Page 58 of The Hidden Heart

“No, he did not. He was in something of a rage.”

“Oh dear.” Rachel looked worried. “Perhaps we should have pretended that I told the servants to put them up.”

Jessica shrugged. “I can live with his rages. Anyway, I am sure that he would have known I was behind it. You are much too considerate of his feelings to have done it. But he did not cast me out, and he did not tell the servants to take down the decorations, so I suppose it came out all right.”

“Really?” Rachel’s expression brightened. “Well, that is good, isn’t it? He has been in pain for so long, I—” She broke off, then said in a low voice, “Sometimes I feel that we really are a cursed family, and that we bring pain to the lives we touch.”

“Oh, no, Lady Westhampton! I cannot believe that.”

“Please, call me Rachel. There cannot be formality between us when you have sat here with me all red nosed and watery eyed.”

Jessica smiled. “All right, then, Rachel. And I am Jessica. But you cannot believe that your family is really cursed.”

“Most of the time we treat it as a jest, but…” Rachel shrugged. “We Aincourts have never been a happy lot. Who knows, perhaps it does all come from that ancestor who drove out the abbot. Or maybe it is just the sin of pride passed down from one generation to the next, beginning with him.”

“Pride? Excuse me, but you do not seem one puffed up with pride. You have been quite kind to me, and you must know that I—”

“What? That you were so misfortunate as to have a father who involved himself in a scandal? It is scarcely your fault, any more than it was mine that my father was a puritanical tyrant who cut his only son out of his life. But it is pride, don’t you think, when a family always marries for advancement, never love? We have always made ‘good’ marriages, you see, in the eyes of the world. Marriages for wealth, for position, for land or name—or almost anything other than for the heart. As a consequence, we have never been happy.”

“But your sister—”

“Richard loved her. I know that. I am not as certain that she loved him. Or perhaps I should say I think she found it easy to love a duke. Had Richard been a baron or, God forbid, had no title at all, I am not so sure she would have loved him.”

“Oh.” Jessica looked at the other woman, pale, her eyes shadowed, looking into a past that obviously brought her little joy. “I am sorry.”

“My husband and I have a…a pleasant marriage, I suppose most people would say. He is all that is kind, and he does not deny me anything I wish. I am free to live my own life in London, and he remains on the estate with his books and correspondence and…all the things that matter to him.”

“Rachel—” Impulsively Jessica leaned forward, putting her hand comfortingly on top of Rachel’s.

Rachel smiled at her a little sadly. “I’m sorry. I am burdening you with our lives much more than I should. It must be the illness. It makes me silly and weak. Michael and I entered our marriage knowing what it was. I loved another man, someone unsuitable—not that there was anything wrong with him, but he had no money, no future of any consequence. My family needed, always needed, money. So I did my duty. Michael did his. And we have been…satisfied with our life.”

Jessica, looking at the sadness lurking in the other woman’s eyes, did not believe for a moment that Rachel was satisfied. But she did not dispute it, just squeezed her hand gently.

“I guess that none of our lives turn out as we had thought they would, hoped they would,” she said. “We simply make the best of what we get. What else can we do?”

“You are right, of course.” Rachel gave her a sweet smile. “And sometimes things turn out even better. Dev married for the family, to keep Darkwater from going under, and they have turned out to be gloriously in love.”

“Well. There you are.”

“Yes. Sometimes miracles happen. And I am very glad one happened to Dev.” Rachel paused, looking at Jessica intently. “I hope that a miracle will happen for Richard, as well.”

“I hope so, too,” Jessica agreed. But she knew, with an inward stab of regret, the if that miracle of love came to the duke again, it was very unlikely that it would involve her.

* * *

Supper that evening was no more enjoyable, Jessica found, than it had been the night before. However, it was livelier, since this evening there was the fracas the night before to discuss. There were opposing opinions as to whether the intruder had come from outside or inside the house, as well as to what he had been seeking.

Miss Pargety was certain that it had been an outsider—more from wishful thinking, Jessica guessed, than from any reason—who had come to rob the duke.

“Last night?” Lord Kestwick replied with scorn, raising an aristocratic eyebrow. “Really, what sort of thief would come traipsing through all that snow, knowing it would equally impede his getting away?”

“Yes, my lord, there is that,” Reverend Radfiel said pacifically. “But why would anyone staying here rob His Grace, either, knowing he would be stuck here for who-knows-how-many more days? It would seem awfully dangerous to me.”

“Ah, but he did not take anything, did he?” Kestwick drawled in his supercilious way, dabbing at the corner of his mouth with a napkin. “Isn’t that true, Cleybourne?”

“What?” Richard, who had been watching Darius Talbot sending Jessica long looks, turned blankly to the man at his right.

“The man last night. He did not steal anything, correct?”