The Clergyman's Daughter (14 page)

Since the moment Daphne Templeton first stepped into the marble entry of Renard Chase and laid her cold blue eyes on Jessica, Jessica had been aware that the two of them were in a state of armed truce, affecting cordiality because Raeburn, observing their meeting, had made it tacitly clear that he would permit nothing else; but Jessica had also known with wry insight that the other woman would cut her deliberately any time she thought she could do so without arousing her future husband’s wrath. After careful consideration Jessica had decided that the most effective method of dealing with those snubs would be to shrug them off indifferently—by no means always an easy plan, especially not for one of her volatile temperament, but so far she had adhered to it with near-religious devotion. But now at her side she could feel Claire bridling at the way Lady Daphne had purposely omitted Jessica and Flora’s names from her list of family members—and although she was touched that the girl wanted to leap to her defense, she knew she must try to prevent an argument that would only serve to alienate Claire from the woman who would have charge of her social life until she herself married….

Jessica reached out to touch Claire’s arm in warning, but Raeburn interceded smoothly, squelching his sister and turning to smile at his fiancée with deceptively cool indulgence, “Yes, my dear, I’m sure we shall all be quite happy with Flora and Jessica and little Lottie rounding out our family circle.” His long fingers closed firmly around hers, and when, after the briefest of hesitations, Lady Daphne nodded her head in submission, his smile warmed and he brushed his lips across her fingertips.

Shrinking back in her chair, Jessica winced. Despite her sternest efforts to control her expression, she could not prevent the shudder that ran through her slim body at the sight of the earl making restrained love to his well-bred fiancée, and she had to close her eyes to keep from crying out with pain. When she thought she had enough control over her volatile emotions to endure watching them exchange small, affectionate caresses, she raised her long lashes again, praying that no one had noticed her momentary weakness.

But as her green eyes moved casually over the diners, as if checking on their comfort, they collided and were held by the feral yellow gaze of the third guest at Raeburn’s table, a tall, gaunt man of some forty years. His thinning sandy hair was carefully combed to hide his bald spot, and the quality of his clothes indicated a tailor aspiring with questionable success to be judged the first crack of fashion, disguising the poor cut of his work with flashy materials. But then, Jessica thought acidly, the man himself was much like that. He was an artist of doubtful qualifications, hiding his indifferent skill with his pen by churning out crude, often libelous sketches of his betters for the less prestigious London gazettes; John Mason, self-appointed social commentator and satirical cartoonist—and chief rival for the popular position now held by the anonymous artist Erinys.

Jessica knew his work and despised it, not necessarily because it was poorly executed, but because it was so pointlessly cruel. All too often Mason chose as the target for his lampoons the innocent, the defenseless; once-powerful men robbed of strength and wit by senility; former beauties wasted with disease—as if the mere fact that those people had once been admired now made them fit victims for his vicious attacks. Whenever Jessica saw Mason’s cartoons, she hated him for degrading a literary and artistic form that had been recognized as a useful weapon against social ills since the days of Juvenal. At least the satires of Erinys, while biting and occasionally even venomous, had indicted only those whose misfortunes were the direct result of their own willfulness and folly….

Except, perhaps, she admitted with a swallowed groan, the man she loved, the Earl of Raeburn.

With outward control Jessica met Mason’s knowing gaze evenly, wondering, not for the first time, how he had come to be associated with the young duke and his simpering sister. Mason was decades older than Crowell, his aspect and address as mediocre as his background, hardly the kind of man one would expect to find on intimate terms with a haughty, aspiring Corinthian. While it was certainly not without precedent for people accomplished in the arts to be “adopted” by easygoing members of the aristocracy, to be fawned over and treated to sort of an informal patronage, John Mason’s talents were not, at least in Jessica’s opinion, so notable as to merit such lionization. Nor, for that matter, did she think that Lord Crowell was the type to value even the most exalted artistic achievement; for all his high position, the young man struck her as a self-indulgent Philistine, determined to waste what was left of his inheritance in crude pleasure.

Forcing a smile, Jessica asked, “Mr. Mason, is there anything you require for your comfort? You’ve been very quiet all throughout dinner.
I
hope everything was to your taste.”

