The Hidden Heart

“But he had not?” Jessica prompted gently after a moment.

The housekeeper shook her head. “Later he told his valet that it was just that he could not bear to live in this house any longer. It’s his ancestral home—it has been the seat of the Dukes of Cleybourne since 1246. And he lived in it his whole life. But he hasn’t been home for almost four years.”

“But surely he has gotten out more, living in London. He has lived a fuller life, even if he could not face this house.”

“No. I only wish he had. Baxter writes to me every month with news about His Grace and the household. You see, only a skeleton staff and I stayed here. Most of the staff went with him, so we are always eager for news of the rest.” She smiled. “We are close, a kind of family, you see. So I write to Baxter and he to me, and we share the news with the others. The sad truth is that for all that time His Grace has been a recluse in London as much as he ever was here. He sees his relatives and friends every once in a while—if they come to visit him. He never calls on others, and he does not attend parties. Baxter says he never even visits his club. He has shut himself off from the world. And Lady Westhampton, the Duchess’s sister, is worried about him. She has told Baxter that lately he has seemed even more melancholy. Of course, this time of year is the worst for him.”

“But he came back here,” Jessica pointed out. “Surely that is a good sign.”

“We hoped so. I was very cheered. But he—well, he is as polite and nice as ever, but there is a a sadness to him that just hurts my heart to see. Sometimes I worry about why he came home now.”

“What do you mean?”

The other woman frowned. “I’m not entirely sure, miss. But it being this time of year and all…I can’t help but think, maybe he’s come home to die.”

“To die!” Jessica raised her eyebrows in surprise. “But he is still a young man. He can’t be forty yet.”

“No, miss. He’s thirty-five is all. But…”

“Surely you don’t mean—” Jessica looked shocked. “Do you actually think he might intend to…to harm himself?”

Her companion looked even more troubled. “I don’t know. I don’t want to think so. He’s a strong man, but sometimes I fear that he has given in to despair. I think perhaps he hoped that one day, being in London, away from here, he would begin to heal his sorrow. Maybe he has become so heartsore that he fears he never will. I think Lady Westhampton feared it. She cautioned Baxter to look after His Grace carefully. Not, of course, that he would ever have done any less than that, and her ladyship knows it. It was a sign of her worry about him.”

She sighed, then shook her head firmly. “No, I will not think that. But, you see, that is why I was so happy to hear this morning that you and the young miss had arrived. I thought, a child in the house is just what he needs. She will bring life to the place again, and laughter. But when you told me that he would not keep her, would not even see her…” Again she sighed. “Ah, me, it’s a sad, sad thing. I think he must feel that he cannot bear to see a child here. Miss Gabriela is older than his own little one would have been, but still, it would be a reminder to him of all that he has lost.”

“Then that is why he wants to find someone else to take her guardianship from him. I am sorry. I misjudged him.” Jessica frowned. “Poor man. I thought him simply grim and unsociable. I had no idea such loss lay at the base of his actions.”

She thought back to the duke’s sharply carved face—the jutting lines of cheekbone and jaw, almost gaunt in their severity, the dark, brooding eyes, the taut lines of his body—and she could see now the sorrow that lay behind those things.

“It is too bad that he has decided to turn Gaby away,” Jessica went on. “I think you are right. She might be just the thing he needs in his life.” She sighed. “Ah, well, I shall just have to explain it to Gaby as best I can.”

After Jessica left the housekeeper’s room, she walked into the Great Hall, the large area that ran back through the middle of the house from the front door, centered by the staircase. It was two stories high and had been the main room of the castle back in its early days. It was here that the housekeeper had said the late duchess’s portrait hung.

Obviously the first few pictures were not of her, for they were of men in the attire of Tudor and Stuart times. She came upon a painting of a woman in a high white-powdered wig, and then, just beyond that, was a portrait of a young woman in modern dress. Jessica stopped, sure that this must be the duke’s Caroline. She was beautiful, even allowing for the flattering nature of most portraits. Tall and slender, she smiled invitingly out at the viewer. There was a dimple in one cheek, and her green eyes twinkled. She stood beside a chair, one slender hand resting upon its back, and at her feet sat a toy spaniel, its black-and-white coloring reflecting the coal-black of the woman’s hair. She was dressed in green velvet that emphasized her large eyes, and a magnificent emerald ring glowed on her finger.

