The Valentine Legacy (Legacy 3)
“No, you didn’t drink that much. I was careful about your intake this time.”
“You’re still inside me.”
He quivered, hardening again, coming deeper. She shifted and lifted her hips, bringing him even deeper.
“Jessie, you want me again?”
“I think so, James. Tomorrow, you know, I’m going to make you very sorry that you tricked me.”
“If I’m to be punished on the morrow, then give me tonight,” he said, dipped his head down, and kissed her.
He awoke to a shriek. He rose right up in the bed, shaking his head. Another shriek. It was Jessie, having another nightmare. “Jessie,” he said, and lightly shook her shoulders. It was dawn and he could see her face. She screamed again.
“Jessie, wake up.”
Her eyes remained closed. Her head moved back and forth on the pillow. Then she said quite clearly, “No, go away from me. No, stop it, Mr. Tom! Oh God, no, don’t do that.”
By all that was holy, it wasn’t Jessie’s voice. Well, it was her voice, but it was her voice of long ago, when she’d been very young, when she’d been just a girl who was obviously frightened out of her wits. What was going on here? It was the way her voice had sounded that first time she’d dreamed about this Mr. Tom in James’s hearing.
“Jessie!”
He shook her until she opened her eyes. She looked up at him, but it wasn’t him she was seeing, not in that instant. She tried to lurch away from him.
“No, Jessie, it’s all right now. You just had a nightmare. It’s all right. I’m here. I’m James.”
“Of course you’re James. Do you think I’m stupid?”
That was his Jessie, thank God.
“You had the dream again. No, wake up, Jessie. We’ve got to talk about this. Who was this Mr. Tom? You sounded like a little girl, like he was hurting you. Was he trying to rape you, Jessie?”
“Oh, James,” she whispered, and the next moment she was asleep. He stared down at her, lightly smoothed her eyebrows with his fingertips, and kissed her slack mouth.
“Tomorrow,” he said, “tomorrow I want to know all about this bastard.”
But the following morning, Bertram kicked Esmerelda, who bit him on his neck, and together they kicked out their stalls. James was out of bed running to the stables, leaving Jessie to struggle into her clothes.
* * *
Jessie couldn’t believe her ears. “Who is here, Mrs. Catsdoor?”
“It’s Baron Hughes, Mrs. James. There’s a young lady with him.” This was said in a warning tone that didn’t leave Jessie in any doubt she wasn’t going to like this.
“I suppose we have no choice. Do show them in, Mrs. Catsdoor. Is Master James about?”
“I’ll send Harlow to fetch him. I’ll bring tea and some of Mr. Badger’s lemon cakes he left me.”
Baron Hughes stood in the drawing-room doorway, looking at her as if he’d like to shoot her where she stood. He gave her a travesty of a bow, saying, “Good day to you, Mrs. Wyndham. I would like you to meet my niece, Laura Frothingill, my younger brother’s daughter.”
Laura Frothingill was staring at her, weighing her, at least that’s what it made Jessie think, and finding her wanting.
“You’re a Colonial,” she said.
“Yes, just like James.”
“James is the product of excellent English blood, not some sort of mongrel of unknown antecedents,” the baron said.
“Are you certain you wish to be in the same room with a mongrel, sir?”