Red Jack's Daughter (20 page)

It was only when Ollie had come, and the general conversation had died three natural deaths before being painfully resuscitated again, that Mr. Jeffers and Herr Anton von Keller were announced and all speech came to an abrupt halt. Mr. Jeffers came in expansively smiling and greeting everyone assembled. The young man at his side made his bows absently, but when his searching gaze fell upon Jessica, he stopped i
n
his tracks. He frankly goggled and then shook himself as if awakening. He came toward Jessica with both hands outstretched, a look of fierce emotion upon his dark face. “Mira!” he gasped.

Now that, Jessica thought with rich satisfaction as she rose and extended one hand in greeting, proves it. He’s nothing but a fraud, “The name is Jessica,” she said calmly.

“But you are the image of your mother,” he said in his precise, slightly accented English.

And that, Jessica thought on a smile, settles it. For she knew that she was the picture of her father.

The young man, Jessica noted dispassionately as she settled herself once again and he answered a question of Tom’s, surprised her in at least one respect. She had thought that a fellow claiming to be a relative would have looked something like herself. But he was slight and swarthy, and being only of average height, he looked diminutive beside the other more sizable gentlemen. His clothing was as precise as his speech, but rather more colorful. His bright waistcoat, with its rich fobs, and the many jewels on his fingers were more lavish than even the most outright of the Dandy set’s ornamentations. His hair was smooth and inky black, and his large black eyes, which he never turned from her for a moment, were ringed around with lustrous dark lashes.

As soon as he had answered Tom’s question, which had to do with his lodgings in town, he turned to Jessica again. “Excuse me, Cousin,” he said anxiously, “for my impertinence. But when I saw you sitting there, for a moment it was as if I saw your dear mama again. But now I see that you are taller, yes, and have a lighter complexion. Still, there is no doubt that you are her daughter. I had expected, from what I had heard of your papa, to see a real English miss, not our dear Mira again.”

“That is a quantity of detail to have gotten from a portrait,” Jessica said smoothly, cocking one eyebrow and bending a knowing look upon Thomas Preston. “But how did you ever discover my whereabouts?” Jessica went on, ignoring the slight frown upon Lord Leith’s face.

“It is as I told Mr. Jeffers and everyone yesterday, when: you were feeling unwell,” Anton said, his great eyes searching her face. “My father had received a letter from Captain Eastwood, apprising us at last as to your whereabouts. It must be,” he said solemnly, “as Sir Selby has said, that a soldier feels it in his bones when his day has come. We waited to hear from him, for he said that he would write again. When he did not, we set our own investigations into motion. And then we found that he had fallen and were very sorry.”

Jessica inclined her head as if in acknowledgment of his sympathies, but really to hide the smile she could not help. Did he really think she was that green? She had heard better; tales at her nursemaid’s knee.

“And then, Papa decided that dealing through intermedia
r
ies was not enough. He delegated me to come to England to discover the matter myself.
”

“And,” Jessica asked, barely controlling a sneer, “to reunite me into the bosom of the family?”

“It is our dearest wish,” the dark young man said fervently.

“After all these years,” Jessica mused aloud. “How very unexpected.”

“Ah, no,” Anton said uncomfortably, looking about at Mr. Jeffers as if for help, “not so unexpected. We knew of you, Jessica, but your papa never answered our letters before. In fact, he forbade all communication with your mama, as you must know.”

“He never did believe in mediums, or the spirit world, Herr Von Keller,” Jessica said sharply, growing impatient wit
h
the fellow.

“Jessica,” Lord Leith began, but Anton, hurt showing in his large dark eyes, went on, “We do not blame him, Jessica. For none of us really knew him and your mama never spoke of him at all. It was as if that was a part of her life she did not wish to reexamine. But she fooled none of us. I for one, always saw the pain in her eyes when she looked upon a child. She never had another, you know.”

“What are you talking about?” Jessica demanded, for the conversation was growing beyond her comprehension.

“But what else? Of Mira, your mama,” Anton said in bewilderment.

Jessica rose to her feet. “And how can you speak of her when she has been gone for over fifteen years?” Jessica said in rage as a small niggling fear assailed her.

“Why, Jessica,” he said, rising with her and taking one of her cold hands, “she was gone only from you. I thought Mr. Jeffers had told you. Your mama passed away not three years ago, but she lived not five kilometers from us until that time.”

