You Only Love Twice (45 page)

Jessica couldn’t tear her eyes away from her wedding dress. “It looks like new,” she said.

Ellie frowned. “What’s wrong, Jessica?”

Jessica fished in her pocket, found her handkerchief and blew her nose. “Nothing is wrong,” she said. “I couldn’t be more delighted. Thank you, Ellie. It was very thoughtful of you.”

Ellie’s gaze faltered and her smile slipped. “No it wasn’t. It was the least I could do, and you know it. I was beastly to you.”

There was an oddly appealing look in Ellie’s eyes, and Jessica couldn’t help responding to it. “I won’t say you weren’t beastly, because we both know it would be a lie. But if you wanted to do something to please me, you hit on the right thing.”

Ellie beamed.

“Now tell me about Father Howie. I didn’t know he was coming to Chalford.”

“Didn’t you? Lucas told me in one of his letters. You never did get round to having your marriage blessed or whatever it is. Lucas said I should make a push to get your gown finished for the ceremony.”

“Lucas arranged all this, without a word to me?”

“Oh dear,” said Ellie, “I hope it wasn’t supposed to be a surprise and I’ve spoiled it.”

“Knowing Lucas,” said Jessica, “I think he has merely forgotten to mention it.”

There was a step in the hall and the sound of Perry’s voice calling for Ellie. A moment later, he entered the morning room. “Morning, Jessica,” he said. “Well, brat”—looking at Ellie—“are you ready for your driving lesson?”

Ellie blushed, stammered something incoherent, and tucked her hand in the crook of Perry’s arm. He gave her a bashful grin and they went off together, leaving Jessica staring.

Ellie and Perry? When had that happened?

She picked up the letter she had received from Lucas. There was nothing in it that could not be broadcast by the town crier. Romance was in the air, and the only personal message she had from her husband was a recipe for a restorative to bring the color back to her cheeks.

She made her way upstairs with her wedding gown carefully draped over her arms. After laying it on the back of a chair, she smoothed her hands over the delicate material, then took a step back to admire it. So much had happened since she had last worn it.

She knelt in front of the chair and let the memories take her.

A long time later, when she descended the stairs, she was dressed in her riding habit.

CHAPTER
29

T
hey left the close-cropped turf behind them the steadier they climbed. It was good to be outside, good to feel the wind in her face and the sun on her back, and the sure, swift motions of the horse beneath her. There was the scent of meadowsweet and willow herb in her nostrils and the muted sound of hooves as they struck the earth. There was nothing like this,
nothing
, and she didn’t know how she could have forgotten it.

This was one of the few rewards that had come to her since she’d regained her memory, not that she could ride, but that she could ride fearlessly, as though she’d been born to it. And she had been born to it. When she’d had no memory to guide her, the picture she’d formed of life with her father at Hawkshill had been slightly off center. No one had told her that her father was Irish. No one had told her of the good years, when he was sober and industrious, and had trained horses for his livelihood. Everyone remembered the bad years, when the drink and gaming had taken hold of him and he’d let everything slide.

She’d ridden more prize horses by the time she was an adolescent than most men had ridden in their entire lives. There wasn’t a thing she didn’t know about the care of horses. She knew about poultices and mashes and foaling and farriers. But she hadn’t known how to read. She hadn’t known how to mix with people. She’d been wild and unruly. That’s what people remembered. And that’s what had brought Lucas Wilde into her life.

How could she have resisted him? There was no one else who cared what happened to her, not during those lean years when her father became a drunkard. Lucas was right about that, too. It was mere bravado on her part that made her spin tales of how her father spoiled her. There were no presents, no silk underthings, only a box on the ear when she got in his way. She became very adept at keeping out of her father’s reach. Until she was fully grown and his avaricious mind calculated how he could turn a profit on her. And Lucas would never have allowed that to happen.

Lucas. She’d loved him from that moment, on the church steps, when he’d intervened to save her from two spiteful girls who’d tried to shame her because she couldn’t read. It seemed that she had made a laughingstock of herself in church by “reading” her Bible upside down. Lucas said that only clever people could do that, and had proved it by reading his own Bible upside down. A look had passed between them, and though he hadn’t known it, that was when she had given him her heart.

