by Mary Balogh
He watched the passengers make their noisy entry. Two young sprigs of fashion who had been riding on the roof looked more like drowned rats than the dandies they wished to be taken for. They were both slapping their hats against their legs and shaking their greatcoats, talking and laughing loudly to try to compensate for their less than immaculate appearance. Two females, one thin and one fat. Two males to match. Another man all in black, who looked as if he might be a Methodist preacher. And Miss Moore.
Rutherford's eyebrows rose and he set his tankard down slowly on the table beside him. She did not look around her. She stood quietly a little behind all the other passengers, who were loudly jostling for place and clamoring for rooms. She was clutching a worn valise, her beauty and her form completely swallowed up in gray again. She was turned fully away from him so that there was no chance of her seeing him even out of the corner of her eye. She waited for her turn with the landlord.
He could not hear what she said, even though by the time her turn came most of the other passengers had gone off to their own rooms. But he did hear the landlord's reply quite clearly. There were no rooms left. He was sorry. He sounded far from sorry, Rutherford thought, a different man entirely from the genial and subserviant host who had welcomed a fashionable earl an hour before. She must sleep in the taproom or share Effie's bed. The choice was hers. It was all the same to him. The cost was the same, whichever she chose. Effie was the maid, Rutherford guessed.
She argued. He felt some satisfaction in watching her head come up and in knowing that she was not reacting with that meek, downward glance that she had affected with the Barries. But the show of spirit did her no good. He did not hear what she said. He was sorry, the innkeeper said with an exaggerated and careless shrug. What did she expect him to do? Call out the carpenters and make another room just for her ladyship? She disappeared upstairs after a few minutes trailed by the maid, who first turned and gave him a saucy look. Yes, she was Effie, obviously.
Strange! The woman he would have bedded last night was to share a bed with the female he had intended to make sport with tonight. Why should he feel indignation on behalf of Miss Moore, when he had judged both females desirable enough to lay their heads on the pillow next his own?
The Earl of Rutherford rose to his feet, stretched, and made his way unhurriedly to the staircase.
Jessica was sitting miserably in the taproom, trying to convince herself that she did not look as conspicuous as she felt. There was no separate dining room in the Blue Peacock. There were a few private parlors, she gathered, but of course those were very private. She was forced to take up a position in the common taproom, and there she must stay until it was bedtime. Even then she could expect no privacy or comfort. She must share the untidy and none too clean attic room of the maid, who made no bones about her reluctance to extend such hospitality.
She longed suddenly for her room at Lord Barrie's house. At least it had been her own and only rarely invaded by Lady Barrie come to scold her for some imagined offense or by Sybil intent on wheedling her into doing some task for her. She had not been treated well during the two years of her employment, but at least she had known where she belonged and what to expect. Here she felt conspicuous in her quietness. Her female companion of the coach was seated at an adjoining table, laughing raucously and tipping back a tankard of ale just like the men.
She looked up in some surprise at the sound of a discreet cough beside her. The Earl of Rutherford's valet stood there, looking as immaculate and toplofty as he had looked for the past week as he lorded it over the Barries' servants.
"His lordship 'as begged me to hinform you, ma'am," he said, having the grace to speak quietly, "that 'e would be hobliged to you for joining 'im for dinner in 'is parlor."
Jessica felt the color rise in her cheeks. He was here? And knew that she was here too? And he wished to entertain her? Alone, in a private parlor. He must know the impropriety of the suggestion. Of course, she was merely a governess, a servant. She looked around the room and reminded herself anew of the alternative.
"Thank you," she said, and rose quietly to her feet. She allowed the valet to lead the way across the crowded taproom and up the stairs. Her heart was beating with painful thumps by the time he opened one of the doors on the upper story and stood aside for her to precede him into the room.
The parlor was empty, she saw with great relief. What on earth was he doing at this inn? She had heard nothing the day before about his intention to leave.
It was a comfortable room, not large, but made cozy by the worn carpet on the floor, two shabby armchairs, a table already set for two, a branch of lit candles on the table, and a cheerful fire crackling in the hearth. Jessica crossed to the fireplace and held her hands out to the blaze. She had not realized just how much the cold had contributed to her misery during the day's journey and her short stay in the taproom. The valet had disappeared through a second door.
"Ah, Miss Moore,"the voice of Lord Rutherford said from this inner doorway a few minutes later. "What a happy coincidence that we have chosen the same inn for tonight. I trust you have had a comfortable journey today?"
He looked larger, more overpoweringly masculine in this small room than he had looked at Lord Barrie's. There was a certain haughtiness in his manner that only succeeded in making him look more handsome than usual.
"Yes, I thank you, my lord," she said.
"Liar, Miss Moore." He smiled and advanced farther into the room. "I have traveled on the stagecoach in my time. It is considered one of the necessary experiences of life by young blades, you know. There is no more disagreeable mode of travel. Especially, I would imagine, if one were forced to ride inside, as you must have done. Was the company enlightening?"
