Poetic Justice, a Traditional Regency Romance (Regency Escapades)

by Alicia Rasley

  Mr. Wiley left, muttering about inventories and upstarts. John's gaze followed him, and the chill hadn't left his when he turned back. Jessica suppressed a shiver as he looked at her. She knew how kind, how gentle he could be. She doubted not his essential goodness. But when he looked like that, she remembered how little she knew of his life, his past, the experiences that had made him alternately so approachable and so aloof.

  And when she saw her uncle's expression, awkward but resolute, she knew with dread that John was about to live through another of those experiences. "Don't, Uncle," she hissed, but he silenced her with an impatient chop of his hand.

  "Dryden, I hope you won't take offense at what Mr. Wiley says. He's a scholar, you know, not much for the social graces. Seldom sets foot outside that library."

  John inclined his head without comment, but that was enough to encourage Uncle Emory. "I mean you to know that I appreciate your counsel on this matter. It is most conciliating of you."

  John still did not speak. Even his eyes were at their most unrevealing, opaque and reflective.

  And Parham, seeing himself in the other man's eyes, cleared his throat and shifted nervously. "But—well, I think it's in your interest that you know right now. If you have designs on this collection—on my niece—"

  "Uncle..." Jessica's agonized whisper wasn't enough to cut him off.

  "You'd do best to understand that won't serve. I'm sure you realize that I cannot approve of such an unequal match. You are a creditable man, I have no doubt, but you are ineligible."

  Instinctively Jessica started towards John, to beg his pardon, to pull him out the door, to make it right somehow. But he raised his hand to stop her. The chill had faded from his eyes, and his glance hardly brushed her. Then he never looked her way again.

  Instead, he addressed her uncle in a voice as hard as ice. "I give you no leave to declare me eligible or ineligible, or declare me anything at all."

  "Give me leave? Give me leave? I am the girl's uncle! I'll take leave to warn you off, I will, and be damned to your arrogance!"

  "It is not arrogance, Lord Parham, to resent such a charge. I came here at your behest, to do you a service. I have no designs on your niece or her collection."

  Distractedly Jessica thought that the first part of John's statement, that he was here at her uncle's behest, was only half-true. The second part might be similarly ambiguous. But where would that leave them?

  "Well," Parham said, visibly relieved, "that's fine then. We'll need speak no more of it."

  But John was too angry to leave it at that; she saw the resolve he had to bring to loosing his clenched fists. "I don't think you understand. If I wanted a woman, and she was of the same mind, nothing you could say would gainsay me. I mean no insult, but I do not accept that you have any right to dictate to me."

  Uncle Emory took a step back, as if he finally felt the force of John's chilly anger. "By God, you are a slippery one, Dryden. I'd call you insolent, but you're too damned polite, even when you insult me." He regarded the younger man with something close to astonishment. "I'd call you an upstart, but you don't ask for any favor. You aren't anything I know, and I don't know what to make of you."

  "It isn't your place to make anything of me." John gathered up his riding gloves, jamming them into his pocket. His voice was level, though, as if he were giving instructions to a crewmember. "You will not treat me as a servant, or as a thief, or whatever it is you prefer me to be. If you have no use for my aid, tell me so, and I will leave. But I am an Englishman, and no man's lesser at that. I suggest you keep that fixed fast in your mind."

  He bowed to Jessica and left without another word. As the door closed behind him, she turned on her uncle. "How dare you! He has been nothing but good to us, and you insult him so!"

  "Well, he insulted me, too, did you hear?"

  "He told you that you had no right to order him about, and he's correct. As you have no right to tell me I can't see him if I wish."

  "Your father left you in my charge! That gives me the right!"

  "No. You have only the right to withhold my inheritance from me." Jessica covered her mouth with her fist, remembering what great power that right gave him. But it was not enough to control her, no matter what he thought. Her hand dropped to her side. "No more than that."

