The Valentine Legacy (15 page)

“Good morning, Jessie. How did you sleep?”

“Like a dead rock,” Jessie said, and yawned, unable to help herself.

“I'll take my husband from your bedchamber so you can bathe and dress. Here's Ned with your bathtub and some water. We'll see you downstairs.”

“What about Charles?”

“Unlike his brother,” the earl said, “Charles still doesn't quite grasp that you're here for him and thus at this moment, he's quite uncaring, being burped by his other nurse after the Duchess here let him eat for nearly an hour.”

Maggie came into her bedchamber twenty minutes later, just as Jessie had finished braiding her own hair, she hoped just as Maggie had done it the previous evening. Maggie was carrying over her arm a riding habit of dark green velvet.

Maggie looked at her for a few moments, then said, “Sit down a moment, Jessie. I think you've half the knack of it.”

Jessie sat.

“Now, my pet, you don't want to look outrageously beautiful the way I do all the time. I owe it to the house and to my husband to be a pearl during the day and a diamond during the evening and during the night—well, that's something you don't need to know just yet. But you, Jessie, you're not like me. You don't want to be unbraiding braids all the time. You want to be comfortable. Let's save all the plaited braids for the evening. How about just a single one for the morning? Now, here's how you make it straight. Yes, that's it. Now we'll just loop it up like this and pin it. Nothing to it. The last thing you do is loosen it all up.” Maggie looked at the tightly pulled-back hair, took the handle of the comb, and eased the hair looser on the top and sides of Jessie's head. Then she pulled loose “streamers” to curl haphazardly about her face. The one that fell over her ear itched, but Jessie decided she could become used to it. She just stared at herself. It was amazing.

“See, that's all you need to do. Tomorrow, you will try it while I watch.”

“Thank you, Maggie. I can't quite believe what a difference it makes. Oh, you're going to cream my face again.”

“Yes, and this time I will leave the cream for you. Use it in the morning and just before you go to bed at night. Now, if you were married, you'd have to use it before your husband visited your bed. My Sampson says that if Badger would only add some vanilla to the cream that he'd like to lick . . . well, never mind that. Just wait until we get you into this riding outfit. The color should make your eyes a richer green.”

“I can't keep accepting clothes from the Duchess.”

“Oh, this one doesn't belong to the Duchess. It's mine. She wanted to lend you one that would have made you look bilious, yards of apricot velvet and dull as dirt. No, this one will suit you perfectly. I don't ride, but dear Sampson likes to see me prepared for every occasion. Every once in a
while, to please him, I sit atop one of the earl's horses and pose. It does please Sampson no end. I am his Delilah, you know.”

When Jessie stepped out of her bedchamber twenty minutes later, Maggie's riding outfit on her back and a pair of the Duchess's boots on her feet, there was that tall, handsome gentleman waiting for her again. He smiled at her.

“Very fetching,” he said, and proffered her his arm.

“Do you really think so, sir?”

“Another week of hearing the truth of things and you'll have the self-confidence of his lordship. No, perhaps that isn't all that healthy a thing. I will think about it. Now, let me escort you to breakfast.”

Jessie walked happily beside him. She was certain he must be some famous personage and he'd simply found it amusing to befriend her. He left her at the breakfast-room door.

“You will not eat with us, sir?”

“Not this morning. I've already consumed my morning victuals. You enjoy yourself riding, Jessie. Don't let Master Anthony ride off Monmouth's cliff, which is at the south end of Fenlow Moor.”

“I won't.”

He smiled down at her, turned on his stately heel, and left her. She hadn't time to open the door. A footman dressed in stunning gold and dark blue eased forward as smooth as a snake and opened the door for her.

So this was what was called dining
en famille
, she thought, forcing herself to stand still while the same footman pulled out her chair for her.

Anthony was in high spirits, waving a strip of bacon around on his fork as he made a point about his pony.

“My God.”

Jessie brought her head up fast at the earl's stunned voice.

“My God,” he said again. “Isn't she utterly delicious, Duchess?”

“It's that red hair, Jessie. My husband lusts after red hair.”

“What is lust, Mama?”

“It's a new feed for the horses,” the earl said, and laughed. “Your mama thinks it's about the best feed we've ever had. I think she wanted to eat it herself.”

