The Clergyman's Daughter (17 page)

Her voice trailed off, and glancing at the girl who listened avidly, she decided not to describe the dingy, sordid tavern where they had finally taken shelter, the leering inmates and the strange hands that tried the bedroom doorknob in the middle of the night. She shook her head wryly. “And when we did at last reach Gretna Green…. Trust me, Claire, when I say that there is nothing romantic about being married in a blacksmith’s shop. If you have been raised to believe that a wedding means taking your vows in church, wearing lace and singing hymns, pledging yourselves before God and all your friends—then by contrast, leaping over the anvil seems sacrilegious and silly and…and degrading.”

Claire wrinkled her nose, and Jessica could see that the girl still did not understand the essence of what she was trying to tell her. “But, Jess,” she asked innocently, “could the lack of music and bridal finery really matter so much, as long as you became Andy’s wife?”

Jessica smiled thinly, sardonically. “But that’s just it, Claire,” she said. “Andrew and I knew that we were married—under Scottish edict, all that is required is a declaration in the presence of witnesses—but despite the law, when we returned to England, society looked upon me not as Andrew’s true wife, but as the parson’s brat, the conniving harlot who had seduced him….”

Claire’s white skin grew whiter, showing up the faint freckles that were almost invisible. “Oh, Jess,” she said miserably, “surely you don’t mean that—”

Jessica’s patience was rapidly vanishing in the face of the girl’s persistent naïveté, and she knew that a second longer, and the words she had tried to avoid would be ripped from her throat. She could not do that to Andrew’s sister, whom she loved. Slowly she crossed the room to the window, where she pulled back the drape and stared out into the night. Moonlight glimmered on the freshly fallen snow like antique satin, and she was astonished to see the same light gleaming on the pale hair of the large, solitary figure whose restless strides slashed the virginal blanket raggedly, like a dull knife.

“Please, Claire,” Jessica rasped, trying to speak normally as she gazed down at him, wondering what agitation had driven him out into the cold and the dark to wander about like a damned spirit. “Please, Claire,” she repeated, “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I—I only want you to understand that you must not even make jokes about eloping with a man. Such talk is…unseemly.”

Behind her Claire recognized the dismissal in Jessica’s words. She murmured contritely, “I’m truly sorry I distressed you. I didn’t mean to. I was—I was just…curious.” She stared at Jessica’s rigid back, then with a sigh she turned to leave. After a second, Jessica heard Willa close the corridor door firmly behind the girl.

As Jessica watched Raeburn’s aimless meandering below she wondered with a certain dread what he would make of Claire’s probing questions. She prayed the girl would not repeat them elsewhere, just as she hoped fervently that they had been prompted by nothing more critical than adolescent inquisitiveness, and not some crackbrained notion of….

Jessica trembled with apprehension. She knew that Claire was growing up far more rapidly than her brother credited, but still…. She shook her head impatiently. No, of course not, she was imagining things. Claire had not left Renard Chase since last fall, there was no man nearby for whom she might have conceived an ill-advised
tendre.
Had Jessica thought there was any real danger that Claire might have formed such an attachment, she would do everything in her power to scuttle it before Raeburn found out; if such a step became necessary to quash the girl’s romantic fantasies, Jessica would overcome her own scruples and tell her the rest of the story of her short marriage. She would betray Andrew in order to save Claire.

Despite the pain such revelations would cause her personally, Jessica knew that if it were required, she would not hesitate to tell Claire bluntly that Andrew’s passionate, all-consuming love for her had died a very quick death. When her husband realized that the only way he could overcome the ostracism of society and regain the position he had occupied since birth was to join with the others against her, his wife, he had willingly taken their side. When the
ton
made it clear that they regarded Jessica as little better than a whore, Andrew concurred with their judgment and began to treat her accordingly….

Jessica watched Raeburn hungrily as he strode along the slushy drive, the lines of his powerful body lithe and compelling even through the masking folds of his long greatcoat. In the moonlight she could just make out the little cloud of steam his hot breath formed around his mouth, and she remembered with an almost physical ache me feel of that breath, that mouth caressing her face, her skin….

