The Hidden Heart (18 page)

Leona seemed to have abandoned her pursuit of the duke, at least for this evening. With a tableful of men to perform for, she was at her most sparkling and provocative. She flirted with all of them, including the Reverend Radfield, who seemed to mind not at all the fact that her bosom threatened to spill over her dress at any moment. Her throaty laugh had an intimate quality, as though she were alone with whoever heard it. She smiled and dimpled and declared the men all naughty creatures, until Jessica wanted to throw something at her.

Only one man besides Cleybourne seemed immune to Leona’s charms. Darius kept his eyes on Jessica most of the evening. She carefully avoided looking at him, not wanting to make eye contact, but she could see out of the corner of her eye that his gaze kept returning to her face.

Jessica tried politely to carry on a conversation with Mrs. Woods and Miss Pargety, since Leona was occupying the attention of most of the males at the table. Mrs. Woods smiled and answered Jessica politely whenever Jessica directed a remark to her, but she offered nothing more than that. Jessica was certain there was an accent to her speech, and, given her thick black hair and olive skin, she wondered if the woman was perhaps Italian, despite her very English sounding name.

Miss Pargety, on the other hand, was quite ready to talk, and she did so through much of the meal without stop, complaining about the mail coach, the snow, the cold, and now this delay, interspersing her complaints with digressions on her sister and that woman’s inability to prepare for Christmas without her expert help. By the time the meal was over, Jessica suspected that the woman’s sister would probably rejoice that Miss Pargety had been delayed in visiting her.

As soon as the meal was over and the guests rose from the table, Jessica made good her escape. She had absolutely no intention of being stuck sitting in the music room or a drawing room with the other women while the men retired to smoke and drink brandy. With a general smile at the people around her, she slipped out the door and started toward the stairs.

“Jessica!”

She stopped, recognizing the voice, and turned slowly. She would have liked to keep on hurrying away, but she knew that she might as well face him now and get it over with. At least there was no one else around; all the other guests were still dawdling just outside the dining room.

“Darius.”

“Please. I want to talk to you.” He came over to her and took her arm, propelling her into the nearest room, the smaller and less elegant drawing room.

Jessica resisted her instinct to shake off his hold. She looked down pointedly at where his fingers bit into her arm, and he dropped his hand, backing up a few steps.

“I—I’m sorry. I just—” There were beads of sweat dotting his forehead, and he cast a rather haunted look around the room, as though something in it might tell him what to do next. “I could scarcely believe my eyes when I saw you this afternoon.”

Jessica waited, looking at him. She wondered vaguely what she had ever seen in the man. He was handsome enough, she supposed, in a rather ordinary way, but there was a decided weakness to his mouth, and she wondered why she had not noticed that when they were engaged. His hair was medium brown, his eyes hazel. Neither short nor tall, thin nor fat, he was, she decided, a very nondescript sort.

“I—I—uh, I was glad to see you. I’ve been…wanting to see you for ages, really. I know that I behaved badly before, and I’ve been wanting to apologize to you. To let you know how wrong I was. I see that now. And I do hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.” When Jessica said nothing, just continued to look at him coolly, he went on in a rush. “I behaved like a…like a cad to you. I have no excuse except that I was young and foolish. I was afraid that your father’s scandal would taint me, too, and that my career in the army would be finished.”

“Of course,” Jessica replied. “One would expect you to think of yourself first.”

He hesitated, looking at her uncertainly, as if he were not sure how to take her statement. “I—I felt that I had no choice. I had to give up love for my family’s good name, for my own hopes in the military. Looking back on it, I see now what a fool I was for placing my career before you. I hope that you can find it in your heart to forgive me. I would appreciate it if you could do so…. If we could be friends again.”

“I have no interest in being friends with you, Darius,” Jessica said in a flat voice. “And, quite frankly, I imagine that after this, it will be extremely unlikely that we will ever run into each other again. We have not done so in ten years, after all. We do not move in the same circles any longer.”

He had the grace to color a little at her remark. “I know. I am so sorry that you have had to—to—”

“Seek employment?” Jessica suggested. “It’s all right. I do not try to hide the fact that I work. There is actually something rather satisfying and freeing about knowing that one controls one’s own fate, rather than relying on a father or brother or husband to provide one with sustenance.”

He blinked, seemingly at a loss as to how to respond to her candid words.

