The Hidden Heart (15 page)

A heavy silence settled on the room, and Jessica realized that he must expect her to say something, to leave the room. Their business was over. “Yes, of course,” she said in a colorless voice. “Thank you, Your Grace.”

She forced herself to raise her face to look him in the eyes. His expression was unreadable. She hoped her words had been appropriate; she scarcely knew what she had said. She wanted only to get away now and be by herself for the next few hours. “If you will excuse me…”

“Certainly.”

She turned and walked to the door, curling her fingers into her palms until the nails cut into her skin. She kept her stride slow and regular, too proud to appear to run like a rabbit, as she felt like doing.

Cleybourne watched her go, wondering why, when he had done exactly what he should, he felt even lower than he had.

Jessica begged off joining the other adults for supper that night, claiming that she was not feeling well. She felt sure that her starkly white face and shadowed eyes had convinced Lady Westhampton that she was indeed ill. Rachel told her she must indeed lie down and rest; she was probably done in from the fright she had received the night before.

As soon as Richard saw that Jessica was not at supper that night, he was certain she had stayed away because of him and his abominable behavior the night before. He had hoped his apology would make things all right between them, but the whole thing had been so stiff and awkward that he felt almost as if he had made things worse.

He had acted in a way completely unlike himself last night. Never had he felt so much at the edge of his control, so unable to govern his actions. He had taken advantage of the situation, seducing—no, practically forcing himself upon—her when she was at her weakest. It had not been the act of a gentleman, and he felt even guiltier at acting the cad toward Jessica than he did about desiring a woman other than Caroline.

Richard had stayed awake much of the night thinking about it, and the more he thought about what he had done, the worse it seemed, until this morning, when he made his apology to Miss Maitland, he had felt so low he had barely been able to make himself look her in the eyes. And she had been so subdued. So unlike herself. He would not have been at all surprised if she had lashed out at him in anger, telling him exactly what she thought of him for his unwelcome advances. Indeed, he had rather expected it. Instead she had looked down and spoken softly, clear indications of how badly he had wounded her trust.

He felt sure there had been other men who had tried to take advantage of her powerless position as governess in their household—and now she would think he was like them. The idea made him slightly nauseated.

Leona, of course, was as irritating as always, smiling at him archly and preening, frequently letting her hand stray to her throat or chest, trying to draw attention to her overflowing bosom. Looking at her in her flimsy dress, Richard wondered how the woman managed not to catch her death of cold in the winter.

After the meal, Richard made his escape to his study, but he disliked being alone with his thoughts there as much as he had all day. He left the study and walked aimlessly down the hall, pausing at the end to part the drapes and look out into the night. The sky was leaden, clouds obscuring the stars and moon, and with the drapes open, cold seeped through the glass. Baxter had told him earlier that the gardener said he could smell snow in the air. Richard was not sure exactly how the wiry old man’s nose could warn him of snow, but he had never known one of Calhoun’s weather predictions to be wrong. His bones told him of impending rain, the phases of the moon dictated his plantings, and his gardens were the most-admired for miles around.

He dropped the heavy velvet drape back into place and started up the stairs toward his bedroom. He was not sleepy yet, but he hoped that a little time spent quietly reading might induce that state. Turning the knob of his bedroom door, he stepped inside and took several steps across the floor before he stopped dead still and stared.

“Bloody hell!”

Leona was sitting on his bed, pillows propped up behind her supportively, and her legs curled under her. She wore nothing.

“Cat got your tongue, Richard?” she asked in her sultry voice, raising her arms above her head in a languid stretch that showed off her large, unhampered breasts to their best advantage. “Why don’t you come over here and take a closer look?”

“Have you run mad?” Richard exclaimed. “What the devil do you think you are doing?”

“Well, you wouldn’t come to me,” she said, pouting provocatively, “so I decided that I would simply have to come to you.”

“Didn’t you think that maybe there was a reason I didn’t come to you?” he asked harshly, striding toward the bed. “Where the hell are your clothes? Don’t tell me that even you came down the hall completely naked.”

Leona chuckled. “No. Although no doubt it would have brightened some footman’s day.” She rose up onto her knees, planting her hands on her hips and tilting her head to one side. “Well? See anything you like?”

