Page 59 of An Unusual Wager

Chapter Twenty-Five

On the following day, Jonathan was able to come down to breakfast in something other than a much chopped about shirt and a banyan. He’d managed to get himself, with the aid of William who was enjoying his promotion to valet, into a proper shirt over which he’d draped his coat.

His shoulder wound was paining him less, mainly because of the fact that it hadn’t damaged any bone and was just a flesh wound, according to Dr. Collins when he came to call that morning and found him sitting out on the terrace in the sunshine at a stone table. The good doctor also insisted that he should be careful with his broken arm, a fact which annoyed Jonathan, who was itching to be back to normal, and not only because the doctor had thought to caution him about it.

Verity had spent some time that morning upstairs with his grandmother, who’d sent several worried messages down via the servants and had had to be reassured by a visit from both Kitty and Verity. The thought of struggling to speak to her himself, didn’t appeal, so he’d turned down Kitty’s eager offer to accompany him to her rooms. He’d wait a few days for that. His present appearance might not be enough to convince her he was on the mend. Best to wait until his facial bruising lessened and he could have a much-needed shave. If she saw him now, she might think she was having a visitation from a pirate.

“Nevertheless,” Verity said, before going up there, “I shall assure the dowager that you are in fine form and improving. I wouldn’t want to upset her with the details though, of how you came upon your injuries.” She was probably thinking that as his uncle was also his grandmother’s younger son, it wouldn’t do to go revealing his part in the assassination attempt. For now that he’d spoken with Walter, on Verity’s advice, he was very much aware of what had happened and who had orchestrated the attack.

In fact, with Walter’s gentle prodding, the entire debacle had begun to return and he was able to recall a fair bit of that night for himself, up until he’d hit the ground and someone had kicked him in the head. He’d laughed uproariously when he’d heard about the deposition of Teesdale’s body on Sylvester’s doorstep, and the informing of the Bow Street Runners.

And now he was sitting outside with a book in the warm sunshine. A nice respite from Kitty’s continuous chatter. She was clearly trying to make up for the past year when he’d not been even once to see her. Playfully, he’d suggested to her that the reason for his long absence had been her overactive tongue, but she’d just laughed and not believed him. Perhaps he was bad at lying. No doubt she was at present talking her grandmother’s stockings down instead of his.

But sitting outside with his book did not in any way mean that he was reading. Or, at any rate, that he was digesting the words of his book, a treatise on horsemanship he’d read several times before. He’d been reading the same page over and over again and nothing had so far penetrated further into his brain than the outer barrier of his eyes.

He set the book on his lap and squinted into the sun across the wide, rolling acres of Luxborough towards the hazy horizon. Now he was back, the love he’d always had for the place burgeoned in his heart. It was easy, when living life to the full in Town, to forget how lovely the estate was. He frowned. How close had he come to losing this? He didn’t really want to think about it, but now he knew that Walter was convinced Sylvester was behind the attack, that was the only thing in his mind.

Of course, he wasn’t stupid and he’d always known his uncle was jealous. Jealous of his father, and also jealous of him. He’d been very young when he’d realized this. And of course, his mother had warned him as he grew older. When his father had been alive and his mother had been in residence, Sylvester had called infrequently, but every time he’d done so he’d given Jonathan the most malevolent of looks. The sort of looks it had been easy to read as a death wish, even as a small child.

Then all the bad things had happened, and his father had died. He didn’t want to dwell on that for long. His mother, too, had gone, although not quite so far and to a less hot place, swearing she wouldn’t stay under the same roof as… No. He was definitely not going there. Nothing would induce him to conjure up Mary’s image again. Nor his mother’s. He did, of course, pay his mother his respects in the briefest of possible manners whenever he came down, but that didn’t mean he had to think about her now.

But he found he couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened all those years ago, no matter how he tried.

After his father’s death, he’d refused to return to school. With his mother gone, only his grandmother had needed overcoming, and she’d already commenced her slow decline into senility. “I’m an earl now,” he’d said. “And I don’t need any more education. I know everything they could teach me, anyway, and none of it’s going to be useful to me as an earl.”

Grandmama had, with very little resistance, conceded victory to him.

Walter, however, had been incensed at the unfairness that his best friend was not returning to the hallowed walls of Eton, but as he’d been invited over for the holidays with frequency, he’d put up with it. “I don’t myself wish my own dear papa ill,” he’d said glumly, “but if having a title means one can do without school, then I freely admit to being jealous of you and wishing for a title.”

Jonathan smiled to himself. Walter had got over his jealousy and himself left school as soon as he could to join Jonathan in London where the two young bucks that they’d been had commenced living life to the full. Wine, women, and song had been their aim, and with Jonathan’s seemingly endless funds behind them, they’d been able to fulfill this aim, Jonathan significantly more than Walter.

And all of that had silenced the dreams for a while. He’d found early on that spending every night in someone else’s bed had kept his dreams to a minimum, and at the same time that he had a talent for pleasing women. With his good looks, he’d had no trouble finding bed mates, and the life had suited him. At first. Well, for a long time.

And then Verity had come into his orbit.

Her father first, the old reprobate, and then her. And everything that could have gone wrong had gone wrong.

He sighed.

Verity. Truth. He’d seen a different side to her here at Luxborough. A nurturing side. A less defensive side. She no longer seemed to be the bane of his life, a woman he’d been forced to marry who’d then turned against him. And wasn’t that his own fault, anyway? Hadn’t he insulted her in a thoughtless manner, the manner of a man who thought he could do and say just what he wanted. Reprehensible behavior he should be ashamed of.

A flock of ducks flew overhead in a V shape in the direction of the lake.

The problem was, he found he now wanted her to like him. A lot.

He stopped chewing the nail on his left little finger, a habit he’d had as a child, and set that hand on his knee, out of harm’s way.

Well, they were married now so she couldn’t escape. Not really. And he could try a lot harder to be nice to her and see how far that got him. He liked her determination.

A swan rose up from the lake near where the ducks had landed, its great wings beating the air in a steady rhythm. He loved the noise made by swan’s wings. How much he’d missed that when he’d been in London.

But what about Kitty?

He had to consider her because she was his responsibility. She had no one else but him. And she loved him, despite all his drawbacks. She accepted his long absences and every time he returned treated him as though he’d only been away overnight.

Kitty, with her mother’s petite figure and heart-shaped face…

He could see her now, on the first day she arrived at Luxborough. It had been the school summer holidays and he’d been at home, sitting reading in a corner of the library when she’d come in to lay a fire in the hearth, ready to light later on. She’d been shocked to find him sitting there so early.