A Precious Jewel

by Mary Balogh

  It hampered his inquiries. He was able to find no trace of her in his walks about the village or on his rides in the surrounding countryside. He was as discreet as he knew how to be, and yet eventually, sitting in the village tavern with a pint of ale on the table before him, he had to ask if anyone knew of a Prissy, who had worked in the kitchen of his sister’s house in London, and whom his sister had begged him to ask after on his way west. No one knew any Prissy. Certainly not one who had recently returned home from London.

  “There is Bess,” one young man suggested with furrowed brow. “Bessie, some calls her. It sounds a bit like Prissy, don’t it now?”

  “Bessie has never been farther than five miles away in all her born days,” someone else said with scorn.

  “Both her parents are still alive,” Sir Gerald said. “And several younger brothers and sisters.” She had left his sister’s service in order to return home to marry, he went on to explain. And no, his sister had neglected to furnish him with the girl’s last name—a foolish oversight.

  The men gathered at the tavern looked collectively thoughtful and collectively shook their heads. No, this Prissy was not from their village.

  “There was Miss Wentworth from the house, of course,” the same young man who had suggested Bessie said. “She were Miss Priscilla Wentworth, weren’t she, before she took herself off from here when his worship and lordship decided to come down here and be king and duke and bishop and lord mayor all rolled into one?”

  The man who had treated the young man scornfully before did so again. He clucked his tongue. “The gent is talking of a wench that worked in a kitchen, Ned,” he said. “Keep your trap shut if you can’t get no sense to come out of it.”

  The youth retired into an injured silence.

  The rector later confirmed what Sir Gerald already knew in his heart. Denbridge was not Priss’s home. Miss Blythe had misled him or Priss had misled her.

  He did, before he returned to London, draw his horse to a halt outside the gates of Denton Manor and gaze along the straight driveway to the neat early Georgian manor, which was the home of Mr. Oswald Wentworth, he had learned. Miss Priscilla Wentworth, daughter of the late owner, and cousin of the present one, no longer lived there.

  But he did not pursue his search at the house. It would be too ridiculous.

  Except, he thought on his return journey, that she could read and write and the evidence was that she must have learned both skills longer ago than just the year before. And she could sketch and paint in watercolors and embroider. And she sang with a trained voice. Her accent had never once slipped into anything less than refined, even when she had been in an emotional state. And her manners and good taste were impeccable.

  Miles had called her a real lady. So had Bertie Ramsay.

  Her parents had written to her, she had said. The man she was to marry had written to her. Devil take it. was he quite stupid? This family and this swain, whom he had imagined to be poor and illiterate laborers, had written to her?

  Good Lord!

  Miss Priscilla Wentworth.

  But it could not be. If he had been incredibly foolish all along with Priss, he was in danger now of outdoing his own stupidity. It could not be. Miss Priscilla Wentworth had not returned to Denton Manor any more than Prissy had returned to Denbridge village.

  He knew only one thing for certain, and it made his heart heavy. Either she had lied to him altogether, or else she had told the truth but made very sure that he would never find her. Either way, there was nothing at all to give him comfort. Either way Priss had very deliberately put a complete end to their liaison with no intention of ever being persuaded to come back again.

  He should leave it at that, he decided in the last stages of his journey. If she was unhappy, then that was the way she had wished it. She had made her own decision. He had no more responsibility toward her. He was free of her.

  But of course, he discovered after he had returned, even if his conscience was free, his heart was not. He called on Miss Blythe again.

  “Did you send me deliberately on a wild-goose chase?” he asked her.

  She raised her eyebrows. “A wild-goose chase, sir?” she asked. “You did not discover anything about Prissy? I thought you would.”

  “Then she must have deceived you about her whereabouts,” he said.

  “Ah,” she said, “but I did not ever expect that you would find her in person, Sir Gerald.”

  He looked at her and frowned. And swallowed.