She crossed her arms under her breasts, cupping the full white globes, then brushed her forefingers across the nipples so that they pointed sharply. “Come on, Richard, wouldn’t you like to touch me? Or maybe here…” Her hands slid down her body, caressing her abdomen and gliding over her hipbones and down onto her thighs.

“For pity’s sake, Leona, get out of that bed right now and put on some clothes. What if someone walked in?”

“Who would do that?”

“Well, my valet, for one,” he retorted sharply, looking about the room for whatever she had worn when she came in.

He found the sheer piece of cloth lying across the footboard of the bed and tossed it to her. “Here. Put this on. Now.”

Leona tossed the gown aside and got off the bed, walking toward him seductively. “Don’t be scared. I won’t bite.” She grinned. “Well, maybe just a little. Look at me, Richard. Can’t you feel yourself getting hard? In a minute you’ll be like a rock, I promise.”

She reached out her hands to the top button of his shirt and began undoing it. Richard jerked back quickly, and the button popped off. Leona’s eyes darkened.

“Is that what you want?” she asked huskily. “For me to tear that shirt off you?”

“No!” Richard felt embarrassed and more than a little foolish. “Leona, you will regret this in the morning.”

“I rarely regret anything.”

“You will regret making a fool of yourself,” he retorted grimly. “And that is precisely what you are about to do. I am not bedding down with you tonight, and if you continue in this way, it will simply be embarrassing for both of us.”

“Don’t be so stuffy,” Leona said, running her forefinger teasingly around one nipple. “Come on. We can do whatever you want. How long has it been, Richard, since you’ve been inside a woman, felt her tight and squeezing around you? I can guarantee that you’ve never felt anything like me.”

She reached out and took his hand in hers, pulling it to her breast. Richard jerked it back, cursing. He swung around and marched to his wardrobe, opening it and pulling out one of his dressing gowns. Then he turned and went back to Leona and wrapped it around her shoulders, pulling it together in the front, and clamped one of her hands around the lapels to keep it mostly closed.

“Goodbye, Leona,” he said flatly, taking her elbow firmly in his hand and steering her toward his door. “Since you are persisting in this idiocy, I must tell you—I am not interested in bedding you. I feel no desire for you. It is a fool’s mission, and whatever you hope to accomplish by it is not going to work. Now leave.”

He jerked open the door and pushed her out into the hall. “By the way, I notice that your ankle is miraculously healed. I think it would be a good idea for you and your husband to leave first thing in the morning.”

Leona gaped at him in astonishment, her hands falling to her sides, letting the too-large dressing gown slip open. For a long moment they stood there looking at each other. Richard reached for her arm, thinking he was going to have to propel her bodily down the hall to her room.

Just at that moment there were footsteps at the top of the stairs, and both Leona and Richard whirled toward the staircase. Jessica stood there, just turning down the hall toward the bedrooms, frozen in place. She was dressed in one of her plain dark gowns, but her hair had been taken down and brushed for the night and lay caught back loosely at the nape of her neck in a ribbon. In the crook of her arm, she held a book.

She stared at the couple down the hall from her, Richard’s hand reaching out toward Leona, who was dressed in a man’s robe that was hanging open down the front to clearly reveal her nakedness.

Jessica could not even find the air to gasp.
He had turned to Leona with his passion!

She turned and ran away from them, not knowing where she was going, desperate only to get away from the scene she had just witnessed. She could not have gone to her room, for it would have meant moving toward them instead of away, as her room lay only one door down from Richard’s. She fled instead to the one place she knew, running down the hall, then up the narrow back stairs to the floor above.

“Jessica!” Richard exclaimed. He started for her, then turned back to Leona. “I want you out! Tomorrow!” he rasped, his face thunderous. “Now get back to your room!”

Leona nodded, too frightened by the look on his face to do anything else. She scampered back to her room, and Richard strode off down the hallway after Jessica. He guessed she would go to the nursery, and when he reached the next floor and saw its door closed, he was sure he was right.

Striding down the hall to the door, he grasped the doorknob and turned, but the door would not open. She had obviously locked it from the inside. He rattled the knob. “Jessica. Open the door. I have to talk to you. Jessica! It wasn’t what it looked like. Damn it, open this door!”

