The Valentine Legacy (Legacy 3)

“Hold on, Jessie. You’ve done very well today. All this nausea won’t last that much longer. Here’s Thomas with the chamber pot. Excellent.”

It didn’t even seem odd to Jessie to vomit in front of everyone, she was so used to it. Being in close quarters on a barkentine for more than six weeks lessened one’s privacy, and she’d been sicker than a person deserved that last week of the voyage. James wiped her face with a nice cold, wet cloth. Badger handed her a glass of water.

James helped her to her feet and hugged her tight. Then he laughed. “I’ll never forget how you were certain you were dying, lying there on that coiled rope on deck, moaning and looking pathetic. You look nearly well again. Even your streamers are beginning to perk up once more. Ah, here’s Thomas to help us all arrange ourselves.”

“Men should be shot,” Jessie said.

Spears immediately stepped forward and extended his hand to the tall black man. “I am Mr. Spears. You are Mr. Thomas?”

“Well, Mr. Spears,” Thomas said slowly, wondering if the earth had suddenly turned faulty, “I suppose I’m Mr. Thackery.” Then he smiled—a wide, quite nice smile, showing lots of even white teeth. Maggie winked at him.

At ten o’clock that night, all the servants and the families had been fed and given beds. But there weren’t enough bed-chambers. For the first time since he’d bought Marathon, James was truly aware at how derelict his house was. There were patches of mold on the wallpaper, dark corners with mouse holes in them, poorly furnished rooms, and all he could do was apologize, which he did in each room they entered. Finally, the Duchess had said, “Enough, James. Candlethorpe gave me little challenge. Between us, Jessie and I will make Marathon the most impressive house in the area.”

He believed her until he glanced at his wife, who looked ready to drop where she stood. She was staring owl-eyed at him. “James, will I sleep with you in your bedchamber? The bed’s big enough, isn’t it?”

“There’s no place else for you. Let’s get you to bed. Yes, it will hold the two of us.”

“I guess I might as well, since you’ve already done your worst to me.”

She’d never before seen James’s bedchamber, and she found it to be as dismal as the rest of the house. The wallpaper was old and peeling near the windows where the damp had gotten in and was painted a mangy brown color. There was only a big bed with a scarred maple headboard and an armoire just as ancient as the bed, its doors as scarred as the headboard. There was one stingy braided rug of varying shades of brown in the middle of the floor. But she was too tired to care. She stood passively while James unfastened the buttons on her gown. When she was standing in front of him only in her shift and stockings, he said, “Let me get you a nightgown.” Then he paused, his eyes dilating. “No, perhaps you’d best learn to sleep naked with me again. You won’t always be feeling like a green peach that someone’s bitten into. Spears says not more than a couple of more weeks, hopefully

.” He didn’t add that Caroline Nightingale, an excellent friend of the English Wyndhams, had been ill for nearly five months with her second child. No, Jessie didn’t need to know that.

“I always wear a nightgown, James. I thought you enjoyed jerking them over my head and tossing them across the bedchamber.”

“Very well, just for tonight. All right? In America, I seem to lose all these little modesty rules.” He rifled through her clothes in the open valise on the floor, tossed her a clean nightgown, stripped himself, and climbed into bed. “Hurry, Jessie. I’m cold and I need you to warm me up.”

Actually it was quite warm, being the beginning of September. Thank God it hadn’t rained during their trip from the Pratt Street docks to Marathon. A long hot trip, but it hadn’t rained.

“The children are sleeping with Marcus and the Duchess. Damnation, I just didn’t remember how very old and ratty everything was.”

“It’s all right,” Jessie said as she climbed into bed beside him. “Just wait until they see the stables and your workers’ houses. Then they’ll understand where you spent all your money.”

“Are you really tired, Jessie?”

She was snuggled against his side, her palm over his heart. “No, not really tired.” Actually she was so exhausted she wanted to close her eyes and never open them again during this current week. No sooner were the words out of her mouth, no sooner had he assimilated them and begun to turn to face her, already harder than he’d imagined possible in such a short time, than he felt her kissing his shoulder. “No,” she whispered, licking his warm flesh, “I’m not tired at all.”

“Our first time in America,” he said some time later when he could speak again. He kissed her again and again until he knew she was falling asleep. “That was quite nice. I wonder if Marcus heard you yelling. If he did, I’ll hear about it tomorrow. Sleep well, Jessie.”

She slept well until three o’clock, then she awoke screaming, her arms flailing. This time, Jessie woke up first, sweating, her streamers sticking to her cheeks, heaving so hard she thought her heart would burst. “Oh, God, it was Mr. Tom again, James. Why won’t it stop? I remember all about him now. Why won’t he just bloody stop?”

“Oh dear, I think I’m going to be sick.”

It was as black as the bottom of a witch’s cauldron in the bedchamber, the downstairs clock just striking three o’clock. James rolled off the side of the bed, hit the floor running, and got the chamber pot to her in the nick of time. He held her, then gave her water to drink and wiped her face.

“I don’t know why you’re still dreaming about it, Jessie,” he said at last when he held her in his arms again. “Just try to relax. Breathe slowly, that’s good. Go to sleep. That’s right, just go to sleep.”

Damnation, every time he gave her pleasure, this wretched dream came to her. Even now that she’d remembered the truth behind it, she still had troubled sleep. He wanted to leave for Ocracoke tomorrow, but he knew they couldn’t. Everyone was exhausted. The last thing anyone wanted to do was climb aboard another ship. He stroked her face with his fingers. He wound a streamer around his thumb, then lightly ran his fingertips over her face, her ears, stroking her curly hair back from her forehead. “It will be all right, Jessie. It’s got to be.”

“James, I think I’ll go to the kitchen. Surely there must be something to take away this wretched nausea.”

“No, you don’t know the house yet. I’ll go.”

James went downstairs and out the back entrance. He walked across the bricked walkway to the kitchen. He knew Badger had already settled in. Surely he’d prepared something. He never forgot anything.

He was surprised to see candlelight showing from beneath the kitchen door. Could Old Bess be preparing something at this hour? He opened it slowly, listening.

“Does everyone agree that this is the course to follow?”