The Valentine Legacy (17 page)

“Yes, I know. I'm a rich man because I just happened to fall in love with a girl whose father was a baronet and very rich. She was his only child. He loved her very much. He urges me to visit him. He thinks of me as his son, though the good Lord knows I don't deserve it. He doesn't blame me for Alicia's death, though I know his loss is great.”

“Why should he blame you for her death?”

“I planted my seed in her womb. She died in childbirth, the babe with her. We hadn't even been married a year.”

“I see.”

“No, you don't, not really. You're young, Jessie, you've never considered a man as other than a competitor to beat at the races. You can't possibly know what it's like to, well, that's not important. So you see, money would be difficult.”

“Why do you blame yourself for her death?”

“The doctor was a fool. He dithered. Her labor was difficult and long. I was banished from the bedchamber and told it was women's business. Foolishly I left only to return to hear her screams. When I got into the bedchamber, she was nearly dead. He'd let her die because he was too ignorant to know what to do. Since then I've done a lot of reading on childbirth, I've spoken to physicians in London. I know now that she could perhaps have been saved. If I had only taken the whole business more seriously, Alicia could still be alive today, our child as well.”

Tears fell down her cheeks. She made no sound. James saw her shoulders shake and turned her to face him. “Tears, Jessie? I don't think I've ever seen you cry before. It happened over three years ago. I shouldn't have told you about it. Now, dry your tears. Jessie, please.”

But she didn't. She lowered her face into her hands and cried harder. James cursed quietly, then pulled her against him. “Shush, Jessie. It was a long time ago. The pain's not close anymore. It's in the past where it belongs, all vague and blurry, not sharp and prodding anymore. Hush, you'll make yourself sick.”

She raised her face and stared up at him. Slowly, she raised her arms and closed them around his neck. “James,” she said only.

He didn't know why he did it, but he did. He lowered his head and kissed her mouth. Her closed mouth. Her very soft closed mouth that had just a light smear of the lip cream. He felt a shot of lust so strong, he trembled with it. Lust? With Jessie Warfield? It was ridiculous. He ran his tongue over her bottom lip, saying against her mouth, “Open your mouth just a little bit, Jessie. Yes, that's right.”

The lust was incredible. It was piercing and powerful, and he simply lost his wits. He cupped her bottom in his hands and lifted her to press her against him. She froze like a rabbit in the sights of a fox.

He felt like a near-rapist. He immediately released her and gently pushed her back.

“I'm sorry. Forgive me.”

She was staring at the buttons on his riding jacket. “You startled me. No one's ever done that to me before. Perhaps you shouldn't have let me down so quickly. Perhaps you should have let me grow accustomed to having your hands around my bottom. Perhaps—”

“Be quiet, Jessie. Damnation, I'm sorry. Despite your new plumage, you're still Jessie Warfield, and it wasn't good of me to attack you like that.”

“It was a very nice attack. Perhaps you could kiss me again?”

“No,” he said, then pulled her against him and kissed her, not a very gentle kiss, but one that was hot and wet and—She giggled into his mouth. He drew back and smiled down at her. “I made you laugh?”

“I dreamed about you last night. I dreamed you were kissing me, that it was hot and very wet and that you were pulling me tightly against your chest. When I woke up, it was Damper sitting on me and licking my nose.”

He dropped his hands to his sides. “You conjure me up in your dreams when a damned dog licks your nose. That puts me in my place.”

“Oh no. I can't imagine you sitting on my chest.” She stared up at his mouth and swallowed. “Again, please, James?”

“No,” he said more violently than he'd meant to. “It's time for luncheon. Come along. Mrs. Catsdoor will have prepared something for us.”

H
E FELT AS
if he were standing in front of a tribunal. All they needed were those rolled white wigs on their heads and long, thin noses. He wondered if Maggie could ever be convinced to cover her glorious hair with one of those things. Probably, if she cared enough. He wasn't actually standing in a docket. He was seated on a gilt chair given to him by the Duchess, in his own drawing room, drinking Mrs. Catsdoor's tea. The tribunal were all staring at him over their teacups. A silver tray lovingly loaded by Mrs. Catsdoor with small delicately trimmed cucumber sandwiches and slivers of lemon cake hadn't been touched. He knew she'd prepared them to impress Badger, whom she held in awe. He wondered if Badger knew that Mrs. Catsdoor admired him excessively, and that admiration had nothing to do with his cooking. They continued to stare at him. He felt like a criminal.

“All right, out with it,” James said. “Why are you here? What have I done now?”

Spears lay down his cup of tea and cleared his throat. “James, we came to Candlethorpe today because we've discussed the situation thoroughly and have come to a decision.”

“Did you tell Marcus and the Duchess your decision first?”

“No, we're telling you first,” Badger said.

“What situation?”

