The Valentine Legacy (Legacy 3)

“If he is really honorable and generous, then perhaps one day he’ll come to deserve me. He will work to deserve me. But he must know that the Warfields would bring him great consequence. Marriage to me would bring him Warfield Stables.”

“What about me? Aren’t I entitled to some of Warfield Stables?”

Glenda smiled, wandered over to the small chair in front of the writing table, and sat down. “Surely Father will do something for you. You have been a prize jockey for some time now. Yes, he’ll see that you’re taken care of.” When Jessie didn’t say anything, Glenda said, “I will provide you with enough money to get to New York City. It’s all that I’ve saved, but I’ll willingly give it to you. It’s three hundred dollars.”

“That’s quite a sum.” Jessie herself had saved nearly a thousand dollars beginning with the small coins tossed to her when she’d been little more than a toddler.

“Yes, but I think you deserve it. I shan’t regret giving it to you if that’s what you’re worried about. No, take the money, Jessie. I’m sure everything will work out well for you. I even have two gowns you can travel in to New York. I’ve even written to Aunt Dorothy telling her that you’re coming. Naturally, I pretended the letter was from Mama. You see it’s for the best, don’t you, Jessie?”

“Three hundred dollars?”

“Yes, and two gowns.”

“Two of your best gowns or two gowns from three years ago?”

“Well, oh all right. I’ll give you one of my best gowns and three older ones.”

“I would also like that velvet-lined lemon-colored cloak of yours.”

“That’s robbery!”

“Take it or leave it, Glenda.”

“You swear to leave?”

Jessie looked out over the rose garden, a triumph of her mother’s ability to find the best gardener in the area. Soon the air would be filled with the scent of roses. But she wouldn’t be here to smell those incredible white blooms the gardener had managed to succor into vivid life the previous year. But what did the damned roses matter to her now?

“I swear,” she said.

James went to church. He always went to church. It pleased his mother to have him accompany her. Besides, he was very fond of Winsey Yellot, the minister. Winsey believed the French were the Unredeemed. He proved every one of his points with quotes from Voltaire, who was endlessly witty in addition to being an atheist. James usually lost their arguments because he laughed so hard at Winsey’s execrable French pronunciation when he quoted

Voltaire.

This morning it was overcast. Nothing new in that, he thought as he assisted his mother from her carriage. He found himself looking for the Warfields. He saw them in their usual seats in the fifth row. “Not too close, mind you,” Oliver had said to him, “to prevent a nice snooze, but far enough away so Winsey doesn’t harangue me personally.”

Jessie wasn’t in her usual place. He frowned even as he looked at the people in the other pews. He wanted to dismiss it, but he couldn’t. She wasn’t here because her mother knew she’d be shunned if she’d come. They’d left her behind. He felt rage building. Everyone had smiled at him, spoken to him, asked him about his health, his horses, and Marathon. Jessie would bear the brunt of all of it.

He couldn’t wait for Winsey to finish his exhortations, this Sunday, his subject being slavery. Baltimore had just voted that no future state of the Union could allow slavery. James had heartily agreed.

He didn’t know what he was going to do about Jessie, but he had to do something. When the service was finally over, he looked up to see Glenda staring at his crotch.

He didn’t find out until Sunday night that Jessie was gone, to New York City, Glenda had told everyone, to their Aunt Dorothy. James, who’d heard Jessie whisper tales about Aunt Dorothy since she was fourteen, felt like the biggest bastard on earth.

11

NEAR DARLINGTON, YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND

MAY 1822

Chase Park, home of the Wyndhams

“MY LORD.”

Marcus Wyndham, 8th Earl of Chase, looked up at his butler, Sampson, who’d managed to glide across thirty feet of oak floor without his hearing a single footfall.

“You did it again, damn your eyes. However do you manage it, Sampson?”

“I beg your pardon, my lord?”