The Hidden Heart (29 page)

“You did not take advantage,” Jessica said firmly. “I knew what I was doing. I went into it with open eyes. I don’t regret it.”

“Honestly?” He raised her hands to his lips and kissed first one, then the other. “I am glad to hear you say so, for I find I cannot say I am sorry for what I did. I am not.”

“Nor am I.” She looked at him, her eyes huge and brilliant.

“I feel as if I could drown in your eyes,” he murmured. He leaned down, and she came up to meet him, and they kissed, their lips gentle and searching.

“I cannot stay away from you,” he said, kissing her lips, her eyes, her cheek. “I want to be with you again tonight. I know I should not—”

Jessica stopped his words with her mouth. Finally she pulled away and said, “I want to be with you tonight, too. I want you in my bed.”

He drew a sharp breath. “Jessica…” He pulled her to him, nuzzling into her hair. “It occurs to me that now would be an even better time.”

Jessica laughed. “I think you might be right.”

At that moment there was a discreet tap on the door, and they sprang apart, turning toward the sound.

“Enter,” Richard said, his voice coming out harshly.

The door opened to reveal Baxter. “Your Grace.” He came into the room, his face alight with excitement. “You have a visitor. Lord Westhampton has just arrived.”

Richard gaped at him. “Lord Westha—”

“Yes, Lord Westhampton.” A tall blond man appeared in the doorway. He was in his middle thirties, with even, attractive features. He was bundled up warmly in a heavy caped overcoat, a muffler around his throat, and he carried a hat in his hand. He looked a trifle tired, and Jessica noticed that snow clung to his boots and the bottom of his long coat. “It is I, Richard.”

“Michael! My God!” Richard let out a short laugh and strode across the room to greet him warmly, shaking his hand and clapping him on the shoulder. “Where the devil did you come from?”

“Well, home, actually,” Michael replied, looking faintly embarrassed.

“The Lake District? In this snow? Are you mad? How did you get through?”

“It seemed a bit dicey at times,” the other man admitted mildly. “But once I’d started, well, it would have been as bad going back, so I pressed on.”

“But whatever for?” Richard frowned suddenly. “Has something happened. Is something wrong? Not Dev—”

“No, no. There is nothing wrong. At least, not with me. Not now that Baxter has assured me Rachel is safe.”

“Why, yes, she has been here throughout the snow. You did not know she planned to stop here on her return journey?”

“I, well, she was much later coming home than she had said she would be, and I began to worry, so I thought I would go down to Derbyshire, just to make sure she was all right. Dev told me that she had come here to persuade you to join us for Christmas, and I felt a fool, of course. I started to go home, but then the storm came. I was afraid, you see, that she had left before and had gotten caught in it, so I decided to ride here. Just to make sure.”

Jessica looked at Lord Westhampton with interest. So this was the man with whom Rachel had a “pleasant” marriage, but one lacking in love. It seemed a trifle odd to her that a man who maintained a polite but distant marriage with his wife would panic at her being a few days late and ride to meet her, let alone press on even farther through a snow so deep that the mail coaches could not run.

Lord Westhampton glanced over at Jessica. “I beg your pardon for intruding upon you, ma’am.”

“It is quite all right, I assure you,” Jessica replied.

“I am sorry,” Richard said, turning to Jessica. “My manners have deserted me. Miss Maitland, this is my brother-in-law, Lord Westhampton. Rachel’s husband. Michael, this is Miss Maitland. She is, um, governess to my ward.”

“Your ward?” Michael had started forward to take Jessica’s hand in greeting, but he stopped at these last words and turned to Richard, exclaiming with some surprise, “I didn’t know you—”

“Michael?” There was the sound of hurrying footsteps outside in the hallway and Rachel’s voice calling her husband’s name.

Lord Westhampton spun around at the sound of her voice, and Jessica saw on his face a flash of something—hope, excitement?—that he quickly controlled. Rachel hurried into the room, breathless and flushed, and came to an abrupt stop. The two of them stood there looking at each other for a moment. Then Rachel swallowed and stepped forward, holding out her hand almost formally.

