Lady In Waiting Part 16

Jenny peered over her shoulder and saw that Callum, whom she had thought was asleep beside her, was propped on one elbow and was beckoning.

"I'm sorry. Ye didna know."

Jenny looked quizzically back at him. What did he mean? Of course she knew. She just didn't think!

"Come, lie down with me, and I'll try me best to explain."

Jenny hesitantly lowered her head to Callum's broad chest, and felt his arm come up around her. "If you are going to explain to me about monthly courses and how one conceives a child, you needn't bother."

Callum paused a moment before speaking again, and she could imagine him raising a single dark eyebrow at her blunt words.

"Nay, there is more." She felt his muscles move as he swallowed deeply.

"Do ye know of Lord Lyon in Scotland-know his function within the realm?"

"Well, of course I do." Jenny, who for some selfish reason could not seem to put aside her lady's guise, did her best to sound indignant. And she did know all about Lord Lyon, didn't she? Lady Viola had explained it all to her just the other day. "Your father was elected Lord Lyon."

Callum shifted Jenny's head to his shoulder so he could look at her. "How did ye know?"

Jenny looked up at him. She lifted her fingers and traced the whitened scar crossing his cheek. "You told me"-Jenny lifted her hand and traced the scar on his cheek-"this came from the Lord Lyon signet ring."

"Aye." Callum brushed her hand from his scar. "Because, of his... position, the continuation of our family line was all important to him. All that mattered. And, with no other issue, the responsibility fer producing an heir-fer continuing the Argyll line-rested on me."

"Then why have you not married?" She tried to see his eyes. "I should think your father would have placed quite a lot of pressure on you to marry during his lifetime."

An odd, almost disconcerting smile lifted the corner of Callum's mouth. "He did indeed."

"But still you're a bachelor."

Callum sighed then. "After years of his abuse and loathin', I came to despise him. Came to hate everything he stood fer. And I made a decision, to extinguish what was most important to him."

Jenny's eyes rounded as she realized his intent and she sat up in the bed. "His line. You want to end it!"

A slow smile slid over his lips. "Aye. When I die, the family t.i.tle will die with me. There is no one else left."

Jenny sat very still and considered his cold plan.

"And I've been verra careful during my manhood to ensure I never sired an heir-the verra thing he most wanted."

Jenny gulped. "Until now."

Callum nodded his head slowly.

"I'm sorry, Callum. I didn't mean... I just wanted...

to hold you close." La, she was thankful it was dim in the chamber, for otherwise he might see how red her cheeks had to be-for they were burning like a torch.

"I dinna blame ye, la.s.s. 'Twas yer first time with a man, and ye didna know what ye were doin'."

Jenny chewed the inside of her bottom lip. Perhaps it was best that she not tell him of Annie's lessons in love.

She gazed up into his dark, serious eyes. He was pensive, and she knew there was more to come. More probably than she wanted to hear.

"'Tis verra possible ye conceived this night."

She nodded. "'Tis also possible I did not," she offered brightly. "'Twas as you said, my first time, therefore the likelihood of my conceiving is about-"

"Even," Callum said matter-of-factly.

Jenny's spirits fell. "Oh." At the thought, unconsciously, she laid her hand protectively over her belly.

Callum placed his hand atop hers there. "If it comes to pa.s.s that I have left ye with a bairn, ye've got nothing to fear. I will do right by ye."

Jenny turned her face toward him and girded herself for the truth she knew she must now reveal. But before she could speak, Callum spoke again.

"I will provide a guid, clean, and safe place for ye and the bairn to live. And guineas each month, whatever ye require, so ye can continue to live in the fashion ye are accustomed."

Jenny didn't understand his talk. She cinched her brows and studied him. Why wouldn't he look at her while he was speaking?

Then it struck her as coldly as the ice atop the ca.n.a.l had. Jenny grew very still.

Wait a moment. Wait just one b.l.o.o.d.y moment. He wasn't offering to marry her at all! He was offering to keep her as his mistress... while making his own child a-b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

Well, that wasn't a fate she'd wish on any child, having carried that burden herself all the years of her life.

Callum's gaze flicked across her face for just an instant, and she knew he saw the betrayal she felt in her eyes.

