Timeless Passion: 10 Historical Romances To Savor (224 page)

An all-too-familiar voice shouted, “Jessica, my darling wife, step out here into the morning and explain yerself.”

“John,” she whispered. As if things were not complicated enough, John Lout had arrived to further confound her. An odd recurring thought again darted through her mind. Never was a man so aptly named as John Lout.

Although he sometimes appeared at inconvenient times, like today, John once had arrived at a most fortuitous time. At that event, Jessica had been desperately glad to see him.

Thinking, she threw off her gloves and the pelisse and opened the carriage door to find her betrothed and three other equally shabby riders, one astride a burro. “Yes, John, I am here, and it’s glad I am to see you.”

She poked her head out first, and then moved onto the step, clinging to the carriage door. “How do you happen to be out here so early?”

“Aye, lass, what are you doing in there at the same time, I might ask? Word is, you were abducted by another devil. I came to rescue you again.” He gave Bear a suspicious glance, but the giant remained seated on the box and neither moved nor spoke as their eyes met.

Jessica looked into John’s misshapen face on which excess flesh hung from his jowls. She schooled her own expression, to look both respectful and pleased to see him. “Thank you, John, but this time, as you may tell, I hardly have need of rescue.”

His expectant look dissolved to disappointment. “I was told you needed assistance.”

She smiled. “You are always my hero, John, even when I am not in danger. But you know that already.”

Confusion replaced tentative anger in his stare as he remained astride the mangy horse that swayed beneath his brawn.

“Word came that you was being held against your will in a stronghold known as Gull’s Way. We were in search of the place when one of my men saw ye. He recognized the paint on this here coach as that belonging to the cad holding you.”

The ducal coat of arms. She knew that was going to cause trouble. Trying to maintain a look of calculated approval, Jessica broadened her smile. This situation bore cautious handling.

“The old duke was struck down by ruffians, John. He was robbed and left broken and bleeding on the road.” She wrung her hands and changed her expression to regret.

“Hmmm.” John appeared to follow the story.

“I found him lying back in the underbrush off the side of the road,” she continued. “I delivered him to his home.” She conjured a pitiful look, which must have been convincing as concern spread John’s face. “He was blind, John, made so by an evil blow to the back of his head. I was the only one about to help him.”

Satisfied with John’s gloomy countenance, she continued. “While I may lack your depth of tenderness, John, I know how it feels to be caught and helpless, as you have reason to know.”

He gave a nod and they exchanged a tender look.

While she was pacifying John, however, his band of three was getting restless, their mounts shuffling nervously at the approach of the trailing outriders.

“Are we to kill the buggers coming, John?” one asked.

“Maybe.” Lout obviously didn’t intend to be rushed to a decision.

Jessica ventured a quick glance at Bear and Figg. Both cast their attention at the team. They were leaving the handling of the situation to her, for now. She apparently was succeeding, so far.

She focused her attention again on her betrothed.

“John, the poor old duke was helpless. Abandoned. Blind. In just the little time it took for me to return him home, the man became quite attached.”

John’s scowl returned with a vengeance, but she threw up a hand to stop his next words.

“He’s going to pay me, John, to serve until his sight returns.”

Lout’s eyes narrowed. “What services does his lordship intend buying with his blunt, and how much is he planning to pay?”

“A hundred pounds.” She quibbled with herself, quieting her conscience. The duke’s offer of five hundred included a hundred pounds, so she hadn’t really lied … exactly.

John’s eyes rounded. “For all that, I suppose he expects you to warm his bed.” He looked as if he were considering his objections.

Jessica lowered her gaze. “No, John. He is a kind, older man. An honorable man. A peer of the realm, who has lost his eyesight, not his mind. The duke knows many beautiful, well-dressed, sweet-smelling ladies who, I am sure, would do the honors of his bed. He has no need of a peasant in tattered clothing.”

John eyed her up and down. “’Pears to me yer clothing is not so tattered as it used ter be.”

“There is a maid swollen with child. I have temporary use of her wardrobe.” That, too, was true, although the gown she wore was made of fine new cloth and created specifically for Jessica by Mrs. Freebinder, the finest modiste in Shiller’s Green.

