The Valentine Legacy Read online

  “There is a strange young person here, my lord. Not a young person who is strange, just a young person I’ve never seen before. She asks to see you. She walked right up to the front doors and knocked. She looks somewhat like my dear Maggie playing the role of a disreputable waif, demanding to see the lord of the manor.”

  “She wants work, you think? Send her to Mrs. Emory.”

  “Well, you see, my lord, there’s something about her, other than the obvious fact that she’s from the Colonies.”

  “What? The deuce, you say, Sampson. The Colonies?” The earl rose, rubbing his hands together. “She must know James. She must be here because of James. You’re certain it’s not Aunt Wilhelmina, aren’t you, Sampson? She asked for me, you say?”

  “No, my lord. It isn’t That Woman. As for the young person, well, actually, she wants the Duchess. I doctored the truth just a bit since the Duchess is feeling a bit on the poorly side.”

  “She’s off the poorly side as of luncheon. Tell you what, Sampson, get the Duchess and the both of us will see this young person from the Colonies who has the look of Maggie. Does she have a name?”

  “Jessica Warfield, my lord.”

  Ten minutes later, Sampson, the Chase butler since his twenty-fifth year, led a very pale, very determined young person into the Green Cube Room, a chamber that had intimidated a baron only last month with its magnificent painted ceiling set between beams covered with lavish geometric designs and opulent gilt furnishings. The Turkey carpets on the floor were at least a hundred years old, yet their reds and blues and yellows shone in the afternoon sunlight coming through the front windows. There were paintings on the walls that had to be older than the Colonies.

  Jessie was intimidated. Even more, she was terrified. She was the greatest fool to be born on this planet. She dutifully walked behind a very handsome man who was obviously the butler, but who hadn’t turned his nose up at her. Indeed, he’d been stiffly kind. She remembered James speaking of handsome Sampson, who’d married Maggie, the Duchess’s red-haired maid, who’d been an out-of-work actress before she’d come into the Duchess’s employ. She hoped this was Sampson, for James had always grinned whenever he spoke of him, telling her how he was the only one who could control Maggie, and he had to grow more clever by the year to succeed.

  “My lord. My lady. This is the young person from the Colonies. Miss Jessica Warfield.”

  So this was Marcus and the Duchess, she thought as she forced her feet to move forward. Marcus was dark and tall and so handsome even she wanted to swoon, something she’d never before considered doing in the company of any man. So dark he was yet he had the deep blue eyes of an angel. Except angels smiled, didn’t they? He wasn’t smiling. On the other hand, neither was he frowning. She looked at the woman standing beside him. The Duchess. She wrote the clever ditties that James occasionally hummed or sang at the top of his lungs. She’d supported herself long before she’d become the Countess of Chase. Surely she was too beautiful to be so resourceful. Surely God wasn’t being fair to dish out so much to one single individual. Like her husband, the Duchess had black hair and blue eyes and the whitest skin Jessie had ever seen. Unlike the earl, the Duchess smiled at her, a full, easy smile that made Jessie even more nervous.

  “Oh dear,” she said, looking again from the earl to the countess, “this is certainly a flagrant intrusion. I know it is and I’m so sorry for it. But you see, James has told me so much about both of you—and all about Badger and Spears and Sampson and Maggie—that—”

  The earl broke in easily, “James Wyndham? My cousin?”

  “Yes, I race against James and many times beat him. Oh dear, I didn’t mean to say that. Now you’ll never believe I’m a lady.”

  The Duchess stepped forward, her hand held out. “I thought your name sounded familiar, Miss Warfield. James has spoken of your family over the years. Welcome to our home. Since you’re a friend of James’s, you’re welcome here. Now, come and sit down. Sampson, bring some tea and seed cakes. Let me take that pelisse.”

  Jessie willingly gave it up. It was an ugly mustard color, but she’d believed she had to have something to make her unquestionably female. The one Glenda had promised to give her hadn’t materialized, damn Glenda. She hadn’t gotten any gowns either, damn Glenda again. The Duchess folded the pelisse neatly, as if it were very valuable, and laid it over the back of a chair that had probably had kings sit in it. The current king, George IV, was very fat. She hoped he didn’t visit and sit in that chair. It would collapse, surely. She didn’t want to sit in it either. It would realize she was a peasant and disintegrate in shock.

