Red Jack's Daughter (29 page)

“It has been valued highly enough to give you and Thomas an excellent start. It is a plentiful dowry,” he said woodenly, stepping back to view his handiwork.

“
Thomas and I?” she asked. “A dowry? But I did not accept him.”

“You said you agreed,” he accused in confusion.

“I said I agreed that he was my best friend,” she answered with some asperity, in more of her old style. “I could never marry Thomas. He is a friend, right enough, but that sort of affection is not enough for marriage. And so I told him, although it hurt me to deny him so. At any rate,” she added absently, “I think he only wanted me because I reminded him of my father. Poor Thomas, he doesn’t know whether he values me as a man or as a woman, and that certainly would make a poor basis for wedlock. But, Alex, I know that this comb is worthless. And if you say that it was appraised
,
so
...
”

She took the comb from her hair and held it in front of her. Even in the dying light she could see the emeralds were like starlight upon spring grass, and the cold blue stare of the diamonds winked back at the rising moon. The difference, even to her untrained eye, was as vast as the gap between any truth and any falsehood.

“It’s been altered,” she cried, “it is not the same. Oh,
A
lex, never say someone’s thrown away good money to save my feelings? Was it Ollie? Oh, this is dreadful. You must return it straightaway.
”

He began to quickly tell her about Anton’s ill intentions
and the lies a man might spread to gain his ends, but she cut him off as quickly as he had begun.

“No,” she said simply. “There is no need for that anymore. You see, in the last days I have had to face up to many things, Alex, and the foremost among them is that my father was not what I so desperately wanted him to be. I invented him, Alex, and that was never fair. He was a carefree, thoughtless fellow. And whatever his original intent, he could never have left such a source of funds as this untouched. Not even for me. I see that now. I loved him dearly for what I wanted him to be, but I think I might have liked him anyway, for what he was. He was never, however, the sort of man to leave such a legacy. Take it back, Alex.”

“Jessica,” he said desperately, hating the sorrowful acceptance in her voice and wanting the fiery Jess Eastwood back again, not this imitation of a wor
l
dly-wise ancient that was speaking so placidly, “take it yourself. Why do you think I went to such lengths? It was what your father wanted you to have, really. He purchased it for you, whatever he was forced to do later.
”

“So it was you,” she said suddenly. “Why, Alex? Please tell me the truth, I am so tired of deception. Everyone about me has been deceiving me, for my own good or their own good, it hardly matters anymore. Please.”

Because he was tired of deception too, and because he could no longer play the patient game he had thought to, he carefully placed the comb upon her hair again, dropped his hands, and said simply, “Because I happened to discover that I love you, Jessica.”

As she stared at him and as he could no longer read her expression in the soft evening’s light, he went on, as if to himself, “I know that you are not ready for love and I do not know if you will ever wish to love me. But there’s the truth of it. I found I loved you when you were a brave imitation of your father. And I loved you even when you tried to be what Anton told you your mother was. Whether you were Miss Eastwood, Jess, or Jessica, it made no matter. And I think that whatever you become in time, I shall love you. But,” he said with a hint of laughter, for he felt free after speaking so freely, “I also know that you are yet the ‘babe’ that your friend Miss Dunstable titled you. I am content to wait. I
only wanted you to know. And if you decide against me in time, I will endeavor to accept that too. Understand clearly, Jessica, that I want you as a friend and as a lover, for I will not allow either of us to live half a life together. But I shall wait.”

“Alex,” she said, her voice so filled with emotion that he could not tell if it was gladness or sorrow she spoke through, “I too have come to a realization. Do you recall that a while ago you gave me good advice and told me about the Red Indians and their tactics for warfare?”

He put his head to one side, for he could not comprehend what she was going on about, and he feared for her reason after all the shocks she had suffered.

