The Hidden Heart

Gabriela’s face lit up with a smile. “Thank you.”

“The maids have made up your rooms now, in the nursery. I am sorry we were so ill prepared for your visit. But hopefully you will find everything to your satisfaction.”

“I am sure it will be,” Gabriela replied with another dazzling smile, and the old man’s face softened even more.

He led them up the stairs to the nursery, tucked away, as nurseries often were, far from the other bedrooms, in the rear of the house on the third floor. It was a large, cheerful suite of rooms, with a sizable central schoolroom and playroom, and three smaller bedrooms opening off it.

Gabriela’s bedroom was very pretty, if a trifle young for her, with a yellow embroidered coverlet and a lace canopy over the bed, and wallpaper of cheerful yellow roses climbing a trellis. There was a rocker beside the bed, as well as a white chest and a small white table and chairs.

Jessica’s room, beside Gabriela’s, was much starker, with only a small oak chest for her clothes and a narrow oak bed, but Jessica did not expect anything more. Governess’s rooms, in general, were neither large nor particularly accommodating. At least this one boasted a small fireplace, which had not been the case in every house where Jessica had stayed.

She was overwhelmed with weariness as soon as her eyes fell upon the bed, and it was all she could do to take the time to wash her face and change into her bedclothes. At last, with a grateful sigh, she stretched out between the sheets and closed her eyes.

Tomorrow would be better, she told herself again, and she fell asleep, thinking about the troublesome duke.

3

Lady Leona Vesey crossed her arms and looked over at her husband as if he were a rat that had just run into the room. They were sitting in the single private dining chamber in the Grey Horse Inn in the early afternoon, waiting for their luncheon to be brought. Leona had had more than enough of the uncertain service and unsophisticated amenities of a village inn. As if those things were not irritation enough, Lord Vesey had just told her that they were going back to the General’s manor house.

“Have you gone mad?” she asked in a scathing voice, her tone implying that she had already answered her own question. “Why in the world would we want to go back to the General’s house—I’m sorry, I should say, to that misbegotten brat’s house? I, for one, have no liking for having the door slammed in my face.”

Her husband scowled back at her. He had spent the evening after the reading of the General’s will comforting himself with a large bottle of port, and, as a consequence, this afternoon his tongue felt coated with fur and his head seemed to have acquired an army of tiny gnomes hammering away.

Lord Vesey did not like his wife at the best of times. Right now he was entertaining cheerful visions of putting his hands around her throat and squeezing until her eyes bulged. “The door won’t be slammed in our face.”

“Your brain is obviously soaked in port. Don’t you remember? The General kicked us out.”

“Yes, you bollixed that one up, all right,” Lord Vesey agreed.

“I?” Leona exclaimed, her eyes widening. “I bollixed it up? You were the man’s great-nephew. It was you who made him despise you.”

“Ah, but you were supposed to be able to wrap an old man around your finger. Remember?” Vesey grinned evilly as he reminded his wife of her earlier, confident words when they had first heard that General Streathern was on his deathbed.

Personally, Lord Vesey had never admired his wife’s looks. He had married her because she was the only woman he had found in the Ton who was utterly indifferent to his little peccadilloes and quite happy to let him go his own way…as long as she was allowed to go hers. Other men fell all over themselves to get at those swelling breasts of Leona’s, but he found such lushness rather grotesque. He much preferred a lither, slimmer silhouette…such as the one on that Gabriela chit. Unconsciously he licked his lips as he thought of her. Leona was far too old, as well. It was the sweet bloom of youth that he preferred, and there was nothing quite like the joy of being the first to pick the fruit.

He relished Leona’s look of chagrin so much that he went on. “That is the second one, you know. First you bungled that affair with Devin last summer, and now you couldn’t even rouse the interest of an old man. I fear you are losing your touch, my dear. Or is it your age showing, do you think?”

Flame leaped in Leona’s eyes, and her face screwed up in an unattractive snarl. She wanted to leap on him, claws out, and damage him. But she knew that Vesey was such a coward, he would probably start wailing and shrieking, and then someone would come running. It would be thoroughly embarrassing to have everyone in a common inn see what a pitiful, mewling creature her husband was. So she contented herself with saying, “As if you would know what a real man wanted! You are nothing but a degenerate!”

“My, my, and to think you know such big words.” Vesey widened his eyes in mocking amazement. “Have you been bedding down with a man of letters?”

Leona sneered at him. Vesey was hardly a man. He had come to her bed a few times when they were first married, making a feeble attempt to get her with an heir—as if either one of them cared about that! She had soon set him straight in that regard. She had no intention of growing fat with anyone’s child, and she took pains to prevent that occurring. His lovemaking she regarded as pathetic, nothing like the passion that Devin had been able to give her. Her eyes glowed a little even now as she thought about his skillful caresses. No other man had been able to make her shudder and moan as Dev had, and she had missed him sorely during the past few months. No matter how many men, from lord to common laborer, she had tried to replace him with, none had proved to have his stamina or skill…or inventive mind.

What rankled the most was the fact that Vesey was right. She had indeed bungled the whole thing with Devin. She had overestimated her power over him. She had been the one to suggest that he marry the American heiress. But how was she to have known that the whey-faced, social disaster of a woman whom she had envisioned would turn out to be a cunning beauty? Instead of Devin’s taking the woman’s money and spending it on Leona and their pursuit of pleasure, he had settled down with the doxy at that stupid estate of his in Derbyshire, and Leona had been left both penniless and sexually frustrated. The whole thing had made her permanently cross.

