The Clergyman's Daughter (10 page)

“N-no, ma’am,” the girl stammered. “That is, I—I thought I glimpsed him earlier, upstairs, near the—the nursery.”

With a curt nod, Jessica turned and ran to the staircase, bounding up the marble steps to the third floor in a manner guaranteed to endanger anyone she encountered on her way. Her heart was thudding and her green eyes flashed. In the nursery, was he? No doubt plotting against the day when he had disposed of her, Lottie’s mother, and could abandon the child to the indifferent care of someone like Flora Talmadge, as had been done with Claire. Despite his assertion that he would cherish his brother’s child, Jessica had no illusions about Lottie’s fate once Raeburn and his precious Daphne had filled the Renard Chase nursery with their squawling offspring, which seemed to be his intention. She knew from bitter experience what happened when a woman was continually pregnant, exhausted by constant childbearing, the mother of necessity delegated to the eldest daughter the care of the younger children, and soon that girl found herself trapped in limbo somewhere between infancy and maturity, alienated from her siblings by the authority she had to enforce, yet not respected as an adult by her elders. Little Charlotte, only a foster child, without even the rights of blood to cushion her lot, would be doomed to live as both guardian and drudge for her titled cousins….

Jessica gritted her teeth. It had happened to her, but she would not let that happen to Lottie. She would stay and fight for her daughter, and if Raeburn tried to marry her off…. Oh, God, the idea was insupportable! She wanted no man in her life.

She continued resolutely up the steps. She had resisted Raeburn when he and that great stallion of his had first swooped down on her, big and fair and wild, and she would continue to do so. She was not a fool, she knew now that his ultimate goal was to relieve his family of her embarrassing presence by finding her a new husband, and if he had not succeeded in that quest by the time he himself married, Lady Daphne Templeton would undoubtedly goad him into redoubling his efforts. Jessica supposed that she really ought to be grateful; after all, despite her indifferent origins, her, present connection with the Foxe family practically guaranteed that candidates for her hand would be well born and financially secure—especially if Raeburn settled a sizable dowry on her. In the end, she would have to choose…. But now she intended to tell Raeburn flatly that she would never consider any match, no matter how “suitable,” unless she was permitted to take her daughter with her to her husband’s home.

Of course, she added grimly, there was always the feeble security of that bank account in Brighton….

When Jessica reached the third-floor landing, she was panting, as much from nerves as exertion, and she started her journey down the empty, echoing hallway at a more sedate pace, strolling past vacant guest rooms and apartments that she had never seen, even before when she lived at the Chase with Andrew. The house was huge, and the only time she could remember it being filled to anything approaching capacity had been on the day of her husband’s funeral…. She paused outside the wide nursery doors, consciously composing herself. Just as she laid slim fingers on the chased handle, the door swung away from her.

A little maid carrying an empty pitcher jerked back, startled. “Oh, Mrs. Foxe,” she exclaimed with a puzzled smile, “it’s a fair fright you gave me! We weren’t expecting you. Is it time for Miss Lottie’s feed already?”

Jessica shook her head. “No, not for two more hours. I just wanted to see my daughter.”

The girl relaxed. “That’s good. We’ve all been having such a time watching His Lordship play with Miss Lottie that I was afraid we might have forgotten the hour.”

Jessica hesitated, oddly breathless. “Lord Raeburn has been…playing…with my daughter?” she asked, thinking of the way he had ignored the child on the journey out from London.

“Oh, yes, ma’am.” The girl grinned, glancing back conspiratorially over her shoulder. “He came in long ago, frowning in that stern way of his, and he said to the head nurse, ‘I want my niece.’ Nurse, she was fair quaking for fear she’d done something amiss when she handed the little one to him.”

The maid’s expression softened, and when she spoke again, it was not as servant to mistress, but woman to woman. “You should have seen him, Mrs. Foxe. You know how men are: highborn or common, they’re all embarrassed and clumsy with babies, afraid to admit they like cuddling them. His Lordship was no different—but soon he loosened up, laughing and joking fit to beat all as he bounced Miss Lottie on his shoulder. He looked so—so proud. He said to nurse, ‘Isn’t she a beauty with her father’s red hair and her mother’s wonderful green eyes? Don’t you think she’ll set the
ton
on its ear when she’s all grown up and we take her to London to make her bow?’ Then he began to play games with her and sing—”

Remembering the one or two musicales she and Andrew and Raeburn had attended in London, in the days before her gaucherie disgraced them completely, Jessica interrupted in amazement, “Sing? His Lordship? But he never sings for anyone—he has a voice like a jackass!”

