Deborah Simmons - The Last Rogue

Perhaps it was the flavor of the forbidden that lent his task such urgency, but Raleigh found himself drawing in a deep breath and leaning forward as far as he could. Unfortunately, his ill luck continued to run true, for at that exact moment, the road dipped, one wheel of the couch dropped suddenly, and Raleigh was jolted out of his seat to fall into the sleeping body of his bride.

When she awoke, breathless and sputtering, Raleigh sprawled back across the cushions opposite her with a pained expression. “Demned roads!” he cried indignantly. “A man can’t get a bit of rest!”

Groggy with sleep, Jane nonetheless shot him a suspicious glance that made him bite back a grin. Innocently laying his head back, Raleigh closed his eyes, but his thoughts were not quite as pure as he pretended, for he had discovered one thing when thrust forcefully into the arms of his wife.

She was a lot softer than she looked.

Jane trudged into the small parlor at the inn. She could not remember ever having felt so tired. Although the room was clean and cozy, the air redolent with the smell of good food, she could barely work up the energy to sit straight upon one of the chairs drawn before a small, worn oak table.

She realized, with a heavy heart, that the boys would have been thrilled to be on the road, but they, along with Charlotte and Carrie and Kit were the adventurous sort. She and dear, solid Sarah seemed to be the lone members of the family who craved hearth and home, happy, like their father, to putter about the house.

Yet Jane had spent the past two days rattling her bones in a coach, with only more long travel ahead of her in the stifling vehicle, feeling bored and hot and sorry for herself. She hated the close confines and longed for her own little spot of garden so much that she felt like weeping. She had tried to escape into dreams, but they were strange and restless, and after waking to find her husband in her lap this afternoon, Jane had been unable to close her eyes.

Raleigh was such a caution, she had immediately suspected him of some prank, but the roads were dreadful, and sometimes she had found it difficult to keep her own seat. She only wished that she had been awake to feel—no! Her cheeks flushed at the thought. She certainly did not crave any contact with her husband, and it was apparent that he was of a like mind.

For last night he had not come to her.

Jane had waited, half angry and half terrified at the notion of his touching her, of his doing the things Charlotte had talked about, only to fall asleep near dawn, alone in the huge bed at Westfield Park. At the memory, Jane shivered in reaction, for she should have known better than to wait. Hadn’t she learned long ago to harbor no expectations?

The bald truth was that she was too plain and provincial to appeal to anyone, even such a loose screw as Viscount Raleigh. The old, familiar despair washed over her, threatening to drown her, though she told herself she didn’t care. Raleigh meant nothing to her, and, indeed, she should be rejoicing over his neglect, for he was a coxcomb who had not a clear thought in his claret-addled brain.

The sound of his voice brought her upright, and Jane looked away into the empty grate, searching for telltale ashes from its last usage. “I have ordered us a nice roast goose, some tongue and a beef pie,” he said jovially, as if he positively thrived on sitting cooped up in a carriage all day. He probably did, for it certainly required no effort on his part, and Raleigh excelled at doing nothing.

“And do I get something to eat, too?” Jane asked, her voice brittle.

“What’s this? The wench makes a joke! By Jove, I don’t believe it!” Raleigh crowed like a child with a treat. “There’s hope for you yet, love.” The careless endearment ran along Jane’s strained nerves to hang in the silence that followed until she could bear it no longer. Sensing his eyes upon her, she pushed up from her seat.

“Stop ogling me!” she snapped, walking toward the window.

“As you say,” Raleigh muttered. Was that hurt she heard in his tone? Impossible! The man was a thoughtless japer, who danced through life without a care, and Jane was certain that her trifling words could not affect him in the slightest. “You’ll forgive me, if I wish a breath of fresh air,” he said with unfamiliar brusqueness. It made Jane feel like calling him back and apologizing. But for what? For hating his eyes upon her, judging and condemning?

Still, Jane might have gone after him, but for the arrival of the maid that the countess had thrust upon her. The French-born Madeleine might boast an exceptional education, followed by extensive training at Westfield Park, but she made her new mistress ill at ease. Jane was not accustomed to such personal attention, even at Casterleigh, and she got the distinct impression that Madeleine was not eager to leave her prestigious household for less lofty service.

After her attempts at conversation were met with little response, Jane fell silent, and in the ensuing quiet, she had a good long while to regret her earlier temper. She knew she spoke sharply to Raleigh out of her own fears and melancholy, but this marriage was not his fault, and he had been more than civil toward her. He deserved the same.

Determined to be more her father’s daughter, Jane waited for her husband to join her, but supper arrived without the viscount. The maid, dispatched to check on him, returned to announce coolly that Jane was to take her meal without him. And so she did, feeling oddly bereft without his presence. No doubt he was drinking and carousing in the common room, Jane told herself disdainfully, but somehow she could not shrug off a glimmer of guilt that she had sent him away with her tart tongue.

There were times, living in the vicarage, surrounded by siblings, when Jane had longed for peace and quiet, and that urge probably accounted for her escape into her gardening. But now, alone in a strange place and facing an uncertain future, she took no pleasure from her solitude.

Nor was she pleased to discover that she was sharing a room with the rather forbidding Madeleine. Although Jane knew she ought to be relieved to escape the awkward business of being confined with her new husband, somehow Raleigh’s amiable presence seemed preferable to the maid’s haughty superiority.

Nonsense, Jane told herself as she crawled alone into the big bed. It hardly mattered who was with her, for after her fitful night at Westfield Park, she should sleep like a stone. However, such escape did not immediately come. Noises from the yard below seemed loud through the open window, and despite her weariness, Jane lay stiffly on the lumpy bed with her eyes wide open.

For the first time since waking up yesterday morning in Charlotte’s yellow bedroom, she was homesick. She yearned for the comforting sound of the boys’ voices, raised in a low argument, Carrie’s soft chatter or the warmth of Jenny, crawling beside her after a nightmare.

Shutting her eyes against the tears that threatened, Jane told herself that she was not alone, but the maid’s even breathing from the corner cot bespoke her sleep and offered no comfort. Indeed, the longer Jane lay awake, the more she found herself longing for the one familiar face in her changing world.

It was the face of perfection, with heavy-lidded blue eyes that always held a mocking gleam—as if their owner was secretly amused by everything, including himself. Yet his disarming grin was free from malice. Indeed, it was hard to imagine Raleigh in a temper. Still, he had avoided her this evening, Jane knew full well. Was he displeased by their marriage or angry over her sharp remarks? Or was it simply the way of things? What if he meant to avoid her…forever? Charlotte often spoke of such marriages, where the spouses lived separately.