by Eva Leigh
And then he was gone, his footsteps resounding in the corridor, speedy and clipped as he quickly walked away from her.
She stared at the space he’d occupied for a long, terrible moment. Behind her, she heard the chatter, the excitement over the duke’s jest, with cheerful music from the orchestra beneath it all. Surely the papers would declare the earl’s gathering a rousing success, and people would talk about it, boasting if they had been there to witness it all, or else bemoaning the fact that they had not been in attendance.
All of this came to her as if she stared through a spyglass at some distant shore, far, far from her.
She walked heavily down the stairs, into a world absent of Noel.
Chapter 26
Jess stepped out of the servants’ entrance, carrying her battered satchel. She had to leave behind the extensive lady’s wardrobe, but those garments had never been hers in the first place. She was back to being Jess McGale again, with Jess McGale’s minimal belongings.
It would be a long walk to the coaching yard, carrying this bag. She hefted it onto her shoulder to redistribute the weight.
Sorrow weighed heaviest. She’d carry Noel’s sadness and sense of betrayal all the years ahead. What came next, she’d no idea. Though Noel had saved her from utter public humiliation, there’d be no rescuing McGale & McGale. Their investors would surely withdraw their capital.
It would all be gone soon. Everything. She’d lost him—for what?
She blinked hard, pushing back tears. In the past, she’d been able to salvage some semblance of hope, some slender lifeline to cling to. Misfortune had befallen her many times, and many times, she’d pressed onward, determined to persevere. If not for her own sake, for the sake of her family.
Not this time. There was nothing to clutch tightly, no faint prospect that she might somehow recover things. It was a new world and she’d no idea how to survive in it.
First, she needed to return home. With any luck, there’d be a mail coach heading toward Wiltshire tonight.
She took a step and her foot connected with a stone. It careened across the yard and knocked against the stable wall.
“Bloody bad luck, getting sacked,” Lynch said as he emerged from the stables. His coat was gone and his waistcoat undone, and he held a book.
“I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
He waved off her comment. “No one but me and the horses, and we don’t mind a bit of to-do now and again.” Lynch’s mouth curved into a sardonic half smile. “Whenever us working folk try to step out of the box they’ve made for us, we get beaten back.”
“Foolish of me to attempt it.” She couldn’t keep the edge of bitterness from her voice.
Lynch stepped closer. “We’ve got to try, otherwise everything stays the same. The gentry get what they want, and we’re left in the muck. Bunch of blackguards, the lot of ’em.”
“Not all of them are bad,” she said automatically. “Some try to do good with the power they’re given.” She dashed a knuckle across her eyes in a vain attempt to stem her tears.
“You’ll find a way back onto your feet. Can’t keep a good woman from rising up. Like the sun. Every morning she’s up in the east.”
“Thank you,” Jess said. “For telling me it’s all right to dream. It’s just . . .” She swallowed. “It’s terrible when those dreams break apart.”
“They’ll mend.” He shrugged. “Or they won’t. Life likes to kick us in the bollocks.”
“It does,” she said ruefully. She’d fought hard, but perhaps those efforts had been laughable. God knew, she’d been deluding herself to ever believe she could have Noel.
“I’ll take that.” He plucked the satchel from her hand and walked toward the stables. “I’m giving you a ride to the coaching yard.”
“Kind of you—but the mistress won’t like it.”
He said over his shoulder, “Nothing kind about it. I just like telling them abovestairs to kiss my arse.”
A laugh broke from her, like a bird startled from the scrub. “I’d say you were a good man, Lynch, but I’m not sure you are.”
“Then we’re a pair, ain’t we?” He set her bag inside the carriage. “Now get aboard while I hitch the horses, and we’ll get you the hell out of London.”
She climbed into the vehicle and waited. As she did, she fought to bring comforting images of home to mind, seeking solace in its familiarity of the house itself and the fields and all the places she loved best. But all she could imagine was the vast open spaces of her broken heart.
“Your Grace,” Beale said with barely suppressed horror as Noel stepped into the bedchamber. “What has become of your coat?”
