In the second week of her convalescence, Perry arrived when the whole house was a hive of activity. This was the night of the annual Tenants’ Ball, and though the only guests would be local people, it absorbed all of Bella’s
energies, as it had done for several days. As a result, she rarely came to visit Jessica.
“You shouldn’t marry Lucas if you don’t want to, Jess,” said Perry.
They were sitting on either side of the table in front of the window, and Perry moved his chair to get a better look at her face. “One good thing has come out of it, though. The gossip has been scotched.”
She said miserably, “Is it generally known, then, that Lucas was discovered … you know … in bed with me?”
“Good Lord, no! If it
had
, then of course you would have to marry him. What I meant was the gossip about you and Mr. Stone. Now that people know you and Lucas are engaged, they’ve forgotten about that other episode.”
“What are they saying about Lucas and me?”
“They’re saying that it’s a love match.”
A love match
. She would have laughed had she not felt so miserable. Her memories were hazy, but one thing she
did
remember. When Lucas had proposed to her, the word
love
had never been mentioned. He had given her many good reasons why they should marry, but at the end of it, she was left with the distinct impression that he would be better off if he hired a governess to look after her, or a nurse, or maybe both.
“What I can’t understand,” said Perry, “is what Lucas was doing in your room so late at night.”
“He only intended to stay for a few moments. But he was exhausted. He’d been up most of the previous night looking for Mr. Stone.”
“But to fall asleep in the same bed! That is inexcusable.”
She opened her mouth then thought better of what she was going to say. Lucas had told her not to offer explanations or make excuses. They had done nothing wrong.
Perry went on. “This is worse than the episode with Mr. Stone. And after what happened between you and
Lucas all those years ago, you’d think he’d take more care not to be caught in a compromising position with you. There’s more to this than meets the eye.”
For a moment, her interest was piqued, but she allowed it to die. It was one thing to believe in her Voice, and another to see sinister motives where none existed. Lucas was beyond suspicion. He’d been alone with her when Sir Matthew had gone off to fetch the doctor, and he’d done everything to make her comfortable. He was not her Voice. Everything in her nature recoiled from such a suspicion.
Rodney Stone was not her Voice, either. He couldn’t be. He had no connection to Chalford or her father. He’d frightened her, but she had brought that on herself. It was her Voice she had sensed when she’d looked at the carriage. The only reasonable explanation for her distrust of Stone that came to her now was that she’d panicked when her Voice had slipped into her mind and she’d made connections that simply did not exist.
If there was a Voice. Now that she’d been proved wrong about Mr. Stone, she was beginning to mistrust her own judgment. Brain damage was always a possibility, she’d heard Father Howie tell the Reverend Mother in her first few weeks in the convent. If she was suffering from brain damage, then there was no Voice, she had no sixth sense, no intuition or ability to read people or situations. On the other hand, if her brain was not damaged … and so it went on.
Perry was waiting for her to say something. “You may be right,” was all she said.
“And the thing about Lucas is, when he gets an idea in his head, he’s unshakable.”
“I know.”
He patted her hand. “Don’t look so miserable, Jess. If worse comes to worst, I’ll offer for you myself.”
She was startled into laughter, then stopped abruptly
when a spasm of pain gripped her side. Her bruised ribs were healing, but she wasn’t better yet. “I’m not joking, Jess.”
“But … but why would you do such a thing?”
He colored up. “You won’t remember this, but a long time ago we were friends. I mean, when we were children. There weren’t any boys my own age to play with, and, well, you could climb trees and scrap with the best of them. We always got along together.”
“I was a tomboy?” she asked, diverted by this picture of herself.
He grinned. “You used to box my ears when I called you that. You had quite a temper, Jess.”
She looked at him curiously, this fair-haired young man who looked like a younger version of Lucas. There was something about him that was very appealing. It warmed her to think they had once been friends. “What happened to our friendship, Perry?”
He shrugged. “I went away to school. When I came back, you were smitten with Lucas. You weren’t climbing trees anymore. We quarreled. It’s the only time I remember boxing
your
ears.”
She thought she was going to laugh, and braced her ribs, but tears welled up.
