Red Jack's Daughter (14 page)

“And what,” Lord Leith asked sarcastically, “do you think your dear Ollie will say to that?”

“Aha,” cried Jessica, quite unfairly, even to her own ears. “Then you fear he will ask you to go in his stead and you don’t wish to inconvenience yourself.
”

As this thought had not occurred to the gentleman, but as it was quite logically just what Sir Selby would expect of him, Lord Leith felt defensive and so roared back, “There is no need for a young female to go jaunting off to the Continent on such a sheer pretense. And no sane one would expect to do so.”

“There!” Jessica said, with grim satisfaction, tears of anger brimming her eyes. “There we have it! For if I were a young man, it would not be at all out of the way for me to accompany my man of law to secure my own fortune.
”

“But you are not, however much you may pretend to be so, a young man,” Lord Leith shouted.

“And how I wish I were, so that I could show you a thing or two,” Jessica countered in an attempt to startle the tall implacable figure before her and only succeeding in losing all her control. She grew even angrier at the tear that coursed out of hiding from the
corner
of her eye.

Lord Leith was transfixed to immobility by guilt and by
t
he conflicting desires to either tenderly brush away that tear with hand or lips, or cause her to shed several more; he knew what would happen if he dared to even gen
tl
y touch that flushed cheek. But he only sneered and said with a touch of spite that shocked him to the core as he uttered it.

“And how I wish you could as well. But you are safe enough from me in your woman’s skirts, even though you are hardly fit to wear them.”

“Forget my skirts,” Jessica challenged him.

“And if I did,” he said angrily, goaded beyond discretion, “I think you might learn at last how pleasurable it is to be a woman.”

Lady Grantham, Sir Selby, and Mr. Jeffers, seated uneasily in the rose salon, had long since given up any attempt at concealing their interest in the muted sounds of battle that came from the direction of the small salon, thus it was that they greeted Thomas Preston when the butler announced him, with an absent, distracted air. And soon there were four persons craning their ears to hear the far-off deep masculine rumbles and the occasional high shrill of a woman’s voice.

“The young people,” Mr. Jeffers said at length in an attempt to state the unstatable, “are having a disagreement.”

That remark caused all present to turn and stare at him until he fell to contemplating his fingertips.

They were startled to some degree when the sounds of a fragile object shattering reached their ears. Lady Grantham only nodded knowledgeably, “I have only Limoges and Wedgwood in there. Nothing of any consequence.”

After a longish silence, the door to the small salon opened. Jessica walked calmly across the hall to where the others waited. She was ashen and her eyes were red-rimmed, but she held her head high, and simply said, “I have decided that it makes no sense for me to accompany you, Mr. Jeffers. Please advise me as soon as you discover anything. I have a bit of the headache, ma’am, and desire to go to my room. Godspeed, Mr. Jeffers, and good luck. Oh, hello, Tom, I’ll speak with you later, I hope.”

And having delivered herself of this message, she curtsied and, head held regally, ascended the staircase to her room.

As the assembled quartet recovered themselves and waited for one of their number to find the presence of mind to utter something acceptably noncommittal, Lord Leith appeared in the doorway. A thundercloud sat upon his high brow and his gray gaze was shuttered. He spoke coldly, through clenched teeth.

“Good morning. I fear I have let the hours go by without noticing, but I have a pressing appointment the other side of town. I’ll take my leave now. And, oh, Aunt, my regrets. In my haste to leave and in my clumsiness, I overset a vase on the mantel. I’ll send a replacement.”

“The Meissen vase,” Lady Grantham said thoughtfully. “I’d forgotten that one.
”

“Just so,” her nephew agreed. “Your servant, ma’am. Good day, Selby. Mr. Jeffers, good hunting. Hail and farewell, Mr. Preston.”

“Well,” Mr. Jeffers commented into the silence that came after Lord Leith’s departure, “I think I shall take my leave now as well. I’ll write, of course, as soon as I get word of what Captain Eastwood’s legacy precisely constitutes. And,” he added more feelingly to Lady Grantham, “I shall try to perform that task with all possible haste.”