“Go away. I have a right to my privacy,” Jessica said from the other side of the door.

“Let me explain.”

“There is no need to explain to me. What you do is your own business.”

She was right, he knew. He had no obligation to explain anything to her. But he knew that it was unbearable for her to think him a randy lord of the manor who tried to bed a different woman every night. Even worse for her to think that he had wanted Leona tonight the way he had longed for her yesterday.

“I have to talk to you. I am not leaving until you open this door,” he warned.

“Then I am afraid you will look rather foolish, spending the night in the hall,” Jessica replied crisply. “Good night.”

He heard the sound of footsteps inside, then the firm clunk of the inner door to her bedroom closing. Richard stood for a moment, looking at the blank door. Then, with something like a growl, he swung around and stalked off back down the hall to the stairs.

J
essica awakened the next morning to snow. It was falling in great puffy flakes, and already the ground below was almost covered in white. Gabriela came bounding into her room before Jessica had finished dressing, babbling about the snow.

“Isn’t it beautiful, Miss Jessie? Can we go out and take a walk in it later? I just love the snow, don’t you?” She went over to Jessica’s window and looked out, enraptured by the scene. “It makes everything look so pretty, all white and…and sort of mysterious, too. Don’t you think?”

“Mysterious?” Jessica questioned, twisting her hair into a knot at the nape of her neck and securing it with pins. “Why do you say that? It’s so clean looking, I think. Pure.”

“Yes, but it’s the way it covers everything up that makes it mysterious. You know, all the bushes and walls and everything that’s outside are just white lumps, and you’re not sure what anything is. Or where it’s safe to walk. What if you tramp across a snowy piece of ground, only to discover that it covers an icy pond and you fall straight through. Or what if there is a hole, but it looks solid because of the snow, but then, if you step in it, you sink right down.”

“What appallingly morbid thoughts you have. I think you are reading too many of those novels with mad monks and wicked counts.”

Gabriela laughed, unoffended. “No. They never have snow in those. It’s always stormy and raining. Or they live on a cliff above the sea, which pounds at the rocks below.”

“That’s true. And it’s always nighttime and dark.”

“With the candles guttering.”

There was a knock on the door, startling them, and they jumped, then looked at each other and began to laugh. “Come in,” Jessica called.

Rachel opened the door, smiling. “Well, everyone seems to be in high spirits this morning.”

“It is the snow. It makes me happy,” Gabriela told her.

“It’s lovely, isn’t it? But, I fear, not good news for me,” Rachel said, advancing into the room. “I came to make my goodbyes. I was planning to leave later today, but I think now I must go as soon as I can.”

“No!” Gabriela cried in disappointment. “Please stay. Miss Jessica and I are going to take a walk in the snow later.”

“Yes, you ought to stay,” Jessica seconded. “You should not travel in the snow.”

“Lord Westhampton is expecting me before Christmas,” Rachel explained. “I delayed going there to come see the duke. What if a great deal of snow falls, and I cannot leave? Michael would be worried.”

“I see. Well, we shall be very sorry to see you go,” Jessica said. “Oh! Your dresses! You will need to pack them. They are in my wardrobe.”

Rachel smiled. “Oh, no, don’t bother. Tilly has already packed my things, and they are loading them onto the coach. And I have plenty of dresses at home. I shall get them when I visit next time.”

Jessica protested, feeling guilty at the thought of keeping the other woman’s dresses for an indefinite period of time, but Rachel insisted, shrugging off Jessica’s protests with a smile.

“Here is some news that will make you happy,” Rachel said after a moment, changing the subject. “I am not the only person leaving today. I understand that Lord and Lady Vesey’s carriage is being brought around, also.”

“Really?” Gabriela asked, delighted.

“Yes. Richard is insisting on it. I think he may have had a fight with them last night. He is cross as a bear this morning.”

Jessica thought about asking what was different about that, but she bit back the sharp words. Lady Westhampton was very fond of her brother-in-law, and Jessica did not want to offend her.

