by Rue Allyn
Her words came faster as their volume rose. “I am an intelligent woman with valid thoughts and opinions. Even a scullery maid can be concerned about her significance in the universe.”
As she spoke, she tossed the hood back off her head, slipped the tie on her new, custom-made, ermine-lined pelisse, raked that garment from her shoulders and dropped it in a heap on the steps.
“I don’t want your fine clothes or your generosity, with conditions. I will go where I will, when I will, with or without your leave.” She practically spat the last word as she rolled the soft kid gloves he’d given her from her hands.
Attempting to move toward her, Devlin stumbled on the first step but kept his feet as he climbed swiftly, groping, guiding by the sound of her voice.
His tone became a purr as he approached. “No, no. Nightingale. Dear, precious creature. This show of ferocity is not necessary. You are not normally given to tantrums. Does my concern for your well-being offend you so deeply as all that?”
His flailing resulted in his grabbing one of her hands. His face stiffened. “Where are your gloves? It’s too cold for you to be out in the early morning chill without your gloves.” He groped up her arm to find she had no wrap. “Go back into the house at once. It is a brisk morning and you have need of both your pelisse and your gloves. What were you thinking coming out without proper attire? I personally ordered your cloak cut down from a favorite of my own. The cloak is woven wool and silk, the collar ermine. I had it made to keep you warm on this journey.”
Her anger mitigated by his words and his concern, Jessica grew quiet. Her own mother had never shown such regard.
She looked to the dowager framed in the doorway. The older woman’s gaze shifted from Jessica to soften with approval as it settled on her son.
The dowager then exchanged a pleasant, knowing glance with Bear. Jessica had thought the dowager did not like the giant. She needed to ask someone about the puzzling looks between those two.
“Will you let me go alone, as we planned?” Jessica asked as Devlin rubbed her chilled hands briskly between his huge, warm ones.
“Of course. Nightingale.” He released her hand. “I was merely concerned. You are precious beyond price to me.”
She thought herself an ungrateful wretch. “Thank you, Your Grace.” She lifted her free hand to stroke his face. He caught the hand and pressed his lips to her palm.
“Now, where is your wrap, my darling little hen wit?”
She giggled. “Spreading the stairs beneath our feet.”
His eyes were the color of sapphires, so brilliantly blue that it was hard to imagine they were sightless.
“While you were throwing your tantrum, you were tossing your clothing, casting my gifts at your feet like a spoiled young royal?”
Jessica hummed an affirmative, “Un-huh.”
Devlin obviously tried to acquire an annoyed, fatherly expression, but he suddenly erupted instead, chuckling first, then shouting laughter into the early morning chill. “Temper, was it? It is as if we truly are related, Nightingale.”
Henry, watching from the doorway, scurried down the steps to retrieve Jessica’s cape, gave it a shake, and held it while she slid her arms into the sleeves. He then swept up the gloves and held each while she fitted her hands into them, her giggles burbling along with the duke’s rumbling laughter.
“Are you laughing at me, Your Grace?” There was a cool warning in her tone that only fueled his mirth. He threw his head back to laugh toward the heavens. Henry steadied the duke who rocked precariously on the steps.
Devlin caught the back of Jessica’s hooded head. “No, little cuckoo, I am laughing at myself. I find my own behavior absurd. I am the lord of this fine estate and of lands stretching beyond the horizon in every direction. I am temporarily incapacitated by an injury inflicted by ruffians, but the more serious blow has come from you. I have been felled by a slender girl whose primary resource is her own mettle.”
She sputtered, but he waved a hand to prevent her interruption.
“To complicate matters, I adore you, quite hopelessly, even as you vex my soul.” He sobered. “Truly, if you were older, I would defy my birthright, the Queen, the empire itself, and marry you simply for the joy you bring to my staid, orderly existence.”
Nonsense, she reminded herself.
“This will be an endless day for me, here, without you, Nightingale.”
“I prefer that name to the others which you call me, my lord: cuckoo, gosling, hen wit, chit.”
“And I prefer that you call me Devlin, yet you refuse to do so. Perhaps one preference will prompt the other … chit. Now, take very good care of my eyes, since we are sharing yours for the present.”
“Yes, Your Grace. I mean, Devlin.”
“I will be in this same spot, waiting on these steps when you return, Nightingale.”
“There’s no need of that.”
“You are my eyes, darling. What else can I look forward to, if not to seeing you?”
Chapter Seven
Jessica had never been complimented, catered to, never been so lavishly fed, quartered or attired. Pampered. It was the kind of treatment any woman would adjust to too easily, and Jessica knew a woman reared as she had been was even more vulnerable.
Away from this place, five hundred pounds was a vast sum, but it would not buy, even in her world, the homage she received here, in house and out, nor the joy of the dowager’s constant approval.
Jessica had known the responsibility for care and feeding of her own mother since she was twelve. Her mother accepted her service as due, but it was never enough. Jessica supposed it was natural to bask in the dowager’s approval. She had never known such appreciation before.
The problem, of course, was this wonderful life depended on Devlin’s remaining blind, and she didn’t want that. When his sight returned, he would no longer require her eyes, or her presence. Truly he did not require either of those now, surrounded as he was by a household of family and servants willing to do what little she did for him.
