by Lynn Kerstan
They appeared to float, silent images from a dream. A low sound, like the wings of insects, buzzed in her ears. Steam billowed over the copper tub in cloudy puffs that rose to the high ceiling, fogging the room and sifting through her in warm, damp waves.
She had fled Duran. She had run from him without dignity, or pride, or even a reason she could bear to acknowledge. Duran was in London, so she must be elsewhere, at a place he would not dare to come.
“Let me help you undress,” someone said.
Jessica realized that she was standing by the bed, gazing blankly at the counterpane. She looked up, startled to find the servants gone. The fog that had enveloped her was no more than a soft haze hovering over the steaming bathwater.
Mariah, standing behind her, began to unclasp the hooks and tapes on her carriage dress. “Are you feeling ill? A few minutes ago I asked you a question, and you wandered away as if you hadn’t heard me.”
Jessica stepped out of her skirt and fumbled at the buttons on her high-necked bodice. “I’m perfectly fine, although I believe I could fall asleep standing up. Perhaps I’ll do without the bath and go directly to bed.”
“That would be best, I expect. You might nod off in the tub and drown. Shall I inform the staff you are not to be disturbed?”
“Yes, please.” Jessica was not so weary that she failed to hear the tension in her sister’s voice. “What is it, Mariah? You are aching to tell me something.”
“It can wait until tomorrow.” Mariah came around her and pushed Jessica’s limp fingers from the buttons.
“Oh dear. Something unpleasant. Well, do get it over with, or I’ll not sleep a wink.”
“I saw the list, you see. Papa asked me to assign rooms to the guests, as if I’d any notion where to put them. Already I’ve gone wrong, placing Lord Inglewood on the second floor because I didn’t know about his arthritis. He has since been moved, of course, and so has Sir Ridgely, who wanted a view of Devil’s Tor.”
Jessica bit back a snappish demand that Mariah come to the point. On the rare occasions her sister spoke at all, she circled the topic like a fish flirting with a baited hook.
“The thing is,” Mariah said, undoing the last button and stepping away, “Colonel Lord Pageter is to be here.”
After so great a buildup, Jessica was both relieved and annoyed to hear such an inconsequential bit of news. “Indeed? I wasn’t aware he had returned to England. Where has he been all this time? Oh yes. Cape Town. I remember now. We went to Portsmouth to see him off. You said that he had no family to wave good-bye, so you dragged me along with you to do the honors, and we arrived an hour after the ship had sailed.”
Red spots blazed on Mariah’s white cheeks. “We should have been there. You were all but betrothed to him.”
“I was nothing of the sort. Mother did everything in her power to promote the match, but there was never the slightest chance I would marry him. As he very well knew, poor fellow, although he was far too polite to object when we were practically thrown at each other. The weeks he spent at High Tor must have been excruciating for him. Wherever he turned, there I was. Mother seated me next to him at table every single night and went so far as to put him in the bedchamber next to this one, hoping that lust would propel him through the adjoining door and between my legs.”
“Good heavens, Jessica.” Mariah spun her around and attacked the laces of her corset. “You mustn’t say such things!”
“Whyever not? You should understand, better than anyone, how ruthless Mother could be. Fortunately Pageter had no more interest in me than I in him, and he was too honorable to sell himself in exchange for a substantial marriage settlement. I always wondered why he continued to visit after I had refused him.” She stifled a yawn. “It was for the hunting, I suppose. He was a dedicated sportsman.”
“Papa liked him for it,” Mariah said, her voice muted.
“Oh, indeed. He had finally got a proper son-in-law in his sights, one who’d cheerfully tramp the moorlands with him, and I turned the chap away. If he’d known I would descend on High Tor this week, I would suspect him of making another try at arranging a match. Although surely Pageter is married by now. He struck me as the sort to want a cozy fireside and a nestful of children.”
Mariah tugged the corset away, folded it neatly, and crossed to a stand of drawers. “Have you never wanted that for yourself?”
“Not enough to relinquish my freedom.” Jessica sat on the edge of the bed to remove her stockings. “I don’t think of it, really. One cannot hope for everything. I prefer to set goals that can be achieved without relying on someone else. Males are notoriously undependable, you know. To subject myself to one of them in marriage would be intolerable.”
“Each case is different,” Mariah protested. “You cannot say that Mama was ever subjected to Papa.”
“Hardly.” Jessica wished that Mariah would go away and let her collapse into bed, but she could not bring herself to be as nasty as she felt at the moment. She did care for her sister, although the two of them had never been close. They were so very different in nature. When they were children, High Tor had been an armed camp—Jessica at war with her mother while the rest of the family did Lady Sothingdon’s bidding. Eventually Mariah had made an unhappy marriage because she was too weak to stand up for herself.
Jessica had no intention of being sucked back into the family quagmire. Escaping had been hard enough. They all had to pay for the choices they had made, didn’t they? And she had troubles enough of her own.
She heard the door open and looked up in time to see Mariah vanish into the passageway. Another quietly desperate retreat, like all the others she had made. The door closed gently, the latch falling into place with scarcely a sound.
