Page 50 of The Defiant Governess
“He’s going to be fine.”
Saybrook let out a sigh of relief. “And how long have I been unconscious?”
“Over three days.”
“Three days,” he muttered. “I …” He turned his head and, for the first time, took in her rumpled clothes and drawn face. “Surely Hastings could have hired a nurse,” he exclaimed. “It’s not right that you have been forced …” He let out an involuntary gasp as Jane felt at his wound.
“The dressing must be changed, sir. If you will just lie still.”
Saybrook fell silent. By the clenching of his jaw, Jane could see he was in terrible pain. Hurriedly she cut away the linenbandage and applied the salve as gently as she could. Even so, she could hear a sharp intake of breath.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
To rewrap the bandage she had to reach around his back, bringing her own body so close to his that she could feel his breath on her cheek. It was all she could do to keep from imitating his own gesture towards Peter.
A groan escaped his lips.
“Are you in terrible pain, my lord?” She reached for the glass on the night table. “You must try to drink some of this.”
His eyes had been closed. At her words, they opened slowly and as he gave a short, bitter laugh, Jane saw they were a bit glazed. She feared he was slipping back into delirium.
“In pain, my dear Miss Langley? Shall I tell you what pain is?”
She pressed the glass to his lips and was relieved to see he took a few swallows before continuing.
“My mother died when I was fourteen. She had encouraged my interests in the piano and drawing against my father’s grumbling that it wasn’t manly. After she was gone, he became determined to change me—perhaps in looking back now, I see it was because I reminded him too much of her, for indeed he did at least love her. She was a remarkable lady. Beautiful, witty, intelligent, and strong enough to moderate my father’s rash temper. On her death, he became … angry. With the world, with me.”
Saybrook stopped to take a few breaths. He seemed to have forgotten Jane’s presence. His eyes had closed again, and it was as if he were speaking to himself as he continued on in barely a whisper.
“My sister was a number of years older than I and had already married and moved to Yorkshire, so I was the only one at home. I begged him to send me away to school, but he refused,saying he would make a man of me before he allowed me to disgrace the family name.”
“I learned to ride and hunt and manage the estate well, but I also learned to hate my father. He had become a hard, unforgiving man. If he caught me playing the piano, sketching in watercolors or reading a book he would beat me.”
A sigh. “Naturally I took to avoiding his presence. I found solace elsewhere.”
Saybrook’s lips compressed. There was such a long silence that Jane feared he had dropped into unconsciousness. But after another sigh, he continued. “There was a tenant family whose daughter had been allowed to get some schooling in the village. We were of the same age, and during my rides around the estate we chanced to talk a few times. I discovered that she loved books, too, and hungered to learn more. I took to lending her some. Then we began to meet—to read, to talk. Her name was Elizabeth. We became … friends.”
“When my father finally realized that he could not beat me into submission, he relented and allowed me to go up to Oxford. It was like a whole new world had opened up for me. I reviled in the studying and had no interest in going with my peers to London to cut a swath in Society. I fear I was rather serious—and rather naive.”
“I spent my free time back here, to be with Elizabeth. I was so young in many ways—she was the only person who seemed to understand me. We believed we were in love. I wanted to marry her.”
He gave another harsh laugh, low and barely audible. “You can imagine my father’s reaction. I was not of age—why I thought he would understand and consent is now beyond me. So we had no choice but to wait until I attained my majority.”
“But then Elizabeth found she was with child. I renewed my arguments with my father, begging to be allowed to do thehonorable thing. He merely laughed at me and said I was finally acting like a man—one bedded the neighborhood girls for sport, one didn’t marry them. I think it was the first time he had ever approved of me.”
“I threatened to run off to Gretna Green if he didn’t give in, and he must have finally believed that I was serious.” Saybrook hesitated, his face looking even more tortured. “The next day Elizabeth was gone, a note in her hand informing me that she hated me for ruining her and that she never wanted to lay eyes on me again. Callow youth that I was, I believed it! I didn’t blame her for thinking ill of me.”
“Her parents said she had gone to stay with relatives. They refused to say where. I tried to write, but they would not give me any address nor would they accept a missive to deliver to her. I was told she was better off if I left her alone, and I believed it.”
“I returned to university feeling bitter and disillusioned, with nothing but contempt for myself. Instead of applying myself to my studies, I threw myself into the kind of debaucheries I had previously shunned. Much of my time was spent in Town, drinking, gambling and indulging in … the attractions of the muslin set. I suppose I sought to give my father what he wanted—with a vengeance.. After one particularly bad incident, I was sent down.”
“One evening, when my father had made one of his trips to London, I was working at his desk. In looking for some correspondence concerning the sale of some stud horses we were interested in buying, I came across a letter hidden in the back of the drawer. It had been addressed to me at Oxford, and forwarded home. I recognized the hand immediately—it was from Elizabeth, asking why I didn’t at least take the time to answer any of her other letters. It begged me to be with her for the birth of our baby and to see that some provision would bemade for the child’s welfare. I knew her well enough to read the anguish and despair.”
“In a rage, I raced to her father’s cottage and confronted him. He must have sensed that in my mood I was capable of anything, so he confessed that my father had threatened him and his family with ruin if Elizabeth wasn’t sent away from me. She was forced to write the note I received and Father arranged for her to be taken on at my sister’s estate—though Sarah never knew the truth. Her father was paid—paid!—for his silence. He knew that my father had bribed someone at Oxford to see that I received none of her letters.”
“I rode all that night, and the next day and night as well. But I was a day too late. She had given birth to a healthy baby boy, yet was so despondent and ashamed that she couldn’t face going on. She … threw herself from the roof of the manor house.”
Saybrook halted to steady his voice. “My sister and her husband had been trying for years to have children. When she learned the truth, she begged me to let her keep the child and raise it as her own. Theirs was a remote estate, with loyal servants who would not gossip. No one would ever know it was not hers.”