Jessica heard a great many voices above the loud buzzing in her ears. And when the annoying sound ceased, she found Lord Leith pressing a glass of liquid into her hands while Lady Grantham bent over her.

“Burnt feathers,” the lady cried, while Ollie could be heard to insist that brandy would do the trick. Tom told her to put her head down and Mr. Jeffers tried to drown them all out by proclaiming that his wife swore by salts.

Jessica pushed the proffered glass away feebly and said peevishly, “I haven’t fainted.
I
do not swoon. I only lost my bearings. I was startled, you see.”

“You did not tell her?” Lord Leith asked his aunt incredulously.

“We were discussing other matters,” Lady Grantham said weakly. “It quite slipped my mind.”

The look
the
gentleman gave his aunt caused that sallow lady’s color to rise, and she backed away to the fringes of the cluster of people gathered around Jessica.

“I am recovered now,” Jessica said bravely, although her head still swam and she felt an icy knot in her stomach. But she never shied from the truth, so she turned her wide brown eyes to Anton. “Tell me the whole of it,” she asked simply, “please.”

It was a pitifully simple story, Jessica thought, so simple that she kept nodding her head as though in agreement for the whole of it. Her father had told her the truth: her mother had “gone” when she was in infant. But not to the great beyond, only as far as her original home in Austria. The two of them had fought, evidently, almost incessantly from the day the dashing Captain had talked the wealthy young noblewoman into eloping with him. Both Tom and Ollie verified that.

After one last convulsive battle, her mother had packed her belongings and left for good. Her father, returning from a tour of duty and finding himself and his infant abandoned had turned his back upon the truth and had told everyone his wife had “gone.” Even Ollie had not known then that her leaving had been only a physical displacement, rather than the ultimate journey to her maker he had assumed it to be. Her mother, the beauteous Mira, had come from an influ
e
ntial family, and a legal divorce had been procured. The papers were, Mr. Jeffers admitted, discovered among Red Jack’s meager belongings. She had married again, this time to a prosperous Austrian gentleman.

“But there was no issue,” Anton said sadly. “You were her only child. As she was her father’s only child. I am,” he said with a little smile, “only your second cousin, but we are a close family.”

“And her new husband?” Jessica asked almost fearfully, envisioning some portly mustachioed fellow swooping down and claiming her as a stepdaughter.

“Alas,” Anton sighed, “the Baron left poor Mira a widow five years before her own passing. So you can see how glad w
e
were to finally locate you, Jessica. And I tell you, you ar
e
Mira’s own image. That hair, those eyes, that smile. Why, your mama was one of the greatest beauties of Vienna. How I admired her when I was a boy: always laughing, always bubbling, always dancing.”

Something in Jessica’s heart cracked a little when she thought of the beautiful dancing Mira, who could be so gay when her only child remained alone and lost across the Continent from her. But she only said softly, “I am said to resemble my father.
”

“So you do, Jess,” Tom said into the silence that followed her remark.

“But there are so many portraits of her at home,” Anton enthused. “You shall see them when you come. And then you will see what I say is true.
”

“But I don’t intend to come, to leave England. Must I?” Jessica asked Mr. Jeffers at once.

“Why, no,” Mr. Jeffers intoned. “You are in the care of Sir Selby now. But we naturally thought that you would wish to return to your family
...
” He broke off when Sir Selby interrupted.

“No, no, Jess. You may do whatever you wish.”

“But we want you to come, Jessica,” Anton said imploringly. “We are your family.”

“Jess should do as she wants,” Thomas said loudly. “She’s no infant to be led about by the hand.”

“I think,” Lord Leith said in his rich deep voice, cutting over all the protestations and clamor that had arisen, “that it is far too soon for Jessica to decide what she wishes. This has all come as a shock to her. There is still the matter of her father’s legacy to settle, before she decides upon her mother’s. Time is the only remedy for such confusion.”

“Yes,” Jessica cried, holding on to that calm statement as to a lifeline, “just so.”