  “Miss Priscilla Wentworth?” he said, his voice almost a whisper. “She cannot be Priss. Can she?”

  “Did you not ever feel that your mistress was out of the ordinary way?” she asked him.

  He merely stared at her. “A lady?” he said. “But why?”

  “For the same reason as a girl from the gutter,” she said. “From a desire to live a little longer in this wonderful world, Sir Gerald. Her father died, leaving her to the care of her brother. They were an extraordinarily close and loving family. Unfortunately her brother died only days after his father, and in the way of young men, he did not have a will. Everything passed to the next heir.”

  “Mr. Oswald Wentworth,” Sir Gerald said.

  “He and his wife made her life hell,” Miss Blythe said. “She came to London to teach at my finishing school. I had been her governess for eight years. Unfortunately, she did not understand until after she left home and had been told that she could never expect to return what type of finishing school it is that I run. She was too proud to accept any of the jobs I would have invented for her. She insisted on working for an honest living. She meant the word ‘honest’ quite literally.”

  “God,” he said, closing his eyes. “Where is she?”

  “Safe,” she said. “And far more contented than I hoped for even in the deepest recesses of my heart. She has found people who have accepted her once again as Miss Priscilla Wentworth.”

  “There was no marriage pending, then,” he said.

  “No.”

  “She just wanted to be away from me,” he said. “She let me down as gently as she could. I might have expected it of Priss.”

  She said nothing.

  He squared his shoulders and looked up at her. “Thank you, ma’am,” he said. “I am glad I know. I will not take any more of your time.”

  “Why not come back this evening, Sir Gerald?” she asked. “Sonia has one free hour and Margaret, too. Have you had Margaret? She has something of a regular following.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “But no. Good day to you, ma’am.”

  She looked after him long after the door had closed behind him, a frown on her face, her eyes troubled.

  HE WAS GLAD after all, Sir Gerald thought, that he had agreed to spend at least part of the summer at Severn Park. He could not bear the thought of going down to Brookhurst, though he supposed that he must spend at least a week or two there so that he could visit all his tenants in person and listen to all the suggestions or grievances that they would inevitably have.

  Severn Park was a property he was eager to see, since it was reputed to include one of the great houses and parks of England. The earl had not resided there before, preferring to live in his own boyhood home during the period of his mourning.

  And Sir Gerald was glad to be there because there was congenial company and no pressure on him to do or be anything he did not wish to do or be. It was true that, at first, the countess went out of her way to invite neighbors who had young daughters and to seat him beside them at meals or in carriages. But that stopped after her husband had a word with her in Sir Gerald’s hearing.

  “Gerald is absolutely not interested in having either a wife or a flirt found for him, Abby,” he said to her. “Are you, Ger?”

  Sir Gerald laughed. “Actually, no, ma’am,” he said, “though I do appreciate the goodness of your heart that makes you wish to see to my happiness. I am quite perfectly happy in the single state.”

  “No, you are not,” she
said with the frankness that sometimes set him back on his heels. “You are pining for a lost love. Miles has told me so. But I will not harass you any longer. If you choose to be unhappy, then Miles and I will make you as comfortable as we may.”

  She was, he was glad to find over the coming weeks, as good as her word.

  Of course, the countess had a great deal to occupy her mind quite apart from his happiness. Miss Seymour was indeed at Severn Park, but then so was Mr. Boris Gardiner, the countess’s brother. And there was a betrothal between them to be celebrated early in the summer and a wedding to be planned for the early autumn before Mr. Gardiner purchased his commission in the Guards and bore off his new bride to follow him and the drum.

  The countess was in her element. She also had her two young half-sisters to fuss over, having been restored to them when her marriage released her from poverty and the necessity of earning her own living.

  And if all that were not enough, there was the fact that she was preparing to bear Miles’s child very early in the new year. His friend had wasted no time, Sir Gerald thought, doing some mental calculations. Lady Severn showed no embarrassment over her condition but talked about it frequently and with some eagerness.

