as he followed her into the hall.
Two weeks later Jessica decided that not even tea would cure this disastrous situation. Her father and mother had cried off at the last minute and she was about to reach Ashburton New Place to face the ducal summons alone. The carriage slowed to take the entrance to Jack’s mansion and she fought a cowardly impulse to order her father’s coachman to return to Winberry Hall instead.
Despite their oddly unforgettable encounters back in London, Jack would treat her with his usual absent-minded courtesy, then forget her, she reassured herself uneasily. All she had to do was limp about his glorious stately pile looking serene and untroubled for the next two weeks while he took his pick of the finest belles of the ton, then she could go home and get on with her life. Resigning herself to a fortnight of pretence, Jessica leant forwards for her first glimpse of Ashburton’s famous deer park as the coach finally swung through the imposing gates and there could be no turning back.
‘Her ladyship said I was to remind you to be polite to the duke,’ her mother’s ancient and formidable dresser informed her sternly as the coach slowed again.
‘I’m not such a fool as to show his Grace up in a bad light while he’s entertaining guests, Martha.’
‘Your mother wouldn’t want you hurt, Miss Jessica,’ Martha said earnestly.
Then why had Lady Pendle been so insistent Jessica accept this invitation without her support? She must know the beauties invited for this fortnight would have their claws honed ready for the scramble to grab Jack’s strawberry leaves.
‘You can depend upon it, all is well, my love, despite all this panic from Rowena’s husband,’ her mama had told Jessica when a note was delivered by an exhausted groom as she and Jessica were finally packed and ready to leave. ‘Rowena is as healthy as a horse, despite Sir Linstock fussing over her as if she might break, but she never would attend to her sums and has very likely got the date of her last courses wrong. I said she looked large for just over seven months last time we visited, did I not? Linstock and your papa will be quite useless until we’re certain your sister is out of danger, so I must go and help the poor girl endure her confinement without having to worry about them as well as herself and the babe.’
Lady Pendle paused and considered the general idiocy of gentlemen when confronted with childbirth, gave a heavy sigh and shook her head. ‘You must take Martha with you and Lady Henry will chaperon you at Ashburton, my love. Your godmother will be sorely in need of your help with so many giddy young misses in the house,’ her mother said.
Lady Pendle clearly thought Lady Henry Seaborne faced an unenviable task keeping so many deadly rivals from scratching each other’s eyes out in their scramble to become Jack’s duchess. So how could Jess refuse to come here in Martha’s sternly respectable company when her godmother had always given her loving support to her goddaughter whenever she needed it?
‘His Grace and I are little more than nodding acquaintances nowadays, Martha, and I am only here to assist my godmother,’ Jessica said now. ‘Clearly I shall be far too busy to lounge about on sofas looking elegant, so you will not be required to dress me up like some aged ingénue. I suggest you regard this visit as something of a holiday and enjoy the comforts of Ashburton while you are here.’
‘That I shall not, Miss Jessica. Lady Henry and your mama would never allow you to be less elegantly dressed than the rest of the company, even if the rest of us was prepared to let you make a spectacle of yourself,’ Martha told her as if the very idea was preposterous.
‘I am three and twenty and quite on the shelf, not some hopeful little miss of seventeen or eighteen,’ Jessica countered lightly, but hoped there was enough steel in her voice to make it clear she considered that to be that.
She recalled what it was like to be that young and artless and shuddered. At seventeen she had still dreamt young girls’ dreams, even if she had put an embargo on any fancies about Jack. She had been cured of them quickly enough after overhearing a handsome and impecunious lieutenant who had sworn to her only the night before that she was the light and purpose of his life confide in his brother, the village curate, how her small fortune from her great-aunt would buy him preference and a commission. She could still hear every one of his cruel words now …
‘Without her money, I should never look at such a dull little cripple, I can assure you, brother mine. If not for my need being so much greater than yours, she would make you a neat wife, Hubert. At least Miss Hop-Along will never be chased by the local squires or ogled by the sons of the gentry. Not that she wouldn’t be easily caught if they chose to chase her, for she ain’t able to run away, is she?’ Julius Swaybon had said with a braying laugh that she had failed to notice was loud and unamused until that very moment.
Reverend Swaybon had been a much nicer gentleman than his brother and protested such a dismissive attitude to a girl the man was seeking to marry.
‘Don’t be more stupid than you can help,’ his more worldly-wise brother told him scornfully. ‘She wouldn’t be looking my way if she had any prospect of a better catch. The wench must know she’s flawed; she’ll accept me and be thankful, or remain a drain on her family for the rest of her life.’
‘I thought you said she had her own money,’ Reverend Swaybon defended her stalwartly and if she’d had it in her to fall in love out of gratitude, she knew which brother she would have chosen, she reflected now.
She hadn’t loved Julius Swaybon either, but she had been flattered by his extravagant praise and outrageous flirtation. Then she’d heard him speak of her as if she was a well-bred horse with a flaw that would bring her within his purchasing power and seen him for the straw man he truly was. It only confirmed her instinctive reaction to Jack when she was sixteen and eager for love, life and passion, but caution warned it would be a disaster for a girl like her to love him. He was seven years more cynical, experienced and dangerous now and an inner voice whispered he was also more fascinating, but she ignored it.
‘Lady Henry has her ways of getting things done,’ Martha said as they left the shade of the venerable oak trees and Ashburton Place came into clear view at last.
At least the magnificent mansion distracted her from wondering exactly what her godmother wanted to achieve this time and Jessica tried to dismiss that cryptic comment as if she hadn’t even heard it. Even the Seabornes, who loved every stick and stone of the place, acknowledged Ashburton was a beautiful rabbit warren. The towers and domes of the mighty roof were punctuated with banqueting houses and fanciful pinnacles so fashionable in Tudor England, but at least the main house was brightened by arrays of bay windows in the highest fashion of the times. With subsequent additions in the same brick or sandstone, Ashburton was a vast yet welcoming ducal seat.
Chapter Three
Imagining how fast the hearts of the young ladies arriving here must beat at the mere thought of becoming mistress of all this, Jessica could no longer forget why this gathering had been organised. If there was a girl of wit and character among the assembled beauties she supposed she would have to be glad, but most of the beauties of the ton would sell their souls for a catch like Jack, so she doubted such a girl would fight her way to the front of the eager crowd even if she wanted to. She shuddered at the very thought of the next few weeks and once more fervently wished herself back at Winberry Hall.
‘Wretched man,’ she muttered darkly.
‘What’s that?’ Martha barked gruffly, as she always did when she hadn’t quite caught what someone said and was pretending to herself and everyone else she wasn’t growing a little deaf.
‘None
