Red Jack's Daughter (3 page)

“Dear Ollie,” the young woman went on, looking over to Sir Selby, “I know you both meant it for the best, but as you see, I’ve made a muddle of it. It won’t do. When I wrote to you originally, I only wanted the direction of a good hotel. All your plans have been noble, letting me stay at Lady Grantham’s, attempting to introduce me to other young people, but I can only embarrass you further.
I
thank you from the bottom of my heart, O
lli
e, and
I
apologize sincerely, but I think you’ll agree that it’s best you let me find my own way.”

Before he could answer her, the coach rolled to a stop. As Lady Grantham alighted, still shaking her head, Miss Eastwood stayed Sir Selby for a moment. She whispered, with just the hint of a sob in her throaty voice, “Truly, Ollie, old friend, remember what Red Jack used to say, ‘A fellow can’t do more than his best.’ And you’ve done it.”

A moment later she was out of the coach and following her hostess up the steps.

Miss Eastwood excused herself quickly from a distracted Lady Grantham and took the stairs to her room with unbecoming haste. Once there, she commanded a sleepy lady’s maid. “Amy, pack. That’s right, and at once. I want us to be able to leave at first light. No, I’m not bosky. Just pack us up and be ready to come with me in the morning. We’re going to a hotel as originally planned.”

After her maid had left with a minimum of explanation offered and a maximum of doubt manifest in her expression, and after Miss Eastwood saw that her bags were neatly packed and stacked at the entrance to her room, she allowed herself to relax at last. She was a young woman of resolve and felt infinitely better now that she had things in hand at last again. In fact, she mused as she stripped to her shift and cleaned her face vigorously with cold water, she felt better than she had in days.

She would thank Lady Grantham fulsomely in the morning and she would pen a very neat note to Ollie once she had settled into her rooms at the hotel. Then she would take up her vigil again, live quietly and comfortably until her father’s solicitor contacted her, and only then would she decide what she would do with her fortune. This decided, Miss Eastwood hurried, as was her custom, into her night rail, plucked off her detestable lace cap, and began to undo the tightly woven strands of her hair so that she could brush them out.

It was only while she was brushing her long hair out that Miss Eastwood allowed herself the luxury of remorse. For Red Jack had always told her a fellow might wallow in regret in private but must never let anyone else see his indecision in public.

My dear Red Jack, Miss Eastwood thought sadly, how shall I get on without you? She had, in fact, been going on without him for most of her young life, though she chose not to remember that. Her childhood had been a solitary one, for governesses had been dispensed with early on, her neighbors had been too far-flung for the frequency necessary for close associations, and her mother, an almost mythical person, she had not seen since infancy. Her father’s visits home had enlivened her life and influenced her as no other events had done. But they had been all too brief. It had always been too short a time before he was packing up his gear again and striding off to the wars, which had begun before she was born and still wore on now that he was gone.

She had sensed early on that those reprieves from the battles, which were his occupation and passion, were too long for him even as they were too short for her. For while he appeared to be easy and complacent in her company, she could never hold his interest above a fortnight. Still, he said he loved her, seemed to enjoy her company, and she knew no other ambition than to be his constant steadfast soldier.

It had been a summer’s day, two years past, that she had her last look at him. A sweet day, far removed in time and place from the gaiety of the Swansons’ ball and London. She had stood upon a rise near the house and waved her handkerchief till she could no longer see the blaze of his hair, nor the receding shape of his mount. Then she had turned and gone sorrowing back to Oak Hill, and somehow she had felt, had known, that the sight of his retreating form was the last she would ever have of him.

Not that she had any real thought of death, nor had any gypsy premonition of disaster teased at her as she had sat in the kitchen and helped Cook shell peas for dinner. But he had been different with her all through his visit this time, and she had seen that things had changed between them forever. It had troubled him from the first; now it nagged at her.

He had looked the same when he had marched into the house—without warning, as he always did—set down his bags, and cried a grea
t
“Halloo.” She had run to meet him, flying down from the bedrooms, where she had been airing
sheets, and had flown straight into his welcoming arms. He had swept her up as he always did and spun around and around with her. And then, dizzy, laughing, he had set her aside and looked hard at her, as he always did. But this time his blue eyes had widened and he had drawn in his breath and had said in a strangely solemn voice, “Lord, Jess, you’ve changed.” He had not. He was still dazzling in his red uniform, still splendid, compact, and trim, and bronzed from foreign suns. It had been two years since he had seen her, but still she looked at him with puzzlement, for nothing appeared different to her.

He stood staring at her with an indecipherable expression on his face and then gave her a strangely crooked grin. “It’s your mother. You’re the image of her now. My little Jess has turned into a woman behind my back. Now how could you do that to your dear old papa?”

She had looked down at herself and then back up at him, color flooding her cheeks.

“I’m still Jess, Red Jack. Never say you don't know me.”

“Oh, I know you, Jess. How could I miss, with that hair of yours? But for a moment there you gave me a turn. When I left you were my straight little soldier, and now
...”
He smiled again and gestured toward her.

She had retreated from him then, even though she led him to the parlor for their usual renewal-of-acquaintance chat. She had taken tea with him and then dinner, and he told her wonderful new stories. Yet even though she had been awaiting his return these many months, she could not wait to get back to her room alone. And once there, she had laid her head upon her pillow and wept. She had honestly not seen the change as he had, she had honestly never wanted to, nor dared. There had been hints from the housekeeper, and looks from various males in the district. She had felt the difference but had avoided all acceptance of it. But she was, after all, Red Jack’s daughter. She could not lack courage.

