The Clergyman's Daughter (24 page)

She fell asleep in his arms like one washed ashore after a hurricane: disoriented, exhausted, clinging to him as the only security in a still-heaving world. In the wavering candlelight he smiled down at her tenderly, lovingly, brushing strands of hair away from her flushed cheeks with fingers that still trembled slightly. He knew a moment’s chagrin that she had dozed off so quickly; there was much he had to say to her. And yet, he admitted with a wry shrug, conscious of his thudding heart, perhaps it was just as well; he did not know if he was yet capable of coherent thought, much less speech. He slid deeper beneath the bedclothes and shifted her unsubstantial weight more comfortably in the crook of his arm. When her bandaged wrist twitched as if it hurt, he brushed the gauze with his lips and arranged the blankets so that they would not constrict and irritate the wound. Then, sighing heavily, he relaxed against the pillow and closed his eyes.

“Your Lordship….”

The voice was low, little more than a hiss. Raeburn stirred uneasily and settled back against the pillow, even in his sleep his aims tightening instinctively around the woman beside him.

“Your Lordship!”

The voice came again, still hushed but more strident, piercing his dream, and this time it was accompanied by the light touch of a hand shaking his bare shoulder. Raeburn blinked slumber-fogged gray eyes and shifted his head so that he could squirt up at the intruder. With a start he recognized the bland face of Willa Brown.

His gaze flicked back to Jessica, who still slept deeply, one arm thrown across his broad chest as if she clung to him; then he looked up at Willa again. He felt his jaw tighten with hot embarrassment and he wondered if he blushed.

But the maid’s expression remained unreadable, and when she saw that she had his attention at last, she said quietly, neutrally, “Your Lordship, it’s almost dawn. Soon the household will be afoot.”

Raeburn nodded imperceptibly. By “household” he knew that Willa meant the staff, who rose with the sun winter or summer; his family and guests would lie abed till almost noon. There would be none but servants to spy on his hasty departure from Jessica’s room, and surely he could command their silence…. He hesitated, glancing at her yet again, savoring the feel of her warm, damp flesh curled so pliantly about him, and he felt a nagging resentment that circumstance forced him to creep furtively from her bed. Just for a second he wondered what would happen if he did not leave her, if he let himself be discovered with her, in this way making clear publicly and defiantly that she was his now, convention be damned….

As if reading his mind, Willa shook her head, and her brown eyes met his gray ones evenly, for one moment communicating not as master and servant, but as two people made equal by their mutual love for a third. She said, “No, Your Lordship. She’ll not thank you if she wakes to find you here.”

Raeburn considered this; then he agreed with a sigh, “Of course you’re right.” He turned his head to brush his lips across Jessica’s cheek, and very gently he lifted her hand away from his chest and tucked it under the covers, careful not to rouse her. Stretching out a long, bare arm to flip back the blankets, he looked at Willa and said, “I’m going to get up now.” She stepped back, and he thought she was going to turn and leave the room, but instead she simply picked up his shirt and breeches from the untidy heap on the floor, shook out the wrinkles, and stood waiting to help him dress, as impassive as his own valet might have been. One of Raeburn’s thick fair brows arched in surprise; then with the faintest of shrugs he slipped out of bed.

As he tugged on his tight breeches he thought grimly that Willa’s absolute lack of reaction to his nakedness gave him more insight into the life she had once been forced to lead than all the disapproving tales that had been whispered to him by Flora Talmadge and others like her. For a moment he put aside his concern for Jessica and considered with fierce anger the injustice of a society where a girl not yet twenty was left utterly devoid of illusion. He gazed pensively at Willa and with a sinking heart tried to remember how often in the past he himself had blithely taken advantage of…not her, but women like her, uncaring of the consequences to them, heedless of anything but his own ephemeral pleasure. Streetwalker, opera singer, titled divorcee, he had always paid fairly, in coin or gowns or jeweled trinkets, and he professed nothing but contempt for men who satisfied their lusts with physical abuse, but….

He looked down at Jessica, who had shifted her position slightly when he left her. She now slept like a child with one hand close to her face, the fingers curled and clutching tightly at the ticking of the pillow. Again he winced at the sight of the bloodstained bandage on her wrist. Except by degree, he wondered humbly, was he really any different from the band of ruffians who had degraded the maid and driven her to the brink of suicide….