“But I recall a story my father told me about them,” she went on. “He said that they do not let their infants go about with leading strings as they learn to walk, as we let ours do. He said that they swaddle their babes and carry them about on their backs, never letting their feet touch the ground long after they should have commenced to toddle. But then, on the day that they feel a child is old and strong enough, they unwrap him and set him down upon the earth. And do you know, Alex, within a day, before the sun sets, he is running about as any child of that age might do.

“Oh, Alex,” she cried, throwing her arms about his neck and coming into his amazed embrace, “I am like that! For I feel as though I have grown years in a day. I’ve had hours to think, and primarily of you. I am not my father,” she whispered against his neck. “Nor am I my mother,” she confided as his lips touched her cheek. “I am myself, and thus I am yours. For I find that I do not wish to grow older without you. And,” she said on a husky half-laugh, “even after that, I find my dearest wish is to help you haunt your new home, down through all the centuries.” Then she only sighed as he found her yielding lips.

She could not analyze his kiss as she had other men’s, for she was too lost in
the
sheer joy of his clever mouth. And when he gently touched her breast, she took no alarm, for she only wanted to offer herself more completely to him.

When at last he drew back to gaze into her eyes to convince himself that this was all real, she threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, Alex, your aunt will be so pleased. For she told me when I confided my feelings for you that I should not worry. She told me that she thought you had a care for me.”

“Had a care?” he breathed, and took her back again to lose himself in the impossible sweetness of her mouth.

“Jessica,” he said at length in an altered voice, taking a step back from her, “I think we ought to be married at once.”

“At once,” she agreed, trying to wedge herself back into his arms.

“Within the month,” he insisted a moment later.

“Within,” he eventually groaned against her lips, “a week. At St. George’s,” he finally said firmly as he released her.

“At St. Gertrude’s,” she jested gaily as he led her back to the Hall. “For surely all the Austrian orphans will want to celebrate with us,” she explained with a boyish grin.

1
7

The room was as dim as he had remembered. The wizened man behind the enormous desk, however, leaned forward, in excitement this time, as he strode into the study.

“Well?” the older man said eagerly. “Let’s have it. Here’s
your second payment,” he rasped as he flung a purse of coins m onto his desktop. “Now let us see if you’ve earned the third.”

“Yes,” the blond young gentleman said softly, “oh, yes, Mr. Cribb, you were entirely right. Red Jack did leave a legacy. One beyond all our imaginings.”

“I knew it! I knew it!” the other man cried.

“But it is not one that you can get your hands upon,” the fair-haired man answered.

“Let me be the judge of that.” The older man laughed as the huge woman who sat beside him roared with joy as well. “Now,” Mr. Cribb said happily as he threw a matching purse upon his desk, “let’s have it. Where is it?”

“Why, I gave it away not two days past at St. George’s in London,” Thomas Preston said in a matter-of-fact voice. “Or, rather, I helped give it away, for it was Sir Selby who actually did the deed; I only assisted.”

“Gave it away?” the older man gasped. “Well, I shall get it back again, never fear.”

“I think not,” the younger man said, “for it was all quite legal.”

“Out with it! To whom did you give it?” Mr. Cribb shouted in vexation.

“To Alexander, Lord Leith. And I think, from the way he accepted it, that he will never let it go,” his visitor said in a pensive tone.

“What was it?” bellowed the enormous woman, speaking for the first time as she heaved to her feet.

“Why, Red Jack’s only treasure, and his truest one,” Thomas Preston replied. He smiled and then turned on his heel and left the room, the two raging persons within, and the two bags of coins where they were, in the darkness.

Once out into the day again, he mounted his horse and pointed its head southward, to the coast. For he intended to ride to the shoreline to find a ship to take him to a land of opportunity for a fourth son, to a land where he might make his fortune.

But whatever treasure he found there, he thought as he rode away, it would never match the one that Lord Leith had been gifted with days before, the one he had let slip through his fingers. And humming a sad old song about a wise child that he had once heard, he rode toward the sea.