Not Always a Saint (15 page)

Both girls piped up, “Yes!”

Daniel gave the nursemaid his card. The Ham-blys were also leaving London soon, but there would be future seasons.

“Now that we're all sorted, time to go home,” Daniel announced. “Good day to you both.”

As they headed back to their waiting curricle, Jessie said, “You ruined your clothing.”

Daniel shrugged. “I told Kirkland his attempts to make me look fashionable were doomed to failure. Do you want me to take Beth? She must be getting heavy.”

She was, indeed. At four going on five, Beth was a substantial armful. Luckily, the cat didn't add much weight. Jessie was glad to transfer her daughter to Daniel.

They felt so much like a family. Jessie wished she could believe that the future would continue this smoothly.

S
t. George's, Hanover Square, was an impressive church. It was relatively new, less than a hundred years old, and had a grand portico supported by six massive columns. Daniel wasn't sure if it was intended to celebrate the glory of God, or the wealthy Mayfair district it served.

As the groom's party climbed from their carriage outside, Kirkland observed, “You look ready to bolt.”

Laurel patted Daniel's arm. “It's only nerves. This is an important day, after all.”

A day in which he was to marry a woman he'd known for only a few weeks. “When you two married, you had such absolute certainty. I wish I had that.”

“It's easy to be certain when one is young and hasn't seen the many ways things can go wrong,” Laurel said wryly. “Since you're older and wiser, you're more aware of the possibilities and risks.”

“But you're also better prepared to deal with any problems that arise.” Kirkland gave Daniel a searching look. “If you have doubts about marrying Lady Kelham, it's not too late to change your mind.”

No!
“I want to marry her,” Daniel said tersely. “I'm wondering if she might have changed her mind about marrying
me.
” It was said that a second marriage was the triumph of hope over experience. What did that make a third marriage?

“Apparently she hasn't reconsidered,” Laurel said. “I see two Ashton carriages over there, so the bridal party has arrived.”

Daniel tried not to show his relief. Given their mutual uncertainties, she might easily have decided that she wasn't ready to marry again.

The interior was both simple and grand, with more columns and an arching barrel vault ceiling high above. Rather daunting for mere mortals. Seeing Laurel glance up at the west gallery, which contained the organ and organist, Daniel asked, “Are you wishing you were the one playing the organ?”

She chuckled. “I was tempted, but I want to see the wedding of my only brother rather than merely being in the church with my back turned.”

While she joined the small cluster of guests in the front pews, Daniel and Kirkland took up their positions in front of the altar. There were perhaps two dozen of their friends. On his side, they were mostly old schoolmates and wives.

Even Gordon had come, looking quite respectable in his pew at the back of the church. Daniel should probably have asked Gordon to be the groomsman since the position was supposed to go to a single man and Gordon was the only old friend present who wasn't married. But Kirkland was his closest friend, and Gordon would probably have been horrified to be so visible.

Farther back were a handful of women he didn't recognize, but he suspected they just liked weddings. Since a church was open to all, most congregations had members who regularly attended wedding ceremonies so they could admire clothing and flowers, and speculate on the chances of a happy marriage. This particular wedding had generated a fair amount of talk, so it was no surprise to see strangers.

“Steady on,” Kirkland murmured. “She'll be here soon.”

“It's not too late for her to bolt,” Daniel murmured back wryly.

The music changed and the wedding party entered the nave. A beaming Beth led the way clutching a bouquet of flowers. Rumor had it that she'd wanted to bring Smoky, and only firm orders from her mother had prevented it.

Lady Julia and the Duchess of Ashton were attendants. Both were attractive women. In fact, the duchess was considered one of the great beauties of the beau monde. Yet they paled next to Jessie, who followed on the arm of the Duke of Ashton. She carried a nosegay of white roses and surely was the most beautiful woman in England, quite possibly in the world. Daniel's heart hammered with wonder.

She wore a quietly elegant dove gray gown, which was a color of half mourning. The color suited her fair skin and made her look ethereally lovely. Her shining dark hair was swept up and held in place with a chaplet of flowers, and a pale lace veil fell behind all the way to the hem of her gown.

Their gazes locked as she walked toward him. Her light clear eyes showed both anxiety and determination. Proof that they had things in common.

Then she was there beside him. Almost his.

The ceremony was oddly blurred, perhaps because Daniel had married many couples himself. The only unusual element was that they exchanged rings. Jessie had told him that both Mariah and Julia had given their husbands rings, and she liked the idea if he didn't mind. He hadn't minded; it seemed only fair. If she was his, he was also hers.