“Michael,” she said, only the faintest tremor in her voice. “I had not expected you.”

“Yes, I know,” he answered with equal politeness, advancing to take her hand and raise it to his lips in a courteous gesture. “I apologize for intruding.”

“Nonsense!” Cleybourne said stoutly.

“’Tis not an intrusion,” Rachel told him quietly. “I was merely surprised that you had come all this way.”

“I—well, it occurred to me that perhaps you had gotten trapped in the snow somewhere between here and home,” he explained.

“I almost did, but fortunately Richard came after me,” Rachel explained.

Jessica, watching them, decided that it was time for her to leave. These three, old friends and family, did not need a stranger hanging about. “Excuse me,” she said, “I must go check on Gabriela now. It was a pleasure to meet you, Lord Westhampton. I am glad you arrived safely.”

He thanked her, and she slipped out of the room, aware that Richard turned to watch her go. Her thoughts were at first on Rachel and her oddly stiff meeting with her husband. There was something strange and contradictory there, and she could not help but wonder what had happened between them. She had thought more than once that there was a hint of sorrow in Rachel’s lovely green eyes. But she could not keep her thoughts on that—or, indeed, on anything—long before thoughts of Richard came creeping in. She thought about his coming to her room again tonight, and excitement leaped in her. She knew she was acting wantonly, even wickedly.

She looked in on Gabriela and found her, amazingly, absorbed in one of her books. “The little princes in the Tower,” she said, explaining her interest, then returned to the macabre subject.

Jessica went on to her own room, thinking to pick up the knitting she had started the other day, before all their guests arrived, and work on it while Gabriela did her lessons. When she entered the room, the first thing she saw was her ruined jewelry box lying on the dresser. She went over to it, then began to separate the jewelry from the bits of wood.

She wondered where she would put her few pieces of jewelry now. The box was clearly beyond repair. She frowned, thinking, then suddenly brightened as she recalled the lovely inlaid wood box the General had left to her in his will. It was far too large for her jewelry, but the necklaces and earrings would fit well enough in one of its little compartments.

Jessica walked over to the trunk at the foot of her bed, which she had left largely packed, not knowing whether the duke would ship her and Gabriela off soon. Lifting the lid, she took out the folded summery dresses that lay on top, useless for this time of year, and bent to retrieve the elegant box. It was large, over a foot long and almost that wide, though it was not as heavy as one would think from looking at it.

She set it down on the dresser, running her hand admiringly across its satin-smooth surface. She turned the little key in the lock to open it, but before she could lift the lid, a muffled grunt in the hall startled her.

She raised her head and turned, looking out into the hall. Lord Kestwick stood there, staring at her, his eyes wide in his face.

“So that’s it!” he exclaimed, and he looked from her to the box. “A different box!”

Jessica gazed at him blankly. “What are—”

In that moment it struck her. It was Kestwick who had destroyed her jewelry box. She did not understand it in the slightest, but it was clear that he was galvanized by the sight of the General’s box. He had mistaken her jewelry case for the one the General had given her. In the next instant other things slid into place—someone had broken in and searched the General’s house, and then someone had broken into the nursery. Had the intruder been after this box?

“It was you!” she exclaimed.

“Shut up!” Kestwick strode quickly into her room, swinging the door shut behind him. His eyes flamed with a malevolence such as Jessica had never encountered. She took an involuntary step backward, but he reached her in the next instant and slapped her hard, knocking her to the floor.

“God damn you!” His rage seemed all the more terrible for the fact that it was delivered in a low voice. “Yes, I did it! So what? The whore deserved it!”

Jessica, her head ringing from the blow he had dealt her, looked up at him dazedly. The import of his words sank in, and she realized with a shiver that chilled her to the bone that Lord Kestwick had killed Mrs. Woods.

