by Mary Balogh
Jessica was too accustomed to her former employer to feel any great anger or bitterness at her treatment. It was to be expected. But what about him, the Earl of Rutherford? Was she angry with him? Did she now hate him? She tested the idea in her mind and came to the conclusion that no, she did not really blame him for the course events had taken. Not unless he had asked for her dismissal, that was. But she did not believe he had. What would be his motive? She had refused to go to bed with him. That would not be of sufficient importance to provoke the Earl of Rutherford into vicious revenge. She could say with some certainty that at least three of the chambermaids would have been only too willing to warm his bed at any moment of the night or day.
"Some persons thinks they can turn up at the last moment and take the whole seat that decent folks has paid good money for," the large female at her left remarked loudly to the large male on her right. She was attempting to locate something in the covered basket she held on her knees.
"Some persons do like to put on airs," the male agreed with a wheeze. "Prob'ly used to traveling around in their private coaches where they can spread out all along one seat and stretch their feet on the pposite one."
"Nobody better not try to put their feet on this seat," a passenger of superior wit across from them said. "Not unless they wants ter walk on stumps that begins above the ankles for the rest of their born days, that is."
Jessica was further squeezed by the hearty laughter of her neighbors. She wisely chose to ignore all remarks and won a sniff and a charge of being "uppity" from the female beside her for her pains.
She had found him powerfully attractive from the day of his arrival. As who would not? she asked herself. The Earl of Rutherford was a good-looking man by any standard: tall, athletically built, his aristocratic features, very dark hair, and blue eys designed by heaven to make any normal female heart skip a beat. To a lonely, love-starved young lady he appeared quite irresistible.
She had rarely been in the same room with him, had never been closer to him than the width of a room, had spoken not a word to him. He had not even noticed she existed, she had believed. But she had looked when no one was observing her, and what she saw had filled her with longing, the longing for pretty, flattering gowns, for wearing her hair about her face, for the freedom to smile and lift her eyes to the world. She had longed for one of his looks, one indication that he knew she existed, one sign that he knew she was a woman.
She had been kept severely in the background. Even her usual task of chaperoning Sybil during visits and walks was usurped by the girl's middle-aged abigail. She had been sent back to her room one morning when it was judged that her hair was not tightly enough pulled back and some wave remained.
She had not expected him to notice her. Indeed, she had not thought he would stay long. He had come there by some chance as a prospective suitor for Sybil. It seemed unlikely to Jessica that he was as firm in his intentions as Lord and Lady Barrie seemed to believe. Such a man would have no trouble at all finding a wife. Even if his pockets were to let, he could surely find a more amiable wife among the ranks of the wealthy than Sybil. Jessica did not believe that in two years she had made any impression on the girl's character whatsoever. She was as bad-tempered, as selfish and uncontrolled now as she must have been from childhood. And she had no beauty with which to blind a suitor to the defects of her character until after a marriage had taken place.
But he had been there a whole week, and he had noticed her. He had even known her name last night. Of course, he had noticed her in one way only. She was a governess. A servant. And apparently presentable enough in her nightgown and with her hair down to be deemed worthy of a night in his bed. There was nothing remotely flattering about such notice.
But oh, she had been tempted!
He had looked quite suffocatingly masculine, dressed as he was only in his breeches and a silk shirt open at the throat. His hair had been tousled, as if he had just risen from his bed. And those blue eyes, seen at close quarters, had been disturbingly direct.
She had felt almost instant desire. She had wanted to be held against that tall, strong body. She had wanted his hands and his mouth on her. And truth to tell, she had felt her knees weaken at the thought of going to his bedchamber with him and allowing him any intimacy that he chose to take. Virtue, chastity, virginity had seemed dreary taskmasters for a few mad moments. She had had but to say the word. She could have experienced delights to dream of for a lifetime. He had assured her that he was skilled, that he liked to give as well as receive pleasure. And she had not doubted him for a moment.
Why had she held back, then? Why had she denied her own desire, her own deepest need? Perhaps it was just the knowledge that what for her would have been the experience of a lifetime would have been merely the delight of a moment for him, something he would have forgotten after a few days and the next woman. She had found when it came to the point that she could not degrade herself to that extent. She could not allow herself to become what all men seemed to expect female servants to be: ready bedfellows. Not persons at all. Merely the human instruments through which they could satisfy their sexual appetites. She could not do it and live with herself the next day.
But she was not at all sure, Jessica thought, sighing inwardly as the large female changed position and jostled her further with hip and elbow, she was not sure at all that she would be strong enough to make the same decision if it were hers to make all over again at this very moment. It would be something indeed, something worth having, to be granted just a few minutes out of a life of neglect and insult in which to be the full focus of a gentleman's attentions. To know that for those minutes he would be intent only on her, on both pleasuring and being pleasured. To be seen fully just once, wanted fully.
But wanted for what? For Jessica Moore? Or for the woman's body in which Jessica Moore just happened to be housed?
She shifted sideways so that some of the pressure was taken off her left arm at least. She wondered how far they had traveled and how much farther they would travel that day.