During these days of preparation, they'd been so unnaturally polite to each other, like the near strangers they were in many ways. He wondered how long that would last.

In a rolling voice, the vicar intoned, “I pronounce that you be man and wife together!”

Done. Married past redemption. He exhaled with relief and lifted her hand to his lips for a kiss, saying in a whisper, “Thank you for marrying me, my lady.”

Her return smile was shaky. “My lord,” she said deferentially.

The music changed to a joyous march. Jessie took his arm and they headed down the aisle. He suspected that he was beaming like a fool. This marriage might be the worst mistake of his life, and he didn't care.

Now that the die had been cast, Jessie was relaxed and smiling. The guests looked as if they wanted to applaud and were constrained only by the solemn setting. If a marriage's chance of success could be judged by the goodwill of family and friends, Daniel and Jessie should live happily ever after.

Near the door, one of the wedding watchers had risen in the pew and was staring at Jessie. One hand covered her mouth and she looked on the verge of tears.

When Jessie saw, she stopped dead in the aisle, her hand tightening on Daniel's arm like a vise. “That woman,” she said in a choked voice.
“There!”

Daniel caught his breath. The woman was veiled, but even so, she looked like Jessie's older sister, with the same striking bone structure and dark hair. Only her hazel eyes were different. The resemblance was so pronounced that she had to be related.

Her expression changed to horror when she saw that she'd attracted their attention. She spun around and headed toward the church doors with unseemly haste.

Her escape was cut off by Gordon, who had moved quickly around the pews to block her way at the door. “A friend of the family?” he asked genially.

She muttered an oath and tried to slip away to the side, but Gordon caught her wrist. “Surely you want to offer good wishes to the happy couple, madam.”

Daniel and Jessie had reached Gordon and the mystery woman, and other guests were following down the aisle. Surrendering, the woman turned to face them. A little shorter and rounder than Jessie and with a few silver hairs among the ebony, she was still strikingly attractive.

Jessie crushed her nosegay in her free hand. Hanging on to Daniel's arm as if it was the only thing keeping her upright, she whispered in a child's anguished voice, “Mama?”

W
edding guests were beginning to back up behind Daniel and Jessie. This was her
mother
? With his bride looking pale and ready to collapse, Daniel said, “Madam, do join us for the wedding breakfast at Ashton House. You can ride in our carriage.” He glanced at Gordon. “I hope you're coming to the breakfast also.”

Gordon's eyes glinted with amusement. “I wouldn't miss this for anything.” He took the older woman's unresisting arm and escorted her outside to the bridal coach, pulled by four white horses, that would carry Daniel and Jessie to Ashton House.

After handing her into the carriage, Gordon said under his breath, “I don't suppose I could join you on the ride? It promises to be interesting.”

“No chance in hell,” Daniel said pleasantly as he helped Jessie inside. “We'll see you at Ashton's.” He glanced at the coachman. “Make this a slow journey, please.”

“Aye, my lord.” The coachman smiled indulgently.

As Daniel climbed into the coach he saw Kirkland and Ashton chatting with the other guests with an ease that implied nothing unusual had happened. They were surely as curious as Gordon, but he could count on them to calm the waters.

Now to learn what the devil was going on.

 

 

Jessie couldn't stop staring at the woman in the opposite, backward-facing seat. The woman had drawn her veil back and she was staring at Jessie with matching intensity. She was well-dressed in a sober dark blue gown and she looked well-fed and well-kept. There was no denying the resemblance between them, but she didn't look old enough to be Jessie's mother. An unknown cousin or aunt, perhaps?

As the carriage began to move, Daniel said calmly, “I assume you know that I'm Romayne. And your name is . . . ?”

The woman hesitated. “I'm known as Jane Lester,” she said. “Mrs. Lester.”

Jessie noted that the woman said she was known as Jane Lester, not that that was actually her name. “My mother was named Elizabeth,” Jessie said in a brittle voice. “She's dead.”

“Is that what that old devil told you?” Jane Lester shook her head. “I was christened Elizabeth Jane Shelby, and as a girl I was called Lizzie Jane. Your father thought that undignified, so he always called me Elizabeth. As you can see, I'm quite alive.” She leaned forward, tears in her eyes. “My little Jessie,” she breathed, “after all these years!”

Jessie felt rigid as a board. “But my mother is
dead!
You're too young to be she.”

“I was only sixteen when you were born, and women in our family keep our looks,” Jane explained. “But I'm your mother right enough.”

Daniel encircled Jessie's left hand with his large, warm clasp. “I think you'd better tell us the whole story, Mrs. Lester. From the beginning.”

“Then I'll have to talk quickly since this is a short ride,” Jane said briskly. “How far back do you want me to go?”

