Jessie turned blue, not from want of air, but from rage. She began to struggle, catching James by surprise, truth be told. He was so busy enjoying the taste of her that he’d momentarily forgotten what he was doing. She managed to get one arm free and box his left ear. He yowled and fell off of her.
She immediately bounced to her feet, staring down at him, shaking her fist, her foot raised to strike him, but she thought better of it at the last minute and yelled, “You wretched liar! You told me that they hadn’t talked to you about marrying me. They nailed you, didn’t they? Played on your guilt, made me sound like a sorry, pathetic female who would probably wander off and dive from a cliff. Damn you, James, you told me it was all your idea.”
“Oh dear,” Badger said. “I’m very sorry, James. An unwary tongue isn’t what this situation required. I do hope my poor crimped cod and oyster sauce isn’t in jeopardy now.”
“The road to true love shouldn’t be strewn with rose petals,” Maggie said. “Just look at his lordship and the Duchess.”
“I would have preferred just one or two rose petals, Maggie,” the Duchess said, to which her husband replied, “That doesn’t sound like such a bad idea, Duchess. I can see you walking across the bedchamber to me, your white feet all bare, as well as the rest of you, the soles being caressed by some of Maggie’s petals. What do you think?”
“I think, my lord,” Spears said, “that your levity is singularly misplaced at this particular moment in time. James has a problem now because of Mr. Badger’s unfortunate lapse. Jessie isn’t happy with him.”
James came up on his hands and knees, shaking his head. “Maggie, that was the most god-awful metaphor I’ve ever heard in my life. True love and rose petals? As for you, Marcus, your digressing to the bedchamber is just like you. I suppose next you’d nibble the rose petals that stuck to the Duchess’s feet. As for you, Jessie, you’ve made my ear ring.” He shook his head and gently rubbed his ear with his hand. “What do you say about that?”
Jessie was slowly backing away from all of them. “I’m leaving. This is bedlam. James doesn’t want to marry me. Why won’t all of you just accept that? Obviously you’ve made him feel so guilty that he forced himself to propose to me. When I said no and saved him from himself, he forced himself to fall on me and hold me down. He even forced himself to kiss me until I didn’t fight him anymore.”
“Damn you, Jessie, how do you think I got as hard as that fireplace iron if I wasn’t interested?”
“I’m sorry about your crimped cod, Badger.” She ran to the glass doors, pushed one of them open, and dashed into the storm.
“Oh damn,” James said. “I’ve got to catch her again. She’s fast, even in her skirt and petticoats. Badger, get some hot tea ready. She’s only wearing those ladylike little slippers. Her feet are probably already wet.”
“Wet clothes,” his lordship said as he watched his American cousin run out into the storm, “and the subsequent removal of them tend to lead most usually to interesting afternoon diversions.”
“We’ll see, my lord,” Spears said. “Mr. Badger, let’s get some blankets and that hot tea. I hope neither of them becomes ill through all this excess of emotion.”
“Jessie will ruin her streamers,” Maggie said, and touched her fingers to the soft curls that lovingly hovered over her white ears.
He cornered her in the Chase Park stables, trying to get a saddle on Clancy’s broad back. It wasn’t that the saddle was too heavy. Clancy was seventeen hands high, and she simply couldn’t heave the saddle up onto his back. She dropped the saddle, stomped her foot, and cursed. As for Clancy, that brute of a stallion who had been known to throw the earl a good dozen times in fits of pique, was neighing softly, nudging Jessie’s shoulder with his nose—all in all, behaving like a besotted swain or an obsequious pet. James imagined that the bloody horse would have collapsed onto his knees so she could hug him better if he’d had the brains to realize it.
“You aren’t going anywhere, Jessie. Why did you pick Clancy? He’s a brute, he could kill you if he had a mind to do so, and you can’t even get a saddle on his back. Just look what you’ve done to him—you’ve broken his spirit. Why, he’d lick your face if he thought about it. Give him one final pat and let’s go back to the house.”
“No.”
“Jessie, you will do as I tell you. I’m tired of chasing you. I’d forgotten you’re like a mountain goat. I’m tired. So just stop all these dramatics and come back with me to the house.”
