If she’d told him that she didn’t want him, he might have accepted it. No he wouldn’t, because he wouldn’t have believed her.
His grin faded as that thought led to another. When he’d walked in on Jess today, he’d been shocked at the change in her. She seemed thinner, paler, and there were dark circles under her eyes. Her injuries had not been that serious, and two weeks had passed since the accident. She should have been blooming with health, not fading away,
and he wondered whether Bella or someone else had said something to upset her.
The sooner they were married, the better it would be all round. Sister Elvira was right. What Jess needed was a complete break from her old life. She was going to have pretty things. She was going to learn to enjoy herself. She wasn’t going to lift a hand to do anything if she didn’t want to. It was her turn to be pampered and looked after, and whether she liked it or not, by God, he was going to see that she was.
He knew what had brought this on.
When he’d gone up to London to investigate Rodney Stone, he’d also decided to pay a long-overdue visit to the convent of the Sisters of Charity. At first, the mother superior was suspicious. She’d heard from Sister Elvira of how he’d compromised Jess and meant to marry her, and she was not impressed. If, she’d said, public opinion made it impossible for Jessica to continue with her work at Hawkshill, she could always return to the convent and take up her life there.
Perhaps he’d said too much. Hell, he knew he’d said too much. But the thought of Jess spending the rest of her life in a convent had provoked him into telling the little nun a few home truths about her pet. Jess, he’d told the Reverend Mother, didn’t have the temperament to be a nun. She was a warm, vibrant woman who was made to have a husband and children. And if he didn’t take her on, he didn’t know who would, or who else could manage her. Then she’d be stuck in the convent for the rest of her life, and if that was what the mother superior wanted for Jess, then she didn’t know Jess half as well as she thought she did.
He’d gone over that interview in his mind many times, and he still could not fix on exactly what he’d said to win the mother superior over. He’d expected to be shown the door. Instead, the Reverend Mother had given him a tour of the convent, and when they’d returned to her office,
she’d offered him a glass of brandy. And for the next half hour, they’d talked about Jess.
The girl that she described was nothing like the Jess he knew. Sister Perfect? The nun who never put a foot wrong? He just couldn’t see it. Nor could he imagine Jess in the convent’s stark interior, following the disciplined life of a nun.
She hadn’t had much of a life with that father of hers, but she’d been free to come and go as she pleased. And as for being afraid of life, Jess had reached for it greedily with both hands. And he had helped her as he’d watched her grow up, not because he’d felt sorry for her, but because he’d been captivated by that engaging child.
Nothing had changed and everything had changed. They no longer shared the same memories, and it was, in some respects, like starting over. As the mother superior had pointed out, he must put all thoughts of the girl he’d known from his mind and remember that all this new Jess remembered was her life as a nun.
He accepted the theory; it was putting it into practice that was difficult.
Our marriage will be on your terms
. Had he really said that? He hoped he could live up to his promise.
When he turned into the corridor leading to the billiard room, he had to dodge past a slightly tipsy and amorous maid. Rupert’s Tenants’ Ball wasn’t exactly what he was used to. It was a rollicking affair where, for one night of the year, the tenants and their masters were supposed to be on an equal footing. It made the serving girls bold and their quarry, such as himself, head for cover.
When he opened the door to the billiard room, he saw that he wasn’t the only gentleman who had taken cover. A cloud of tobacco smoke was trapped under the ceiling. The babble of voices dimmed at his entrance, then rose again when it became clear that he wasn’t a footman with reinforcements for the empty glasses that many of the gentlemen clutched.
He bumped into someone and turned with a smile of apology. The smile slipped when he saw who it was. “Sir Matthew,” he said. He’d thought Sir Matthew had gone home.
Sir Matthew nodded. “Dundas,” he acknowledged, with all the warmth of an iceberg.
There was no getting out of it. They had to exchange a few words. “I thought,” said Lucas, drawling the words, “that you were fixed in London till the hunting season.”