"I am sorry, but I canna marry ye, Jenny, even if ye carry me child even now. I canna give the bairn me name. I canna."

Fury welled up within Jenny. He thought he could do this, did he? Impregnate her, well... possibly, then set her aside like yesterday's stale bread?

Who did he think he was? She was a lady after all and deserved better.

Jenny opened her mouth to tell him so when he raised his hand to halt any protest from her.

And it was a good thing too. Jenny drew her lips into her mouth and held them there. For a moment, she had almost forgotten that she wasn't a lady, but rather a conniving, deceitful little maid who, after her grand lie, deserved whatever she got.

"Please, I must continue, la.s.s."

Jenny closed her lids slowly, then opened them with deliberation and looked straight into Callum's eyes.

He took a shaky breath, then expelled his next words forcefully, as if trying to make himself remember them.

"The Argyll line will die with me," he vowed. "It must."

Chapter Eleven.

The next morning, Jenny wriggled into her uncomfortably stiff, puckered, and pitifully ruined walking ensemble. The fabric had reduced, and had she not expelled the breath completely from her lungs, it would have been impossible to fasten. But, being the lady's maid she was, Jenny was mindful of a few fitting tricks from the seamstresses she'd worked with over the years.

Silently she moved to the window and swept back the thick curtains to look out. Glancing back at the tester, she saw that Callum still slept peacefully, having managed to say what he felt he must.

Jenny barely slept at all. When she did, she dreamed of walking through the Upper a.s.sembly Rooms, her belly heavy with Callum's child, as the ton collectively pointed, then turned their backs to her.

Nightmare or not, Jenny knew the dream might well be her future.

As she leaned her forehead against the cold windowpane, she looked out at the deep drifts of snow and at the lone track looping its way from house to house. Deliveries by foot. Callum had been right. No carriage or sedan chair was getting through the streets this day.

Rising up on the tips of her bare toes, Jenny tried to glimpse Royal Crescent on a mount in the distance, but it was just too far away and too many buildings blocked her view.

Lud, how was she to get back? She turned and glanced at her damp slippers beside the fire. Her shoes were quite inadequate for trudging across Bath in the knee-deep snow. When she'd picked them up a moment before, she'd found the linings still soggy with cold water from the ca.n.a.l. For certain, she'd freeze before she arrived on the crescent.

Yes, she could see it all so clearly in her mind. She and the baby inside of her-Richard... no... James, that was quite a nice name-would be found frozen midstride like a new bronze statue in the middle of Queen Square.

Everyone in Bath, or at least the loyal service staff, would mourn for her and her unborn babe. And Callum would stand over their grave in the Bath Abbey Cemetery, and place flowers on their simple tomb every Sunday, knowing that his d.a.m.ning words had driven her into the snow, and that their deaths were entirely his fault.

Jenny placed her hand on her belly, her breath catching as she succ.u.mbed to her own fanciful story.

Callum heard her whimpers, for from the edge of her vision, Jenny saw him climb from the bed and walk to her.

He wrapped his arms around her from behind. "Oh, Jenny. Dinna cry."

Jenny daren't turn around, for she knew full well he was fully naked in the daylight. And from the slight unintentional prodding against her behind, he was in a curiously aroused state.

It was so hard to be a lady-and not look at him. He was impossibly beautiful, this Scotsman.

Turned as he was to the side, the sunlight illuminated his flawless body and Jenny found she could study his reflection in the window without him being any the wiser.

And so she let her eyes wander where they would. Her gaze followed the dark hair of his sculpted chest to where it trailed off between his legs. At once she felt an insistent throbbing between her thighs, and it was all she could do to resist the urge to drag her naked Highlander back to the tester bed.

Seeing her hand atop her middle, Callum slid his palms protectively over her belly. "No matter what happens, 'twill be all right, la.s.s. Ye'll see."

"'Twill be all right?" Jenny jerked her head around and glared up at him, knowing that growing rage sparked in her eyes. "How can you say that to me? You are not the one whose life will be forever changed. You will not be shunned by society, and forced to live your life with your eyes cast down in shame." Her voice shook, and this truly surprised her.

Callum trembled slightly at her words, and she knew she had struck a chord with him. And yet, she was not pleased. She didn't want to say these things, but she felt so horribly betrayed.

