“ ‘Tis of no importance,” Willa murmured, searching her mistress’s face intently for signs of the distress that had wracked her most of the day. “I’m just glad you’re feeling…more the thing.”
Jessica looked at Raeburn. “Forgive me for being so tardy, Graham,” she said stiltedly, with a smile that only he could see did not reach her eyes. “I fear I let…personal concerns…get the better of my good manners. I hope I haven’t inconvenienced anyone.”
He said, “Nothing matters as long as you’re here.” He looked past her to a loitering footman. “Help Mrs. Foxe with her chair and then bring back the turkey for her.”
The manservant bowed his powdered wig and stepped over to pull back the chair beside Claire, but as he did, Daphne declared indignantly, “Graham, I will not have that woman at my table!”
“Daphne!”
“My lady!”
“For God’s sake, you stupid chit, hold your tongue!”
From around the table, the response was instant and varied. Claire was aghast, Flora confused, and John Mason’s sallow face seemed thoughtful and cunning, as if he were mentally recording every word. Lord Crowell looked as if he wanted to strike his sister. Only Raeburn’s broad features betrayed no emotion. He glanced up at Jessica, who stood stricken, motionless, one hand clenched about a carved finial on the back of the chair in which she had been about to sit, and he noted the way Willa slipped into the room to move protectively closer; then he turned to regard Daphne with narrowed eyes. “Perhaps you’d better explain yourself,” he said dangerously.
Daphne’s cheeks pinked at his tone, but she lifted her chin stubbornly. “I hardly think explanations are necessary, Graham,” she said tensely. “It is true that despite her questionable background, Mrs. Foxe is your kinswoman, and of course for that reason you must make allowances. But consistently you indulge her in behavior unthinkable in a woman of your own class. In fact, were the idea not so utterly absurd, one might almost credit you with a particular….”
Daphne shrugged away the asinine notion that suddenly took shape in her mind. “But Graham,” she continued hardily, “in four months’ time I am to be your wife. I will be mistress of your house and”—her blush deepened—“mother of your children. If you will not send Mrs. Foxe away out of respect for my sensibilities, then kindly remember that once we are married I will be responsible for the moral well-being of all who dwell under your roof. And I cannot countenance the presence of a woman so lacking in morals, so—so degraded that she carries on illicitly with—with stableboys!”
“No!” Claire choked, jumping to her feet, spots of hectic color glowing clownishly against her white skin.
“Hush, Claire,” Jessica muttered, coming to life at last. “Don’t say a word.”
Claire shook her head fiercely, bright curls bouncing with disconcerting merriment about her strained features. “No, Jess, I must.” She turned to her brother’s fiancée. “Daphne, you’re wrong,” she insisted. “It wasn’t like—”
“Claire,” Daphne said coldly, “you would do well to stay out of this. I can see that your brother and your chaperon have neglected your education sadly. A lady does not speak of such matters, except when they become so egregious that they cannot be ignored, as in this case. Everyone, even my own maid, knows what happened last night: Graham discovered Mrs. Foxe and a groom in their sordid little liaison, and after she deserted her paramour, Graham rightly took a horsewhip to the man for his insolence. It is bad enough that you have been exposed to a person so—”
“But you’re wrong!” Claire repeated, her voice becoming shrill with guilt and temper. Tears beaded on her red-gold lashes. “You’re all wrong: it wasn’t Jessica who met Fred O’Shea in the stables last night. It was I!”
The girl’s declaration reverberated around the dining room in the stunned silence that followed it. Jessica watched Claire sink weakly back into her chair, all defiance spent, and she shook her head sadly. “Oh, Claire”—she sighed—“why didn’t you keep quiet? Truly I could have handled it.” She glanced toward the head of the table, where Raeburn sat motionless, his strong features slack with shock. She said gently, “It’s not as bad as you think, Graham; just a—an impetuous prank, that’s all. I followed Claire to the stables, where I overheard enough of their conversation to realize that she had gone to O’Shea in all innocence, and I intruded upon the scene before he could harm her.”