“Now what have I said?” Her hand was resting on the table, and he reached out and covered it with one of his own.
She managed a smile. “I wish I could remember those days, but I can’t. But there’s one thing I shall never forget, and that’s your kindness to me when I really needed a friend.” She impulsively raised his hand to her cheek. “I won’t take you up on your rash offer, so you can stop shivering in your boots.”
They both laughed, but in the next moment, Perry dropped her hand and pulled back with a start. Jessica turned to see what he was looking at, and she too pulled
back with a start. Lucas and his mother and ward were standing just inside the door.
Lucas’s gaze held hers as he closed the distance between them. His eyes, so like Perry’s, had undergone a transformation. They were as black as thunderclouds, and when he bent his head to hers, she braced for the lash of his temper. What she got was an openmouthed kiss that shook her all the way to her toes—slow and proprietary.
When he straightened, she was breathing hard and her cheeks were as crimson as the velvet drapes around the bed. Lucas regarded her for a long moment and slowly smiled. Thoroughly flustered, she looked beyond him to his mother and ward. Mrs. Wilde was smiling also but Ellie wasn’t. In fact, her look was savage.
“I’m glad to see you are recovering, Jessica,” said Mrs. Wilde. She took the chair her nephew offered her. “Thank you, Perry. Ellie and I were wondering where you had got to.”
“Urn, I always look in on Jessica at this time of day.”
“Yes. So Bella told us.”
Lucas took a chair and moved it close to Jessica. Seating himself, he said, “I asked Perry to keep an eye on my betrothed in my absence, Mother. Where is Sister Brigid, by the way?”
It was lightly spoken, but Jessica felt the reproach. Once again, she’d been caught breaking one of society’s cardinal rules. She was entertaining a gentleman caller—if one could call Perry that—with no one to chaperone them. And she, of all people, should know better. Would she never learn?
She forced a smile. “Mrs. Haig asked her to take care of one of the maids who has a bad toothache. I think it needs to be pulled. She’ll be back soon.”
Lucas reached for the hand that was bound at the wrist, her left hand. “I’ve brought you something from London,” he said. “A betrothal ring.”
Jessica looked down at the ring he had slipped on her
finger, a single sapphire set in a band of gold filigree. It fitted her perfectly. An image flashed into her mind, a fragment of a memory, or a dream.
Don’t
cry, Jess. I’ll buy you a sapphire ring
. She searched for more, but the more she searched, the more the memory faded.
Lucas said, “If you don’t like the ring, Jess, you have only to say so. I’ll get you another.”
“I do like the ring,” she said. “In fact, it’s quite lovely.”
She looked at Lucas, then his mother. She couldn’t accept the ring. She should say something before it was too late. But she couldn’t bring herself to shame Lucas in front of his mother.
“It’s lovely,” she repeated lamely.
There was a commotion at the door, and Sister Brigid entered followed by Sister Elvira.
“We met on the stairs,” said Sister Brigid, then, “Oh, what a beautiful ring!”
The sisters swooped down on Jessica and duly admired the ring. Jessica was hardly aware of how she responded. Her head was beginning to swim.
“I don’t believe in long engagements,” declared Sister Elvira, “and neither does the mother superior. A letter arrived from her this very morning. She says, well, she says a lot of things but …” She could hardly keep still for excitement, and rocked back and forth on her heels. “You can read for yourself. This letter is for you, Jessica.”
Jessica broke the seal and slowly read the letter. She wouldn’t have recognized the Reverend Mother in these few terse sentences. It was a command from a superior. The gist of it was, Jessica must marry Lucas Wilde for the good name of their order.
“What does it say?” asked Lucas.
She stared blindly at the letter, then looked up. “The Reverend Mother says we must marry at once.”
Her eyes moved from one face to another. The sisters were smiling radiantly; Lucas was watching her as a cat watches a mouse; Ellie looked as though someone had just
slapped her, and Perry’s face looked like thunder. Only Lucas’s mother showed a spark of sympathy. She patted Jessica on the shoulder, rose, to her feet and began to adjust her shawl.