"Not especially so," she admitted, unsmiling. "But at least I was out of the rain for the last hour."
"And your accommodations are comfortable, I assume?" he asked politely.
"Yes, quite, I thank you, my lord," she said.
"You are accustomed to sharing a room and a bed with barmaids, then?" he asked, eyebrows raised.
Jessica's lips tightened. "I perceive you are in the habit of asking questions only so that you may contradict the answers," she said. "I have not complained, my lord. My purpose is to reach London as soon as I may. I do not demand luxuries along the way."
"And do you have some bright prospect ahead that makes you rush so, Miss Moore?" he asked. "I was unaware that your departure from your employment with the Barries was imminent."
Jessica did not answer.
He closed the remaining distance between them and stood before her. "Does your presence on the road to London have anything to do with me, Miss Moore?" he asked, hands clasped behind his back.
"My lord?" She looked up at him with wide, blank eyes.
"My lord?" he mimicked. "All innocent incomprehension, my dear? I am asking you if you were dismissed from your employment?"
Jessica's head dropped until one long aristocratic finger came beneath her chin and raised her face very firmly so that she was looking at him again.
"Of what are you accused?" he asked. "As I remember it, we were not even touching when we were so unfortunately disturbed. Not that I would not have had matters otherwise if I had had my way. Surely it must have been obvious to common sense that if we had been in the process of enjoying each other, we would not have been standing in the library, almost respectably clothed."
"In my employment I was not permitted to have any dealings with male guests," Jessica said.
" 'Dealings,' " he repeated. "Standing in the library very properly repulsing the advances of a male guest was construed as having dealings? My poor Miss Moore. I am so dreadfully sorry. I had no idea. Even when I left this morning, I was quite unaware that you had been called to account and sent packing."
Jessica wished he would remove his finger from beneath her chin. She was finding looking into his eyes very uncomfortable. "You do not owe me an apology, my lord," she said. "What happe
ned was not your fault. I have been in trouble before for leaving my room after retiring for the night. It was not your fault that I was in the library when I had no business being downstairs at all."
He looked searchingly into her eyes for a moment but was prevented from commenting by the arrival of the innkeeper with their dinner. He released his hold of her chin and gestured toward the table, where he seated her with marked courtesy. The landlord too, she noticed, bowed in her direction after filling her wine glass.
Jessica enjoyed the meal far more than she would have thought possible. The food was good, though plain. But it was not that that caused the enjoyment. She was not, truth to tell, hungry after a day of being squashed and jostled on the road. But she found the stiff courtesy of the valet as he served them soothing to her bruised pride. And she found Lord Rutherford an interesting and surprisingly charming host. He set himself to entertain her conversationally and did so, taking upon himself the whoie burden of introducing and developing various topics.
She realized at the end of the meal that he had succeeded in setting her entirely at her ease. And that was quite a feat when one considered that she was dining alone with a man whose attractions had been doing strange things to her heartbeat for all of a week. And how improper it was to be sitting thus with him, un-chaperoned in the private parlor of an inn! But really, she thought as she folded her napkin at the end of the meal, she did not care.
Lord Rutherford had settled back in his chair, one forearm resting on the table, playing with the stem of his empty wine glass. He was looking at her in such a way that she knew that the courtesy a host owed his guest during a meal was at an end. There would be no more purely social conversation, she thought with some regret.
"What are your plans, Miss Moore?" he asked.
Jessica smoothed the cloth before her on the table. "I shall move on to other employment," she said with a shrug.
"As what?" he asked. "I do not imagine the Barries have given you a glowing character reference with which to dazzle a future employer."
"No," she admitted after a short pause during which she could think of nothing else to say.
"You cannot be a governess, then," he said quietly, "or a lady's companion. Or a librarian. Or even a lady's maid. Probably not even a scullery maid. Do you have a family to which to return?"
"No," Jessica said after a moment's hesitation.
"I see," he said. "Your options are alarmingly few, are they not, my dear?"
"I am not worried," she said, lifting her chin and looking him in the eye. "Something will turn up."
"Probably," he agreed. "In fact, Miss Moore, I am in a position to offer you employment that is well paid and would place you in a positon of some security and some comfort."
Her eyes widened. She had an alarming feeling of deja vu.
"I do not believe you would regret the decision to become my mistress," the Earl of Rutherford said.
3
During the silent seconds that succeeded Lord Rutherford's words, Jessica mentally rejected the temptation to feign shock or outrage. She was not shocked. Indeed, she found now that the suggestion was out in the open, that she had been half expecting it. Not perhaps the request that she become his mistress. No, she had not given any thought to that. But she had been expecting, at however unconscious a level, that he would invite her to share his bed that night. Why else would he have summoned her to this private parlor? Out of the natural kindness of his heart?
Perhaps the only aspect of the matter that did surprise Jessica was her realization that she had also been weighing the idea in her mind. Would she stay with him? Would she renounce the principles of behavior and morality by which her whole life had been guided thus far for the sake of one night's comfort and pleasure? The alternative filled her with dread. The prospect of climbing the ladder to the attic in order to share the maid's bed was becoming more impossible to contemplate. And doubtless she would have the girl's insolence to contend with, especially after she had spent the evening in a gentleman's private parlor.
