The Clergyman's Daughter (26 page)

“I thought he was one of those as kept a room rented somewhere so their families won’t guess what they’re up to. But when we stopped and the door was opened, I saw that we were in an alley, black as pitch, I could hear people moving around, but they were just shadows, and I was afraid, but when I tried to get back into the coach, he—Lord Crowell—pushed me out again. Someone flashed a dark lantern in my face, and someone else laughed, ‘It looks like you caught us a juicy young one this time, Billy’. Then the lantern was closed and they—they grabbed me….”

By the time Willa paused in her recitation, Jessica was sobbing quietly. “Oh, Miss Jess”—Willa sighed, gazing at her tenderly—“forgive me. I never meant you to hear.” She turned back to Raeburn. “There were seven of them, Your Lordship,” she said tersely. “The only one whose face I saw was him there, but I counted their voices, and from the way they talked I knew they were all gentry. I used to think that I had learned to survive anything, but by the time they—they finished with me, all I wanted to do was die….”

She looked again at her mistress, who was now being comforted by Claire; then she stared straight at Lord Crowell, who shrank back in his chair, his piggy blue eyes narrowed as if he were puzzling over something. To Raeburn she concluded with weary dispassion, “If it weren’t for that dear lady crying for me there, I would have drowned myself in the river…and when I got to hell I know I would have found out that the devil has Lord Crowell’s face.”

The only sounds in the room were the crackle of the fire in the hearth and Jessica’s weeping muffled against Claire’s shoulder; then Raeburn turned to Barston and said, “See that Lord Crowell’s luggage is packed and loaded onto the carriage within the hour.”

“Very good, my lord,” the butler replied stolidly, signaling to the footmen with a movement of his powdered head.

The duke jerked upright in his seat. “By God, Raeburn,” he sputtered, “you—you can’t mean…you’d take the word of a little slut like—”

“Oh, do be quiet, Billy,” John Mason drawled, reaching past Crowell for the wine decanter. “Have the good grace for once to admit that your sins have found you out.”

Crowell turned furiously to the artist. “Dammit, Johnny, you promised no one would ever know!”

Splashing burgundy into his glass, Mason shrugged. “No, Billy. What I said was that I would do all in my power to keep your unsavory little habits a secret. I can hardly be held responsible if you were fool enough to let one of your pigeons recognize you….”

“Sweet Jesus,” Raeburn groaned, sickened, “are you telling me that you too were party to this—this….”

Mason’s yellow eyes regarded his host benignly. “Oh, no, my lord. Membership in that rather, shall we say, exclusive group was—is—open only to certain…adventurous…peers. I was not aware of its existence until just a few months ago when I came into possession of some letters written by a young viscount who has since fallen in His Majesty’s service at Galicia.”

Crowell choked, and Raeburn ventured acutely, “And since acquiring those letters you’ve been using them to extort money and favors, is that it? How did you do it, Mason? Did you blackmail them with the threat of those cartoons of yours?”

Mason pursed his mouth in thought, sucking in his cheeks so that his face looked more skull-like than ever. He said mildly, “My lord, ‘blackmail is such an ugly word. I prefer to think of myself as an older, wiser influence trying to curb…youthful exuberance.”

Raeburn swore so viciously that the women jumped, especially Daphne, when he turned on her. “Well, Daphne,” he demanded harshly, “did you know about this too?”

Daphne grimaced with distaste. “I have always made it a point never to probe into my brother’s private life, but I can’t say these revelations surprise me. Everyone knows that men are animals.”

“Indeed,” Raeburn said coldly, staring down at her as if he had never seen her before. “If that is your true opinion of my sex, then I am right amazed that you should wish to marry.”

“If there were any alternative—” Daphne began, only just catching herself. She took a deep breath and regarded Raeburn steadily. “I will do my duty, Graham.”

Raeburn gazed down at the woman he had chosen to be his bride, the mother of his children, and he wondered bleakly if when he proposed he could have been suffering a temporary derangement brought on by the double shock of Andrew’s death and Jessica’s disappearance. Nothing else could explain it. The thought of taking Daphne into his arms, embracing that scrawny body while she lay stiffly beneath him and ‘did her duty’…. His mind returned irresistibly to the night he had just spent with Jessica, so willing, so giving; the nights they would spend together in future…. With the faintest twinge of guilt at the way he was treating Daphne, he said to her, “No, my dear, I am not a barbarian to demand such a sacrifice from you. I want no martyrs in my bed. And because it is so patently clear that you and I should not suit, I must withdraw my offer of marriage.”

