Joan Wolf (19 page)

“Yes.”

He drank some coffee, frowning a little in abstraction, his mind racing. “It seems to me,” he heard his mother’s voice saying calmly, “that if you are really going to marry this girl we had better make plans to assure that she will be received by society.”

“I don’t even know if she’ll many me, mother,” he said tautly. “I am just hoping that your acceptance will make a difference to her.”

“What will make a difference to her is the knowledge that marriage to her has not injured your position with either your family or your friends. If you want her to agree to be your wife, you must reassure her on both those matters.”

He was paying very close attention to her. “She is of good birth, mother. The Andovers have been at Winchcombe for centuries.”

“I remember her father as a young man.” Lady Linton folded her hands in her lap. “Philip, how did a girl like that ever decide to go on the stage and how did she ever agree to become your mistress?”

He told her. When he had finished, all she said slowly was, “I see.”

“Under those circumstances, mother, can she be accepted by society? It doesn’t matter a damn to me what anybody else thinks, but you are right in saying it does matter to Jess.”

“The person you need to help you, my son, is Maria,” Lady Linton said with decision.

“Maria?”

“Certainly. She is one of the patronesses of Almack’s. There are few women more powerful in the closed world of London society than your sister, my dear. If Maria agrees to sponsor Jessica, I think you may say that any objections society might have will crumble.”

He was silent for a minute, assessing what she had said. “But will Maria agree to sponsor Jess? It is hardly the kind of marriage she has been trying to promote for me for years.”

“I remember you once told me that if you were in trouble there is no one you would rather go to than Maria.” She raised her brows at him. “I think you are in trouble now, my son.”

“I am,” he replied soberly. “The worst trouble of my life.”

“Well then?”

“I’ll ride over to Selsey Place,” he replied. He rose from the table and bent to kiss her before he left the room.

* * * *

Maria was in the drawing room arranging the flowers she had just cut when her brother walked in. “Philip!” She pushed the last rose haphazardly into the middle of her careful arrangement and turned to him expectantly. “What happened? Is she your Jessica?”

He noted with a flicker of pleasure that both his mother and his sister had referred to “your Jessica.” “Yes,” he said. “She is.”

“I can’t believe it,” Maria said, fixing wide eyes on him. “Jessica O’Neill is really Jessica Andover of Winchcombe. Imagine.”

“Maria, sit down. I have to talk to you. I need your help.”

She moved to a striped silk armchair and sat down. “Oh?” she said. “What is it I can do for you, Philip?”

He remained standing but leaned an arm on the mantelpiece. He took a deep breath and spoke in a carefully controlled voice. “I want to tell you first about Jess, about why she did what she did.” Maria’s green eyes brightened, and she nodded. Linton went on. “Part of it you know already. You said you knew Jess’s stepfather, Lissett, and that you suspected he had left her saddled with a mountain of debt.” She nodded again. “You were right. To pay off the creditors she mortgaged Winchcombe. The friend of her father’s who held the mortgage died and his nephew succeeded. The nephew told Jess that if she didn’t marry him he would foreclose on her. Winchcombe was all she had left to support herself and her brothers. She couldn’t lose it.”

He paused and Maria said in a neutral tone, “Why wouldn’t she marry this man, then?”

“It is hard to understand if you don’t know Jess,” he replied. “She is so proud, Maria, so independent. She said to me, I would never be myself again if I married him.’“

Maria’s full lips compressed a little. “She also had first-hand knowledge of just how helpless a woman can be. Thomas Lissett probably milked Winchcombe for everything he could get out of it. It didn’t belong to him; it belonged to Jessica, but because she was a minor he could do it. A married woman’s property, unless careful steps are taken, is legally as under the control of her husband as a minor’s property is under the control of a guardian.”

“Yes. She knew that as well.”

“And so she decided to get the money for the mortgage in the only way that is open to a woman other than marriage?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think I would have had the courage,” Maria said candidly.

He took his arm off the mantel and turned to face her fully. “Jess has more courage in her little finger than most men I know have in their entire bodies. And I am not speaking just of physical courage, but of a cold-blooded moral courage that very few possess.” He spoke with a rough force that impressed Maria almost as much as his words did.