  “Now,” the Duchess said as she sat gracefully in a narrow, terribly French-looking chair across from Jessie, who’d gingerly sat herself on the edge of a blue brocade settee, “how is James?”

  “Don’t forget Aunt Wilhelmina, Duchess.”

  The Duchess sighed. “One hesitates even to speak her name, but all right, I’ll include her in the question. And dear Ursula. How are all of the American Wyndhams?”

  “As of six weeks ago, they were fine, ma’am.”

  This was interesting, the Duchess was thinking. She resumed her charming smile. “Miss Warfield, tell us how we may help you.”

  “Well, you see, ma’am, I’m here not to race because I know that in England all females must be extra proper and that ladies can’t wear trousers and can’t be jockeys and can’t ride in races and—”

  The earl raised his hand. “How old are you, Miss Warfield?”

  That took her aback a bit but she managed to say, “I am twenty, sir. James is twenty-seven and—”

  “Did you travel from Baltimore to England all by yourself?”

  Jessie knew the English were very particular about things like this and thus lied swiftly and cleanly. “I had a maid to accompany me, but she got vilely ill on board ship and then there was this ghastly storm, so violent, and everyone got very sick, me included, and poor Drusilla went on deck, vomited over the railing, and fell overboard she was heaving so hard. So I had no choice but to come here from Plymouth on a mail coach.”

  The Duchess looked to her husband. He looked on the point of bursting into laughter. She looked quickly at the very serious, very frightened face, and said, “These things happen. It is tragic that poor Drusilla had to meet her maker in such an unfortunate manner, but you managed very creditably to get here all by yourself.”

  “Well, there was one horrible thing that happened. It was near the town called Hayfield and there were three men with masks on their faces and they wanted to steal everything. I’d hidden my money beneath my gown—oh dear, anyway, I gave them my five dollars and they just looked at it. The leader spit on it and tossed it back to me and said he didn’t want any of that odd stuff from the Orient. At least that’s what I think he said. He was very difficult to understand.”

  Jessie came to a halt all by herself this time. She was appalled at what she’d freely admitted. Surely they believed her a vulgar, brainless twit. She said, “Forgive me. I’m talking so very much and usually I don’t. I’m just so very scared.”

  The past two months, held at bay until now, collapsed in on her. She dropped her face in her hands and sobbed. They weren’t delicate sobs, but hoarse, deep ones.

  Suddenly, she stopped, raised her face, and swiped her hands over her eyes. “Forgive me again. I’m never afraid. I don’t know what’s happened to me.”

  “Ah, here’s Sampson. You need some tea.”

  “James always says that tea is the solution to every problem in England.”

  “Why, I suppose that it is,” the Duchess said. She poured a cup and handed it to Jessie. “Now, drink it down and see if you don’t feel just a bit better for it.”

  Jessie took a big drink and wheezed for breath. “It’s stronger than the whiskey Old Gussie makes in his own still. This is tea? Just innocent tea?”

  The earl rose to pat her on the back. She was thin, he thought. It must have taken her a long six weeks
to get here. Alone on a ship. Then a good five days on the mail coach from Plymouth to Darlington. Just to contemplate it curled his toes. He gave her one of Badger’s famous lemon seed cakes. Jessie didn’t mean to, but she ate it in two bites, then felt like a coarse savage doing that in front of these magnificent people.

  “Have another,” the Duchess said, smiling at her.

  She gave this one three bites, but it was difficult.

  “When was the last time you ate, Miss Warfield?” Marcus Wyndham asked easily.

  “Well, yesterday, really. You see, all my American dollars were stuffed in my, er, chemise, except at night of course. Someone slipped into my bedchamber and stole all of it. I have a dollar left that I hid in the toe of my left boot.”

  “Well, I’m relieved you didn’t get robbed until you were close to us.” The earl rose and stood over her, looking down at the vivid, curling red hair that was poking out riotously on all sides of the very ugly straw bonnet. Yes, she had hair the color of Maggie’s, perhaps even a more vivid, richer red. “How long have you known James?”

