The Battle of Waterloo made them widows, but each has found new happiness. And Jane, Lady John Tarkington, intends to keep her freedom, even if love—and one particular gentleman—are determined to claim her heart . . .
It is a truth rarely acknowledged—at least in public—that a wealthy widow is free to pursue a great many adventures. For two years, Jane has privately enjoyed her independence. Why should she remarry, even when the gentleman proposing is as wonderful as Gareth, Lord Kinellan? She entreats him never to ask her again. But as her Widows' Club friends—now all joyfully remarried—gather at Castle Kinellan, Jane begins to wonder if stubbornness has led her to make a terrible mistake . . .
Kinellan needs a wife to give him an heir, and he wants that wife to be Jane. They are perfect together in every way, yet she continually refuses him. Just as he is on the point of convincing her, a series of accidents befall Gareth and point to an enemy in their midst. He has promised Jane a passionate future filled with devotion, but can he keep them both alive long enough to secure it?
Release date:
December 28, 2021
Publisher:
Zebra Books
Print pages:
352
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Clear skies, as blue as the peaceful waters of a Scottish loch, stretched out above Gareth, Marquess of Kinellan as he stood waiting not so patiently in front of his home, Castle Kinellan. Unfortunately, the excellent weather gave him little pleasure, although it did make his task of greeting the final guest arriving for his annual family gathering less onerous. Rain would have been the last straw.
Standing beside him, Matthew, Lord Lathbury, his best friend and confidante, rocked back and forth on the heels of his tall Hessian boots, hands clamped behind his back, fuming at the delay this morning. Lathbury had never been a patient man.
“Whoever heard of arriving at eight o’clock in the morning on the next to the last day of festivities?” Lathbury groused. “No decent person would think of inconveniencing a fellow human being so. Had they decided to turn up two hours from now we would not have needed to cancel our ride.” Not being able to ride of a morning was sacrilege in his friend’s book.
“My relations, at least some of them, could scarcely be deemed decent, Lathbury.” Gareth pulled his mouth into a smile as the old black lacquered carriage he knew so well rattled across the bridge spanning the castle’s small moat, swept up the graveled driveway, and creaked to a stop in front of them. Until this moment he’d have wagered a good portion of his fortune that Aunt Pru’s decrepit carriage had fallen apart sometime since the last such gathering she’d attended. “My Aunt Prudence, while immanently decent, cannot by any stretch of the imagination be called accommodating.” He turned to the stilled carriage, waiting until the footman opened the door.
“Kinellan!” The shrill voice emanated from the coach the moment the door opened.
“Aunt Pru, how delightful to see you again.” He offered his hand and a stout older woman in a green dress that had been the first stare of fashion forty years ago emerged. Sporting a red plaid turban that matched his own kilt, Aunt Pru placed her soft, pudgy fingers in his hand and made her slow way down the three steps.
There would be more of the Seton red and green plaid seen at Kinellan this weekend than all the other days of the year combined.
“So wonderful you could make it this year, my dear. You look younger each time I see you.” The woman had been ancient when he had been a boy. God alone knew how old she actually was.
“Thank you, Kinellan. You were quite the flatterer when you were a boy and haven’t changed since.” She peered around the yard giving Lathbury a piercing look before asking, “But where is your lovely bride-to-be?”
Well, he’d expected that to be her first topic of conversation. “She is currently seeing to some of my other guests, Aunt Pru. I assure you, you will see her this evening at dinner if not before. May I instead present my friend Lord Lathbury? Lady Prudence Seton is my great-aunt, now the oldest living relative on my father’s side.”
“Good morning, young man.” Aunt Pru looked Lathbury up and down with a keen eye, assessing him as if he were a new horse she might acquire for her stable.
Lathbury grinned and seized her hand. With great show, he kissed the air just above her gloved knuckles. “A very great honor to meet you, my lady.”
“Scamp.” Aunt Pru pulled her hand from his grip but grinned back at him just the same. “I well believe you are a friend of Kinellan’s. Like natures seek out one another in my experience.” She snapped her gaze back to Gareth. “Please tell Lady John I wish a word with her sometime today, Kinellan.”
“I promise to tell her as soon as I see her, Aunt. Donal,” he called to a footman he had standing by, “please escort Lady Prudence to her room.” He handed her over to his most handsome footman, who sedately walked her into the castle.
