Red Jack's Daughter (26 page)

Jessica paused as she was about to explain her plans for the dispersal of the gems. For although she had been thinking of independence and security, she had not thought at all of where she was to go from this place. She would not go back to Oak Hill, now that she knew she had no need to. And it was true that there was no further reason for staying on with her hostess.

“Why, I don’t know,” she answered with truth, turning her great brown eyes upon her cousin. “I hadn’t thought it through. I expect I shall collect my things, and my old dog Ralph, and set up on my own somewhere,” she added weakly.

“But, I do know,” Anton exclaimed. “Now you can come back home with me! Ah, Jessica, you will love our home. You will truly come into your own there and will wonder how you ever thought not to leave this cold land.
”

As he had possessed himself of both her hands this time, Jessica could not pull back. Rather she shook her head in the negative, and said gently, “Not immediately, Anton. I am sorry, but I hadn’t planned on travel just yet.
”

He looked at her with the traces of a smile and said, “But I do not speak of travel, Cousin. I speak of marriage.”

Jessica’s eyes flew wide and she gasped. But now he pulled her closer and said rapidly, falling over his words in his enthusiasm, “I have waited so long, as is proper. First, so that you might know me better, and now, at last, there is no better that you can know me. There is no more to know. And second, till this matter of your legacy was cleared. And now it is. But I have known from the first. Jessica, marry me.”

She stared at him as though he had run mad, and stammered, “But, Anton, I had no idea. I never thought you were interested in me in ... in such a way.”

“I have been too proper,” Anton agreed, nodding vigorously. He pulled her toward him quickly and fastened his mouth upon hers.

At first, Jessica was too amazed to protest, and he took her passivity for approval. His mouth opened against hers and his hands pressed her close and roved about her, clutching at her hips and breasts. He made love as he made conversation, with great rapidity and total involvement.

Jessica felt as though she were drowning in some suffocating envelope of flesh. His mouth was hot and wet, his hands busy and thorough, his body so intimately gripped to hers that she could feel both his furnace heat and growing arousal.

Thoroughly alarmed and revulsed, she fought to free herself. But it was only after she had managed to bite down hard upon his soft lower-lip that he let her go.

He touched his lip and asked her in hurt surprise, “You did not like that?”

“No,” Jessica said, smoothing down her dress with shaking fingers. “It is not your fault, Anton,” she added, upset by the distress in his eyes. “It is just not what I expected or wanted.”

“Then,” said Anton happily, reaching for her again, “you show me what you expect and want.”

“No,” she cried, jumping up with haste. “You don’t understand. I like you very well, Anton, but not as a lover. I don’t wish to hurt your feelings, but I simply cannot think of you in that way.”

And it
was
odd, she thought, how he could be so very good as a friend and so very distasteful as a lover.

He sat quietly for a few moments, so still that Jessica, after she had righted her frock, felt safe enough to sit beside him again. She hardly knew what to say to cheer him when he at last looked at her. There was no laughter in his eyes now, and in some strange way, without his omnipresent smile, he no longer looked recognizable to her.

“So be it,” he breathed. “It is time to talk facts.” He looked straight at her, his dark face now composed and his voice staccato. “I would have liked to make love to you, Cousin, but if you feel nothing for me in that way, that is regrettable, but a fact. Perhaps, in time, you will change. But I do not discuss that now. Let us be frank. You have no parents. You live only on the good graces of your friend Sir Selby. That is no security at all. As for your other friends, the lofty Lord Leith is only entertaining you as a favor to Sir Selby and his aunt. He has wealthy and worldly beauties at his disposal. You are nothing to him.”

Anton waited a moment until the import of his words registered upon Jessica, and then nodding, he went on, “Your friend Thomas Preston has not a penny to his name. He was awaiting your legacy as anxiously as you, Cousin. But I do not think there is enough there for two. Now, I am your cousin. If you do not desire me, at least you do not detest me. I have a great deal of money. And I am family. What better future do you have, Jessica?”

She sat still, as though she had been slapped. But then after a pause, her head came up and she looked at Anton
directly. “No,” she said softly, “it will not do. I cannot
marry you, Anton. Where there is no love, it would be a travesty. Thank you, but my parents made a capital mistake in
their union. I shall not follow suit.
”

“That is because they were not logical,” Anton replied calmly. “They thought of love first, and reason afterward
.
We shall start with facts. You do not have to love me,
Cousin. In fact, it would be extraordinary if you did. That is
not the way marriage is thought of in my circle. Your mama was not madly in love with her Baron either. But she was
happier with him than with your father. And you are very
much like your mama. In fact, after we have a son, you
may love where you will. It is the way things are done and
exactly the way your mama went on.”

