The Valentine Legacy (Legacy 3)

He smiled down at Mrs. Warfield and Glenda. “Ladies, take good care of Jessie. She had a rather rough night of it.”

“I don’t see how,” Glenda said, and stared at his crotch.

“We’ll find out,” Mrs. Warfield said, and allowed James to assist her into the carriage.

“Move over, Jessie,” she said, as she turned and smiled at James. “Thank you for taking her in.”

As if I were a drowning puppy and he had found me, Jessie thought.

James stood quietly, watching the carriage wind down the long drive of Marathon. There were weeds coming up through the gravel on the drive. He’d have to send someone out here to pull them up and smooth down the gravel. Everything looked bare, too. He needed to plant more trees, he thought: some oaks and more elms. He wanted Marathon to look lush, to look rich. Jessie was right, curse her. There was so much that needed fixing.

Poor Jessie, he thought, then laughed at himself. He’d feel sorry for her . . . until the next time they raced.

7

THE SUN WAS shining brightly on that Tuesday morning as James walked down Calvert Street past innumerable publishers and bookstores to Number 27. He’d been coming to Compton Fielding’s bookstore since he’d been a small boy. He walked into the shop with its narrow spaces and dark wood and its walls covered from floor to ceiling with books, many in disordered stacks—Mason’s astute book on water drainage sitting on top of Richardson’s Pamela—but Fielding knew where every single tome was. It appeared to be a slow morning. James didn’t see anyone else, and that was good because he’d heard from Fielding the previous day that his Corneille plays had arrived from Paris. He was excited. He wanted to talk to Fielding about it.

He rounded a corner and stopped cold. There was Jessie Warfield in deep conversation with Compton. What the devil was she doing here? Surely she didn’t read, did she? Surely all she did was horsey things.

He grinned at himself and went a bit closer to listen. If she could eavesdrop, so could he.

“Mr. Fielding, this is the third time you’ve wanted me to read old diaries. What’s this one all about?”

Compton Fielding, a scholarly fixture in Baltimore, a fine violinist who played at civic affairs, a man with wide knowledge of many subjects, gently opened the fragile pages. “See, Jessie, it’s well over a hundred years old, from around the turn of the eighteenth century, I’d say. I wish the fellow had dated it, but he neglected to. Old Elisha Bentworth told me I should find old calendars and match days with dates and that would tell me the years, but who has the time? Now, this precious diary covers a span of some three years, most of it spent in the Caribbean. What do you know of those times in the Caribbean, Jessie?”

“Not a blessed thing, Mr. Fielding, but if you want me to, I’ll read it. I did enjoy reading the other two, but deciphering some of the words was mighty difficult.”

“But worth it?”

“Oh yes, particularly the one set in Charleston in the early Colonial days.”

“Ah, Mr. Nestor’s memoirs. An odd duck

, that Mr. Nestor, but I thought you’d like it. Since you’re not all that certain you’ll like tales of the Caribbean, why don’t you take the diary home and read it over. If you want to keep it, just come back and pay me for it.”

Jessie was already thumbing carefully through the diary. “Oh, listen to this, Mr. Fielding. ‘We came to Jamaica to find miserable rain and a sour rum that fires the bowels. I had to split my sword in Davie’s guts, the little bastard.’ She raised a shining face. “Is this about pirates? Goodness, how bloodthirsty they sound.”

“I think the rum merchant’s brother might have been a pirate, or known some of those men,” Compton Fielding said thoughtfully, taking the diary from her. “You’re right. It just might be too bloodthirsty for a young lady.”

“I’ll take it,” Jessie said, and James nearly laughed aloud.

“Well then, if you’re sure. You read it through and tell me.”

James came around the corner and said, “Good morning, Jessie, Compton. What’s all this miserable rain and a sour rum business? What do you have there?”

“You were eavesdropping,” she said, then had the grace to look at the toes of her shoes.

“Yes, but I’m still in one piece,” James said.

“What she has, James, is a diary from about one hundred years ago. I don’t really know what it’s about. Jessie will read it through and tell me.”

“I didn’t know you even read,” he said to her.

“Just what do you mean by that, James Wyndham? Do you think I’m ignorant?”

“I’ve never seen you with a book before. I’ve never seen you in here before.”

“The same is true of you. Now, what are you doing here, James? I would have thought that all you did was ride your acres, break colts, and give orders to all your stable lads.”