Joan Wolf (17 page)

You are not to worry about me. I have gone home to my family, where I am loved and needed. I shall be in no want. Except, of course, the want of you.

Forgive me. I wish I could say forget me, but I am not after all as selfless as that.

Jess

Linton finished reading the letter. He stared unseeing for a few moments longer at the neat lines of black script. He remembered last night. Then he closed his eyes.

This was the thing he had feared the most, and it had happened. And he didn’t even know where to begin to look for her. His eyes were a dark, bitter blue as he went upstairs and prepared to take apart all of her belongings in hopes of finding a clue to her real identity.

* * * *

Jessica received a royal welcome home from Miss Burnley. The little governess had been frantic with worry over Jessica’s sojourn in Scotland, and when Jessica walked in the door of Winchcombe looking thin and tired but demonstrably alive, Miss Burnley had wept with relief.

I’m so glad to see you, my dear,” she said for perhaps the fifteenth time as they sat in the morning parlor having tea. “It was such an anxious time. I always wondered if the letters we sent to that postal address you gave us in London ever reached you.”

“Now Burnie, you know they did,” Jessica said placatingly. “I always wrote back. But it was a very strange experience and not one I would care to repeat.” Jessica’s eyes closed briefly.

“I don’t blame you,” Miss Burnley said warmly, and bent forward to pat Jessica’s band. “It must have been dreadful, taking care of an old and dying woman.”

“I think, if you don’t mind, Burnie, I’d rather not talk about it. Ever.”

“All right, my dear. I understand.” There was a pause; then the governess said tentatively, “Were you able to pay back Mr. King?”

“Yes.” For the first time since she had come home, Jessica smiled. “We’re in the clear, Burnie. Winchcombe belongs to no one but me. We all of us, you and I and Geoff and Adrian, have a home that no one can take away from us.”

“Thank God,” said Miss Burnley devoutly.

“Thank Cousin Jean,” Jessica said with pious hypocrisy.

She made the same comment two days later to Mr. Grassington. The lawyer had been strongly opposed to her borrowing money from a London moneylender but, as she had pointed out gently, she was of age and there was nothing he could do about it. He had acted as Jessica’s intermediary and redeemed the Winchcombe mortgage from Sir Henry Belton. And he had always been skeptical about the sudden call from Cousin Jean Cameron.

“I don’t believe a word of this story, Jessica,” he told her now with a melancholy sigh. “I have no idea where you got that money, but it did not come from this mythical cousin. You may fool Miss Burnley and your brothers with that story but you cannot fool me.”

Jessica shrugged, a small gesture that emphasized the thinness of her shoulders, “I am sorry you feel that way, Mr. Grassington.”

“I have been worried to death about you,” the old man said dispassionately.

“There was no need to worry. I am perfectly fine, as you can see for yourself. And Winchcombe is clear.”

“You don’t mean to tell me how you got that money?”

“You have heard the only explanation I am prepared to give.”

He looked at her in silence for a tense moment. Then he nodded. “I think perhaps I do not want to know,” he said a trifle grimly. He folded his hands on his desk. “The rest of your affairs are in order. If there is anything I can do for you please let me know.”

Jessica’s gray eyes softened. “You are always so good to me.” She bent and kissed him on the cheek. “Come and dine with us next week.”

“Thank you, my dear,” he replied as he carefully polished his glasses. “I
should like that very much.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

But
I, who daily craving

Cannot have to content me,

Have more cause to lament me,

Since wanting is more woe than too much having.

—
SIR
PHILIP
SIDNEY

News reached England at the beginning of March that Napoleon Bonaparte had escaped from Elba and landed in France. This great event effectively drew all the ton’s interest from the affair of Philip Romney and Jessica O’Neill. Linton’s duel with Lord Alden, Jessica’s disappearance, and Linton’s subsequently icy demeanor had all been a source of endless comment, but now the affairs of the world once again took precedence. London waited to hear that France had risen to halt Napoleon’s march toward Paris. It learned instead that the Seventh Regiment had gone over to the Emperor at Grenoble, and shortly after that the King’s troops spontaneously changed sides, deserting the Bourbon King Louis XVIII. On March 20 Napoleon triumphantly entered the Tuileries.