Jessica drew in a painf
u
l breath. Before she could speak,
Anton continued, “No, I was not her lover. She thought me
too young. But many were. And if she had lived longer
...
”
He shrugged. “It was my ambition.”

“Is that why you wish to marry me?” Jessica asked in
horror.

“Not at all”—he laughed—“for there were many beautiful women who were my ambition.
”

“Then, why?” she breathed. “For I do not think you love
me. And surely it cannot be just because we are cousins.
And,” she went on, trying in some small way to repay him for the enormous hurt he had given her in telling her about her mother, “you have said I have little to offer materially, and
few prospects.”

“Ah,” said Anton smoothly, “but there you are wrong. It
is time you were told the truth. I have promised Mr. Jeffers
that I shall tell you before he returns. I begged him for the right to the felicity of telling you. He is, in fact, angry with
me for delaying so long. I wished to wait for the right
moment. I had hoped to tell you sometime when you lay in
my arms, content after love, but you English
...”
He
laughed bitterly.

“Cousin,” he said, leaning forward, “you do have prospects. Great prospects. Your mama was a wealthy woman
.
She left almost all of her estate to you. But,” he said with a
wry smile as soon as excitement sprang up in her eyes, “your mama was still very angry about your dear Red Jack. And so
she made it plain. You receive her fortune on your wedding day, but only if your husband is an Austrian. If not”—he shrugged—“there will be a party at Saint Gertrude’s Orphan School on your twenty-first birthday, for then they will be very, very wealthy little orphans.”

Jessica sat and tried to assimilate all that he had said. Anton remained silent, watching her. Finally, she asked quietly, “But, Anton, if you are already wealthy, why should you want more?”

He laughed. “Our family is wealthy because we have always wanted more. Papa said that I should come to Britain and wed you and bring you home. He is a reasonable man. He was right. If you think on it, you will agree.”

“I don’t agree Anton,” Jessica said, her anger rising. “I cannot see how you were prepared to marry me without ever having seen me. What if I were an object of disgust to you? And how do I know that I am not?”

“
Lieb
c
hen
,”
Anton said coldly, “do not play for compliments. If you were an ugly woman, it would have been a business arrangement. When I saw you, I knew that I could mix business with pleasure. Still, if you do not share my tastes, as I said, you may eventually go your own way.”

“I do not have to marry you for that course,” Jessica replied. “I cannot, will not, shall not marry you.”

He looked at her consideringly, not at all downcast by her words. Then, he clapped his hands together. “Yes, I see. Cousin, I think you speak from a false position. There is one other thing you should know before you make your final answer. If you are thinking that your father’s gift will be your security, I tell you now to unthink this. The comb, that beautif
u
l comb,” he said mockingly, “it is nothing. Do you hear? Not that it is worth little, it is valueless. Diamonds and emeralds? I tell you again, our family has dealt in gems for centuries, it is strass glass and rock crystal. Oh, once it may have been a treasure. But someone, your dear Red Jack perhaps, has taken out the gems and substituted glass. Perhaps you can sell the silver—that is real enough—and buy yourself a handkerchief.
”

“You lie!” Jessica cried.

“And does your correct Lord Leith lie? For I overheard him tell Mr. Jeffers last night while you were dancing with joy,
‘Her father must have prized out every gem to pay his mistresses and back debts.’
”

“But,” Jessica asked, fearing his answer, “why has it been taken to London, then?”

“To sign papers, most likely, swearing that no one here has stolen the jewels and substituted glass, in case you decide to go to the courts with your worthless legacy. Or, more likely, to hurry it away from my eyes before I saw and knew. For they hope you will wed me, you know, and hoped I would think it a fine dowry. Why do you think they asked me here and threw us together?” he asked triumphantly.

Jessica did not answer. She stood, head down, and pondered. Her comb was no more than a gaudy trinket. Somehow she knew that in this, at least, there was unmistakable truth. It was as though she had always known, for she had felt no real jolt of surprise at what he said. When she at last raised her eyes, there were tears upon her cheeks, but her voice was steady.

