His voice lifted interrogatively, reminding Jessica of his repeated questions on the subject of how she had survived during the past year. She knew he was frankly mistrustful of her claims that she had supported her family by giving drawing lessons, and she suspected that only the patent lack of any male presence in her household had prevented him from accusing her of accepting some man’s carte blanche. More than once she had been tempted to tell him the truth, disclosing her identity as the cartoonist Erinys, but each time she opened her mouth to speak her furious denials had been silenced by the ominous realization that she needed to preserve her anonymity in case she and her child should have to flee the Chase again. She thought with grim satisfaction of her secret account in the Brighton bank. To Raeburn the sum of Jessica’s assets would seem niggling, pitifully small, but to Jessica that small amount of money spelled security. On that day when the earl at last manufactured some pretext for taking Lottie from her, he would discover to his chagrin that his widowed sister-in-law was not the typically helpless, utterly vulnerable female that he assumed her to be….
The carriage passed through the arched gates and onto the smooth graveled driveway, shifting slightly at the difference in road surface. The baby whimpered uneasily in Willa’s arms, and the maid crooned soothingly to her. Jessica glanced warily at Raeburn. Like most men, he was not enamored of young children, and he had assumed that Lottie would travel separately with Willa in the slower baggage coach; however, when Jessica had reminded him, flushing, that she needed to stay beside her daughter in order to feed her, he had vetoed the suggestion that she too ride with her maid. The breaking weather had made it unlikely that Raeburn would then elect to make the journey on his great gray stallion while the women rode inside the elegant carriage, but still Jessica had thought that somehow he would find a way to travel apart from them. When they had all been crowded into the coach, Raeburn ignoring Willa as if she were invisible and taking only minimal notice of Lottie, Jessica wondered irritably if he feared she would try to leap from the moving carriage if he did not keep her under constant surveillance.
But when, at irregular intervals, Jessica had draped her shawl modestly over her thin shoulders before she unbuttoned the bodice of her dress to nurse her baby, her irritation was superseded by another emotion that she was unable to name.
Raeburn watched her actions with a hooded intensity that disturbed her deeply, his close gaze making her extremely reluctant to bare her breast in his presence, even for this most natural of purposes. Somehow all she could think of was that day by the roadside when his large hands had fondled her in a way no man had ever done before, and she blushed deeply, wondering if he remembered it too…. Inevitably her tension had communicated itself to her child, making Lottie fussy and colicky. The dreary journey out of London had begun to stretch endlessly.
“It’s good to be home,” Raeburn said fervently when the carriage swayed to a halt at the foot of the wide steps leading up to the colonnaded portico. He glanced at Jessica as if challenging her to dispute his exclamation, and she refrained from commenting that in winter she found the cold marble facade of Renard Chase about as inviting as an iceberg.
Silently she adjusted her bonnet, her lips pursed, her green eyes unreadable. An instant later a footman garbed in smart blue and gray livery swung open the door, and when he stepped back, bowing deeply, Raeburn looked out the door, recoiling in surprise. “Oh, damn,” he muttered, “what does that woman think this is, a royal progress?” After a second he leaped down from the coach with that grace that always surprised Jessica and turned to hold out his hand to her.
Leaning forward from the squabs, Jessica saw what had startled him; a double row of servants flanked up the steps, waiting in the chilly, frost-laden wind with grim expectation, silent and intimidating. She hesitated in confusion, fighting down an urgent desire to slam the door shut again. As she wavered, Raeburn’s wide mouth thinned, and in a low rumble he chided, “Buck up, my girl, I thought you had more spirit than that….” With a sigh of resignation Jessica pulled her pelisse tight about her and placed her small, mittened hand in his.
Rigidly she mounted the marble steps, her chin high, her arm tucked securely through Raeburn’s. He nodded cordially to the senior members of his household and muttered again, with less humor, “Dammit, Jess, relax! Despite the way they’re lined up, these are my servants, not some Paris mob, so there’s no need for you to act like an aristo climbing into a tumbril.”
