The Valentine Legacy (Legacy 3)

“An hour? The old Jessie could be out of bed and in her trousers in ten minutes.”

“You prefer the old Jessie?”

“Yes. No. I don’t care. Just hurry.”

“A moment, James. I’m an employed person now. I must ask the Duchess if I could have a day to myself.”

“Actually, the Duchess suggested you accompany me to Candlethorpe. She said you’d been spending too much time with the children and she feared for your sanity. Hurry up.”

He strode from her bedchamber, leaving her sitting up in her bed, wishing he’d left out all he’d said. A simple nod would have sufficed. She sighed as she pulled the bell cord.

It was closer to an hour and a half before Jessie came out of her bedchamber to see that elegant tall personage waiting for her, a smile on his face.

“Good morning,” he said as he offered her his arm. “I understand you were a great success at the party last night. The earl and the Duchess said you sparkled and laughed.”

She sighed. “That was last night. Have you seen James this morning, sir?”

“Oh yes. I was with him at breakfast early this morning. He was still full from stuffing himself with Mr. Badger’s delicious late dinner, thus he was just fiddling with his porridge and sipping black coffee. He demanded to know what was going on here.”

“What did you tell him, sir?”

“I told him that you were now a part of this household, that you were a young lady of excellent parts.”

“He laughed, didn’t he? Or cursed? That’s more like James. He curses very fluently, every bit as well as the earl when Clancy bit him on Wednesday.”

“As I recall, he just grunted.”

“Then the Duchess told him to take me to Candlethorpe,” she said, looking briefly at a portrait of a long-ago Countess of Chase, who wore a massive white wig on her head decorated with three birds of undetermined species and a full-size nest.

“Spears, what the devil are you doing with Jessie?”

“I’m her lady’s gentleman.”

Jessie whirled around to face him. “You’re Spears? The Spears?”

“I have that personal honor,” Spears said, and gave her a slight bow.

“You promise you’re not an earl or a duke?”

James shouted up to them, “Spears, did you tell her to take over an hour to make herself look like a trollop? Just look at her. That riding habit belongs to the Duchess—I recognize it. It looks ridiculous on Jessie. She’s American, a hoyden. She doesn’t wear such stylish—”

“I believe, James,” Spears said in his very firm voice, even as he continued to guide Jessie down the wide staircase, “that at the end of your verbal trail you will step off a cliff that will drop you directly into your grave.”

James chewed on his lower lip. He cursed, then said with a sigh, “Perhaps you’re right. What is this, Jessie? You didn’t know this was Spears?”

“No. I thought he was a visiting earl or duke who felt sorry for me and helped me get around here.” She lowered her voice and giggled. “We’ve got to cease meeting like this, James—at the foot of the staircase.”

“Now you’re sounding like a twit schoolgirl. That was a titter, and it came from you. You need to get home quickly, Jessie, before you become someone entirely different.”

“I would say, James,” Spears said as he released Jessie’s arm at the bottom of the staircase and patted her gloved hand, “that Jessie is a woman who adapts well to her surroundings. Now, she must have her breakfast.”

“But James wants to leave, Spears, and—”

“Your breakfast, Jessie.”

“Yes, Spears.”

Candlethorpe was a snug property, much smaller than Marathon, yet it looked as impressive and solid as the rolling surrounding hills. It looked as if it belonged exactly where it was, almost as if the stone and wood had long before blended into the landscape, becoming one with it. The house was at least two hundred years old, square, three stories high, red brick, not overly large, ah, but the stable was freshly painted, long and low, and very modern with fenced paddocks on each side of it. There were oak and elm trees all over, many of them so ancient-looking Jessie thought they’d probably been there in the Roman times.