“Go, Anton, go home. Without me. I had nothing before I came here, I will leave with nothing. And at that, I think I am far richer than if I left with you.
”

“Do not think, Cousin,” he sneered, “that you can come to Vienna and catch another husband with the right ancestry for your mother’s will. For I shall spread such tales about you, if you do, that even a dustman would
n
ot offer for you.”

“Go,” Jessica said through clenched teeth, “and congratulate the orphans for me.”

He arose, bowed precisely, and strode off.

Jessica stood, as though rooted, until a passing grounds
-
keeper saw her and hesitantly approached to ask if she were well. Then she took to her heels and rushed over the lawns to the solitude of the park.

Thomas found her, at last, sitting upon a grassy hillock overlooking the grounds. He swung off his horse, tethered it quickly to a tree, and dropped to one knee beside her. He asked, as soon as he had gotten his breath back from his mad search for her, “Jess, what has happened? The place is in an uproar. Anton marched in, demanded his valet to pack his bags, and is about to leave. He will not say a thing to us, except farewell.”

He searched her face. She seemed unmoved by what he said.

“Are you all right? He hasn’t hurt you or offended you, has he?” he asked on a rising note of anger.

“Why, I suppose he has,” Jessica said slowly, and then stayed him with a light touch upon his knee, “but only by asking me to marry him.
”

“Oh,” Tom said on an explosion of breath. He sat beside her. “And did you accept?”
h
e asked carefully.

“Oh, no. Never.” Jessica laughed weakly. “Do you think he’d be leaving in such high dudgeon if I had? I’m not that bad, you know. No, I expect he is very offended. And if so, I am very glad, for I as much as let him know I would not have him for love nor money.
”

She gave a peculiar laugh, and then, seeing Tom’s bewildered look, she took a deep breath and slowly explained all to him. All, except for the matter of her jeweled comb, for she could not bear to voice her tumultuous thoughts on that head as yet.

“You are well rid of him even for a thousand fortunes,” Tom swore when she had done, his lean face a composition in earnest anger. But she had not failed to note the brightening in his eyes when she had first spoken of her mother’s legacy.

“He was never the right sort for you, Jess,” Tom said after a brief silence. “Why, you even behaved artificially when he was about. Just see, you will be yourself again once he has gone. But, wait, what am I thinking of? Did he insult you in any way, Jess? I mean physically,” he said as though he were prepared to leap back on his mount and race off to thrash little Anton.

“No,” Jessica said weakly. “He only kissed me. And I found that abuse enough. But, Tom, stay,” she commanded as he tensed to spring up, “for a kiss is a small thing and no battling matter. Let him go, as soon as he is able.
”

Tom stilled at that. But soon he spoke again. “Jess, he is a foul fellow, but there is right in one thing he said. What are your plans now that you have Red Jack’s treasure?”

“Oh,” Jessica replied with a sad little smile, “I expect I’ll stay on with Lady Grantham for a space, and then I’ll go home, where I belong. If I could handle Cousin Anton, no doubt I shall be able to cope with Cousin Cribb.”

“Jess,” Tom said, rising up upon his knees to face her, “you needn’t, you know. Damnation, but this is not the time nor the place, but, Jess, you must know how I feel.”
He drew her very close to her, so close she could feel the tension in his arms and see the sunlight glancing off his light eyes.

“Say good-bye to all of them, Jess,” he urged, “and come away with me. No, don’t look surprised, for, I swear, if you think, you’ll see that it was always meant to be so. Did not Red Jack himself always bring you to me when you were but an infant? Have you not known me forever? Why do you think I am here at all?” he scoffed. “For Lady Grantham’s musical evenings?

“As I knew your father and respected him, so have I always thought of you,” he said with passion, “for you two are very like. I only waited for you to grow up. Ah, Jess, marry me and be damned to the lot of them.”

While Jessica stared at him as though he had run mad, he gave a muttered oath and embraced her. It was not at all like Anton’s moist embrace. His lips were cool and hard, and his hands only held her comfortingly close. But there was not the shiver of unbidden sensation that she had experienced all that time ago at home, or the curious shaken reaction she had felt for another man’s mere gesture of annoyance. Instead, she found herself waiting for a response to well up within herself. But all she discovered was numbness and her own cool patience for him to be done.

When he took his lips from hers, rested his fair head against her cheek and murmured, “Jess, ah, Jess,”

And then she said quite calmly, as though explaining a lesson to a schoolboy, “Tom, there is no legacy from Red Jack. The comb is set with glass. It is worth nothing, you know.”

He drew back and stared until she thought his clear eyes glittered brighter than the sham diamonds had.