  Everything about the Countess of Severn was eager. And Miles was in love with her. And she with him. Despite the hasty and inauspicious beginning to their marriage, they were happy together. Life had good fortune to hand out to some people, Sir Gerald thought with something of a sigh. He was just one of the less fortunate ones.

  Not that there was any great surprise in his own fate. It was what he had learned to expect of life. For years he had told himself that he would never again get himself involved in any sort of relationship with a woman. It was the reason he had never married. It was the reason he had been wary about taking a mistress. But he had taken one and he had kept her too long and he had developed an attachment to her. And she had, of course, rejected him.

  It was the pattern of his life. He was not going to rage against it. It was his own fault that he had allowed Priss to move into a position from which she could hurt him. He did not blame her. She had been as kind as she could. If he had not foolishly gone looking for her, he would have never known that she had left him for no other reason than to be away from him.

  He was intending to spend two more weeks at Severn before taking himself reluctantly off to Brookhurst at the end of August, one week after the wedding of Boris Gardiner and Laura Seymour. The weather was not nearly as good as it had been the previous summer, with the result that they took every opportunity that presented itself to be out-of-doors.

  One afternoon, all seven of them went for a lengthy walk, despite the fact that the wind buffeted them as soon as they were away from the shelter of the house. The little girls ran on ahead, the earl, his lady, and Sir Gerald following, and the betrothed pair brought up the rear.

  “You will be driving yourself insane over the wedding plans, Abby,” the earl said, drawing her hand through his arm and patting it. “Time to blow away the cobwebs.”

  “And bonnets and ribbons and hairpins, too,” she said. “And I have the strange feeling that my words are being blown straight back down my throat so that everyone will think me mute. That would be a dreadful thing. I imagine you would be in a panic and sending for the physician without delay.”

  “A mute Abby would have to be a sick Abby,” her brother agreed. “But we hear you loud and clear back here, don’t we, Laura?”

  Lady Severn laughed.

  The earl looked down at her and frowned in mock dismay. “Abby,” he said. “Too many cream cakes, my love. And too many sweets. I am going to have to instruct Cook to starve you for a week.”

  The wind, blowing the flimsy muslin of her dress against her, had revealed the slight rounding of her figure.

  She laughed merrily. “Starve me if you wish, my dear lord,” she said, “but I know you will not have the heart to starve your heir or your daughter, whichever this happens to be. I feel quite safe.”

  “We will be embarrassing you, Ger,” the earl said with a chuckle, “talking so openly on such an indelicate subject. Change it, Abby. Tell us about something else.”

  “The wedding,” she said brightly while her husband groaned.

  Too many cream cakes.

  The blood hammered against Sir Gerald’s temples. His heart pounded against his ribs. He was having difficulty drawing breath, setting one foot ahead of the other, remembering where he was.

  Too many cream cakes. Priss naked in bed, her back against him, his arms about her, his hand spread over her stomach. Her rounded stomach.

  Too many cream cakes. Or perhaps it is the jam tarts. I am going to have to talk to Mrs. Wilson and get her to starve you for a few weeks.

  And Priss, almost immediately after, telling him about her letter and her offer of marriage. And leaving him in a hurry within the following few days.

  Priss’s rounded stomach. Her rounded womb.

  The earl and countess were both laughing, something they did frequently.

  “Don’t you think so, Sir Gerald?” the countess asked him.

  “Don’t you dare humor her if you know what is good for you, Ger,” the earl said.

  “What?” he asked, dazed. “I’m sorry. Look, Miles, I have to go back. I have to go. I … Excuse me.” He turned and hurried away, back in the direction of the house, passing clumsily between the betrothed couple as he did so.

  The earl appeared at his side as he hurried along.

  “Ger?” he said. “Is something wrong?”

  “No, nothing,” Sir Gerald said. “I have to go, that’s all.”