  “Since I was fourteen. He doesn’t know I’m alive. That is, he knows I’m alive, it’s just that he doesn’t care. It’s very depressing. Oh goodness, I’ve done it again. Truly, sir, I don’t talk like this all the time.”

  “Please don’t shut down on our account,” the earl said. “Now, you must be tired. You are our guest, Miss Warfield. I daresay we’ll get all this straightened out after you’ve had a good rest. I’ll have Cook send you up a nice late luncheon.”

  Jessie couldn’t allow this. She bounded to her feet, tripped on the hem of her gown, and went crashing toward the beautiful silver tea service that had surely served multitudes of earls and dukes and princes. She felt the earl’s hand clasp her upper arm and pull her upright.

  He smiled down at her as he released her. “Are you all right, Miss Warfield?”

  “Yes, sir, but I can’t be your guest. James doesn’t know I’m here. No one does. I ran away because everything was impossible at home. It will remain impossible, so I can’t go home. I want to work for you. I know I can’t be a jockey for you since ladies can’t do that in England, but I love children and James has told me that her ladyship just had another little boy and James is his godfather. I would like to be a nursery maid. I think the baby is probably too young for a nanny, probably even too young for me to take him riding and teach him all about thoroughbreds, particularly the founding sires, and my favorite is the Byerley Turk, who was captured at Buda in 1688.”

  “He’s just a bit too young for the Byerley Turk,” the earl agreed. “But he’s a smart lad, and I daresay he’ll want to be up to snuff by his first birthday. Well, Duchess, what do you say? Shall we set Jessica—”

  “Excuse me, sir, but my name’s Jessie. I know that sounds perhaps too provincial, perhaps too Colonial, but it’s my name. It can’t be helped.”

  “It’s charming,” the earl said easily, quite charmed by this unexpected female. “‘Jessie’ it is. What do you say, Duchess?”

  The Duchess rose and walked gracefully to Jessie, who scrambled to her feet. She took her right hand between her own and said with a smile, “Charles is a handful, just like his father. I imagine he will adore you, particularly your splendid hair. You will take care that he doesn’t bald you. Welcome to Chase Park, Jessie.”

  “I don’t have splendid hair. You’re just being kind because that’s what James said you were.”

  “Of course you have lovely hair. Say ‘thank you,’ Jessie.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  Soon Jessie was trailing after Sampson, who was casually telling her that he’d always fancied visiting the Colonies. He’d never before seen an Indian and said he’d like to borrow some of their war paint for his wife. It would amuse her, he said.

  In the Green Cube Room, the Duchess was saying to her husband, “Marcus, this is interesting. What do you think happened between her and James that sent her scurrying here all by herself? What she’s done is foolish beyond belief.”

  “I’ll wager you she wore trousers until she got close to us, then changed into that god-awful gown. Don’t worry. We’ll find out everything soon enough. Now I wonder what Maggie will say when she meets a woman younger than she is with hair that just could be redder?”

  Maggie, Sampson’s wife of six years, was magnificent. Jessie just stared at her as she clutched the threadbare dressing gown more closely about her. At least she was clean and had lain down on that incredible bed with its pale gold brocade overhang and four tall posters, each beautifully carved, and closed her eyes. The mattress was goose feather if Jessie wasn’t mistaken, and she’d thought she’d collapsed onto heavenly clouds, but still she hadn’t slept. She’d been too scared and too relieved, both at the same time. The gown Maggie wore when she came to Jessie’s bedchamber, which was next to the nursery, was finer than the one the Duchess had worn when Jessie had first been shown in to that awesome Green Cube Room. Ah, but her hair, it was glorious.

  “Redder than a sinner’s passions,” Maggie said comfortably when Jessie just stared at her and blurted it out. She patted that beautiful hair and grinned. “You’ve not a bad head of hair yourself, Miss Jessie. It’s not as pure a shade of red as mine, but it’s acceptable nonetheless. Now you have all these dancing curls that won’t obey even my fingers, so we’ll—” She paused and struck a thoughtful pose.

