Page 48 of The Hidden Heart

Jessica shook her head. “No. Though I thank you again. He—” She shrugged. “He told me that he wanted us to be friends. He offered an apology for how he treated me.”

“I see.” Cleybourne watched her face closely. “And what did you say?”

Jessica grimaced. “I told him I did not wish to be friends with him, and that I thought it would be best if we avoided each other. So, you see, it is all taken care of. Good night, Your Grace.”

“No, wait, it is not all taken care of. I have been trying to speak to you since last night.”

“There is no reason why you should explain anything to me,” Jessica said stiffly, remembering the moment when she had seen him with Lady Vesey, in the hall and the piercing blade of anger and hurt that had stabbed through her. “I am merely your employee. It is not surprising to me that you should choose to…be with…a woman of your own station.”

“My own sta—” He frowned in puzzlement. “Bloody hell! Is that what you think I was saying the other morning? That you were not high enough for me? That you were not good enough? Good God, woman! I wouldn’t have thought you were that bloody foolish.”

“Foolish?” Jessica quirked an eyebrow, her voice growing icier.

“Yes, foolish,” he retorted in a low, furious voice. “You live here. You work for me. It would be taking advantage of you for me to—to force my attentions on you. That is what I was talking about, not your status. I don’t give a rap about my position or whether you are a governess or a bloody washerwoman, for that matter. But the other night, in the nursery, when I—when you—damn it, I was taking advantage of you and the situation. I acted like a cad.”

“So you turned to Leona. It makes perfect sense.”

“I did not turn to Leona!” His voice was rising with anger, and he stopped, reining himself in visibly. He continued in a lower voice. “That is what I am trying to tell you. Nothing happened between me and Lady Vesey.”

Jessica arched one eyebrow in delicate disbelief.

“Yes, I know it looked terrible. She was wearing my dressing gown and nothing else, but I had nothing to do with that. Well, not with her lack of clothing. I found her in that state when I went into my room last night. She was lying in wait for me,” he said in such an aggrieved tone that Jessica almost had to laugh. “Sitting there on my bed, wearing nothing. So I gave her my dressing gown and hustled her out into the hall. I never touched her—well, I mean, except to take her outside.”

Richard looked down at Jessica. It bothered him that it mattered so much that she believe him. It bothered him that he kept thinking about the other night when he had kissed her. It seemed a betrayal of Caroline—as if he had stopped loving her, as if he no longer belonged to her. Yet, even as he told himself that he should not feel this way, that he should not care what Jessica Maitland thought of him, he knew that he did care.

“Damn it,” he said in exasperation, his voice tinged with bitterness. “Don’t you know that seeing Leona naked didn’t make me want her? Not the way one kiss made me want you.”

Jessica’s head snapped up, and she stared at him, shocked by his words. She saw the truth in his eyes, and she saw, too, how much he disliked feeling as he did. She gazed into his dark eyes, unable to look away, scarcely able to breathe. He wanted to kiss her again, she knew, and she knew that she wanted him to. Every nerve in her was suddenly alive and thrumming, and unconsciously she leaned a little closer to him.

There was a burst of laughter from down the hall, heavy masculine laughs, followed by Leona’s teasing voice. Both Jessica and Richard jumped, glancing guiltily toward the sound. There was no one in the hall; the guests were all still in the formal drawing room, but they were aware of how many people were about, how little privacy they had here in the middle of the Great Hall.

Jessica looked back at Richard, her heart pounding. Then she turned and hurried away, almost running up the stairs.

CHAPTER 11

Jessica stopped by Gabriela’s door on her way down the hall to her own bedroom and turned the doorknob quietly. It was locked from the inside, as she had instructed Gabriela to do each night. She went next door and rapped lightly on Rachel’s door, and at the sound of Rachel’s voice, she stepped inside.

Rachel smiled at her from the bed, but it was not a very strong smile. Her eyes were watery, and she admitted that both her throat and her head hurt a little. “I think I am coming down with a head cold,” she admitted mournfully. “I am so sorry. I’m sure you will need help with the extra company.”

“Yes, I suppose we must do something to keep them from growing bored. What an odd lot they are, too.” Jessica kept Rachel entertained for the next few minutes describing Mr. Cobb, Miss Pargety and the others, and she was glad to see that Rachel’s spirits rose during her visit.

After a while she left Rachel to get some sleep and walked across the hall to her own bedroom. She glanced at Cleybourne’s door, just one door down the hall from hers, and wondered if he was in there yet. She shook off the thought, reminding herself how unproductive it was, and began to get ready for bed.

Pulling on one of her plain white flannel gowns, she took down her hair, sighing with relief, and brushed out the thick red curls. She climbed into bed, shivering a little in the cold room, the fire in the fireplace banked for the night. She had thought that she would have difficulty falling to sleep, for lately her mind seemed to whir on for ages, usually concerning the Duke of Cleybourne. But it had been a tiring day, and she fell asleep quickly.

She had been asleep for a while when a noise brought her awake, eyes flying open and heart pounding. She sat up, trying to remember what had awakened her. Had it been the sound of her doorknob turning? She wasn’t sure. She had been dreaming, and the dream and reality were blurred.

Jessica slipped out of bed, putting on her bedroom slippers, then wrapped her dressing gown around her and tied it. She walked quietly across the floor and listened, her ear against the door. She could hear nothing. Unlocking the door, she eased it open a crack and peered out into the hall. There was nothing there, only the dark corridor, lit dimly with moonlight from the windows at either end of the hallway.

She stood for a moment, looking. Then, furtively, a dark form slipped from the shadows on one side of the hallway and across to the top of the staircase, then disappeared down the stairs. Jessica’s heart began to knock crazily in her rib cage. Who was stealing down the staircase at this time of night? Her first thought was of the intruder who had broken into the schoolroom the other night. Was it Vesey? She could not imagine why he would be sneaking around at this time of night.

She knew, however, that she was going to follow that secretive form. She thought of taking a candle or lamp with her since the moonlight from the two hall windows provided little light. However, a lit candle would obviously draw notice from the man she was following, so she did not. She did, however, pick up the heavy candlestick, weighing it in her hand. It would do for a weapon, she thought. She took the candle out, slipped it into her pocket, and, wrapping her hand firmly around the stem of the candleholder, she opened the door wider and slipped out into the hallway.

She moved as fast as she dared, given the dimness, and soon reached the stairs. Grasping the rail, she started down slowly, fearful of slipping. About halfway down, she heard a thud somewhere below her in the Great Hall, followed by a brief and blasphemous exclamation. She hesitated, then went on as silently as she could.

When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she paused, looking carefully around her. The Great Hall was even darker than the hallway above had been. She crept through it, afraid of knocking into something, the way the person she was following apparently had. She reached the hallway down which Cleybourne’s study lay, and she started along it. It was Stygian in its darkness here, where there were no windows with drapes open to the night, and she did not see the darker shapes of a table or bench against the wall until she was practically on them. She was concentrating on the immediate space in front of her when there was a loud cry from down the hall, followed by a crash.

Jessica’s head flew up, and she searched the dark shadows of the corridor in front of her. There was a grunt, followed by a thud, and an instant later a dark form burst out of a door farther down the hallway and tore down the corridor straight at her. She stepped back, but not quickly enough, and the man slammed into her left shoulder, knocking her aside. She hit the wall, grabbing at the edge of the table to keep from falling.