underneath the soles of her thin slippers. The maid had stopped screaming now and was running back up the slope of the grass towards the house. Charlotte had already disappeared around the corner of the stables to get help.

Sally ran to the end of the jetty and jumped. The water was deeper than she had imagined, closing over her head for one brief, terrifying moment before she broke the surface, gasping for air. It was shockingly cold and thick with weed and sludge. The beautiful lacy tea gown was immediately soaked and wrapped around her legs, weighing her down.

Gulping a breath of air, she dived under the water and felt a mixture of inexpressible relief and abject fear as she saw Lucy’s frighteningly inert body floating beside the jetty uprights. She swam over and grabbed the child, hoping and praying that Lucy had not swallowed too much water or hit her head on the wooden frame of the jetty when she fell. The little girl’s body felt heavy, weighed down by water, threatening to slip from her grasp. Sally’s arms ached as she tried to hold her up.

People were running down the lawn now; one of the grooms with a ladder, another with a rope, and Jack in front of them all, ripping off his jacket as he ran and dropping it on the grass so that he could dive straight in and catch hold of Lucy from Sally’s arms, passing the little girl up into the eager grasp of the grooms.

Sally felt her skirts hitch on something under the water and struggled ineffectually to free herself, gulping a mouthful of clammy weed-filled water in the process. Her limbs suddenly felt weighted with lead, her shoulders aching, and the drag of her skirts pulling her down. She thrashed about, reaching for the rope that snaked into the water beside her, missing it and going under again. For a second she had a terrifying vision of what it must have been like for her father as the water closed over his head, and then Jack was beside her, his arm hard about her waist, dragging her up into the daylight again and she could feel his strength and knew that she was safe. He scooped her up in his arms and her sodden skirts ripped and then she was rolling over and over on the warm wood of the jetty and someone was wrapping a blanket about her and the heat of the sun started to penetrate her chill and she began to shiver and shiver with reaction.

Charlotte was holding Lucy in her arms and rubbing her chilled body with the blanket. Lucy had recovered her consciousness and been violently sick, which Sally could only think was a good thing. Lady Ottoline was marshalling the servants, sending a groom to Dauntsey village for a doctor, despatching housemaids to warm some water for baths and to fetch fresh towels and blankets. Stephen had just arrived, pale and distraught, to support his wife and daughter back up to the house.

‘Come on.’ Jack swept Sally up into his arms. ‘We need to get you out of those wet clothes and into a warm bath.’

‘Thank goodness,’ Sally said, through chattering teeth. ‘Thank goodness you came, Jack. I was so afraid I was going to let her go. I thought she was dead!’ Her voice broke on the word and she turned her face into the warmth of Jack’s neck and breathed in the reassuring scent of his skin. For a second she thought she felt his lips brush her cheek in utter tenderness although his arms were as strong as steel about her.

‘You did very well,’ he whispered. ‘You saved Lucy’s life.’

Sally closed her eyes as he carried her up to the terrace, into the house and directly up the stairs to her bedroom, ignoring the ineffectual fluttering of the servants and shutting the bedroom door in their faces.

‘Take those wet clothes off,’ he ordered, as he put Sally gently on her feet in the black-and-white tiled bathroom and turned on the taps so that the water gushed into the bath.

Sally blushed. ‘I will do no such thing with you in the room! You can send one of the maids to attend to me.’

Jack shook his head. ‘They are all at sixes and sevens and would be no use at all. You will have to make do with me. I’m going to fetch some hot water to top up the bath; by the time I get back, I expect you to be naked and in the water.’

The hot colour deepened in Sally’s face even as she shivered in the wet folds of the tea gown. She heard the door slam behind Jack and started to struggle with the buttons and laces of the dress, but her fingers felt cold and were shaking so much that the fastenings slipped from her grip. When Jack returned, what seemed like a mere few minutes later, he found her half-out of the gown and struggling helplessly while the material dripped a puddle onto the floor.

‘One of these days,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘I will get you out of your clothes without destroying them in the process.’

He ripped the sodden shreds of the tea gown from Sally’s body and dropped them on the floor.