“Yes, Mr. Mason,” Claire chimed in, belatedly remembering her nominal role as hostess, “you must tell us if there is anything we can get for you.”

“Thank you, my lady,” the man replied with oily smoothness, bowing deferentially in the girl’s direction, “but I think
I
should indeed be hard to please were I less than satisfied with the hospitality you have shown me. Your gracious condescension, the beauty of Renard Chase itself—I find your home quite unequalled among the great houses of the realm….”

Claire hesitated, uncertain whether the man’s unctuous raptures were meant sarcastically, but before she could frame a response, from the head of the table, Raeburn drawled, “Then I gather you are familiar with the…great houses of the realm, Mason?”

“I have been privileged to visit some of them, my lord,” Mason said tightly, a line of white circling his compressed mouth.

Beside him, Lord Crowell, raising his newly filled wineglass to his lips, said airily, “Oh, Johnny’s been everywhere.” He frowned into the glass. “Sees everything….” he muttered after a moment.

“Indeed,” Raeburn drawled again. “In that case we shall all have to be on our best behavior, lest we find ourselves figuring in one of your cartoons.”

“Graham!” Lady Daphne choked indignantly. “Mr. Mason would never be so reprehensible….’”

His man hastened to protest, “My lord, I assure you I would not dream of trespassing against your hospitality in such a deplorable fashion.”

Raeburn nodded, his hair gleaming like gold in the abundant candlelight. “Well, then, Mason, I am indebted to you for your forbearance. Would that everyone displayed such…sensibility.”

At the grim note in his voice, Jessica felt herself grow cold, but she had no choice but to sit helplessly, without visible reaction, while Mason agreed. “Yes, my lord, you have been the victim of a certain scurrilous penster in recent months, have you not?” He turned slightly in his seat to regard Lord Crowell. “You possess quite a few of those drawings, don’t you…. Billy?” Jessica noticed one of Raeburn’s brows lift curiously at Mason’s insolent familiarity.

The rosy flush in Crowell’s cheeks darkened. “Damned impudent hack,” he mumbled thickly, and Jessica could not help wondering which cartoonist he meant.

“Graham,” Lady Daphne said urgently, tugging at the rich fabric of his sleeve, “I hardly think such a subject can be fit for—for the ears of your young sister.” She directed a significant glance at Claire, who listened eagerly.

When Raeburn also looked at his sister, the girl met his gray gaze with a smile of mild defiance. She giggled uncomfortably, “Oh, don’t mind me. I know all about the sketches. I’ve even seen a….” Her laughter stilled when Raeburn’s eyes turned icy.

Lady Daphne looked shocked. “Really, Claire!” she gasped; then she turned reprovingly to Flora. “Mrs. Talmadge, I should think that as Claire’s chaperon you would—”

Flora blinked, flustered, her rough cheeks pinking at the rebuke. She began to scrape back her chair nervously. “Forgive me, I—I didn’t think—”

“Oh, Aunt, no!” Claire protested with a willful whine. “You can’t drag me away just when things are becoming interesting.”

“Claire…” Raeburn murmured forcefully.

“Why don’t we all go?” Jessica suggested in a mild undertone, her tact masking profound relief. “I’m sure the gentlemen would like to be left to their port.”

Claire sighed ungraciously as she was recalled once again to her role as hostess. “Oh, very well,” she grumbled, nodding to the footman who pulled back her chair. She rose lightly to her feet. “Ladies, if you will accompany me….”

In the drawing room, Raeburn’s women retired quickly and silently to their accustomed places, as they had done each evening since the Templetons arrived, their normal conversation stifled by the presence of outsiders. The silver tea urn grew cold as Flora Talmadge settled at her tapestry stand in the corner, where she sewed tiny, meticulous stitches in what would eventually be an exceedingly drab representation of the ennoblement of William Foxe, the first Earl of Raeburn, for his valor at Culloden. Claire flung herself onto one end of the settee and burrowed behind the mottled covers of the latest romance from Leadenhall Street. Somewhat more decorously, Jessica sat at the other end of the sofa and reached for her drawing portfolio. She had begun a portrait of Claire and little Charlotte, hoping to capture the similarities the two girls shared despite the difference in their ages, their vixen-red hair, their glowing smiles…. Unfortunately, her infant daughter was a remarkably uncooperative subject, preferring to crawl around inquisitively on the Aubusson carpet in Jessica’s sitting room, and Jessica had to content herself with making lightning sketches during those fleeting moments when Lottie was still. Now she wanted to study the drawings and decide which she could incorporate into her final painting.

