Joan Wolf (18 page)

“Where is Uncle Philip going, mother?” Geoffrey asked as the door closed behind Linton. “To Winchcombe? Why? I don’t understand.”

His mother ignored him. Her magnificent green eyes were fixed on Lady Linton. “Is it possible?” she asked.

“I don’t know, Maria,” her mother answered. “But I find myself hoping very much that it is.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Alas, my love! ye do me wrong,

To cast me off discourteously;

And I have loved you so long,

Delighting in your company. —
ANONYMOUS

Ever since Jessica had returned to Winchcombe she had buried herself in work. Miss Burnley expostulated with her often but Jessica would not listen. The best way to manage the pain, she found, was to work to the point of exhaustion. Then, at least, she could sleep at night.

It was better when the boys came home from school, although she had had a moment of panic when she realized that Geoffrey wanted to invite Linton’s nephew to spend the summer at Winchcombe. She had been tarter and more abrupt with Geoffrey than she had ever been before, and he had written to Matthew Selsey to cancel the invitation with very little protest.

Both Geoffrey and Adrian were aware of a change in Jessica. She didn’t seem to hear half of what was said to her, and she seldom laughed. Miss Burnley told them that Jessica was having a reaction to her experience in Scotland and that they must all be considerate and sensitive to her feelings. The boys tried, but they sorely missed their vibrant, intensely alive sister. This Jessica acted like a sleepwalker. The boys found themselves trying to keep as much out of her way as possible.

Geoffrey and Adrian were coming down the front steps of Winchcombe after lunch on the afternoon of June 24 when a smart phaeton drawn by a pair of matched grays came trotting up the driveway. Both boys stayed at the bottom of the steps, their eyes fixed admiringly on the horses. The phaeton was drawn up before them and a man asked in a deep, quiet voice if this was Winchcombe.

“Yes, it is,” replied Adrian.

“I say, sir, that is a bang-up pair of grays!” said Geoffrey enthusiastically.

“Thank you,” Linton responded courteously. “You must be Geoffrey Lissett. I should like very much to see your sister if she is at home.”

“She went into Cheltenham this morning to see Mr. Grassington, our lawyer. But she should be back soon. Should you like to wait for her, sir?”

“Yes,” said Linton decisively. “I should.”

“If you like I’ll drive your phaeton down to the stables and you can wait in the drawing room,” Geoffrey said eagerly.

Linton had heard enough about Geoffrey Lissett's horsemanship to allow him to agree. A delighted Geoffrey, with Adrian beside him, climbed up into the driver’s seat, and Linton ascended the front steps of Jessica’s home.

Stover, the butler who had been at Winchcombe since before Jessica was born, answered the door and showed him into the drawing room. He was looking around him at the peaceful harmony of faded ivory, crimson, pink, and blue that was Winchcombe’s drawing room, when the door opened and a small, brown-haired woman who was dressed simply but tastefully in a dress of French blue cambric entered. “Lord Linton?” she asked in a beautiful, clear voice.

He came toward her. “Yes, I am Linton. Your butler said I might wait here for Miss Andover to return.”

“Of course,” the small woman replied. “Please do sit down. I am Miss Burnley, Miss Andover’s former governess. May I offer you some refreshment, Lord Linton?”

He was on the point of refusing when he changed his mind. “A glass of sherry, thank you.”

The sherry was brought and served and Miss Burnley, who was obviously dying to know what his business was with Jessica, maintained a gallant flow of light conversation. “Did you meet Miss Andover while she was in Scotland?” she finally ventured.

He looked surprised. “No. I didn’t realize she had been in Scotland.”

“Yes. She was there for most of the winter. A cousin of her mother’s was ill and Miss Andover went to look after her.”

He looked thoughtful for a moment, and then he smiled at Miss Burnley. It was a smile Jessica knew well, the warm, lazy, genuinely sweet smile that undid almost everyone he turned it on. Miss Burnley melted in its radiance. “Did this cousin by any chance leave Jess some money?”

The smile, his title, his blond good looks, his use of Jessica’s first name, all somehow reassured Miss Burnley that it was perfectly all right for her to confide in him. Afterwards, when she was reflecting soberly on the interview, she did not understand how she had been so forthcoming, but forthcoming she certainly was.