“I swear she’ll outlive me yet.” Gareth shook his head. “I should go warn Jane now about the impending audience.” He turned toward the stout oak door.
Before he could take a step, Lathbury grabbed his shoulder, pulling him around to stare at him. “Wait a moment. What did she mean about your bride-to-be? Is there something you haven’t told me? Has Jane finally accepted you?”
Frowning, Gareth shrugged off his friend’s hand. “Hardly, even though I’ve asked her countless times since Christmas.” He glanced at the door, then nodded toward the manicured front lawn. “Let us take a turn about the property. I would not have this conversation overheard.”
“As you will.” Lathbury fell into step next to him and they made for the north end of the castle grounds. “So she has not, in fact, accepted you yet. Then why does your aunt think—”
“Because Aunt Pru is one of the worst gossips in all of Highland County if not in all of Scotland. Once I finally got Jane to come to Kinellan, I could hardly have her stay without sullying her reputation.” Gareth’s strides lengthened as he thought once more about the untenable situation in which he found himself. “So I invited my cousin, Fiona Dalrymple, to stay with me as my hostess and ostensibly as a companion for Jane. But even that was not enough for my aunt.” Gareth looked about and discovered Lathbury some three or four paces behind.
“Didn’t know we were in a race, Kinellan.” Lathbury caught him up.
Scowling, Gareth continued, though at a slower pace. “If Jane would only agree to marry me none of this subterfuge would be necessary. I begin to believe . . .”
“What?”
“That she will never have me.”
They walked in silence for some paces before Lathbury spoke up. “You remember, of course, the devilish time I had getting Fanny to say yes to me. She and most of her friends quite enjoyed the freedom widowhood brought them . . . for a time. However, as they are all now happily married, the independent state apparently palled for them at some point. I suspect it will eventually do so for Jane as well.”
“And in the meantime I have to obfuscate the issue until Jane deigns to accept me. When I wrote to invite my aunt to this gathering, I gave her to believe in strictest confidence—which I expected to last no time at all—that Lady John was soon to become Lady Kinellan. The impediment I put down to some paperwork dealing with the guardianship of her children that had to be rectified. She accepted that without a qualm.”
“And seems to still.”
“Yes, but that confidence was given to her at the beginning of May. I thought no harm in it because I believed I would be able to persuade Jane to marry me by now, despite her previous refusals. She was finally in residence at the castle—an epic battle in itself, I’ll have you know. But I could show her the property, impress her with the splendors of the Scottish Highlands, propose properly, and then we would be betrothed—indeed married by the time of the gathering—with Aunt Pru none the wiser.”
“But instead, Jane has put you off.”
Gareth stopped and stared at his friend. “In some ways worse than Fanny did to you.”
A grimace flitted over Lathbury’s face. Fanny had led him a merry chase for months on end last summer and into the late fall. “Sorry to hear that, old chap.”
Kinellan shrugged, then began his long strides again. “The problem is, like you, I need a wife to give me an heir. I’d prefer it to be Jane.”
“Is there anyone else you’d consider?”
“Was there any other candidate for you?”
Lathbury sighed. “I take your point.” They walked in silence until his friend spoke once more. “Jane will come around. You must give her time.”
“Time may not do the trick in this case.” They continued around the property, along the crushed stone pathway that led toward the formal garden on the extreme north side of the castle.
“Why do you say that? What reason has she given you for her refusals?”
“The same as Fanny originally gave you: independence.” Gareth almost spit out the word. “Her late husband had arranged his affairs so that she would be extremely well set-up upon his demise.” He hated to think ill of the dead, but the man had made it too easy for Jane to eschew another marriage. Perhaps jealousy had been a factor and he hadn’t wanted Jane to take another husband. “Tarkington invested his money well, in both property and a shipping venture that has brought in astonishing returns on several voyages. Jane and their children will want for nothing as long as they live. So my offer won’t appeal to her for reasons of finances or security, as yours did with Fanny. It seems I myself must be the major attraction to induce Jane to give that all up.”
“You do get along well, though.” Lathbury’s tone was hopelessly optimistic.
“We have until recently.” Clenching his jaw until it ached, Gareth forced himself to relax it. He had to remind himself he had no control over what Jane did. “Do you know she moved her children to a property in Lincolnshire?”