Raeburn tore his flinty gaze away from his sister’s face and looked up at Jessica, who stood beside the girl, her chin held high. One slim hand rested with maternal protectiveness on Claire’s shoulder, and just under the flounced cuff Raeburn could see the edge of the gauze that circled her wrist; he noticed inconsequentially that the bandage had been reapplied more skillfully, probably with Willa’s assistance. “And you would not have told me anything?” he husked. “You would have let me go on believing….”
“My shoulders are broader than Claire’s,” Jessica said.
Raeburn caught his breath with a hiss. “Oh, Lord,” he groaned, “what a coil.” He surveyed the company assembled, their varying expressions of confusion and distress. With dismay his eyes settled briefly on John Mason, whose cadaverous features imperfectly concealed an expression of near-triumphant gloating. It was insupportable that such a man should be made privy to Claire’s indiscretion. Suddenly he remembered obscure stories he had heard whispered about the artist, and he wondered grimly if he was to be approached with a request for patronage in exchange for Mason’s silence…. With a mixture of pity and exasperation Raeburn regarded his sister’s tear-stained cheeks. Not for an instant did he doubt her innocence, although he felt like shaking her for being so—so criminally stupid. A groom, for God’s sake! Yet, perhaps it was partly his own fault. She was so very young, and, he admitted, since Andrew’s death he had not given her the attention she needed. In the face of his neglect he supposed it was only natural that she would turn to the nearest man available for affection.
With an effort at lightness he chuckled. “I swear, Clairie, you’re fast becoming too much for me to handle; must be your red hair…. Perhaps we’d better take you to Town and set about finding you a husband who will know how to deal with all that fire in you.”
Claire blinked away the moisture in her eyes and stared at her brother, her face lighting with hope. “You—you mean it, Graham? You’ll let me have my come-out this spring after all?”
Raeburn smiled indulgently. “I think it’s not a moment before time, don’t you agree?”
Beside him Daphne declared pettishly, “You pamper her far too much, Graham. To reward such an indecent escapade! And what about our wedding plans? Won’t a formal debut interfere? I thought we had agreed—”
“Daphne,” Raeburn began deeply, “there’s something that you and I need to—”
On the other side of the table Lord Crowell heard the ominous undertone in his host’s voice. He lifted his head from his wineglass and interrupted with heavy joviality, “Daph’s right, you know, Raeburn. A wedding and a presentation at the same time would make a hubble-bubble so frantic that a man might consider enlisting for the Peninsula just to get a little peace! On the other hand, I know another solution that would make everyone happy…. Why don’t we make it a double wedding?”
Raeburn swiveled his head to regard the young duke blankly. “What on earth are you suggesting?”
Lord Crowell flushed slightly. “I—I should think it would be obvious. A double wedding: you and my sister, me and—and…” his voice faded as Raeburn’s eyes narrowed quellingly. Gulping down the last dregs of his wine, he sputtered sullenly, “By God, Raeburn, don’t—don’t scowl at me like that. I know I ought to have applied to you privately first, but, dammit, man, we’re practically brothers! Surely you—you realize….” His tongue stumbled thickly over the formal words. “It—it cannot have es-escaped your notice that I find Lady Claire a most delightful and ap-appealing young—”
“No!”
Once more;
a cry of shocked feminine protest echoed through the room, but when the people around the table turned automatically to Claire, they saw that she looked as startled as they. Polite confusion altered to gasping amazement when Willa Brown left Jessica’s side and ran to Raeburn, squeezing into the space between his chair and Daphne’s. She fell to her knees, shaking and white-faced, and she clutched at his sleeve with work-roughened fingers. “Your Lordship,” she pleaded hoarsely, her voice quavering, “I beg of you, listen to me. If—if you love your sister, do not even think about giving her to that—that man. You don’t know him, what he is truly like. He is—he is evil!”
Lord Crowell jumped to his feet, his thick body trembling with outrage. “Of all the damned impudence!” he exploded. “By God, I’ll—” He made as if to lunge across the table at Willa, but Raeburn waved him back.
“Leave her alone, Crowell,” he said with grim force, his narrowed eyes glinting like gunmetal.
“Graham!” Daphne squawked, mortally offended, but her brother silenced her.
