Red Jack's Daughter (28 page)

When he left his club, he hastened to his town house, for the hour was advanced and he had promised himself to Mr. Jeffers for dinner. There was only time to instruct his valet to lay out his clothes and then to quickly wash, and change his garb. But he was several moments late, for all his good intentions. While drying his face, he had suddenly become aware of the strong aroma of sandalwood from his soap, and had chanced to remember the tipsy Miss Eastwood, leaning against her doorway and complimenting him wonderingly upon his scent. Sandalwood, he paused to reflect, the fragrance he had become so accustomed to in India. While she, he remembered, always bore the faint enchanting aura of herbs.

The only scent he was aware of when he joined Mr. Jeffers in the private dining room of that gentleman’s residential hotel was that of the heavy snuff Mr. Jeffers was partial to. The solicitor was in an expansive mood this evening, his original trepidation at taking part in the deception of his client Miss Eastwood having been effectively lulled by Lord Leith’s urgent arguments and by the extraordinary sum he had earned by his compliance.

Mr. Jeffers was a man who feared the consequences of not doing a thing the way it had always been done. But upon sober consideration he had decided that deceiving a client in a client’s favor could not actually be construed as true chicanery. He had also spent the better part of the afternoon rummaging through stacks of law books for references to back up his position, should he ever be called to account for his part in the affair. Since he had found several very ambiguous rulings that could shore up his position, he was now quieting the last of his conscience by converse with the noble perpetrator of the scheme and with several bottles of excellent claret as well.

He unbent so far by the time a flaming dessert was bo
rn
e in as to comment pleasurably, “And so now our dear Miss Eastwood shall be a truly well-situated young female for life. That is very well, my Lord, for she is withal a most engaging young person.”

“I should not call the possession of one jeweled comb exactly a snug sinecure, Mr. Jeffers,” his companion refuted.

“Why, no.” Mr. Jeffers smiled, pouring himself yet another goblet of the ’97. “But with that, plus the portion she will receive when she weds her young cousin, she’ll do, my Lord, she’ll do.”

The deathly silence that fell after this pronouncement, coupled with the blazing look in his companion’s eye, made Mr. Jeffers, even fortified as he was, acutely aware that he had made an enormous mistake.

“What?” Lord Leith demanded, putting such force into that single syllable that Mr. Jeffers quailed.

“Nothing, my Lord,” he temporized. “Or, rather, something that I am not at liberty to divulge. Part of my, client’s private affairs, don’t you see? Professional confidence that cannot be violated,” he finished weakly.

“Mr. Jeffers,” Lord Leith declared, and placed two tightly clenched fists upon the tabletop, “you will tell me the whole.”

The unsaid words, “Or die,” were so implicit that Mr. Jeffers swallowed hard. And before his dessert had time to cool, he was unhappily pouring forth the entire state of
Miss Eastwood’s affairs, from her mother’s will to her cousin’s plans for her future.

As Lord Leith rose to leave, Mr. Jeffers caught hold of his sleeve and mournfully pleaded, “But, my Lord, you must never divulge your source of information. It would not be proper.”

“It was not proper,” the gentleman replied, shaking his arm free, “for you to keep the information from Miss Eastwood in the beginning. It was not proper for you to leave it to her cousin to unfold to her. And it is not proper for you to presume to play matchmaker. Good evening, Mr. Jeffers.”

Lord Leith was still shaking with rage when he arrived at his town house and still wondering whether he ought to have landed the fellow a facer, when he prepared for bed. It was only when he had lain brutally awake for hours of fury that the thought that he was behaving very strangely finally fell ponderously upon him. He left his bed then, his strongly muscled body gleaming in the moonlight, and sat upon a chair in his room.

It was, after all, he had to confess, not such a bizarre arrangement that a cousin should wed another, or even that she should do so for profit. But the thought of Jessica wedded to Anton disturbed him profoundly. He had known many men such as Anton—glib, superficial, and worldly. The idea of such a man taking Jessica to wife, to bed, froze his blood. And when he thought of the sort of man who should be entitled to such a person as Jessica, he felt his entire being suffuse with understanding at last. Then, in the depth of the night, he laughed.