It was easy to see why Cleybourne had been so in love with her. She looked like the sort of woman who had men falling at her feet, declaring love. Jessica gazed at her with a certain fascination. She had never possessed the sort of charm that it was clear this woman had had. A gawky adolescent, Jessica had grown awkwardly into womanhood, and her blunt tongue and forthright manner had put off many a would-be suitor. She had never had the gift that women like the duchess seemed to possess naturally—the ability to flirt and beguile, to beckon men with a look or a smile. Her aunt, who had introduced her into society when she was eighteen, had often despaired of her, declaring that she would never catch a husband if she persisted in talking to men about the war in Europe instead of smiling and simpering like the other girls. Aunt Lilith, she remembered, had been both ecstatic and amazed when Darius offered for her. Jessica gave a small, wry smile as she thought that she, too, had been rather surprised.

Shrugging off her memories, she turned away and started up the stairs. It was useless to think of the past. She would not know the sort of married happiness she had dreamed of as a girl, but thanks to the General’s generosity, she would be well able to live without having to scrimp and save, or depend on others. She had her independence, and she had Gabriela, and she would have a very pleasant life.

Jessica turned over in her bed, sighing. It was late, and Gabriela had gone to sleep at least an hour earlier. Sleep, however, had eluded Jessica.

It was not for lack of physical weariness. Baxter had offered to show them around the house, and she and Gabriela had spent the majority of the day tramping all over with him. Surprisingly tireless for a man his age, the butler had shown them the entire castle, even poking into the unused wings and the cavernous cellars that had once held the castle’s dungeons and storerooms. Gabriela had especially enjoyed the latter visit, shivering with obvious delight at Baxter’s ghoulish stories of the dungeons. Afterward, he had turned them over to the head gardener, who had given them an equally detailed tour of the gardens and outlying areas. By the end of the day, even Gabriela was thoroughly worn-out. Jessica had been grateful for the exercise for both of them, after almost two days spent in a carriage, and she had thought she would sleep easily.

Instead, as soon as her head touched her pillow, she had started to think of all the problems and pitfalls that lay before them. She had tossed and turned for almost an hour.

Finally, she admitted to herself that she was not going to fall asleep any time soon. Jessica got out of bed and pulled her dressing gown on over her nightgown. She decided that she would read for a while in the hopes that that would encourage her to sleep. She thought that she remembered the way to the library, which Baxter had showed them earlier.

She checked on her charge, who was sleeping soundly, then slipped out of the nursery and down the stairs to the library. As she approached it, she saw that light spilled out from the duke’s study, which lay a few doors before the library. She hesitated for a moment, not wanting to see Cleybourne again. She thought about going back upstairs without a book, but instead, she tiptoed, hopeful that he would not even notice her passing.

He would not have, she realized as she glanced inside the room, for he was not looking out the door, but what she saw pulled her to a stop. She stared into the study.

Cleybourne was seated at his desk, leaning his head on his hands, elbows propped on the desk. To one side sat a decanter of liquor and a half-empty glass. In front of him lay an open case of dueling pistols. As Jessica watched, he reached into the case and took out one of the pistols. A chill ran through her. The housekeeper had been right. The duke was going to kill himself!

4

Jessica was so shocked that for a moment she did not know what to do. Her first instinct was to rush in, crying out to him not to do it. But something held her back, told her that was not the way to snap the Duke of Cleybourne from his black mood. She hesitated, remembering her two conversations with the man. Then she went forward, crossing her fingers that her second impulse was correct.

“Well,” she said coolly as she stepped into the study. Behind the desk, the duke’s head snapped up in surprise. “So this is why you are rejecting Gabriela. She would interfere with your plans to do yourself in.”

Richard scowled, his eyes narrowing. “I wasn’t…bloody hell.”

He had spent the evening in his study, drinking more than he should. The arrival of this damnably irritating woman had ruined all his plans. Obviously he could not do what he had come home to do until he had arranged for Rachel or someone to take over the care of the girl who had been suddenly placed in his charge. He had already written to Rachel, but it could be days, even weeks, before he heard from her. After that, it would be still more time before she could arrive and take the girl in hand—and what if she and Michael did not want to take responsibility for her? Then he would have to search for someone else. It was clear that he might have to stay in this damnable place for months, surrounded by reminders—hearing Alana’s laugh, seeing her face, sleeping in the same bed where Caroline had once lain with him….