“And I thought,” said Sir Matthew, drawling the words, “that the last girl you would marry would be Jessica Hayward. But your mother tells me that it’s a love match. Congratulations, Dundas.”
Everyone in their vicinity laughed. Lucas laughed with them, but what he really wanted to do was smash his fist into that handsome face. He didn’t care for the implication that this man and his mother were on friendly terms again. In fact, it downright infuriated him.
He couldn’t quell the bitter memories that the sight of this man always revived. He was no longer that idealistic boy of sixteen, he reminded himself, no longer so easily shocked. But he couldn’t help what he was feeling. Sir Matthew had been his father’s friend, or so he’d pretended. He’d also been his mother’s lover. The memory of their betrayal was as vivid now as though it had happened yesterday.
His father had taken a turn for the worse and his mother was out sketching somewhere. He’d scoured the countryside looking for her, and had ended up in Sir Matthew’s palatial estate. He’d come to Sir Matthew for help, because he was a friend of the family, and he didn’t know where else to turn. He found them in the summer house.
Even now, he could still feel the shock of discovery wash through him. He’d looked up to Sir Matthew, he’d thought the world of him. He was a constant visitor to the house, and had spent many hours with his invalid father.
But he should have known that what brought Sir Matthew to the Lodge was not someone who was twice his age. It was the young, pretty wife he had been after.
He hadn’t waited for his mother. He’d told her about his father, then turned on his heel and let her find her own way home. He had never mentioned that episode in the summer house, but he’d made it clear that she could not have both her son and her lover. Afterward, he’d avoided Sir Matthew like the plague.
The men at the billiard table put down their cues.
“Care for a game?” Lucas asked the older man.
Sir Matthew looked at the billiard table, then back at Lucas. He smiled. “Why not?” he said pleasantly.
They chalked the tips of their cues like two duelists preparing their pistols for combat. It was a melodramatic thought, and had his opponent been anyone but Sir Matthew, Lucas would have laughed at himself. He was in deadly earnest, and try as he would, he could not summon his usual grace. It was only a game, and it was more than a game.
They tossed a coin to determine who would start. Sir Matthew won. He played with all the charm and carelessness that was the mark of a man of breeding. When one shot went wild, Lucas took over.
His eye and hand had never been steadier. His resolution was like iron. Shot by shot, he hammered the ball home. When he came to the shot that would decide the contest, he looked over at his opponent.
Sir Matthew was very much at his ease, one hip propped against a table, his cue held loosely in one hand. His eyes were quick with intelligence and there was irony in his smile.
“No quarter asked or given, I see,” he said.
Lucas lined up the ball and drove it home.
He left the billiard room feeling like the loser. Not only had he to accept Sir Matthew’s congratulations for a game well played, but he also had to shake the man’s
hand. Sir Matthew had known what he was doing. He’d stuck out his hand and Lucas had been forced to take it.
He passed the stairs and debated whether he should check on Jessica again. He was on his way up when his mother appeared on the landing above him and began to descend the stairs.
“I just looked in on Jessica,” she said. “She’s still sleeping.”
Lucas tucked his mother’s hand into the crook of his arm and descended the stairs with her. He was aware of her searching look and he smiled into her eyes. “I made up my mind to take the most beautiful woman in to supper,” he said. “So here I am to escort you. Now, let’s find Ellie.”
They passed Sir Matthew in the hallway, but mother and son were so involved in their own conversation that they did hot seem to notice him.
Her eyelids felt as if they were weighted with lead. She lay there, trying to force them open, when every cell in her body was demanding that she go back to sleep. Laudanum … The word floated through her mind. That’s why she couldn’t marshal her faculties; that’s why she was lying here like a stone when something was far wrong.
She dredged up the remnants of her willpower and slowly opened her eyes. Though she was groggy and the room was in darkness, she knew where she was. This was her bedchamber in Haig House. There was some kind of dinner party going on. No. The Tenants’ Ball. That was it. If she hadn’t felt so unwell, she would have been downstairs as one of the guests.
