Page 13 of Holding Onto Love

Chapter Five

It was Vanessa Culpepper Wardrip’s twentieth birthday. She had been living in Lord Jasper Taverston’s rented townhouse for one month. Since he was an earl’s son, she was reaccustoming herself to life’s creature comforts. She sat in front of a roaring fire, wrapped in a heavy wool blanket, lamps lit along all four walls. Nevertheless, she felt cold, frightened, and very much alone.

One week ago, she and Lord Taverston had put their signatures to the contract. And now, listening to sleet pattering on the windows, she wallowed in regret.

She had justified her decision with the fact that Lord Taverston made her feel safe. To live under his protection meant financial security and physical comfort. The arrangement gave her the independence she had always believed she craved.

Yet it had occurred to her tonight, sitting here alone, surrounded by paintings of people and places she did not know, that they were strangers. She had signed away her good name, what was left of it, irretrievably, to a stranger.

Moreover, she had an inexplicable knot of worry in the pit of her stomach that what they had done would disappoint Lieutenant Taverston. She didn’t care to disappoint him. He frightened her, kind though he’d been.

On the Peninsula, ranking officers did not concern themselves with the welfare of the common soldiers’ wives and children, but Lieutenant Taverston was different. He knew them by name. And he’d known Henry. In Corunna, he’d brought word of Henry’s death to her himself. He’d recognized something in her grief that told him she would not avail herself of a widow’s best chance for survival: marrying one of her husband’s comrades. That made her useless to the army. Dead weight. Yet rather than abandon her to the advancing French, he wasted precious time finding room for her on one of the British evacuation transports, no doubt through bribery. He paid a fleeing clergyman to watch over her during the voyage. And he gave her a sealed letter to present to his brother in London. An introduction, he said, and she trusted him.

By the time she’d met Lord Jasper Taverston, she had known what it meant to be hungry, to be cold to the marrow, to have scabbed feet and dirt in the creases of her skin, to be so sick and exhausted and frightened that devastating loss was experienced as just one more nightmare in an endless series of horrors. After reading his brother’s letter, Lord Taverston had surrendered to her use of the townhouse he had recently leased. He’d hired a maid to tend to her, even tasking the girl to buy her some decent clothes. Then he’d left her alone. A week had passed. When she’d found herself wakening from her nightmares to find herself safe and clean, warm, and full bellied, she had been able to hold in her heart two feelings at once: pride that she had endured such challenges and survived, and determination never to find herself so desperate again. She’d needed a plan.

That was when Lord Taverston had returned. To assure himself she was reviving. To see what else she needed. To be able to send a report to Lieutenant Taverston.

What followed over the course of the next fortnight was not a seduction. Or perhaps it was. What did she know of such things? All she knew was how he made her feel. Cared for. Cossetted. Safe. Admired. Desired.

And how he made her feel.

She had loved Henry in a quiet way though it was wrong to have married him. She mourned a friend, a champion, not a husband. True, she had enjoyed their special nights together, few and brief though they had been. They’d been a gift. But lying with Henry was nothing like lying with Lord Taverston. With Jasper. He’d told her to call him by his given name; she was trying to remember to do so.

To be truthful with herself, it was for the lying together that she agreed to be his mistress, not the security, comfort, or independence. And now she worried he’d tired of her already. Where was he?

Somewhere safe, of course.

When in London, he lived at his parents’ home in Mayfair. He’d leased this house as a hideaway, as peers’ sons often did, to get out from under their mothers’ noses. But he’d yielded the house to her at once, exclusively, for propriety’s sake, since he understood her to be, in some way yet to be defined, under his brother’s wing—a way that, she assured him, was not what he was thinking.

Before the previous week, they’d been discreet. He’d spent only one full night with her in his own townhouse and that by accident. Afterward, perhaps expecting such accidents to occur more frequently, they’d agreed to formalize what they had informally begun.

Their contract was detailed but not lengthy. She would have adequate “pin money”—she supposed she was not to be cheapened by calling it the salary that it was. She would have a lady’s maid. The house would be staffed with a butler and housekeeper-cook, as well as a groundskeeper who could also serve as a groom. Lord Taverston offered a riding horse, but she did not care for riding, so he provided the use of a carriage and coach horses. The contract also transferred the lease on the house to her name. Will had said that was to ensure that Lord Taverston would not bring other women into it—good Lord! In situations mutually desirable, she could be asked and could agree to serve as Lord Taverston’s hostess. However, she was not permitted to entertain men in his absence and was not required to entertain his friends in any capacity. She didn’t dare ask Will what that meant. She was granted the right to refuse Lord Taverston access to her bed ten days each month wholly at her discretion. It galled her to think these were considerations to be negotiated. But it had reassured her, somewhat, when Lord Taverston—Jasper—had agreed to all of Will’s stipulations with no more argument than a superior look down his nose.

But Will could not stipulate that Jasper must spend his nights with her. The fact that he had done so every night since the ink was dry did not guarantee he would always come home. She suspected, by the lateness of the hour, that he had supped with his parents, and then gone to his club. He hadn’t said. She was his mistress, not his wife; she could not expect him to say.

Perhaps peers’ wives had no such expectations either.

Vanessa shifted in her chair, drawing her blanket closer. Gooseflesh rose as rivulets of fear rolled down her neck and shoulders, causing her arms to tremble. She did not like being alone.

She could wake her maid, Madeline, but the poor girl was bone tired, and Vanessa was not careless of servants as she had once been. Besides, it was not Madeline’s company she wanted.

She wanted Jasper. And she missed Henry. This fear she felt was too much like fearing for her husband, a fear that had proved all too valid.

The quality of the noise beyond her windows had changed. In addition to sleet, she heard the clicking of feet on cobbles and men’s voices. She strained until she picked out Jasper’s. There was much laughter, but she didn’t hear his, only his rumbling. As the voices drew closer, she pulled out a few words. They had been gambling. Drinking. There was a horserace…tomorrow? She heard the name “Bathurst” twice, sworn like a curse. Then Jasper was saying goodbye. Sending them off. The front door groaned open, and she heard Bremont’s deferential murmur.

Jasper said, “The sitting room?” He sounded surprised. A bit slurred. She couldn’t make out Bremont’s question, but Jasper’s answer was loud. “No. But coffee would be welcome. And toasted bread if Cook is…no, don’t bother her. Van—Mrs. Wardrip will fuss at me.” He chuckled. “Just cold bread.”

Footsteps came up the stairs, then he swept into the sitting room.

“Vanessa.” He reeked of tobacco and brandy. At least it was not rum. “You don’t have to sit up for me.”

“I was not waiting for you,” she said carefully, wanting to strike the right tone. Not accusatory, certainly. But not apologetic either.

He stepped closer. He was not unsteady on his feet and his eyes did not demonstrate that sheen of drunkenness she had learned to recognize all too well. Ah, but perhaps gentlemen held their liquor better than soldiers.

Rather than squashing into the chair beside her, he drew another one up close. His movements were all graceful, not sloppy, and not overly controlled. He might have bathed in brandy, but apparently, had not imbibed too much of it.

He gestured toward the window. “It’s very late. Is there something bothering you? Keeping you up?”