“Darius…I suppose you must feel awkward being in this situation. I do, too. But there is no need to pretend to some sort of caring that neither of us feels, just because we want to make the situation less uncomfortable. It was bad luck that we ran into each other this way, but the only thing to do is simply to make the best of it. With any luck, the roads will be clear in a few days, then you and your friend can leave, and we won’t ever have to have anything to do with each other again. In the meantime, I suggest that we try to stay out of each other’s way. It will make it much easier to get through.”

With that she turned on her heel and strode out of the room.

“Jessica!” Darius started after her, but stopped in the doorway, watching her walk away.

Jessica looked neither to her left nor right, but headed straight for the stairs. She had almost reached them when the duke’s voice stopped her.

“Miss Maitland!”

Reluctantly she paused and glanced to the side. Cleybourne approached her, casting a look at Darius Talbot, who immediately popped back inside the drawing room.

“Was that fellow bothering you?” Cleybourne asked as he stopped in front of her.

“No. It’s nothing. I was just going up to bed. I am not used to late hours.”

Cleybourne frowned. “I saw your face when Mr. Talbot introduced himself this afternoon. And right now you don’t look as if ‘nothing’ just occurred. Perhaps I should speak to him.”

“No. It isn’t necessary. I have taken care of it myself.” She sighed, realizing that she could not get out of this without telling the duke something. He obviously took his duties to protect those in his household very seriously. “Mr. Talbot is someone I used to know, many years ago. He—I—I believe I told you about the scandal concerning my father, and that after it was I was no longer received in society and the man to whom I was engaged broke it off, not wishing to have his name associated with mine.”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Talbot is that man.”

“Your fiancé?” Cleybourne’s eyebrows soared upward, and his first words were not what she expected. “What the devil were you doing being engaged to that popinjay?”

A giggle escaped Jessica’s lips. “I wondered that myself this evening.”

“Well, I pegged him for a fool,” Cleybourne went on. “I had not realized that he was also a man without honor.” He looked toward the drawing room. “I shall ask him to leave.”

Jessica warmed a little at his championing of her. “Thank you, Your Grace. But you cannot do that. It would be tantamount to killing him in this weather. He could not make it the village or even another house.”

“Yes, you’re probably right,” Cleybourne replied in a tone of regret. “What did he want tonight? Was he importuning you? Shall I speak to him?”

Jessica shook her head. “No. Though I thank you again. He—” She shrugged. “He told me that he wanted us to be friends. He offered an apology for how he treated me.”

“I see.” Cleybourne watched her face closely. “And what did you say?”

Jessica grimaced. “I told him I did not wish to be friends with him, and that I thought it would be best if we avoided each other. So, you see, it is all taken care of. Good night, Your Grace.”

“No, wait, it is
not
all taken care of. I have been trying to speak to you since last night.”

“There is no reason why you should explain anything to me,” Jessica said stiffly, remembering the moment when she had seen him with Lady Vesey, in the hall and the piercing blade of anger and hurt that had stabbed through her. “I am merely your employee. It is not surprising to me that you should choose to…be with…a woman of your own station.”

“My own sta—” He frowned in puzzlement. “Bloody hell! Is that what you think I was saying the other morning? That you were not high enough for me? That you were not good enough? Good God, woman! I wouldn’t have thought you were that bloody foolish.”

“Foolish?” Jessica quirked an eyebrow, her voice growing icier.

“Yes, foolish,” he retorted in a low, furious voice. “You live here. You work for me. It would be taking advantage of you for me to—to force my attentions on you. That is what I was talking about, not your status. I don’t give a rap about my position or whether you are a governess or a bloody washerwoman, for that matter. But the other night, in the nursery, when I—when you—damn it, I was taking advantage of you and the situation. I acted like a cad.”

“So you turned to Leona. It makes perfect sense.”

“I did not turn to Leona!” His voice was rising with anger, and he stopped, reining himself in visibly. He continued in a lower voice. “That is what I am trying to tell you. Nothing happened between me and Lady Vesey.”

Jessica arched one eyebrow in delicate disbelief.

“Yes, I know it looked terrible. She was wearing my dressing gown and nothing else, but I had nothing to do with that. Well, not with her lack of clothing. I found her in that state when I went into my room last night. She was lying in wait for me,” he said in such an aggrieved tone that Jessica almost had to laugh. “Sitting there on my bed, wearing nothing. So I gave her my dressing gown and hustled her out into the hall. I never touched her—well, I mean, except to take her outside.”

