‘Meanwhile you will lend me sufficient funds to establish myself in a popular resort—Scarborough or Brighton, I think. I will change my name and pay you back as my business grows.’
‘I thought—forgive me if this sounds arrogant—but I thought you were more than reconciled to marriage with me,’ Ivo said, amazed to find himself in control of his voice. ‘I thought that you had recognised that setting up in business was not something you wanted after all.’
‘I like you very well and I am sure we would have rubbed along together most amiably. But we do not have to.’ She leaned forward, earnest and intent. ‘We can both have what our hearts desire now. There is no need to compromise. If you will lend me money, then it will be much easier for me, I am sure I can make a success of it.’
‘Jane, think what you are doing. You know you can paint after we are married, you know I will not stand in the way of your art.’
‘Yes, but do you not remember that I said I never wanted to marry unless it was for love? Now I do not have to because we have this way out.’ She stood up and Ivo stood, too.
He wanted to reach for her, but that would be like begging and he made himself stand still, absorbing the fact that she had not been reconciled to the marriage, that she was happy to have found a way out as she put it.
Jane was still talking, quite calm and determined. She seemed to have thought it all through. ‘Now I am going to write to Mama and Papa and Cousin Violet and my bridesmaids and tell them that I have decided we will not suit. I fear poor Mr Ranwick will be busy tomorrow cancelling all the invitations and the arrangements.’
Ivo did not go and open the door for her, that was too much like helping her to go. As it closed he sat down again and tried to think. What had he done to make Jane believe that he still loved Daphne? Because he did not, he knew that with bone-deep certainty now and the knowledge had been creeping up on him for days. Had he ever loved her—or had he been dazzled by her loveliness, infatuated by her adoration?
He made himself finish the letters and went out to find Ranwick. ‘See that these go off express,’ he said, then went back to the study, pacing. He needed to do something, something physical. Get on a horse and gallop, chop wood—take a hammer and chisel to that damn sentimental carving. He had meant to do that and had forgotten it, now at least he could erase the thing and then, perhaps, he could begin to think clearly.
The tool shed beside the wood s
tore supplied what he needed and he strode down to the ha-ha, his mind incapable of thinking about anything but the fact that Jane wanted to leave him.
The door to the hermitage stood ajar and he went in, then stopped. The dusty floor was marked with footprints: his and, overlapping here and there, the mark of much smaller shoes. The dirt he had scattered over the window ledge was not as he had left it either. He had smoothed it perfectly, now there were the marks of slender fingers raking through it.
Jane. Jane had seen this, read his words, known for certain that he had loved Daphne. And now she was setting him free.
He attacked the soft stone of the ledge with the tools, obliterated the inscription until all that remained was a ragged hole. The controlled violence was calming, he realised as he left, pulling the door closed behind him. Jane was wrong about his feelings for Daphne, but he could not be sure of her own motives. Was this gallantry of a kind he had not realised women possessed, or was she glad of the excuse to be free of him?
* * *
Jane was coming down the stairs, letters in her hands, when he came in and he had to stop himself covering the distance between them in long strides, taking her in his arms.
‘Ivo, could you give these to Mr Ranwick? I’m afraid I... I would rather not have to explain everything to him.’
‘Yes, of course.’ He took them from her cold fingers and returned the faint smile she gave him before she turned and ran back upstairs. Then he walked slowly down to Ranwick’s office, shuffling the sealed letters as he went, studying her writing as though there was some clue there.
And then he realised that there was and, for the first time since Daphne had burst through the front door, he knew what he was going to do.
‘Ranwick.’
‘My lord?’
‘I am going to need your help.’
Chapter Eighteen
Who was going to tell the Marquess that there would be no wedding? Jane supposed it should be her because she was the one breaking off the engagement. It was much easier to focus on that, on what to say, on how she would react to the things he was likely to say in response, than it was to think about losing Ivo. She had told him that they could each have what they wanted now, what their hearts desired, but it was not true. She wanted Ivo first and beyond everything—except for his happiness.
Jane curled up in the window seat of her sitting room and tried to unravel her own thoughts and feelings. Now she would be free, with the resources to paint, unfettered by husband or parental authority, was it what she wanted?
No, she admitted to herself. She had accepted Ivo because she wanted him and there had been no conflict because she trusted him when he said he would never interfere with her art.
It was the act of creating that she craved, the possibility to grow as an artist that drove her, not the desire to be a businesswoman where time and energy must be devoted to making a living. Time and energy expended on making a life together with Ivo was one thing, but wrestling with landlords and builders, enticing clients, fighting prejudice—no, he had understood her so well. Even with money behind her, it would grind her down, take the joy out of her art.
Of her friends it was Melissa who had a burning ambition, not simply to write but to turn society on its head. Votes for women, equal rights in marriage, control over money, the right of women to be doctors and lawyers—all those impossible things for their sex were on Melissa’s list of the reforms she wanted to see in her own lifetime, and the fervour she put into the debate only fuelled her novel writing. Jane knew that the fight would crush her because she did not have the limitless optimism that her friend possessed.
‘Your vision is too close to hand,’ Melissa had once said to her in the middle of a heated debate. ‘You will fight, but only for the people you can see, the things you can experience. You will seek compromise and peace.’
And that was true. She had seen Ivo and had fought for him in Kensington and on the road to Bath. She had fallen in love with Ivo and had determined, somehow, to make the marriage work and hoped that he might come to love her, too. Now she must compromise again, seek peace of a kind for both of them. If only it did not hurt so much...