The Valentine Legacy (21 page)

“Yes, come along, Jessie,” James said, and took her gloved hand. He led her from the great massive doors of Chase Park, down the well-worn stone steps to where the four martinets stood, huge smiles plastered on their faces.

Badger handed James a huge covered basket. “I've packed you some lamb cutlets and cucumbers, a bit of apple pudding, and one of James's favorites, boiled knuckle of veal. You'll get thirsty on your ride, so there's also some of the earl's champagne. It's very cold, so drink it soon.”

“Here's a packet of cream for you, Jessie,” Maggie said. “Don't forget now, you can't wear it on your face to bed anymore. It would make your husband laugh or cry, depending on his whim at the time.”

“I would like to present you with a pair of earrings, Jessie,” Sampson said. “My Maggie assures me that they'll look exquisite in your little white ears.”

“Goodness, Sampson, they're sapphires.”

“Yes, my Maggie tried them on to ensure that they would be becoming to you. Yes, hold them up and let's judge this. What do you think, Mr. Badger?”

“I don't think,” Badger said slowly, studying them carefully, “that they flatter the gold. They are too bold a color and fight with that particular shade. Yes, just as I would never serve sweet potatoes with blueberries, you should never wear the sapphires with this gold.”

“I think the colors complement each other well enough,” Spears said, gently edging Badger aside to eye them himself. “But I agree, Mr. Badger, that sweet potatoes wouldn't at all enhance themselves served alongside blueberries.”

“Well,” Maggie said, “I can't keep them since dear Sampson already gave them to you. What do you think, James?”

“I like her ears naked,” James said.

Badger looked like a cook whose cake had just collapsed in the middle.

Spears looked like a disapproving judge.

Sampson looked at his wife's ears and grinned shamelessly.

Maggie just patted Jessie's hand and told her to do as she wished with them. “You trust James to select the outfits that will complement them best.”

Spears still looked stern, his face set in austere lines, and Jessie realized he was looking at James. He was all garbed in black.

“Thank you, Spears,” she said.

“You will take good care of James,” he said, and she nearly laughed at that thought. “Yes, I will try to.”

“You will see that he stays on his course.”

“What course, Spears?” James said, hefting the basket of food from his left hand to his right. “These damned cutlets weigh as much as the new saddle I bought for Jessie.”

“What new saddle?”

“Forget it. It's a surprise. Do you swear you'll act surprised when I finally present it to you?”

“Yes, I promise. What course, Spears?”

He broke into a smile. “You'll know the course when it appears, Jessie. If you need us, just send a message. We'll be there as quickly as can be. Do you promise?”

“I promise,” she said, stood on her tiptoes, and kissed his cheek. “You smell good, Spears. Are you using some of Maggie's cream?”

Badger roared with laughter. Maggie giggled. Sampson guffawed. Spears did nothing at all. The new bride and groom laughed and waved as they rode side by side down the beautiful tree-lined drive of Chase Park, James on Bertram, a gray Barb with a white nose out of Croft's stud and Jessie on Esmerelda, a Byerley Turk bay mare from the Rothermere stud.

The afternoon was warm, the sun bright overhead, the sky studded with white clouds. Jessie said after fifteen minutes, “James, can we open that champagne now?”

He eyed her. She'd not said a single word since they'd left Chase Park. She'd ridden Esmerelda with single-minded intensity; he recognized that from watching her race, but why the intensity now? Her cheeks were flushed from the ride, her hair flying in long loose streamers from beneath that very provocative riding hat perched on her head with that feather curving around her face to stroke her chin.

He pointed to the left off the road beyond a white fence
to a small copse of maple trees. “Just behind those trees is a small meadow.”

They took the fence in an easy jump. Jessie fell in behind him through the copse of trees on a narrow trail that suddenly ended in a small, circular meadow filled with wildly blooming pink and red hollyhocks, purple gayfeathers, white baby's breath, and yellow wood violets. James searched around until he found a moss-covered rock flat enough and large enough for the two of them, bowed to Jessie, and with a flourish, said, “I don't want to smash the flowers. Moss is a different matter.”

They spread a cloth between them and arranged Badger's offering. James popped the champagne cork, pulled two glasses from Badger's basket, and poured. He laughed when he poured too quickly and sipped as fast as he could before too much champagne was lost.

“Here, Jessie.”

He poured himself a glass, then clicked it against hers. “Why did you want champagne?”

“I thought if I drank the whole bottle, then you could just get it all over with.”

“Get what all over with?”

“Don't be stupid.” She downed the entire glass and held it out for more.

“Oh, you want to fall into a stupor. Then while you're stuporous I'll do degenerate things to you and then the deed will be done and you won't have to worry about it anymore?”

“That's right, though I would have phrased it a bit more circumspectly.”

“I'm a man. I'm rarely circumspect. Now why are you worried about having sex with me? You've known me forever. You already know all my bad habits—well, most of them. You don't know as yet if I snore or not.”

She wouldn't look at him. She studied the clump of
foxgloves just beyond her left boot. She drank another glass of champagne. He obligingly poured her another half glass when she thrust the empty glass toward him, her eyes still on those foxgloves.

“As foxgloves go, they're not bad,” James said as he watched her down that half glass, then thrust her glass at him again.

“No,” Jessie said, thinking the foxgloves looked lovely the way they were fading in and out of her vision.

He supposed dithering wasn't bad, at least for the moment. It was difficult enough for him, he knew that. He'd acknowledged the problems before he'd offered to marry her. He'd always regarded her as a brat, a younger sister who irritated him and provoked him until he wanted to smack her bottom. And now she was his wife, and it was equally obvious to him that she was as skittish as Sober John was during a Baltimore storm. Did she think of him as an older brother? One with whom she was in competition?

