Joan Wolf (6 page)

It was quite simple, really, he thought as he took the reins of his phaeton. He preferred her company to a party of his friends. There was nothing so odd in that, he told himself. After all, she was a very beautiful woman. The fact that no beautiful woman had ever come between him and his bachelor pursuits before was a thought he did not pursue.

Jessica wore the last of her newly purchased gowns, a creamy silk that made her skin seem to glow with a shell-like luster. Linton looked at her bare neck for a moment in silence then said, “Have you no jewelry, Jess?”

The beautiful color in her cheeks deepened. “Very little,” she answered shortly. It had all been sold to help pay her stepfather’s debts.

“I shall have to remedy that,” he said smilingly.

“No!” He looked at her, his blue eyes wide with surprise. “You are very kind,” she said with an effort, “but I assure you I do not wish for any jewelry.”

“I see,” he said equably. He did not see, of course, but there were many things he did not understand about Jessica. After the first few times, however, he had ceased to question her about the things that puzzled him. When she was questioned she became taut and wary and aloof.

Philip Romney was one of those large, strong, powerful men who are extraordinarily gentle in all their dealings with those who are smaller and weaker. Jessica was a very independent person who obviously was used to standing alone and asking no quarter of anyone, but he sensed the vulnerability that lurked behind that efficient exterior. He did not want to distress her, so he held his peace and filed away in his formidable memory all of the odd scraps of information she unknowingly let drop.

The gaming house was large and elegant and busy. They were welcomed by Mrs. Farrington, the owner and hostess, who gushed with enthusiasm to see the very rich Lord Linton enter her portals. Lord George, Mr. Romney, and Sir Harry Crosley had already arrived and were playing cards in the blue salon, so Mrs. Farrington informed them. Jessica and Linton then proceeded up the stairs to join them.

It didn’t take Jessica long to decide that gambling was an exceedingly tedious pastime. Everyone sat staring, mummylike, at their cards, and even the sight of so much money on the table soon lost its novelty. “Mrs. Farrington said there was a roulette wheel here,” she murmured into Linton’s ear at last. “I am going to watch that for a while.”

“Would you like to wager something for me?” he asked. She had refused to take any money from him before they came.

She shook her head. “No. I’ll just observe.” He watched her until she had left the room, then turned back to the table, a slight frown between his brows.

Jessica found the roulette more interesting. At least she could see what was going on. She also met and chatted to several men she knew from the Green Room gatherings at Covent Garden. She had moved away from the roulette game and was standing at the far side of the room looking at a landscape painting that reminded her a trifle of Winchcombe when she heard a smooth voice say, “I hate to intrude on beauty admiring beauty, but I am really most anxious to meet you, Miss O’Neill.” Startled, Jessica looked around to find herself standing next to a tall man of some thirty-five years. He was dramatically good-looking, with coal black hair and strange hazel eyes. ‘Tm Alden, you know, and I have been longing to tell you how very much I admire you.”

Maximilian Chatham, Lord Alden, was a well-known figure in Regency society. He was very rich, very bored, very aristocratic, and very ruthless. He had a bad reputation when it came to women. Jessica had not met him because he had only just returned to London after a stay of several months in France. She looked at him now and did not like him. He reminded her of a horse her stepfather had once owned: very good-looking, but vicious. “Thank you,” she said firmly, and turned to move away. He put a hand on her arm.

“Don’t run away so quickly,” he said softly. “Linton is safely occupied in the card room. Stay and talk to me a little.”

She stared silently at his hand and he removed it. “I do not speak to gentlemen to whom I have not been introduced,” she said coldly.

A distinctly unpleasant smile curled his thin lips. “But I just introduced myself,” he said silkily.

There was a quiet murmur by the door and Jessica turned to see Linton entering the room. He looked around, saw her, and strode purposefully across the polished floor. Jessica’s eyes were fixed on him. His hair gleamed like a golden helmet under the bright chandelier, and she met his eyes with a little shock of concussion.

“Philip,” she said. No one, he thought, had ever made his name sound quite like that. His blue eyes smiled at her.

“There you are, Jess. I’ve come to take you down to supper.” She placed her hand on his arm, and finally he turned to the other man standing next to her. “I didn’t know you were back in town, Alden.”