“Shut up, Daph,” he growled before facing Raeburn again. The sallow skin of his puffy cheeks glistened feverishly above the points of his heavily starched collar. “Raeburn,” he demanded, sneering, “are you so spineless that you’re going to permit a—a servant to insult me, your guest, your future brother-in-law, in your own home?”
For a long moment Raeburn studied the younger man thoughtfully. At last he answered with an enigmatic smile, his voice quiet and controlled. “Yes, I am—if I think she’s telling the truth.”
Crowell blinked, uncertain he had heard correctly. “T-truth?” he blustered, subsiding jerkily into his chair when he saw that Raeburn was serious. “Wh-what truth? What is she accusing me of? I’ve never laid eyes on that wench in my life!” He fell silent, and the only sound about the table was the clink of crystal as he groped for the wine decanter.
Raeburn looked down at Willa, who still crouched at his feet, her head bent in petition so that only the top of her mobcap was visible. He tapped her shoulder lightly, and she looked up at him with fearful brown eyes, glancing uncertainly at the large hand that touched her with a gentleness she had never before known from a man. With a pang he realized that she reminded him of a whipped puppy that is afraid to be petted. He urged soothingly, “Stand up, Willa. No one is going to hurt you, I promise. No one is going to call you a liar. I think I know you well enough to be certain that you would not have spoken as you did unless you were sure you had good cause. So, stand up now, girl, and say what you have to say.”
Slowly, awkwardly, Willa rose to her feet. She wiped her damp palms on her skirt and tucked an errant tendril of her yellow hair back beneath the ruffle of her cap. She gazed at Jessica, who still stood beside Claire, and in her mistress’s green eyes she saw compassion and encouragement and dawning comprehension.
“Yes, tell us, Willa,” Jessica said softly, a hint of steel in her silky voice. “It’s high time there was a little justice in this world.”
Willa nodded and stood a little straighter, lifting her chin. Her face growing rosy with triumph, she shot a glance of fulminating contempt at Lord Crowell. “He’s never seen me before, he says,” she muttered with ironic disgust. “Ever since he came to Renard Chase I’ve been hiding from him, afraid he’d recognize me…and now I find out he doesn’t even remember!” She took a ragged breath and addressed Raeburn again, her voice deeply respectful, ringing out in the charged silence.
“Your Lordship,” she said, meeting his gaze evenly, “you know me for what I am—and you know how it was with me before. It’s never been any secret that from the time I was a child I walked the streets, not by my own choice but because—well, because that’s just the way of the world, I suppose. There’s many like me, too many….” She sighed, then shrugged. “Anyway, Your Lordship, as I was saying, you know what I was, so I won’t pretend otherwise, just as I won’t try to lie about what I was doing in front of St. Paul’s that night. The—the woman who employed me expected her girls to stay round Covent Garden—that’s where the really flash coves go when they’re looking for a bit of…. But whenever I could get away from her I’d sneak over to the church and hide behind the pillars. I felt safer there, and if some bloke did happen my way, I could get a good look at him first, before I approached him….”
Willa paused, and when she spoke again, her voice was thick with recollected pain. Her eyes clouded and she said huskily, “It was getting late, Your Lordship, and I’d been there in the shadows for hours. I knew I had to get out and—and find someone, or else I’d get a cane taken to me if I came home without any money, so when this swank carriage pulled up beside me and this man—him!” she elaborated, pointing at Crowell, “leaned out the window and showed me a guinea, I—I climbed inside. I remember thinking as how I might not get whipped for a week if I brought home real gold…. So I asked him how—how he wanted me to do him, and he kind of chuckled and said, ‘Not in a carriage, I value my comfort more than that,’ and we drove down by the river.
“I thought he was one of those as kept a room rented somewhere so their families won’t guess what they’re up to. But when we stopped and the door was opened, I saw that we were in an alley, black as pitch, I could hear people moving around, but they were just shadows, and I was afraid, but when I tried to get back into the coach, he—Lord Crowell—pushed me out again. Someone flashed a dark lantern in my face, and someone else laughed, ‘It looks like you caught us a juicy young one this time, Billy’. Then the lantern was closed and they—they grabbed me….”
