“Because you obviously do it all the time.”
He leaned close enough to make her pulse race uncomfortably as he whispered, “But I do it only for my own malicious pleasure, ma’am, and the wanton amusement afforded by playing God.”
A sudden bustle echoed from the hall. A footman opened the door to announce the visitors.
Lady Honoria Melton entered first, smiling, confident, and exquisite. Jessica was instantly entranced. Everything about the Incomparable was perfect, from her golden ringlets to the buff kid boots that peaked beneath her elegant skirts. Her features were lovely, pure and calm, like a medieval Madonna. How did she get her hair so smooth? And her skin! The Incomparable Melton had a complexion like white cream.
Jessica realized instantly that she would make a perfect Countess of Deyncourt.
“My dear Lady Steal,” Lady Honoria said in a low voice as she came forward and held out her white hand. “It has been positively this age since I have seen you. How delightful of you to invite us down to Tresham! Town is filling everyone with the most horrid ennui. Our journey was quite Gothic. Yet I believe the sun will shine tomorrow. Ah, Deyncourt! How do you do?”
The earl bowed over her hand.
Lady Honoria smiled, a smile of clear beauty and muted invitation. “You know my cousin, Sir Gordon Cranby, of course? And Miss Caroline Brandon?”
Jessica forced her attention to the other guests.
Sir Gordon Cranby peered at her rudely through his quizzing glass. His face had the polished look of old ivory, and his heavy-lidded eyes were set deep. As she was introduced, he pronounced himself charmed.
Miss Caroline Brandon, on the other hand, gave Jessica a sweet smile. She was tiny and thin—surely not more than seventeen—and her pale brown hair was pulled back severely into an elegant knot, set with ribbons. Yet her dark green dress made her skin look sallow and swallowed her delicacy in elaborate ruffles and folds.
Poor Miss Brandon! Jessica thought, suddenly wanting to protect this young girl who seemed as shy as a deer. So she is to be the latest victim of Deyncourt’s arrogant manipulations.
The entire company was soon settled, and Lady Honoria was given the honor of presiding over the teapot.
“What do you say we all ride out tomorrow?” the Incomparable said with charming grace. “Lord Steal’s stables can mount everybody.”
“But Miss Whinburn has a bruised ankle,” Peter objected. “She’d have to stay behind with Mama.”
“No, pray go without me,” Jessica said immediately. “I shall be delighted to keep Lady Steal company.”
Deyncourt glanced away, almost as if he had to bite back some comment. But no one objected, and the guests launched into a debate as to the most desirable destination.
Sir Gordon Cranby seemed to take particular delight in soliciting Lord Steal’s opinion.
“This is, after all, your domain, sir,” he said, fixing Peter through his quizzing glass. “You are master of Tresham, the loveliest house in this part of England. Have you no suggestion?”
But Peter sat silent, fists clenched, staring at his feet.
* * *
They all met the next morning in the breakfast parlor. It had been determined that the riders would trace the old Roman road to the ruined abbey at Holy Cross. Lady Honoria declared herself unutterably thrilled at the prospect.
“A ruined abbey! It is simply too grotesque for words. Shall we encounter the ghosts of monks babbling horridly in the misty cloister, do you think?”
“Or bats?” Cranby smiled.
“Better and better,” Honoria said gaily. “I hope you’ll be ready for fainting ladies, Deyncourt.”
“I shall do my best to offer my arm should you pass out from horror,” the earl said dryly.
“Oh, will you, Deyncourt?” she replied. “Tell me, Miss Whinburn, is that the fashion for morning gowns in the north?”
The question caught Jessica entirely off guard.
“Why, no!” she replied innocently, glancing down at her shabby muslin. “We North Country females follow London fashion as best we might. It is just that I am too much of an eccentric to keep up.”
Lady Honoria arched her delicate brows. “And you have no personal maid, I understand. I insist that you borrow Cicely while you are here. I have two maids and shan’t miss Cicely at all. You will be amazed at how she can improve the most impossible hair. Not that I meant to imply, of course . . .”
She trailed off in charming confusion.