At his valet’s exclamation, Noel glanced down at himself. His coat had begun the evening in a much more unsullied state, and now, after a night wandering the streets of London before finding himself at a dockside tavern, it was rumpled and stained. At least the blood on the sleeve wasn’t his. It had spurted from the mouth of a man who’d thought it a fine diversion to pick a fight with a toff.
The tooth Noel had knocked from his assailant’s mouth now lay upon the floor of the tavern, to be swept up—or not—by an unfortunate taproom wench.
“And your eye is atrocious,” Beale added.
Noel’s hand drifted up to the swelling spot beneath his left eye. The man who’d accosted him had managed to get in a single punch, but that lone blow had been enough. Noel would surely sport a bruise for a goodly while.
“Have you been to bed?” Noel rasped as he lowered himself into the chair by the fire. This was hardly the first time he’d kept his servants awake waiting for him, but tonight he carried the stink of the docks and cheap gin rather than the smell of expensive wine and a woman’s perfume.
Beale crossed the room and tugged on the bellpull. “I amused myself by playing craps and beating the footmen out of sixpence.” A few moments went by, and Mrs. Hitcham, the housekeeper, appeared. “His Grace requires a bath immediately. And some beefsteak for his eye.”
“Yes, Mr. Beale.” The housekeeper curtsied before speeding away.
Noel leaned his head back and closed his eyes, weary beyond imagining but certain he’d never find rest again. He tried to put his pain in a neat container, labeling it Betrayal and setting it on the shelf. He wasn’t the first person to face treachery at the hands of a beloved. Others survived such grievous wounds. Surely he could do the same.
Try as he might, agony kept pushing its way out of its box. It wouldn’t be contained, wouldn’t be labeled. It simply was, and that was had become all-encompassing, taking over everything. Stealing his breath and grabbing him by the throat.
Jess. His lovely, brilliant Jess. Another liar who had used him.
He’d stupidly believed she was different from everyone else around him. With the exception of the Union, she’d been the one person he could trust, with whom he could fully be himself. He’d told her things he’d never revealed to anyone—she hadn’t needed or wanted the urbane, influential Duke of Rotherby. She’d wanted Noel, the man. He’d been both physically and metaphorically naked with her, completely unguarded.
And what had that gotten him? Treachery.
He dimly heard the door open and servants walk through to his bathing chamber, then the sound of water being poured into his copper tub. The servants retreated, and Noel was once again alone with Beale.
“Up, Your Grace,” his valet commanded. “We need to peel that abomination of a coat from you. There’s every likelihood that it will require burning, not washing.”
“Do with it what you like.” Noel heaved himself to standing, shucking his coat as he did so. He had never liked being dressed or undressed by a servant, so he proceeded to strip himself, handing his garments to Beale.
He padded into the bathing chamber. Dawn light crept through the curtain in the narrow window, and a low-burning lamp illuminated the steam rising up from his waiting bathwater.
“For God’s sake, Your Grace, don’t dally.” Beale
pointed to the bath. “In you go.”
Noel grumbled, but he’d grown used to his valet’s high-handed ways. He stepped into the tub and sank down into the water with a groan. He ached everywhere—but the hot water couldn’t touch the hurt that burrowed deep in his chest.
“Bathe first,” Beale directed, “beefsteak after. Here.” He put a cake of soap into Noel’s hand.
Jess was everywhere. She surrounded him, engulfed him in her scent of honey and sunshine, and his heart leapt up with joy. Was she here?
“What the fuck is this?” he growled at the soap in his hand.
His valet paused as he straightened a stack of towels. “It’s from that farm you visited in Wiltshire. McGann? McGill?”
“McGale.” Noel lobbed the soap across the room. It hit the wall and slid to the floor. Yet the scent held to his hand, and he scrubbed at it. He lifted his hands to his face and inhaled. The smell of her clung to his skin. “Get me another goddamned soap.”
He never spoke to Beale so curtly, certainly not about something as inconsequential as soap, but anger and pain rose up as the scent held fast to him.