The strains of a country jig drifted up to her. She could hear voices and laughter, but they were muted. But that’s not what had awakened her. She could smell roses, not real roses, but something sickly and cloying.
Bella’s perfume.
She jerked to an upright position, and the pain in her
side made her gasp. Her head was swimming. “Bella?” she whispered. “Bella?”
The silence was frightening.
And not only the silence. None of the candles was lit. The drapes had been drawn. Sister Brigid should have answered her, or one of the maids. They would never have left her alone in the dark. At the very least, they would have left a candle burning for her.
She eased over the edge of the bed and stumbled to her feet. She was doing it again, doing what she’d done with Rodney Stone. There was a logical explanation for everything, if she would only concentrate. And all she need do was pull the bell rope and a maid would come running. Then the candles would be lit.
She crossed the room in slow, uncertain steps. She was reaching for the bellpull when she heard a sound—something dropped with a soft thud on the carpeted floor. Before she could cry out, a blow sent her sprawling. She fought down nausea and a wave of pain as she twisted to avoid the next blow. There was no blow. The door opened and closed, and she heard footsteps receding along the corridor.
She was alone.
It was a long while before she moved. Rising first to her knees, then to her feet, she steadied herself with one hand on the wall and breathed deeply. Finally straightening, she yanked on the bellpull, then walked to the bed and sat on the edge of it.
Bella had been hiding behind the bed drapes. But why? Bella must have blown out the candles, then hidden behind the bed drapes.
It didn’t make sense. This was Bella’s house. She didn’t have to steal into someone’s room like a thief in the night. She could go anywhere she wanted.
The door opened and a maid with a candle entered. “Oh, miss,” she exclaimed, “your candles have gone out.”
Jessica watched as the maid lit the candles on the mantelpiece.
The maid turned to look at her. “Can I get you something, miss?”
Jessica couldn’t smile though she tried. “Thank you, Eliza, but the candle is all I wanted. Oh, and I think something dropped on the floor.”
The maid dutifully searched where Jessica pointed, and a moment later came up with a pair of shears. “How did the mistress’s shears come to be here?” she asked ingenuously.
Long after the maid had gone, Jessica sat on the edge of the bed with a hand pressed to her aching temples. In that moment, she would have given anything to be Sister Martha again, and back in the serene surroundings of the convent of the Sisters of Charity.
CHAPTER
16
T
hree weeks later, Lucas and Jessica were married in the great reception room of Dundas House. In deference to the bride’s wishes, there would be another service at the convent, to bless their union, when Father Howie returned from his papal mission to Rome. But that would be a private ceremony. On this occasion, the drawing room was filled with friends and guests.
As Lucas slipped his ring on Jessica’s finger, he wondered why it had taken them so long to reach this point. She was his wife, finally, and if he’d had any sense, she would have been his wife seven years ago when she’d cornered him in his stable and tried to compromise him just as Bella and Adrian walked in. For years, he’d trivialized what he felt for her. How could he have been so blind? And now he had got what he deserved. He was the one doing the chasing. The old Jess would have been crowing in triumph. This Jess … this Jess …
She was one of the loveliest women he had ever known. Her long-sleeved gown was of pearl gray silk.
The flowers on her short veil and in her bouquet were delicate white lilies, culled from his own hothouse. At her throat she wore his bridal gift, a simple gold cross studded with sapphires to match her betrothal ring. A shaft of sunlight was captured in her hair, and each strand shimmered like a golden thread. Given the occasion, he shouldn’t be having the thoughts that were beginning to crowd into his mind.
She was looking up at him, repeating her vows, her huge gray eyes fearful and questioning at the same time. In all the years he’d known her, he’d never been able to resist that look. It stirred something in the profoundest reaches of his psyche. That’s how it had all started. It would have been better for him, better for them both, if he
had
paid attention to that look and the effect it had on him.
Jessica noted his serious expression, and her heart sank. If he was having second thoughts about their marriage, he was a tad too late. And she wasn’t to blame. She’d given him plenty of chances to back out of it, and he’d pushed on. Well, they just had to make the best of it now.