The Duchess threw a piece of toast at her husband. She hadn't yet buttered it. “Jessie isn't yet married, my lord. Mind your tongue, or it won't go well for you.”

The earl said to Jessie, his voice pensive, “Did you know that last month she threw a plate at me? It had eggs on it. Luckily she hasn't become all that good a shot since we've been married, so only my coat was ruined. Spears wasn't even put out by it. He just smiled and said her aim was getting better.”

“What did you do, my lord, to deserve having a plate of eggs heaved at you?”

“Call me Marcus. What did I do? Naught of anything. So naught I can't even remember.”

“I will remind you later, my dear,” the Duchess said, eyeing her small son, who was staring at his papa.

Jessie wondered if the plate had broken. She certainly hoped not. It was probably worth more money than her father's stud. She looked back and forth between the Duchess and Marcus. The Duchess was scolding Anthony about stuffing porridge down his little gullet like a savage. As for his papa, Marcus was forking down his porridge like a big savage.

She was lucky. More than lucky, not that it wasn't about time that her luck turned. She would try to be a good horse nanny to Anthony and a good nurse to Charles.

She missed James damnably, curse him.

T
HAT
F
RIDAY EVENING
, when Jessie had been in residence for a week and a half, the countess and earl gave a dinner party. She was invited. She was their guest, not Charles's nurse or Anthony's horse nanny.

She agreed because of the excitement in the Duchess's beautiful eyes. When the earl gave her a gown of the softest yellow silk, all low-cut over her breasts, the sleeves long and fitting closely at her wrists, she wanted to cry. She'd never before seen such a lovely gown in her life. She doubted if anyone in Baltimore even knew such a gown was possible. Maggie arranged her hair with only three interwoven braids atop her head. The rest of her hair she brought through the circle and arranged the curls in a fall that came nearly to the middle of her back. Her streamers fell down her neck and beside her face. She just sat there and stared at herself in the mirror.

“Now, just a bit of lip cream.”

“Oh goodness, my mother would have apoplexy.”

“Yes, isn't it wonderful that you're here and she isn't?”

“Maggie, is it possible? Are the freckles all gone?”

“No, there's this adorable little line—little soldiers, I think of them—marching right over the bridge of your nose. They're charming. I should imagine that all the young ladies here tonight will see them and go home and paint some on their own noses. Now, this gown. Your breasts look mighty
fine. I'd brought some handkerchiefs to stuff in there just in case, but you don't need them. Mr. Spears said we didn't want to flaunt your cleavage but that you should have one. Yes, he would approve. No freckles on those pretty shoulders. Nearly as white as mine except my skin's creamier because it's the way I am, but yours isn't all that bad, Jessie. You're ready.”

“I don't dance, Maggie.”

“You what?”

“I don't dance.”

“Oh goodness. How much time do we have?”

“Not enough.”

Maggie was looking thoughtful. “I have an idea,” she said. “You go on downstairs, Jessie, and don't worry. You want to have a nice time.”

He was waiting outside her room, as he'd been so many times since her arrival at Chase Park. He looked magnificent in his evening garb, his cravat as white as his teeth. He looked her over thoroughly. She found herself holding her breath for his opinion. He said finally, stroking long fingers over his jaw, “Maggie did a fine job. You're ready to meet all our illustrious neighbors. I want you to stretch out your charming drawl. I want you to emphasize it. You're to show them you're different and that you're very likely better than they are. Can you do it, Jessie?”

She looked at this gentleman who surely had to be a duke at least and said, “You truly believe I can, sir?”

“I truly do. Give me your hand and let's get you downstairs.”

This time she didn't ask him if he were dining with them. She simply smiled up at him at the bottom of the great staircase and said, “Thank you, sir.”

 

“Now,” the earl said as he drew her into his arms, “we're going to waltz. We have time for one lesson before the
guests arrive. Maggie tells me you're smart and will learn quickly.”

Sampson was playing the pianoforte. He marked the first beat of the three heavily as he played. Jessie was terrified and delighted. It was true that the earl practically held her off her own feet most of the time, but before the end of the waltz she nearly had the knack.