“I’m not an aristocrat at all,” she shot back acidly, her eyes trained on a point somewhere above the powdered head of the butler at the top of the stairs. “That’s the problem. There’s not a man or woman here who doesn’t know that my birth is as humble as their own. They’d be more willing to accept—”
“They’ll accept you as my sister-in-law,” the earl growled impatiently. “That’s all that matters.”
“Oh, Graham, don’t be naif,” Jessica began, thinking of the thousand little slights she had suffered when she first came to Renard Chase, the tiny indignities she had suffered as the servants, taking their cue from their master’s offhand attitude, reminded her in their own subtle ways that she was no better than….
“Graham, you’re back!” a light, musical voice squealed with unfeigned delight, and as Jessica hesitated, startled, a tall girl with bright red hair rocketed out of the doorway and burst through the ranks of servants, flinging herself at the earl.
Jessica recoiled instinctively as Raeburn released her arm. She was not ready yet to meet her enemy…. Raeburn caught the girl easily, his massive chest absorbing the impact of her exuberant greeting as he steadied her slender shoulders with his large hands. “Easy now, Clairie,” he teased, hugging her fondly, “else you’ll have us all rolling around like ninepins at the foot of the stairs. Comport yourself as a lady and prove to Jess that you’ve abandoned your hoydenish ways since last she saw you.”
“Oh, Graham”—the girl laughed, her bouncing curls gleaming ruddily in the watery sunlight—“don’t you start sounding like Aunt Talmadge! She wanted me to sit in the parlor doing needlework until you called for me, but I just couldn’t wait that long. I had to see you.” She turned to face Jessica, and her naturally pale cheeks were faintly pink. “J-Jessica?” she ventured, as if uncertain of her reception.
Jessica struggled to school her expression, astonished by that hesitant note in her young sister-in-law’s voice, so different from the imperious tone she had always affected in the past. Staring at her, Jessica realized that Claire’s attitude was not the only thing that had altered considerably since she first met her. The coltish, freckled fifteen-year-old whose unruly red hair had been worn in frizzy plaits was now a young woman, tall and slim, her blossoming figure graceful in a fashionable day dress of cream-colored wool. The freckles had faded, and the startling hair, cropped, was worn in a tangle of curls, the deceptively artless coiffure that Raeburn said took two maids to achieve. Only those wide brown eyes were as Jessica remembered them, dark and velvety, and they reminded her so much of her husband that she shivered.
Raeburn sensed that shudder, and his hand caught her wrist, as if he feared she might flee. “Well, Jess, have you nothing to say?” he demanded.
Jessica continued to gaze at the girl, her emotions an unstable amalgam of pain and nostalgia. At last she murmured, “I had forgotten how very like Andrew you are…Lady Claire.” She could not help the irony that crept into her voice as she added that title, but when she saw the girl’s obvious chagrin, she wished she had maintained better control over her tongue.
“Oh, please, Jessica,” Claire pleaded, “don’t—don’t be so formal with me. I—I want us to be sisters now.”
“Sisters, my lady?” Jessica queried drily, and she felt Raeburn’s grip tighten so painfully around her wrist that she winced.
“Yes, Jessica,” Claire continued earnestly, unaware of her brother’s action, “or at least, friends. I know I was a brat to you before, unbearably high in the instep, bu
t—but I hope you’ll let all that be in the past now. We’ve both lost someone we loved very much, and I’d like to think that—that….”
Her young voice cracked suddenly, and Jessica realized that for a girl like Claire, cosseted and spoiled since birth; reared to believe in her inherent superiority, having her every whim catered to, such an apology must be difficult in the extreme. The daughters of earls were not often called upon to humble themselves before a clergyman’s offspring. For the first time in days, Jessica felt her chilled heart warm. Perhaps there was hope, after all…. With real gratitude for the effort the girl was making, Jessica leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “My dearest sister,” she said quietly.
From beneath lowered lashes she glanced up at Raeburn, expecting to read pleasure in his narrowed gray eyes—or perhaps mockery—at her capitulation. But, strangely, the expression she saw mirrored there was something quite different, something—unexpected. Jealousy? Jessica thought in bewilderment. Resentment because she had smiled at his sister? No, no, of course not….