Maggie smoothed her brilliant emerald green satin skirts as she said, “You've grown up into a fine man, James. That's what I told Jessie and I mean it. We're all very proud of you. However, it's time for you to get a good hold on yourself and do the
Right Thing
.”

“The
Right Thing
?”

“Yes, James,” Sampson said, the judge of the tribunal. “We also agree that you know our decision first. It concerns you, not his lordship or the Duchess. It does concern them, but not as directly as it does you.”

“Just what is this
Right Thing
, if I may inquire?” James rose to stroll over to the fireplace. It gave him an illusory sense of freedom to be able to walk even across his own drawing room. The grate was empty, swept clean. He leaned negligently against the mantelpiece, his arms crossed over his chest, which was difficult since he was still holding his teacup. “Come, Spears, spit it out.”

“Very well, James,” Spears said, and rose, all austere as a judge ready to deliver his verdict. He took three measured steps, then turned to face all of them. He cleared his throat. Garrick acting on Drury Lane couldn't have done it better. He said, “We believe you should marry Jessie.”

James stared at him. He'd known all along what they meant by that
Right Thing
business, but he just hadn't wanted to accept it. Now it was all said, all out in the open. He'd not wanted to confront it like this, well, perhaps he already had in the deepest recesses of his brain, but he'd dismissed it. Surely he had. He didn't ever want to consider such a thing, at least not when he was fully conscious. He stared some more. He fidgeted. Finally, he spoke. “This is none of your collective business. Jessie has nothing to do with any of you. She has nothing to do with me. She's whined to you that I ruined her? I didn't ruin her. I had nothing to do with anything. When I didn't ruin her, when
I told her father I hadn't ruined her, he still kept after me. It was Jessie who refused to let it continue. So she's changed her tune now, has she? Now she wants not only my hide, she also wants my name?”

Maggie studied her thumbnail, then turned the wedding ring slowly, ever so slowly around her finger. “That is quite the stupidest thing I've ever heard you say, James. Jessie is innocent; she's extremely vulnerable; she's in a foreign country; she still doesn't know what's good for her, though our hints have become a mite more specific over the past three days. She'll go to her grave protecting you, or trying to. She hasn't changed any tune. I don't think she even wants to marry you.”

“You see? I was right. She has no interest in me at all.”

Badger cleared his throat. “As Miss Maggie was about to point out, the only reason Jessie won't hear of marrying you is because she believes you don't even like her. I believe, Miss Maggie, that you made that telling point last evening over my dessert of stewed pears and sponge cake.”

“Damn all of you meddlers! You want the truth? Very well. I rarely like her. I can count on my left hand the number of times I've liked her more than rarely.”

Spears cleared his throat. He waited until all the murmuring had died down. He waited until all eyes were on him. Then he said, “We questioned Jessie closely. She was shut down as tightly as a clam protecting its innards. All she would allow was that she found Candlethorpe splendid. We all found that observation very telling.”

“What the hell does that mean?
Telling?
That tells me she's got eyes in her head and a modicum of sense. Candlethorpe is an excellent property. Why shouldn't she acknowledge that?”

Sampson and his wife, Maggie, exchanged glances. Badger was studying those delicate slivers of lemon cake. He ate one, chewed for a very long time, his eyes half
closed, then nodded to himself. Spears looked more austere than ever.

“This is gaining us nothing,” Badger said, the lemon cake forgotten, his voice now colder than James had ever heard it. “Listen, Mr. Spears, let us just lay the cards on the table. James, you must marry Jessie Warfield. You will do it immediately. There is no other choice. She will never be able to return to the Colonies with her head up unless you do. Regardless of your part in it, she's the one who is blamed. If you're a gentleman, you will put things to right and you will do it very soon.”

“James,” Maggie said, fingering the exquisite emerald earrings that dangled from her white ears, “Jessie has loved you since she was a girl. She will make you a splendid wife.”

“She hasn't liked me any more than I've liked her, Maggie. You're quite wrong.”

Sampson cleared his throat. “Are we in error to assume you are no more mourning your late wife?”

“Yes,” Badger said. “If you're still mourning her then we've a problem.”

“No, I'm not still mourning Alicia. She's been dead for over three years. I have learned to live without her. All of you know it was difficult for me for a very long time, but no longer. My life is full to brimming. I don't want another wife. I don't want an American girl who's a hoyden, who many times beats me in races and who's changed her stripes completely and now dresses like a damned trollop since she crossed the hallowed threshold of Chase Park.”

“She's beautiful,” Maggie said, as indignant as Clorinda when Fred the peacock managed to sneak up on her and get in a free peck. “She just needed a bit of adjusting, that's all. Certainly she doesn't look like a trollop. That's very unfair of you, James.”

“She doesn't look like herself. At least I knew what to
expect when she looked like herself, but no longer. She shouldn't have been adjusted, she didn't need it, I didn't need it. Just the other day I was noticing that even with her hair in a braid, it's not all slicked back as tight as stretched material the way it used to be. You've taught her to have those silly little female curls dangling down on either side of her face. She couldn't strut around in her breeches and race with those silly little curls.”