“Yes, Your Grace.” The valet opened a cabinet and pulled out another cake of soap. He held it out to Noel. “Will this do?”
Noel took the soap and breathed in its fragrance. It was his usual soap, purchased from a Bond Street shop, and perfumed with bergamot. “It’ll suffice.”
He worked up a lather and washed, his movements jerky and tight. Surely to Beale he seemed like the veriest madman, throwing tantrums over soap, but Noel was past the point of caring what anyone thought. He’d cared about Jess and her thoughts and feelings, and here he was, a wounded animal retreating to its lair to howl.
As he bathed, he made a silent vow. He’d gone through life carefully shielding himself from sycophants and flatterers, protecting himself from those that saw him as a resource to be exploited. He’d thought Jess different. Like a fool, he’d lowered his shields and failed to protect himself from both of them. And he paid the price.
Never again. He’d keep the world at arm’s distance, keeping everyone back. He had loved once, but he would not do so a second time.
He knew better now.
“Fred! It’s Jess! Come down at once,” Cynthia called up the stairs. She rushed forward as Jess took a weary step inside the house. “My dearest. What are you doing here? What has happened? Sit. You look fit to collapse.”
Her sister guided her to a chair at the kitchen’s long table. Jess lowered herself down into it, wincing at her stiffened joints. She’d jounced and bounced in the mail coach for hours, which wasn’t sprung nearly as well as Noel’s carriage. She had also been wedged between three other passengers on one side, her knees knocking against the passengers sitting opposite her.
The coach had driven past the entrance to Carriford. Jess’s head ached so badly she’d pressed a hand to where it throbbed. That pain continued here, in the kitchen she’d known her whole life.
“Have you eaten?” Cynthia asked.
Jess shook her head. “Not hungry.”
Her sister made a clicking sound with her tongue. “You’ll eat.” She bustled around the familiar kitchen, putting the kettle on the hob, pulling down a loaf of bread, and slicing cheese.
Heavy male footfalls sounded on the steps. Fred came into the kitchen wearing an expression of concern.
“What’s happened?” Fred knelt beside Jess’s chair and rested a hand on her head. “Oh, Jess, I’m sorry, but you look awful.”
Jess coughed up a weary laugh. “I feel awful, so you aren’t far off the mark.”
“Dearest, tell us.” Cynthia squeezed her hand.
Jess took a breath, and then related the whole story. Certain details were left out or alluded to. What happened between her and Noel in the bedroom—and conservatory, and larder—was secret. Yet she did tell her family that she’d been intimate with Noel, and that she’d taken his trust and ruined it with her machinations.
“The hell of it is,” she said, “I don’t know if anyone is interested in McGale & McGale now. We’ve likely lost our investors—knowing what they know, they might shun us. The repairs won’t happen and that will be the end of the soap making. We’ll lose . . .” She could hardly form the words. “We’ll lose each other. I’m so sorry. I failed us all.”
“Oh, love, no.” Cynthia pressed a kiss to Jess’s forehead. “You did nothing of the sort. It was a mad gamble, and a price has been paid, but you tried, and that’s enough.”
“But it isn’t,” Jess said. She looked at her siblings, and the low-ceilinged kitchen, where, for nearly all of her life, she had taken her meals and laughed with her family and cried when loss had come for them all.
Who was there for Noel? Hopefully, his old school friends would offer him solace. They might even curse her, but it wasn’t anything she didn’t deserve. She couldn’t ignore the terrible hurt she’d caused him, and she didn’t want to ignore it, because she could never forgive herself for damaging a man that deserved so much better than he’d been given.
“It isn’t enough,” she choked out. “I’ve let everyone down, and I’ve let myself down, too.”
“Jess,” Fred said, taking her face between his palms and locking his gaze with hers. “You did your best. We don’t forgive you because there’s nothing to forgive.”
She stared into her brother’s eyes. In them, she saw tiny mirrors of herself, but they weren’t as small as how she felt on the inside.