Linton returned to Staplehurst at the end of March, and Lady Maria drove over from Selsey Place one afternoon to see him.
“It will be war, Maria,” he told her. “Have you heard from Matt?”

“He wrote to say that the Congress has declared Napoleon an outlaw. He says there will be war over Belgium if over nothing else. He thinks the alliance against Napoleon will reform.”

“It already has. Wellington has been appointed commander-in-chief. You cannot possibly think of going to Vienna at this point.”

“So Matt says too,” replied Lady Maria reluctantly. “What a detestable little man Napoleon is. One had so hoped this dreadful war was over with for good.”

“I know. Now there will be more bloodshed. And Castlereagh has pledged five million pounds sterling to the Allied army. That is bad news for the economy. Unfortunately there is nothing else to do but fight.  Matt is right. Napoleon will never be satisfied until Belgium is part of France, and Britain can’t and won’t stand for that.”

Lady Linton had come into the morning parlor shortly after that and Linton had excused himself to go and look at his new plantations.

“I don’t like the way Philip looks,” his sister said immediately after he had gone.

“He has been like this for almost a month now,” Lady Linton replied. “I am hoping that being here at Staplehurst will help. London was too hectic, too filled with memories. Now he is home, he can busy himself with the things he loves. In time he will forget.”

“She just walked out, mother?” Lady Maria asked. “Has he tried to find her? You wrote that she disappeared. It seems odd for a person of such celebrity to be able to do that.”

“Evidently her name was not really 0’Neill and the history she gave to the Covent Garden management was fictitious. No one knows who she really is. I will say that I am convinced she loved Philip.” There was a pause, and Lady Linton raised sober eyes to her daughter’s. “I saw the letter she left him.”

“Oh?” Maria’s brows were raised.

“Yes. Catherine Romney had talked to her; I wrote you that. Evidently Catherine made a very strong impression on the girl. She wrote Philip that she was not fit to be the wife of the Earl of Linton.”

Maria sighed.
“It is a thousand pities that this had to happen. But she is right. Such a marriage would be impossible.”

“I know, my dear. But it is breaking my heart to look at Philip.”

The days went by. Linton resumed his old schedule of work at Staplehurst and followed the war news in the newspapers. On the surface, to his tenants and to his workmen, he seemed the same. But his mother saw the shadow of strain in his eyes, the grim, painful set of his mouth. All the lazy sunshine was gone from him. He was always pleasant, always courteous. But he was too often silent, and it was a silence whose quality made Lady Linton very uneasy.

May came, and June, and the armies of the coalition were assembling in Belgium. Sir Matthew Selsey was still in Vienna. He had written to his wife that she was to remain in England until he was able to join her sometime during the summer. Consequently Matthew and Lawrence Selsey, who were to have stayed at Staplehurst for the summer vacation if their mother was in Vienna, would be going instead to Selsey Place.

Lady Linton didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry. She thought perhaps his young nephews would have livened Linton up - if they didn’t drive him distracted, which was the other possibility.

On June 19 word came to Staplehurst that Wellington had engaged Napoleon at Quatre Bras. Linton prepared to go up to London to await further news. His mother came into the library as he was writing out some instructions, and she stopped for a moment just inside the door and looked at his intent face. The sunlight from the window fell on the still, golden wing of his hair, the same thick silky gold that had clung to her fingers when she had brushed it in childhood. The clean angle of cheek and jawbone had long since lost all traces of childish softness, but she longed now to press her own cheek against his and comfort him as she had done so often long ago.

 He looked up. “Oh, there you are, mother. I am leaving to go up to London immediately. As soon as I know what has happened I’ll return to tell you.”

“All right, Philip,” she answered steadily. “I think I shall ask Maria to come over. She will want to know the news as soon as possible, I’m sure.”

“Very well.” He had risen at her entrance, and he came across the room now to stand next to her. He was so tall. Lady Linton thought. “It seems a long time ago that I had to bend over to kiss you,” she murmured as his lips brushed her cheek. He smiled but did not reply, and in a moment he was gone.