“You've got to relax and trust your partner,” he said. Then he frowned. “Well, trust is perhaps too strong a word. Many of the men are clods and would land on your feet. Others are lechers and would try to make love to you. I'll tell you whom to dance with, all right?”

Jessie agreed to that. Dinner was in the state dining room. There were twelve couples, twelve footmen, and more food than Jessie had ever seen in her life. She sat between the Earl of Rothermere—the gentleman who oversaw James's stud when he was in America—and a Mr. Bagley, the local curate, whose abiding interest was in the Norman cathedral in Darlington. After the boiled salmon in lobster sauce, roast quarter of lamb and spinach appeared, the Earl of Rothermere, Philip Hawksbury, said to her, “Just taste this boiled salmon. Badger cooked this evening, praise the Lord. I prayed he would. I've offered him anything he wants to come to Rothermere, but he refuses, damn Marcus and the Duchess. I tell Badger my wife and I are so thin our ribs knock together, but he just smiles and offers me a taste of his new creation. The last time it was an oyster patty of sorts. I thought my belly was going to expire on the spot from happiness.”

She laughed even as she felt like a fraud. She watched the Duchess and tried to copy her. But the Duchess was so graceful, so utterly serene and calm, even the movement of her fork from plate to mouth was done exquisitely and naturally, without conscious thought. There was simply no way she could be like the Duchess.

She was utterly relieved when the Duchess rose and took the ladies into the Green Cube Room. Jessie met all the ladies, who didn't know what to make of her. However, since the Duchess introduced her as a friend from the Colonies, they were reserved but polite. Jessie stretched out her Colonial drawl as much as she dared. She couldn't tell if the ladies were gratified or not hearing it. In but moments, the gentlemen came into the huge room and the orchestra tuned their instruments.

She sat beside the curate's wife during the first waltz, her foot tapping heavily on the first beat. The second waltz, she danced with Marcus, and he only had to lift her off her feet three times to prevent disaster. Then he handed her over to the Earl of Rothermere.

“Take good care of her, Hawk. This is the third waltz in her entire life.”

“A pullet then,” the Earl of Rothermere said, and gave her a dazzling smile. He was more energetic than Marcus, whirling her around until she was laughing aloud and gasping for breath. When it was over she said, “The earl told me he would be careful not to give me to clods or to lechers. He said nothing about volcanoes, my lord.”

“He never does,” Philip Hawksbury said. “You're doing well, Jessie. Very well.”

She went upstairs some time later with an ice cream for Anthony. He was sitting at the top of the stairs, ready to hide in one of the niches whenever a lady came up the stairs to go to the withdrawing chamber. When he saw Jessie, he said, “You look different, Jessie. Your face is very red.”

“That's because your papa is dancing my feet off. Now, here's an ice cream for you from Badger. He said he knew you'd already eaten at least four others and this was to be the last.”

“How odd that Badger wouldn't count right,” Anthony said, looking puzzled. “It's five actually, but they were
small. I do wonder how Badger miscounted—he never has before.”

When she returned from her bedchamber, he was licking his fingers. “It's a wonderful party,” she said. “Everyone is being very nice to me.”

“They have to be or else my mama and papa would nail them behind the wainscoting.”

She had to smile at that. “I must go back now. Isn't it time for you to go to bed?”

“Not yet. Spears said I could have an extra thirty minutes tonight. He said I was to watch the gentlemen in particular. He said I was to make a list in my head of all the things they did or said that I didn't think were right. I am to tell him in the morning.”

“Do you think your papa will do anything that will go on that list of yours?”

“I asked Spears that, and he said that my papa was unique and exempt from any list.”

She kissed him goodnight and started down the huge staircase. She heard the knocker on the front door and watched Sampson, resplendent in magnificent evening garb, open the great doors. There stood James, his black cloak billowing out behind him in the stiff evening wind, his head bare.

“Ah, at last you've arrived, Master James,” Sampson said.

“Is that damned twit here, Sampson?”

“Which damned twit, Master James?”

“Don't you rub my nose in it, Sampson. She's here, isn't she?”

“Naturally she is here. Where else would she be?”

He looked up then and saw her. He looked away from her, back to Sampson. “The Duchess and Marcus are having a party?”