“I couldn’t possibly accept. I dress my own hair, and would not trust any lady’s maid not to collapse in horror if confronted with the task of trying to tame it.”
“But I insist, Miss Whinburn. You would not deprive me of the pleasure of being able to make such a simple gesture of welcome, when you are otherwise so left out of activities? I consider it settled and shall send Cicely to you first thing. I refuse to hear another word. Lord Deyncourt can tell you—I always get my way, don’t I, Deyncourt?”
“Always is a strong word, Lady Honoria,” the earl said.
She pouted at him, and he laughed.
* * *
The party returned from their outing to find Jessica perusing a book, while Lady Steal snored gently in the opposite chair. The riders had not encountered any wailing spirits, but a sudden flurry of bats had indeed given the ladies some excuse to scream and clutch at the arms of their escorts.
Peter seemed disappointed, in fact, that Caroline had not been more upset by the animals’ flight.
“It was most shocking,” the Incomparable Melton cried, once they were all changed and gathered in the drawing room. “Those horrid bats! Indeed, Lord Steal, you are correct. Miss Brandon displayed far more fortitude than I.”
“Well, I have spent most of my life in the country, Lady Honoria,” Caroline said gently. “I should be ashamed if a few simple creatures should cause me much disquiet.”
“No doubt Miss Whinburn would share your sensible attitude,” the earl commented idly.
“Oh, no!” Peter cried. “I imagine Miss Whinburn would have fainted clear away.”
Jessica looked at him in astonishment. Dear Lord, did the fact that she had a sore ankle make her seem such a frail damsel? If it were not for her promise to Deyncourt to stay meekly at Tresham until her ankle healed and he could take her to London, she would take considerable pleasure in disabusing Lord Steal.
She had no chance to reply to his extraordinary misconceptions, since dinner was announced at that moment. Two burly footmen carried her chair into the dining room, where she was seated next to Sir Gordon Cranby.
“You missed quite the outing, ma’am,” that gentleman said, once the soup had been served. “My cousin was in need of considerable support from Lord Deyncourt when the bats made their appearance.” His heavy-lidded eyes looked down the table to where the earl and the Incomparable Melton were deep in conversation. “They make a graceful couple, don’t you agree?”
“Undoubtedly, sir. Apart from the bats, were you impressed by the abbey?”
“Alas, I spent an hour lost in lonely contemplation, while the earl fanned my cousin’s agitated brow, and Miss Brandon and Lord Steal wandered the ruins together. I have the unfortunate facility for discomforting poor Steal. He envies my style, don’t you know, so he avoids me. Such a tiresome thing! I was tempted to frame a sonnet to ‘Solitude in Ravaged Grandeur,’ but Deyncourt and the Incomparable came back to disturb my meditations.”
Jessica was relieved when the ladies left the gentlemen to their port. Lady Steal suggested that they play piquet. Jessica was paired with Caroline, while Honoria sat at another table with Peter’s mother. After discarding the necessary number, Jessica shuffled the cards for the first deal.
Caroline burst into giggles. “Oh, pray, do not handle the cards like that, Miss Whinburn! You will have Lady Steal in a faint.”
“Whatever do you mean?” Jessica smiled at her partner. Since the return from Holy Cross, Caroline seemed changed.
/> “As if you were about to perform a magic trick.”
Jessica laughed. “Like this?” She made a waterfall of the cards, then fanned them rapidly. With a quick flip of the wrist, she then slid the entire deck through her fingers in an elegant reshuffle.
“Yes!” Caroline said. “However did you learn to do that?”
“From my late father. Is it not done?”
“Not for a lady. Peter’s mama will think you have frequented gaming hells.”
“Well, my father had done so often enough, and he liked to be stylish when he entertained gentlemen at Whinburn. How am I supposed to do it?”
“Like this.” Caroline took the pack and quietly reordered them. “Did your father play deep?”
“Very,” Jessica said. “But he taught me his skill just for our own amusement.”
Caroline made no judgment on this glimpse of a most extraordinary upbringing. Instead she dealt the cards. “See? You must not look too proficient.”