Sally gave a gasp. ‘Charley’s dress!’

‘You surely don’t think that it would be fit to wear ever again, do you?’ Jack countered. He looked at her. ‘Do you want me to take off your chemise as well?’

‘No!’ Sally said. ‘Go away!’

Jack grinned. ‘I’ll wait for you in the bedroom.’

After he had gone out, Sally managed to struggle out of the clinging remnants of her underwear and slid into the scented waters of the bath with a little sigh of relief. She lay back, eyes closed, whilst the hot water lapped about her shoulders and soothed her cold body. But the little shivers that racked her would not go away. Unbidden, the image of her father’s lifeless body came into her mind. His face had been grey when they had finally dragged him from the river, the weed clinging to his body, sodden and unmoving. She shuddered, remembering the weight of Lucy in her arms and the terrible conviction she had that the child would slip from her grasp and be lost to her for ever, just as Sir Peter had been …

‘Sally?’

She had not heard Jack’s voice through the tormenting images in her mind, but now she realised with a pang of shock that she must have been sitting there a long time; the bath water was cooling and he had come into the bathroom to find her and once again she was shaking and shaking as though she could not stop. Jack gave an oath, grabbed a towel and plucked her bodily from the water, wrapping the material around her and holding her close as he carried her into the bedroom and dropped her on to the bed. A second later he was back at her side with a glass of brandy in his hands. He held it to her lips.

‘You’re in shock,’ he said harshly. ‘I should have realised.’

Sally shook her head. ‘No—’

‘Drink this, then we’ll talk.’

The spirit burned Sally’s throat and helped her to pull her thoughts back from the brink. She put the glass down and drew the towel more closely and protectively about her, reaching for the eiderdown and drawing it up to her chin.

‘I am sorry,’ she said. ‘I think I am more shaken than I realised. It is true that the accident reminded me of my father. He died of drowning.’

Jack swore again. ‘I did not realise. I am sorry.’

‘I do not speak of it,’ Sally said, burrowing beneath the covers and feeling the warmth gradually banish the chill in her bones. ‘It was a long time ago now. We were punting on the river and he lost his footing and fell. I thought he would swim ashore and I tried to grab his hand, but he disappeared. I waited and waited—and only realised too late that there was something dreadfully wrong.’

‘What happened?’ Jack asked. He sat down on the edge of the bed and sought her hand beneath the covers, holding it in a comforting grasp.

‘When I realised he had not come up to the surface again, I screamed and screamed,’ Sally said. ‘Some of the other boatmen came then and helped me search, but it was too late. The police recovered his body from the river that evening. He had hit his head on the edge of the punt as he fell and sank like a stone.’ Another shudder racked her. ‘I have been terrified of water ever since.’

‘And yet you jumped in without hesitation to rescue Lucy,’ Jack said, his grip tightening on her hand.

‘I could not let it happen again,’ Sally said. ‘It was my fault that Papa died. I learned to swim after that, in case I ever needed it.’

Jack was very still. ‘What do you mean when you say that it was your fault your father died?’

Sally freed herself from his grip and fidgeted a little with the edge of the eiderdown. She avoided his eyes.

‘I could have saved him,’ she said.

‘And then Nell and Connie would not have had to fend for themselves?’ Jack suggested. ‘I had wondered at your determination to take care of them.’

Sally was shocked by his perception. She had not intended to say so much. She had not wanted to reveal her innermost fear and guilt.

‘I am the eldest,’ she excused.

‘But that is not why you struggle so hard to defend them,’ Jack said. Sally saw something change in his face. ‘You feel guilt for something that is not your fault.’ Abruptly, Jack stood up. He walked across to the window before turning back to look at her.

‘Do you remember telling me last night that I should not take the blame for something that was not my fault?’ he said conversationally.

‘That was different,’ Sally said.

Jack smiled. ‘Was it? Strange how it is always easier to see the beam in someone else’s eye. Think about it.’ His smile broadened. ‘And at the least you need not worry about taking care of Connie any longer. That is Bertie’s responsibility now.’