He had started drinking, hoping to ease some of the pain. He had not been about to kill himself. He was not that irresponsible. He had taken out the case of dueling pistols simply to look at them. He had thought he ought to clean them, but before he could move to do so, this wretched woman had come into the room. She, of course, would put the worst possible interpretation on his actions. Richard could not think when he had met anyone as irritating.

From the first moment that Richard had seen her, when she had come striding down the hall, shouting his name imperiously, as if he were a recalcitrant servant, he had disliked her intensely. She was rude and abrupt, and she looked at him with a cool contempt, even dislike, that he was unaccustomed to, especially in a woman. He had never been one to stand on ceremony, to demand the respect that was due his station. He knew that he was an easygoing sort. His mother had often complained of his laxness with the servants and his general lack of the self-importance that was proper in a duke. But with Jessica Maitland, he found himself wanting to remind her of his rank, to wipe the look of contempt from her face.

“What the devil are you doing here?” he growled. “Every time I turn around, there you are, sticking your nose into my study.”

“Hardly that, since this is but the third time I’ve seen you. To answer your question, I could not sleep and was on my way to the library when I saw you in here, contemplating your guns.”

Jessica came up to his desk and looked down at the pistols, keeping her face cool and her voice light. “Beautiful workmanship.”

“Yes. They were a gift from my father.”

“Ah. I am sure he would be pleased to know what you intend to do with them.”

“I was intending to clean them,” Richard responded. “Not that it is any of your business.”

“It is my business, I’m afraid. The fact that you are Gabriela’s guardian makes it so. Otherwise, I frankly would not care whether you put a period to your existence. Some people simply do not have the courage to face life. That is the way they are made; I suppose there is little they can do about it.”

Anger shot through Richard with such force that he jumped up, shoving his chair back. “How dare you imply that I am a coward!”

The woman was an absolute harpy—poison tongued and hard as nails. The fact that she was beautiful, with skin as white as cream and that wild tumble of hot red curls falling loose around her shoulders, somehow made her sharp nature even worse, he thought. Seeing her there, her curves softly encased in a dark blue dressing gown that turned her eyes a deep, pure blue, her hair loose and wild, she looked the sort of woman who made a man think of only taking her to bed—and then she opened her mouth, and all he wanted to do was shake her.

It increased his bad temper to realize that she made him think of sex. He had not wanted another woman since Caroline’s death—not in a specific way. It was both annoying and ironic that this acidic woman should cause a stirring of his loins.

Jessica, watching the anger that lit up the man’s face, felt pleased with her plan of attack. Pleading and reasoning would not deter him, she had thought, knowing that his loving servants and no doubt his family and friends had done plenty of that. Angering him, however, worked like a charm—jolting him right out of his melancholy.

She shrugged. “Well, it is scarcely the act of a brave man—to take the easy way out, leaving all his loved ones to mourn him.”

“The easy way? You know nothing about it! You don’t know me or what my life has been like.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Yes, I am certain it must have been a burden to you—being handsome and wealthy and possessing one of the highest titles in the land. I can see why you should go spinning into despair.”

His dark eyes flared with a red light, and Richard had to curl his hands into fists to keep from grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You know nothing about me.”

“Perhaps I do not. But I do know about my life. I know that until I was eighteen, I lived a happy and privileged existence. I came from a good family. I had a loving father. I had that coming-out that you spoke of for Gabriela. I was even engaged to a dashing young lieutenant. Then suddenly that life was cut off when my father was cashiered out of the army. Perhaps you don’t recall the scandal, as we did not move in the exalted circles of a duke. My father was Major Thomas Maitland, and he was an upstanding and honorable soldier all his life. Then he was thrown out, stripped of his title, his honor, his very livelihood. We were no longer received by anyone. My fiancé broke off our engagement. His family, you see, could not ally itself to one so tainted by scandal. My father, the best of men, changed before my eyes. He took to drinking and bad company. He was killed three months later in a fight in a common tavern, and, as my mother had died, I was left alone—without money, without prospects, without even my good name anymore. I lost everything. I became a governess, and as you have pointed out, I am not highly successful at bending my knee to others, so as a consequence, I was close to starvation. Only the General’s kindness saved me.”