“Where are you from?” Jessie asked. “If you really are my mother, who are my people?” Her voice cracked. “You came from nowhere and then you died. I know
nothing
about you!”

Seeing how unnerved Jessie was, Daniel squeezed her hand as he asked, “When telling the story of one's life, it's customary to start with where one was born.”

Jane gave them both a straight look. “You're the sort who want the unvarnished truth, aren't you? Very well, though some of it isn't pretty.” She brushed an errant lock of dark hair from her eyes as she considered. Beth often made exactly the same gesture.

“I was born in London. My mother was in the chorus of an opera company. Singing, dancing, and entertaining the gentlemen.” She smiled ironically. “If she knew who my father was, she never said, so there's a limit to how much of my background I can tell you, Jessie. She did say that he was a gentleman, for what it's worth.”

Jessie swallowed hard. Might the theater run in the blood? That's where she'd run when she was desperate. “If that's true, how did you come to meet my father? He despised the theater.”

“Indeed, he did. I grew up backstage helping out where I could. Mending costumes, cleaning, whatever else needed doing. I wasn't a good enough dancer to work in the opera chorus. I was only fifteen when my mother died, and I was terrified about what would happen to me.”

When she fell silent, Daniel said, “Women with your looks can usually find a way to survive.”

She scowled at him. “I'd no desire to become a whore, but it was looking like I'd have to accept an offer to be some rich man's mistress. Then the Reverend Cassius Braxton came along.”

Jessie's father. She asked, “What was he doing in an opera house?”

“He wanted confirmation of how evil it was,” Jane said dryly. “To be really thorough, he needed to see the girls close up in their skimpy costumes, so he came to the green room. He saw me there acting as maid for the opera singers. Since I was properly dressed, he decided I was an innocent who needed rescuing.”

Daniel asked, “Were you?”

“Depends on how you define innocent. A drunk caught me backstage when I was fourteen and I couldn't escape. Braxton never forgave me for not being a virgin.” Her mouth twisted. “Claimed he wanted to save my soul, but what he really wanted was to toss up my skirts and roger me. After I said no a few times, he asked me to marry him.”

“Why on earth would you accept such a horrible man?” Jessie burst out. “He hated women and pleasure and anything that wasn't miserable!”

Jane sighed. “He wasn't so bad then. Very handsome, for one thing. But also, he wanted
marriage.
Can you imagine how good that sounded to a girl like me? A bastard facing a life of poverty and shame? He was educated and well connected and had money. I'd learned how to speak properly by listening in the green room, so he passed me off as a well-born orphan after we wed and he took me to Pulham.”

“Going from London to a village must have been difficult,” Daniel observed.

“Yer not half jokin', ducks,” Jane said, her accent deliberately Cockney. Reverting to proper English, she continued, “But I was willing to be bored in exchange for enough to eat and a nice home and clothes. Living in Pulham wasn't so bad. I didn't have to dodge drunks in the back corridors. Some biddies criticized me for being too young and too pretty for a vicar's wife, but I acted the part well enough that most of the parishioners were pleasant to me.”

Jessie no longer doubted that Jane was her mother. No imposter could know so much of the Braxton household. “I must have been born very soon if you were only sixteen.”

Jane nodded, her face softening. “You were, and once I had you, Jessie, it was all worthwhile. Do you remember our walks in the garden? Or when you played dress-up with my clothes?”

Jessie's face tightened. “I remember,” she whispered. “And then you were gone and my father said you'd died. He showed me a new dug grave and said it was yours. Not long after, he fired my old nurse and we moved to the parish in Chillingham and he never spoke of you again.”

“Since you were so young, he could have shown you any new grave,” Daniel said.

Jessie had wept and laid flowers on the raw earth. She hoped whoever occupied it didn't mind flowers under false pretenses. “How did you come to leave my father?”

“I didn't leave Braxton. He threw me out,” Jane said bitterly. “He said I was a vile harlot determined to tempt him into mortal sin.”

Jessie frowned. “What did he mean by that?”

“He had strange ideas that husband and wife should stay apart on the Sabbath, or church holidays, or when a woman has her courses. But he couldn't keep away from me, and he claimed that was
my
fault!” Jane glared at Daniel. “They say you're a vicar. Do you believe such nonsense?”

“No, but I know men who do. To desire a woman is to admit she has power over him,” Daniel replied. “Such men despise women because they fear that power.”

Jane nodded vigorously. “That was Braxton. He'd succumb to lust, then bellow and beat me for seducing him. His rages got worse and worse until one night he drove me from the vicarage with a horsewhip and threatened to kill me if he ever saw me again.”