“Yes, ma’am,” the maid agreed demurely, “but he seems to know a fine lot of lullabies….”

Jessica shook her head in wonder. Standing on tiptoes she glanced past the girl into the interior of the nursery. Raeburn was facing away from her, and she could see his broad shoulders straining the seams of an impeccably cut coat of blue broadcloth as he hunched over the cradle. Candlelight played on the back of his blond head. His deep voice was tenderly crooning something that sounded suspiciously like baby talk, and Jessica could hear her daughter babble with delight. She blinked, stunned. With a pang of something that felt almost like—like jealousy—she thought, My God, he loves her, like—like a father….

Stepping back from the door, Jessica said quietly to the young maid, “Since His Lordship is…so happily occupied, I won’t disturb him now. I’ll see Lottie when you bring her down to me for her feeding.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the girl answered, curtsying in some confusion as she observed the troubled expression on Jessica’s face.

Jessica turned away and walked slowly back toward the staircase, biting her lip as she thought about Raeburn in the nursery. She wondered with remorse how she had ever deluded herself that he would neglect his brother’s child, no matter what he thought of that child’s mother. She ought to have known better. Despite his temper, his licentiousness, his numerous other faults, Raeburn had always been passionately devoted to the welfare of his family. Whatever the outcome of the continual battle of wills between Raeburn and Jessica, Lottie would not suffer.

Suddenly Jessica wished that she had not sent Willa that day to the village to post the latest parcel of drawings to Haxton and Welles.

“Dear Graham,” Flora Talmadge suggested instructively, “perhaps you, as a gentleman whose mind must of necessity be occupied with loftier matters, do not realize how very disruptive the presence of a person less than—than suitable can be to the running of a household.”

Heedless of the fine cloth of his jacket, Raeburn wiped the steamy windowpane with his forearm and stared out into the bleak afternoon. From this lofty vantage point he could see over the tops of the
naked
oaks, westward across the rime-crusted meadow to the wood half a mile away. With ease his gray eyes followed the course of the dogcart where it had cut muddily across the brown, winter-flattened grass until it disappeared under the distent trees. He frowned expectantly at that point where the parallel tracks intersected the dark body of the forest, but when he realized that he was waiting for the cart to reappear, he turned away quickly, impatient with himself. Blinking, he saw Flora Talmadge regarding him with an air of sniffling reproof. “Forgive me, Aunt,” he said automatically. “I was…elsewhere in my thoughts.”

“Of course, dear Graham,” Mrs. Talmadge murmured, and she proceeded to repeat her earlier statement.

Raeburn grimaced; he loathed being bothered with household matters. “To which less-than-suitable person do you refer?” he asked, an edge to his deep voice.

“I mean the woman who serves as personal attendant to Mrs. Foxe. I am sure that you cannot
be
ignorant of her—her unfortunate background….”

Raeburn nodded, his expression inscrutable. “Ah, yes, Willa Brown.” For an instant he remembered the maid as he had first seen her, late one night when there had arisen in the bowels of his London town house an uproar so violent that he had dashed, pistol in hand, through the green baize door leading below stairs, expecting to find robbers or vandals. Instead to his astonishment he had discovered the butler, deeply affronted, and the housekeeper in convulsions of outrage that Andrew was trying ineffectually to calm. The cause of these alarums was a quivering, sodden figure wrapped in a carriage robe, who lay slumped in a wooden chair while Jessica, disdainful of the satin ball gown she wore, knelt beside her. Tenderly Jessica’s slim hands had bathed blood and streaky face paint from the creature’s battered cheeks, and she had crooned encouragement to her as if she were a child. When from beneath ropes of yellow hair stinking like seaweed, the woman had glanced up wildly, warily at Raeburn. He saw with mingled surprise and disgust that under the garish mask of her profession she was indeed little more than a child, perhaps seventeen, if that. He remembered with a pang that
her
bruised brown eyes had seemed to hold the sorrow of the ages….