Poor Lucas. He couldn’t have known what fancies she’d woven around him just because he was nice to her. He couldn’t turn around but she was there, “by accident,” so that she could bask in his company. He’d had no idea that she watched his comings and goings from Hawkshill’s hayloft. Looking back, she could see that he’d been amused by her antics, then not so amused when he’d started to court Bella. But she could never have seen him go to someone like Bella.

That wasn’t how she’d felt about Bella at first. She’d known, deep down, that she, herself, could never have Lucas. He was too far above her. And when Bella had appeared on the scene, she’d resigned herself to the inevitable. Lucas was Prince Charming; Bella was a princess. They were right for each other.

It was only natural that she would turn her attention to Bella, and what her strange powers told her made her shudder in revulsion. Bella was a liar and a cheat. She was a thief. If she took it into her head that someone had slighted her, she paid that person back tenfold. Governesses, servants, friends—all paid a penalty for some imagined slight. And no one paid a bigger penalty than the poor footman who had been sent to the colonies for Bella’s crime.

Jessica had tried to save him. She’d told Sir Henry about the jeweler’s shop where Bella sold her trinkets and all he’d done was threaten to have her transported, too, if she breathed a word of it to anyone. And her father had been bribed to make sure she kept her mouth shut.

She hadn’t saved the footman, but she’d made up her mind to save Lucas, whatever the cost to herself. That’s why she had sent her father after Lucas that night. She’d known Bella would never marry a man who had betrayed her.

She knew now why she hadn’t been a blushing bride on her wedding night. After Lucas had come home from the war, when he’d come out to Hawkshill looking for her father, he’d found her in the hayloft. Their memories of that encounter were entirely different. He’d been furious and had called her a gaming-house wench. Then he’d kissed her, and she’d melted with love for him. Only Lucas could have mistaken her trembling for fear. Then he’d pushed her away and called himself some ugly names.

She’d spent the next few hours reliving every moment of that kiss, yes, and had taken it one step further in her mind and wished it could happen again. That’s the memory
that had come back to her on her wedding night. That’s why she had known so much and only so much.

Oh, if only she’d been older and had had more experience. If only Lucas hadn’t been so determined to stand by Bella. If only … if only …

She laughed when she realized where her thoughts had taken her. These were not the thoughts of a nun.

On a hilly rise, she drew rein and turned her mount to look out over the lush valley. The Thames was a broad ribbon of silver with dark specks of barges on their way up or downstream. Checkered fields were interspersed with dense woodlands. To the east lay the clustered roofs and spires of Chalford. Haig House and the priory were beyond the town and concealed from view by a bend in the river.

No shiver of apprehension shuddered through her now. It was finished. There were no shadows in her mind, no shades or ghosts. She was free at last. She lifted her face to the wind and gave her horse its head.

They hurtled down slopes and leapt over hedges. Then up, up they went, leaving trees and hedgerows behind, cresting a series of gentle rises toward the highest point on the downs. A stone wall barred their way, but Jessica did not slacken their pace. She’d been out on Juniper every morning and knew he could easily take the obstacle. As his long limbs stretched out, she bent low in the saddle.

“Yes, you beauty,” she whispered. “Yes.”

His ears flickered in response and powerful muscles bunched and strained as the wall loomed up in front of them. He was gathering himself to make the jump when a hare suddenly darted out from the wall and leapt away. Juniper faltered, reared up and came to a plunging, quivering halt. Jessica went flying over the wall.

She lay there, spread-eagle, gazing up at the sky. Winded wasn’t the word for it. She felt as though her lungs had collapsed. She struggled to suck in air, and just
when she thought she would suffocate, her lungs inflated like a broken-down wheezing bellows.

She was hauling herself up when a horse and rider came sailing over the wall. The rider was out of the saddle and running toward her before his mount had come to a stop.

As he came closer, she was surprised to see that it was Lucas. He’d told her in his letter that he wouldn’t be home before the end of the week.

“Jess!” He went down on his knees and began to feel for broken bones. “Are you all right? Have you hurt yourself? For God’s sake, say something!”

