by Edith Layton
It was, after all, he had to confess, not such a bizarre arrangement that a cousin should wed another, or even that she should do so for profit. But the thought of Jessica wedded to Anton disturbed him profoundly. He had known many men such as Anton—glib, superficial, and worldly. The idea of such a man taking Jessica to wife, to bed, froze his blood. And when he thought of the sort of man who should be entitled to such a person as Jessica, he felt his entire being suffuse with understanding at last. Then, in the depth of the night, he laughed.
He ought to have known, he thought, shaking his head in amazement at how he could still confound himself, through all his thoughts and actions. She had occupied him completely, from the moment they had met. He wanted her in every way that he had ever wanted a woman, and in ways that he had never known he needed a female. He wanted her for a life’s mate, for a wife, not just an amusing friend.
He desired her and understood that one night, one week, or one month with her would not be enough for him, even if such a thing were to be possible. As she had run contrary to all other females in behavior, so it would always be with her. Just as his appetite for most of her gender diminished with each union, he was sure that the joys of intimacy would increase with every encounter with Jessica. She would unfurl herself to him more completely each time and would grow more enticing with familiarity.
But, he reminded himself, it would not be easy to win her. For though she liked him very well as a companion, he knew that she had no desire for him as a man; indeed, he wondered if she could ever be brought to that desire after her strange upbringing. And unlike Thomas Preston, he would never be content with having only her comradeship. Still, he thought as he stretched his long frame to greet the dawn, nothing he had ever wanted had been easily come by. And if he could have suffered seven long years of exile to achieve one goal, he could surely take the rest of his life in pursuit of another.
She was still very young. In time, if he were to be constant, she might grow into the womanhood that he knew awaited her. And he must only needs be there at that precise moment. He would wait, he thought, content at last. But as he rang for his valet, the idea of whether or not she would be content to wait occurred to him and filled him with unaccustomed dread. Anton was very persuasive. Thomas Preston also had her friendship. And he was here in London while they were at Griffin Hall with her.
Thus it was that when Mr. Peterson came to unlock his shop, with his assistant in tow, he found Lord Leith awaiting him upon his very doorstep.
“It must be ready by this day,” that imperious nobleman announced in tones that brooked no argument.
Mr. Peterson looked up to the determined face above him, bowed his head, and sighed. “Of course, my Lord. I excel in the impossible.”
Another lovely sunset backlighted Griffin Hall as the solitary rider reined up in front of it. The groom who ran to take charge of the mount was astounded to see the usually impeccable Lord Leith covered with the dust of the road. He had ridden long and hard, the groom thought knowingly, eyeing the blowing horse, which was also not the usual way of the languid gentleman. But the rider, instead of appearing fatigued or worn, dismounted jauntily and took the steps to the house as though it were cock’s crow rather than eventide.
“Aunt,” Lord Leith called merrily, “where is everyone? I’m arrived sooner than planned, I know, but this place seems more of a museum than ordinarily. Where’s Ollie? And Thomas and Anton and Jessica?”
Lady Grantham sat alone and silent in the front parlor. She seemed so uncharacteristically crestfallen that he took alarm.
“Come. What’s toward?” he asked anxiously.
“Everything,” she replied softly.
“Please, Aunt,” he asked, “don’t speak in riddles.”
“Anton is gone,” she said absently, “Ollie is resting up for dinner. Thomas has gone off riding. And Jessica is wandering about the grounds. I’ve had a long talk with her this day, Alex, and I am not happy. We had no right to meddle in her life, Alex, no right at all. All we have brought her is unhappiness.”
“What has happened?” he repeated, his gaze searching her face for a clue to her distress.
“I think it best that you ask her that,” Lady Grantham said primly.
“But I am in all my dirt,” he replied as he tried to gain time to think.
“Go anyway, Alex,” his aunt said sternly, “for you are as responsible for her state now as anyone.”
“I?” he asked, confounded. But he did not wait for her answer. He turned at once and left to seek out Jessica.
She was roaming the paths near the herb garden and he made her out by the glow that the last light struck from her cream-colored frock and from her impossible hair. He came up to her and noted with surprise that this day, for the first time, she wore that lustrous burden of hers loose and that it coiled down upon her shoulders like random fire.
“Jessica,” he said tentatively, “I’ve returned before time.”
She looked up at him and said in a small quiet voice, “Hello, Alex.”
He matched his stride with her soft pacing and said as noncommittally as possible, “Aunt seems most disturbed. What has occurred whilst I’ve been about your business?”
“Everything,” she answered quietly, echoing his aunt.
“Blast it!” he cried, gripping on to her shoulders and turning her to face him. “I cannot go creeping about and asking forever while all I am given are cryptic little answers. What is going on? This is not like you, Jessica. What has happened? Has there been a murder? A death? Good Lord! Ollie is well, isn’t he?”
“Oh, yes, Alex,” she answered quickly, “everyone is well. I’m sorry we have all been so mute, but really it has been a most unsettling time. And you are right, it isn’t fair to you.”
He relaxed his hold on her and said in what he hoped was a light tone, “Then out with it, Jessica, or I shall think you have a corpse put by about the place somewhere.”