John thought another long moment. The sounds of the approaching outriders grew louder.

“Has his majesty bid them come to his bed, these beautiful, sweet-smelling ladies?”

“Well, no.”

“Was he the one put his babe on the maid?”

She cast him a hard look. “He did no such thing.

“I told you, John, he is old and frightened and crippled. A woman is the farthest thing from his mind.”

Bear twisted to frown down at her. His look did not last long enough to let her eyes meet his.

She continued speaking, as much to provide information for the coachmen’s ears as to explain to John.

“You know I have saved myself for marriage, John. You have proved your chivalry many times by helping me preserve that gift.”

He straightened in his saddle and allowed a slight smile of, what … pride? Probably. Saving her virtue had given him certain standing, at least in his own mind. She didn’t know why she was being smug. John had prevented her deflowering, even if he did so to protect property he considered his own.

Smiling with genuine regard, Jessica said, “You and I will soon have need of the money, John. The old duke has a reputation for being kind and generous.”

When she glanced at Bear, he puckered his lips and nodded solemnly to confirm her words. Lout, too, took in the driver’s response, and Jessica plunged ahead.

“Please, John, allow me to finish my sworn oath to the duke and earn the reward.”

Without considering his companions, John nodded, provoking one of his men to say, “But, John, our plan was to … ”

John’s shout made Jessica jump. “Shut yerself up or I’ll slit yer throat and stop yer blathering.” The man quailed beneath John’s glare. “This is between me and my lady. Has nothing to do with you.”

“We was to get the money chest off the coach here and divvy up what’s in it.”

Bear looked alert, but spoke with uncharacteristic humility. “There’s no money chest riding here, only the meager sum we carry in our purses.”

“What’s in the baskets there at yer feet?”

“Food to see us to the lady’s home and back.”

“Throw ’em down.”

“The food baskets?”

“Right.”

Bear did as he was told.

John turned in his saddle and squinted at his three cohorts, then looked back at the coachman. “Empty yer pockets then.” He tossed a careless look at Jessica. “The three a’ ya.”

She reached back onto the seat for her purse. It contained ten ducats — her egg money.

“What’s this?” John jingled the coins that were swallowed as he dribbled them into his hand. “The man’s a duke, you say, yet he don’t give ye any more than this for traveling?”

“That’s not his money,” she said, swelling with indignation. “I wouldn’t take charity from any man, John. You know that. That’s my money, from selling the eggs from my own hens.”

His face twisted as he shook the ducats from his hand into his trouser pocket. “I’ll hold ’em for ye, lass, return ’em when our time comes.” He gave her a significant look and a wink.

Caught by surprise, she couldn’t control the involuntary shiver and was glad he didn’t notice.

John and his men yanked their mounts around, bounded into the woods, and were out of sight when the outriders came into view.

“Why are ye stopped?” one of the men shouted. “What’s amiss?”

Jessica stared at Bear and Figg, wordlessly begging them to keep her secret, promising with the plea in her eyes to repay the money they had forfeited.

Shifting his eyes from her to the outriders, Bear said something about a loose harness.

• • •

Jessica’s brother, Brandon, looked up from a kettle of wash steaming over a fire in the yard and stared at Jessica waving to him from the coach.

“Where’ve you been, girl?” He eyed the rig and the outriders suspiciously. “What’s all this?”

He stopped stirring and wiped his hands on the apron covering his trousers.

Jessica absently allowed Figg to hand her out of the carriage.

“I’m here to ask a favor of you, Brandon,” she said, ignoring her brother’s questions. As his expression darkened, she rushed to continue. “The job will pay us a lot of money, if I can arrange things so I can do what is required.”

Using the favorable responses she’d gotten from John Lout as a guide, Jessica repeated her description of the duke, again painting him as old and decrepit, temporarily incapacitated and willing to pay for her time until he healed.

“You’re asking me to take care of this carping old woman by myself?” Brandon scowled as if not able to believe what he was hearing, and glanced toward the cottage.

“Yes.”