“So competence in a lady is cause for the vapors?”
“Indeed it is, Miss Whinburn.” Deyncourt stood casually at her elbow. The gentlemen had finished their port and rejoined the ladies. “Miss Brandon is right. Should you display it in polite society, your expert handling of the deck would be enough to preclude your being granted a voucher for Almack’s at the very least.”
She looked up at him. Though his proximity made her heart leap and race, his expression seemed to hold nothing but polite disinterest. While Caroline was to be offered to Peter as the sacrificial lamb! Miss Brandon was a little shy, but beneath the mouse-like exterior she had a simple and sensible attitude to life. Jessica liked her.
Anger flooded through her as she ruthlessly buried her awareness of his lovely hands and long limbs.
“But that’s absurd! In order to keep females dependent they may not do anything well, not even shuffle a deck? And society will allow us no occupation of real consequence. We may play games of chance based on a rapid calculation of the probabilities of the cards, but should not worry our pretty heads about accounts, for the figures would be too hard. The human relationships of the family are our domain, but we could understand nothing of international relations. We are so delicate we can be expected to faint at the sight of a bat, yet we must face the rigors of childbirth—” Jessica stopped herself in mid-sentence. “Oh, fiddlesticks, I’ve done it now, haven’t I?”
Caroline had blushed scarlet and seemed ready to slide beneath the table, yet she couldn’t help but grin. “That’s a lot worse than shuffling cards, Miss Whinburn. The lady patronesses would have the vapors instantly.”
“I am sorry. It’s just my wicked tongue when I get angry. I didn’t mean to be indelicate.”
The earl smiled, though real hilarity danced in his eyes. “What you have missed, Miss Whinburn, in your cogent analysis of our social foibles, is that ladies rely for their safety on their ability to elicit protective instincts in men, and must behave appropriately or face the consequences.”
She looked at him with fury. “Because otherwise the gentlemen would use their superior strength to enforce their will? That is exactly what happens now. However, I don’t want to throw everybody into the boughs everywhere I go, so I am indebted to Miss Brandon for her advice. I shall try to guard my wayward tongue and handle the cards like an incompetent in future.”
If only she had not made him that promise! If only he were not so very attractive—
“Not like an incompetent, Miss Whinburn, just like a lady. And now I beg that you will allow me to take Miss Brandon away. Steal would like to try your game, and Cranby would prefer playing with his cousin.”
He walked away with Caroline on his arm, and Peter sat at the table with Jessica.
The boy seemed distracted and anxious. Jessica glanced across the room at the earl, and was not surprised to see that he was watching the Incomparable Melton, where she sat with her cousin Sir Gordon Cranby at another card table.
A calculating smile seemed to tease the corner of Deyncourt’s firm mouth. It truly is as if he were some eastern potentate, thought Jessica, controlling the lives of all of us. Even mine!
* * *
“So the earl would rather partner the plain little Miss Brandon than the Incomparable Melton?” Cranby asked idly as he dealt the cards to his cousin. “Doesn’t it worry you to watch Deyncourt pay attention to another female?”
Lady Honoria looked up and gave him a charming laugh.
“To Miss Brandon? Are you serious? All the innocent young chits are safe from Deyncourt. Caroline Brandon is simply one of his lame chicks, taken under an avuncular wing. Really, Cranby, right now he is watching me. For God’s sake, gallantry is as natural to him as breathing. He can’t help it. Anyway, I trust possession of Castle Deyncourt will prove sufficient compensation, if I am neglected.”
“Yes, Castle Deyncourt is very fine, of course.” Cranby smiled. “Though Tresham is more to my own taste.”
“Don’t be too sure of your plans, Cranby. Steal is making sheep’s eyes at the penniless Miss Whinburn.”
Cranby glanced at Jessica and Peter. “Have no fear of that, my dear. Deyncourt would never allow it. She has no fortune, and I believe our puissant earl doesn’t even like her. For as you have so cogently pointed out, he cannot prevent himself from enthralling the ladies—even the homely Miss Brandon—while Miss Jessica Whinburn would seem to be the exception. Haven’t you noticed? Our hero does not flirt with her.”