Rather sure she had just failed her sister in some unnameable way, Jessica crawled up the bed until her head reached the pillow and let herself drop like a stone.
Chapter 4
Three days passed before Jessica received news of the auction.
She had just returned from a morning walk when she saw the letter, several pages thick, on a salver in the entrance hall. Snatching it up, she rushed to her bedchamber—the only place in the house where she could be assured of privacy—and broke the seal with trembling fingers.
For a moment she could not bear to look. Putting aside Helena’s letter, she spread the other sheets of paper side by side on her writing table and drew up a chair. Her secretary, in neat, precise handwriting, had dutifully recorded each item on offer, the price paid, the buyer, and a breakdown of the commissions due to Christie’s and to Lady Jessica.
Taking a deep breath, she began to read.
By the time she had reached the last page, she was making small sounds of excitement. And when she saw the amounts bid for Lady Erskine’s Elizabethan platter and Florentine chest, she let out a whoop of glee.
Every single item had been purchased, and at a price considerably higher than she had anticipated. Higher even than she had allowed herself to hope for. Jumping to her feet, she scooped up the gray cat that had wandered in through the door she’d forgot to close and danced the startled creature around the room. “I’m a success, Oscar! A roaring great goddess of a success!”
The cat clung to her shoulder with extended claws, ears flattened and tail swishing in protest.
She came to a stop and lowered him onto the bed. “Sorry, old lad. It’s just that I have no one else to celebrate with.”
No one to tell, either, not anyone who would understand what it meant to her. It was a lonely triumph, to be shared only with a cat that had little affection for her. Oscar had simply decided that her room was the safest place to hide out. Two score of men were now in residence at High Tor, and there were few places a cat could go without being stepped on by a careless booted foot.
She wandered back to the writing table and picked up her secretary’s letter. It began with an apology. Helena had caught a summer cold and would not join her until it had passed. Jessica was sorry to
hear it. She had counted on leaving High Tor as soon as Helena arrived with the bank drafts, intending to deliver at least one of them in person. Lady Erskine was in need of the money, and Jessica had planned to evaluate the contents of her home and help her choose what she could bear to part with for a future sale. The remote Northumberland estate would be an excellent place to reside for a few weeks. Like Oscar, she required a safe place to go to ground.
The thought of it filled her with self-loathing. Above all things she hated weakness, most especially in herself. She feared it, too. People who thought they knew her would be amazed to discover how constantly, how profoundly, she lived in fear of what she might do. Of what she had done. Of what she might become.
She stomped her feet, one after the other—her way of exorcizing her demons. One, two. One, two. One, two! Oscar rumbled a growl and dove under the bed.
No one—not even a cat—could bear her company for very long.
She drew a few steadying breaths and returned to Helena’s letter. The auction was described with just the sort of particulars her secretary knew she would relish. She read the long middle section twice, imagining Lord Stevesbury’s inflated sense of self-importance as he beat out the Duke of Devonshire for not one but four valuable pieces. They were not nearly so valuable as the price he paid for them, but he would boast of his success for a good long time. She must remember to praise him for his excellent taste when next they met.
Lady Fitzmorris had bought the blue-eyed figurine, bringing along her son-in-law to do the bidding for her. Jessica checked the list to see what she had paid. Oh my. It more than made up for the trouble the woman had tried to create at the reception.
By Helena’s report, Mr. Christie was delighted with the results of the sale, although he was taking great pains to claim all the credit for Jessica’s ideas. He very well ought to be pleased, considering the money he had made and the attention she had brought to his auction house. Most of the guests had never thought of setting foot there until Lady Jessica made Christie’s a fashionable place to be.
She skimmed several anecdotes, knowing that Helena, with her acerbic wit, would tell the stories far better in person. Then she came to a long postscript at the end of the letter.
“A gentleman, Lord Duran, was inquiring for you at the auction. I gathered he had applied first at Sothingdon House, which was confirmed by Phillips when I returned home. Naturally we did not provide Lord Duran with your direction, as you had told us it was to be kept private. But the gentleman, who is newly returned from India, claims to have made your acquaintance several years ago and appears most anxious to speak with you on a matter of some urgency. Should you wish to make an exception for him, please let me know by return post. He has called twice this very day, and I must tell you, Jessica, that he is a difficult man to fend off.”
Didn’t she know it!
Jessica spent the next three hours writing letters, one to Helena with strict instructions to have Duran turned away whenever he called, and the others to clients who would wish to know the price their merchandise had fetched. She’d have taken pleasure dispatching so much excellent news, had not Duran felt all but present in the room. She had put distance between them, but she could not stop thinking about him.
She dropped hot wax onto each of her letters and stamped it with her seal, using exceptional vigor. Take that! she thought. And that! Every one of those letters declared her independence. She had worked exceptionally hard for nearly six years to build her reputation, endured criticism and sometimes downright ostracism from the high sticklers, and finally made a glorious success.
Never mind what she had given up in the process. She had made her choices, and it was too late to second-guess them now.
Oscar had emerged from beneath the bed to twine about her ankles, which he only did if he was hungry. When she tried to pet him, wanting to touch something warm and alive, he jerked away, the fur along his spine standing straight up in an unmistakable sign of rejection.