“It doesn’t matter now, anyway,” she said in disgruntlement. “We got nothing in the General’s will, and the best thing we can do is go home. I can’t wait to get away from here. I cannot conceive how anyone can stand to live in the country.”

“Ah, but we still have a chance to gain something, my dear—quite a lot, in fact, if we only have the courage to seize the moment.”

“Seize what moment? What nonsense are you babbling?”

Vesey sighed exaggeratedly. “Are you really so short on wit? We may have been cheated out of our inheritance, but Gabriela is only fourteen. Her fortune will be handled by her guardian. If I was her guardian, we would have a tidy sum at our disposal. And I would be quite willing to take it upon myself to, um, look after the girl’s proper education.”

Leona rolled her eyes. “You are a pig, Vesey. Not only that, you’re stupid. She already has a guardian. And the Duke of Cleybourne is not a man you want to cross.”

Vesey shrugged. “You are thinking of the duke as he used to be. The truth is, for the past four years he has been a shell of a man. You know what a recluse he turned into when his wife died. You think someone like that will welcome an adolescent girl into his household? He doesn’t need her money—he’s as rich as Croesus. Besides, he’s far too noble to think of using her money for his own benefit. No, she will be nothing but a bother to him, and I am willing to bet that he will be happy to lay the burden off on someone else.”

“Not if that someone is you.”

“I’m not saying I would be Cleybourne’s first choice. He and I have never been friends—he is far too dull. But if I am already in the house, if I am in possession of the girl, so to speak, and he sees it will be a battle in court to regain her, well, it will be a far easier matter to hand the guardianship over to me.”

“What makes you think you will be in possession of her? They won’t even let us in the door.”

“Really, Leona, who will stop us? The servants won’t have the nerve to deny me admittance. The old man is dead now, after all. They no longer have his authority behind them. They won’t dare say no to a lord, especially since they know that if the girl does not reach her majority, I would inherit the place as her only relative. Believe me, they will not risk offending me.”

“The girl can tell them not to let you in.”

“A fourteen-year-old female? She wouldn’t have the courage or the wit.”

“Her governess is a dragon.”

“She may be, but she is merely a governess. She won’t stand up to a lord, either. When I show up at the door, they won’t know what to do except stand back and let me enter. Once we are in the house and have actual control of the girl, we will be in the catbird seat. I will sue to be named her guardian. As her only living relative, I have a good case for it, and, besides, I don’t think Cleybourne will contest it. What will he care? He doesn’t even know the chit.”

Leona looked at her husband doubtfully. The whole thing seemed far less sure than Vesey made it out to be. On the other hand, they were teetering on the edge of financial ruin. Indeed, they had been slipping down the side of it for quite some time. Their creditors were becoming increasingly insistent, and the last time Leona had been to the dressmaker, the blasted woman had flatly refused to make another garment for her until Leona paid her bill. Any possibility that would alleviate their situation would be worth a try.

“Oh, all right,” she agreed testily. “Let’s go over to the bloody house. At least if they slam the door on your nose, it will be somewhat amusing.”

There was a knock on the door, and without waiting for permission to enter, the innkeeper opened the door and backed into the room, carrying a large tray. “Good afternoon, my lord. My lady. Here’s your luncheon.”

His wife bustled in behind him, carrying another tray, and together they unloaded a vast array of food on the table. Leona cast an eye over the fare, plentiful but, she felt sure, as bland and plain as every other dish the inn had given them in the past few days. Never, she thought, had she appreciated her cook in London so much.

“Ah, Sims, tell them to have my carriage brought ’round after we eat. Lady Vesey and I are going to transfer to the General’s house.”

“Of course, my lord. Goin’ over there to see to things, are ye? I warrant they’ll be glad to see ye after that theft last night.”

“Theft?” Vesey looked blankly at the portly innkeeper. “What are you talking about?”

“Why, at the manor house, my lord. I thought ye knew. I supposed that was why ye was goin’ over there, to make sure the house is safe and all.”

“What happened?” Leona asked. “What did they steal?”

Sims shook his massive head. “That’s just it. They didn’t take much. The safe was broken into, and things inside it were all scattered about, but Pierson didn’t know exactly what the General had in there. Some jewelry’s gone, they think. All the drawers in the old man’s desk were opened, and papers all over—the General’s will, ye know, and all kinds of business papers. Couple of things broken. The place is a right mess, is what me nevvy told me. He were makin’ a delivery there, ye see, and the cook told him about it. He says the butler near had a fit, ye know, seein’ that. What with the General barely cold in his grave.”

He sighed lugubriously. “’Tis a sad, sad thing. No respect for the dead anymore. Ah, well, at least the girl was safe away. Reckon it would have scared her somethin’ awful.”

“Safe away?” Lord Vesey repeated in hollow tones.

“Why, yes.” The man looked at Vesey closely. “Didn’t ye know? The young lady and her governess left yesterday afternoon, after the funeral and all. Gone to her guardian’s, Will says, some duke in Yorkshire. I woulda thought ye’d know all about that.”