Richard looked down at Jessica. It bothered him that it mattered so much that she believe him. It bothered him that he kept thinking about the other night when he had kissed her. It seemed a betrayal of Caroline—as if he had stopped loving her, as if he no longer belonged to her. Yet, even as he told himself that he should not feel this way, that he should not care what Jessica Maitland thought of him, he knew that he
did
care.

“Damn it,” he said in exasperation, his voice tinged with bitterness. “Don’t you know that seeing Leona naked didn’t make me want her? Not the way one kiss made me want you.”

Jessica’s head snapped up, and she stared at him, shocked by his words. She saw the truth in his eyes, and she saw, too, how much he disliked feeling as he did. She gazed into his dark eyes, unable to look away, scarcely able to breathe. He wanted to kiss her again, she knew, and she knew that she wanted him to. Every nerve in her was suddenly alive and thrumming, and unconsciously she leaned a little closer to him.

There was a burst of laughter from down the hall, heavy masculine laughs, followed by Leona’s teasing voice. Both Jessica and Richard jumped, glancing guiltily toward the sound. There was no one in the hall; the guests were all still in the formal drawing room, but they were aware of how many people were about, how little privacy they had here in the middle of the Great Hall.

Jessica looked back at Richard, her heart pounding. Then she turned and hurried away, almost running up the stairs.

J
essica stopped by Gabriela’s door on her way down the hall to her own bedroom and turned the doorknob quietly. It was locked from the inside, as she had instructed Gabriela to do each night. She went next door and rapped lightly on Rachel’s door, and at the sound of Rachel’s voice, she stepped inside.

Rachel smiled at her from the bed, but it was not a very strong smile. Her eyes were watery, and she admitted that both her throat and her head hurt a little. “I think I am coming down with a head cold,” she admitted mournfully. “I am so sorry. I’m sure you will need help with the extra company.”

“Yes, I suppose we must do something to keep them from growing bored. What an odd lot they are, too.” Jessica kept Rachel entertained for the next few minutes describing Mr. Cobb, Miss Pargety and the others, and she was glad to see that Rachel’s spirits rose during her visit.

After a while she left Rachel to get some sleep and walked across the hall to her own bedroom. She glanced at Cleybourne’s door, just one door down the hall from hers, and wondered if he was in there yet. She shook off the thought, reminding herself how unproductive it was, and began to get ready for bed.

Pulling on one of her plain white flannel gowns, she took down her hair, sighing with relief, and brushed out the thick red curls. She climbed into bed, shivering a little in the cold room, the fire in the fireplace banked for the night. She had thought that she would have difficulty falling to sleep, for lately her mind seemed to whir on for ages, usually concerning the Duke of Cleybourne. But it had been a tiring day, and she fell asleep quickly.

She had been asleep for a while when a noise brought her awake, eyes flying open and heart pounding. She sat up, trying to remember what had awakened her.
Had it been the sound of her doorknob turning?
She wasn’t sure. She had been dreaming, and the dream and reality were blurred.

Jessica slipped out of bed, putting on her bedroom slippers, then wrapped her dressing gown around her and tied it. She walked quietly across the floor and listened, her ear against the door. She could hear nothing. Unlocking the door, she eased it open a crack and peered out into the hall. There was nothing there, only the dark corridor, lit dimly with moonlight from the windows at either end of the hallway.

She stood for a moment, looking. Then, furtively, a dark form slipped from the shadows on one side of the hallway and across to the top of the staircase, then disappeared down the stairs. Jessica’s heart began to knock crazily in her rib cage.
Who was stealing down the staircase at this time of night?
Her first thought was of the intruder who had broken into the schoolroom the other night.
Was it Vesey?
She could not imagine why he would be sneaking around at this time of night.

She knew, however, that she was going to follow that secretive form. She thought of taking a candle or lamp with her since the moonlight from the two hall windows provided little light. However, a lit candle would obviously draw notice from the man she was following, so she did not. She did, however, pick up the heavy candlestick, weighing it in her hand. It would do for a weapon, she thought. She took the candle out, slipped it into her pocket, and, wrapping her hand firmly around the stem of the candleholder, she opened the door wider and slipped out into the hallway.

