The Hidden Heart (17 page)

“Oh, yes. They were not so foolish as to think they could travel on,” Reverend Radfield told Jessica with a faint smile. “But the men you sent were able to get their carriage out of the ditch. It had only had a wheel slip off the road, and it was in a good enough state to drive, so they are following us in it.”

“I see.”

“That must be they,” the reverend said, turning toward the door at the sound of voices outside.

The front door opened, and in strode Cleybourne, his arm around Lady Westhampton, who sagged against his side. They were followed by the lady’s maid and the coachman. Rachel was pale and shivering, and Jessica hurried toward them, followed by Gabriela.

“Lady Westhampton! You must be chilled clear through. Let us get you upstairs.”

“Thank you. I am all right. It has been quite an experience, but I am sure that I will be none the worse for wear. Thank heavens Richard came, though. I fear we would have gotten lost trying to return.”

“Who the devil are all these people?” Cleybourne exclaimed rudely, glancing around the entryway.

“Passengers on the mail coach. It broke down on the road not far from here.” Cleybourne scowled at her, and Jessica looked back blandly at him. “I felt sure that, had you been at home, you would have insisted they come here.”

“Yes, yes,” he said impatiently. “That’s all very well. But right now Rachel needs to go to her room and get warm.”

“Of course. Gabriela and I will take her. Miss Brown will see that our other guests are taken to their rooms.”

At that moment there was a knock on the door, and the footman opened it. Two young men, the “gennelmen” of the coachman’s description, Jessica was sure, strode into the entryway. They were obviously young men of the Ton, dressed in greatcoats sporting double rows of bright brass buttons and several capes at the shoulders, their boots polished to a mirror shine, and if their clothes had not given away their status, their arrogant demeanor would have.

“Lord Kestwick,” the one in front said, immediately picking out the duke as the important person in the room and bowing to him.

The other man stepped around to Kestwick’s side, saying, “Mr. Darius Talbot.”

Jessica stiffened, her eyes widening in shock. It was all she could do to not gasp.
Darius Talbot!
Lord Kestwick’s companion was none other than the man to whom she had once been engaged—the man who had thrown her over at the first sign of scandal.

I
t was all Jessica could do not to duck behind the duke so that Darius would not see her. However, she clenched her fists and managed to remain standing where she was. Darius did not even glance at her.

The duke unenthusiastically greeted the two men, then introduced Rachel, Gabriela and Jessica. Kestwick hardly spared her a glance, but Darius’s head snapped around at the sound of her name, and when he saw her, his eyebrows shot up. He stood, staring at her blankly.

Jessica decided to forestall his saying anything to her by slipping her arm through Rachel’s and turning to Cleybourne to say, “I think I had better help Lady Westhampton to her room now.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” Cleybourne handed Rachel over to her, his face creased with worry. “I shall be up in a moment to see how you are doing, Rachel.”

She smiled at him. “I shall be fine, I’m sure.”

But Jessica noticed that Rachel leaned on her rather heavily and was still shivering. Jessica swept her up the stairs and along the hall to her room, doing her best to concentrate on Rachel’s condition and not on the presence of her former fiancé in this house. It seemed the worst sort of luck that he should wind up here—and it looked as though the whole group would be stuck here for several days.

Inside Lady Westhampton’s room, Jessica quickly helped her off with her coat and boots, both rather sodden from the snow. Next she whisked away the rest of Rachel’s clothes and wrapped her in a warm towel, then urged her into bed. A maid had warmed the sheets with a warming pan, and there was a hot-water bottle, as Jessica had requested, on the bed. Jessica positioned it at Lady Westhampton’s feet and pulled the covers up about her shoulders.

Now Lady Westhampton was shuddering almost uncontrollably, and her teeth chattered. “I’m so sorry. I—I didn’t even realize how cold it was until we came inside.”

“You’ll be fine now. Just give it a little time.” Jessica rang for a maid, meaning to order hot tea for her patient, but right after that, a maid bustled in carrying a tray with a teapot and cups, as well as a bowl of warm stew.

The lady’s bags had not been brought up to her room yet, so Jessica went quickly down the hall to her room and pulled out one of her own warm flannel nightgowns and her dressing gown. She returned to Rachel’s room and helped her into the clothes, then warmed her up further with a cup of tea, followed by a bowl of the hearty stew. Gradually Rachel’s shivering stopped.

“The snow was terrible,” she told Jessica. “I should have told Stephens to turn back sooner, but I am afraid I am afflicted with the Aincourt stubbornness. I had delayed too long already, and I was worried that Lord Westhampton would be upset. He was probably expecting me there today. Now I cannot even send him a note.”

