The Clergyman's Daughter (2 page)

Jessica smiled ruefully. “Calmly,” she echoed. “Do I ever do anything calmly? Poor Willa, sometimes I think I must be a great trial to you.”

Willa shook her head, reaching up to brush back a yellow curl that had escaped her serviceable cap and lay plastered against her sweating brow. “A trial, Miss Jess?” she said, her wide mouth curving indulgently. “How can you be a burden to me when I owe you so much? You were my salvation…. But in truth,” she added with wry fondness, “you do tend to act first and count the cost later.”

“I know,” Jessica murmured, dropping her sooty lashes over her wan cheek as she gazed down at her nuzzling daughter. “My father used to order me to pray for God to make me less impetuous. I don’t know how many times I had the parable of the wise and foolish virgins read over me.” She smiled cynically. “I never thought that particular story fit the situation precisely, but then, my father’s sermonizing always did seem just slightly askew….”

She trailed one finger over Lottie’s rounded cheek, delicate skin flushed with the effort of nursing, and the baby’s lids flew open, revealing eyes that seemed even greener than her mother’s against the fiery blush of her small silky curls. Jessica’s heart flipped. “Oh, Charlotte Andrea Foxe,” she crooned, “what a beauty you’re going to be….” As she watched tenderly it seemed to her that her daughter smiled back at her.

After Lottie had been burped and changed, Jessica tucked her back into her cradle, rocking it gently. For a long moment, as she gazed down at her sleeping child Willa’s words came back to her: “You act first and count the cost later.” True enough, Jessica supposed, sighing, but how did one count the cost of love? She had given her heart without thinking, and that rash action had caused her more pain than it seemed possible for one human being to bear, she had lost her family, her good name, ultimately even the regard of the man she loved. Sometimes she wondered whether, had she known in the beginning exactly what lay ahead for her, she would have hardened her heart against Andrew’s blandishments, resisted the soft appeal of his gentle brown eyes….

Thinking of the suffering she might have been spared, there had been occasions during the past year when she almost wished she had never been called to Renard Chase to give drawing lessons to a spoiled young girl, had never laid eyes on the Honourable Andrew Foxe. And yet—and yet, had she not met him, had she not defied the ukase of society and married him, by now she might have been forced to take a position as art mistress in some dismal, third-rate girls’ academy or, worse, have been coerced into a loveless union with one of her father’s parishioners, just to make room at the vicarage for the latest of her mother’s annual babies. At least with Andrew, she had known a few shining moments of tenderness, of passion. And because of Andrew, she now had a daughter whom she could cherish and nurture with all the love she herself had been denied….

Willa, gingerly pulling a brick from the edge of the fire with tongs, asked suddenly, “Begging your pardon, Miss Jess, but did your letter come today?”

Jessica stepped away from the cradle. “Yes, it did, Willa, but I forgot all about it when…. What’s wrong? Do you need money?”

“ ‘Twould be a great help,” Willa agreed as she wrapped a towel tightly around the heated brick. “While you’ve been ill we’ve had to use extra coal, and then there was all the eggs and meat to help you keep your strength…. Here now,” she murmured, setting the brick on the floor before Jessica’s chair, “you come make yourself all warm and cozy, and I’ll pour you a dish of broth.”

Jessica sat down again, slipping off her damp shoes and putting her feet on the warmer. For a few seconds she allowed herself the luxury of being coddled, then with a sigh she reached for the forgotten envelope. Like the similar envelopes she had received each of the past ten months, it was addressed to “J.F., Brighthelmstone,” the simplicity of its direction more than balanced by the ornate, flowing penmanship that Jessica now recognized as the hand of Mr. Haxton; Mr. Welles’s copperplate script was equally attractive, but somewhat more controlled. Breaking the seal on the envelope, Jessica withdrew the bank draft made out to “Bearer” and noted with a sinking feeling that it was for about half the amount she usually received. With a grimace she foresaw a month of porridge and meatless soup for her and Willa; then she chided herself, remembering that there had been times during the first months after she ran away from Raeburn’s domain when the pair of them would have been grateful for porridge alone…. She turned her attention to the letter.