She moved as fast as she dared, given the dimness, and soon reached the stairs. Grasping the rail, she started down slowly, fearful of slipping. About halfway down, she heard a thud somewhere below her in the Great Hall, followed by a brief and blasphemous exclamation. She hesitated, then went on as silently as she could.

When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she paused, looking carefully around her. The Great Hall was even darker than the hallway above had been. She crept through it, afraid of knocking into something, the way the person she was following apparently had. She reached the hallway down which Cleybourne’s study lay, and she started along it. It was Stygian in its darkness here, where there were no windows with drapes open to the night, and she did not see the darker shapes of a table or bench against the wall until she was practically on them. She was concentrating on the immediate space in front of her when there was a loud cry from down the hall, followed by a crash.

Jessica’s head flew up, and she searched the dark shadows of the corridor in front of her. There was a grunt, followed by a thud, and an instant later a dark form burst out of a door farther down the hallway and tore down the corridor straight at her. She stepped back, but not quickly enough, and the man slammed into her left shoulder, knocking her aside. She hit the wall, grabbing at the edge of the table to keep from falling.

Another man tore out of the office after the first, running past her with a single, startled glance before he sped on. This man she recognized as Cleybourne, and it was then it struck her that she had seen nothing of the first figure’s face, only darkness, the same way she had not seen the face of the man who had broken into the schoolroom.

Even as these thoughts raced through her mind, she was pushing away from the wall and taking off after the two men. The first man had reached the front door and thrown it open, followed a moment later by Richard. Heedless of her delicate bedroom slippers and the inadequacy of her dressing gown for the cold outdoors, Jessica ran out after them.

The mystery figure had a lead on Cleybourne, but Richard was closing quickly. The snow slowed all of them down. The man in front went around the side of the house, slipping and falling as he made the turn, then picking himself up and hurrying on through the snow. Jessica plowed along after them, cursing the added disadvantage of her gown and robe. She was shivering in the cold, but she paid no attention to it, intent on pursuing the two men.

Richard caught up to the other man before he reached the back garden, jumping the last few feet, slamming into him and knocking him to the ground. The two figures rolled around in the snow, grappling with each other, hitting and wrestling. They struggled to their feet, still locked in battle.

By this time Jessica was almost upon them. She gripped her weapon, the heavy, ornate candleholder, more tightly, watching for a break in the fighting so she could wade into the fray and use it. However, in the shadow of the house, in their dark clothes, the two men were difficult to tell apart. She could not get a good look at either face. She circled them anxiously, trying to discern Cleybourne’s features. One of them stumbled over a small stone figure buried under the snow, and the two of them went down again.

Jessica hovered over them uncertainly. The one on the bottom managed to roll over, pulling the other one under him. His hands closed around the throat of his opponent and he squeezed, bearing down. The side of his face looked dark. Fear shot through Jessica.
The other man had the upper hand, and Cleybourne was being strangled!
Grasping the candlestick with both hands, she swung it down hard on the back of the upper man’s head.

He made a noise and crumpled to the ground. The other man pulled himself out from under, and Jessica saw his face for the first time. It was covered by a dark scarf, his eyes the only thing visible.
She had hit the wrong man!

“Richard!” she cried out, dropping down on her knees beside the limp body and frantically rolling him over.

The other man took off into the back garden. Jessica scarcely noticed. Her heart was in her throat, looking down at Richard’s still form.

“Richard!” She grabbed his shoulders and shook him a little.

He groaned, and his eyelids opened. His eyes rolled around a bit, then his lids closed again.

“Oh, God!” A little sob escaped Jessica. She smoothed back his hair, struggling not to cry. How could she have been so stupid? she wondered frantically. She had struck without thinking, scared that Richard was being killed. “Please wake up. Oh, please.”

A thought struck her. She picked up a handful of snow and rubbed it over Richard’s cheeks. The shock of the ice-cold wetness on his face woke him up again, and this time, though his eyes wavered a little, they steadied.

“Jessica?” he asked faintly, looking puzzled.

“Yes. Can you stand up? Are you all right?”

“I—I think so.” His hand came up to his head. “Where the devil am I? What ha—” Suddenly his face cleared, and he barked, “Where is he?”

He sat up, but the movement was too sudden, and he swayed. Jessica wrapped her arm around his shoulders to keep him up.

“He is gone. He ran away. I am so sorry. I hit you.”