2
The Earl of Rutherford cursed aloud as he turned his curricle into the cobbled yard of the Blue Peacock. It looked to be a large enough inn, but he had never heard of it before and had no way of knowing if it was worth his patronage. Besides, he had a feeling that the stagecoach he had passed an hour before must use this particular inn as a stopping place. There seemed to be nowhere else of any size to rival it. And darkness would be upon the coach by the time it got this far. He did not relish the thought of spending a night amid the noise and vulgarity of stage passengers.
He had hoped to travel much farther himself that night, but the rain that had begun half-heartedly a while earlier was now setting in for the night and was becoming something of a downpour. And the coolness of the November day had turned to an uncomfortable chill. It would be madness to continue on the road in an open curricle. Apart from the personal discomfort of raindrops dripping from the brim of his hat and somehow finding their way down his neck, the vehicle was not solid enough to cope with muddy roads. At least a heavier carriage could be relied upon to stick fast and safe. A curricle would slither and slide until it overturned into a hedgerow.
Even the Blue Peacock offered a less unpleasant prospect than that. Rutherford vaulted from the high seat of his vehicle, handed the ribbons to a lackey, and strode into the dark but blessedly dry taproom of the inn.
He was feeling somewhat reassured ten minutes later, having found that the inn was as yet empty of guests with the result that he had been allotted the best room in the house and, he suspected, the only good one, a bedchamber complete with private parlor. His rooms were clean, he had discovered, the mattress dry and reasonably free from lumps, the sheets clean, and the maid, whom he had passed on the stairs, a potentially satisfying armful.
He did not have a great deal of baggage and was quite unsure if his valet would catch up to him with the carriage that night. But no matter. All he really needed was a chan
ge of shirt for the morrow and his shaving gear, both of which he had in his leather bag. He never encumbered himself with a nightshirt on his travels for the simple reason that he did not wear one. He had never found that his companions of the night objected to the lack.
Lord Rutherford toyed with the idea of ordering his dinner to be brought to his parlor immediately, but he decided that it was too early. He had eaten luncheon only a few hours before. But what was he to do with himself? He did not have so much as a book in his bag. He could not take a walk as the rain was now streaking down outside. He would go down to the taproom, he decided, and look over any new arrivals. And the innkeeper had seemed like a garrulous fellow, who might have some interesting stories. Innkeepers were rarely bores, he had found from experience. They had seen too much of the quirks of human nature ever to run dry of an amusing or sensational anecdote. And that buxom maid merited a second look. She had signaled her availability in that moment of passing on the stairs. The decision would be entirely his.
Rutherford was soon settled in the chimney comer, a pint of ale on the table at his elbow, the coals of the fire setting his damp breeches to steaming. Three new arrivals were seated at their ale exchanging loud banter with the innkeeper. The maid had whisked herself in and out of the room a couple of times, entirely for his benefit, Rutherford judged in some amusement, although she preened herself over the ribald comments of the newly arrived trio. He might decide to take his pleasure with her later. There would be no unusual satisfaction in doing so as she was the unsubtle kind of female. But she would at least help pass what promised to be a long and dull night.
His mind went back to that morning. His abrupt leavetaking had been somewhat embarrassing as it had been patently obvious to him that both Lord and Lady Barrie had expected a declaration. Fortunately, he had not seen their daughter before leaving, though doubtless she shared their expectations. She had been treating him with a markedly proprietary air for two or three days past. In fact, right from the start they had all behaved as if he had come as a formal and recognized suitor.
He grinned briefly into his tankard of ale. Life with that particular young lady did not bear contemplation. No beauty. No character. No sweetness of disposition. He pitied the poor man who would finally be ensnared by those three determined persons. His life would not be worth living. And someone would surely be caught. The one desirable attribute the girl had-and for many it would far outweigh all the less attractive ones-was money, and lots of it.
Thank the Lord he did not have to marry for money. He wished he did not have to marry at all. But he had heard nothing else since his nine-and-twentieth birthday had slipped by him eight months before and the dreadful prospect of the thirtieth loomed ahead. It was his duty, it seemed, to plant his seed in some as yet unknown female of suitable background, whom of course he would first have to make his wife. It seemed that a man was likely to pop off at any moment once his thirtieth birthday was behind him. And the best way to protect himself against the imminent danger was to beget some other poor male creature who would be all ready to step into his shoes and his title until he too had the misfortune to find himself in his thirtieth year. It was quite unthinkable to contemplate letting the title pass to a cousin, it seemed, however blameless and worthy he might be.
His parents had been at him, Mama with her quiet smiles and assurances that matrimony was a blessed state, Papa with his reminders that it was not only the title of Rutherford he must safeguard but also his father's of Middleburgh, a dukedom no less. Faith and Hope, his sisters, had added their word-or words would be more accurate, he thought with a grimace. Hope, always an eager matchmaker, had redoubled her efforts during the last year.