“What do you want me to do, Philip?” she asked.

He pulled up a chair and sat close beside her. “She won’t marry me, Maria. Catherine Romney told her some nonsense about my being disgraced and dishonored by such a marriage and now she refuses to listen to reason. The only chance I have of changing her mind is to convince her that both my family and the society I move in will accept her as my wife. That is where I need your assistance.”

“What did mother say?”

“Mother suggested that I ask you to sponsor Jess into society.”  He stared at her anxiously. “Will you, Maria?”

Maria was frowning thoughtfully, the thin arched lines of her brows drawn together, her forehead charmingly puckered, “If she was a nobody from the backwaters of Ireland it would be impossible. But she is an Andover . . .”

Maria paused and Linton sat silent. “Her mother was a Frenchwoman if I remember correctly,” Maria continued. “I vaguely remember meeting her many years ago. Nothing wrong with the family on that side either.”

“There is nothing wrong with
her,”
Linton said then, forcefully.

Maria’s green eyes rested inscrutably on her brother’s face, then she smiled. “I once told mother I wondered what kind of a girl it would take to make an impression on you. I must say I never envisioned this.”

He responded more to her smile than to her words. “You’ll do it?”

“I will.”

He leaned over to kiss her cheek. “You are a paragon of sisters, Maria, and I hereby eat every word I may have said to the contrary.” She laughed, and he continued, a note of anxiety creeping into his voice. “It can be done, you think?”

Maria drew herself up regally. “My dear Philip, if I choose to present a person as acceptable you may be certain she will be regarded as such by anyone at all who matters in London.”

He grinned. “You are a trump, Maria. Now I have just got to convince Jess.”

“That might not be so easy,” Maria murmured. “I could convince her far more easily than you. She may think you are being overly optimistic.”

“Maria.” His hand closed over hers and the blue of his eyes was almost blinding. “Come with me to Winchcombe.”

Her own eyes began to sparkle, then clouded with disappointment. “How can I? There’s the baby. She’s not weaned yet, Philip. I can’t leave her.”

He sat back.
“Of course. How stupid of me. Well, perhaps you would send Jess a letter?”

Her eyes narrowed a little. “Would you mind travelling with a baby?” she asked.

“Of course I wouldn’t mind! Do you think you might come?”

“If I do, I shall have to bring Elizabeth.”

“Fine. Marvelous. Wonderful. Anything I can do for either of you, you have only to ask.”

A self-satisfied look descended on Maria’s beautiful features. “I seem to recall you once told me not to help you any more,” she said blandly.

“I must have been mad,” he replied promptly.

“Philip, in order to see you in this state of grateful submission I would do anything,” she declared with enormous pleasure. “When do we start?”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Greensleeves, now farewell! adieu!

God I pray to prosper thee;

For I am still thy lover true

Come once again and love me. —
ANONYMOUS

For the second time in a week Miss Burnley was surprised to find the Earl of Linton calling at Winchcombe. And this time he had his sister with him. Stover had shown Linton and Maria into the drawing room before he went to inform Miss Burnley of the visitors’ arrival. For the moment Maria had left the baby in the carriage with her nurse.

As she entered the room Miss Burnley was conscious of a feeling of distinct trepidation. She had gotten little out of Jessica about the Earl of Linton but it had been very clear that his visit had upset her badly. Miss Burnley was afraid that money trouble had risen to plague them once again.

“Miss Andover is down at the stables, my lord,” she told Linton as she came into the room. “I have sent someone to inform her of your arrival.”

Linton smiled at the small, obviously troubled woman. “Thank you. Miss Burnley. Allow me to introduce my sister, Lady Maria Selsey.”

Maria smiled
at Miss Burnley
as well. “You are Miss Andover’s old governess, are you not?” she asked.

“Yes, my lady.”

Maria looked thoughtfully at Miss Burnley’s anxious face. “I think we should take Miss Burnley into our confidence, Philip.”

“If she doesn’t already know my errand,” Linton put in drily.

“No, my lord, I do not,” replied Miss Burnley more crisply than usual.