“B
loody, interfering bitch!” Kestwick went on. Jessica was unsure whether he was referring to her or to Mrs. Woods. He reached down and grabbed Jessica’s wrist, jerking her to her feet. He pulled her back against him, wrapping one arm tightly around her, and with the other he pulled a short, thin-bladed knife out of a back pocket and held it against her throat. “Say a word and I’ll slit your throat right here.”

They stood that way for a moment in front of the dresser, looking at their images in the mirror. “What am I going to do?” he mused. “I cannot let you go now. How the hell did you know?”

“I didn’t,” Jessica replied honestly. “I meant that it was you who tore apart my little jewelry box. Who broke into the General’s house and into the nursery. I didn’t know you killed Mrs. Woods until just now, when you said that.”

He cursed, tightening his arm around her waist cruelly. “Well, there’s no use for it. I have to do something with you.”

“Why did you do it?” Jessica asked. “What do you want with that box?”

His eyebrows lifted. “You mean you don’t know? You haven’t found it?”

“Found what? Know what? I haven’t the slightest idea what you are talking about.”

He let out a laugh that bordered on hysteria. “Christ! I cannot believe it! You don’t know.”

“No, I don’t.”

“So the old fool lied to me—or maybe he hid it too well for you to find.”

“Who—the General?” Jessica met his eyes in the mirror, cold and flat as a snake’s eyes, and suddenly she knew with certainty that this man had murdered the General, as well. “He didn’t die of a another apoplexy, did he? You were there that night, weren’t you? You did something to him. Why?”

“Be quiet! You talk entirely too much. All right. We have to make this look like an accident—no! I have a much better idea.” His eyes glittered evilly. “You will write a note confessing to killing Marie.”

“You knew her from before,” Jessica guessed. “We were looking at it the wrong way round, weren’t we? You didn’t recognize her and apply pressure to her. She recognized you! She knew something about you, from her days as a lightskirt. What did she do? Did she demand money not to tell?”

Kestwick sneered. “Silly bitch! As if I would knuckle under to the threats of a tart like her.”

“What was it she knew?”

“I told you to be quiet!” he snapped, again squeezing her chest so tightly she could scarcely breathe. “It doesn’t matter why. Now, first, you are going to write a suicide note. Let’s see, why shall we say you shoved her down the stairs? Perhaps the two of you were birds-of-paradise together, and she recognized you. She threatened to tell your new employer.” He smiled thinly. “Or should I say lover?”

Jessica glanced at him in the mirror, startled. “Oh, yes,” he said. “I have seen how he looks at you. Were you so foolish as to think that he loves you? That he might marry you? He never will, you know.”

“You are giving me romantic advice now?” Jessica asked, stung by the absurdity of it.

“Just telling you the truth of it. Men like us don’t marry governesses, especially ones who are willing to let us under their skirts for nothing.”

“Don’t you dare classify yourself with Cleybourne!” Jessica exclaimed, rage sweeping through her. “He is nothing like you, thank God!”

“No? Well, perhaps I shall be kind and let you die with such sweet delusions in your head. Now, where is the paper?”

“You are mad! I have no intention of writing a suicide note for you!”

He pressed the knife into her throat a little, cutting a thin red line. “You will if you don’t want to die.”

“For what—four more minutes? And do you really think they will believe that I killed myself by slicing my own throat?”

He glared at her in the mirror, and she knew that he would have loved to kill her right there and then. But he pulled himself back under control. “Perhaps you are right. I will just write the note for you when I return.”

“Ret—” But Jessica was not able to get out the words, for he tossed the knife onto the dresser beside the box and clamped his hand around her throat, squeezing her neck tightly between his fingers until black dots swam in front of her eyes and she fell unconscious.