He ought to have known, he thought, shaking his head in amazement at how he could still confound himself, through all his thoughts and actions. She had occupied him completely, from the moment they had met. He wanted her in every way that he had ever wanted a woman, and in ways that he had never known he needed a female. He wanted her for a life’s mate, for a wife, not just an amusing friend.

He desired her and understood that one night, one week, or one month with her would not be enough for him, even if such a thing were to be possible. As she had run contrary to all other females in behavior, so it would always be with her. Just as his appetite for most of her gender diminished with each union, he was sure that the joys of intimacy would increase with every encounter with Jessica. She would unfurl herself to him more completely each time and would grow more enticing with familiarity.

But, he reminded himself, it would not be easy to win her. For though she liked him very well as a companion, he knew that she had no desire for him as a man; indeed, he wondered if she could ever be brought to that desire after her strange upbringing. And unlike Thomas Preston, he would never be content with having only her comradeship. Still, he thought as he stretched his long frame to greet the dawn, nothing he had ever wanted had been easily come by. And if he could have suffered seven long years of exile to achieve one goal, he could surely take the rest of his life in pursuit of another.

She was still very young. In time, if he were to be constant, she might grow into the womanhood that he knew awaited her. And he must only needs be there at that precise moment. He would wait, he thought, content at last. But as he rang for his valet, the idea of whether or not she would be content to wait occurred to him and filled him with unaccustomed dread. Anton was very persuasive. Thomas Preston
also had her friendship. And he was here in London while they were at Griffin Hall with her.

Thus it was that when Mr. Peterson came to unlock his shop, with his assistant in tow, he found Lord Leith awaiting him upon his very doorstep.

“It must be ready by this day,” that imperious nobleman announced in tones that brooked no argument.

Mr. Peterson looked up to the determined face above him, bowed his head, and sighed. “Of course, my Lord. I excel in the impossible.”

Another lovely sunset backlighted Griffin Hall as the solitary rider reined up in front of it. The groom who ran to take charge of the mount was astounded to see the usually impeccable Lord Leith covered with the dust of the road. He had ridden long and hard, the groom thought knowingly, eyeing the blowing horse, which was also not the usual way of the languid gentleman. But the rider, instead of appearing fatigued or worn, dismounted jauntily and took the steps to the house as though it were cock’s crow rather than eventide.

“Aunt,” Lord Leith called merrily, “where is everyone? I’m arrived sooner than planned, I know, but this place seems more of a museum than ordinarily. Where’s Ollie? And Thomas and Anton and Jessica?”

Lady Grantha
m
sat alone and silent in the front parlor. She seemed so uncharacteristically crestfallen that he took alarm.

“Come. What’s toward?” he asked anxiously.

“Everything,” she replied softly.

“Please, Aunt,” he asked, “don’t speak in riddles.”

“Anton is gone,” she said absently, “Ollie is resting up for dinner. Thomas has gone off riding. And Jessica is wandering about the grounds. I’ve had a long talk with her this day, Alex, and I am not happy. We had no right to meddle in her life, Alex, no right at all. All we have brought her is unhappiness.”

“What has happened?” he repeated, his gaze searching her face for a clue to her distress.

“I think it best that you ask her that,” Lady Grantham said primly.

“But I am in all my dirt,” he replied as he tried to gain time to think.

“Go anyway, Alex,” his aunt said sternly, “for you are as responsible for her state now as anyone.”

“I?” he asked, confounded. But he did not wait for her answer. He turned at once and left to seek out Jessica.

She was roaming the paths near the herb garden and he made her out by the glow that the last light struck from her cream-colored frock and from her impossible hair. He came up to her and noted with surprise that this day, for the first time, she wore that lustrous burden of hers loose and that it coiled down upon her shoulders like random fire.