She laughed up at him at that, in more of her old style. But yet, he thought, there was a difference about her. There was a subtle, indefinable difference in this girl that he had thought of so constantly since he had left her side. She grows, he thought, eyeing her grace and her new tranquility, she grows with every moment that passes.
“That is,” he said, strolling on with her, “most illuminating.”
She laughed again and then said, idly snatching up a bit of trumpet vine as she passed it, “I’m sorry again. But you see, Alex, I know now why Anton came to England. I know about my mother and her spiteful bequest. She left me a true fortune, you see. But it can only be mine if I marry one of her countrymen. Anton included the information in his proposal to me.”
The elegant gentleman halted abruptly. But before he could bring himself to frame the question, her soft voice went on almost prosaically, “I refused him, of course.”
“Of course,” he echoed as they resumed their walk.
“He wanted me both for the legacy and because I reminded him so much of my mama. Do you know, Alex,” she said wonderingly, “now I am glad that she abandoned me as she did. For I think we would never have gotten on together. And I did not love him,” she added as an afterthought.
He kept pace with her and after a time she said, “He was quite a different person than I thought. He was never honest with me. And so I told him, among other things. And so he left. I’ve whistled a fortune down the wind, Alex,” she said on a half-laugh.
“It was never yours,” he said calmly, “and you still have your father’s treasure.”
“Oh, as to that,” she said, “I know just what sort of a treasure it is now. Anton told me, you see. And I told Thomas, and do you know he rode away from me when he learned the truth?”
Her companion stopped now in his tracks. He could not think at once of what to say, but her next words cut off the train of inventions he was quickly devising.
“But then, after a long while, he came back and said he wished to marry me anyway. Even thou
gh Red Jack’s legacy wasn’t worth a farthing. He said that he was my best friend.”
“And you said?” Lord Leith asked, hardly believing what he was hearing.
“Oh, I agreed,” she said softly.
It was lucky, he thought, the light had grown so dim that she could not clearly see his face as he turned aside. For he knew it must be such as he himself would not wish to look upon. He paused a moment to at least gain fleeting control. There would be time enough, he told himself savagely, for grieving later, when she had gone.
“Ah, yes,” he said.
When she realized that he was immobile, she paused and returned to him. “Whatever is it, Alex?” she asked with concern.
“Well, then,” he said briskly, “then I come in a good time. For I’ve got your inheritance all sorted out. Anton was wrong, you know. It is worth a fortune. It was appraised very high. See for yourself. What a paltry fellow your cousin turned out to be.” He laughed brittlely. “For it was only a ruse on his part. The comb is a true treasure. See for yourself.”
He fumbled the pouch from his pocket and handed it to her.
But she only laughed lightly as she took it. “Alex, how should I know a true gem from a false?”
“See,” he said harshly, taking the pouch and tearing its strings apart. He held the comb high so that the last rays of light caught its lucent fire.
She gazed up at it and then he placed it with shaking hands as a crown upon her crown of hair.
“It has been valued highly enough to give you and Thomas an excellent start. It is a plentiful dowry,” he said woodenly, stepping back to view his handiwork.
“Thomas and I?” she asked. “A dowry? But I did not accept him.”
“You said you agreed,” he accused in confusion.
“I said I agreed that he was my best friend,” she answered with some asperity, in more of her old style. “I could never marry Thomas. He is a friend, right enough, but that sort of affection is not enough for marriage. And so I told him, although it hurt me to deny him so. At any rate,” she added absently, “I think he only wanted me because I reminded him of my father. Poor Thomas, he doesn’t know whether he values me as a man or as a woman, and that certainly would make a poor basis for wedlock. But, Alex, I know that this comb is worthless. And if you say that it was appraised, so...”
She took the comb from her hair and held it in front of her. Even in the dying light she could see the emeralds were like starlight upon spring grass, and the cold blue stare of the diamonds winked back at the rising moon. The difference, even to her untrained eye, was as vast as the gap between any truth and any falsehood.
“It’s been altered,” she cried, “it is not the same. Oh, Alex, never say someone’s thrown away good money to save my feelings? Was it Ollie? Oh, this is dreadful. You must return it straightaway.”
He began to quickly tell her about Anton’s ill intentions and the lies a man might spread to gain his ends, but she cut him off as quickly as he had begun.
“No,” she said simply. “There is no need for that anymore. You see, in the last days I have had to face up to many things, Alex, and the foremost among them is that my father was not what I so desperately wanted him to be. I invented him, Alex, and that was never fair. He was a carefree, thoughtless fellow. And whatever his original intent, he could never have left such a source of funds as this untouched. Not even for me. I see that now. I loved him dearly for what I wanted him to be, but I think I might have liked him anyway, for what he was. He was never, however, the sort of man to leave such a legacy. Take it back, Alex.”
“Jessica,” he said desperately, hating the sorrowful acceptance in her voice and wanting the fiery Jess Eastwood back again, not this imitation of a worldly-wise ancient that was speaking so placidly, “take it yourself. Why do you think I went to such lengths? It was what your father wanted you to have, really. He purchased it for you, whatever he was forced to do later.”