Richard let out a curse. “I might have known.” He gingerly touched the crown of his head. “Why the devil did you do that?”

“I was trying to help you!”

“Well, next time, please don’t.”

“I thought it was he!” Jessica retorted indignantly. “I thought you were the—the robber, or whatever he is. He was—I mean,
you
were choking him, but I thought he was you. I thought he was killing you. So I hit him,” she finished lamely. She lifted the candlestick up to show him.

“Sweet Christ! I shall have a knot there in the morning.” A shiver ran through him, then another, and in that instant Jessica, too, realized how cold she was out here, kneeling in the snow.

“Come. Get up. We need to go inside and see to your head. Are you hurt anyplace else?”

“Isn’t a head wound sufficient for you?” Cleybourne asked sourly.

“There’s no need to be surly about it,” Jessica said, standing up and reaching down to help him rise. Even in the dim light, she could see that there was a gash above one eyebrow, and blood had poured down from it, covering much of one side of his face. Jessica realized one reason why she had assumed that he was the intruder. The side of his face that she could see had been dark with blood, and she had thought it was the intruder’s mask.

He shook off her hand and rose to a crouch, swayed, then steadied and stood up the rest of the way. His knees almost buckled, and Jessica jumped forward to put her arm around his waist.

“Lean on me,” she ordered. “You’re hurt. We need to go inside and tend to that wound.”

He did not argue, for once, just draped his arm around her shoulders. They walked back inside, Richard not leaning on her so much as using her to keep himself balanced. They walked slowly but finally reached the front of the house and went up the steps.

Inside, it was brighter than it had been when they left. Several people holding candles were standing at various places along the staircase, watching them. Two footmen, still in their nightshirts, had come in through the hall from the back staircase, and they, too, stood stock-still, gazing incredulously at Jessica and Richard.

Jessica took in the faces of those on the stairs. Gaby was there, looking both scared and excited, as well as Mrs. Woods, her thick black hair tumbling loose down over her shoulders, and Miss Pargety, one hand to her throat and a horrified expression on her face. For a long moment everyone stood, staring at one another. There was the sound of heavy feet on the staircase from the third floor, and a moment later Mr. Cobb joined the others on the staircase.

“What’s going on here?” he asked gruffly. “What was all that noise?” He looked down at Richard and Jessica. “Are you hurt, sir?”

“Yes, he is,” Jessica said. “I will need bandages and something to clean the wound with.”

“It’s all right,” Richard said shortly, dropping his arm away and straightening. “I shall tend to it later. Right now I have more important things to do.” He turned to the gaping footmen, saying, “Go knock on all the doors and look in the bedrooms. See if any man is wearing clothes that are wet from being out in the snow or if discarded clothes are lying around anywhere.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” one of the footman replied, looking somewhat doubtful.

“There’s them as won’t like it, sir,” the other servant cautioned.

“I know. Apologize profusely, but tell them it cannot be helped. Tell them there has been an intruder in the house, and I have ordered you to check all the rooms to see if he is hiding anywhere.”

On the stairs, the spinster let out a little shriek. “There is someone inside the house!” She cast a frightened look around her, as if some terror might pop out at her at any moment.

“I do not know, Miss Pargety. The odds are that he is some distance away from here already. But we must make sure.”

“What happened?” Gaby asked breathlessly. “Was it the same man?”

“You need to go back to bed, Gabriela,” Jessica said firmly.

Since the duke now seemed able to stand on his own, she left him and crossed over to the stairs, intent on keeping the women from succumbing to hysteria. She went up the stairs, hooking one arm through Gaby’s and the other through the spinster’s thin, trembling arm.

“Come, I will take both of you back to your rooms,” she told them, giving Miss Pargety what she hoped was a reassuring look. Mrs. Woods’ pretty face, she noticed, was pale but calm. It would take more than an intruder, Jessica thought, to shake her. Nor did Mr. Cobb look startled or upset; she had the feeling that bleeding head wounds were not an unfamiliar sight to him. Or perhaps his lack of surprise came from the fact that he had been the one fighting with Cleybourne outside. She wondered if he had had time to enter the house through another door and go up to his room. She glanced down at his trousers and noted that they were dry all the way down; he would have had to change, because Cleybourne’s opponent would have been as wet from the snow as he. Could he have done all that and appeared on the stairs as soon as he did?