• • •
The coach clattered along the road, its six outriders ranging, two ahead and four behind, as its occupant pondered. She was lulled almost to a stupor when a commotion outside brought the coach to an abrupt halt.
An all-too-familiar voice shouted, “Jessica, my darling wife, step out here into the morning and explain yerself.”
“John,” she whispered. As if things were not complicated enough, John Lout had arrived to further confound her. An odd recurring thought again darted through her mind. Never was a man so aptly named as John Lout.
Although he sometimes appeared at inconvenient times, like today, John once had arrived at a most fortuitous time. At that event, Jessica had been desperately glad to see him.
Thinking, she threw off her gloves and the pelisse and opened the carriage door to find her betrothed and three other equally shabby riders, one astride a burro. “Yes, John, I am here, and it’s glad I am to see you.”
She poked her head out first, and then moved onto the step, clinging to the carriage door. “How do you happen to be out here so early?”
“Aye, lass, what are you doing in there at the same time, I might ask? Word is, you were abducted by another devil. I came to rescue you again.” He gave Bear a suspicious glance, but the giant remained seated on the box and neither moved nor spoke as their eyes met.
Jessica looked into John’s misshapen face on which excess flesh hung from his jowls. She schooled her own expression, to look both respectful and pleased to see him. “Thank you, John, but this time, as you may tell, I hardly have need of rescue.”
His expectant look dissolved to disappointment. “I was told you needed assistance.”
She smiled. “You are always my hero, John, even when I am not in danger. But you know that already.”
Confusion replaced tentative anger in his stare as he remained astride the mangy horse that swayed beneath his brawn.
“Word came that you
was being held against your will in a stronghold known as Gull’s Way. We were in search of the place when one of my men saw ye. He recognized the paint on this here coach as that belonging to the cad holding you.”
The ducal coat of arms. She knew that was going to cause trouble. Trying to maintain a look of calculated approval, Jessica broadened her smile. This situation bore cautious handling.
“The old duke was struck down by ruffians, John. He was robbed and left broken and bleeding on the road.” She wrung her hands and changed her expression to regret.
“Hmmm.” John appeared to follow the story.
“I found him lying back in the underbrush off the side of the road,” she continued. “I delivered him to his home.” She conjured a pitiful look, which must have been convincing as concern spread John’s face. “He was blind, John, made so by an evil blow to the back of his head. I was the only one about to help him.”
Satisfied with John’s gloomy countenance, she continued. “While I may lack your depth of tenderness, John, I know how it feels to be caught and helpless, as you have reason to know.”
He gave a nod and they exchanged a tender look.
While she was pacifying John, however, his band of three was getting restless, their mounts shuffling nervously at the approach of the trailing outriders.
“Are we to kill the buggers coming, John?” one asked.
“Maybe.” Lout obviously didn’t intend to be rushed to a decision.
Jessica ventured a quick glance at Bear and Figg. Both cast their attention at the team. They were leaving the handling of the situation to her, for now. She apparently was succeeding, so far.
She focused her attention again on her betrothed.
“John, the poor old duke was helpless. Abandoned. Blind. In just the little time it took for me to return him home, the man became quite attached.”
John’s scowl returned with a vengeance, but she threw up a hand to stop his next words.
“He’s going to pay me, John, to serve until his sight returns.”
Lout’s eyes narrowed. “What services does his lordship intend buying with his blunt, and how much is he planning to pay?”
“A hundred pounds.” She quibbled with herself, quieting her conscience. The duke’s offer of five hundred included a hundred pounds, so she hadn’t really lied … exactly.
John’s eyes rounded. “For all that, I suppose he expects you to warm his bed.” He looked as if he were considering his objections.
Jessica lowered her gaze. “No, John. He is a kind, older man. An honorable man. A peer of the realm, who has lost his eyesight, not his mind. The duke knows many beautiful, well-dressed, sweet-smelling ladies who, I am sure, would do the honors of his bed. He has no need of a peasant in tattered clothing.”
John eyed her up and down. “’Pears to me yer clothing is not so tattered as it used ter be.”
“There is a maid swollen with child. I have temporary use of her wardrobe.” That, too, was true, although the gown she wore was made of fine new cloth and created specifically for Jessica by Mrs. Freebinder, the finest modiste in Shiller’s Green.
John thought another long moment. The sounds of the approaching outriders grew louder.
“Has his majesty bid them come to his bed, these beautiful, sweet-smelling ladies?”
“Well, no.”
“Was he the one put his babe on the maid?”
She cast him a hard look. “He did no such thing.
“I told you, John, he is old and frightened and crippled. A woman is the farthest thing from his mind.”
Bear twisted to frown down at her. His look did not last long enough to let her eyes meet his.
She continued speaking, as much to provide information for the coachmen’s ears as to explain to John.
“You know I have saved myself for marriage, John. You have proved your chivalry many times by helping me preserve that gift.”