“Dear Sir,” it began as usual, making Jessica’s mouth curl up in a smile of sardonic amusement. She had never met the men who published her drawings, but she envisioned them both as rather short and exceedingly stodgy, and she could just imagine their chagrin were they ever to discover that their unknown satirist was a woman…. “Dear Sir,” she read again, “we were most distressed to learn of your recent illness, and we regret that your indisposition has affected the number of drawings you were able to submit to us. While the quality of those you did send was, as usual, excellent, and although the sketches of ‘Erinys’ are becoming increasingly popular—the first printing of the cartoon ‘Cornelia Weeps’ sold out in two days—we hope you will understand that we cannot pay your usual—” She skimmed the rest of the page to the final, “Wishing for your renewed health and productivity, we remain,” then she wadded the paper into a ball and flung it into the fire, just missing the edge of the soup kettle.

Damn those clutch-fisted old bastards! she thought irritably. Would it really have been asking too much to expect them to pay her the extra few pounds she usually received for her work, especially when, by their own admission, the satirical cartoons of Erinys were proving to be the most popular item produced by their shop? Of course she deserved better compensation. She wasn’t a beginner anymore, begging for someone, anyone, to publish her work. Her scathing and expertly drawn indictments of the
ton
were enjoyed by the same people who relished those of Gillray and Rowlandson, and while she hesitated to equate herself with those master satirists, she knew that her work was superior to, say, the crudities of John Mason, her nearest competitor. She was certain that Mssrs. Haxton and Welles knew it too, and she found herself wishing desperately for a chance to go to London and confront them.

But she could not to go London. Her carefully guarded anonymity was as much a trap as a protection. She could not face her publishers without revealing that “Erinys,” named after one of the avenging Furies of the Greek myths, was not only a woman, but also the notorious Jessica Foxe, the drawing teacher, upstart daughter of an impecunious country parson, who eloped to Scotland with the younger brother of an earl, and then, when her noble brother-in-law magnanimously recognized the marriage and allowed the errant couple to live at Renard Chase, his palatial country estate, proved herself to be quarrelsome and encroaching and utterly blind to the gracious condescension being shown her. The same Jessica Foxe who capped all her previous misadventures by running away the night of her husband’s funeral.

Willa, reading with the accuracy of long acquaintance the grim expressions playing over Jessica’s bloodless features, handed her mistress a steaming mug of broth and said, “Here, eat something. There’s no problem in the world that doesn’t seem more solvable when you’re warm and have food in you.”

Jessica accepted the cup with thanks, but she only half heard her friend’s comforting words. Smooth brow furrowed, she was lost in the memory of a dream-washed spring day eighteen months before, the day she had been made brutally aware that, for a poor clergyman’s daughter, at least, even some dreams could be dangerous….

* * * *

Looking back, she wondered if the day had really been as beautiful as she remembered, or if her memories were tainted by her own emotions. She had been nineteen and in love. Her eyes had challenged the fresh new leaves on the elm trees for greenness, her step had been light despite the heavy wooden sabots she wore, almost a skip, undaunted by the prospect of the eight miles she must walk from the Palladian grandeur of Renard Chase back to her home in the village. She knew that at the vicarage she would have no time to rest before she was expected to oversee the feeding and bathing of her numerous younger siblings, and later she would have to help her worn and ailing mother, who was rake thin except for her expanding belly, try to find enough good bits of fabric left in cast-off garments to piece together a new dress for the forthcoming baby. The twice-weekly drawing lessons Jessica gave—or rather, tried to give—to Lady Claire Foxe, the incredibly spoiled half sister of Lord Raeburn, a gawky fifteen-year-old with red hair and freckles, were regarded by her father as something of a holiday, a frivolous waste of time that he permitted only because the money she received helped eke out his inadequate stipend.

Jessica herself knew how little enjoyment she received from those lessons. Lady Claire was willful and capricious, and when crossed, she was inclined to draw herself up like a disapproving dowager and try to intimidate Jessica with un-subtle reminders of her great wealth and rank. Occasionally Jessica had felt as if she would explode with the effort to contain her temper when Claire made some cutting remark about her shabby clothes or hinted that her unfashionable slenderness was less the result of diet than of genuine hunger. Long used to dealing with unruly children, Jessica had forced herself merely to laugh at the girl’s airs, knowing how disastrous it would be ever to permit her to see that some of her cruel jibes had found their mark. But Andrew had known, Andrew, Lady Claire’s brother, twenty years old but looking younger, so like his little sister in coloring that they might have been mistaken for twins…. From beneath a drooping lock of bright red hair he had gazed at Jessica with brown eyes soft with a sympathy she had never encountered before in a man, and she had fallen in love.