  “Oh, please call me Jessie. I’m not a Miss. You’re right, my hair won’t do what anyone tells it to. I’m going to be Charles’s nanny of sorts.”

  “Yes, my Sampson told me you were going to teach Charles all about racehorses and thoroughbreds and the Byerley King—”

  “Well, it’s actually the Byerley Turk. He’s a horse, you know, not a man.”

  “That’s a pity. Men provide so much more sport than horses, but I suppose opinions do vary on that score. I daresay you’ll do just fine no matter what kind of a Turk it is. Now, let me see what I can do with this very nice head of hair. You’ll be having dinner with the Duchess and his lordship this evening. You scrubbed your hair really well, didn’t you, in your bath?”

  “Oh yes, it was dreadfully dirty,” Jessie said as she sat down and stared at the nearly dry wild tangle of red curls in the mirror.

  “Don’t you worry now, Jessie. The Duchess told me you needed me, and I can well see that you do. She wants me to bring you up to the mark. It’s a good thing I’m so talented—Did I tell you I was an actress before I saved Mr. Badger’s life in Plymouth? Oh, you haven’t met Mr. Badger or Mr. Spears yet. You will.”

  “James has told me ever so much about everyone. He said you were incredibly beautiful.”

  What James had actually said was that Maggie froze his tongue in his mouth ever since she’d patted him on his butt when he’d been twenty years old.

  “Yes, well, James is a nice man. He grew up well. We’re all very proud of him. Those deep green eyes of his appeal to the senses. Have you ever noticed those long eyelashes of his? And that nearly blond hair that’s sort of curly? He’s a handsome man, our James, and he grew to be so big, nearly as big as the earl, his cousin. Now, you just relax and close your eyes. I shall proceed to work my magic.”

  “James does have beautiful green eyes,” Jessie said. Her eyes were closed, so she didn’t see Maggie’s smile at those wistful words. To Jessie’s surprise, Maggie didn’t immediately begin brushing out her hair. No, she rubbed a very sweet-smelling cream onto her face. “Isn’t that nice? The Duchess told me you’d been on board a ship for a good six weeks. That ocean air isn’t good on a lady’s face. This will make you soft again. We’ll use it every day. You will use it on the rest of yourself as well, after every bath. You have nice skin for a Colonist, Jessie. Now, let’s see what we’ll do with your hair.”

  Jessie felt like a fool. She didn’t want to leave her bedchamber, which was more lovely than even her mother’s at home. Maggie had told her it was called the Autumn Room because of all the lovel
y golden shades in the draperies and the counterpane. This was the room they gave to Charles’s nanny?

  She didn’t want to walk down that long, wide corridor with its niches holding naked Greek statues or the endless stretch of walls filled with paintings of Wyndham ancestors.

  She didn’t want to trip on the hem of this incredible gown that the Duchess had sent for her to wear and land on her nose beneath one of those paintings.

  When there was a knock on her bedchamber door, she was nearing a state of panic that had her shaking and cursing herself for shaking.

  She opened the door to see a tall older gentleman who was dressed more elegantly than any gentleman she’d ever seen in her life. He had thick black hair threaded with interesting silver and dark eyes that surveyed her calmly.

  The personage smiled down at her. “I’m here to escort you downstairs, Miss Warfield. The Duchess thought perhaps you’d be more comfortable on my arm rather than marching past all those Wyndham portraits that give her bile, she’s always saying.”

  “Thank you, sir.” She gingerly placed her hand through his arm. “My name’s Jessie.”

  “You Colonists are so informal, but it’s charming. Chin up. That’s better. I fancy Mr. James is very worried about you.”

  “Oh no, he doesn’t care, he—”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry. You couldn’t possibly care that James doesn’t even know I’m alive. I suppose it is possible he’s a bit worried since he was a part of my downfall.”

  “Interesting things, downfalls. Was yours an interesting downfall or just a simple, everyday sort?”

  She burst into laughter. She laughed and laughed, trembling with it, and the Grand Personage beside her merely smiled benignly until finally she subsided.

  “Do you know I don’t think I’ve laughed for nearly two months now? Goodness, that felt quite good.”

  “I daresay you’ll laugh even more when you ride tomorrow.”