Daphne gaped at him, her mouth working mutely. When she found her voice she stammered, “You—you’re
j-jilting
me?”

“I’m afraid so,” he admitted with a moue of remorse. “But it is for your own good. I am convinced that to proceed further with our engagement would bring nothing but misery to either of us.”

“But—but….”

Raeburn sighed. “I will of course accept all the blame, and, fortunately, since the betrothal was not to be announced officially until Christmas night, you will be spared the embarrassment of having to publish a retraction—”

“Damnation, Raeburn,” Lord Crowell exploded, banging his fist on the table, “you can’t just throw my sister over like that! I won’t let you get away with it, there’s too much at stake! Renard Chase, the—the settlement…. I’ll—by God, I’ll sue for breach of—”

“I think not,” Raeburn cut in, his tone changing to one of cool authority. “You would never expose your sister to public scandal….” His voice hardened, and he continued implacably, “Nor, I think, would you care for me to explain under oath that the primary reason I broke the engagement was to prevent my family’s name from being soiled by even collateral alliance with someone like you.” He paused again; then he said meaningly, “Crowell, perhaps I did not make myself clear earlier when I instructed my servants to pack your belongings; from this moment hence, you are no longer welcome in my home.” After glancing dismissively at John Mason, he added, “Your, um, protégé may leave as well.”

Above the collection of stifled gasps echoing about the room, Daphne’s voice rose with uncharacteristic force, strident and enraged, “Goddamn you, Graham Foxe, you—you lying bastard, leave my brother alone!”

Everyone turned to stare in amazement at her, and even Flora Talmadge was moved to reprove shakily, “My lady, you m-mustn’t say things like th-that. Such words are—are….”

Daphne ignored her, glaring up at Raeburn with eyes that glinted with pale fire. “How dare you denounce my brother?” she gritted. “What kind of credulous fools do you take us for? Who are you to talk so pompously of ‘scandal’? In the past two years there has been enough scandal about your family to make the Foxe name notorious for generations!”

Angrily pushing back her chair, she rose to her feet, her muslin skirts flying, and over the heads of the onlookers she pointed a shaky finger at Jessica. “There she is, there’s the real reason you’ve decided to abandon and humiliate me: Jessica, the drawing teacher, the parson’s chit! Everything was fine until she turned up again, her and that squawling red-haired brat of hers who was born so conveniently after her husband’s death. Have you given careful thought to the paternity of that so-called niece of yours, Graham?”

Through clenched teeth Raeburn muttered, “Take care what you say, Daphne. I know you’re upset, but you’re not thinking clearly.”

Daphne laughed raucously, her harsh words utterly devoid of humor. “Not thinking clearly? I think my mind must be working properly for the first time in months!” She watched Jessica’s pallor increase with each new accusation. “A clergyman’s daughter?” she snorted. “Christ, man, everyone knows her own family disowned the little lightskirt after she seduced your brother! God alone knows what you men see in her, what kind of whore’s tricks she’s used to captivate first Andrew, then you….” Nostrils flaring, she glowered again at Raeburn. “I’ve seen the way you look at her. Don’t bother to deny it.”

Raeburn met Daphne’s gaze squarely. “I wouldn’t dream of denying it,” he snapped. “I’m going to marry Jessica.”

At the far end of the table Jessica gasped. The rigor that had kept her silent during Daphne’s tirade softened enough to allow her to stammer uncertainly, “M-marriage, Graham?” Suddenly her green eyes were blind to everything but the face of the man she loved.

He smiled tenderly at her confusion. “I think it would be advisable, don’t you, darling?” He glanced about him wryly, noting his enrapt audience. Mason especially seemed about to explode. Raeburn guessed that they had better become resigned to being caricatured in the gazettes for months. He said, “Of course I hadn’t intended to make my declaration in quite this way or quite so…public, but—”

Claire squealed with delight and hugged Jessica, “How perfectly wonderful; you’ll be my sister twice!”