It was only a little while later, after Sir Selby and Tom Preston had strolled off together and Lady Grantham had sat motionless in deep thought in her sitting room, that she rang her bell and requested her maid to invite Miss Eastwood to take tea with her. It was shortly after that that the two sat quietly at a deal table in the same small salon that had echoed to so much wrath a while earlier. Now all was calm, every last shard of the ill-fated vase had been swept away.

Jessica was pale, but composed, and as she accepted her teacup from Lady Grantham, she said in a small voice,
“
In my excitement at hearing the news this morning I fear I overset a handsome vase of yours, my Lady. I shall be sure to purchase you another to replace it.”

“No need,” her hostess said airily, “for Alex has already confessed to oversetting it himself and he shall take care of it.”

“Oh, shall he?” Jessica said with a heightened look in her eyes, but then she recollected herself and subsided meekly again.

“If I had known how heated your discussion would
b
ecome,” Lady Grantham said mildly, “I should have put you in the ballroom. It’s in disuse just now. Everything’s in
slipc
overs and there’s not a breakable object left in it.”

“Oh, ma’am,” Jessica said suddenly, putting down her
tea
cup, much to her hostess’s relief, for she had noticed how much that delicate object had trembled in her guest’s hand, “I am so sorry. It was quite unconscionable. Bu
t
have never gotten so angry in all my life. No, I recall that the chandler’s
so
n took a sweet from me when I was eight and I shied a candlestick at him. But never since then, I swear it. I confess I
se
ized up the vase, but then the enormity of my action struck me and I dropped it in horror. It would have been both cowardly and dishonorable to strike an unarmed man,”
J
essica concluded with only a trace of her usual spirit.

“But Alex could have availed himself of other bits of crockery to defend himself with,” Lady Grantham said
s
moothly.

“It is very kind of you to jest, ma’am,” Jessica grieved, “but it was undoubtedly bad of me to so lose control and I urn heartily sorry for it.”

“And Leith never loses his temper,” Lady Grantham said obliviously. “It must have been the weather, so lowering to the spirits.”

“No,” Jessica said miserably, “it is my fault, and I apologize. And shall to him as well.”

“It’s not at all a bad thing,” the elder lady mused as she picked up a strawberry tartlet. “Alex has been so serene since he returned. Too complacent. Swift water carries one over bumpy places, but it’s time he left the shallows of his life.” She was so pleased by her poetical phrasing that she sat and munched her sweet and seemed not to notice how downcast her guest had become.

“You know,” Lady Grantham ruminated, “it is very bad Ton to display unladylike anger. But then, I am not at all sure that to be completely human is very good Ton, so I, of course, forgive you.” She smiled, her angular features taking on the elfin look that had so enchanted the departed William and the young Ollie all those years ago.

“And then again,” she added slyly, “one knows, of course, that those persons one cares the most deeply for incite the highest passions of every sort.” But seeing no response to this daring suggestion, she went on more prosaically, finishing off the tart and picking up a sugared nut cake, “Then, too, I suspect you have a bit of your father’s temper to contend with. You two must have been a sight when you set at each other.
”

“Oh, no,” Jessica breathed. “Why, Father and I never disagreed.”

“You didn’t?” Lady Grantham asked in surprise. “Why, then, child, you must be a saint. For your father was the
most provocative fellow.”

“Oh, no.” Jessica laughed weakly. “You musn’t believe all the stories Ollie tells.
”

“It has nothing to do with those tales,” Lady Grantham said placidly, attacking her nut cake with concentration. “Why, I confess, each time I met him, he seemed to deliberately try to set my back up. He thrived on altercation.”

“You knew him?” Jessica asked in astonishment.