Why subject herself to such indignity when she could spend the night in the arms of a man with whom she really wished to stay? She was four and twenty already and had never been closer to a man's embrace than that smacking kiss under the mistletoe and a few somewhat more lingering but very chaste embraces from a childhood sweetheart before he discovered that marriage to her would not be socially wise. She did not want to go through life without discovering what it felt like to be with a man.
Then why not with the man she wished to be close to? The man who had told her only the previous night that he liked to give pleasure as well as to take. There was, of course, all the immorality of lying with a man who was not her husband. But what had morality gained her? A lonely, unfriendly journey to London, where no one awaited her and where there was no prospect of security, that was what.
And he was offering her the chance to make the comfort of this night a long-term arrangement. He wished to make her his mistress. He would take care of her. She would not have to worry about where she was to live, what she was to eat, where she was to find employment. It seemed incredible to Jessica that she could be seriously considering his proposal, but she was nonetheless.
Rutherford was looking across the table at her, a half-smile on his lips. "I find your silence encouraging," he said. "It really would not be a bad life, Miss Moore. I would provide you with a comfortable home, servants, a carriage. All your needs would be supplied. And your duties would not be arduous. Merely to please me. I believe you would not find that difficult to do. And I am vain enough to believe that you would not find the task unpleasant on your own account."
"I wish for honest employment, my lord," Jessica said, but she realized even as she spoke that her protest lacked conviction.
"And being my mistress would be dishonest?" he asked, his eyebrows raised so that he looked again as haughty as he had when he first entered the room.
"I have been brought up to believe so," she said.
"It is easy for the wealthy and secure to talk of morality, Miss Moore," he said. "I hate to bring brutal reality to your attention, my dear, but I believe you are face to face with it. Do you realize that if you refuse my offer it is very likely you will find yourself within the next week facing the choice of walking the streets or starving?"
Jessica had indeed thought of the possibility, though she did not suppose that if matters came to that crisis she would have the courage or the willpower to maintain the stubborn independence that had sustained her through the previous two years.
"Come, Miss Moore," Lord Rutherford said, removing his arm from the table and rising to his feet, "will you be my mistress?"
"Yes, I will, my lord," Jessica heard herself say.
"Splendid!" He smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners in a manner that quite turned her heart over. He strode around the table and held out a hand for one of hers. "I promise you will not be sorry, Miss Moore. What is your given name?"
"Jessica," she said, and she placed her hand in his and rose to her feet. It was a large, strong hand. She felt an inner twinge of panic.
"Jessica," he said, smiling again. "Jess. It suits you. Not in your present guise, of course. Does your hair not pain you, dragged back from your temples so ruthlessly? It is beautiful hair. Let me see it as it was last night."
He did not wait for her response. He lifted his hands and began to remove the pins that held her hair into its prim bun. His hands were gentle and surprisingly deft. Jessica fixed her eyes on the top button of his waistcoat and stood very still until she felt her hair cascade down around her face and against her back.
"Now you look like a Jess," he said, "and will do so even more when I have clothed you in pretty gowns. Never gray again, my dear. And certainly never that hair knot. You do not have to disguise yourself ever again, Jess Moore."
His fingers were combing through her hair. Jessica looked up into his face again. Her father had always called her Jess. No one else
ever had. Indeed, for the past two years no one had even called her Jessica.
And then he bent his head and kissed her. Very gently and unthreateningly. His hands were loosely twined in her hair. Only his lips touched her. But Jessica felt as if everything inside her changed places with everything else. This was it, then. She had said yes. She was going to be his mistress. She was allowing him to call her familiarly by name, to touch her. She was committed. She could not now object to anything he chose to do with her.
And what was more, she thought, as his hands moved to cup her face and his lips parted over hers, she did not want to. She knew that soon he must begin to touch her body. She knew that she would be taken through to the bedchamber, that he would unclothe her and lay her on the bed. And she knew that there she would make the final commitment that would forever remove her from the ranks of virtuous women, that would forever brand her fallen.
And she did not care. She wanted his hands on her. She wanted the unknown rites that would take place in the bedchamber. She wanted them over and done with so that she need not be plagued with further doubts. And she wanted them taking place now, here and now, because she knew, even without his having said so, that he would give her pleasure, that the events of the next minutes would be the most exciting of her whole life.
His hands did move down after a few moments, over her shoulders, to her full breasts, to her small waist and the curve of her hips. Jessica's heart beat so painfully that she thought she must faint.
"What a very effective disguise indeed," he murmured against her lips, "this gray sack, Jess. You have the shape of a goddess, my dear."
He spread his hands behind her hips as he looked down into her eyes and brought her slowly to him. She bit her lower lip and looked back at him as his hands slid up her back, bringing her fully and intimately against his body.