“House, ha! It’s a bloody mansion. It has more rooms than an entire block of houses in Baltimore.”
He stared at her a moment, bemused.
“Clancy isn’t a brute. He’s a sweetheart.”
“That’s what the Duchess says about Marcus. Oh God, you haven’t tried to ride Clancy, have you?”
“Naturally. We’ve had great rides. He’s shown me the countryside.”
“You’re telling me Marcus allowed this?”
“He doesn’t know. Lambkin allowed that it was better not to awaken his lordship’s choler.”
“Jessie, you’re soaked. I’m soaked. You’re not going anywhere. Come along with me now.”
“Will you try to pin me to the floor again?”
“No, not the floor. The next time I pin you it will be to a bed.”
She picked up the saddle and threw it at him, only to have it fall several feet short.
He leaned back against the stall, careful not to irritate Clancy, who was rolling his eyes at the sight of that flying saddle, and said, “Just look at what you’ve become. You put on a gown and you lose all your strength. Your streamers are plastered to your head. The bodice of your gown is plastered to your breasts. That looks interesting. Perhaps I can flatten you against this stall.”
He took a step toward her, looking wet and wicked. She ducked beneath Clancy and came up on the other side.
“Are you out of your damned mind? Clancy could hurt you, Jessie. Come along, now, at least let’s get out of this stall.”
She’d already decided that. Clancy liked her, she knew that, but she also knew he found humans occasionally irritating. His tail was beginning to twitch. She patted his neck, kissed his nose, and slipped out of the stall, James on her heels.
He caught her arm before she could break into a run.
“Enough,” he said. He pulled her against him. She was trembling—undoubtedly from the wet and cold. He ran his large hands down her back. Her back didn’t feel like a lanky girl’s. It was disconcerting. Her breasts didn’t belong to a lanky girl, either.
He breathed in the scent of her, nibbled on her ear, the wet streamer sticking to his mouth, and said, “Marry me, Jessie. Let’s just get it done.”
She was crying. That’s why she was trembling. He pushed her back against his arm and raised her chin with his fingers. “Why?”
She made no sound. The tears just welled out of her eyes and fell over her cheeks to her chin. “You cry well, Jessie, but tell me why you’re crying? Are you giving up? Do you have to think of this as losing to me? Actually, we’re both winning, if you’d but give your brain a chance to think all this through.”
She leaned her forehead against his shoulder. He knew when she’d stopped crying. She stood very still. Then she said quietly against the wet batiste of his shirt, “James, you’re the only man who’s ever kissed me.”
He grinned as he kissed the top of her wet head. “I’ll kiss you until we both cock up our toes if you’ll let me.”
She stepped back and looked up at him. “I’ll let you. But first I want you to agree to something.”
He was still. He didn’t think he was going to like this and he was right, even as he said, “Agree to what?”
“You’re like a dog with a bone in his mouth and you won’t stop until you’ve gnawed it—or me—to death. You’re now looking at this situation as if it’s a race to be won. You’ve got to beat me, to make me yield. It doesn’t matter any longer if you truly believe that wh
at you’re doing is right. It’s beyond that. I should have said yes immediately. Then you probably would have paled, stammered that you’d made a ghastly mistake, and scuttled off. But I didn’t. I turned you down, and you couldn’t bear that.”
“What’s your damned point, Jessie? What do you want me to agree to?”
She drew a deep breath, pulled one of her streamers off her cheek, and said, “I look at marriage as forever, James. I know that men do, too, but they are incapable of remaining faithful to one woman, namely their wives. Since you don’t love me, you will tire of me quickly, then you’ll want to go back to Connie Maxwell or to any number of other women. I’m willing to accept this as long as you agree to allow me the same courtesy. When I tire of you, I can take lovers. I don’t want any lies between us.”
“That’s a lot of things you’ve said, Jessie. Let me take the most basic thing first. You can’t take lovers. Unlike a man, you can get pregnant. I won’t claim another man’s child.”
“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that. Isn’t there a way not to conceive a child?”