Lathbury frowned. “No, I hadn’t heard. Why?”
“Well, she wanted to remove them from Theale House in London and the influence of her brother-in-law. I can’t say I blame her for that, especially after Fanny’s horrible experience with that madman. Her two oldest boys are away at school, but the younger boy and the girl have been in London. In March she sent for them and settled them at Cranston Park, a property her late husband had purchased. The tenants’ lease had just ended.”
“Why didn’t she bring them here?” A judiciously raised eyebrow spoke Lathbury’s censure toward him.
“Oh, I assure you, that was not my fault. I encouraged her to do just that.” Gareth all but growled. It had been the first indication that all was not well between him and Jane. “She declined, stating she’d never had her children underfoot and didn’t wish to start now. The mothering instinct is not strong in her, she claims.”
“That is perplexing.” His friend sent him a sympathetic look. “Do you think, perhaps, that might change if she were to have your child?”
“I can only hope she’d take more of an interest in our child. If there is to be a child. We have to get married first and she’s adamantly refused me multiple times. The last time I asked . . .” Gareth halted at the gate to the formal garden, the image of Jane’s face as she spoke as fresh as if it were yesterday. An image he wished he could forget. “In June I deemed the time right to try again and got down on my knee here, in the garden, and begged her to become my wife.”
“And she said no.” The look of pity on Lathbury’s face cut him to the quick.
“Not only did she say no, but she implored me never to ask her again. She said if I did she would leave and never return.” The sunny future he’d envisioned for him and Jane had died that day. “I swear to you, Lathbury, I won’t ask her to marry me again. Although if I’m to have any hope of a future or an heir, I may need to ask her to leave.”
“So you are happy now you are finally in Scotland, Jane?” Her dearest cousin, Charlotte, Lady Wrotham settled her teacup back in its saucer and fixed Jane with a curious stare.
Happiness was less easy for Jane to admit these days than others might think. Sitting with her best friends in her favorite green and pink drawing room in Castle Kinellan, she could indeed say she was happy, though not for the reasons they’d imagine. She’d not seen Charlotte, Fanny, Elizabeth, Georgie, or Maria, all members of their self-proclaimed Widows’ Club, for more than six months. Not since Maria’s marriage to Hugh Granger in January. So it was wonderful to have them all with her again. Her happiness should know no bounds . . . and yet it did.
“Why do you ask, my dear? Do I not seem happy to you?” Jane meant her comment to be light, but it came out rather defensive instead. Now Charlotte would pursue the matter like a dog with a bone.
“Frankly, no, my dear.” Fanny, Lady Lathbury jumped into the conversation with both feet. No surprise, that. “You’ve tried to look happy ever since we arrived, but we can tell it’s only been for show, Jane. Something is wrong, I can tell. What is it?”
With a sigh that might well have come from her very soul, Jane set her cup and saucer on the table beside her with a rattling clink. Seeing her good friends again after such a long time was as wonderful as it was trying for several reasons. “There is no cause for me not to be happy or content, Fanny. I have been reunited with Kinellan, I’ve removed the children from the terrible influence at Theale House and into Tark’s estate in Lincolnshire.” She beamed first at Charlotte, then at Fanny. “And now I have all my friends around me once more. Why should I not be content?”
“Being content and being happy are two different things, dear.” Charlotte smoothed her summer yellow gown, her hand rounding the curve of her belly that announced she was increasing once more. “Aren’t you happy with Lord Kinellan?”
“Of course I am, Charlotte.” Fingering her sapphire pendant, a surprise gift from Kinellan upon her arrival in Scotland in March, Jane dropped her gaze to her lap.
“But?” Fanny leaned over the sofa to peer at her. “Have you said something you shouldn’t? Or has he?”
“I suppose I did.” Well, now it would come out. She should have expected this inquisition, so why she wasn’t better prepared for it was her own fault. Whoever said confession was good for the soul obviously had never had to make one before their friends. “I’ve refused Kinellan’s proposal.”
“Refused him, Jane?” Charlotte’s changeable hazel eyes widened and darkened to a light brown. “When? And why?”
“Just after I arrived. He gave me this pendant”—she cupped the sapphire, showing it off to them—“and a proposal. I refused both, but he insisted I accept one or the other, so . . .” She closed her hand over the jewel.