Gabriela and Jessica walked with Rachel downstairs to the Great Hall, where Richard stood waiting. He turned at the sound of their approach, and his eyes went to Jessica. She looked back at him coolly, and he scowled, then faced Rachel.

“Your bags are secure on the coach,” he told her. “Are you certain you want to leave in this storm?”

“Scarcely a storm, Richard,” Rachel said with a smile. “It is merely a snowfall.”

“Baxter tells me Calhoun thinks it will get worse, and he is never wrong.”

Rachel smiled. “That is why I must leave now, before it does. Goodbye, dear Richard. Take care of yourself.”

She went up on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek. Then she addressed Jessica and Gabriela, standing a few feet behind her. “Promise me that you two will look after him, as well.”

Jessica saw the significant look the other woman directed at her, and she nodded. She understood that Lady Westhampton was entrusting her with keeping the duke from doing away with himself. Rachel gave her hand to Jessica, and Gabriela gave Rachel an impulsive hug, which seemed to please her considerably.

She tied on her hat and put on the gloves her maid handed her, then let Baxter help her on with her heavy wool coat. Tilly handed her a fur muff to keep her hands warm, and they left, Richard walking Rachel down the front steps and handing her up into her carriage. Gabriela and Jessica braved the cold to stand at the open front door and wave to her as the carriage pulled away.

Jessica noticed before they went back inside that another coach was approaching from the stables. It was the Veseys’ carriage, and it lightened Jessica’s mood a little to see that Rachel had been right—Richard was making Lord and Lady Vesey leave. She knew they would not be doing so on their own.

Cleybourne walked back to the house as the carriage proceeded down the long driveway, and Jessica and Gabriela turned back to the stairs.

“Miss Maitland,” Cleybourne said as he closed the door to the cold. “I would like to talk to you.”

Jessica turned around, keeping her demeanor cool. “I am sorry, Your Grace, but I must oversee Gabriela’s lessons now.”

Gabriela cast a surprised glance in her direction. Their doing lessons was scarcely unusual, but it was strange, indeed, for a governess to turn down her employer’s request for an interview.

Cleybourne’s mouth tightened impatiently, but he said only, “And at what time will you be through with those lessons?”

Jessica was saved from answering by the less-than-dulcet tones of Lady Vesey as she and her husband clattered down the stairs. “There you are! Cleybourne, I cannot believe that you would be so cruel as to toss us out in the storm like this.” She gestured dramatically toward the front of the house. “What if we freeze to death?”

“You will not,” Cleybourne replied shortly.

“Really, Cleybourne,” Vesey chimed in, “it
is
rather dreadful out there. Not good weather for traveling.”

“It will be worse later,” Cleybourne assured him. “That is why you are leaving immediately. I won’t have you snowed in here for days.”

“I cannot believe you are being such a monster,” Leona pouted prettily.

“I don’t see why not. It isn’t as though I have ever been particularly nice to you.” He turned aside, saying to one of the footmen, “Duncan, Lord and Lady Vesey need their coats.”

The footman had anticipated him, for he stepped forward almost immediately to put a cloak around Leona’s shoulders. Her eyes flashed with anger as she looked at Cleybourne. She was not accustomed to men turning down her favors, much less to one rushing her out the door like an embarrassing relative.

“You are a fool, Cleybourne,” she seethed as she stalked past him, pulling on her gloves with fierce jerks of her fingers. “You will live to regret this day.”

“I already regret it,” he assured her, following the Veseys to the front door.

Jessica took the opportunity to slip away up the stairs, taking Gabriela’s arm and pulling the girl with her. Gabriela cast her an annoyed look, protesting, “I wanted to see them leave!”

“We can watch from upstairs in your room. It looks right out on the yard.”

They hurried to Gabriela’s room and stood at the window, gazing down through the increasing flakes of snow at the yard below. Lord and Lady Vesey climbed into the carriage, with Leona casting a last burning glance back at Cleybourne, who stood just outside the front door, and the carriage rolled slowly away up the driveway.

