“Now, my dear,” the earl said, sitting back in his chair, “before we adjourn to the drawing room for some of Badger’s incredible coffee, tell us what happened between you and James to send you flying to a foreign country.”
She looked from one to the other and blurted out, “I didn’t want to go to Aunt Dorothy in New York. She’s my father’s younger sister and she’s petty and mean and pious and expects you to be grateful when she tells you what a bad person you are.”
“I shouldn’t consider going to her either,” the Duchess said. “She sounds as bad as James’s mother.”
“James’s mother is a terror. She makes me want to disappear under the floor. She once said to my face that I was a tart and should be whipped. Then she tried to cover it by saying that I hadn’t heard her aright, that she’d said I was smart and that my skirt was ripped. It wasn’t, I looked.” Jessie sighed, then said, “There was no place else. I’m sorry I just knocked on your door and disrupted your lives.”
“Lives occasionally need disrupting,” the earl said. “We get so bloody complacent. Disrupt all you like, Jessie. What happened between you and James?”
“I was found by everyone lying on top of him in Blanchards’ garden, but I really wasn’t kissing him, truly, I just wanted to make sure he was conscious so I was patting his face and perhaps I was breathing too close to his mouth, I’m not really certain now but James does have a lovely mouth, not that it matters now, for you see, I was ruined. James wasn’t because he’s a man. What could I do? James doesn’t want me. Nobody did except one man who isn’t a gentleman who attacked me at the racetrack and tried to take liberties. But James saved me. I would have saved myself, mind you, but this one man had a knife to my throat. James was very angry, not that it changed anything. I’m truly sorry.”
“I see,” the Duchess said. “Perhaps you could tell us what you were doing on top of James?”
Jessie took a deep breath, then recounted the sorry string of events.
“And you were ruined,” the earl said.
“Yes. It isn’t fair that the man isn’t ruined as well.”
“Well,” the earl said, “the man is supposed to marry the woman if he’s caught with her lying on top of him. Isn’t that right, Duchess?”
“In the usual course of events, yes.”
“He would have, but I know that James doesn’t even like me. I would never do that to him.”
“I see,” the Duchess said, looking into Jessie’s eyes. Beautiful green eyes, a lighter green than James’s, and filled with a pain that was much too much for such a vulnerable creature as Jessie Warfield. She’d been delighted when Jessie had walked into the drawing room all proud and scared at the same time and ready to show off her new plumage and try not to puke at the same time. She’d told her she looked lovely, an observation Jessie took as a rank fabrication. But the Duchess wasn’t deterred. She would continue to build her confidence. Perhaps that was all she needed, confidence and a bit of training. The Duchess wanted to see her on horseback.
Maggie had done a fine job with her. She wasn’t a classic beauty, but there was intelligence in those green eyes of hers, and a mouth that curved up naturally with humor. She had lovely white teeth and a jaw more stubborn than James’s. She was tall and slender, and she carried herself well. She had lovely white skin, and the Duchess found the sprinkling of freckles across her nose charming. What was wrong with James? Surely he wasn’t still brooding over Alicia, now dead three years?
Jessie cocked open an eye to find herself staring into two deep blue eyes that were only an inch from her face.
She shrieked.
“Shush,” a very young male voice said. “Spears will come and put me under his arm and carry me away if you don’t be quiet. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
It was a child, and he was speaking with that ludicrous starchy accent everyone else in this strange country spoke. “All right,” she said. “I’ll be quiet. I can’t imagine what startled me so much. I mean, you’re not precisely touching your nose to mine. I can’t stand people who yell.”
“I can’t either.”
“You’re rather heavy. Do you think you could move a bit to the side?”
“Oh certainly. I say, is that better?”
Jessie could breathe again. She thought now that turning blue from want of air was what had awakened her in the first place.
“Much. Now—”
“You talk very funny, like Uncle James when he first arrives home before he learns how to speak properly again. Papa says it’s because he comes from a savage land and we have to civilize him over and over. I’m always there to help Uncle James learn English again.”
“You’re Anthony.”
“Yes. I’m named after Anthony Welles, the Earl of Clare, a very good friend of my grandpapa’s. I never met either one of them, but the Earl of Clare was supposed to be a dashing gentleman who lived in Italy half the year and here in England the other half.”
Jessie was fully awake now, utterly charmed by this outpouring of confidences from a little boy who would surely grow up to be at least as handsome as his papa. “Your mama told me you ride like a centaur.”
“Mama truly said that? A centaur? You’re certain you didn’t misunderstand her because you’re an American?”
“I promise I have it right. Now, Anthony, I’m Jessie. I’m going to be Charles’s nurse and your horse nanny. I ride like a centaur, too, you know, and I also race.”