Of course she had known that it was hopeless, poor clergymen’s daughters did not aspire to the sons of peers. Her father had already made it quite clear that as soon as her mother had convalesced from this latest lying-in, now that Jessica’s younger sisters were of an age to help with the new baby, Jessica herself would be expected to leave home, find herself a husband, preferably a prosperous merchant or at least a farmer who could help supply food for the vicarage table. To dream of someone like the Honourable Andrew Foxe was vanity, so utterly impossible that it showed wanton disregard for the well-being of her family. Jessica had known all that, and yet, the mere fact of being in love had been so novel, so strangely pleasant, that she succumbed without a fight, expecting no more from Andrew than an understanding glance now and then, a murmured word, perhaps—perhaps the furtive brush of fingers as they passed in the portrait gallery at Renard Chase after one of Claire’s lessons….

She never dared hope that Andrew might also have dreams.

In her stuffy kitchen Jessica remembered how blithely she had walked back toward the village that bright spring day, strolling along the edge of the dusty roadway, her portfolio in one hand, her shabby straw bonnet dangling by its strings from the other. Ahead of her, in the shade of a spreading oak tree, she had noticed a clump of butter-colored daffodils with white trumpets, and she debated whether she ought to pick some to take to her mother, who was weathering her eleventh pregnancy with less fortitude than she had the previous ones, especially after suffering two miscarriages in six months. Finally Jessica reluctantly decided against the flowers, knowing that if she arrived at the vicarage with anything so frivolous as a fragrant armload of daffodils, her father would accuse her of dawdling; if he was in the right mood, he would proceed to issue a sermon on indolence and the perils of admiring earthly beauty…. Wistfully Jessica had resumed her walk. Although she was sorry to have left Andrew’s home, she reminded herself philosophically that each passing moment brought her that much closer to the time when she would return to him again. And, she admitted, a little confused by the contrariness of her emotions, in some ways it was much easier to be in love with him when they were apart, when she could weave her fantasies without practical considerations, without having to worry about the watchful eyes of servants or the chaperon, or his spying brat of a sister….

Suddenly her thoughts had been interrupted by an unusual sound just behind her, the growing thunder of galloping hooves. Jessica knew that on the highways mail coaches traveled as much as ten miles an hour, and once she had overheard two men discussing the work of some Scottish engineer, Mc Adam or something like that, who had devised a new type of road surface that would allow even greater velocities, but here in the country, ungainly vehicles and poor maintenance of the rutted and uneven roadways meant that horses and people traveled at only two speeds, slow and slower. She turned curiously to see what fool could be risking his neck by riding at such a pace.

She was greatly surprised when she recognized the man galloping
ventre a terre
on the huge smoke-colored stallion as the Earl of Raeburn, Andrew’s much older half brother, who, she was certain Andrew had said, was in London on business.

Quickly she jumped aside onto the grassy verge to let horse and rider pass, but to her amazement, just as they pulled abreast of her, Raeburn yanked back on the ribbons, and the stallion whinnied and reared, forelegs slashing the air. Alarmed, Jessica shrank back still further, inadvertently stepping into a puddle that slopped muddily over the toes of her wooden shoes. “Oh, Lud,” she groaned in dismay. The sabots belonged to her next younger sister, who had grudgingly loaned them to Jessica so that she could save wear on her one pair of “good” shoes during the long hikes to Renard Chase. Momentarily forgetting her fright, she dropped her bonnet and sketchbook onto the grass and, pulling the damp hem of her skirt above her ankles, leaned over to survey the damage.

“Very pretty,” a deep voice drawled, and she glanced up to find Lord Raeburn staring down at her appreciatively with hooded eyes the same smoky gray as his horse. Even afoot, the earl was a big man, broad and heavily muscled, but still mounted, he towered above her like some monumental colossus, and suddenly Jessica felt cold with dread. The skirt slipped from her chilled fingers, and she stood upright again, bewildered and threatened by his slow, insinuating appraisal. His gaze roved the length of her body, passing over her green eyes and long raven hair twisted into a thick knot at the nape of her slender neck, to linger on her swelling bosom that strained the bodice of the outgrown dress. Watching him apprehensively, Jessica blushed and crossed her hands over her breast in a futile effort to shield herself from him. The earl smiled lazily at her discomfiture. His eyes moved lower, tracing her narrow waist and the long, sleek curve of her thighs with such accuracy that Jessica’s color deepened; too late she realized that in the bright sunshine her body must be clearly outlined beneath the worn fabric of her gown….