Jessica whisked Gabriela to the nursery for her lessons after that. She knew she would have to talk to the duke at some point; he was, after all, her employer. However, she was hoping that if she put it off long enough, she would reach the point where she would not feel as if she were on the verge of bursting into tears when she looked at him. She did not want to have to struggle for control while he pointed out to her that he paid her salary and that she was merely there to look after Gabriela, that she had no right to question his behavior or condemn what he chose to do or with what woman he chose to do it.
God knew, she had told herself those things often enough last night.

The morning dragged as they worked their way through geography, history and French. Gabriela was bored and restless, eager to go outside. It was fortunate, Jessica was sure, that the windows in the nursery were all small and high, or she would have been jumping up every few minutes to go over and look out at the snow. Finally, when Gabriela was beginning to complain of an empty stomach, Jessica closed her book and pushed it aside.

“All right. Why don’t we have a little tromp through the snow before lunch?”

It took some time to put on their outerwear for the snow, but then they hurried down the stairs and out the rear door. What they saw there made them gasp. Snow blanketed the whole back garden and was falling in a much more furious fashion than before. Rails and hedges carried ridges of snow several inches thick, and it piled in drifts around the bottoms of the shrubs. Everything glistened whitely, and the falling snow limited their vision to only a few yards.

“Isn’t it beautiful!” Gabriela exclaimed, turning her face up and sticking out her tongue to taste the snowflakes.

“Yes, it is. The gardener was right. The snow is growing deep.”

They made their way around the side of the house, following the garden path. It was difficult walking; they had to lift their feet out of each deep depression they made. When they reached the front and looked out across the property, the usual vista of rolling hills blurred into a sea of white: sky and ground and everything in between blending.

They heard the carriage before they saw it, but in a moment the dark shape of a coach became clearer and clearer through the snowfall as it made its way up the driveway.

“Oh, no,” Jessica groaned.

“What? What is it?” Gabriela asked, looking at Jessica, then back at the carriage. “Is that—”

“Yes,” Jessica answered disgustedly. “That is the Veseys’ carriage.”

The coachman atop the carriage was almost covered with snow, as were the bags and trunks on the carriage roof. He pulled the horses to a stop and started to climb down, but before he could, Lord Vesey erupted from the carriage, cursing. He strode straight toward the house, not even turning around to help his wife down.

Just as he reached the steps, the door opened and a footman came out, looking astonished. Vesey growled something at him and pushed him out of the way as he charged into the house.

Jessica trudged through the snow to extend a hand up to Lady Vesey to help her, and though she grimaced at Jessica, she took her hand and stepped down out of the carriage. Without a word of thanks, she dropped Jessica’s hand and hurried into the house after her husband. Jessica, Gabriela and the footman all followed curiously.

By the time they got inside and closed the door, Cleybourne was striding across the marble floor in their direction. Vesey, taking off his hat, threw it onto the ground in a paroxysm of fury.

“You nearly got us killed!” he shrieked at Cleybourne. “The road is closed. We saw a carriage that had slid off into the ditch. The bridge below Trysdale is closed. We had to turn around, a pretty iffy thing on a snowy road, I must say. I thought we would never make it back here.”

“I want to go to bed,” Leona wailed. “I’m cold clear through, and it will be a wonder if I don’t catch my death of pneumonia.”

“And if you think it isn’t bad enough driving three hours through the snow on treacherous roads, then try doing it with
her
in the carriage with you, complaining the whole time!” Vesey shot his wife a venomous look. “For God’s sake, go ahead and go to bed, Leona, and stop moaning about.”

“Yes, Duncan, see her to her room,” Cleybourne said grimly. “Bloody hell.”

For the first time he noticed Gabriela and Jessica standing behind Lord Vesey. “What the devil are you two doing?”

“We were walking in the snow,” Gabriela explained.

“Walking? In weather like this?”

“Just around the house. I had promised Gabriela we would go out into the snow for a little while after her lessons.”

“For God’s sake, why?”

“Because it is fun!” Jessica retorted. “You do remember that concept, don’t you?”

“Yes, I remember it. I just did not connect it with getting your feet soaked and cold, and breathing in freezing air.”

Jessica opened her mouth to reply, then stopped, suddenly remembering something. “Cleybourne!”

“What?” He looked at her intently, his attention caught by the sudden note of fear in her voice. Neither of them noticed that she had addressed him as an equal, not a servant.