Chapter 27
Days managed to crawl by. Jess existed from minute to minute, marking time with each aching throb of her heart. Yet she did not shrivel up and blow away. She moved forward. Slowly, to be sure, but forward.
She’d avoided reading the newspapers. The Money Market column held no interest, and there would be accounts of the Duke of Rotherby’s amusing coup. Even reading Noel’s name would blind her with fresh pain.
The knock at the door came midmorning of the third day after her return home. Fred was out, tending to the many chores that a farm always required, but Cynthia joined Jess as she opened the door.
“Good morning, McGales.” George Griffith, the postal carrier, waved a letter. “All the way from London.”
Jess’s stomach clenched. It could be Noel—damning her, no doubt.
George handed Jess the mail before heading off to continue his deliveries.
She didn’t recognize the penmanship, but that could mean a secretary had actually written the letter—if Noel felt that he couldn’t be bothered to write it himself.
The paper shook in her hands. A minute went by, and then another. Was she strong enough today to read Noel’s condemnation?
“Going to open it?” Cynthia asked.
“It might be from Noel.” Her voice sounded lifeless.
Cynthia cupped her hand over Jess’s shoulder. “Might make it easier if I read it first, so you know if it’s bad or good.”
“I should do this on my own.”
Her sister gently turned Jess around to face her. “There’s the crux of it, big sister.”
“How do you mean?”
Cynthia’s lips pressed into a line, as if she debated speaking. Finally, she said, “It’s always been you, on your own. You’ve taken all of it on your shoulders—the farm, McGale & McGale—and leave me and Fred pottering about. It’s like . . . it’s like you don’t trust us.”
The words hit Jess like a slap. “I trust you.”
“Not so certain of that.” Cynthia’s gaze dropped to the floor. “When Ma and Da died, you took her words to heart. You ran everything—the harvest of the honey, the buying of materials, paying our workers. Fred and me became just more workers, not your partners.”
Jess opened her mouth to contradict her sister, but what Cynthia said was true. She’d run around like a whirlwind, overseeing the entire operation, never letting her siblings shoulder the responsibility of keeping McGale & McGale afloat.
“The fire made it worse,” Cynthia we
nt on quietly. “Even though Fred and me took outside work but stayed home, you left to become Lady Catherton’s companion. It was like you thought you needed to do more, go further. Then when you were going to move to the Continent, it was up to you alone to save the business. But, Jess, we’ve been here.” She lifted her eyes to Jess, and in them, there was love and acceptance and frustration. “Me and Fred, we’re here. But you’ve got to trust us, love. Let us help you.”
Jess blinked back tears, but they fell anyway. “I’m the big sister. With Ma and Da gone, I thought it was all my responsibility. I thought . . . that I was protecting you.”
Her sister’s smile was fond. “We’re not babes in arms, Jessie. Might even surprise you to know I’m not a virgin. I think Fred isn’t, either, but he and I don’t like to talk about such things with each other.”
Jess gave a watery laugh. “You’re both my world.”
“And you are ours.” Cynthia pressed a kiss to Jess’s damp cheek. “Now, are you going to read that London letter, or shall I?”
“I’ll read it.” There was a chance that Noel had written about their intimate encounters, and Jess needed to preserve his privacy.
She opened the letter and scanned the contents. Her breath left her in a rush, and she managed to rasp, “Oh, my God.”
“What is it?” Cynthia demanded.
“A shop on Bond Street wants to meet with me—with us,” Jess corrected. Stunned, she continued, “They want to discuss selling McGale & McGale soap. We’re to bring as much stock as we have.” Jess stared at her sister. “They said it was because the duke had recommended our product to a ballroom full of England’s elite. Already, they’ve turned away dozens of customers looking to buy our soap.”
Cynthia let out a little shriek before throwing her arms around Jess. “My God, Jess. This is unbelievable—the very best news.”
Jess hugged her sister, who was as tall, if not taller, than Jess herself. How obstinate she’d been to believe that Cynthia and Fred were still her little brother and sister.