  “To the house?” the earl asked. “Or away from Severn Park?”

  “I have to go,” Sir Gerald said.

  “That’s what I thought,” Lord Severn said. “What was said or done, Ger? Our talking about Abby’s pregnancy would not so discompose you, would it?”

  Sir Gerald stopped walking abruptly and turned to face his friend. “How many months with child is she?” he asked.

  The earl frowned his incomprehension. “Close to four,” he said. “I should not have said what I did about its beginning to show, Ger. I am sorry. It is just that Abby and I are quite ridiculously pleased with ourselves, as if we are the only couple ever to have been so clever.”

  “Four months,” Sir Gerald said, staring blankly at the earl. “April.” He lifted one hand and counted off his fingers. “Five more. May, June, July, August, September. Sometime in September. And this is the second half of August.”

  “Ger.” The earl clasped his hands behind his back and looked closely at his friend. “What the devil are you talking about?”

  “She may have only a month left,” Sir Gerald said. “Perhaps less. I have to go, Miles.”

  “Ger!” Lord Severn looked at him in exasperation. “Would a fist to the nose do any good?”

  “I made the exact same crack about cream cakes,” Sir Gerald said. “In April, Miles. She was gone a few days later. I thought it was because she did not want me. I thought she made up that story so that I would not be hurt.”

  “Prissy?”

  “Perhaps it was not so,” Sir Gerald said. “Perhaps it was not that at all, Miles. Perhaps she thought I would reject her when I knew. Perhaps she thought I would not want to have anything to do with her or—or …”

  “Your child,” the earl said.

  “Perhaps she did not want to go at all.” Sir Gerald turned and began to walk again. “And even if she did, Miles. Even if she did. What is she going through now? All alone. I have to go.”

  “Yes,” Lord Severn said, falling into step beside him again. “I can see that you do. And I never did quite believe that she tired of you, Ger. Not Prissy. She was too fond of you. Are you sure about the other, though? A chance remark that both you and I made …”

  “I am sure,” Sir Gerald said. “I may have a very strong tendency to blindness, Miles, but when I finally see, I am almost blinded again by
the light.”

  “Well, then,” the Earl of Severn said. “We will have to get you packed and ready to go as soon as we possibly can. Or sooner.”

  “YOU WILL FIND her at Fairlight in Sussex,” Miss Blythe said at long last. “It is a small village on the coast.”

  Sir Gerald blew his breath out from puffed cheeks. He had almost despaired of getting the information out of her.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “Sir Gerald,” she said, looking steadily and severely at him, “I have done something that I have never done before and never thought to do. And I am not at all sure that I have done the right thing. She is contented where she is. Almost all of the villagers are elderly and rather lonely people, I gather. They have welcomed her with open arms although the foolish girl rejected my advice and was honest with them about herself from the start.”

  “And you are afraid that I will disturb her contentment?” he asked.

  “I know you will disturb her contentment,” she said, “but will it be for her greater happiness? That is the question that will give me sleepless nights.”

  Sir Gerald stared at the floor between them for a while, deep in thought. “Perhaps she needs to be honest with me, too,” he said. “Perhaps when she has been, she will be able to choose the contentment she wants and live with it for the rest of her life. Perhaps she needs to see me one more time.”

  “She is like the daughter I never had,” Miss Blythe said rather sadly.

  He lifted his eyes to hers. “She is like the wife I have never yet had, ma’am,” he said. “I suppose the fact should make us allies, not enemies.”

  She smiled very slightly. “Perhaps I will have to modify a certain talk I sometimes have to deliver to some of my girls,” she said. “Perhaps hope is never quite dead, even for the most downtrodden and despised members of the human race.”

  “Or for the more privileged,” he said softly.

  SHE HAD NOT GONE DOWN TO THE BEACH MANY times in the past month or so. Though the path was not dangerously steep, it was difficult to keep her balance on the way down, and the weight of her pregnancy made the climb back up an arduous one.