She must not let herself think of him in this way, she chided herself angrily; he was not hers…. She supposed she ought to be laughing at the cruel irony of it all, that despite the way he had assaulted her on the day they met, in the end, after she married Andrew, Raeburn himself had been the only one who had not despised her, the only man who had tried to defend her against the strictures of society—but she had not understood. She had thought him as bad or worse than all the rest, and afterward when she lashed out at those who had rejected her, she had made him the target of her crudest revenge. The shreds of her lacerated self-respect had blinded her to his worth, and they had not fallen away from her eyes, revealing the truth, until now, when it was far, far too late.

With steps weighted with remorse, she turned away from the window, dragging the drapery after her, her fingers strangely reluctant to release the plush velvet. The movement flashed an irregular triangle of yellow light that reflected on the snow below, attracting the attention of the man who walked there, and he turned iron-colored eyes upward to stare at her window. He was still standing there, his booted toes buried in the edge of a snowbank, his hands clenched deep in his pockets, long after the curtain had dropped back heavily into place.

“Mrs. Foxe,” Lady Daphne called softly, one white hand snaking out of the library door to capture Jessica’s arm with surprising strength as she passed by in the corridor. “I wonder if I might have a word with you?”

Jessica hesitated, puzzled. Up till now, Raeburn’s fiancée had avoided speaking to her whenever possible, the discreet silence almost a palpable barrier between them. She said uncertainly, “I’m sorry, my lady; perhaps another time. I was just on my way to see my daughter for a few moments before I have to change for the excursion this afternoon.”

Daphne’s mouth thinned, as if she were unused to being opposed. She said curtly, “I’m sure the nurse can attend to the child’s needs for now. It is imperative that we talk, you and I.” She drew Jessica into the musty room that was lighted only by the fire in the grate, and after closing the door firmly behind her, she waved to a chair. “Sit down, please.”

Jessica remained standing. “Lady Daphne,” she protested, “when we return from the woods, it will almost be Lottie’s bedtime. Nowadays the hours I have to spend with my child are extremely limited, and I—”

The other woman interrupted impatiently. “I hardly think a few moments will encroach greatly upon your—your maternal duties. I must speak to you privately. More than once I have sent my maid to request that you call on me, but each time the…person who serves you has said that you were otherwise occupied.” She frowned slightly, obviously amazed at the very idea of such a snub.

Jessica heard that brief but telling pause before she mentioned Willa, and it angered her. How easy judgment was for someone like Daphne, who had never known hunger or privation of any sort, had never been brutalized to satisfy some man’s perverted whim…. Jessica resented the woman’s smug sanctimony, and she could well imagine how Willa, deeply sensitive behind the bland facade of her round face, would have reacted to her imperious summonses. Now that Jessica was busy with household affairs, her hours of privacy in her quarters, especially those fleeting moments when, her friend serving as sentry, she was able to work on her cartoons, were increasingly rare. Raeburn’s surveillance had made the correspondence with Clerkenwell difficult, just as John Mason’s uncanny insight had made her fearful of exposure. The man seemed to be showing an unusual interest in her as a person—were the idea not so ludicrous, she might almost think he was pursuing her—but Jessica avoided him whenever she could and continued to cloister herself behind closed drapes with her battered tin casket and her drawing materials, driven to recklessness by the ever-growing certainty that her days at Renard Chase were numbered.

Surprisingly she now found that her greatest obstacle was the effort necessary to summon up the rage and sense of social injustice that had inspired her pen in the past; instead of vitriolic caricatures, her fingers had a distressing tendency to sketch small, affectionate portraits of the man she loved, portraits she had to kiss and consign to the fire…. While she labored, she always instructed the vigilant Willa to deal with interruptions as she saw fit—and if it pleased the girl to rebuff Lady Daphne’s rather haughty personal maid, then so be it….

Jessica could not suppress the faint gleam of triumph that flickered in her green eyes at the realization that for once she had caught out her punctilious rival in a breach of etiquette, but her voice remained steady as she suggested mildly, “My lady, I regret that the many demands upon my time of late have discommoded you; But if I might be so bold, I’d like to point out that since you were the one who sought an audience with me, it was incumbent upon you to arrange your schedule to suit my convenience.”