“I’m fine,” she said. “The fall winded me, that’s all.”

“You’re fine?”

She nodded.

“Hell and the devil!” he suddenly roared. “Who gave you permission to ride Juniper? It takes a grown man to keep him under control. And what are you doing so far from home with no groom to attend you? What if you’d broken a limb? What if someone had come upon you and robbed you, or worse? Do you never learn?”

Her dignity was wounded, and she opened her mouth to defend herself when she saw that his hands were shaking and that his eyes were leaping with fear as much as anger. A memory came to her—one of their boys had fallen out of an apple tree and, after she’d made sure he was unharmed, she’d wanted to give him a good shaking. Instead, she’d burst into tears.

She came up on her knees and cupped his face with both hands. “Lucas, I’m sorry. You’re right. I should have asked someone to come with me. In future, I’ll be more careful, I promise.”

Her words made no impression on him. “And where the hell was your famous intuition?” he thundered. “This wall is a death trap! It’s already killed one man and maimed several. Couldn’t you sense it? Couldn’t you feel it?”

She should have. She would have in the old days. “No,” she said. “I didn’t sense anything,” and as the knowledge speared through her, she smiled brilliantly. “It’s not there. I think I’ve lost it.”

The smile was a mistake. His hands seized her shoulders and she steeled herself for the shaking she was sure he would administer, when suddenly a change came over him. He said her name on a broken whisper and crushed her in his arms.

When they drew apart, they stared at each other for a long moment, then they began to tear off their clothes. And on the open hillside, with the sun beating down on them, they came together in a storm of emotion. Words were superfluous. Words couldn’t describe what they were feeling or make everything right between them. Words took too long. They would come to that later. This was a better way, this primitive bonding that surpassed everything. They celebrated life and the joy of being together. There was nothing in the world but themselves.

“Jess!” said Lucas a long while later. “I can’t believe we did that.” He was lying on his back, one arm thrown over his eyes.

Jessica was curled into him, and her breath tickled his armpit. “Neither can I.”

Their eyes met and they both smiled.

“You’re home early,” she said.

“So would you be if you’d been with Bella for the last ten days.” His smile faded. “That’s not the reason. I missed you.”

“And I missed you.”

His fingers played with her hair. “I take it,” he said seriously, “from what passed between us just now, that you’ve forgiven me?”

“Forgiven you?” She pulled herself up. “Forgiven you for what?”

“For that stupid pact; for blind loyalty to my friends; for letting things go so far.” His mouth twisted. “If only
I’d listened to you from the very beginning. But I never dreamed that you were in any danger, I swear it.”

She could see that he’d been brooding about things and that he wasn’t looking for an easy absolution. Whatever he was about to tell her was important to him, something he had to get off his chest.

“Why didn’t you listen to me?” she said.

He pulled to a sitting position and loosely clasped his knees. “Because I didn’t want you stirring things up. I wasn’t protecting my friends. I was trying to protect you and Ellie. I didn’t want everything to come out, what your father had done to Jane, and that she had taken her own life. And God forgive me, I didn’t care that your father had been murdered. I thought it was no less than he deserved.”

She said softly, “Was Jane with child?”

He nodded. “She feared the disgrace. Everyone would have known it could not have been Philip’s child.”

He turned his head to look at her. “But I swear to you, Jess, it never crossed my mind that one of my close friends was behind everything, not at first. I trusted Rupert. We were all men of honor; we held to a certain code, Rupert most of all. I never suspected him until that last day, and even then, I was reluctant to believe it. Only a coward would shoot a man in the back, and Rupert was no coward.” He shrugged helplessly. “He was an exemplary soldier, fearless in battle. His men worshiped him. Just listen to me!” he burst out. “Even now, knowing what he was and what he would have done to you, I’m still making excuses for him.”

“He was your friend,” she said quietly. “It’s natural.”

“A friend I never truly knew! I don’t think I shall ever forget those moments in his library when he tried to justify what he had done. The way he separated people into the deserving and the undeserving! The way he manipulated us all! It sickened me, yet …”