At Raeburn’s side Daphne reeled. She clutched his sleeve and protested breathlessly, “You can’t make her your wife! Offer her a carte blanche if you must, but to actually
marry
a woman like that after spurning me, a Templeton….”

“And Graham,” Flora ventured timidly, “have you seriously thought of the consequences? Jessica is poor Andrew’s widow, and for you to wed after living together in the same house…. There could be…gossip….”

With growing frustration Raeburn eyed the circle of people clamoring about him, coming between him and the woman he loved. Except for his sister, he would willingly consign them all to perdition, for he could see that Jessica remained stunned, unconvinced of his sincerity. Oh, God, he needed to be alone with her so that he could talk to her, touch her, reassure her in the most basic and personal of ways….

“But, Graham, think of the scandal,” Flora wailed.

“There will be no scandal when Jessica is my countess,” he retorted hotly. “I will see that
no one
dares make light of our family name!” He glowered significantly at Mason and Crowell, and be was surprised when the artist lurched to his feet, so agitated that he stumbled against the table and made the crockery rattle.

“Don’t you think it’s a little late for such precautions, my lord?”
Mason blurted. Everyone stared. Jessica stood mesmerized as his yellow eyes glinted ferally at her, like those of a jackal closing in on a wounded fawn. “I warned you, madam,” he grated, and she could only nod wretchedly, helpless to stop what was coming, knowing that the fleeting and unexpected glimpse of heaven that Raeburn had just shown her would make her purgatory away from him all the more bitter.

Raeburn watched that exchange of glances, his eyes narrowing menacingly at Jessica’s instinctive recoil. “What the hell is going on here, Mason?” he demanded.

Mason drew himself up to his full height, expanding his sunken chest importantly. A lock of his sandy, thinning hair fell forward over his eyes, and he brushed it back carefully into place across his bald spot. When he saw that his spectators were all attention, he cleared his throat and began unctuously, “My lord, although it is clear that you have misinterpreted my simple desire to spare your sensibilities any distress by not telling you what I knew about Lord Crowell, I am sure—”

“To the point, man; get to the point!” Raeburn interrupted with raw impatience.

“Very well, my lord,” Mason said, deflating slightly as he abandoned his oratorical air, “the point is this: you would be committing a tragic and ironic error of almost monumental proportions if you marry this woman in order to give her the protection of your good name, for she is the one person who has deliberately and insidiously sought to destroy the virtue of that name. Jessica Foxe, your sister-in-law, the woman who lives under your roof and eats at your table, is in truth none other than the scurrilous cartoonist Erinys!”

Time faltered: gray eyes met green across a chasm of disbelief and admission and guilt; then with a guttural squeal Jessica ran.

She darted for the door, but Raeburn intercepted her before she could reach it, before the other people in the dining room could do more than gape in vacant astonishment. When his large hands clamped like manacles over her arms, she cried out in protest and flailed at him, her eyes screwed shut so that she would not have to see the disgust on his beloved face. “Let me go!” she wailed, thrashing wildly, but he restrained her movements with no more effort than if she had been Lottie’s size. As he caught her close against the hard wall of his broad chest he glanced dismissively over the top of her head at the shaken onlookers. “Out. All of you,” he rasped, and no one dared gainsay him.

Magically Barston materialized in the archway again, summoned as if by second sight. He drew back the door to make room for the people trooping out, and Raeburn asked him tersely, “Is the carriage ready?”

“Yes, my lord,” the butler replied, impassive as always, giving no notice of the woman squirming in his master’s arms. “The coachman did request that I inform you that because of the snow on the roadway, travel is likely to be slow and extremely uncomfortable, although not impossible.”

Raeburn shrugged. “I expect Lord Crowell and Mr. Mason to be sent on their way at once—snow or no snow.”

“Very good, my lord,” Barston replied again, and this time Raeburn was surprised to note the man’s stern mouth twitch.

“Barston, my luggage also,” Daphne commanded tersely, passing Raeburn with averted eyes as she followed the others from the room. He called her name softly. She glanced over her shoulder, but at the sight of Jessica she quickly looked away again. Raeburn said quietly, “Daphne, I sincerely regret the embarrassment this situation must inevitably cause you. As some slight recompense, if you will permit it, I should like to see that you…are provided for in such a way that your future independence might be assured.”