“Yes,” she said now in answer to his question. “Miss Cameron left her quite a lot of money. Enough, thank God, to pay off the mortgage on Winchcombe.”

“I see. That was certainly fortunate.”

“Yes. I must say I was very worried when Jessica borrowed the money from Mr. King to pay off Sir Henry. And I still cannot quite see why she found it so impossible to marry him. But, thank God, it all turned out for the best in the end.”

Linton didn’t answer right away, he was occupied with what Miss Burnley had told him. The little governess, looking at him, thought she had never in her life seen anyone so handsome. “How is the stud going?” he asked then.

“Jessica seems to be pleased with it,” returned Miss Burnley. “It is a tremendous amount of work, however. I have been begging her to take on more help but she says we can’t afford it. Geoffrey is very helpful, of course, but he is in school for most of the year.”

He started to answer her when there came through the opened window the sound of horses’ hooves on the gravel. Clear as a bell on the summer air, Jessica’s voice floated to Linton’s ears. “Take the horses down to the stables, Jem. I’ll be down shortly myself. Tell Geoffrey to saddle up Northern Light”

Linton’s heart was hammering. Until he had heard her voice he had not been sure. “Miss Burnley,” he said urgently, “go out and ask Jess to come in here. Don’t tell her who I am. Just say there is someone to see her. Please.”

Miss Burnley hesitated, looked at his face, nodded, and left the room. Linton heard her voice in the hall saying, “There is someone to see you, my dear, in the drawing room. I think it is about one of the horses.”

“Oh?” There was the sound of Jessica’s swift, long steps as she came across the hall. She opened the door of the drawing room and stopped as abruptly as if she had walked into glass. Miss Burnley, behind her, almost bumped into her.

“Hello, Jess,” Linton said steadily. “How are you?”

“What are you doing here? How did you find me?” Her voice sounded thin and strained. There was absolutely no color in her face.

“My nephew was very disappointed at not being allowed to come to Winchcombe. When he told me a little about your family I began to suspect. I came to find out for sure.” There was a pause, then he said, the bitterness just audible under his deep, even tone, “You have put me through hell, do you know that?”

Her eyes, open and dark, were on his face. At his last words the color came flooding back to her cheeks. “I know. I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have come.”

“Well I have come,” he replied crisply, “and you are damn well going to listen to me. Come in here and sit down.”

“Jessica .. .” said Miss Burnley nervously, and they both jumped a little and turned to look at her. So absorbed had they been in each other that they had forgotten the governess’s existence.

“It’s all right, Burnie,” Jessica said then. “This is Lord Linton. I know him.” She turned once more to look at the man behind her. Their eyes held for a full three seconds. Then Jessica turned back to Miss Burnley. “Leave us alone, Burnie. I am perfectly safe with Lord Linton.”

Miss Burnley looked doubtfully at Linton, then at Jessica. She sighed a little but dutifully turned and left the room quietly, closing the door behind her. Jessica crossed to a pale pink sofa and sat down abruptly, as if her legs would hold her no longer.

“Why did you come?” she asked. “You had my letter. Surely you must see the truth of what I wrote. Why stir up the pain again?”

He stood where he was, next to a polished rosewood table. “You look too thin,” he said. “Miss Burnley says you are working too hard.” He paused, debating how to begin, his eyes on her averted face. “Why wouldn’t you marry Sir Henry, Jess?” he asked at last very softly.

Her head jerked around at his words. “What do you know about Sir Henry?”

“Very little. Just that you refused to marry him. I know also that you needed money. But then I always knew that.”

She rubbed her forehead a little as if it were aching. “True. There was never much secret about that.”

“No.”

She smiled a little at his monosyllabic reply. “It’s very simple, really,” she told him. “Sir Henry Belton is a neighbor and the owner of Melford Hall. When my stepfather died he left a load of debt, and Sir Edmund Belton, who was Henry’s uncle and a friend of my father’s, agreed to hold a mortgage on Winchcombe. When Sir Edmund died his nephew Henry took over both Melford Hall and my mortgage. He told me if I didn’t agree to marry him he would foreclose on Winchcombe.” Her eyes were dark and enormous in her thin, narrow-boned face. “I would have lost it, Philip. I could not allow that to happen.”