Jessie pressed her hand to her mouth. “He had a horrible temper,” she said in a raw whisper. “He was terrifying.”

“I wanted so much to take you with me, Jessie, but he kept the house locked and guarded. And I was so afraid of him.” Jane's voice faltered. “I took refuge with a friend in the village. She gave me some clothes and enough money to get to London. When I got there, I forged references to get a job as a companion to a lady in Richmond.”

“I'm surprised you could get such a position,” Daniel said. “Many women would consider an attractive young woman in the house to be trouble.”

Jane grinned, looking very young. “Usually that's true, but this particular lady, Mrs. Lester, was the widow of a prosperous merchant and she wanted a young woman who would tempt her son to stop working long enough to marry. After she decided I was sufficiently genteel, she put me into her son's path. She's now my mother-in-law and well pleased with the fact that she found her son a wife.”

And so Mrs. Braxton had become Mrs. Lester. She was a resilient woman who had done what was necessary to survive. Jessie had done the same. In fact, there were eerie similarities between their lives.

“Do you believe me now, Jessie?” Jane smiled mischievously. “I can tell you about a birthmark you have that no one except your husband should ever see, and maybe not even him. I thought it looked like a little heart. You were my little sweetheart.”

Jessie didn't know what Jane was talking about, but there were parts of her body she'd never seen. “Why did you let my father name me Jezebel?”

“I thought it was a pretty name, rather grand,” Jane said apologetically. “I hadn't had any Bible study then, so I didn't know Jezebel was a bad woman. That was Braxton's idea of a joke, the swine.” For a moment a deeper, tougher side of her was visible. The part that had enabled her to survive cruel circumstances.

Jessie closed her eyes, battered by her past. She felt an odd blend of relief mixed with regrets for unfinished business. She'd dreamed sometimes of returning to her father's house and confronting him with her anger and his failings. “So my father is dead and my mother is alive.”

“I think he must be dead, but I don't know for sure,” Jane admitted uneasily.

Daniel's gaze became piercing. “So you contracted a bigamous marriage.”

“Braxton screamed that I was no wife of his!” Jane said defiantly. “If I wasn't his wife, he wasn't my husband, eh?”

“Very pragmatic,” Daniel murmured.

Jane scowled. “And you think I'm going to burn in hell. Maybe so, but I know I was in hell on earth.”

“God decides eternal justice, not me,” Daniel said in a quiet voice. “But if Mr. Braxton is alive and learns you've taken another husband, there will be an unholy mess.”

“He'll never learn,” Jane said firmly. “I told Mrs. Lester I was a widow when she hired me. My George has never known any different.”

“How will you explain Jessie to him now that you've found her?” Daniel asked.

Jane shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “George is a good man, but he's used to doing things all right and proper. He wouldn't like knowing about my past, and you'd be a fool to tell him. If he threw me out, I'd have to come live with my oldest daughter, so better he knows nothing about this, eh?”

“It's not my duty to hunt down your husband and tell him that his wife has a complicated past,” Daniel said. “You gave Jessie her strength and her resilience, and for that I must give thanks. But what kind of relationship can you have with your daughter if your husband doesn't know about her?”

Jane looked even more uncomfortable. “I can visit now and then when you're in town. He'll never have to know.”

Daniel's hand tightened on Jessie's. “That sounds limited and unsatisfying.”

Jessie squeezed his hand back, glad he was accepting her sordid family history so well, but she was caught by something else Jane had said. “You said I'm your oldest daughter. You have other children?”

“Oh, yes,” Jane said proudly. “Two boys, two girls, the youngest just out of leading strings. Gifts from God, so I think He must have forgiven me.”

It was another massive shock to Jessie. Four half brothers and sisters. She was too numb to know how she felt about that. “I'd like to meet them someday.”

“No!” Jane shook her head sharply. “George would be angry if he found out I'd kept the existence of a daughter secret. I'm glad you're well, but now that we've talked, I see there's no room for you in my real life.”

Jessie stared at her, shocked and furious. “Then why didn't you just leave me alone? How did you find me? Why did you come to my wedding?”

“I saw you shopping in Bond Street with two other women and knew you must be my girl. You're the only one of my children who looks so much like me. I found out who you were. There was a great amount of talk when you accepted Romayne's offer. I wanted to see you and my beautiful granddaughter, so I went to the church. Anyone can go to a church,” Jane said defensively. “I would have slipped away after the ceremony if that friend of yours hadn't cornered me! You'd never have known.”

Jessie stared at the woman who had given her life. “Perhaps it would have been better if I didn't.”