“So it was you,” she said suddenly. “Why, Alex? Please tell me the truth, I am so tired of deception. Everyone about me has been deceiving me, for my own good or their own good, it hardly matters anymore. Please.”
Because he was tired of deception too, and because he could no longer play the patient game he had thought to, he carefully placed the comb upon her hair again, dropped his hands, and said simply, “Because I happened to discover that I love you, Jessica.”
As she stared at him and as he could no longer read her expression in the soft evening’s light, he went on, as if to himself, “I know that you are not ready for love and I do not know if you will ever wish to love me. But there’s the truth of it. I found I loved you when you were a brave imitation of your father. And I loved you even when you tried to be what Anton told you your mother was. Whether you were Miss Eastwood, Jess, or Jessica, it made no matter. And I think that whatever you become in time, I shall love you. But,” he said with a hint of laughter, for he felt free after speaking so freely, “I also know that you are yet the ‘babe’ that your friend Miss Dunstable titled you. I am content to wait. I only wanted you to know. And if you decide against me in time, I will endeavor to accept that too. Understand clearly, Jessica, that I want you as a friend and as a lover, for I will not allow either of us to live half a life together. But I shall wait.”
“Alex,” she said, her voice so filled with emotion that he could not tell if it was gladness or sorrow she spoke through, “I too have come to a realization. Do you recall that a while ago you gave me good advice and told me about the Red Indians and their tactics for warfare?”
He put his head to one side, for he could not comprehend what she was going on about, and he feared for her reason after all the shocks she had suffered.
“But I recall a story my father told me about them,” she went on. “He said that they do not let their infants go about with leading strings as they learn to walk, as we let ours do. He said that they swaddle their babes and carry them about on their backs, never letting their feet touch the ground long after they should have commenced to toddle. But then, on the day that they feel a child is old and strong enough, they unwrap him and set him down upon the earth. And do you know, Alex, within a day, before the sun sets, he is running about as any child of that age might do.
“Oh, Alex,” she cried, throwing her arms about his neck and coming into his amazed embrace, “I am like that! For I feel as though I have grown years in a day. I’ve had hours to think, and primarily of you. I am not my father,” she whispered against his neck. “Nor am I my mother,” she confided as his lips touched her cheek. “I am myself, and thus I am yours. For I find that I do not wish to grow older without you. And,” she said on a husky half-laugh, “even after that, I find my dearest wish is to help you haunt your new home, down through all the centuries.” Then she only sighed as he found her yielding lips.
She could not analyze his kiss as she had other men’s, for she was too lost in the sheer joy of his clever mouth. And when he gently touched her breast, she took no alarm, for she only wanted to offer herself more completely to him.
When at last he drew back to gaze into her eyes to convince himself that this was all real, she threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, Alex, your aunt will be so pleased. For she told me when I confided my feelings for you that I should not worry. She told me that she thought you had a care for me.”
“Had a care?” he breathed, and took her back again to lose himself in the impossible sweetness of her mouth.
“Jessica,” he said at length in an altered voice, taking a step back from her, “I think we ought to be married at once.”
“At once,” she agreed, trying to wedge herself back into his arms.
“Within the month,” he insisted a moment later.
“Within,” he eventually groaned against her lips, “a week. At St. George’s,” he finally said firmly as he released her.
“At St. Gertrude’s,” she jested gaily as he led her back to the Hall. “For surely all the Austrian o
rphans will want to celebrate with us,” she explained with a boyish grin.
17
The room was as dim as he had remembered. The wizened man behind the enormous desk, however, leaned forward, in excitement this time, as he strode into the study.
“Well?” the older man said eagerly. “Let’s have it. Here’s your second payment,” he rasped as he flung a purse of coins m onto his desktop. “Now let us see if you’ve earned the third.”
“Yes,” the blond young gentleman said softly, “oh, yes, Mr. Cribb, you were entirely right. Red Jack did leave a legacy. One beyond all our imaginings.”
“I knew it! I knew it!” the other man cried.
“But it is not one that you can get your hands upon,” the fair-haired man answered.
“Let me be the judge of that.” The older man laughed as the huge woman who sat beside him roared with joy as well. “Now,” Mr. Cribb said happily as he threw a matching purse upon his desk, “let’s have it. Where is it?”
“Why, I gave it away not two days past at St. George’s in London,” Thomas Preston said in a matter-of-fact voice. “Or, rather, I helped give it away, for it was Sir Selby who actually did the deed; I only assisted.”
“Gave it away?” the older man gasped. “Well, I shall get it back again, never fear.”
“I think not,” the younger man said, “for it was all quite legal.”
“Out with it! To whom did you give it?” Mr. Cribb shouted in vexation.
“To Alexander, Lord Leith. And I think, from the way he accepted it, that he will never let it go,” his visitor said in a pensive tone.
“What was it?” bellowed the enormous woman, speaking for the first time as she heaved to her feet.
“Why, Red Jack’s only treasure, and his truest one,” Thomas Preston replied. He smiled and then turned on his heel and left the room, the two raging persons within, and the two bags of coins where they were, in the darkness.