Her hand paused in midair as she glanced in Lady Daphne’s direction. That young woman had taken a chair close to the hearth, where an oak log crackled cheerily, and she stared at the fire, her mouth drawn up in thought, her near-colorless eyes reflecting the flames ruddily. Jessica, who was chilly despite the shawl she had draped over the long lace-puffed sleeves of her wool evening dress, could tell that Lady Daphne was grateful for the warmth penetrating her thin muslin gown, and she asked herself with genuine bewilderment why Raeburn’s fiancée seemed willing to court pneumonia in order to appear provocative. Surely she must already be utterly confident of the earl’s regard….

Watching the woman plait her fingers in a gesture of restive boredom as she glanced surreptitiously toward the door from the dining room, Jessica felt an unexpected pang of pity for her. Lady Daphne might be all that Raeburn required of a wife, compliant, wellborn, impeccably educated in those matters of taste and etiquette that she would need in her role as his countess, but she seemed to have no personal resources or interests to occupy her mind; she seemed incapable of doing aught but waiting for some man’s instruction. Jessica wondered what the woman would do after she and Raeburn were married, when the honeymoon days were over and the earl resumed his various pursuits of business or politics—or opera singers—and left his bride to fend for herself at Renard Chase. Running the household would use up part of her time, of course, but if Raeburn failed to get her with child right away, Jessica feared that Lady Daphne would succumb to the ennui that had proved so fatal for his stepmother….

But all that was no concern of hers, Jessica told herself sternly, refusing to allow her mind to dwell on uncomfortable images of Raeburn and his countess, her undersized body swollen with his child…. She glanced back impatiently at Claire and Flora. Jessica knew that Lady Daphne was no great favorite of either of the women, but they had both been following their own pursuits with a determination that bordered on deliberate rudeness. She wondered if they had delegated her by default to entertain the guest. With an inward smile Jessica acknowledged that Lady Daphne would welcome her attention least of all. After a momentary hesitation, she sighed and picked up her portfolio.

Just as she set it on her lap and began to untie the grosgrain ribbons, the door from the dining room opened, and the three men walked noisily into the room, bringing with them the fruity aroma of port and the tang of pipe tobacco. Lord Crowell’s round face was flushed with wine and irritation as he declared impatiently, “I don’t care what you say, Johnny, I still think you’ve taken leave of your senses! A
woman
—impossible!”

Mason snapped, “Listen to me, Billy, when I tell you my reasoning—”

“Gentlemen,” Raeburn interrupted, “I thought we had agreed that we would spare the ladies this conversation.” His expression was unusually grim, but he forced his hard mouth into a welcoming smile as he turned to address his fiancée, who glanced up eagerly from the fire. Jessica, watching the other woman’s sullen face with perceptions heightened by her own tortured emotions, saw the way Lady Daphne brightened with anticipation when Raeburn approached her, and she suddenly questioned painfully if she had been wrong about the relationship between her brother-in-law and his betrothed; if, despite the earl’s harping about the “suitability” of their union, on Lady Daphne’s side at least it was a love match….

Before Raeburn could speak, Lord Crowell sank heavily into an armchair and addressed his sister laughingly, “Guess what, Daph, for once I’ve got the better of Johnny.” He glanced nervously toward the artist, who stood warming his hands before the hearth. “Cleverest fellow in the world, Johnny is about most things, but this time he’s fallen into a regular mare’s nest, and he’s too stubborn to admit he’s wrong….”

Lady Daphne smiled stiffly as she shifted her gaze to her brother’s florid face, and Jessica wondered if the young duke often drank too much. He was only twenty-four, but the lines of his face were already puffy and blurred by overindulgence, and despite his jovial manner, he struck Jessica as the type who would turn mean when foxed…. He could not be any great joy to live with. “What on earth are you talking about, brother dear?” Lady Daphne asked lightly.

“This cartoonist, ‘Airy’ something, the one who’s been picking on your intended there—Johnny’s trying to convince us that the person behind all the dirty work is a
woman!”