Late in the afternoon of June 22 the Earl of Linton stood in the window of Brooks’. Behind him young Lord Melville was telling a spellbound group of men that he knew for a fact that the Prussians had been wiped out, that the Anglo-Allied army had been destroyed and Wellington himself killed. In the middle of Melville’s discourse Linton turned, touched him on the arm, and said, “Look there.” Everyone immediately came to the window and, looking out, saw a chaise and four horses driving down the street followed by a running, cheering mob.

“What is that sticking out the windows?” asked Lord George Litcham.

Linton’s eyes were very blue. “Those, George,” he answered quietly, “are three French Imperial Eagles.”

Shortly after that, the tower guns began to fire a 101-gun salute, and church bells pealed out all over London. Once more Napoleon Bonaparte had been defeated.

“Well, I thank God we won but my heart goes out to the families of those who were slain,” Lady Linton said as she, Maria, and Maria’s two eldest sons sat listening to Linton’s report on the morning of June 23.

“I know.” Lady Maria’s face was unusually serious as she replied to her mother’s comment.

“I wish
I
had been there!” said Matthew Selsey enthusiastically.

“Well, I am very glad you were not,” snapped his mother instantly. “And let me tell you, young man, you have a great deal of growing up to do before you can even contemplate assuming such an adult role in the world. You’ve been sulking like a baby ever since you came home from school.”

“I have not been sulking,” said Matthew, a definite pout on his handsome, fair-skinned face.

“What has happened, Matthew, to cause you to be unhappy?” his grandmother asked gently.

“He thought he was going on a visit to Geoffrey Lissett,” said Lawrence helpfully. “But it’s been cancelled and Matt is mad as a hornet.”

“If I had wanted you to answer my question, Lawrence, I would have asked you,” Lady Linton said austerely.

Linton looked at his eldest nephew’s flushed cheeks and said sympathetically, “Oh yes, I remember you mentioned the visit to me when I drove you back to Eton after Christmas. What happened, Matthew?”

“I don’t know, Uncle Philip,” the boy answered unhappily. “We had it all fixed up, Geoff and I. They have a stud and I was going to help with the horses. Mama said I might. She said it would keep me out of your hair for the summer.”

Linton looked slightly amused. “Oh, did she?”

“I said you might go, Matthew, provided I heard from Geoffrey’s sister that it was all right with her.”

“And it wasn’t all right, I gather?” Lady Linton inquired.

“No.”
Matthew’s lip was definitely drooping. “I can’t understand why she doesn’t want me.
I’d be a
help,
not a bother.”

“Well, I can understand,” his mother said briskly. “The poor girl is probably at her wit’s end. I knew Geoffrey’s father. Sir Thomas Lissett was a charming man who hadn’t a notion of what the word self-discipline meant. There were rumors all over London that he was badly dipped. All of his debts probably landed in the lap of Geoffrey’s sister. I have no doubt that that is why she is starting a stud.”

“I know they need money. Geoff says he is
determined
to help put Winchcombe on its feet again. I know they could use extra help, and I’m good around horses, aren’t I, Uncle Philip?”

Linton was looking at his nephew with a strange light in his eyes. “Tell me about the Lissetts, Matthew. How many of them are there? How old is Geoffrey’s sister?”

“Oh, Philip,” Lady Linton murmured despairingly, but he shook his head at her impatiently.

“Well, actually, Jess is only Geoffrey’s half-sister,” Matthew responded. He continued readily, unaware of the electric shock that his casual use of Jessica’s name had produced in his elders. “She is the real owner of Winchcombe; it belonged to her father, not to Geoffrey’s. There are just the two of them and Adrian, Geoff’s younger brother. He’s at Eton, too. What was the other thing you wanted to know, Uncle Philip?”

“What did you say Geoffrey’s sister’s name was?” Linton’s voice, even to himself, was unrecognizable.

“Jessica. Her last name is Andover.” There was a puzzled look in Matthew’s eyes as he stared at his uncle.

“And where is this Winchcombe?”

“Just outside of Cheltenham.”

Linton’s eyes were brilliant. “Have you ever met Jessica, Matthew?”

“No, Uncle Philip.”

“About how old is she?”

“Twenty-one or two, I think.”

“Good heavens, Philip, surely you  don’t think. . . ?” It was his sister’s voice, and he turned to look at her.

“I don’t know what to think, Maria. I do know that I am leaving immediately for Cheltenham.”