“Yes, there are several ways.”
“Well?”
“You wouldn’t understand even if I told you.”
“So you’re saying the women you’d have sex with would know how to prevent conceiving your child.”
“Yes, but there are always accidents.”
“Then surely a prospective lover would exercise equal care. One assumes that a man who’s unfaithful to his wife wouldn’t want his mistresses to give birth to his bastards.”
“You will take no lovers, Jessie.”
“If you won’t, then I won’t.”
James plowed his fingers through his wet hair. “ Damnation, I don’t believe this. Clancy just nudged my shoulder. He thinks I’m bloody crazy to stand here listening to this nonsense flowing from your ignorant mouth. No, just shut up, Jessie. Let me tell you about Connie Maxwell. She wouldn’t be my lover if I were married. Does that surprise you?”
“I suppose it does. If I were she, I believe I wouldn’t be able to turn you away.”
He sucked in his breath as if he’d been punched in the belly. “Be quiet. I can’t take much more of this. Now we’re both soaked. I don’t wish to have either of us contract an inflammation of the lung. Let’s go back to the house now.”
She fell in beside him, silent now, looking straight ahead. The rain was still falling, more lightly now, becoming a fine drizzle. A fog rose, as if shoved up from the bowels of the earth, shrouding everything in a soft, gray veil. They heard Fred chortle what he must have thought was a fine mating call. It sounded like a buzzard in its death throes.
Jessie laughed.
James looked at her, but she didn’t explain. He took her hand. They continued walking to the house, hand in hand.
Neither of them succumbed to a cold. When they went into the kitchen, the tribunal was waiting for them, armed for any disaster.
“Here you are,” Badger said. “We hoped you’d come into the kitchen. Now, we have dressing gowns for both of you. Jessie, you go first into the pantry and take off those wet things. Then you, James. Then you’ll have hot tea and some delicious apples a` la Portugaise, a recipe I just received in the post from a Frog chef who lives in Rouen.”
“Then we’ll discuss your wedding,” Spears said. “His lordship will speak with Mr. Bagley, our curate. Oh dear, we must post bans, and that will take three weeks. None of us wishes to wait that long.”
“James, with his lordship’s assistance, a special license can be procured,” Badger said.
“I’ve already spoken to the Duchess about your wedding dress, Jessie,” Maggie said.
Sampson poked his head into the kitchen. “I’ve alerted his lordship and the Duchess that you’re both here.”
The earl peered over Sampson’s shoulder. “Well? Are we to fetch Mr. Bagley?”
“Yes,” James said.
“Yes,” Jessie said.
“Perhaps,” Marcus said to James, “you’d care to tell me how you won the day? Did you do something romantic and dashing? Did you perhaps pin her in the wet grass and teach her how to breathe? Or did you protect her from the rain and caress her until she was panting for you?”
“My dear husband,” the Duchess said, slipping around him and Sampson, “I believe Jessie is a bit flushed—no wonder, since you never seem to curb your thoughts before they become words.”
“She loves it,” the earl said. “Just look at her. Her eyes are nearly crossed. She’s staring at James. We’d best get them married as quickly as possible before she flings him to the kitchen floor and has her way with him.”
“A special license,” James said. “Just tell me what to do, Marcus, and I’ll see to it.”
Spears said, “While you and Jessie are changing into dry dressing gowns we will discuss what is to be done. Then we will tell you.”
James threw a towel at Spears, who looked eloquently pained.
The earl laughed. “I’m hungry, Badger. Do you have any of those currant dumplings left over from luncheon?”
17
A thoroughbred and a husband: both must have uncommon endurance, boundless nerve and heart.
—COMMON WISDOM
“I WILL,” JAMES said, and looked expectantly down at Jessie, who was remarkably pale even with the rich emerald green wedding gown that made her shoulders look more creamy than he would have believed possible. Emerald green. An excellent color on her. It made her hair seem even brighter. He realized that during the past five days things like this had been sticking in his mind.