“Of course,” Anton said, looking deep into Jessica’s distracted eyes, “I did not mean that she must rush off with me. I only meant to say that we not only offer her a home, but also do so with full hearts. Of course, she could not decide to leave with a stranger. She must get to know us.
”

“We leave for my country home within the week,” Lady Grantham said thoughtfully, and then she exchanged a glance with her nephew. “Herr von Keller, should you like to stay with us? We are scheduled to leave for Griffin Hall by the weekend. But I would not wish to break up such a reunion with my plans.”

“I could not so impose upon you, my Lady,” Anton said sorrowfully.

“No imposition,” Sir Selby put in. “It’s a capital idea. We are all going and Jeffers knows that’s where he shall find us.”

“But, my dear Lady,” Anton said, rising and bowing in front of Lady Grantham, “it is too much to ask that you shelter a complete stranger at such short notice.”

“Nonsense,” Lady Grantham said, happy to make amends for her forgetfulness. “It isn’t the largest establishment in the Kingdom, but there are fifteen guest bedchambers, so I think you should have no compunctions. We shall be happy to have you.”

“And you, Cousin?” Anton asked shyly, turning t
o
Jessica.

“Of course,” she answered automatically.

“Capital,” Sir Selby said happily.

“What a good idea,” Jessica said in a whisper, and w
on
dered why, when she had so many new friends and it seem: relations as well, she should suddenly feel like weeping as
a
child who was left so many years ago might have done.

1
2

Anton was a delightful companion, there was no one who could deny that. He melted Lady Grantham’s defenses with his sweetly earnest considerations in the days that passed after his introduction. For that Lady discovered that she could never enter a room without his huge dark eyes filling with anxiety as to her welfare or without his instant flattering interest in her appearance. But the fellow wasn’t a coxcomb, Sir Selby had to admit, for all his airs and graces. He was, in fact, a regular out-and-outer, and his fencing skills were the talk of the exclusive club that he had been taken to as a guest.

There was nothing to dislike in him. He laughed at all of Thomas Preston’s reminiscences about Captain Eastwood, agreed with every syllable uttered, and could not be prodded by any innuendo into any sort of disagreement. He was clearly impressed by Lord Leith’s good Ton, and never let a moment pass without showing in some fashion how he admired that elegant gentleman’s dress, manners, and style.

Jessica found him very diverting. For if Tom had said that Lord Leith’s array of waistcoats showed that fashion was his consuming passion, she would have bridled and thought him a jealous fellow. But when Anton said, in his wondering innocent fashion, that surely Lord Leith must have a separate room for his waistcoats alone, since no one wardrobe could accommodate so many, she only dissolved into laughter at the possibility of that top-lofty fellow having a secret room in the attics just for his clothes. And if Lord Leith had drawled that Thomas had such a temper that he would have invented Napoleon just to have someone to vent his fury on, had that fellow not been bo
rn
, Jessica would have thought him unconscionably snide. But when Anton mused upon that very theme one afternoon after Thomas had done with one of
his war stories, Jessica had a bout of giggles, envisioning Thomas ranging the world seeking a suitably legitimate foe.

It was a relief to find someone who could make light of the two gentlemen Jessica had been most concerned with. Laughter both dissipated her uneasiness and reduced both men to a size where she could cope with them in her most private thoughts.

But she did not have time for too many private thoughts since Anton had arrived. For even as Lady Grantham saw to the preparations for their remove to the country, her town house was filled with company every waking hour. Thomas Preston arrived every morning to ride with Jessica and found himself riding with both Miss Eastwood and her diverting cousin. Lord Leith dropped by every afternoon to chat and discovered himself conversing with his aunt, her female guest, and her newfound cousin. Anton had become a staple of the household. It was as he had said, with his usual smile, that his whole object in traveling so far had been to acquaint himself with his cousin, and he must make every effort to make up for the lost years.

This was precisely what Jessica was attempting to explain to Thomas as they spoke after their morning ride. Anton, with his usual good graces, had gone to see to the stabling and welfare of their mounts, and Jessica thought that Thomas was being a great deal too hard upon her absent cousin.

“You don’t understand,” she said, more sharply than was her usual custom with Thomas. “He isn’t forever hanging on my sleeve, as you say. Well, I suppose he is, but there’s no harm in it. He is my cousin, after all.”

“I know,” Tom said as he ran a hand through his bright canary hair in exasperation. “But even though I have three brothers, you do not see them at my side each time we meet.”