  Parham must have sensed they were on the brink of some terrible confrontation, for his tone became more conciliatory. "Now Jessica, surely you are not interested in that man. Oh, he's handsome enough, least your aunt thinks so. He looks like a damned foreigner to me. But he isn't our sort, not in any way. He couldn't make you any kind of husband!"

  It angered her, and hurt her too, to think that he could disdain a man like John Dryden. And that anger took shape in hot words. "He's a good man. Better than most! He would never have insulted a man as that supposed gentleman Alfred Wiley insulted him! And he would never have insulted me, either, by making unwanted advances, and yet that is what you accused him of doing!"

  "I accused him of no such thing! I merely meant to warn him that if he thought to improve his lot with marriage, he should look elsewhere!"

  "But that is an insult! To him, and to me!" In despair, she turned away and started for the door. But she halted with her hand on the knob. She had to try to explain, at least, even if it would do no good. "Oh, Uncle, don't you see? You as much as called him a fortune hunter, and me a prize only desired for my fortune!"

  "I said nothing of the sort. But he's no fool. He can see where the main chance is—and you're the likeliest target for him, if he's looking for a fortune."

  Jessica drew in her breath to protest this, but then just raised her hands to rub her aching temples. She got nowhere arguing with her uncle; she never had persuaded him of anything. Sometimes she thought he didn't even hear her. Softly, as if to herself, she said, "I am real to him, at least. As I have never been real to you."

  "That's nonsense, girl, and you know it! You are my own brother's daughter, my niece."

  "No. I can't say I feel that's true, that you look at me and see your niece. I feel that I was never more than Trevor's bride. The future mother of your grandchildren. And now, I don't know. Vestal virgin at his tomb."

  Parham drew back at this, his face whitening. "How can you speak this way, Jessica? After all I've done, given you a home, to give me such offense!"

  "It's because I don't care any longer, do you see? I realize you might offer me a home, but you haven't really any room for me after all. I wish—oh, I wish Father had just appointed a solicitor for me. Then I shouldn't have fooled myself that my guardian cared what became of me. I would have known I was just a case to him, a file in his cupboard. And though he might not have stirred himself to make me happy, he wouldn't have actively worked against it."

  Parham raised his hands to his ears, as if he wouldn't even let himself hear this. "Well, if you think your happiness lies with such a one as John Dryden, you are beyond foolish. Beyond foolish! Any of those others would have been better than this one. At least they are all of gentle birth and good families!"

  Jessica released the breath she had been holding and forced back the furious comment she had been about to make. "Well," she said, opening the door, "they weren't good enough for you either. So I expect it doesn't matter what I do. I've given up trying to please you."

  She let the door close behind her, then sagged back against it, too weak to go up to her room. She could hear her uncle pacing about in the room behind her, back and forth, back and forth, as he used to in those days after Waterloo. For a moment, guilt weighed her down. Her uncle never meant to hurt her, or anyone else. It was just that he had his own narrow view of how the world was supposed to be.

  Then she pushed away from the door. No. She wouldn't make excuses for him anymore. He was her uncle, and she loved him despite it all, but she wouldn't, couldn't let him dictate her future any longer.

  She thought of John's face when he realized that he was facing another insult, the latest in a
lifetime of them. That's what he resisted most of all, being trapped in an identity he hadn't made. His need for freedom was so strong, to do as he wished, to be as he wished, that he must hate to be labeled tradesman or ineligible or, worst of.. all, bastard. So he surrounded himself with that deliber ate distance, pushing her and everyone else away.

  She had crossed that distance, once or twice. He might deny it—in fact he did deny it, when he denied he had any designs on her. But she knew the truth. She might be a maiden, but she was experienced enough to know when a man desired her, no matter where he spent the night later. But desire wouldn't be enough to cross that distance again.

  She was sorry that an insult had made him retreat, sorrier still to discover within herself a fierce protectiveness. He would not welcome that, she thought, and neither did she. This was a man who could fight his own battles, and didn't need her help at all.