“Your Lordship, please!” Willa said urgently.

He nodded and fumbled with the buttons of his shirt; then he stared at his boots and debated the necessity of pulling them on. After the warmth of Jessica’s bed…and body…the marble floors seemed forbidding and unbearably cold, but he’d make far less noise in his bare feet. Reluctantly he turned to leave. Willa tagged dutifully behind him. At the door into the corridor he paused and regarded the maid steadily. “Take care of her for me, Willa,” he said simply.

“Of course, Your Lordship. With my life.”

He reached for the doorknob, then hesitated. “Willa,” he asked curiously, his deep voice thick with concern, “why does she sleep with her fists clenched?”

Just for a second Willa’s face dropped that calm mask she cultivated so carefully, and Raeburn saw in her brown eyes a depth of melancholy knowledge that no girl, however placed, should ever possess. Her mouth curved up in a mirthless smile. “Maybe…maybe she’s just trying to hold on to her dreams,” she suggested softly—then her expression became shuttered again, and she bobbed a curtsy as Raeburn glanced both ways and stepped quickly into the hallway.

* * * *

“Am I to gather that Mrs. Foxe is not joining us for dinner?” John Mason remarked to the gathering at large as footmen removed the platters of fish and turkey that made up the first course and set out dishes of glazed sweetbreads and asparagus. His yellow eyes sketched the vacant chair beside Claire.

From his vantage point at the head of the table, the Earl of Raeburn watched four additional pairs of eyes follow the artist’s gaze curiously, then dart back to the food laid out before them. Knives and forks scraped chillingly over china plates. The atmosphere in the dining room was tense and charged, conversation desultory, Raeburn was reminded of soldiers on the eve of battle, after the flagons had been drained and the camp followers sent away, when the silence reverberated with the bugle call that would sound soon, too soon…. An explosion was imminent; he could feel it in the air.

He knew the source of that tension, of course. He had seen it in the sidelong glances, quickly veiled, that had been cast his way all day as he tried to carry on the routine business of the estate. Since early that morning when, still drowsy, he had met with Tomkins, who had uttered tight-lipped assurances that the Irish groom would be packed off to Belfast as soon as his back was healed, Raeburn had been aware of an undertone of reproach, like the drone of bees on a hot summer day, tainting all his dealings with his household. Even the butler Barston had seemed unusually stiff when he announced dinner. Raeburn was unused to anything but respectful deference from his staff, but he supposed the servants’ attitude was to be expected. He had never flogged a servant before—whatever the provocation, he ought to have had his steward do it—but Christ, whenever he thought of that creature’s hands touching Jessica, pawing her…. That tacit air of disapproval made him feel uncomfortable and faintly impatient. He wished Jessica were with him, to lend him support. He was certain she was avoiding him—indeed, she seemed to be avoiding everyone—and he found her uncharacteristic cowardice peculiarly irritating. He wanted matters settled now.

He glanced at Daphne sitting at his right hand, blandly unprepossessing in a flimsy muslin dress that did not become her, and his jaw tightened with a resentment that shamed him. It was not his fiancée’s fault that he no longer desired her—although in truth, despite Daphne’s uncontestable suitability, he realized that he had never
desired
her—but dammit, he wanted Jessica beside him now! He supposed he always had. At table or in bed, he wanted her within easy reach, he needed her close at hand where he could smile into her shining eyes, talk to her when he was troubled, touch her….

When Raeburn felt his body stirring potently, he sternly put such thoughts behind him and turned his attention once more to his guests. He noticed Lord Crowell’s thick fingers toying with the stem of his wineglass, a troubled expression marking his heavy features. The young duke seemed edgy, and Raeburn wondered how much he suspected, not about the incident in the stable but about Raeburn’s intentions toward Daphne. He had long ago given up trying to deduce the mysterious way rumor spread throughout the manor, but he did not doubt that by now even the tenants on the farthermost borders of the estate had heard that the earl was having second thoughts about his engagement. Thus his announcement was bound to come as no surprise to any of his family or guests, but considering the way Crowell had haggled over his sister’s marriage settlement, Raeburn knew he was not going to take kindly to her being jilted.

Despite the poor light in which Raeburn must inevitably appear, he was anxious to make his declaration. Better to have it all over and done with…. Looking past the candles and covered dishes to his sister, who sat at the far end of the table with her head bowed over her plate so that only her crest of bright, riotous curls was visible to him, he asked, “Claire, do you know where Jessica is?”