“I arrived only a few days ago, Linton, and have been trying to repair some of the ravages of my absence by making Miss O’Neill’s acquaintance. She has rather an odd scruple, however, about the propriety of my doing so. Would you be so kind as to present me yourself?”

Linton’s blue eyes regarded him inscrutably for a moment. “But if I did that she might feel free to speak to you,” he finally said pleasantly. “Good evening, Alden.” And turning, with Jessica on his arm, he walked away.

“I don’t like him,” she said frankly as they went down the stairs. “Who is he?”

“A Bad Man,” he replied gravely. “Stay away from him.”

“With pleasure,” she replied decidedly.

Mr. Romney joined them for supper. Linton sat back and watched with a mixture of amusement and respect as Jessica handled his young cousin. She got Bertram to admit, somewhat to his own surprise, that there were better things to be doing with his life and fortune than gambling. She asked him if he liked horses and listened with grave attention that clearly flattered him as he discussed his favorite pastime at great length. Mr. Romney, whose father had left him a tidy inheritance, had ambitions to race his own horses. Linton thought he could almost see Jessica’s attention click as Bertram said that.

“I should imagine there are few thrills more exciting than seeing one’s own horse cross the finish line first,” she said.

Mr. Romney agreed enthusiastically. In fact, he confided, there was going to be a private sale at Sevenoaks on Thursday and he rather thought he might pick up some bargains.

“Hunter selling out?” asked Linton.

“Yes. The whole stable is going,” replied his cousin.

“Hunter?” Jessica looked startled. “He’s one of the biggest breeders in the country. What happened?”

Two pairs of eyes widened in surprise. “I wouldn’t expect you to know Hunter, Miss O’Neill,” Romney said naively.

“I’m part Irish,” Jessica replied glibly.
“Of course I know horses. What happened to Hunter?”

Linton folded his hands piously. “The evils of gaming are boundless as the sea. Alas, poor Hunter is the latest victim.”

“You’re joking me,” she said incredulously.
“He
bankrupted himself gambling?”

“He did.”

Jessica’s eyes sparkled. “Well, let that be a warning to you, Mr. Romney. I hope in a few years I won’t be going to buy
your
horses at a bargain.”

“By Jove, I hope not too!” replied Bertram.

“Ah—are you going to the sale of Hunter’s horses?” Linton inquired of Jessica.

“Shouldn’t think you’d like it,” Mr. Romney said frankly. “You do an awful lot of standing about, you know.”

“I don’t mind standing and I love looking at horses. But you needn’t worry about me. I have the bays. I am perfectly capable of going by myself.”

“If you want to go I will take you,” Linton said firmly. “I had quite forgotten about the Sevenoaks sale. I’d like to go myself.”

As they were leaving the club he said to her, “I must thank you for your well-judged words to Bertram. He doesn’t really care for gambling that much; he just thinks it is the thing to do. You handled him very well.”

She smiled. “He is a nice boy and I’ve had a lot of practice dealing with boys. In some ways he doesn’t seem very much older than my brothers.”

“Oh?” He kept his voice carefully neutral. “How old are your brothers?”

“Ten and twelve,” Jessica said, her voice suddenly clipped.

Tactfully, he changed the subject.

Chapter Eight

Desire, desire! I have too dearly bought,

With price of mangled mind, thy worthless ware.

—
SIR
PHILIP
SIDNEY

Jessica was furious with herself for telling Linton about her brothers. The problem was that this was not the first such slip she had made. There was something about this man that disarmed her, lulled her into a state of comfortable security where she revealed things she had had no intention of revealing. It just seemed so natural to be with him, to share thoughts and ideas with him, that she inevitably slipped and said things that were at variance with her new identity.

She had to guard against him, and in more ways than one. It frightened her, the depths of passion he could provoke in her. She was afraid of what he made her feel. She found herself thinking about him when he wasn’t present, and when he was with her he absorbed her. She felt herself turning toward him as a flower turns and opens to the warmth of the sun. And she resisted.

She had been relieved to see him coming toward her in the roulette room. She had known he would stand between her and the unpleasant, persistent Lord Alden. And that was another danger. She mustn’t get

in the habit of looking to him for protection. All her life she had stood alone. She mustn’t lose her toughness now. Linton was handsome, and charming and considerate, but their relationship was only temporary. By March she would have enough money to pay off Mr. King.