“Of course I did, my dear,” Lady Grantham answered, puzzled at Jessica’s surprise, “didn’t you know? No? Well, of course I did. Each time he came to town he put up with Selby. The two of them would veer about the town, raising cain. I knew him, after a bit, almost as well as I knew Selby. But, I confess, we never did get on well. He had, you know, no use for women.”

Jessica’s thoughts tumbled about her. She said in dazed fashion, “But he never mentioned coming to London at all. I never guessed. I thought that he came home and then went straightaway back to his unit. How often,” she asked suddenly, “Did you see him?”

“At least several weeks each year,” Lady Grantham said lightly, and then chanced a look at Jessica’s stricken face. “Oh, my dear, I am so sorry. I thought you knew. But then, a grown man would find little to keep him in the country long. Having no wife at home, I mean. And however much he disliked our gender, he did not live as a monk. He did not care for females, but he never gave them up. That is to say
...
How very difficult,” Lady Grantham breathed to herself.

But her guest scarcely heard. She had only seen Red Jack at brief intervals, she had always thought of those stolen weeks as his only surcease from war, she had never guessed that he would have been in the country and would not have come to
see
her. Or that he would have left her, lost and longing for him, while he cavorted in London.

“It makes no matter,” Jessica said brigh
tl
y, although her hostess noted her lower lip trembling. “You are quite right,
t
here was nothing at home but several thousand sheep and, of course, me.”

“My dear,” Lady Grantham said, putting down her cup and turning to Jessica, “such is the nature of men. Oh, dear, that is not at all what I wished to say. Not all men, of course. My own William was as constant as the Northern Star, and your father, of course, had no need to be constant, having no one to be constant to. Good Lord, I am making little sense. What I think,” she said bracingly, “is that you
s
hould stay at home today and quite forget that little shopping expedition we had planned. I’ll take your maid, Amy, with me, as she knows your requirements and sizes. And you just stay at home and rest. And then we’ll have a nice long coze when you’re more easy in your mind.”

Jessica nodded her agreement, still lost in her own thoughts, but as her hostess began to rise, Jessica suddenly remembered and said, “But, ma’am, Thomas Preston said he would call again today.”

“I should be back by then,” Lady Grantham said imperturbably. “And if I am not, simply leave the door to the salon open and have our butler, Bartholomew, within calling distance. For propriety’s sake, you know. Although I understand that Thomas is as family as you, still there are the conventions to attend to.”

After Lady Grantham left, Jessica sank in thought, rising every so often to complete useless circuits of the room. So when, after only a little while, which seemed to have spun out into an eternity, Thomas Preston was announced, she flew to her feet to await him.

When she saw his face, not dangerous at all now, but dear and familiar and bearing a look of such concern, she quite forgot herself. She was no longer the grown-up Jessica Eastwood, but rather little Jess, Red Jack’s shadow, seeing an old and trusted friend. She gave one sob and cast herself into his waiting arms.

He stroked her hair and hushed her incipient storm of tears. There was nothing of the lover about him, nothing of the
vital attractive male she had half-feared at their good-bye at home. He was only Tom Preston now, her father’s favorite, and now her father’s stand-in.

“Why, Jess,” he said softly, “whatever is the matter? Tell me, please. Whatever has overset you so?”

But as she did not fully know herself, she said nothing, and only stayed there, close in his arms, feeling that here at last, for the moment, was surcease from all her confusion.

And he held her close and smiled to himself as he rested his cheek against her glowing hair and inhaled the honeysuckle fragrance of it, and he soothed her and told her that all was well now, for he was there.

9

The door to the salon stood open so that the gentleman caller could be seen from any part of the hall by the omnipresent Bartholomew. The butler could then perceive if anything were to go amiss. It was not as though anyone truly expected a gentleman to go mad with lust and give way to beastly appetites if left alone with a young female. But since even that unlikely eventuality had to be forestalled, Society decreed that it was not proper for any man to remain in seclusion with any young lady of breeding if there were no responsible female in the house—unless, of course, they were related by blood, law, or marriage.