If he loved her, as he claimed, he would put aside his vendetta against his father and offer to marry her! Of course, she could not accept, she being a lady's maid and he a viscount, but he should at least make the offer.

Unbidden tears erupted in her eyes.

"I am sorry, Jenny." When Callum looked down at her, his eyes glistened slightly in the cool light coming through the window.

Jenny stared silently up at him for several seconds as a tear rolled down her cheek and dripped from her jaw. "As am I, Callum, for until this moment, I believed you were not the rogue you claimed to be, but instead a good and true gentleman. But now I see I was horribly mistaken."

Callum blanched, and Jenny knew her words had carried the force of a balled fist. But she hadn't lied. She'd meant every word. Her eyes started to sting again. She had to leave now. Had to put s.p.a.ce between her and the viscount, for it pained her too much to even look at him.

Jenny pulled from his embrace, crossed to the hearth and retrieved her overcoat, and then stepped into her mushy slippers. Without another word, she solemnly left the chamber and started down the stairs.

She heard Callum's bare feet on the Scots carpet above in the pa.s.sage.

"Jenny, dinna be daft. Ye canna walk to Royal Crescent in the snow. Ye dinna even have yer stockin's."

She stopped and grasped the newel post at the landing and squeezed it for support. "I cannot stay." Jenny looked down at her soiled and rumpled coat, and at her muddied slippers. "I'd rather face my ruin in the harsh light of day than cower here."

Behind her, she heard Callum coming toward her. But knowing he could not follow her, naked as he was, she hurried to the door, plunged into the knee-deep snow, and started for home.

"What could you have been thinking, child, walking all the way from Laura Place in the snow?" Mrs. Penny poured another kettle of steaming water into the copper hip bath where Jenny soaked.

Jenny lolled her head back against the balled sheet behind her head and closed her eyes. "I was thinking that I made a grand mistake and 'twas better to leave with my pride than stay and agree to accept his charity."

"'Tis your overblown pride, gel, that got you into this predicament. Perhaps 'twas better that you stayed, accepted what he offered, and left your pride in Laura Place." Her mother grunted her disapproval and tossed a pot of soap into the water.

Water splashed Jenny's face. She slowly opened her eyes and stared back at her mother as the water dripped in clear strings from her chin. "Mama, though nothing is for certain yet, I may be in a real hitch. I need your compa.s.sion now, not your disapproval. You of all people should understand what I am enduring."

The moment the words came out of her mouth, Jenny wished she could have sucked them back in.

Her mother's face paled, then two angry red sunbursts burst upon her cheeks. She narrowed her eyes at Jenny. "Our circ.u.mstances are nothing alike, gel. Nothing."

Jenny stared at her mother. She'd never seen her this upset before. Though she appeared angry, for some reason, she was shaking too. "What do you mean, Mama?" she asked hesitantly.

Her mother stared back at her and for a moment Jenny was convinced she was about to explain herself. "Never you mind," she finally snapped, then turned and left Jenny's bedchamber.

Jenny was sitting in the cooling bathwater, dumbstruck, when Erma walked into her chamber with the harvest basket and plunked it down on the floor.

"When the snow started coming, Mrs. Penny brought your basket inside, but it's getting in me way in the kitchen so I'm bringing it to you, Miss Miser Bag... or should I say Lady Eros?"

Jenny grimaced. "You better not say either one again if you know what's good for you."

Erma crossed her arms over her chest. "I ain't afraid of you none, Jenny."

"Really?"

"That's right, because I know it'll only take a few words to those newspaper fellows that 'ave been snoopin' around-least I 'eard that's who they are-and your fancy *I'm a Great Lady' game is over for good."

Jenny looked up at the pearl earbobs dangling from beneath Erma's mobcap and a sly smile skated across her lips. "If my ident.i.ty is revealed by your doing, I have no doubt Mr. Bartleby will be most displeased. In fact, he might rethink any gift he might have given you for giving him access to my tingle cream."

Erma's fingers flew up to the pearl earrings and stayed there. "You wouldn't dare tell him."

"Of course I would. If I were given no other choice."

"You are a wicked girl, Jenny Penny."