“A single refusal is nothing, Jane.” Fanny sniffed. “I refused Matthew four or five times year before last, and look at me now.” Beaming with joy and health, Fanny indicated her increasing figure. She’d already given Lathbury a son, Christopher, a little over a year ago and would deliver another child in December. “The next time he asks you—”
“I refused him the next time too, Fanny, and the time after that.” Jane dropped her defiant stare. “And then I told him I didn’t want to hear another proposal and if he got down on his knees one more time—”
“He got down on his knees all three times?” Charlotte’s brows shot up. “Nash proposed several times to me, but on none of those occasions did he go down on his knees.”
“If any gentleman would do the moment up right, it would be Kinellan.” Fanny nodded sagely. “Now I’m surprised at you myself, Jane, refusing a man that dedicated.”
“It’s no more than you did, Fanny.”
“Well, but Matthew didn’t need to get down on his knees. When I accepted him he’d just rescued me from almost being ravished by Theale’s henchmen.” Her friend shuddered at the painful memory.
Sighing, Jane collected her thoughts, hoping against hope to be able to explain her choices to her friends. “I told him if he proposed one more time, I would leave Castle Kinellan and remove to Cranston Park with the children.”
“And?” Both friends leaned forward.
“Well, I am obviously still here, am I not?” Jane asked impatiently. “He hasn’t proposed again.” Tears threatened but she blinked them back. It had been her own decision. “Likely he never will again.”
“Who’s not going to do what, Jane?” Elizabeth, Lady Brack entered the room, looking cool in a pink and white striped silk gown.
“Jane gave Kinellan an ultimatum about not proposing to her, so she’s convinced he won’t offer again.” An excitement in Fanny’s voice made Jane’s stomach clench. Her sister-in-law had a way of distilling any complicated situation down to a succinct single sentence. A quality that had always irked Jane.
“So you refused him—”
“Three times, Elizabeth.” Jane sat back on the sofa, speaking wearily. “Can we please move on to another topic?”
“Three times?” The shock on Elizabeth’s face was surpassed only by that in her voice. “My goodness, Jane. Poor Lord Kinellan.” Elizabeth’s brow furrowed. “Do you have reservations about marrying again? It has been over three years since our husbands were killed at Waterloo. Surely you’ve mourned Major General Tarkington enough?”
“That was not my reservation, Elizabeth.” Jane patted her friend’s hand. Elizabeth had been less inclined to remarry than any of the Widows’ Club members, yet she’d found love again at the same time as Charlotte and Fanny. But love for Tark had not been behind her reluctance to take another man to husband. “And I was very serious when I gave Kinellan my ultimatum. . . .” She squirmed in her chair, becoming more upset with each moment of conversation.
“But now?” Fanny edged forward again, trying to catch every word.
Jane paused before answering, gathering her courage to admit this to her friends. “Now I’m not quite so sure.” She closed her eyes, suddenly wretched and cursing her stubborn nature. She’d truly thought Kinellan would propose again, despite his vow to the contrary. “I don’t think he intends to ask me again. I think . . . I think I made an awful mistake.”
Blinking back tears, Jane drew a deep breath and wrung her hands. “I believe I may have gone too far when he asked me last. I told him . . .” She groped for a handkerchief in her reticule. “I told him if he asked me to marry him again I would leave Castle Kinellan and never return.”
The shocked silence as her friends stared at her made Jane want to crawl under the pink floral Axminster carpet. How could she have been so stupid?
“My dear.” Charlotte’s stern countenance dissolved into more sympathetic lines as she put her arms around her cousin. “Gentlemen never believe such things. Even when they think we mean something, they always hope we can be persuaded. Nash was certainly tenacious.” She shot a speaking look at Fanny. “And Lord Lathbury.”
“You know Matthew would not take no for an answer, Jane.” Fanny grabbed the handkerchief and dabbed at Jane’s wet cheeks. “Kinellan is cut from the same cloth, I’ll wager on it.”
Jane shook her head vigorously. “I don’t think so this time. He seems to have taken my threat to heart because my last refusal was in May.” She sent a stricken look to Charlotte. “He’s not spoken a word more on the subject since.”
“No inkling of a proposal for three months?” A worried frown creased Elizabeth’s brow. “Not even a longing look?”