Raeburn asked abruptly, “Where’s Aunt Talmadge, Claire? There’s someone else the two of you must meet.” He turned and beckoned to Willa, who had stood apart, Lottie cradled expertly in her arms. “Come, girl,” he barked, and Willa stepped forward between the ranks of liveried footmen, her weak chin held high as she ignored their knowing glances.
Despite the adversities of the year she had dwelt in Brighton with her mistress, the anonymity of their position had given Willa time to forget some of the horrors of the past and mend her shattered self-esteem. She had been able to pretend that she had never been anything but an ordinary domestic, lowly but industrious and virtuous. The return to Renard Chase, where everyone from the earl himself down to the meanest scullery maid knew her history, put an end to that happy obscurity, and only Willa’s deep love and profound obligation to Jessica had induced her to come with them. When Jessica, sensing Willa’s reluctance, had offered her independence by sharing her small savings with her, Willa had refused, saying with a bleak smile, “No, Miss Jess. How can I leave you and the little one alone in that great house when you don’t even know enough to keep your feet warm and dry…?”
“Come, Willa,” Jessica said quietly, when she saw the maid hesitate. “It’s time for Lottie to meet her aunt Claire.”
“ ‘Aunt Claire,’ ” Claire echoed with pleasure as Jessica took her sleeping daughter into her arms and gently pulled back the blanket from her face. “I like the sound of that.” She glanced impishly at her brother, her brown velvet eyes outlining his powerful body. “I think I shall enjoy hearing you called Uncle. It will make a welcome change from all this ‘my lord’-ing. Will you mind very much? Somehow ‘Uncle Graham’ makes you sound rather cuddly….”
Raeburn said repressively, “Considering that I’ve been aware of my new status as an uncle for scarcely a week, I’ve hardly had time to give the matter much thought.”
“That’s funny,” Claire said, still teasing. “I’ve thought of nothing else since you sent word that….” Her voice faded as she turned back the edge of the blanket and gazed down at the baby’s tender features, petal-smooth skin startlingly white against the flaming curls that peeked from under the edge of the soft infant cap. “Oh, Jessica,” Claire whispered reverently, “she’s—she’s beautiful.” When she looked up again, her soft eyes shimmered. “Andy would have been so proud,” she said hoarsely.
Jessica felt her throat constrict, and she shivered with a spasm of some curious emotion that might have been guilt. In all her battles with Raeburn, her continuing arguments over what was best for her child’s welfare, not once had she asked herself what Andrew would have wanted for his daughter….
From the doorway behind them, another voice, feminine but querulous, intruded on Jessica’s reunion with her sister-in-law, rapping sharply, “Claire, come here!”
Claire’s shoulders slumped. When Jessica glanced around and saw the woman standing behind her, her plump form framed by the tall menservants on either side of her, her spirits sank. She did not have to meet the glare of those pale eyes squinting balefully to know that at least one member of the household had not altered her opinion of the upstart drawing teacher. “Aunt” Flora Talmadge, a distant cousin of the Foxes and Claire’s chaperon when Raeburn was not at hand, regarded Jessica with open dislike. Her small mouth curled disdainfully as it had in those days when she had spied on Jessica and Andrew’s clandestine meetings in the portrait gallery, giving her pudgy face the pinched, tentative expression of someone about to sneeze. Jessica noted with spiteful triumph that the woman’s upper lip was still spotted from the cucumber lotion with which she bathed it nightly in a futile attempt to bleach out her grizzled ghost of a mustache.
Mrs. Talmadge’s gaze shifted to her charge. “Claire, how many times must I tell you not to go out of doors without your cloak? You’ll catch your death. Come inside at once!” the woman snapped, and Claire flushed hotly.
“Yes, Aunt,” she mumbled, staring down at the ground like a scolded child, but before she could turn toward the door, Raeburn’s large hand closed firmly over her shoulder, “Really, Aunt Talmadge,” he said with quiet force, “I hardly think my sister should be chided for her enthusiasm in greeting a member of the family who has been too long absent from us. At such a happy moment, anyone could be excused for forgetting such a trifle as a cloak, unless she were already unwell. Claire enjoys good health, does she not?”
