The Present (2 page)

Derek chuckled at his uncle's sour expression. "Heard a rumor Uncle James was out for your hide. What's set him off this time?"

"If I knew, then I'd know how to defuse him, but I'm deuced if I know. Ain't seen James for a good week, not since I dropped off Jack after the outing I took the girls on."

"Well, James would have let me know if he wasn't coming," Jason pointed out. "So when he gets here, kindly take any altercations outside. Molly seriously objects to blood staining the carpets."

No one would think it strange that he called Haverston's housekeeper by her first name. After all, Molly Fletcher had held that position for more than twenty years.

That she was also Jason's very longtime mistress—and Derek's mother—was not something that everyone in the family was aware of, however. In fact, only a couple of members had ever learned or guessed the truth. Jason had only told Derek, his son, about this time six years ago.

And around that Christmas, Jason, who deplored all scandals attached to the family, was willing to create one in giving his wife, Frances, the divorce she wanted, just to keep her from revealing what she knew about Molly.

But since then, Molly had remained the housekeeper. Jason had tried, ever since Derek found out the truth, to get her to marry him, but she was still refusing.

Molly didn't come from gentry. She had in fact been just a parlor maid when she and Jason fell in love more than thirty years ago. And although he was willing to make one of the worse scandals possible, that of an esteemed lord marrying a commoner, she wasn't willing to let him.

Jason sighed, thinking of it.   He had  been  forced   to come to the conclusion that she would never give him the answer he so wanted to hear. Which didn’t mean he was giving up, not by any means.

He was drawn back to the conversation when Amy said, "There is a little idiosyncrasy our twins have developed. Strangest behavior. When Stuart wants Warren's attention, I might as well be a stranger to him, he ignores me so thoroughly, and vise versa, when he wants my attention, Warren can't do a thing with him. And Glory does the same thing exactly."

"Least they do it at the same time," Warren, who had finally arrived, added as he reached for Stuart and handed Gloriana to Amy.

"I've been meaning to ask Uncle James and Aunt George if they're having the same problem with theirs," Amy said with a sigh.

"Has he gotten used to them yet?" Jason asked Anthony, since Anthony, being closest to James, saw him the most often, and Jason didn't get to London often.

"Course he has," Anthony assured the family.

Yet they all still remembered his reaction when Amy had borne twins and he'd asked his wife Georgina, who was Warren's sister, where they came from. "Good God, George, you could have warned me that twins run in your family every other generation. We are not having any, d'you hear."

Georgina had been pregnant again herself at the time, and had given birth to just that, twin boys.

Yes, the Malorys at Christmas were a wonderful sight, Jason thought. His life only lacked one thing to make it perfection.

As the housekeeper, Molly usually wasn’t present when  the Malorys dined, but today she was supervising a new maid who was serving for the first time. By long practice, she managed to keep her eyes away from Jason's handsome face, sitting at the head of the table. It wasn't that she-thought she might give herself away if she was caught staring at him, though she supposed that was a distinct possibility. Sometimes she simply couldn't keep her feelings from showing, and she had a lot of feelings where Jason Malory was concerned.

No, she wasn't so much worried that she might give herself away, it was that lately, he was revealing too much when he looked at her, and he didn't seem to care anymore who might notice. And with the house rapidly filling up with his entire family, there were a lot more people around who just might notice.

Molly was beginning to suspect that he was doing it on purpose, that he was hoping they would be found out. Not that it would change her mind about anything, but he might think it would.

It wouldn't, and she was going to have to assure him of that if he didn't return to his usual show of indifference when others were around. They had always been so careful, never giving away by look, word, or deed what they meant to each other, at least when they weren't alone. Until their son learned the truth, the only one who had ever come upon them in a moment of intimacy had been Jason's niece Amy, when she'd caught them kissing. And that wouldn't have happened if Jason hadn't been foxed at the time.

Keeping their relationship a secret had always been important to her. She wasn't gentry, after all, and she loved Jason too much to cause him embarrassment. Her lack of social status was also why she had convinced Jason that Derek should never know either, that she was his mother, though he hadn't wanted to keep that from his son. Not that Jason had considered marrying her back then. But he'd been young and, like anyone else of his class, adhered to the fact that a lord did not marry his lowborn mistress.

He had instead married an earl's daughter, just to give Derek and his niece Reggie a mother figure. Which had ended up a disastrous decision, since his wife, Frances, had been anything but maternal. A pale, thin woman, Frances hadn't wanted to marry Jason in the first place, had been forced to it by her father. She'd deplored his touch, and their marriage had never even been consummated. She had lived most of it separated from him, and had finally insisted on a divorce, which she had ultimately used blackmail to obtain.

Frances had been the only other member of the family to figure out that Molly was Jason's mistress and Derek's mother, and she had threatened to tell Derek this if Jason didn't end their marriage. The family had weathered that scandal fairly well, and six years later, it was rarely if ever mentioned anymore. Jason could have stopped it—Derek had actually learned the truth before the scandal of the divorce reached the gossip mills—yet he hadn't.

"This is something that should have been done years ago," he had told her at the time. "Actually, it's a marriage that never should have been. But then it's rarely easy to correct the mistakes one makes in one's youth.”

The reasons he had made the match had been ones. The reasons he had ended it were good ones too but ever since it was ended, he'd been asking Molly to marry him, to her utter frustration, when he knew she'd never agree. And her reasons were no different than they'd ever been. She was not going to be the cause  of yet another Malory scandal. She hadn't been raised that way. And besides she was already more a wife to him than Frances had ever been.