* * *
Yet as Caroline faced Lord Deyncourt over the cards, she was merely concerned that he would allow her to win. She was not enthralled by the handsome earl, and she was very nearly immune to his charm. Caroline was perfectly aware that Deyncourt was very dashing, of course, even if he was at least ten years too old, but she was quite desperately in love with someone else.
“I must thank you, Lord Deyncourt,” she said shyly. “I have been made very happy.”
The earl smiled at her with none of the dangerous wit the ton had come to expect. “So Peter has proposed? And you have accepted him. Why thank me?”
She looked up at him. “Don’t deny it was your doing. After I was so foolish as to tell you my feelings.”
“That you have loved him since you were ten years old? Alas, I could never resist bravely restrained tears in a young lady. Very well, I won’t insult your intelligence by pretending otherwise. I have done as you asked, Miss Brandon. I hope it was wise.”
“Oh, yes! Now we are engaged, Lord Steal must notice me, which he never would otherwise. Thus I have a chance. He thinks of me simply as the sister of his old friend, and of course I’m so very plain. I know everyone thinks he’s just young and careless, but he has a gentle heart and— Well! It must seem excessively foolish to you that I am so sure I want him, when he doesn’t want me.”
“I trust he will want you when he discovers how delightful you are, Miss Brandon.”
She blushed. “Oh, stuff! I know I am a veritable antidote. If you had not been so generous as to dance with me at the Kale’s ball, I should have been a wallflower forever.”
“Never.”
“Yes, it’s true, and you shan’t gainsay it. You may pretend it was an idle whim, but I know better. You’re just a compassionate person, aren’t you? You would help anyone in need.”
“Hush, Miss Brandon. If anyone overheard this, it would ruin my reputation.”
“You’re still kind to help someone so ordinary.”
The earl smiled. “But I don’t think you ordinary, Miss Brandon, which is why I have taken your part with my feckless ward. I think that when he realizes the treasure to whom he is betrothed, you’ll be the making of him.”
* * *
Which was the very moment when Jessica learned from Lord Steal that Deyncourt had succeeded in his diabolical scheme, and that his young ward had indeed become engaged to Miss Caroline Brandon. Between dealing the ace and laying over it the ten of hearts, Peter announced that he and Miss Brandon had come to a
n understanding at Holy Cross Abbey.
Jessica could do nothing but offer her felicitations, and watch Lord Steal’s miserable face as he glanced across the room at Cranby and Lady Honoria, then at the earl and his betrothed.
They played out the rest of their game in silence.
* * *
After the card tables were finally put away, the earl strolled up to her.
“I see Steal has told you that I have succeeded in my wicked machinations already, Miss Whinburn.”
“Don’t be too sure, Lord Deyncourt,” Jessica replied quickly. “Anyone could tell that your ward’s affections are not truly pledged.”
“And you intend to do something about it?”
“I would if I were able. It is unconscionable for you to so manipulate him.”
He smiled sardonically at her. “Do not try to set yourself against me, Miss Whinburn. My plans for my ward are not your concern. If you interfere, please be assured that I will exact immediate revenge.”
“There is not a thing you can do to control my behavior.”
“I can turn you over to Judge Clarence.”
“You would not!”
Her heart hammered and leaped, threatening to betray her, as he grinned with that exasperating charm.
“Try me. Now, perhaps you may keep Lady Steal company again, while I play fast and loose with the lives of the rest of the company?”
* * *
Chapter 7
The next morning Jessica was obliged to accept the services of Honoria’s maid. It was a mixed blessing. Cicely Pratchett was a sharp-faced woman with prying eyes. Jessica disliked her, but she could not deny that she was a clever lady’s maid. She could indeed do wonders with the most impossible hair.
Within a few days, Jessica was amazed to find that her carrot crop began to behave itself. Cicely mixed a rinse that tamed the bright color into a deeper, softer shade, bringing out rich mahogany highlights.
“I’m stunned,” Jessica said one morning as she watched this transformation. “Could you do the same for Miss Brandon?”
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