The Valentine Legacy (Legacy 3)

The past two months, held at bay until now, collapsed in on her. She dropped her face in her hands and sobbed. They weren’t delicate sobs, but hoarse, deep ones.

Suddenly, she stopped, raised her face, and swiped her hands over her eyes. “Forgive me again. I’m never afraid. I don’t know what’s happened to me.”

“Ah, here’s Sampson. You need some tea.”

“James always says that tea is the solution to every problem in England.”

“Why, I suppose that it is,” the Duchess said. She poured a cup and handed it to Jessie. “Now, drink it down and see if you don’t feel just a bit better for it.”

Jessie took a big drink and wheezed for breath. “It’s stronger than the whiskey Old Gussie makes in his own still. This is tea? Just innocent tea?”

The earl rose to pat her on the back. She was thin, he thought. It must have taken her a long six weeks

to get here. Alone on a ship. Then a good five days on the mail coach from Plymouth to Darlington. Just to contemplate it curled his toes. He gave her one of Badger’s famous lemon seed cakes. Jessie didn’t mean to, but she ate it in two bites, then felt like a coarse savage doing that in front of these magnificent people.

“Have another,” the Duchess said, smiling at her.

She gave this one three bites, but it was difficult.

“When was the last time you ate, Miss Warfield?” Marcus Wyndham asked easily.

“Well, yesterday, really. You see, all my American dollars were stuffed in my, er, chemise, except at night of course. Someone slipped into my bedchamber and stole all of it. I have a dollar left that I hid in the toe of my left boot.”

“Well, I’m relieved you didn’t get robbed until you were close to us.” The earl rose and stood over her, looking down at the vivid, curling red hair that was poking out riotously on all sides of the very ugly straw bonnet. Yes, she had hair the color of Maggie’s, perhaps even a more vivid, richer red. “How long have you known James?”

“Since I was fourteen. He doesn’t know I’m alive. That is, he knows I’m alive, it’s just that he doesn’t care. It’s very depressing. Oh goodness, I’ve done it again. Truly, sir, I don’t talk like this all the time.”

“Please don’t shut down on our account,” the earl said. “Now, you must be tired. You are our guest, Miss Warfield. I daresay we’ll get all this straightened out after you’ve had a good rest. I’ll have Cook send you up a nice late luncheon.”

Jessie couldn’t allow this. She bounded to her feet, tripped on the hem of her gown, and went crashing toward the beautiful silver tea service that had surely served multitudes of earls and dukes and princes. She felt the earl’s hand clasp her upper arm and pull her upright.

He smiled down at her as he released her. “Are you all right, Miss Warfield?”

“Yes, sir, but I can’t be your guest. James doesn’t know I’m here. No one does. I ran away because everything was impossible at home. It will remain impossible, so I can’t go home. I want to work for you. I know I can’t be a jockey for you since ladies can’t do that in England, but I love children and James has told me that her ladyship just had another little boy and James is his godfather. I would like to be a nursery maid. I think the baby is probably too young for a nanny, probably even too young for me to take him riding and teach him all about thoroughbreds, particularly the founding sires, and my favorite is the Byerley Turk, who was captured at Buda in 1688.”

“He’s just a bit too young for the Byerley Turk,” the earl agreed. “But he’s a smart lad, and I daresay he’ll want to be up to snuff by his first birthday. Well, Duchess, what do you say? Shall we set Jessica—”

“Excuse me, sir, but my name’s Jessie. I know that sounds perhaps too provincial, perhaps too Colonial, but it’s my name. It can’t be helped.”

“It’s charming,” the earl said easily, quite charmed by this unexpected female. “‘Jessie’ it is. What do you say, Duchess?”

The Duchess rose and walked gracefully to Jessie, who scrambled to her feet. She took her right hand between her own and said with a smile, “Charles is a handful, just like his father. I imagine he will adore you, particularly your splendid hair. You will take care that he doesn’t bald you. Welcome to Chase Park, Jessie.”

“I don’t have splendid hair. You’re just being kind because that’s what James said you were.”

“Of course you have lovely hair. Say ‘thank you,’ Jessie.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

Soon Jessie was trailing after Sampson, who was casually telling her that he’d always fancied visiting the Colonies. He’d never before seen an Indian and said he’d like to borrow some of their war paint for his wife. It would amuse her, he said.

In the Green Cube Room, the Duchess was saying to her husband, “Marcus, this is interesting. What do you think happened between her and James that sent her scurrying here all by herself? What she’s done is foolish beyond belief.”

“I’ll wager you she wore trousers until she got close to us, then changed into that god-awful gown. Don’t worry. We’ll find out everything soon enough. Now I wonder what Maggie will say when she meets a woman younger than she is with hair that just could be redder?”

Maggie, Sampson’s wife of six years, was magnificent. Jessie just stared at her as she clutched the threadbare dressing gown more closely about her. At least she was clean and had lain down on that incredible bed with its pale gold brocade overhang and four tall posters, each beautifully carved, and closed her eyes. The mattress was goose feather if Jessie wasn’t mistaken, and she’d thought she’d collapsed onto heavenly clouds, but still she hadn’t slept. She’d been too scared and too relieved, both at the same time. The gown Maggie wore when she came to Jessie’s bedchamber, which was next to the nursery, was finer than the one the Duchess had worn when Jessie had first been shown in to that awesome Green Cube Room. Ah, but her hair, it was glorious.

“Redder than a sinner’s passions,” Maggie said comfortably when Jessie just stared at her and blurted it out. She patted that beautiful hair and grinned. “You’ve not a bad head of hair yourself, Miss Jessie. It’s not as pure a shade of red as mine, but it’s acceptable nonetheless. Now you have all these dancing curls that won’t obey even my fingers, so we’ll—” She paused and struck a thoughtful pose.