The Battling Bluestocking (26 page)

He paused briefly, and Jessica shot him a rueful look from under her lashes. “Aunt Susan says I must discuss that matter with you more fully, sir. It appears that I have been laboring under certain misconceptions.”

“A good many of them, actually,” he agreed, smiling. “Not that it was entirely your fault, however. I realized you had got the wrong sow by the ear some time ago, and I did nothing to correct matters. However, we shall attend to that later, and you have little cause to regret those words, for they were directly responsible for stirring my memory to life, causing me to recall a gentleman who came to see me nearly seven years ago, looking for his son.”

“The viscount?”

“The same. He labored under some misconceptions too. Although,” he added with a grimace, “perhaps he was not so wide of the mark as I then rather naively—and, I fear, indignantly—thought. I do not
buy
children to work my mines. Nor, to the best of my knowledge, does any other mine owner in the West Country. However, I have since learned that it is indeed a common practice with many in the North. Viscount Woodbury—although at the time he was merely the Honorable William Ashwater—thought perhaps whoever had stolen his son had then sold him to work in a mine, and he was visiting every mine owner in the three counties. He also placed advertisements, but there was no response. It never occurred to him that anyone would take young Jeremy all the way to London to dispose of him.”

“Where is the viscount now? I should think he would have come posthaste to recover his son.”

“And so he would have done, except for the fact that his father succumbed to a lingering illness only the day before I located him. That business took me a while, simply because, although I had noted down the child’s description and the father’s name and address at the time, I just stuffed the information into the nearest drawer afterward, so I had the devil’s own time finding it when I returned to Shaldon Park. And there were several pressing matters to attend to at home—as, indeed, there always are when I am available to be pressed—so it was a day or so after that before I was able to set out for Woodbury Manor, which is located in the Brenden Hills in north Devon. The old viscount was to be buried almost at once, and of course Woodbury could not leave until that was accomplished, but though he suggested I remain, I had no wish to do so. I assured him, however, that Jeremy was in the best of hands and would be well cared for until his arrival, which should be within a day or so.” He paused, regarding her searchingly. “If you like, I can take both Jeremy and Albert to Charles Street with me. You are looking a trifle hagged, my dear, and they must be a source of anxiety you would just as lief do without at the moment.”

But although she appreciated the kindness behind the offer, Jessica refused to accept it. She had discovered that the time she spent with the boys each day could take her mind off her troubles more easily than anything else, and she was unwilling to part with either of them.

Sir Brian took his departure shortly thereafter, reassuring her once more that matters would be attended to as quickly as he could manage them. His farewell was friendly, but hardly loverlike, and Jessica felt a nagging disappointment as she saw him on his way. Surely, she thought, he ought to have realized that she would not have spurned another hug or even a kiss. That thought stirred others, as she wondered what his kisses would be like if one allowed oneself to savor them. She remembered the incident in the garden at Gordon Hall and how quickly and naturally she had responded to him there. The memory was a disturbing one, and she found herself perilously near to falling into a reverie similar to the one that had overcome her in the coach on the way home from Duke Street. But the fact that Sir Brian had failed to take advantage of her exuberant welcome disturbed her, too. She had flung herself into his arms, after all, had cried out his name and as good as sobbed out her frustrations on his shoulder. And all he had done was to hold her much as a big brother might have done, and then he had removed her hat and told her to sit down and tell him all about it. Just like her father. That thought nearly stirred her to stamp her feet in frustration. She did not want brotherly or fatherly assistance from the man!

Suddenly she seemed to have reached the brink of considering those emotions she had before now carefully avoided exploring. Nor should she take the time to explore them now, she told herself firmly, for now that Sir Brian was in London, everything was well on the way to being put to rights again, and that was all that must concern her. Lady Susan’s peril must be the primary matter in her thoughts until that matter was satisfactorily resolved. If Sir Brian still meant to make her an offer, he had no doubt had the good sense to realize that he must not press her while she was so vulnerable. Surely that was it. Surely his interest in her had not cooled to mere friendship. Not now that she had finally come to realize how much she loved and needed him.

