The old Jessie, the new Jessie, it didn’t matter. She was his Jessie.
He didn’t know when he fell asleep, but it seemed as if it were only three seconds later when he was jerked awake by a loud scream.
Dear God, had Laura gotten back into the house?
It was Jessie, thrashing around, her arms and legs flailing, screaming, then screaming again, sobs wheezing out between the screams, deep ugly sounds that scared the devil out of him.
She’d slipped off him. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her until she stilled. “Jessie,” he said, kissed her, then shook her once again.
She opened her eyes, stared up at him, and screamed again.
“No, no, it’s just me, James. It’s all right.”
“James,” she said. Oh God, he thought, she spoke in that child’s high singsong voice. He felt the hair stir on the back of his neck. That child’s voice said, “I don’t know a James. Who are you? Why are you here?”
“I’m taking care of you. You had a bad fall and hit your head.”
“Oh, are you a doctor?”
“Perhaps that is what I am now.” Didn’t she know him? Had the child come into her and planned to stay?
“Dr. James. That sounds strange to me.”
“Can you tell me what you were dreaming?” He tried to speak calmly, his voice as soothing as a father’s to his child when the child is afraid and confused.
Suddenly, Jessie jerked away from him. She struck his chest and scratched his cheek before he pinned her arms to her sides. There was terror in her eyes, wild terror she couldn’t seem to escape. “No, no,” she said it again and yet again. “Let me go! Don’t do that, it’s horrible, stop, stop.” It was that pathetic child’s voice and it terrified him, hearing it come from a woman’s mouth.
His eyes had become used to the darkness. He saw shadows now, saw more clearly the terror in her eyes. He said slowly, “Something happened to you, Jessie. Something to do with this Mr. Tom?”
She was straining away from him, looking at him as if she was waiting for him to hurt her, that, or kill her. He released her hands. She crossed her arms over her head to protect herself, lurched to the very edge of the bed, her legs drawing close to her chest, huddling down, trying to hide.
“It’s all right,” he said quietly, in that same soothing voice he didn’t even know he had, knowing he was dealing with the child, not the woman. “You will be fine. Go to sleep now. I’ll watch over you. I won’t leave you. Sleep.”
She fell asleep sobbing, her fist stuffed in her mouth. He was afraid to touch her. He was afraid to awaken her. He wondered if he did awaken her whether she would be herself or that terrified child again.
He waited until she was sleeping deeply, then drew her against him, nestling her into the curve of his body. She had no more nightmares that night, at least ones that drew her back to childhood and to terror. It occurred to him that she’d had this damned dream each time they’d made love. No, not the first two times when she hadn’t enjoyed herself, but every time thereafter. They’d made love and then she’d had this horrible dream. Triggered by pleasure? He didn’t like that one bit.
When Jessie awoke the following morning, a dark morning with rain slashing against the windowpanes, the wind slashing the oak branches against the side of the house, she opened her eyes and saw James sitting beside her not looking at all like an angel. He looked like a very worried man. But Jessie’s thoughts were elsewhere. For once her nightmares had pierced through to memory. She sat straight up in bed, turned to her husband, and said, “James, Mr. Tom was a very bad man. But it’s not only about him. It’s about Blackbeard. It’s all about the pirate Blackbeard.”
25
THE EARL OF Chase said to his valet, who was regarding a sleeping Charles with a beneficent eye, “Spears, what do you make of all this Blackbeard nonsense? George Raven had precious little to offer about any of it, not that he knew much, but the fellow has no imagination at all, just rambled on and on about that wicked fellow Blackbeard, and how it all had come back to Jessie after ten years.”
Spears cleared his throat and said in his deep voice, “The pirate Blackbeard, as he devised himself, was really named Edward Teach. He would appear to be in the forefront of this situation, evidently. If you know what I mean.”
“I don’t, but that’s never stopped you before. Proceed, Spears.”
“Yes, my lord. I spoke more closely with Dr. Raven. It would seem that Jessie hasn’t had a vision. It seems she’s remembered horrific details from her past—details that as a young girl she’d refused to remember. She hasn’t revealed the details to anyone but James. Evidently while still a girl she fell ill right after this horrific experience, then awoke, remembering nothing of it. Mr. Badger agrees with me. He believes that a child will simply forget in order to survive. Miss Maggie disagrees. She believes Jessie’s childhood fever acted like a blow to the head, causing her to forget. This new blow on the head, Miss Maggie believes, brought the memory back to life.”
“What does Sampson think?” the Duchess asked, laying down the small exquisitely stitched shirt that, her husband had told her, would be ruined by Charles’s drool within an hour of dressing him in it.
“Mr. Sampson, when applied to for his opinion, said that he believed none of it mattered, that what was important was that Miss Jessie tell us more about this Blackbeard fellow and why he’s so damned important and what he has to do with this horrific incident from her childhood. Mr. Sampson, as you know, my lord, usually disregards any outward trappings and cuts directly to the chase.”
The Duchess didn’t so much as turn a hair when Esmee, the cat, jumped onto her lap, curled up in the middle of her sewing, and began to wash herself.
She calmly patted Esmee, who began to purr so loudly that Charles jerked awake, looked up at his papa then at Spears, and yelled.
“I believe the young master is ready for his midafternoon repast,” Spears said.