  CHAPTER TEN

  And keep you in the rear of your affection,

  Out of the shot and danger of desire.

  The chariest maid is prodigal enough

  If she unmask her beauty to the moon.

  Hamlet, I, iii

  Jessica met her friends as planned at Ranelagh, but as soon as she could she pleaded a headache and called for her carriage. She could wait no longer.

  When the carriage clattered to a halt in a quiet street near Manchester Square, she told the groom that she wouldn't be long. She didn't need his disapproving look to remind her that she was committing social suicide, or would be, at least, if anyone recognized her entering this residence for gentlemen. So she gathered her taffeta cloak around her, put up her hood even though the heat smothered her, and in a muffled voice asked the doorman to direct her to "Capitaine Dryden's rooms, s'il vous plait."

  John's set of rooms were on the first floor, above the monastic-like courtyard. Her knock was answered promptly by a bantam-sized man with a bandanna about his neck and a patch over one eye. A real pirate, Jessica marvelled, down to the hoop in his ear! But when she asked for Sir John, the pirate's scarred face knotted with the same disapproval her groom had shown. "Follow me, please," he said, as glacial as a prince's butler.

  Jessica couldn't help glancing about her curiously as they passed through a wide corridor. The walls were covered in dark blue, the paintings illuminated by gold sconces. She thought she saw a Tintoretto landscape over the staircase, and surely that watercolor of a ship in harbor was by the young Turner. The pirate strode onward, but she hung back to peer at the brass plate under a bust of Achilles. Fifth century BC, sculptor unknown, it said, and she gave the marble nose a gentle rub before running to catch up with her guide.

  He threw open the door to a library. "Miss Seton to see you," he announced, then as soon as she was in the room, he held out a hand for her cloak, and soon as he had it, withdrew, pulling the door shut firmly behind him.

  The library was dimly lit, except for a pool of light over the desk. John had been frowning at some papers, but when he saw her he put down his quill and rose. He was coatless, his cuffs folded back over his forearms. He rolled down his sleeves, but not before she saw the tattoo of a trident on the inside of his wrist. It made her shiver, to glimpse that secret emblem—a free-trader's symbol no doubt—and she found herself weak with longing to study it, to touch it, to kiss it.

  She battled back the impulse. Lord, wasn't his mouth enough to draw her? And she began talking before he could protest her appearance. "I couldn't wait till tomorrow to find out about the index. Tell me, do, before I expire. Did it say what we hoped it would say?"

  "I don't know," he replied, shrugging his coat on and coming around the desk. He wasn't precisely welcoming, but she hadn't expected that, not after her uncle's performance. "It is from your mother and grandfather. I thought you should open it."

  She was silenced by this gallantry. She knew exactly how desperately he wanted to know what was in that index, and how difficult his restraint must have been. Finally she said, "Well, I'm here now. Let's open it."

  "We can't. It's not here." He added with a grin, "Do you think I could have withstood the temptation, were it here in my rooms? No. I left it at my friend's house. It is safer there anyway.

  "But when will we open it?"

  "When we get there. I hope you don't mind a bit of a walk."

  Jessica looked down at her insubstantial sandals. "I've got my carriage."

  "No. We must walk. Come see."

  When she joined him at the window, he tugged the velvet drape back an inch or so. "Look down there, in the street. Do you see anyone?"

  She turned her head sideways so she could apply both eyes to the task. After a moment her vision adjusted to the darkness, and she could see a dark figure on the walk opposite. "You mean that man near the lamppost?"

  "There's another at the corner. They or a couple colleagues have been there for the last two days."

  "Mr. Wiley hired them."

  John inclined his head. "Perhaps. They perk up whenever Arnie or I appear, so I'm taking no chances."

  "Do you think they saw me enter?"

  "No doubt. But don't worry. Arnie is a master at diversion."

  He let the drape drop back into place and crossed to the door to call his manservant. "Arnie, tell the doorman to call for Miss Seton's carriage. And bring her evening cloak with you when you return."