“I call them streamers,” Maggie said.

Spears said, “We've gotten far afield here. You will marry her, James. It's imperative. Do you want her to remain an employee of his lordship and the Duchess for the rest of her life? It would be a blight on your good name. It isn't fair that his lordship and the Duchess be responsible for her until she becomes an old woman and passes on. She deserves much more. She has wit and spice and good sound common sense. Marry her.”

“Aye, do it.”

“Hear, hear.”

“How about next week? The Duchess and I can manage it. Ah, I know just the wedding gown for her. I've pictured it in my mind. You will be immensely pleased, James.”

“I'm sure it's a treat, love,” Sampson said, and kissed his wife's soft white hand.

Badger ate one of the dainty cucumber sandwiches. This time he frowned ever so slightly.

James threw his teacup at the wall.

 

Jessie walked into the nursery, Charles in her arms, tickling him and telling him he would break female hearts when he gained but another year to his ticket, telling him that little females would find his gnawing on anything that didn't move fast enough quite charming. She nearly ran into James, who was standing just inside the doorway, staring at her with acute dislike.

“James! What are you doing here?”

“Where have you been?”

“Charles wanted to see his mama's roses. They're beautiful, particularly the red ones, just like velvet—”

“Shut up, Jessie. You know very well why I'm here, damn you.”

Charles looked at James then back at Jessie. His chin trembled. “Don't raise your voice,” she said, bouncing Charles up and down in her arms. “There, little love, it's all right. Your cousin James is just a bit like a volcano. He blows up, then cools. The cooling part is all right, but the other—”

“Shut up, Jessie,” he said, this time in a near whisper. He held out his arms to Charles. That insensitive little tot gurgled in delight and went right to him.

“It isn't fair. Have you ever burped him? Has he ever wet on your shirt?”

“Once he did,” James said, rocking Charles. “Wet on me, that is. My little godson recognizes I'm a man. He knows men should be in charge of their lives, should make their own decisions. He knows that I can't, thus he feels sorry for me and he's comforting me in the only way he knows how. He's pulling my hair and drooling on my neck.”

“What do you mean you're not in charge of your life? You've got Candlethorpe and Marathon both. What more do you want or need? You probably even have a Connie Maxwell over here in England. It's true, isn't it, James? What's her name? Stop shaking your head—I'll never believe you. My mother always said that men are driven to seek out all sorts of females because their natures are unsteady. What are you talking about, James?”

“That gown you're wearing should make you look more like the old Jessie, but it doesn't.”

“That's because it fits me. It isn't too short nor is it baggy in the bosom.”

“I like the color on you. I wouldn't have thought you'd look decent in gray, but you do. You look modest, at least from the neck down. As for those streamers all around your face—”

“You've been speaking to Maggie.”

“Yes, she corrected me. She said they aren't curls, they're streamers.”

“What about them?”

It was at that instant he knew she was afraid he was going to insult her streamers, call them ridiculous. He wanted to. He wanted to tell her she was a blight, that he didn't want to marry her, that he just wished he'd never met her. Because if he hadn't seen her striding beside a quarter horse some six years before at the Weymouth racecourse, then lost to her in the third bloody race, she would never have been in that blasted tree to fall on him and ruin herself. She would never have run off to England.

Instead, he said, “The streamers are charming. But when you race, the wind will blow them into your eyes. You will have to be careful.”

“You really like them, James?”

Her voice was so wistful that James gave Charles an unexpected squeeze, with the result that Charles gave a big burp. James rubbed his back. Charles obligingly burped again.

“The Duchess just fed him,” Jessie said. “You do that well.”

“I like children. Would you like to walk with me in the Duchess's rose garden?”

They left Charles sucking his thumb as he fell asleep in his crib.

The afternoon was cloudy, the summer air heavy.

“A rain will clear everything up soon,” James said for
want of anything better. Jessie was walking beside him, her head down, staring at the toes of her slippers.

“Rain is usually a good thing,” he said, frowning at her profile.

She looked up at him then. “What do you want, James?”

“Didn't Spears, Badger, Maggie, and Sampson tell you?”

“No, they just caught me one day in the kitchen and asked me all sorts of questions until my eyes crossed.”

“It's their collective specialty. They're quite good. Damn their eyes, they're usually right. Even when you want to shoot them, you end up brooding, sitting alone in the dark, unable to sleep, because you know they're right.”

“They spoke to you?”

He decided she didn't need to know they'd all trooped over to Candlethorpe, leaving Chase Park defenseless, and trapped him in his drawing room. It would hurt her to know that they'd come after his skin, wanting to nail him to the altar. Dammit, it would hurt her, he had no doubt that it would, and for some reason, he didn't want to hurt her.

“They're always speaking to me,” he said, sounding irritated. “They've tried to improve my character for the past seven years.”