Jessica awoke feeling sick at her stomach. She was also bitterly cold. She opened her eyes, letting out a little groan, and saw the white snow beneath her, bouncing up and down. Her head ached, and so did her stomach, pressed hard against something. It took her a moment to realize that Kestwick must have flung her over his shoulder and was carrying her through the snow, her head hanging down on one side of him and her feet on the other. Every step he took jounced her tender head and pushed against her stomach. She closed her eyes, fighting a wave of nausea. She shivered. It was terribly cold to be out of the house without a coat, but at least the chill was making her come to her senses rapidly. If she did nothing, Kestwick was going to kill her.

She kicked him as hard as she could, twisting and struggling and drumming her hands against his back. Opening her mouth, she screamed, but she feared that the sound fell away to nothingness in the open white landscape.

Kestwick stumbled, then pitched her down on the ground, cursing. The snow cushioned her fall, so it did not completely knock the air out of her, but as Jessica struggled to her feet, she staggered dizzily.

“Shut up, damn you!” Kestwick roared, grabbing her wrist and pulling her to him, clamping his hand over her mouth.

He moved on, half dragging, half pushing her, struggling through the snow up to their knees. Jessica’s shoes were quickly soaked through, as was the bottom of her dress and petticoats, and she was bitterly cold. It was small comfort to know that he was no more dressed for the elements than she, not having had the time to go to his room and put on a coat and hat.

She could not tear away from his grasp, but she made their progress as difficult and slow as possible, hoping that someone had heard her scream or would notice she was missing. She thought of Richard chatting happily with Rachel and Michael. It could be hours before he noticed she was gone. Still, she fought fiercely, determined not to let Kestwick kill her easily. She did not know what he planned or where he was taking her, but she scratched and dug in her heels, pulling back with all her weight, twisting and struggling to get away from him. They fell down more than once, but still they struggled on.

They finally reached a place where the snow lay lower than elsewhere, and Kestwick flung her out into it. She sank through it and came up against something hard and smooth.
Ice!
In that moment she realized that she was on the frozen pond. He meant to break through the ice and send her down into the frigid water to die, pulled under by the weight of her skirts and petticoats.

Terrified, she jumped to her feet and flung herself forward off the ice, thankful that it had not broken through. Kestwick let out a roar of rage and grabbed her, pulling her out onto the ice and kicking at it with his heel. Jessica clawed at his face, and he let out a shriek, grappling with her to control her arms. There was an ominous cracking sound beneath their feet.

Suddenly, behind them, came a roar of rage, and in the next moment a hand caught Kestwick’s collar and flung him backward. Jessica looked up and saw Richard.

He swept his arm around her and pulled her off the ice. Kestwick let out a wordless scream of anger and frustration and charged forward, slamming into Richard and sending the two of them falling backward onto the frozen surface of the pond.

“Richard!” Jessica screamed.

There was another, louder crack when the two men smacked into the ice. Then it broke, and they fell into the water. Jessica screamed Richard’s name again and started forward, but a man caught her arm and thrust her aside. It was Lord Westhampton, and he ran to the pond, where the two men were still struggling in the icy water.

Kestwick was trying to squirm away from Richard, to reach the ice and climb out on it, and Richard was grappling with him, attempting to drag the other man back to the shore with him.

The ice broke off everywhere they touched it. Kestwick shoved Richard beneath the water, but he came up, grabbing Kestwick and throwing him backward against the ice. Jessica watched, frantic with worry, as Michael arrived at the pond and reached for Richard’s shoulder. Richard was just out of range, and Michael glanced around quickly for something to use to grab his friend.

Jessica heard the sound of someone behind her and turned to see Mr. Cobb chugging through the snow, and farther behind him came Rachel and Gabriela. Cobb carried in his hand a foot-long cudgel, his weapon, Jessica assumed, but he used it now as a stick, handing it to the longer-armed Michael, who stretched out, holding the cudgel to Richard. Richard grasped the other end of the stick, and Michael pulled him toward the shore, leaning down with Cobb to grab the duke by the shoulders as soon as he was near enough to haul him out of the water. Richard flopped down in the snow, coughing, and Jessica ran to him, throwing herself onto her knees beside him.