“So you decided to become a mistress rather than a wife.”

Her lids dropped. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

“Every other woman in the world would have given in and married that bully,” he said slowly. “But not you.”

“I couldn’t. I couldn’t marry him. I knew what that meant, you see. I wouldn’t have been myself, ever again. I couldn’t do it. I didn’t have the courage. I would have slept with him, but not marriage.”

Her eyes had been on her hands, lying closed tightly together in her lap. She heard him say clearly, “Do you feel that way about marriage to me?”

She raised her eyes to his face and her mouth curled into something that was not quite a smile. “You know that I don’t,” she said softly.

“Then marry me.”

“We have been through this, Philip. I cannot. There are things which, if a woman does them, can never be forgotten.”

“You are Jessica Andover. What you have done is of no moment”

“That is not true,” she replied steadily.

“Are you afraid of exposure then?”

“I should not relish it, but that is not what is holding me back.”

He tried another tack. “And am I to be punished, then, because of what you have done? Is that your sense of justice? If you tell me now that you do not love me I will go away and trouble you no more. But if you love me, after what has passed between us, I have a right to demand that you marry me. I do demand it.” He came closer to where she sat on the sofa. “Tell me, Jess,” he said imperiously, “tell me you don’t love me.”

The strain this interview was putting on her was evident in her too intense stillness. “It is not that I do not love you,” she said at last. “Quite the contrary. It is just that you are out of my reach.”

He ran his hand through his hair in frustration. He had never before come up against a force in her that he could not move. The day was very warm, and threads of gold, dislodged by his impatient fingers, spangled the dampness on his forehead. “Go away,” she said, the line of her mouth thin and taut with pain. “Go away and forget me.”

“I am no good hand at forgetting,” he replied.

“Philip,” she said. “Please.”

 His nostrils were pinched and there was a white line around his mouth. “If there is one thing in this world that I abhor,” he said bitterly, “it is unnecessary sacrifice.”

 Her hands, still clasped in her lap, were white with pressure. “I did not think you could be so cruel.” Her voice sounded as if she had lost her breath.

 He made an involuntary gesture toward her, then checked himself. “I’ll go, Jess. But I’ll be back.” He walked steadily to the door, opened it, and without a backward look exited from her presence.

She watched him go in silence and the thought crossed her mind that his erect blond head had the look of a war helm. She had no doubt that he meant what he had said.

Chapter Twenty-Four

What fools are they that have not known

That love likes no laws but his own?

—
FULKE
GREVILLE

Linton drove straight through to Staplehurst. He arrived in the early morning hours when the house was asleep and went to his room to lie on his bed, sleepless, until morning broke and he could see his mother.

Lady Linton always dressed and came downstairs to breakfast, and this morning she was extremely surprised to find her son waiting for her. “Philip! I had not expected you back so soon,” she said. Then, looking at his tired, somber face, she asked hesitantly, “Was it she?”

“Yes.”

Relief flooded through Lady Linton, but her emotion was not reflected in the stem face of her son. She seated herself across from him at the table. “Then what is the matter?” she asked gently.

He sat down again himself and his eyes, almost black with fatigue and unhappiness, fixed themselves on his mother’s sympathetic face. “She won’t have me, mother.”

“Because of what Catherine Romney said to her?” she said after a pause.

He frowned, his attention suddenly focused. “What is this about Catherine Romney?”

Too late Lady Linton realized her mistake. ‘Tell me, mother,” he was saying, a very grim note in his voice, and Lady Linton sighed a little.

“Very well. After you asked her to marry you, your Jessica sought out Catherine. She wanted to know what your family and friends would think of such a match.” Lady Linton shrugged a little. “Well, Philip, what was poor Catherine to say?”

“I gather then it was she who told Jess that I should be disgraced and dishonored if she married me.”

“Yes.”

Linton swore. Then he looked levelly into his mother’s eyes. “And do you feel the same way, mother?”

“I did, Philip,” she answered honestly. “I do not feel that way any longer.”

His eyes began to get bluer. “Really, mother? Would you accept Jess if we married? Welcome her to Staplehurst?”