The Duchess Hunt. Elizabeth Beacon
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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 of your business,’ Jessica replied pertly and waited for the steps to be let down with rather less relief than she should feel after being cooped up for so long with a woman who’d known her for her entire twenty-three years of life.
‘Rag manners will get you nowhere in life, my girl,’ Martha snapped caustically as only an old and valued family servant could and the footman who was peering cautiously in at them promptly backed away, before steeling himself to his duty and placing his stalwart hand for Jessica to steady herself with.
‘You should know,’ Jessica told her mother’s old nurse as she stepped on to Seaborne soil and waited for it to steady under her disobliging feet.
‘I don’t know what you mean, Miss Pendle,’ Martha replied with stately dignity.
‘Of course you don’t,’ Jessica replied with a half-affectionate, half-exasperated smile and shook out her rumpled skirts as best she could as she went through the exercises her father’s head groom had made up for her when she was first injured in order to soothe the protesting muscles in her damaged foot.
Even if she had to stand here until everyone else had forgotten her, she would not stumble up the short flight of steps looming in front of her and lose her hard-won dignity. The very thought of Jack Seaborne’s face when he heard she had taken to tumbling about like a drunkard made her already-tense muscles tighten into knots, so she forced herself to forget him and relaxed until she felt the probability of collapsing at the wretched man’s elegantly top-booted feet recede at long last.
‘Oh, here you are at last, my love,’ Lady Henry Seaborne exclaimed as she rushed down the steps to greet her. ‘I’m so pleased you came, Jessica my love, even if we must do without your darling mama, but with this wonderful news of your latest nephew’s precipitate arrival, even I can’t begrudge Master Tremayne his doting grandmama’s attention. Oh, did you not know your sister had been safely brought to bed of a healthy boy?’ Lady Henry asked.
‘No, Mama had to hurry off to Dassington Manor as we were getting ready to set out.
Papa insisted I kept the carriage and came on alone and was getting ready to drive to Dassington in his curricle. How happy Rowena and Sir Linstock must be, and how very clever of darling Row not to give herself time to be nervous about it all,’ Jessica said, vastly relieved her sister was safe.
‘Your father and mother were so anxious for you to get the news that Sir Linstock’s groom must have taken a shortcut in his haste and missed you along the way. I was so afraid neither of you would come that I have been on tenterhooks, dreading every letter would say you could not join us either.’
‘I could not let you down at such a time and Rowena would have been the first person to say I must come. I expect she is glad I have since most of our tribe of relatives have probably joined Sir Linstock at Dassington to fuss over her.’
‘I am quite sure your sister would choose you over all of them if she could, for you two are marvellously close,’ Lady Henry remarked.
‘True, but Sir Linstock will make sure she is not overwhelmed by well-wishers in my absence,’ Jessica said lightly; indeed, she was glad her sister enjoyed such a loving and passionate marriage, even if sometimes she felt more like an old maid than ever in their company.
‘I know how hard it must have been for you to continue your journey, so come here and be hugged and confound dignity and form,’ Lady Henry ordered then engulfed Jessica in a warm, scented and loving embrace.
‘Of course I came, Godmama dear. You’re my favourite almost-relative and I don’t see you half often enough.’
‘For that you may have to be hugged again, Princess Jessica.’
‘How I wish Jack had not decided to call me that after my accident, when you insisted I had the Queen’s Room! I didn’t realise until long after that you did so in order that I need not face the stairs after the interminable resetting and manipulation of my foot.’
‘I’m surprised my darling daughter didn’t tell you at the time, considering how jealous she was of you being allowed to sleep in a room I wouldn’t even let her set foot in for fear of the damage she might do.’
‘You must be such a dragon that she didn’t dare disobey you,’ Jessica teased.
‘More likely she wanted the pony Jack promised her for her birthday so badly that she didn’t dare go against his orders that you were to have that room and no argument. She knew he wouldn’t hand over so much as a horseshoe if she didn’t keep a still tongue in her head.’
Jessica had been sure Jack disliked her back then and wasn’t altogether certain what to make of that information right now. Impatient of herself for thinking about him far too much, she was about to ask after Lady Henry’s children when the prickle of unease she always felt in his presence of late warned her Jack had come out to meet her.
At the top of that suddenly endless flight of steps he stood at ease, superbly muscled under the loose, to-hell-with-fashion clothing he insisted on wearing in the country. He looked so much more mature than he’d been last time she visited him in his lair and in the bare two weeks since she had seen him last he seemed to have become even more potent and formidable, so much so that a craven part of her wanted to scramble back in the carriage and order it to race for home.
It didn’t matter what she thought, she reminded herself. He was hosting this party to find himself a wife and most females seemed to like overlong sable hair and loosely tailored coats, at least on him, and the débutantes pursued him in packs whenever he set foot in town. At least he followed the fashion set by Mr Brummell in maintaining scrupulous cleanliness at all times, she conceded reluctantly, her critical gaze centred on his frowning countenance as she shivered with foreboding. A new sense of unease ran through her