Annoyed with herself for allowing such a train of thought to continue unchecked, Jessica gave a little shake of her head, picked up her hat from the chair, and strode purposefully upstairs to her bedchamber, where she chatted determinedly with Mellin until that worthy had seen her safely tucked up in bed for the night. Then, however, with the candles snuffed and the golden light from the streetlamps in Hanover Square sending shadows dancing around the room as a light breeze stirred the curtain at the open window, Jessica found her thoughts involuntarily returning to Sir Brian until, with a tiny sigh of frustration, she drifted at last into restless sleep.

All the following day she awaited word from Charles Street, but by the time she had retired for the night, she had yet to hear anything at all. It was, as a matter of fact, nearly three days before her faith in Sir Brian was justified. During that time, she wrote him more than once, demanding information, but all he would vouchsafe each time in reply was that the matter was well in hand and that she was not to bother her head about it any further. When, to one such note, she had added a postscript, recklessly inviting him and Mr. Liskeard to dine with her that evening, the reply was very polite. Sir Brian and Mr. Liskeard regretted that they had a previous engagement.

Jessica actually breathed a sigh of relief over that one. She had been impulsive, too impulsive. Despite the fact that she was an acknowledged spinster, it would have been highly improper for her to entertain two gentlemen who were quite unrelated to her at her dinner table. Two ladies living together might do such a thing. One alone must not. The rules were clear. No doubt, she told herself, Sir Brian had not wished to embarrass her by pointing out that fact and had chosen instead to be tactful. Or, she mused unhappily, he might actually have had a previous engagement.

At last, however, shortly after noon on Wednesday, the third day after Sir Brian’s return, his coach, recognizable by the unicorn crest on the door panel, rolled up before the tall house at the southwest corner of Hanover Square, and a footman gently assisted Lady Susan Peel to the flagway. Jessica, hearing the sound of a coach through the open drawing-room window, flew to see who had come to call, and then, with a tiny shriek of jubilation, she picked up the skirts of her dusky-rose silk gown and hurried downstairs to meet her aunt.

Bates was just opening the front door when she reached the halt and Jessica hurried out onto the stoop. “Aunt Susan! Oh, Aunt Susan, he did it. I knew he would, but it began to seem as if you would never come home.”

Lady Susan allowed herself to be gathered into a crushing hug right there on her doorstep in full view of anyone who might chance to be watching from the square or from George Street, and even went so far as to return the embrace with fervor.

When the butler cleared his throat, her ladyship chuckled, releasing her niece, “Do behave, love. You are embarrassing Bates.”

“Nothing of the sort, my lady,” he countered, grinning at her in a most unbutlerlike fashion. “If it were not to take action beyond my station, I should be tempted to do just as Miss Jessica has been doing. Perhaps, however, not upon the doorstep.”

“Oh, Bates, I have missed you,” Lady Susan told him, reaching past Jessica to squeeze his hand, which gesture caused, the little man to blush right up to the glossy top of his white-fringed pate. “You have been my dear friend as well as my butler for so many years that you seem quite one of the family,” she told him. Then, turning a deaf ear to his near-stammering gratitude, she smiled fondly at her niece. “Come along inside, Jessica. We have provided enough sport for the neighbors.”

Upstairs in her bedchamber a few moments later, Lady Susan rang for her woman to order a bath and a complete change of clothing.

“I put this gown on fresh this morning,” she told Jessica bitterly, “but it is already saturated with the stench of that place. Really, if Bow Street is anything to go by, our jails need a thorough cleaning, and I daresay there are any number of other things that ought to be changed, as well.”

Jessica chuckled, clasping her hands upon her knees. “A new crusade already, Aunt? Should you not await the judgment of the court in this one first?”

Lady Susan looked grim and a little fearful. “I do not want to go back there, Jessica,” she said simply.

Tears sprang to Jessica’s eyes, and she brushed them aside with an impatient hand. “I am certain that Sir Brian will do whatever must be done. After all, he is undoubtedly the man who effected your release.”

“Indeed, it was Sir Brian who set matters in motion,” Lady Susan agreed, “although he did so first by discovering that the Duke of Grosvenor was in Bath and then by sending a courier to fetch him. Next, he sent word to Brighton to General Potterby, who, as you know, has the Regent’s ear. Amongst them all, they managed to stir enough mares’ nests to manage the thing. They have also prevailed upon the clerks to set a time for the trial—Wednesday next before the King’s Bench.” She paused, wrinkling her brow a little. “Sir Brian said it would probably be a speedy business, for there are but few arguments to be made before either our side will prevail or theirs will.”