Slowly Claire lifted her head to meet her brother’s gaze, Raeburn saw with surprise that her young face was even whiter than usual, the pallor normal for redheads having bleached to an unhealthy pasty color, and her eyes seemed puffy and swollen. Raeburn frowned with concern, wondering if she was ill. “Clairie, are you all right?” he questioned gently, and the girl smiled wearily.

“It’s—it’s just a slight cold,” Claire said, a noticeable quaver making her light voice rather husky.

Flora jerked up her head and peered narrowly at her charge. “You didn’t tell me you were unwell,” she accused. “Too many late nights, I expect. You must go to bed at once and—”

“Oh, Aunt, do be quiet,” Claire snapped rudely. When Raeburn’s thick brows came together sharply at her tone, the girl sighed with a noticeable lack of contrition, “I’m sorry…but I’m no longer a toddler to be packed off to the nursery, you know.”

Her brother nodded slowly, “No, you’re not,” he agreed, squelching Flora’s instinctive protest. “Of course you may stay up as late as you like, so long as you take care of yourself. Christmas is but three days hence. You don’t want to be sick.”

Claire nodded, and her dismal expression lightened momentarily at this unprecedented acknowledgment of her maturity. But she frowned again when Raeburn repeated, “Do you know where Jessica is? Did she say anything about not coming down for dinner?”

“I haven’t seen her at all today,” Claire said. “I—I went to her room this morning—there was…something I needed to talk about, to—to explain…but her maid said she—she wasn’t able to see anyone.”

John Mason interjected meaningly, “Are you saying that Mrs. Foxe is ill, my lady? How unexpected…. She was in most excellent spirits the last time I saw her—almost as if she cherished some happy secret, perhaps an announcement of some sort. I have no doubt that if I were to send up a message reminding her of our last encounter, it might…hasten her recovery.”

Raeburn stared blankly at the artist, and he felt his color rise at the man’s insolence. “What the devil is that supposed to mean, Mason?” he demanded hotly.

“My lord—” Mason began, but from Raeburn’s side Daphne interrupted him.

“Graham,” she said stiltedly, “you would do well not to question Mrs. Foxe’s absence. It seems to me that she is displaying a discretion and sensibility that I would never have expected from one of her sort.”

“ ‘Her sort’?” Raeburn echoed softly, too softly, and from across the table Lord Crowell muttered, “Easy now, Daph….”

But Daphne would not be silenced. Aware that she now had the attention of every person at table, she reiterated, “Yes, Graham, ‘her sort.’ You cannot pretend ignorance of what every other member of the household already knows: that Mrs. Foxe has conducted herself in a manner so outrageous that it—” Abruptly she broke off her accusation when the door opened a few inches and Willa poked her head inside.

Barston stepped forward, scandalized by the maid’s intrusion, but Willa ignored him. “Your Lordship,” she addressed Raeburn quietly, “may I have a word with you, please?”

The butler interrupted pompously, “Girl, if you have a message for His Lordship, the correct procedure is to give it to me, and if I think it warrants his attention, I will—”

“No, Barston,” Raeburn said, “I’ll talk to Willa myself. Come here, girl.”

Willa glanced uneasily at the assemblage, then drew her head back like a turtle retreating into its shell. “If—if we could be private, sir…” she pleaded.

One brow arched curiously. Conscious of the watchful eyes of the people around the table, Raeburn shoved back his chair and strode to the door; the instant he pulled it shut behind him he heard agitated conversation spring up in his wake. He gazed down at the maid, trying not to flush as he remembered the circumstances under which he had last spoken to her. “Well, Willa?” he asked.

She bobbed a quick curtsy. “Your Lordship, my mistress asked me to beg you to excuse her from dinner.”

“She’s not feeling well?” Raeburn queried.

“A…slight headache, Your Lordship.”

Raeburn felt his temper rise. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath to compose himself. Damn her, so she was going to play the craven, cower in her room while she left him to attend to the announcements, the settlements. How could Jess be so poor-spirited? Didn’t she know that he needed her here, now? He blinked and opened his mouth to order the maid to fetch Jessica, no matter how many headaches she pretended, but he snapped his mouth shut without issuing the command. He would deal with Jess later, privately—very privately….