Briskly Raeburn asked, “Well, Aunt, what do you mean when you say the wench is disrupting the household? Are you telling me that our young Magdalene has taken to debauching the footmen?”

High spots of color appeared on Flora’s thin cheeks, and her spotty lips quivered. “You should not be so frivolous about such matters, Graham,” she said stiffly. “It is the duty of those in authority to guide their subordinates to the path of virtue.”

Brushing a lock of fair hair away from his eyes, Raeburn muttered, “By God, Aunt, I didn’t know you’d turned Evangelical.”

“Laugh at me, if you will, Graham,” Flora retorted, her eyes taking on a spiteful gleam, “but I doubt whether Lady Daphne Templeton will be so—so lenient in the makeup of her household when she becomes mistress here!”

Despite his apparent indolence, Raeburn’s bulky figure suddenly seemed to fill the room, and the furrows on his wide brow deepened. “My fiancée is a capable and sensible woman who knows that once she is my wife she will naturally have a free hand in dealing with domestic concerns,” he said with quiet emphasis, his deep voice growing increasingly silky. “Much as you have taken upon yourself, Aunt, although originally when I invited you to leave those dismal rooms you lodged in and make your home at Renard Chase, I required only that you provide companionship and guidance for my young sister…. But whatever Daphne’s personal inclination in any matter, I fancy that when she becomes my countess she will have wit enough to remember whose wishes must always be paramount in this household. Do I make myself clear?”

Flora retreated quickly from his implied threat, her face pasty. “Y-yes, Graham,” she answered unsteadily, “you know I’ve always tried my best to—”

The note of genuine fear in her voice brought Raeburn up short, and he regarded the woman with vague remorse. Flora Talmadge might be pretentious and common, her whining sycophancy at times annoying almost beyond endurance, but she was in essence a figure to be pitied, in her own way as helpless as Jessica’s protégée who, while still a child, had been sold into whoredom by her own father. A widow with only a minuscule pension, Flora might have finished her life a victim of genteel starvation had Raeburn not remembered that she was a distant relation of his late mother and called upon her when he found himself in sole charge of his adolescent half brother and sister. The airs she affected were perhaps but a feeble attempt to armor herself against the grim knowledge that her existence was utterly dependent on Raeburn’s goodwill. With a contrite smile he said, “Forgive me, Aunt, you caught me at a bad moment. I should not have…snapped at you.”

Flora relaxed visibly. “You are ever gracious, Graham.”

He shook his head with wry amusement. “Gracious? No, Aunt, not I….” After a hesitation he continued curiously, “Tell me, I beg you, what is it that makes you distrustful of the maid Willa Brown? You were acquainted with her history when she lived at Renard Chase before. I grant you she is an…unorthodox adjunct to a respectable household, but I think when my sister-in-law, who of course is the daughter of a clergyman, found the girl, she was brought to mind of the parable of the Good Samaritan; perhaps we should all heed her example…. In any event, Willa appears most sincerely reformed in her behavior, or so Jessica believes. Have you evidence that she is mistaken in her trust of the wench?”

“I don’t know,” Flora said. “I can only say that I have observed behavior that is so outside the norm for women of her station that I thought I ought to bring it to your notice.”

“Since Willa is Jessica’s personal servant,
I
am surprised that you did not take your…observation…to her first.”

Flora said sweetly, “But I could not do that, Graham, for I have reason to believe the maid’s peculiar behavior is carried out at Mrs. Foxe’s bidding.”

Raeburn’s gray eyes turned flinty. At last, he thought, the object of all this circumlocution…. He gestured toward a chair, the firelight glinting on the carved sapphire of his heavy signet ring. “Perhaps you’d better sit down, Flora. I am all attention.”

The woman seated herself primly in a high-backed wing chair and tried without success to hide the insinuating gleam in her pale eyes. With a complacent sigh she said, “As much as it pains me to relate such a tale, I feel compelled to tell you that the maidservant appears to be acting as go-between for Mrs. Foxe and some man whose identity is as yet unknown to me.”

A curious hollow sensation welled up in Raeburn, somewhere in the vicinity of his watch chain. He said slowly, “That’s a serious charge, Aunt. I presume you have some evidence for it?”