“Nothing along those lines.” She’d been grateful for the first month not to be badgered with his constant hints and innuendos. By the end of the second month, when he’d still volunteered no hint of a marriage proposal, she’d gotten an inkling of something amiss and began to regret the vehemence of her ultimatum. Now, in August, with all her friends about her, the very picture of domestic bliss with their husbands and families, she’d come to see she’d made a grave tactical error.
“Are you still having intimate relations?” Fanny, ever blunt, fixed her with an inquiring gaze.
Her cheeks heated, but Jane nodded. “We are still as passionate toward one another as we ever were.” Images of Kinellan’s insistent kisses, his strong embrace, the luscious weight of his body on hers just last night stirred her blood whenever they came to mind. “Perhaps more passionate than ever.” A sickening lump formed in the pit of her stomach. “But I fear he is no longer interested in marrying me. Only in the pleasures of the flesh. I certainly gave him to believe that was my sole interest in him.”
“Oh, Jane.” Elizabeth grasped her hand and squeezed. “This must be some sort of misunderstanding between the two of you. You need only tell him of your feelings for him.” She raised delicate brows. “If he proposes again, will you accept?”
Her mind in a muddle, Jane hung her head. She’d like their lives to go on as they had these past months, free and easy, spending each day in the other’s company, their nights in each other’s arms. Pure bliss for her. Unfortunately, being a man with a title, Kinellan needed to move forward and quickly.
“Kinellan needs an heir, you know, Jane.” As though she’d read Jane’s mind, Fanny voiced the primary reason hers and Kinellan’s relationship was doomed to change. “If he is now reluctant to wed you . . . Are you taking the seeds I told you about?”
Jane nodded. “Faithfully. They have worked amazingly well. Fortunately, they are plentiful here in the highlands. I have just harvested enough to last me through the winter.”
“Well, throw them all away, my dear.” Fanny grinned at her. “Once you stop taking them, a child will surely follow, usually rather quickly. If you are increasing, Kinellan will absolutely propose to you again.”
Shaking her head vigorously, Jane reared back on the sofa. On this point she would be adamant. “I refuse to trap him into marriage, Fanny.” She rose to her feet, needing to move before she suffocated. “Even if he wants an heir, he may no longer want one from me.” She’d swear Kinellan had not grown cool toward her. They were as cordial, loving even, as ever. Still, she’d not marry a man whose affections she no longer engaged.
The butler, Grant, entered the room without warning. “Lady Maria Granger, Mr. Hugh Granger, Miss Arabella Granger.”
“Maria!” Jane sped toward her other cousin, with whom she’d gone through so much last year. “It seems an age since the wedding. How are you, my dear?” She hugged the younger woman fiercely, then looked up to find Mr. Granger smiling at her. “How are you, Hugh? Arabella? I’ve missed you all.”
“We are all fine,” Maria managed to answer before she was engulfed by the rest of the Widows’ Club. Former widows to be exact. All except Jane.
“Maria, so good to see you.” Charlotte rose to buss her cheek.
“My dear,” Fanny said, hugging her. “I see you are increasing after all.”
“And looking so well, despite the long journey.” Elizabeth smiled at her friend, then turned to Hugh and his sister. “Mr. Granger, so nice to see you again as well, and you, Miss Granger. Did you enjoy your Season in London? Should we expect an announcement at the ball this evening?”
Her handsome brother stepped forward as Arabella’s face clouded over.
“Thank you, Lady Brack, but my sister and I found the London Season a bit daunting. Maria was a great help, but as we have few connections, the invitations to the most advantageous entertainments were less plentiful than many young ladies’.”
Grasping her hand, Maria turned her aside. “Oh, Jane, Bella could have benefitted so much from your sponsorship, for you know everyone in London.” Maria lowered her voice. “Worst of all, we were not able to secure vouchers at Almack’s.” Her face grew grim. “I suspect it had to do either with the scandal about Alan or all the fuss Lord Wetherby put up after Christmas, which was only a tempest in a cream pot after it became apparent I wasn’t increasing.” She beamed at Jane and took her husband’s arm. “Until now.”
“I am so happy for you, Maria.” Jane’s wishes were as sincere as possible. She, if anyone, knew how long Maria had waited to marry Hugh, understood too that they had to postpone beginning their family to scotch the scandal Wetherby instigated. “Congratulations, Hugh.” She sent him a warm smile, then had to turn away from the happy, chattering throng.
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