He straightened in his saddle and allowed a slight smile of, what … pride? Probably. Saving her virtue had given him certain standing, at least in his own mind. She didn’t know why she was being smug. John had prevented her deflowering, even if he did so to protect property he considered his own.
Smiling with genuine regard, Jessica said, “You and I will soon have need of the money, John. The old duke has a reputation for being kind and generous.”
When she glanced at Bear, he puckered his lips and nodded solemnly to confirm her words. Lout, too, took in the driver’s response, and Jessica plunged ahead.
“Please, John, allow me to finish my sworn oath to the duke and earn the reward.”
Without considering his companions, John nodded, provoking one of his men to say, “But, John, our plan was to … ”
John’s shout made Jessica jump. “Shut yerself up or I’ll slit yer throat and stop yer blathering.” The man quailed beneath John’s glare. “This is between me and my lady. Has nothing to do with you.”
“We was to get the money chest off the coach here and divvy up what’s in it.”
Bear looked alert, but spoke with uncharacteristic humility. “There’s no money chest riding here, only the meager sum we carry in our purses.”
“What’s in the baskets there at yer feet?”
“Food to see us to the lady’s home and back.”
“Throw ’em down.”
“The food baskets?”
“Right.”
Bear did as he was told.
John turned in his saddle and squinted at his three cohorts, then looked back at the coachman. “Empty yer pockets then.” He tossed a careless look at Jessica. “The three a’ ya.”
She reached back onto the seat for her purse. It contained ten ducats — her egg money.
“What’s this?” John jingled the coins that were swallowed as he dribbled them into his hand. “The man’s a duke, you say, yet he don’t give ye any more than this for traveling?”
“That’s not his money,” she said, swelling with indignation. “I wouldn’t take charity from any man, John. You know that. That’s my money, from selling the eggs from my own hens.”
His face twisted as he shook the ducats from his hand into his trouser pocket. “I’ll hold ’em for ye, lass, return ’em when our time comes.” He gave her a significant look and a wink.
Caught by surprise, she couldn’t control the involuntary shiver and was glad he didn’t notice.
John and his men yanked their mounts around, bounded into the woods, and were out of sight when the outriders came into view.
“Why are ye stopped?” one of the men shouted. “What’s amiss?”
Jessica stared at Bear and Figg, wordlessly begging them to keep her secret, promising with the plea in her eyes to repay the money they had forfeited.
Shifting his eyes from her to the outriders, Bear said something about a loose harness.
• • •
Jessica’s brother, Brandon, looked up from a kettle of wash steaming over a fire in the yard and stared at Jessica waving to him from the coach.
“Where’ve you been, girl?” He eyed the rig and the outriders suspiciously. “What’s all this?”
He stopped stirring and wiped his hands on the apron covering his trousers.
Jessica absently allowed Figg to hand her out of the carriage.
“I’m here to ask a favor of you, Brandon,” she said, ignoring her brother’s questions. As his expression darkened, she rushed to continue. “The job will pay us a lot of money, if I can arrange things so I can do what is required.”
Using the favorable responses she’d gotten from John Lout as a guide, Jessica repeated her description of the duke, again painting him as old and decrepit, temporarily incapacitated and willing to pay for her time until he healed.
“You’re asking me to take care of this carping old woman by myself?” Brandon scowled as if not able to believe what he was hearing, and glanced toward the cottage.
“Yes.”
Jessica didn’t mention the duk
e had offered to let their mother live at the keep. After considering, she decided declining was the wisest course. She had trouble enough caring for her mother without having the woman pampered by a houseful of servants. Returned to their cottage afterward, her mother would, no doubt, expect Jessica to provide the care delivered by an entire staff, including frequent baths and fancy meals.
“He will pay me,” said Jessica. “More than I could make off my hens and Mr. Maxwell in a year.”
As she expected, mention of payment eased her brother’s concern.
“She doesn’t require much, Bran.” Jessica used the childhood nickname and gazed up at him to remind him that he was taller and older and had done little lately to contribute to their mother’s care or upkeep.
“You could live here for the few days required. The cottage is warm on a chill night. You can hunt. If you circulate word, mothers of eligible girls will bring all the food you can eat.”
“And wag their pig-faced daughters to simper and flutter their lashes at me.” He eyed Jessica skeptically. “How much?”
“Maybe as much as a hundred pounds.”
Brandon’s eyes rounded.
“They say the old duke is generous that way.” She increased her volume. “Ask the coachmen.” She turned appealing eyes toward the coach in the road a short distance away. Bear, again seeing the plea in her face, whether he had heard, or not, nodded assurance that whatever she alleged, was true.
“I’ll do it for half,” Brandon said, trying to appear sure of himself, but continuing to look ridiculous in his washer woman apron.
“Half?” She made her tone indignant. She did not want to promise any portion of her earnings before they were in her hands. Also, of course, Brandon would be suspicious if she agreed too easily. “That isn’t fair. I do all the work and you get half the pay?”
“All the work?” He looked at the kettle of laundry still bubbling twenty feet from them. “You’re expecting me to provide your mother’s food, fix her meals, and clean up after her.”
“She is your mother, too. Those are the things I do for her every day, with no help from you, Brandon Blair, much less pay.”