Jessica didn’t mention the duke had offered to let their mother live at the keep. After considering, she decided declining was the wisest course. She had trouble enough caring for her mother without having the woman pampered by a houseful of servants. Returned to their cottage afterward, her mother would, no doubt, expect Jessica to provide the care delivered by an entire staff, including frequent baths and fancy meals.

“He will pay me,” said Jessica. “More than I could make off my hens and Mr. Maxwell in a year.”

As she expected, mention of payment eased her brother’s concern.

“She doesn’t require much, Bran.” Jessica used the childhood nickname and gazed up at him to remind him that he was taller and older and had done little lately to contribute to their mother’s care or upkeep.

“You could live here for the few days required. The cottage is warm on a chill night. You can hunt. If you circulate word, mothers of eligible girls will bring all the food you can eat.”

“And wag their pig-faced daughters to simper and flutter their lashes at me.” He eyed Jessica skeptically. “How much?”

“Maybe as much as a hundred pounds.”

Brandon’s eyes rounded.

“They say the old duke is generous that way.” She increased her volume. “Ask the coachmen.” She turned appealing eyes toward the coach in the road a short distance away. Bear, again seeing the plea in her face, whether he had heard, or not, nodded assurance that whatever she alleged, was true.

“I’ll do it for half,” Brandon said, trying to appear sure of himself, but continuing to look ridiculous in his washer woman apron.

“Half?” She made her tone indignant. She did not want to promise any portion of her earnings before they were in her hands. Also, of course, Brandon would be suspicious if she agreed too easily. “That isn’t fair. I do all the work and you get half the pay?”

“All the work?” He looked at the kettle of laundry still bubbling twenty feet from them. “You’re expecting me to provide your mother’s food, fix her meals, and clean up after her.”

“She is your mother, too. Those are the things I do for her every day, with no help from you, Brandon Blair, much less pay.”

“You’re a woman. You’re supposed to do those things.”

“I’m supposed to do those things for a husband and family of my own, like Dulcie does for Clarence. You and she have left me responsible for Mum while Dulcie runs a home of her own and you run wild, cuckolding wealthy men, dipping into their wives and into their pockets while never passing a bit along to Ma or me.”

“Wedding John Lout seems little improvement over what you do here for Ma.”

“Marry John Lout? Whatever made you think I was going to do that?”

“You’ve been betrothed since you were tots, Jess. Everybody knows it.”

“Being betrothed is no guarantee a man and a woman will wed.”

It suited her purpose to encourage his thinking it. Only today she again had exploited the assumption. She had played similar scenes for similar reasons since he declared them betrothed, when she was six and he, ten. Brandon must be mad to think she would marry John Lout. She would die first, or disappear, which was nearer her actual plan.

To create a spirit of camaraderie, Jessica walked to the wash kettle and, with disregard for her fine, new apparel, she picked up the stirring paddle and began to work the boiling clothes.

As she manipulated the laundry, she also manipulated her brother, haggling until he agreed to one-third of the one hundred pounds she expected from the duke.

Calculating, she had bartered fifty ducats to John Lout and thirty-three and one-third to Brandon. How much would that leave? The actual promised five hundred pounds less eighty-three and one-third pounds. She smiled. The balance would allow her to leave Welter for good, once she consigned her other obligations.

Before hanging the clothes to dry, Jessica asked Brandon to loan her any money he had. Grudgingly, he produced three guineas. She walked to the carriage and handed Bear the money.

“Take your men to the tavern in Welter for food and drink,” she said and fanned a hand to forestall his argument. “We no longer have food or drink.”

Bear squared his substantial jaw. “The duke ordered us to guard you with our lives, Miss.”

She put her hands on her hips. “My brother will watch after me, Bear. Besides that, we have only one squirrel to cook. One will scarcely feed our mother and Brandon and me, much less the eight of you.”

With an annoyed look at Brandon, Bear nodded. “We’ll be back after we’ve eaten. Be ready to leave when we return, by mid-afternoon. No later.” His words sounded more like a threat than a promise.

As the carriage with the ducal crest rumbled off down the road, Jessica walked into the hut to greet her mother.