“Are you all right? Oh, Richard!”

He nodded and sat up, pulling her into his arms and holding her tightly. “Jessica…Thank God. I have never been so scared in my life. I thought—I thought I was going to lose you.”

“No. Never.”

Richard tilted her chin up and kissed her, and suddenly Jessica felt far less cold.

Behind them Cobb and Michael turned to try to pull Kestwick to shore, as well. But Kestwick turned and swam away, ignoring Westhampton’s shouts. His movements were labored, slowed by the cold that had penetrated him, and by the water that had soaked his clothes and filled his boots, dragging him down. He reached the edge of the sheet of ice that covered the pond and grasped it with his hands. He heaved his body out of the water, but at the sudden weight on it, the ice broke, and he slid back into the water. The large chunk of ice he had broken off slammed into his head, and he disappeared beneath the surface.

“Kestwick!” Westhampton shouted. He turned to Cobb, and Cobb shrugged. It was clear that there was little they could do. Kestwick was much too far away for them to pull him in.

“Richard! Jessica! Are you all right?” Rachel was upon them now. She pulled off her cloak and wrapped it around Jessica. “You poor thing. You must be frozen.”

If she found anything odd in the sight of Richard holding his ward’s governess as if he would never let her go, she did not say anything.

“Miss Jessie! Miss Jessie!” Gabriela was there, too. “Are you all right? I saw him carrying you out of the house, so I ran to tell the duke!”

“You were a very smart girl,” Rachel told her, pulling the girl to her and hugging her. “If it had not been for you, there is no telling what might have happened.”

“Why did he carry you out here?” she went on, turning to Jessica. “Is he the one who killed that other woman?’

Jessica nodded, shivering and clinging to Richard. They all turned to look at the pond where Kestwick was floundering. Lord Westhampton was running around the side of the pond, Cobb puffing along behind him, shouting discouragement.

“You cannot try it, my lord! You’ll go under just like him!”

“I cannot stand here and let him drown,” Westhampton expostulated. “Whatever he did.”

Michael stepped carefully out onto the ice and began to make his way across it. Rachel, suddenly pale, ran toward Mr. Cobb. “No! Michael, no!”

Kestwick’s head bobbed up to the surface, and he flailed, his hands hitting against the ice but sliding off slickly. There was a groan in the ice, and suddenly a crack began to form, splitting right in front of Kestwick and running toward Michael. Rachel shrieked, and Mr. Cobb had to grab her to keep her from running out on the ice after her husband.

Michael, who was now only ten feet from where Kestwick was spluttering and trying to stay afloat, lay facedown on the ice to distribute his weight more evenly and crawled forward. “Take my hand!” he shouted to Kestwick, creeping toward the edge of the ice and extending his hand toward the other man. Kestwick floundered toward Westhampton, grabbing the ice beside him with his hand and trying to slide along it to safety. There was another loud crack, and the ice in Kestwick’s hand broke off. He sank again and never reappeared.

A crack appeared in front of Michael, and he scrambled quickly backward. Mr. Cobb crawled on hands and knees out onto the pond, grabbing Michael’s foot and yanking him back just as another crack opened beneath Michael. The two men crawled rapidly toward the rear as the ice in front of them broke off and floated across the pond. They reached the shore and tumbled into the snow, panting.

Rachel, who had been standing as rigid as a statue, dropped to her knees, covering her face with her hands. Gabriela ran to her, putting her arms around her and helping her up, and by the time Lord Westhampton and Mr. Cobb got shakily to their feet and turned to trudge back to them, Rachel had pulled her face back into a semblance of calm.

“I am freezing,” she said shortly, and turned and walked back to where Jessica and Richard had gotten to their feet and were looking out across the pond. There was no sign of Kestwick. Everyone stared blankly, and a long moment passed. Still there was no sign of the man. All of them knew that there was no way Kestwick could survive now. He had been under the water too long; he could never fight back up under the dragging weight of his clothes and boots.