“Yes, but your arrival won't inconvenience anyone.
You're expected. Mr. Badger doubtless has dinner for you. He's had dinners prepared for you for the past three days. We all discussed it and decided that you'd realize within a week that she'd come here.”

“Tell me she's all right, Sampson.”

She said then, “James.”

He looked up at her, shook his head, and looked away. “Where the devil is she?”

“James!”

This time he took several steps forward and looked up at her again. “Jessie?”

“Yes.”

“You're not Jessie. You look nothing like Jessie, but you have her voice. What did you do to Jessie?”

She walked slowly down the stairs because she had no choice. She didn't want to trip on her skirts and break her neck. But she wanted to run. She wanted to leap on him and hold him hard against her and not let him loose, even to let him eat Badger's dinner.

She reached the bottom step. He'd walked toward her and had stopped three feet away. He was staring up at her.

“Hello, James. I'm very surprised to see you.”

He stared at her silently for another very long minute. “My God, I don't believe this. Just look at you. What did you do to yourself? Oh, I know. Maggie got hold of you.”

“Yes,” she said, her chin up, feeling like a queen, feeling like a female that James Wyndham could admire, perhaps even lust after as he did Connie Maxwell. “Everyone got hold of me.” She knew her breasts were round and white and there was ample cleavage. Her hair was exquisitely arranged and the fall of curls from within the circle of braids surely looked romantic cascading down her back. A streamer waved down each side of her face, nearly touching her shoulders. She was wearing lip cream. She only had a single file of freckles marching across her nose. She had
looked at herself when she'd gone to her bedchamber. She knew she looked as lovely as any lady in the Green Cube Room waltzing around. Even her hands were soft from all Maggie's cream.

“You look ridiculous.”

Her mouth dropped open. “What did you say?”

Sampson said smoothly, “James sometimes falls into his dear mother's speech habit, Jessie. I believe he really said that you looked
ravissant
, in the manner of the French.”

“That wasn't even close, Sampson,” James said over his shoulder. “My mother could take you out in the first round. Stay out of this. Now, my girl, just what the devil do you think you're doing? You look like a painted hussy with that red cream smeared all over your mouth. Your breasts are about to pop out of your gown, breasts I didn't even know you had, or maybe you puffed them out with handkerchiefs? You've lost your freckles—Why is that? Have you locked yourself in a dark room for the past two months and sacrificed an acre of cucumbers? Just look at that bloody gown. You can't even walk for fear you'll trip over that damned flounce or your equally damned feet. Your hair looks like you're ready to go on the stage in some Medieval play. I bet you can't even move your head without fear of it all spilling out of its pins. Dear Lord, you've got pins in your hair, you! What is the meaning of all this?”

She felt crushed, her illusion of beauty in shambles at her feet, feet that did hurt just a bit because the Duchess's slippers were on the small side. She said, “I can move my head without my hair falling apart.”

He waved his hand through his hair, strode up to her, and clasped her upper arms in his hands. He lifted her off her feet and set her down again on the marble floor. “All that is nonsense. Forget I said anything. I lost my head for a moment. You're here and you're safe. I prayed Marcus
would take you in. You're so damned pathetic, I doubted he'd boot you out.”

“I'm not pathetic, at least I'm not anymore, but you don't like me either way, do you? Damn you, James, I'm beautiful, Marcus said so. Sampson said so. Maggie said so.”

“They did, huh? Well, they haven't known you since you were fourteen years old. They haven't seen you plunge out of a tree like a shot duck. They haven't watched you munching on a piece of straw, an old felt hat pulled down over your eyes and singing a ditty the Duchess wrote. Nor have they smelled you with cucumber all over your face.”

“What does that have to do with anything? What does that have to do with my being beautiful now? Look at me, James. Damn you, look at me.”

“I'm looking. I'd be afraid to touch you for fear you'd fall into shimmery little female pieces. Now, what did Spears say about all this?”

“I haven't yet met Spears.”

“That's odd. Usually Spears heads up this cast of meddlers. Where the devil is he, Sampson?”

“He is here, Master James. Not immediately here, you understand, such as he isn't at present standing here beside me, but he's in residence, just as he should be, just as he wishes to be.”