“J
e
ssica,” he said tentatively, “I’ve returned before time.”

She looked up at him and said in a small quiet voice, “Hello, Alex.”

He matched his stride with her soft pacing and said as noncommittally as possible, “Aunt seems most disturbed. What has occurred whilst I’ve been about your business?”

“Everything,” she answered quietly, echoing his aunt.

“Blast it!” he cried, gripping on to her shoulders and turning her to face him. “I cannot go creeping about and asking forever while all I am given are cryptic little answers. What is going on? This is not like you, Jessica. What has happened? Has there been a murder? A death? Good Lord! Ollie is well, isn’t he?”

“Oh, yes, Alex,” she answered quickly, “everyone is well. I’m sorry we have all been so mute, but really it has been a most unsettling time. And you are right, it isn’t fair to you.”

He relaxed his hold on her and said in what he hoped was a light tone, “Then out with it, Jessica, or I shall think you have a corpse put by about the place somewhere.”

She laughed up at him at that, in more of her old style. But yet, he thought, there was a difference about her. There was a subtle, indefinable difference in this girl that he had thought of so constantly since he had left her side. She grows, he thought, eyeing her grace and her new tranquility, she grows with every moment that passes.

“That is,” he said, strolling on with her, “most illuminating.”

She laughed again and then said, idly snatching up a bit of trumpet vine as she passed it, “I’m sorry again. But you see, Alex, I know now why Anton came to England. I know about my mother and her spiteful bequest. She left me a true fortune, you see. But it can only be mine if I marry one of her countrymen. Anton included the information in his proposal to
me.”

The elegant gen
tl
eman halted abruptly. But before he could bring himself to frame the question, her soft voice went on almost prosaically, “I refused him, of course.”

“Of course,” he echoed as they resumed their walk.

“He wanted me both for the legacy and because I reminded him so much of my mama. Do you know, Alex,” she said wonderingly, “now I am glad that she abandoned me as she did. For I think we would never have gotten on together. And I did not love him,” she added as an afterthought.

He kept pace with her and after a time she said, “He was quite a different person than I thought. He was never honest with me. And so I told him, among other things. And so he left. I’ve whistled a fortune down the wind, Alex,” she said on a half-laugh.

“It was never yours,” he said calmly, “and you still have your father’s treasure.”

“Oh, as to that,” she said, “I know just what sort of a treasure it is now. Anton told me, you see. And I told Thomas, and do you know he rode away from me when he learned the truth?”

Her companion stopped now in his tracks. He could not think at once of what to say, but her next words cut off the train of inventions he was quickly devising.

“But then, after a long while, he came back and said he wished to marry me anyway. Even though Red Jack’s legacy wasn’t worth a farthing. He said that he was my best friend.”

“And you said?” Lord Leith asked, hardly believing what he was hearing.

“Oh, I agreed,” she said softly.

It was lucky, he thought, the light had grown so dim that she could not clearly see his face as he turned aside. For he knew it must be such as he himself would not wish to look upon. He paused a moment to at least gain fleeting control. There would be time enough, he told himself savagely, for grieving later, when she had gone.

“Ah, yes,” he said.

When she realized that he was immobile, she paused and returned to him. “Whatever is it, Alex?” she asked with concern.

“Well, then,” he said briskly, “then I come in a good time. For I’ve got your inheritance all sorted out. Anton was wrong, you know. It is worth a fortune. It was appraised very high. See for yourself. What a paltry fellow your cousin turned out to be.” He laughed brittl
el
y. “For it was only a ruse on his part. The comb is a true treasure. See for yourself.”

He fumbled the pouch from his pocket and handed it to her.

But she only laughed lightly as she took it. “Alex, how should I know a true gem from a false?”

“See,” he said harshly, taking the pouch and tearing its strings apart
.
He held the comb high so that the last rays of light caught its lucent fire.

S
he gazed up at it and then he placed it with shaking hands as a crown upon her crown of hair.