When all the house was still and she knew he had at last gone to his room and his rest, she had lit a few more candles and shut the windows and pulled the curtains close around them. After she had locked the door and listened to the old house creak down for the night, she had slowly stripped off her clothes and finally bravely faced herself full in the mirror.

He was right. It was not Jess there. Not this creature with the long hair waving and streaming about that lush, unfamiliar figure. It was an apparition, surely, that confronted her. She gazed at the reflection of two high-pointed breasts, a curving waist, a thicket to match her head between two long
a
nd tapering legs. Not Jess, surely not. Her face grew warm as she stared at those breasts; it was as if she were looking at some forbidden secret exotic picture, and she was both ashamed and aroused by what she saw. Whatever else she saw, it was certainly not Jess Eastwood, and she decided with determination, it would never be.

In the morning, he seemed more at ease with her. In many ways for the rest of that leave home it was as if the two years had never happened and she were still fourteen and still his little soldier. They rode together, they hunted, they fished, they took long rambling walks about the countryside while he told her stories of all the far-off places she had longed to see. In the evenings they sat before the fire and she listened to his tales, filled his glass, and laughed at his drollery till she was weak. As always, she secretly hoped he would tell her that he was, at last, selling out.

For he had told her a lovely anecdote about dear old Ollie and then had said casually, “Don’t think we’ll be seeing much of the fellow anymore. He’s quit the cavalry, now he’s come into a fortune and a title. So jolly Captain Ollie is now ‘Sir Selby,’ and don’t you forget it, Jess. I imagine he’ll be busy doing the pretty in London. Can you just see,” he had crowed, “Old Ollie a proper ‘sir?’ ”

She couldn’t, remembering the merry fellow who had soldiered with her father and enjoyed so many leaves at home with them, but she brushed that information aside and waited for his next comment. He sighed, stared into the fire, and dashed all her hopes with his next words.

“No, even if I should come into an earldom, I could never so change my life. And there’s little likelihood of that. So don’t fret. It’s Captain Eastwood’s who’s your pa, and proud he is of it too. I’m a military gent, Jess, and it’s a life suits me to the ground. I only wish you had been a boy so you could taste it too. It would suit you as well, Jess.”

She had agreed and took up her part again and begged again, as she always did and had done for the over a decade, that he take her with him. He had played his role as well and patted her head and told her once again that the tail of an army was no place for a female. But had she been a boy, he sighed with regret and left his statement unfinished, for they both knew there was no answer for that. Instead, they had gazed at the fire together till the last logs crumbled to ash.

He had been home for only two weeks when she saw he was eager to be off again. Too soon, they had parted with a wave and a hug and a smile. She had done the best she could and he had never said a word, so she must have done well. For she had bound her breasts around with a towel and worn her dresses loosely and dragged back her hair and wrenched it into tight braids wound around her head. Only once his gaze had gone to her hair and she had said lightly that it was cooler that way. He had grinned at that. She was his little soldier again.

Red Jack was a poor correspondent. She had only a few short letters of his to show for all their years of separation. But, she reminded herself, straightening and attacking her heavy hair with her brush again, she did have that last letter in hand. That last letter was the reason she sat here tonight in Lady Grantham’s best guest bedroom.

It had been delivered late but at precisely the right moment. She had come home, angry and discouraged after a terrible row with Cousin Cribb. It had been over some paltry thing, repairs for the stable or renovation of the parlor, even now she could not remember. But she could never hold her temper around either Cousin Cribb or his wretched wife. It was not only because they had been so quick to come and take over Oak Hill after Father had died, she told herself repeatedly. Even she could see that though the laws of inheritance were unjust, they were the law of the land, after all. And Jeremiah Cribb, although only a distant cousin, was her closest male relative and thus had clear claim to her father’s entailed home.

One look at the seedy fellow, though, and she had known that even Oak Hill’s commodious rooms could not contain the two of them. She had requested and received, with obvious relief on both sides, permission to take up residence in the cottage. Even though she was still under age, there was no one in the village who could not understand the situation. For she and Cousin Cribb fought constantly, and she had begun to seriously wonder how she could make her way in the world when the letter had come.

She had stood in her small parlor and read it with tears flowing down her cheeks. He had fallen over a year before, and it had taken this long for the missive to reach her. It was so brief that even though she had it still she had no need to refer to it. It was graven in her mind’s eye.

Dear Jess,

Everything’s going well but the fighting is fierce. Don’t wor
r
y, though, for I’ve the luck of the devil. Speaking of which, it occurs to me that I’ve been a devil of a papa to you. But I’ve put things right at last. If anything should ever befall me, rest easy. Red Jack don’t forget his own. I’ve settled a neat future for you and it’s in safekeeping. If I should stick my spoon in the wall, contact old Jeffers in London. He’ll have the direction of your future well in hand. And you’ll be a lucky rich young thing indeed. The best part of it is that it isn’t entailed, nor can any other soul lay a finger on it but you. But that’s grim speaking. I’ll see you in the spring. All my love to my brave little soldier,

Love,

Red Jack.

She had written to Mr. Jeffers immediately and anxiously awaited his reply. When it had arrived, requesting that she come to London to discuss the matter, she had fired off another letter to the only other soul she knew in London, dear Ollie, now the impressive Sir Selby. All her bags had been packed when his letter came, ebullient and loquacious as ever, castigating himself for not inviting her sooner, felicitating her on her inheritance and enumerating all the jolly times they would have together.

She had both letters in hand when she marched back to Oak Hill to speak with Cousin Cribb. Her father’s letter was not for his eyes, though; she would not give him such a glimpse of her greatest treasure, even though he was nominally her guardian.