He’d bought her a pair of white slippers to replace the ones ruined during her escapes from him in the rain. He remembered her reaction when he’d handed her the new slippers wrapped in silver paper. She’d looked down at the lovely white shoes and become completely still. “They’ll fit you, Jessie,” the Duchess had said. “Maggie and I traced out your own shoes for Mr. Dobbs, the cobbler.” Still, Jessie had just looked down at those white slippers. Then she’d looked up at him, and he would have sworn that she was afraid of something, which was surely unlike Jessie. Afraid of what? “Thank you, James,” she’d said, then she’d turned around and walked off.
The Duchess said with a sigh, “She’s off to see Charles again. He doesn’t make her feel frightened or unsure, you know,” to which James had said nothing himself, turned around, and walked off himself.
He looked down at her now while the Bishop of York, that exalted personage who’d agreed to conduct the ceremony as a favor to the powerful Earl of Chase, exhorted her to obey her husband. James would have preferred Mr. Bagley, but Marcus had decided they needed to have the ceremony presided over by one of the highest in the land. Two whimsical streamers curled lazily down over Jessie’s ears. White, delicate ears. He’d never imagined that Jessie Warfield could have white, delicate ears.
So much had changed since that day and yet so little. She’d become a Jessie even the new Jessie didn’t resemble. She was restrained, that was it; she didn’t say a word unless directly spoken to, and surely that wasn’t either the old or the new Jessie. Perhaps she was trying to be like the Duchess. She wasn’t succeeding, if that was her aim. She avoided James after he gave her the new slippers, spending most of her time with Charles and Anthony. James wasn’t troubled. So busy was he with his horses at Candlethorpe, he was frankly relieved Jessie didn’t look hurt or reproachful when he finally did come to Chase Park on those days when the Duchess sent him invitations to dine. He couldn’t imagine himself playing the smitten suitor, not with a girl he’d wanted to beat into the ground in every race where they’d been competitors. He figured Jessie couldn’t imagine him that way either. She couldn’t possibly expect him to ride all the way to Chase Park every day to coo poetry in her ear. James had played the romantic only once before—in wooing Alicia—and he had no intention of playing the role again. He’d been another man back then, so head over heels in love that he’d scarcely been able to construct a coherent sen
tence in her presence. And he’d wanted her. He’d hurt with want. It was all he could think about when he was near her. It was all he could think about when he wasn’t near her. He’d embarrassed himself many times, become as hard as a stone by merely touching her hand. All he could think about was having her naked beneath him, moaning for him because, surely, she’d want him as much as he wanted her.
James forced himself to listen a moment to the bishop’s mellifluous voice, soaring richly now, as he praised this union, brought about by his illustrious lordship, the Earl of Chase. James wondered if Jessie realized the bishop was saying in so many words that they were a couple of savages, kindly brought to order by a peer of the realm. Marcus must be spitting at such nonsense, that or waiting until it was all over so he could laugh his head off. James stopped listening before he punched the bishop in his long, thin nose. He hoped the Duchess had a good hold on Marcus; he was probably quite tempted himself.
Actually, now that he thought about it, neither could he imagine Jessie playing the wistful maiden, sitting beneath the Duchess’s rose arbor waiting for him to come recite some nauseating poetry to her, any more than he could imagine himself reciting it. He was startled when suddenly Jessie said, “I will,” in a voice as thin as the lovely stockings he’d glimpsed when she raised her skirt to allow him to tie the ribbon more securely around her left ankle.
He’d never before in his life considered what seeing a lady’s stockings could do to a man. He’d become instantly harder than the heels on his boots.
The Bishop of York blessed the young couple, then said to the Earl of Chase, not to the groom, “It is done, my lord. They may wish to embrace as many young married persons do upon completion of the ceremony. God believes a modest tendering of affection following dedication to Him bodes well for a union and enhances the pleasure of those witnessing the event.”
James gently placed his index finger beneath Jessie’s chin and pushed up. He leaned down and lightly touched his mouth to hers. Her lips were as cold as the carrot soup Badger had forgotten to heat for dinner the previous night. No one had remarked upon the cold soup. Badger had insisted upon preparing all the wedding dishes and had thus been distracted for the past four days.