  Winchcombe would be clear and she could go home to her old life. She would be glad, she told herself sternly, when March finally arrived.

* * * *

She revealed more about herself at the Sevenoaks sale. When Linton called for her he was pleasantly surprised to find her dressed in boots and a warm gray pelisse that was distinctly unfashionable but admirably suited to a horse sale. She asked him about his own stables, something they had never discussed before, and he admitted that he occasionally raced his horses. “I wouldn’t mind picking up a likely mare,” he said. “We must keep our eyes out for one.”

There was quite a large crowd of people present, walking about the stables and examining the horses. It occurred to Jessica as she walked among them that it was going to prove difficult to resume her own identity and take her place in the horse world as a breeder when her face had become one of the most famous in London. Everyone there seemed to know who she was. Resolutely she beat down the thought, telling herself that people were quick to forget.

They met Mr. Romney, who was there with Sir Francis Rustington, a young man as enthusiastic and rich as he was, and the four of them went round the stables together. By the time they finished, Jessica’s status had risen from inconvenient female to resident expert. She didn’t say much, but what she did say was informative and to the point. After he watched her feel the legs and look into the mouth of a chestnut colt with professional competence, Mr. Romney burst out, “Where did you learn about horses. Miss O’Neill? You don’t miss anything.”

She looked at him kindly. “Why don’t you call me Jessica? I told you I was part Irish. I grew up with horses. Don’t buy this one, Mr. Romney.”

“Bertram,” he put in.

“Bertram,” she nodded gravely.
“He looks all right, but his breeding is questionable. There’s speed there all right, but neither his sire nor his dam had any staying power at all. Much better to go with the dark bay.”

“The Tabard colt?” said Linton.

“Yes. If you can get him for a hundred guineas you’ve got a bargain.”

They moved toward the stableyard where the auction was going to take place and Linton asked “Did you see a mare for me?”

She flashed him a look. He had been very quiet on the stable rounds. The two younger men had not noticed, being full of comment themselves, but Jessica had.

“The same one you saw, I should imagine,” she returned composedly.

The faintest and briefest glimpse of a smile showed in his eyes. “The Dolphin filly?”

“The Dolphin filly.”

The filly they were speaking of was a big, deep-chested chestnut. Neither of them had mentioned her when they had observed her in the stall, and she had not attracted the attention of either Bertram Romney or his friend. Jessica said now, “Her dam was Classic Princess.”

Linton nodded, his face never changing. “Well, let us see how many others have their eyes on her.” The first horse was brought out and the auction was begun.

Jessica had never seen so many beautiful thoroughbreds for sale. There were mostly yearlings and two-and three-year-olds; the stallions and the best of the brood mares had already been sold privately. Bertram got the bay colt Jessica had recommended and another gray that they all agreed looked likely. Sir Francis was restrained from purchasing a flashy looking black yearling when Jessica said quietly, “Look at his legs.” They all watched intently as the groom ran before the horse, trotting it around the ring. “I don’t see anything,” Sir Francis frowned. “Watch him as he comes toward you,” Jessica said, her eyes still on the colt. “He throws his feet out sideways.”

   “So he does,” said Linton slowly.

   “Well, what about it?” asked Sir Francis.

   “He’ll never be fast,” Linton explained kindly. “I shouldn’t bid if I were you, Rustington.” So Sir Francis had stood quietly and watched another man get the colt for thirty guineas.

“Thirty guineas!” he complained. “I missed a bargain.”

“Not with that foot action you didn’t,” Jessica said positively. “There are two Moorrunner colts coming up that will prove to be much better buys in the long run. I should bid on one of them if I were you.” Sir Francis took her advice.

* * * *

The sale proved to be extremely satisfactory to all parties. The two young men were delighted with their acquisitions, Linton had gotten the filly he wanted at a surprisingly good price, and Jessica had gotten some experience in what was going to be her future trade. As they were all cold and hungry by the end of the afternoon they repaired to the Sevenoaks Inn for supper. By this time Bertram and Sir Francis regarded Jessica as quite one of their oldest friends, and the party that gathered around the fireside table was merry and comfortable.