But she knew that her continued refusals to marry him, or even let him tell the rest of his family about their love, had been frustrating him as well for a very long time. Which was why she was afraid he was hoping the matter would come to light inadvertently. Not that he was being blatant in looks he was giving her, nothing the servants might take note of, at any rate. Yet his family was different. They knew him too well. And they would all be here soon . . .

More arrived even as Molly had the thought. Jason's niece Reggie and her husband, Nicholas, along with their young son, appeared in the dining room before lunch was finished. Anthony perked up immediately. Reggie might have been his favorite niece, but that didn't save her husband. Nicholas was his favorite verbal punching bag, so to speak, and without the presence of his brother James, whom he would just as soon trade barbs with, he'd been sorely missing a convenient target for his satirical wit.

Molly just managed to refrain from rolling her eyes. She knew Jason's family as well as he did, since he shared everything with her, including all the family secrets, foibles, and scandals.

So she wasn't the least bit surprised to hear Anthony say to Nicholas as he took the seat across from him, "Good of you to show up, dear boy. My teeth were getting a tad dull."

"Old age starting to set in, is it?" Nick shot back with a smirk.

Molly noticed the nudge Anthony's wife gave him before she said, "Remember it's Christmas and be nice for a change."

Up went Anthony's black brow. "For a change? I'm always nice. There's just nice, and then there's—nice. The latter gets reserved for bounders like Eden, is all."

Molly sighed. As fond as she was of all of Jason's family, she had a soft spot for Nicholas Eden, because he had befriended her son in their school days, when Derek had had to deal with his public illegitimacy. He and Derek had been close friends ever since. And typically, Derek jumped in now to take Anthony's attention off of Nick.

"Reggie, you remember that grave we found in the east clearing all those years ago?" Derek said to his cousin. “As I recall, you were going to ask one of the gardeners about it. Did you ever get around to doing that?"

Reggie gave him an owlish look. "Goodness, what made you think of that old grave? It's been so long since we found it, I'd forgotten all about it."

"Amy came across it last night and mentioned it. M'father don't even know who it belongs to."

Reggie peered at her cousin Amy. "What were you doing in that clearing last night?"

"Don't ask," Amy mumbled.

And Warren, obviously finding their catastrophes of the day before rather amusing now, after the fact, said, "A little coach trouble."

"A little!" Amy snorted indelicately. "That coach is cursed, I tell you. Who did you say you bought it from Warren? Because you were definitely swindled."

He chuckled and patted her hand. "Don't worry about it, sweetheart. I'm sure the crew I sent over to dismantle it this morning will make good use of the kindling."

Amy nodded, then turned back to her cousin. "We ended up having to cross that clearing on foot last night.

“It just surprised me, to find a grave there, so far from the family plots, yet still on the property."

"Now that you mention it, it surprised Derek and me, too, when we found it all those years ago," Reggie replied thoughtfully. "But no, Derek, I don't believe I did ever get around to asking the gardeners. It's too far from the gardens, after all. Figured whoever was tending it probably didn't live at Haverston, so it wouldn't do much good to ask around."

"Unless one of the gardeners was specifically asked to tend it," Anthony pointed out. "Old John Markus was ancient when I still lived here, and he'd worked at Haverston for as long as anyone could remember. If anyone might know about that grave, it would be him. Don't suppose he'd still be around, would he, Jason?"

Like everyone else, Molly glanced toward Jason to hear his answer, and caught his tender expression on her. Her checks went up in flames. He'd done it! She couldn't believe he'd done it! And with half his family here to see it. But she was panicking for nothing. The look he'd given her had been brief, and no one was turning about to see who he'd been looking at, too interested in his answer, which he gave now.

"Here at Haverston, no," Jason replied. "He retired about fifteen years ago. But he's still alive, last I heard. Living with a daughter over in Havers Town."

"Think I'll ride over and pay my respects to Mr. Markus this afternoon," Derek said.

"I'll go with you," Reggie offered. "I've a few Christmas presents I still have to buy, so I was going to stop by Havers anyway."

Warren shook his head in bemusement. "I don't understand all this morbid curiosity about an old grave. It's obviously not someone in the family, or the grave would be in the family crypt."

"I suppose you'd think nothing of it if someone got buried in your backyard, and no one bothered to tell you who it was or why they picked your backyard?" Anthony asked. "Perfectly normal occurrence in America, is it, Yank, having unmarked graves show up on your properties?"

"I would imagine someone was asked and did know at the time," Warren replied. "Or the grave would probably have been removed to a more proper location—at the time. And it seems pretty obvious that the grave is older than any of you, since none of you know when it got there or who's in it."

"Well, that's what I object to," Reggie put in. "It's just too sad, really, that whoever it was has been so completely forgotten. At the very least, her name should he added to that stone marker that merely says 'SHE RESTS.' "

"Think I'll join you as well for that jaunt to Havers," Amy said. "I was going to help Molly fetch the real of the Christmas decorations from the attic this afternoon, but that can wait until tonight."

Molly was sure she'd learn later, whatever they found out in Havers Town, but right now she really couldn't care less. With her cheeks still heated, she slipped out of the room unnoticed. And it was already going through her mind, what she was going to say to Jason when she got him alone tonight.

That had been too close by half. If his relatives hadn't all been so interested in the subject at hand, at least one of them would have noticed the way he had looked at her. And that would be the end of their secret.

But what good would it do? It still wouldn't change her mind about marrying him, though that was something she wished she could do, with all her heart. But one of them had to remain sensible about this. Even if he did marry her, she'd never be accepted by the ton. She'd be nothing but another Malory scandal.