At the moment, he simply couldn't imagine how he was going to approach making love to her. Making love to Jessie—the brat. It boggled the mind. Except that he had been looking at things a bit differently during the past week.

He drew a deep breath and prayed. “Jessie, I've known you for a very long time. I admit I still know the old Jessie more than the new Jessie. But, never have I known you to be a coward. What's wrong?”

“You've never known me married before, either. That's what's wrong. You and I, James, we're married only because—” She paused and shrugged. “There's no reason to repeat the dreadful sequence of events again. They're as painful to you as they are to me. Do you really want to mount me, James?”

“M
OUNT YOU
?” H
IS
eyes nearly crossed picturing her naked, bending over, looking over her shoulder at him as he neared her, as he touched her. He shook his head. He'd been too long without companionship of a sexual sort. If any female spoke to him of mounting her, he would have seen the same sequence of explicit images in his brain.

“Maybe,” he said at last after he'd drunk a bit more of his own champagne, “but not for a while.” Jessie was right. The champagne had been a good idea. It was probably the only way to get through this.

“I'm not Alicia. I'm sorry but I had to ask the Duchess about her. She said she was beautiful, all small and blond and blue-eyed. You loved her. I'm none of those things, and you don't love me. I can't imagine what will become of us.”

“We will survive, I daresay,” he said, eyeing her glass until she emptied it and he could pour her more champagne. The damned bottle was empty, and he didn't even feel the least bit tipsy. He prayed she did. He said, “Badger should have realized that a bride and groom have a greater need for spirits than ordinary folk. He should have packed another bottle.”

Jessie picked around in Badger's basket. “He did,” she said, lifting another cloth-wrapped bottle.

James offered a prayer of thanks toward Chase Park's vast
kitchen. “An excellent man is Badger. Well, why not? Let's get drunk then here in this lovely meadow. It's warm. When you're too intoxicated to know what I'm about, I'll pull up your riding skirt, unfasten my breeches, and take your virginity. Then it will be over, and we can go along to Candlethorpe and get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow it will all be forgotten, and we can muck out stalls side by side. Perhaps we'll be so at ease with each other that we'll whistle together, perhaps even sing some of the Duchess's ditties. What do you say to that, Jessie?”

She didn't say anything. He'd hoped for a smile; just a hint of a smile would have relieved him, but she didn't dredge one up. She was trying to remove the cork on the other bottle of champagne. She couldn't get it out. She put it in her mouth and gnawed on it.

James leaned back, the sun on his face, the scent of the flowers in his nostrils, and laughed. She was the old Jessie, the brat, chewing on a straw, licking the remains of a candied almond from her fingers, gnawing on a champagne cork, it was all the same thing. When he heard the cork pop, he simply lifted his glass and thrust it toward her.

Jessie began to laugh after her fourth glass of champagne, thank the munificent Lord. She waved her hand to ward off a bee and James said, “Careful, Jessie, you nearly knocked over our remaining precious bottle.”

She shoved the bottle down between her legs. “There, now it's safe.”

He looked at that bottle and knew he had to act before he was too drunk to do more than belch. “Do you think you're feeling silly enough now to lie back and let me kiss you?”

She stared down at him. She looked worried, eager, and more afraid than a sinner in a roomful of preachers. “Yes,” she said, “let's kiss.”

“Put the bottle over there. Yes, that's right. Now, just relax, Jessie.”

“Just one more small glass, James,” she said, poured it, drank it down in one gulp, and then gave him the silly smile of a girl who, sober, would have been terrified out of her mind. She lay on her back, stretched out, and arranged her hands over her chest as if she were dead. He felt he should pick a foxglove and put it between her fingers.

He leaned over her and kissed her closed mouth, smiling even as he said, “Open up, just a little bit. Pretend I'm a small but succulent piece of something good to eat, say a bit of Badger's garnished tongue.”

She opened her mouth beneath his, and James felt as though he'd been struck in the gut. She tasted of champagne—he'd expected that—but she also just tasted sweet and strangely exotic, and he wanted more. She didn't taste like a brat. He was careful to keep his hands on her arms, careful not to stick his tongue in her mouth, careful to control himself. He feared he'd kiss her yet again and really get things started when suddenly she'd turn into the fourteen-year-old again—a girl, not a woman.

He stopped a moment and pulled back. Her eyes were open, as was her mouth. She was staring up at him.

“What is it?”

To his surprise and amusement, she flushed. She actually turned red and looked away from him.

“What's the matter? Come now, I'm your husband and you've known me since you were barely able to ride a horse.”

“The champagne is wonderful, but I have a problem.”

“Yes?”

“Don't be obtuse, James. I have to relieve myself.”

He tried not to laugh; he couldn't help himself. “Undone by a bottle of champagne. Well, I'll wait for you here,
Jessie. There are some lovely bushes just over behind that stand of maples.”

She struggled to her feet, smoothed down her skirts, and turned to walk with exaggerated care toward that stand of maple trees. She never looked once at him.

He lay back against that sun-heated rock and began humming one of the Duchess's ditties. He hummed another ditty, and then a third. He drank another glass of champagne. Then he frowned.

He rose, cupped his hand around his mouth, and called out, “Jessie? Are you all right?”

There was no answer, only the soft rustle of the summer leaves in the light afternoon breeze.

“Jessie!” He was on his feet, worried now, surprised that he wasn't all that steady. He dumped the rest of the champagne on a bed of nestergroot, hoped they wouldn't croak, and went to the trees.