He came back to her and bent to kiss her, a kiss for once that was gentle and devoid of the tempestuous passion that had characterised their relationship.

‘Oh, Sally Bowes,’ he said, against her lips, ‘don’t let the past haunt you. You are too sweet and generous for that to happen.’

The tenderness of his kiss undermined Sally’s defences completely. She felt a sudden, huge and surprising rush of relief because the fear had gone and with Jack she felt safe. She drew him to her, sliding her hands over his shoulders and it was only then that she realised his shirt was still damp and clinging to his body. In his hurry to care for her he had certainly neglected his own comfort.

‘You’ll catch a chill!’ she protested, drawing back, and he smiled at her and pulled the shirt over his head in one fluid movement before joining her on the bed again.

His skin was warm beneath her fingertips and he felt so vital and alive that Sally drank in the scent and the taste and the strength of him, giving him back kiss for gentle kiss, wanting to feel closer still. Their tongues tangled, delicate at first, then bold and searching. Both of them were too intent on each other to hear the commotion in the bedroom doorway until Charlotte gave a muffled squeak.

‘We did knock!’ she said.

‘Are you lost to all sense of propriety, nephew?’ Lady Ottoline demanded, bustling into the bedroom and thrusting Jack’s wet shirt towards him.

‘Absolutely, Aunt Ottoline,’ Jack said. ‘Utterly and completely.’

For a second even Lady Ottoline was silenced. ‘When I spoke to you of setting up your nursery,’ she said, with a ferocious glare in Sally’s direction, ‘I did not mean for you to start immediately. I shall call the bishop and arrange a special licence at once!’

‘That,’ Jack said pleasantly, pulling his shirt on, ‘is Sally’s decision, Aunt, not yours.’ He bent to place a final kiss on her lips. ‘I will see you later, darling. For now I think I should leave you to rest.’ He paused, his eyes still very close to hers. ‘Despite our conversation last night,’ he said in a low voice, ‘I would like you to reconsider, Sally. Please do not reject me out of hand.’

‘Out!’ Lady Ottoline ordered, shooing him through the door and closing it firmly behind them.

Charley gave a giggle and sat down on the end of the bed. ‘I only came to thank you, Sally, and to make sure that in saving Lucy you did not take hurt yourself,’ she said, ‘but now I see that you are in such good health I shall have no more concerns on that score!’

‘I hope,’ Sally said hastily, ‘that Lucy is recovering?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Charley said. ‘The doctor thinks there is no real harm done and she is sleeping now. Stephen is sitting with her.’ She looked at Sally. ‘But for your prompt actions though, Sally …’ She shuddered. ‘Well, I do not like to think what might have happened. What a blessing that you can swim!’ A frown puckered her forehead. ‘One thing puzzles me though.’ She made a slight, embarrassed gesture with her hands. ‘When we came in and you and Jack were … well, you know …’

‘Kissing,’ Sally said helpfully.

‘Yes!’ Charley said. ‘And sort of lying on the bed together and—’

‘Yes,’ Sally said, ‘anyway …’

‘Well …’ Charley blushed. ‘I am a little confused as I am sure that when you arrived on Friday your engagement was only a ruse and yet now …’ Her voice tailed away uncertainly.

‘Yes, of course.’ Sally had forgotten that Charley had been party to the original deception. ‘I am sorry to give you concern, Charley. The truth is that your brother has proposed to me in earnest, and—’

She was unable to say anything else as Charley launched herself at her and gave her a bear hug.

‘How marvellous!’ Charley gasped. ‘I knew it! I knew that Jack was in love with you. All that posturing around over Greg Holt’s attentions to you, and pretending that he did not care. I knew from the start that you were meant to be together.’

Sally extracted herself carefully from the hug. ‘I haven’t said yes yet,’ she warned.

Charley’s face fell ludicrously. ‘But you will! Oh, Sally, please say you will!’

‘I don’t know,’ Sally said honestly. ‘I know you think that Jack loves me, Charley …’ she put a hand out to halt Charley’s rush of affirmative words ‘… but the truth is that I think he is still in love with Merle Jameson and maybe he always will be.’