Daphne’s sallow cheeks reddened at this observation, and her jaw dropped, quickly closing again as she bit back whatever retort she had been about to make. Watching the soft white fingers that clenched and twisted the muslin of her skirt until the flimsy fabric was in danger of being shredded, Jessica suddenly wished grimly that she had held her tongue. She was deliberately baiting the woman, and she had promised Raeburn she would try to get along with his betrothed. The unaccustomed reticence Daphne had heretofore displayed was but a fragile parole against the future, one that could hardly be depended on if Jessica herself did not observe it. With a sigh Jessica said, “Since I am here now, perhaps you’ll tell me what you wanted to talk to me about.”

Lady Daphne regarded her warily until she at last recognized that the truce was still in effect—for the moment, at any rate. She nodded brusquely and said, “Sit down.”

Jessica bristled at her manner. She thought irritably,
You’d think she owned the place
; then, cringing, she reminded herself that in a few short months, when Lady Daphne became Raeburn’s countess, she would do just that…. With reluctant resignation, Jessica settled onto a straight, high-backed chair, holding herself stiffly. She had no idea what Daphne wanted, but the physical discomfort of her tense posture was a constant reminder that she must not relax her guard either. Outwardly placid, she gazed at Lady Daphne, waiting for her to speak.

Now that the amenities had been resumed, Lady Daphne seemed in no great hurry to break the uneasy silence. Her light blue eyes narrowed as they skimmed over Jessica’s slim figure, evaluating her, studying her with impersonal curiosity as if to deduce her origins—as if, Jessica thought acidly, she were a porcelain figurine produced without a trademark. The silence thickened and lay as heavily on the air as the dank smell of old paper and library paste that the crackling fire could not dispel. Still Daphne did not speak. Jessica began to suspect that she was being challenged in some way, that Daphne was daring her to speak first, like a child attempting to outstare its fellow. Losing patience with juvenile games, Jessica made a restless gesture and said tightly, “My lady, if you have nothing you wish to say, there are some rather pressing household duties that require my presence just as soon as I have seen my daughter….”

Daphne’s smug smirk told Jessica instantly that she had given her the opening she sought. “Of course; your duties,” the woman murmured. “You have been supervising the operation of the household since your return here, have you not?”

Knowing full well that Daphne was as cognizant of the arrangements as she herself was, Jessica shook her head. “I’ve helped out only for the last couple of weeks. Graham thought Mrs. Talmadge might need some assistance…for the holidays, you understand.”

Daphne nodded approvingly. “Then you do realize that your position is only temporary?”

“Naturally,” Jessica said. “I’ve never imagined nor wished it to be otherwise.”

Daphne’s thin lips twitched into a semblance of a smile as she declared archly, “Mrs. Foxe, you have no idea how you have eased my mind. I was fearful that Graham had led you to believe you would be allowed to remain in charge permanently, certainly an enviable position in a residence of this grandeur.
I
thought that most remiss, even rather cruel, of him.” She paused for emphasis, and her voice grew husky.

“For of necessity, once we are married, the situation will…alter completely.”

Subtle as a bludgeon, Jessica judged drily. She said, “You need have no fear, my lady; I will gladly turn over the keys to you anytime you wish. I have no desire to encroach upon even the slightest of your perquisites. They hold no appeal for me.”

As that prim little speech left her lips Jessica’s long black lashes fluttered down over her cheeks, and she directed her gaze down at her hands, folded with deceptive demureness in her lap. She repeated in sardonic silence, No, my fine Lady Daphne, your rights do not appeal to me—except for the one that I suspect entices you least: the right to sleep with Graham Foxe….

Lady Daphne looked frankly skeptical. “Are you quite sure?” she probed. “I should think any woman would be delirious with joy at the prospect of having control of a property such as Renard Chase.” She glanced about her, admiring the interior of the dark library, the scrolled ceiling highlighted by the wavering firelight, the high arched windows, and her expression softened. Suddenly Jessica recognized the look she had seen on Daphne’s face in the drawing room several nights before, the look that she had thought was love: so it was, of a kind—but it was not, as Jessica had achingly misinterpreted, an affection, a longing for the man with whom Daphne intended to spend the rest of her life. Rather it was a desire for his house….