“I do not know how I shall manage to contain my apprehension until I know what the outcome is to be,” Jessica said intensely.

“Well, I do,” announced her ladyship, her expression lightening as she breathed deeply of the scent of roses that began to permeate the room as a footman filled a porcelain tub with perfumed water. “I mean to be just as busy as I can be. Unless we have ceased to receive invitations, I mean to go everywhere and do everything, just in case right should not prevail. It would be most foolish to have missed what opportunities one had to enjoy oneself before being locked up forever in a noisome cell.”

Accordingly, that very evening, Lady Susan Peel astonished the
beau monde
by appearing at no less than three routs, a musicale, and a veritable crush of a ball at Devonshire House. She was in fine fettle, attired in a magnificent gown of green silk moiré with puffed sleeves, a high neck, and a gossamer gold overskirt. A splendid emerald-and-gold necklace encircled her neck, and a matching bracelet had been clasped around her right wrist over her long white glove. She carried herself with her usual graceful dignity, but the sparkle in her eye showed anyone who chanced to take note of it that she was actually enjoying the sensation she was creating.

Jessica, accompanying her aunt, albeit with some reluctance, was attired with equal splendor in a close-fitting gown of her favorite lavender silk, its high waistline emphasizing the magnificence of her breasts, its softness clinging seductively to the swell of her hips. Her lovely hair was piled into an intricate confusion of curls and plaits, with curly tendrils that had been allowed to wisp about her face and ears and down the back of her slender neck. Her skirt, falling gently to a whispering scalloped hemline, was embroidered with a circle of tiny pink roses and mint-green leaves at each scallop, while a vining of similar embroidery edged the low-cut neckline. She wore diamonds and amethysts at her ears, neck, and wrists, and there were tiny amethyst buckles on her mint-green satin slippers.

Their appearance at the first affair caused quite a stir, but both ladies carried it off with a high hand. Indeed,

Jessica thought, Lady Susan’s dignified bearing and artless smile must have caused a good many persons to entertain second thoughts with regard to any tales they might have heard. Her aunt behaved as though there were nothing out of the ordinary at all. Jessica could only admire her courage. As for herself, she cringed a little inside at the looks they received, and only by the third rout was she able to believe that she was playing her part as convincingly as her aunt was. But then, after a dreary half-hour at a musicale, where the conversation had, perforce, to compete with the amateur talent being displayed, they went on to Devonshire House, and even before she saw him, Jessica knew Sir Brian was present.

She could not have said precisely how she knew. Perhaps it was the slight tingling in the fine hairs at the back of her slender neck. Or perhaps it was a tightening in her stomach or the pounding in her breast. Certainly, she experienced all of these sensations, but they might as easily have been caused by the increasing strain of the evening and not by anything more abstruse than that.

The Duchess of Devonshire, known for her unbounded kindness, greeted them with practiced aplomb. Not by so much as the turning of a hair did she indicate that she was surprised to see Lady Susan in her house, or that she was at all distressed by her presence.

“How nice to see you, Miss Sutton-Drew,” she said in her cultivated, high-pitched voice as Lady Susan moved on and Jessica followed in her wake. The duchess sounded perfectly sincere, Jessica thought as she returned the greeting. As though she knew nothing at all of any scandal. But then Jessica saw Lady Jersey approaching, and beyond her, leading a slender redhead toward the dance floor, was Sir Brian.

Lady Jersey’s eyes registered shock as they came to rest upon Miss Sutton-Drew’s lush figure, but Jessica paid no heed to her, having eyes for nothing but Sir Brian and his partner. The musicians were playing a country dance, and the pace was fast and merry, but Jessica’s gaze followed only the one couple. They were laughing and clearly managing to carry on a lively conversation despite the music and accompanying thunder of dancing feet. A surge of unmistakable jealousy welled up in Jessica’s bosom, surprising her. She actually felt her fingers curl into the palms of her hands as she experienced a strong desire to snatch the red hair out by the roots.