“Your Reverend Mother sounds like a very sensible woman to me,” she said. “However, I won’t have it said that Jessica and my son married under a cloud. There’s been enough gossip already. Don’t you agree, Lucas?”
He regarded his mother quizzically. “What are you suggesting, Mother?”
“This will be no hole-and-corner affair, as though you and Jessica have something to be ashamed of. This will be a wedding to remember.”
“If I may make a small suggestion,” interposed Sister Elvira diffidently.
Jessica knew that look, and she sat up straighter.
Watch her
, went through her mind. Though she loved Sister Elvira dearly, the little nun’s looks could be deceiving. She wasn’t always as soft and motherly as she appeared. She could be as hard as iron with a boy or a novice when she thought that boy or novice needed a push in the right direction.
When Lucas’s mother nodded, Sister Elvira went on. “This will be a difficult transition for Jessica, and all the more so if she stays in Chalford. Here, she doesn’t know whether she is Sister Martha or Jessica Hayward. I want her to have the best chance possible. You have a house in London, I believe. May I suggest that you take Jessica there?”
Jessica felt as though the ground had shifted beneath her. “But … but I can’t leave Hawkshill,” she protested. “I have work to do there. I can’t leave our boys just like that.”
Sister Elvira bent over her and, as she did when she wanted to make a point, looked deeply into Jessica’s eyes. “I don’t mean that you should live in London forever, Jessica. You will always be welcome at Hawkshill. But
first, take some time to get accustomed to your new role. Don’t be in a hurry. And there’s no need to look so sad, my dear. When one door closes, another opens. Isn’t that what we nuns always say? Your work won’t be finished, Jessica. You’ll simply be moving into another sphere.”
Mrs. Wilde said, “Sister Elvira has a point. All things considered, a London wedding might be exactly what we need. We’ll open up the state rooms in Dundas House. Jessica will need bridal clothes—we’ll have to arrange that as soon as possible. And when she’s ready to travel, she must come up to London and live with us.”
“But Aunt Rosemary!” Ellie’s voice intruded like the fractious cry of a child who has been forgotten.
“Yes, dear?”
“N … nothing.” Ellie hung her head.
Jessica had eyes only for Lucas, and she put everything into that look. She appealed to him, she pleaded; her look spoke volumes and eddied with messages that only he could understand. And she said only one tremulous word. “Lucas?”
Lucas held her gaze for a long time then, releasing her, turned to the other occupants of the room. “I’d like to speak to Jessica in private,” he said.
When they were alone, he took her hand in his and kissed the tips of her fingers. “Listen to me, Jess,” he said. “It will be all right, you’ll see. I’m not an animal. All right, so I got carried away when I saw you with Perry a moment ago, but that doesn’t mean anything. When we are married, I will treat you with complete restraint and respect. You’ve been a nun for the last three years and of course I’ll take that into consideration. Our marriage will be on your terms. I’ll give you as much time as you need before I claim my conjugal rights, and it will be up to you to say when. Does that make you feel better?”
So much for looks that spoke volumes and eddied with messages that only he could understand! How could one
man be so dense? That’s not what she wanted to hear. She snatched her hand back.
“You don’t want to marry me,” she said crossly, “so why are you so determined to go through with this?”
“Not want to marry you?” He looked astonished. “Of course I want to marry you.”
“Why?” she asked hopefully.
“Because,” he said, “I have never wanted a woman as much as I want you.”
Then he kissed her chastely on the lips and left her.
The Tenants’ Ball was in full swing when Lucas made his way to the billiard room. He’d just looked in on Jessica and found her fast asleep. He’d wanted to stay, but had thought better of it. He wasn’t exhausted tonight, and if she persuaded him to stretch out beside her, he couldn’t vouch for the consequences.
He’d compromised her. In all innocence, he’d compromised her. Maybe he should feel guilty but he couldn’t pretend to something he didn’t feel. All things considered, their being discovered in bed together was just the push Jess needed to do what she really wanted to do anyway. He didn’t know why women had to make everything so complicated. She’d been reluctant to marry him for all the wrong reasons. He could do so much better for himself; his friends would be aghast if he married her; she didn’t know how to be a countess; she blamed herself for everything.