The Valentine Legacy (Legacy 3)

“Forget it. It’s a surprise. Do you swear you’ll act surprised when I finally present it to you?”

“Yes, I promise. What course, Spears?”

He broke into a smile. “You’ll know the course when it appears, Jessie. If you need us, just send a message. We’ll be there as quickly as can be. Do you promise?”

“I promise,” she said, stood on her tiptoes, and kissed his cheek. “You smell good, Spears. Are you using some of Maggie’s cream?”

Badger roared with laughter. Maggie giggled. Sampson guffawed. Spears did nothing at all. The new bride and groom laughed and waved as they rode side by side down the beautiful tree-lined drive of Chase Park, James on Bertram, a gray Barb with a white nose out of Croft’s stud and Jessie on Esmerelda, a Byerley Turk bay mare from the Rothermere stud.

The afternoon was warm, the sun bright overhead, the sky studded with white clouds. Jessie said after fifteen minutes, “James, can we open that champagne now?”

He eyed her. She’d not said a single word since they’d left Chase Park. She’d ridden Esmerelda with single-minded intensity; he recognized that from watching her race, but why the intensity now? Her cheeks were flushed from the ride, her hair flying in long loose streamers from beneath that very provocative riding hat perched on her head with that feather curving around her face to stroke her chin.

He pointed to the left off the road beyond a white fence to a small copse of maple trees. “Just behind those trees is a small meadow.”

They took the fence in an easy jump. Jessie fell in behind him through the copse of trees on a narrow trail that suddenly ended in a small, circular meadow filled with wildly blooming pink and red hollyhocks, purple gayfeathers, white baby’s breath, and yellow wood violets. James searched around until he found a moss-covered rock flat enough and large enough for the two of them, bowed to Jessie, and with a flourish, said, “I don’t want to smash the flowers. Moss is a different matter.”

They spread a cloth between them and arranged Badger’s offering. James popped the champagne cork, pulled two glasses from Badger’s basket, and poured. He laughed when he poured too quickly and sipped as fast as he could before too much champagne was lost.

“Here, Jessie.”

He poured himself a glass, then clicked it against hers. “Why did you want champagne?”

“I thought if I drank the whole bottle, then you could just get it all over with.”

“Get what all over with?”

“Don’t be stupid.” She downed the entire glass and held it out for more.

“Oh, you want to fall into a stupor. Then while you’re stuporous I’ll do degenerate things to you and then the deed will be done and you won’t have to worry about it anymore?”

“That’s right, though I would have phrased it a bit more circumspectly.”

“I’m a man. I’m rarely circumspect. Now why are you worried about having sex with me? You’ve known me forever. You already know all my bad habits—well, most of them. You don’t know as yet if I snore or not.”

She wouldn’t look at him. She studied the clump of foxgloves just beyond her left boot. She drank another glass of champagne. He obligingly poured her another half glass when she thrust the empty glass toward him, her eyes still on those foxgloves.

“As foxgloves go, they’re not bad,” James said as he watched her down that half glass, then thrust her glass at him again.

“No,” Jessie said, thinking the foxgloves looked lovely the way they were fading in and out of her vision.

He supposed dithering wasn’t bad, at least for the moment. It was difficult enough for him, he knew that. He’d acknowledged the problems before he’d offered to marry her. He’d always regarded her as a brat, a younger sister who irritated him and provoked him until he wanted to smack her bottom. And now she was his wife, and it was equally obvious to him that she was as skittish as Sober John was during a Baltimore storm. Did she think of him as an older brother? One with whom she was in competition?

At the moment, he simply couldn’t imagine how he was going to approach making love to her. Making love to Jessie—the brat. It boggled the mind. Except that he had been looking at things a bit differently during the past week.

He drew a deep breath and prayed. “Jessie, I’ve known you for a very long time. I admit I still know the old Jessie more than the new Jessie. But, never have I known you to be a coward. What’s wrong?”

“You’ve never known me married before, either. That’s what’s wrong. You and I, James, we’re married only because—” She paused and shrugged. “There’s no reason to repeat the dreadful sequence of events again. They’re as painful to you as they are to me. Do you really want to mount me, James?”

18

“MOUNT YOU?” HIS eyes nearly crossed picturing her naked, bending over, looking over her shoulder at him as he neared her, as he touched her. He shook his head. He’d been too long without companionship of a sexual sort. If any female spoke to him of mounting her, he would have seen the same sequence of explicit images in his brain.

“Maybe,” he said at last after he’d drunk a bit more of his own champagne, “but not for a while.” Jessie was right. The champagne had been a good idea. It was probably the only way to get through this.

?

??I’m not Alicia. I’m sorry but I had to ask the Duchess about her. She said she was beautiful, all small and blond and blue-eyed. You loved her. I’m none of those things, and you don’t love me. I can’t imagine what will become of us.”