And yet again, irrelevantly, he blessed the kindness of fate that had made him, the third child, a boy. Not that he craved the titles, which of course he would not have received had he been a girl, but he would have detested having to go through life as Charity. His mother, he had heard since, had been divided in her feelings at his birth. She was proud and relieved to have produced a son and heir at last, but she did regret the incomplete Biblical trio. They had called him Charles, but he had heard his mother lament the fact that Faith, Hope, and Charles had a decidedly anticlimactic ring to it. A third daughter never did arrive.
His grandmother had been the final straw. He had been in the habit of visiting the dowager duchess at least once every two weeks through all his boyhood and the years since, except when he was at school or university, of course. And he had always enjoyed a good relationship with the old girl, he had thought. She admired backbone in a man, but approved of his sowing his wild oats during his early manhood. He had always been remarkably open with her-far more open than with any other member of his family-about those oats. However, he had realized only within the past eight months that although she recognized the importance of wild oats, she also valued cultivated oats and believed that they were the ones that mattered and must take precedence over the weeds. She had ceased to chuckle over his exploits during those months and had developed the habit of harping on duty.
His duty! He must marry and impregnate his wife on his wedding night, it seemed. His grandmother did not put matters with quite such open vulgarity, of course, but that was what she meant, He had been evasive for months, but just three weeks before he had lost his good humor and pointed out to her in no uncertain terms that there was not a single lady of his acquaintance with whom he could possibly contemplate a life sentence. He would just have to gamble on living a few years longer yet and postponing that comfortable arrival of his heir.
His grandmother had called him a humbug. At least, she had called her needlepoint a humbug, which amounted to the same thing, as the stitchery could have done nothing to offend her.
"Very well, Grandmama," he had said rashly, "you name me an eligible lady and I shall go immediately and look her over. Offer for her too if I don't turn green at the prospect."
"Ella's granddaughter," she had said without a moment's hesitation, speaking of one of her card-playing cronies. "In the country. Coming up for the Season next spring, but bound to be snaffled up in a twinkling, Charles. Father loaded with the blunt. You go down there and forestall the opposition. Good family. Barrie. And just out of the schoolroom. Don't tell me that fact don't set your mouth to watering, m'boy, for I shan't believe you."
"You have not even seen the girl, Grandmama?" he had asked, aghast.
"Don't need to," she had said. "She has everything you could want in a wife, Charles. Haven't heard anything about her being unable to breed. That's all that matters, y'know. You don't need to give up all your high flyers, boy. Always used to tell Middleburgh he might have one for every day of the week as long as he kept up appearances. Didn't want him forever hanging about my skirts, anyway. A devilish nuisance, men. No offense, m'boy. What?" she said, looking up at him from beneath her eyebrows, her head still bent over her needlepoint. "Afraid?"
"When do you wish me to leave?" he had asked, knowing even as he did so that there was no way of reneging on his rash challenge now.
And so he had spent an unspeakable week with the Barries, wishing every moment to be on his way back to London again, but staying for courtesy's sake. But a week was the limit, he had decided the night before after that fiasco with the governess. He would return to Grandmama and insist that he had kept his part of the bargain. He had looked the girl over, found that he did indeed turn green at the prospect of offering for her, and so had come home without doing so.
What a waste of a week, he thought with a yawn, nodding in the direction of the innkeeper and indicating that he wished to have his tankard refilled. The only event that might have made it at all worthwhile would have been a night spent with the gray governess. She had turned out to be even lovelier than he had suspected all week. That hair! He almost regretted that he had not stolen a kiss and drawn her body against his own. He suspected that it was very feminine and very shapely indeed. A night with her would have been rare sport.
However, he had got very little for all his imaginings. Unfortunately, he was afflicted with a conscience that made it impossible for him to take even as much as a kiss from an unwilling wench. Under the circumstances perhaps it was as well that nature had framed him in such a way that he did not often encounter unwillingness. On the contrary. On occasion he had even found himself obliging eager females when he would just as soon not have done so, merely because he did not wish to hurt their feelings. But if a female did say no, he had a lamentable tendency to take her at her word. He had to want her very badly even to try a little further persuasion.
Perhaps it was not an unfortunate trait of character, he decided on second thought. He hated the idea of rape. At an all-male gathering several years before, when he had been very young and considerably more foolish, he had broken a fellow's nose and a quantity of crystal glasses and decanters after the man had recounted with pride for the noisy delight of most of his listeners how he and two other daring blades had held down and ravished a lady's maid as she sat waiting for her mistress in a carriage outside a house where a masquerade ball was in progress. The crowning glory of the tale was the fact that the girl had been virgin and was dismissed three months later for being with child.
Lord Rutherford's hand paused halfway to his mouth. Sure enough, the sounds coming from outside in the cobbled yard could be produced by nothing other than a stagecoach. Very soon now his peace would be shattered by the spilling out of the human contents of that coach. He would finish his ale and retire to the relative quiet of his parlor. It really was going to be a long evening. He would have to avail himself of the services of the maid. Though she was likely to be busy about her chores until late into the night.