By the time Willa paused in her recitation, Jessica was sobbing quietly. “Oh, Miss Jess”—Willa sighed, gazing at her tenderly—“forgive me. I never meant you to hear.” She turned back to Raeburn. “There were seven of them, Your Lordship,” she said tersely. “The only one whose face I saw was him there, but I counted their voices, and from the way they talked I knew they were all gentry. I used to think that I had learned to survive anything, but by the time they—they finished with me, all I wanted to do was die….”
She looked again at her mistress, who was now being comforted by Claire; then she stared straight at Lord Crowell, who shrank back in his chair, his piggy blue eyes narrowed as if he were puzzling over something. To Raeburn she concluded with weary dispassion, “If it weren’t for that dear lady crying for me there, I would have drowned myself in the river…and when I got to hell I know I would have found out that the devil has Lord Crowell’s face.”
The only sounds in the room were the crackle of the fire in the hearth and Jessica’s weeping muffled against Claire’s shoulder; then Raeburn turned to Barston and said, “See that Lord Crowell’s luggage is packed and loaded onto the carriage within the hour.”
“Very good, my lord,” the butler replied stolidly, signaling to the footmen with a movement of his powdered head.
The duke jerked upright in his seat. “By God, Raeburn,” he sputtered, “you—you can’t mean…you’d take the word of a little slut like—”
“Oh, do be quiet, Billy,” John Mason drawled, reaching past Crowell for the wine decanter. “Have the good grace for once to admit that your sins have found you out.”
Crowell turned furiously to the artist. “Dammit, Johnny, you promised no one would ever know!”
Splashing burgundy into his glass, Mason shrugged. “No, Billy. What I said was that I would do all in my power to keep your unsavory little habits a secret. I can hardly be held responsible if you were fool enough to let one of your pigeons recognize you….”
“Sweet Jesus,” Raeburn groaned, sickened, “are you telling me that you too were party to this—this….”
Mason’s yellow eyes regarded his host benignly. “Oh, no, my lord. Membership in that rather, shall we say, exclusive group was—is—open only to certain…adventurous…peers. I was not aware of its existence until just a few months ago when I came into possession of some letters written by a young viscount who has since fallen in His Majesty’s service at Galicia.�
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Crowell choked, and Raeburn ventured acutely, “And since acquiring those letters you’ve been using them to extort money and favors, is that it? How did you do it, Mason? Did you blackmail them with the threat of those cartoons of yours?”
Mason pursed his mouth in thought, sucking in his cheeks so that his face looked more skull-like than ever. He said mildly, “My lord, ‘blackmail is such an ugly word. I prefer to think of myself as an older, wiser influence trying to curb…youthful exuberance.”
Raeburn swore so viciously that the women jumped, especially Daphne, when he turned on her. “Well, Daphne,” he demanded harshly, “did you know about this too?”
Daphne grimaced with distaste. “I have always made it a point never to probe into my brother’s private life, but I can’t say these revelations surprise me. Everyone knows that men are animals.”
“Indeed,” Raeburn said coldly, staring down at her as if he had never seen her before. “If that is your true opinion of my sex, then I am right amazed that you should wish to marry.”
“If there were any alternative—” Daphne began, only just catching herself. She took a deep breath and regarded Raeburn steadily. “I will do my duty, Graham.”
Raeburn gazed down at the woman he had chosen to be his bride, the mother of his children, and he wondered bleakly if when he proposed he could have been suffering a temporary derangement brought on by the double shock of Andrew’s death and Jessica’s disappearance. Nothing else could explain it. The thought of taking Daphne into his arms, embracing that scrawny body while she lay stiffly beneath him and ‘did her duty’…. His mind returned irresistibly to the night he had just spent with Jessica, so willing, so giving; the nights they would spend together in future…. With the faintest twinge of guilt at the way he was treating Daphne, he said to her, “No, my dear, I am not a barbarian to demand such a sacrifice from you. I want no martyrs in my bed. And because it is so patently clear that you and I should not suit, I must withdraw my offer of marriage.”
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