“Well, I am sure that your husband would much rather you were here safe than risking your life trying to get home in time.”

“Yes. No doubt. And Michael is a very calm man,” Rachel said, with what Jessica thought was a faintly wistful note in her voice. “He will probably realize that I am staying over because of the snowfall and not worry. He is quite pragmatic.”

She told Jessica how they had finally turned the coach around and were headed back toward the castle when her carriage had drifted off the road and gotten mired down in the ditch. Unsure anyone would happen by, the coachman had unharnessed the horses, and they had set out, riding the animals.

“I was greatly afraid we were going to get lost. It was all so featureless out there, with snow covering everything. Thank goodness Richard came looking for us.”

“He was very worried about you.”

Rachel smiled. “He is a good brother-in-law.”

But Jessica could not help but wonder if the duke’s feelings for Rachel were something more than those of a brother-in-law.

Gabriela came in to see how Rachel was doing, and then the two of them left in order to give Lady Westhampton a chance to sleep. They returned to the schoolroom, Gabriela chattering about the excitement of the visitors and the snow.

Jessica sank into a chair, and though she managed to respond to Gabriela’s conversation, her mind was largely occupied by the fact that Darius Talbot was in the house.
What a bizarre twist of fate!

She rarely thought of the man, and certainly whatever feelings she once had for him had long since burned away. Indeed, she sometimes thought that the hurt and betrayal she had felt after he threw her over were actually stronger feelings than the love she had had for him during their betrothal. But seeing him here had jarred her. It was, to say the least, an awkward situation.

But, she reassured herself, it might be possible to avoid being around him. With all these people, the duke would surely not feel the need to have her as a buffer between him and the Veseys, and Rachel was, at least for the day, going to take her supper on a tray in bed. So she herself would be free to eat with Gabriela every day in the nursery. She wished now that they were still sleeping up there, for then she would have been even more isolated from Talbot. She was much more likely to run into him since their rooms were on the same floor. Miss Brown might put some of the uninvited guests on the third floor, but Jessica knew that she would not put Kestwick and Talbot there, as they were too obviously members of the upper class.

She would simply have to keep to her room as much as possible until they left, Jessica decided, even though it galled her to think of literally hiding from the man. But it would be the most uncomfortable situation to have to speak to him! Anything, she thought, would be better than that.

Of course, she reminded herself, Darius would have just as little desire to talk to her—perhaps even less. If he tried to avoid her, too, perhaps they might be able to keep from meeting.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Baxter, who came to her with the thorny problem of where to seat all their visitors at the dining table. Jessica understood the dilemma he faced. She felt sure that most of the passengers of the mail coach would never, in the ordinary course of their lives, be seated to eat with a duke. Only Kestwick and Talbot were of any sort of rank to be seated with Cleybourne, the Veseys and Lady Westhampton, and Jessica frankly was not sure enough of Kestwick’s rank to know where to place him among that group of people.

The coachman and his assistant would eat with the servants. But that left the other mail passengers to be sorted out. One could scarcely expect a man of the cloth to be seated with the servants, so he must go to the duke’s table. And Jessica could tell from the spinster’s demeanor that she would be horrified to be seated anywhere but at the main table. Mrs. Woods had seemed genteel and was certainly well dressed. Goodrich, the man who had arrived with the coachman’s assistant, would by his attire fit better with the servants, but it would be a terrible thing to make a mistake and put him there if he did not belong. Jessica had felt too many stings of embarrassment as a governess to subject anyone else to them.

“And there is another one now, miss,” Baxter put in, looking frazzled.

“Another? Who?”

“A man who arrived a short while ago on horseback. Cobb is his name, and I am sure I don’t know where he belongs, either. A rather rough-looking sort, though he is dressed well enough.”

“Have you asked the duke? It is, after all, his table.”

“Of course. He says only, ‘I am sure you will do what’s best, Baxter.’” He heaved a little sigh. “His Grace is sometimes too egalitarian, I’m afraid. I really do not think he cares where any of them sit.”

“Then I would say put them all at the main dining table and rank them as seems appropriate to you. My guess is that Kestwick is of higher degree than the Veseys, but even there, I am not sure. Mr. Talbot obviously has no title, and I am sure that he would not sit as high as the others. The rest—just put them farther down the table. If they are offended, it can’t be helped.”

“Yes, miss, thank you.” Baxter smiled at her, relieved, and hurried off.

Next it was Miss Brown who came to her to confide her worries about the rooms she had had made up and how she had allotted them, and Jessica did her best to mollify her fears, assuring her that whatever she had decided would not reflect badly on the duke. Jessica was not entirely certain of that statement, but she was sure that the duke would not care, anyway.