“Come along, wretch,” she said, gathering her letters and heading for the passageway. “When I’ve got Father to frank these, we’ll go to the kitchen and find you something to eat.”
Oscar trotted alongside her, tail high with anticipation, until she came to a halt at the top of the main staircase that curved down to the entrance hall. Male voices, several of them, echoed from the high walls and domed ceiling.
She nearly turned back, but what was the use? There would be no escaping them so long as she remained at High Tor. She still wore her plain brown walking dress and half boots, and her hair was coming loose from its pins, but none of her father’s grouse-hunting friends cared anything for that. The men invited to Sothingdon’s famous shooting parties came precisely because there would be no females demanding their attention and requiring them to be on good behavior. She often thought that she could arrive at the dinner table wearing only her chemise without attracting the slightest notice.
Oscar padded ahead of her, turning once to make sure she was following. As her feet hit the steps—one, two, one, two—she shaped her lips into an aloof, don’t-talk-to-me smile. But halfway down the stairs, where they began the sweeping curve to the entrance hall, she caught sight of her father shaking hands with a man she recognized.
John Pageter. She paused for a moment, wondering if this encounter ought to be postponed. She was far from looking her best, and it would be less awkward for the both of them if they met without her father looking on.
She studied his face, brown from the South African sun, his well-formed nose and square chin combining to produce an effect that was both strong and sweetly pleasant. She remembered him as kind and a trifle shy with women. He had certainly been shy in her company.
With the awareness of a soldier who had come under scrutiny, he glanced up the staircase and caught her gaze. Immediately his lips widened into a smile, a friendly smile, no trace of a hidden purpose in it.
More at ease now, she continued down the stairs and moved to her father’s side. Near the front door Geeson was accepting hat and gloves from another guest, but with Pageter blocking her view, she could see nothing but a set of wide shoulders.
Pageter’s brown eyes were warm as he bowed to her. “Lord Sothingdon has been kind enough to welcome an additional guest,” he said, “a friend I quite improperly invited to accompany me to High Tor. In my defense, he has a slight connection with the family. I believe, Lady Jessica, that you are acquainted with him.”
Her breath caught in her throat. Pageter continued speaking as he moved aside and beckoned to the other gentleman, but she knew already who he must be. Cold with dread, she raised her head and gave Duran a haughty look as he made his bow to her father, and then to her.
She had expected a look of triumph, or at least the familiar mocking amusement in his eyes. But he only greeted her pleasantly—a polite murmur of her name, no more—before returning his attention to the earl.
Pageter made the introductions, praising Duran’s skill with a gun as if that were sufficient justification for his intrusion into a party where he’d not been invited. She longed to slap the both of them.
Duran silenced Pageter with a wave of his hand. “It is unpardonable of me to descend on you without an invitation, Lord Sothingdon. I seem to have left my manners in India. There was good hunting there, of course, but I missed the pleasures of tramping the English countryside in pursuit of partridge and grouse. When Pageter told me that he was off for several weeks to do precisely that, the temptation to impose on him—and on you—was overwhelming.”
Jessica could practically feel her father dissolving under Duran’s flattery. He always played the right notes, the ones that appealed to his victim’s pride or favorite hobbyhorse. That tribute to English shooting parties had won the earl’s heart in an instant.
“Well, well, I’m glad to have you here,” he said gruffly. “A good time for it, what? Pageter has told me that you know my daughter.”
Duran spared her a polite gla
nce. “Only very slightly, I’m afraid. We met a number of years ago at one of those overcrowded London parties. I expect the charming Lady Jessica has no recollection of me at all.”
“My lamentable memory,” she said coolly, wondering if she imagined a flash of humor in his eyes.
“Lord Sothingdon,” he said, turning back to his host, “I hope you will do me the honor of accepting a token of my gratitude for your hospitality. While I was purchasing a gun—several of them, I must confess—at Joseph Manton’s establishment, I asked him to select one that you might approve for yourself.”
Duran made a gesture, and two men approached from the shadows.
Jessica, who had failed to notice them, was as astonished as the earl when they stepped forward and bowed. Both were dark-skinned and quietly exotic, clad in white tunics belted with wide gray sashes over loose white trousers. They wore turbans, which were knotted just above their right ears, and the younger man was holding a large, flat mahogany case. The older one undid the clasp and raised the lid.
Sothingdon gasped.
Jessica could not imagine what her father found so wonderful about the contents. The leather-lined case held a long-barreled rifle with a shiny wooden stock, along with the usual implements for loading and cleaning. But what of it? He was an extravagant collector of guns and already owned several score of them.
Nonetheless, he was undeniably impressed. When the gun was lifted from the case and put into his hands, he caressed it with the affection he might have given to a new grandchild. “Splendid workmanship,” he said, sounding a bit dazed. “Splendid.”
“I had thought you would be interested in the new percussion ignition,” said Duran, “but Manton was sure you’d prefer the traditional flintlock.”
“Oh, yes. Yes indeed. I don’t hold with these modern experiments. Apt to blow up in your hands, what?”
“I certainly hope not,” Duran replied. “I bought two of them for myself.”