“Oh, yes, of course, Graham,” the woman persisted unctuously, “as I always say in my letters, I have made Lady Claire’s well-being my primary—”
Raeburn waved her to silence. “I’m sure you’ve been most diligent,” he drawled. Then, glancing at the servants assembled on the steps, some visibly shivering beneath their smart livery, his gray eyes narrowed. “Would that someone took as good care of my staff,” he muttered. “Tell me, Aunt, whose idea was it for everyone to stand on parade in the cold?”
“You sent word that we should make our guest feel welcome,” Mrs. Talmadge said doggedly.
“I said to prepare for my sister-in-law’s return to the family,” Raeburn corrected with scathing emphasis. “That, my dear aunt, is another thing altogether, as you must well know. In such a case, too much ceremony is quite as offensive as too little. I suggest that you exercise a little moderation in future.”
“As you wish, Graham,” she muttered, but the glance that she shot in Jessica’s direction boded ill for the future.
Raeburn turned to the butler and said, “You may dismiss the staff, Barston, with my apologies for the misunderstanding that brought them out of doors on such a day. I suggest that you have the kitchen prepare a hot negus for everyone before they return to their regular duties.
The butler’s face remained carefully impassive, but his eyes reflected his surprise at this unexpected treat. “Very good, my lord. Thank you.”
“Think nothing of it. Later on we’ll have to arrange something festive to celebrate the return of my brother’s wife and child to their home.”
“Very good, my lord,” Barston said again, bowing deeply, and Raeburn turned to usher the women through the door into the house. As Jessica crossed the threshold she overheard this snatch of conversation with astonishment. A celebration? She had never imagined such a thing, especially not one that would encompass the servants as well. Suddenly she wondered if Raeburn had indeed been more aware of the household’s attitude toward her than she had thought, and if this was his way of winning the staff over to her.
Inside, Jessica handed her mist-damped cloak and bonnet to the waiting footman and glanced around her, shivering despite the overheated atmosphere. She had not been inside this house since the day of Andrew’s funeral, and she thought bitterly that the marble floors and looming columns looked as sepulchral now as they had then, the bouquets of flowers fresh from the orangery somehow stiff with invisible crepe. From just behind her, as if reading her thoughts, Raeburn murmured, “It’s been
a long year, Jess, full of sorrow, but the house will be happier now with a child in it.”
She looked back over her shoulder and met his gaze squarely. “Will it, Graham?” she asked in a savage undertone. “Or will the gloom instead infect my daughter until she too becomes as silent and cold as a stone cherub?”
He shook his head. “I won’t let that happen, Jess. I promise you that Lottie is going to be happy here. She’ll be coddled and cherished by everyone, and naturally”—he hesitated for a fraction of a second—“once I am married, I hope there will in due time be a regiment of little cousins for her to play with.”
Jessica smiled weakly. “Yes, of course. I was forgetting that—”
Flora Talmadge’s voice cut into their private conversation with, the subtlety of a bludgeon. “Graham, I knew you would be chilled after your long journey, so I’ve ordered a tea in the small parlor. Mrs. Foxe, I am sure, will wish to retire to her room to rest. I’ll have refreshments sent up to her there.”
Claire started to protest, and Raeburn said tightly, “I’m sure my sister and I can delay our meal until Jessica is able to join us in the parlor.”
Jessica was uncertain whether it was a lingering side effect of her illness or merely the expression on Mrs. Talmadge’s face, but suddenly she felt far too exhausted for argument. The emotional shocks of the last few days had drained her more than she cared to admit, and now she longed only for rest and quiet. Touching Raeburn’s sleeve lightly, she said, “Please, Graham, there’s no need to wait for me. I think—I think I’d like to retire for the night, if you don’t mind.”
“So early, Jess?” he asked, frowning.
She nodded. “I am very weary. If someone will direct Willa and me to our—”
The Clergyman's Daughter Page 6