Lady Westhampton, when she awakened, invited Gabriela to dine with her in her room that evening, assuming that Jessica would be dining downstairs. Jessica decided that, to save the maids an extra trip, she would wait to eat until after the main meal had been served downstairs and would then just slip down to the kitchen and make up a tray herself.

She was sitting in her room, reading and trying to ignore her empty stomach, when there was a sharp rap on her door. She opened it, expecting to find Miss Brown or Baxter with another etiquette question, but to her surprise it was the Duke of Cleybourne himself who stood in front of her door.

“Your Grace! I—” She stopped, having no idea what to say.

“What the devil are you doing up here?” he asked ungraciously.

“And where else would I be?” Jessica bridled.

“You are supposed to be downstairs, eating with everyone else.”

“Governesses generally do not eat with the family, Your Grace, especially when there are guests.”

“They aren’t
my
guests,” Cleybourne pointed out. “You invited them in. This is a fine time to appear subservient to me, I must say. Where is the Miss Maitland who takes it upon herself to run the household and send out my servants to rescue mail coaches?”

“What would you have had me do?” Jessica flared. “Leave them out in the snow to freeze to death?”

“No, of course not. I just—damnation, they are a nuisance. One of them is forever twitching or blinking or clearing his throat, and that Cobb fellow is a rum sort, as well. You cannot expect me to put up with that lot of gudgeons by myself.”

“You are scarcely alone.”

“I know. That is the problem. It was bad enough when it was just Lord and Lady Vesey. But now there is that sparrow of a woman twittering away, and Kestwick droning on about boot polish, of all things, and that other fellow, what’s his name, is a perfect dolt.” He broke off with a sigh, then looked at her with raised eyebrows. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“You need to dress and come down to dinner.”

“You aren’t serious.”

“I most certainly am.”

Jessica thought with panic of having to sit at the same table with Darius. “But I—it will take me a while.”

“We’ll wait dinner.”

“You don’t
need
me. I don’t know how I can make them any less annoying.”

Cleybourne looked at her for a moment, nonplussed, then said, “Perhaps not, but it will improve my mood immensely if I know that you are having to suffer them, as well. Now, get dressed. I shall wait for you out here.”

“You do not need to wait.”

“I do if I expect you to join us.”

Jessica grimaced and shut the door, then went to her wardrobe and pulled out another of the dresses that Lady Westhampton had lent her. She decided on the rich brown satin, which contained a hidden depth of red that seemed to reflect her hair and warm her pale skin. She left her hair in the same simple style in which she had worn it all day, a heavy knot twisted and pinned low on her neck. She had neither the time nor the skill to do up the elaborate curls she had worn the other evening.

When she opened the door, Cleybourne, who had been lounging on a decorative bench across the hall, jumped to his feet, and there was something in his eyes, a sudden flash of light, that made her insides curl with heat. She reminded herself that she was nothing to him but an employee, that he regretted the impulse that had led him to kiss her the other night, that he had been dallying last night with the licentious Leona.

He took her arm, and they went down the stairs to the sitting room, where everyone else was waiting. The furious look on Leona’s face when Jessica entered the room at Cleybourne’s side was enough to make her glad she had come, even if it did mean having to spend an evening with Darius Talbot.

It was a strange meal. As Cleybourne had said, Mr. Goodrich could not seem to sit in stillness. He gazed at the vast array of silverware with some trepidation and kept checking with little sideways glances to see what utensil everyone else was using. Across from him sat a man Jessica had not seen before, whom she took to be the Mr. Cobb that Baxter had told her had arrived later than the others and alone. He was a short, squat fellow with a thick trunk and heavy shoulders and arms. A scar decorated one cheek, giving him an odd, constant half smile, and his eyes were as flat and emotionless as rocks. He said nothing, just ate with a methodical slowness, looking around the table at all the others. She had to agree with Cleybourne that he looked to be a “rum sort.”

Leona, as always, wore a gown that was as close to nothing as she could find. Most of the men’s eyes remained on the neckline of her dress throughout the evening, hoping, Jessica supposed, that it would eventually slip that final inch and reveal her nipples. The spinster who was traveling to visit her sister, Miss Pargety, spent most of the meal staring at Leona, too, with fascinated horror. Mrs. Woods seemed unshocked by Leona’s manner or attire. She ate her meal with quiet dignity, watching everyone else and saying little herself, though once or twice Jessica was sure she caught a flash of contempt in her face when she looked at Leona.