Island of the Swans (80 page)

“And did he like Kinrara?” she asked, swallowing hard.

“That he did,” Angus beamed proudly. “Even rowed out to see that fusty old castle on Loch-an-Eilean after I recited the tale of the Wolf o’ Badenoch. I
told
him that nobody’s been over there for a century or two, but nothing would do, but that he had to row over and see it himself. I think he’d make a fine estate factor for you, m’lady—if he’d take the job. Shall I make inquiries? I’m to see him at the Inverness Wool Market in a month’s time.”

“Well…” Jane hesitated, her heart pounding. “Let me think on it. First I must see to designing the house. Then we’ll worry about the sheep.”

From then on, she said no more about the subject of estate factor. Angus had revealed that Thomas still lived at Struy. Jane knew that if she even
laid eyes
on him, she could never again summon the strength to leave him. Remembering the look of sorrow etched on the faces of her children as their carriage departed for the south without her, Jane knew what she had to do. Within the week, she departed Kinrara, still sick at heart, for her native city, Edinburgh.

Soon after her arrival in town, Jane and Eglantine sat quietly talking in front of the fire while a steady spring downpour glazed the windows of the Gordons’ Edinburgh townhouse on George Square. Charlotte was supervising the other children’s lessons upstairs, allowing her mother and her aunt some much-needed privacy.

“So, you’ll live in London?” Eglantine asked.

“Aye… though four thousand pounds a year is hardly a fortune with seven children in such an expensive place. But I think remaining there will be best for the lasses’ prospects.”

“Is there no way this breach can be healed, Jenny?” Eglantine asked somberly.

“’Tis come too far for that, I’m afraid,” Jane answered wearily. “Alex wants his wife and his mistress, too.”

“Are you sure that’s what he wants?” her sister asked gently.

“To be fair, ’tis the babe he won’t give up, not that serving wench, I suspect,” Jane acknowledged. “But a bairn so young needs its mama, and I cannot live in the same house with that viper Jean Christie and her mother!”

“Perhaps, when the child is a bit older, you’ll be able to see your way clear…”

Eglantine’s words drifted off as she saw the painful expression invading Jane’s eyes.

“I understand Alex’s wanting the babe to be acknowledged as his, and provided for… but I just can’t face being constantly reminded of what he did to hurt and humiliate me.”

“Perhaps he also feels hurt and humiliated,” Eglantine ventured.

“Perhaps he does…” Jane sighed. “But, whatever my sins, I never deliberately set out to do him injury, as he did to me.”

The two women were suddenly aware of a commotion in the foyer outside the downstairs sitting room. The parlor doors swung open violently, and there, framed by the threshold, stood Lady Magdalene Maxwell. Her steel-gray hair was partially covered by a puce silk bonnet shaped like a balloon, and it framed her deeply lined face in a less than flattering fashion. The Maxwell matriarch had not even surrendered her cloak to the startled maid who stood wringing her hands behind her. Lady Maxwell leaned on a silver-handled cane and stared disapprovingly down her nose at her two daughters.

“I have yet to receive a message, a summons, any dispatch whatsoever to indicate that you’d returned to Edinburgh!” Lady Maxwell exclaimed. “Nor was I privy to the shocking news that tittle-tattles are whispering all about the town! How dare you, Jane, disgrace us all with this
separation
from your duke? I command you to stop this nonsense at once! Think of your children! Think of poor Eglantine, here, who hasna a farthing, but what she is provided so generously by your husband, the duke!”

Lady Maxwell put her hand on her heart and took a breath, leaning dramatically against the doorjamb. “You are the most selfish chit in God’s world!”

“What’s amiss between Alex and me is none of your concern, Mother,” Jane replied sharply.

“It costs a pretty penny, I assure you, to run my house on Leith Walk, what with the doubling of prices of everything these days! How could you think so little of others and do something as ridiculous as offending the duke!”

“Oh, do be quiet!” Jane fumed, rising from her chair. “You know nothing of the situation, so just leave off with your eternal meddling.”

Eglantine, who had also listened to her mother’s tirade with increasing annoyance and exasperation, also rose from her chair.

“Jane’s right, Mama!” she declared. “Stay out of this, I beg you! You know naught of the problems, but you’re forever dishing out advice till it makes us want to
scream
! For your information, the duke has taken a mistress and has had a brat by her. Jane has a right to be upset.”

“So, after twenty years of marriage, he puffs himself up by snaring some local partridge? Is that any reason to pull a house down?” Lady Maxwell demanded.

“So, you’re suggesting that I just accept whatever my lord and master serves up, is that it, Mama dear? Swallow it all, just as long as
you
get
your
allowance! Well, I have something to say to you that you should have heard long ere now! I do not live my life to satisfy you, Magdalene Maxwell! If only… if
only
I had had the courage to act on that twenty years ago!” Jane stalked toward her mother who shrank back into the foyer in alarm. “Get out!
Get out of my house!
” she shouted, her fists clenched at her side to keep from striking her mother. “And pray do not come to call unless you’re
invited
!”

The quarrel with Lady Maxwell was just one of several factors prompting Jane to close up the George Square house and remove to London soon afterward. Fortunately, the residence at Number 6, St. James’s Square was available and Jane decided to lease it again, rather than return to the apartments on Pall Mall where the memories of the fire were all too fresh in her mind.

In the following six months in London, she once again threw herself into a whirlwind of activities, including showing off her eldest unmarried daughters to Society. Her exhausting social life required an expensive and elaborate wardrobe, and Jane sighed at the thought of the pile of unpaid bills on the desk downstairs in the library.