“It is very simple, really,” he said with a charming, rueful smile. “I want Miss Andover to marry me. She, although she says she loves me, refuses to do so. She insists she would not be accepted by my family. To prove to her that she is wrong, I have brought my sister all the way from Kent to see her.”

“I see,” said Miss Burnley faintly. She did not see at all, of course. Where had Jessica met this man? And why should she feel unacceptable to his family? Miss Burnley looked with wide eyes at Lady Maria Selsey, whose fame had penetrated even to the Assembly Rooms of Cheltenham.

That elegant lady said now, with crisp decision, “Philip, I think I should see Miss Andover by myself, so you will please go and wait in some other room until I send for you. Miss Burnley, I have my four-month-old daughter in the carriage. Would you mind showing my nurse to a spare bedroom where she can care for the baby until I am ready to leave?”

“Certainly, my lady,” said a startled Miss Burnley.

She turned to Linton. “Should you care to wait in the library, Lord Linton?”

“That sounds fine, Miss Burnley,” he replied, and the two of them moved to the door. Linton cast one more quick, worried glance at his sister, then followed Miss Burnley out

When Jessica was informed that the Earl of Linton had called, her first impulse was to refuse to see him. Further reflection had changed her mind. If she wouldn’t go to him he was perfectly capable of seeking her out, and she did not want to meet him in the full view of her brothers. Obviously the only thing for her to do was to see him and to convince him that she had meant every word she said to him the other day.

“Where is he, Burnie?” she said tensely to a waiting Miss Burnley at the door of the house.

“Your visitor is in the drawing room, my dear,” replied that lady with a scrupulous regard for accuracy.

Jessica said nothing else but walked swiftly across the hall, opened the door of the mentioned room, and once again stopped dead on the threshold. Inside was a very beautiful fair-haired woman who was dressed in a fashionable walking dress of almond green. The woman was looking at her appraisingly, and Jessica was suddenly conscious of her ancient riding skirt, open-necked shirt, and rolled-up sleeves. Brilliant color stained her cheeks and her chin elevated a quarter of an inch. “Yes?” she said in a cool voice. “May I help you?”

Maria heard the edge in that voice and realized she had offended. It was not, in fact, Jessica’s clothes at which she had been staring but at Jessica herself. She had not known what to expect, but this tall, slender girl with her thin, proud face, direct gray eyes, and thick braid of brown hair falling almost to her waist satisfied Maria’s imagination. She had not expected a conventional beauty. She smiled now, a more brilliant, less warm smile than her brother’s, but still a smile calculated to disarm. “I beg your pardon for staring,” she said, “but I have been most anxious to meet you. I am Maria Selsey, Philip’s sister. He asked me to come to see you.”

The high color drained from Jessica’s face, leaving the pearly curve of the skin over her cheekbones looking thin and white. She said nothing. Maria regarded her with suddenly serious eyes. This interview was not going to be easy; the girl’s face looked guarded and faintly hostile. Plainly Maria’s smile had not made its proper impression. “May we sit down?” Maria said slowly. “I have travelled quite a long way and I have several things of importance to say to you.”

Still in silence Jessica crossed the floor and sat, straight-backed, in a faded armchair six feet from Maria. Maria re-seated herself and regarded the young face across from her thoughtfully. “I have not come on Catherine Romney’s errand, Jessica,” she said at last, quite gently. Jessica’s eyelids flickered but otherwise her expression did not change.

“Oh?” she said unencouragingly.

“No,” Maria continued, speaking now with quiet emphasis. “I came to tell you that should you decide to marry Philip my mother will welcome you into the family and I will undertake to see to it that you are received by society as the Countess of Linton should be.”

The sudden widening of Jessica’s eyes betrayed her surprise. “I don’t think I understand you,” she said faintly.

“I did not think you would, which was why I came,” Maria returned soberly. “You were told the opposite story rather brutally by Catherine Romney, I understand.”

“Mrs. Romney was frank,” replied Jessica a little stiffly. “I had no communication from any other member of your family.”

Maria smiled a trifle ruefully. 1 know. And I would not be truthful if I did not say that my mother and I did not regard with favor the idea of a marriage between you and my brother.” Her smile became warmer, infectiously charming. “We have since changed our minds.”