  A diversion! Jessica could hardly catch her breath. This was nearly as exciting as breaking into the library—stealing away to a man's rooms, finding a pirate, being watched by suspicious men. "They are why you didn't come home last night, aren't they?"

  "Considering what I was carrying, I thought it the sensible course. I left the index there."

  "Oh." A flush crept up her face as she remembered the implication of this. "Is that where we're going your friend's house?"

  "Yes. It's only a half-mile or so, in Cavendish Square."

  Cavendish Square was rather an elegant area for the courtesan crowd, but, Jessica told herself, his friend could be a wealthy noblewoman. Bending her head to hide her fierce blush, she asked, "But what if it is inconvenient for your friend? I can't think she would be pleased to see me."

  The startlement in his eyes relieved her, though his laughter was unexpected. "Not that friend. I am not so lost to propriety as all that! No, this is a perfectly respectable friend, who is, moreover, not in town. So you will not be exposed to the curious stares of servants. Except for Arnie, of course, and he doesn't gossip."

  She felt an immeasurable but ignoble relief that his night had been passed innocently. But disquiet followed immediately. Not that friend meant that there was such a friend, and as she stole a glance at John's face, Jessica knew nights with that one wouldn't be so innocent.

  She was on the brink of demanding some clarification when Arnie reappeared with her evening cloak. "Put it on." John told him.

  Arnie started to spread it around her shoulders, but John shook his head. "No, Arnie, I mean for you to put it on. You're going to draw off our friends in the street by taking a ride in Miss Seton's carriage—as Miss Seton."

  The horror on Arnie's face was almost comical, but Jessica knew better than to laugh at a pirate. "But Captain! I won't fool no one!"

  "You're about the same size. Just pull up the hood and keep your head down." John took the cloak from his numbed hands and held it up. "And don't say anything."

  Arnie had turned to shrug on the cloak, but he still muttered, "And what do I do when we reach her house, I ask you?"

  "You'll think of something. Jessica, do you have a handkerchief?"

  Fascinated by the transformation of pirate into heiress, she only nodded, and burrowed in her bag without taking her gaze off Arnie. "Here," she said, handing the scrap of lace to John.

  He transferred it to Arnie. "Hold this in front of your face and sniff every now and again. The groom will think you've suffered a romantic disappointment, and leave you quite alone."

  Arnie, still protesting, trudged out of the room.
<
br />   Jessica waited till the door was closed to give into laughter. "You are going to disgrace me! I'll have you know, I do not dissolve into tears on such occasions, especially in front of servants."

  "Well, your servants will accept your tears sooner than they will accept Arnie's eye patch. Let's watch."

  This time he opened the drape at least two inches. He was a head taller, and could look out over her, long as he stayed so close behind her that she could feel the brush of his sleeve on her shoulder. Was he remembering that kiss when they were even closer than this? Now, he couldn't be, for he was laughing and pointing at Arnie, huddled in her cloak, stepping daintily up into the carriage.

  "You needn't worry. He will do well enough, so long as he doesn't encounter your aunt or uncle."

  "They are abed, I'm sure."

  "Then he will just wait until the carriage is being taken back around to the stables to sneak out of your house. He's had a great deal of experience. He used to play all the ladies when my crew performed Shakespeare at sea."

  Jessica was only slightly reassured, but firmly she pushed her worries aside. There was nothing more she could do about it, and at least she had achieved her aim. She was here with John, and they would soon be in possession of the precious index.

  One of the watchers departed at a fast walk after the carriage. "We'll go out the back," John said, letting the curtain drop back into place. He looked her up and down, at her fine lilac gown, her hair up, pearls at her neck, and though she saw the gleam in her eye, she knew he was not about to compliment her beauty. "You're rather formal for this sort of outing. You would have done better to wear boots," he added, gesturing at her Grecian sandals. "But I reckon it can't be helped."