And I used to criticize the debts of the Duchess of D
, she thought ruefully, gazing at her own reflection in the looking glass.

“What do you think, Monsieur D’Amour?” she inquired of the Belgian hairdresser now in her employ. “Too much?”

She was debating whether to add another jewel to her elaborate coiffure. The round-faced artiste cocked his head to one side and gazed at Jane, deep in thought. He scratched his broad forehead, wrinkled his Gallic nose, and continued to stare at his patron’s profile critically as she handed him the amethyst bauble.

“Ah… but, Your Graze… if zee Duchess of Devonshire can put—how you say—zee carrots and zee turnips in her coiffure for zee decoration, surely zee queen will not object to one more
objet, n’est-ce pas
.”

“Ah, but she might,” Jane mused. “The sovereign is displeased with the outlandish hairstyles espoused by the likes of the Duchess of D this season.”

“Ooh, but madam… eets so good for zee biz-a-ness for such as I! Can you not persuade zee queen otherwise?” he pleaded with a twinkle in his eye. Jane found Matthew D’Amour too amusing to take offense at his familiarity.

“I’m afraid that is not the purpose of this audience, though I’m sure I don’t know why Her Majesty has summoned me to Kew Gardens today,” Jane replied. “And remember, Monsieur D’Amour, that ’twas I who said it: one day our dear Duchess of D will go too far.”

As D’Amour put the finishing touches on his masterful creation, Jane wondered idly if Alex wouldn’t think the same of her. No doubt he would consider her hiring her own personal hairdresser a frivolous expense, but as far as Jane was concerned, it had become an absolute necessity. Neither she nor her maids could even attempt the elaborate styles that were all the rage now in London.

The Duke of Gordon was due to arrive at St. James’s Square from Gordon Castle any day, his presence required by the convocation of the House of Lords. Jane was definitely
not
looking forward to seeing him, nor to discussing the financial straits in which she currently found herself. With five daughters to clothe, and her own gowns to purchase, she had come close to spending her four thousand pound annuity on the family wardrobe alone. She presently found herself in the uncomfortable position of having to ask her estranged husband for more money.

“Have you no hint, madam, why zee queen wishes to see you zis day?” Monsieur D’Amour murmured, interrupting her reverie.

“None whatsoever,” Jane replied. One hint from her to D’Amour, and the Queen’s confidence would be bandied about all over London. “Mr. Pitt’s summons merely said ’tis to be a private audience… just the three of us, thank heavens! I needn’t dress as if for a court appearance—but do you think this gown is—”

“
C’est parfait!
” he interrupted. “Elegant, but not too… how you say… formal.”

Jane admitted to herself she was pleased to be invited to visit the queen. It apparently signaled that, thus far, no one seemed to think it strange that the Duchess of Gordon had taken up residence without the duke.
That was London for you
, Jane thought, sighing.

“Absolutely
no
feathers, Monsieur,” Jane said decisively, pointing to a silver plume D’Amour held in his hand. “The queen despises them.”

“You are correct, Madame Duchess.
Exactement!
”

Jane thanked Monsieur D’Amour for his labors and he withdrew. She glanced at the clock ticking on the marble mantel and smoothed the folds of her skirt. With alacrity, she retrieved her cloak from the armoire and laid it on the bed. William Pitt would be arriving momentarily to escort her to this mysterious tête-à-tête with the queen. The youthful Prime Minister had been extremely cryptic in his note asking her to accompany him to Kew Gardens. In fact, Jane had been most surprised at receiving an invitation to visit the queen, quite apart from her fears about the scandal of her separation from Alex. She had heard rumors that the king had been somewhat indisposed, of late.

She heard a soft tap at her door.

“The Prime Minister is here, madam,” her upstairs maid reported.

“Thank you, Mavis. I shall join him straightway,” Jane replied, lining her gray satin cloak from the bed.

Jane gave a final glance into the looking glass at her pewter-colored gown trimmed with yards of silver lace. Once again, she smoothed the folds in her skirt, thankful that the prevailing fashion allowed a softer silhouette, with far fewer hoops and stays to pinch her flesh.

Within minutes, Pitt had whisked her into his carriage and they were heading at a fast trot toward Kew Gardens and their afternoon rendezvous with Queen Charlotte.

“Why so mysterious?” Jane teased her companion. “You’ve hardly said a word to me.”

“Oh… what?” Pitt responded with a start. “Forgive me, Duchess… ’twas just that… well, you’ll discover the need for secrecy soon enough, I’m afraid.”

“Can’t you give me the merest
hint
of what this is all about?”

Pitt shook his head.

“No,” he said in a low voice, with a glance toward the driver and footmen accompanying them. “I truly cannot.”

Jane grew even more baffled when they pulled up to Kew Gardens and were quickly led past several equerries, pages, and ladies-in-waiting who appeared exceedingly careworn and preoccupied. Immediately, Jane and Pitt were admitted into a small suite of apartments facing the gardens themselves.

A door opened and a woman in her mid-thirties entered the small gallery where they had been left standing alone for several minutes.

“Ah, Miss Burney,” Pitt said graciously to one of the Queen’s closest confidants. “How pleased I am ’tis you who greet us. Have you met the Duchess of Gordon? Your Grace, this is Fanny Burney, the Queen’s Keeper of the Robes.”

“I doubt the Duchess recalls that we met briefly at the studio of Sir Joshua Reynolds, years ago,” Fanny replied graciously. “You were about to have your first sitting for your portrait in your coronation robes, Your Grace. I remember that it was a beastly hot day in June and I thought you extraordinarily brave to do it.”