The Valentine Legacy by Catherine Coulter
She slept well until three o’clock, then she awoke screaming, her arms flailing. This time, Jessie woke up first, sweating, her streamers sticking to her cheeks, heaving so hard she thought her heart would burst. “Oh, God, it was Mr. Tom again, James. Why won’t it stop? I remember all about him now. Why won’t he just bloody stop?”
“Oh dear, I think I’m going to be sick.”
It was as black as the bottom of a witch’s cauldron in the bedchamber, the downstairs clock just striking three o’clock. James rolled off the side of the bed, hit the floor running, and got the chamber pot to her in the nick of time. He held her, then gave her water to drink and wiped her face.
“I don’t know why you’re still dreaming about it, Jessie,” he said at last when he held her in his arms again. “Just try to relax. Breathe slowly, that’s good. Go to sleep. That’s right, just go to sleep.”
Damnation, every time he gave her pleasure, this wretched dream came to her. Even now that she’d remembered the truth behind it, she still had troubled sleep. He wanted to leave for Ocracoke tomorrow, but he knew they couldn’t. Everyone was exhausted. The last thing anyone wanted to do was climb aboard another ship. He stroked her face with his fingers. He wound a streamer around his thumb, then lightly ran his fingertips over her face, her ears, stroking her curly hair back from her forehead. “It will be all right, Jessie. It’s got to be.”
“James, I think I’ll go to the kitchen. Surely there must be something to take away this wretched nausea.”
“No, you don’t know the house yet. I’ll go.”
James went downstairs and out the back entrance. He walked across the bricked walkway to the kitchen. He knew Badger had already settled in. Surely he’d prepared something. He never forgot anything.
He was surprised to see candlelight showing from beneath the kitchen door. Could Old Bess be preparing something at this hour? He opened it slowly, listening.
“Does everyone agree that this is the course to follow?”
It was Spears speaking, naturally. What course?
“The old besom will turn on Jessie as soon as she realizes her dear James married her,” Sampson said. “Of course, then she won’t be able to fire all her cannon at the poor Duchess.”
“It sounds likely,” Badger said. “Would you like more tea, Maggie?”
“Thank you, Mr. Badger. You’ve put some soothing herb in it, haven’t you?”
“I have, Maggie. It will make you sleep. It will make all of us sleep. The good Lord knows we’ll need it to deal with all the myriad problems that seem to abound here.” He yawned discreetly behind his hand.
“Just fancy,” Maggie said as she sipped her tea, “we’re in the Colonies.”
“Yes,” Spears said, “and it’s three o’clock in the morning and all of us were prowling around and are now in the kitchen trying to address all the damnable problems.”
“What have you all decided?” James asked, coming into the large room.
“James,” Spears said comfortably, rising from his chair at the head of the large table, “you should be with Jessie.”
“I was, but she’s ill and I’ve come here to find her something to settle her stomach.”
“I made some more unyeasted bread,” Badger said, and rose to cut it and wrap it in a napkin.
“What have you all decided?” James asked again, eyeing each of them in turn.
Spears, looking as elegant as ever in a brocade dressing gown of dark blue velvet, said, “Do sit down, James. We discovered that none of us could sleep, except for Mr. Sampson, who is fortunate enough to sleep standing in a corner if he must. We decided to come out here and have a bit of tea and conversation. It’s good that we did. We’ve come to a decision about Your Mother.”
“Do you plan to strangle her and drop her into the Patapsco River? What about the poor fish?”
“That’s a satisfying thought,” Maggie said. “Too bad about the fish.” She looked glorious in a peach confection that would look more natural worn by a rich man’s mistress. Her red hair was loose. She looked delicious and knew she looked delicious. “How can it be that you’re so nice, James, and she’s such a terror?”
“It’s a mystery,” James said, seated himself, and accepted a cup of tea from Badger.
“I will speak for Mr. Sampson. Your mother, James, will make Jessie’s life miserable,” Maggie said. “We will protect her. Whenever your mother visits, all of us will take turns being with her so that the old bi—, er, the old lady doesn’t whack her off at the knees.”
James looked around the table at the three servants who weren’t really servants and knew they cared as much about Jessie now as they did about the Duchess, Marcus, and him. He was profoundly grateful. He said, “The house is not what any of you are used to. I’m sorry that your accommodations are so inferior, but I ran out of money once I had dwellings for my servants built and the stables and paddocks redone.”
“Where did the servants live before if not in houses?” Badger asked.
“They were slaves,” James said. “They’re all black and they were slaves. They were nothing but property. They were abused. Husbands and wives were separated. Children were taken from their parents. I hate slavery. As soon as I bought the property, I freed all of them and began paying them wages. They lived in huts that the filthiest rodents avoided. I had to build them decent housing. I had to.”
“Quite right,” Spears said. “Don’t you agree, Maggie?”
“I think James is a man with a conscience. Just fancy, and he’s half American and not all English.”
“Yes, fancy that,” Badger said.
“I’ll let you decide which is my best half,” James said, laughed, and drank down his tea. He took the wrapped napkin from Badger, bid them all good night, then said over his shoulder, “There’s not just my mother. There’s also Jessie’s mother. They never perform a duet. They always come at you from opposite directions. You’ll be pleased to know that my mother also bullies Jessie’s mother. They were girls together, evidently.” He smiled at their collective consternation and took himself back to his wife, who was huddled in the middle of his bed, breathing through her nose.
“Jessie told me,” Spears said after James had left, “that her father was bound to provide a dowry for her. That should be ample to bring the house up to snuff.”
“We have two mothers to worry about?” Maggie said, then sighed deeply, leaning her elbows on the kitchen table.
“It’s all right, Maggie,” Spears said, “we’ll figure everything out.”
“We always do,” Badger said. “Tomorrow I must find a recipe for conch chowder.”
The dreariness of James’s red-brick Georgian house was very apparent the following morning when everyone was seated in the dining room with its old table and twelve chairs whose cushions had once been a vivid blue and were now a tattered blue-gray. The walls needed paint and new wallpaper, and the carpet on the floor was clean but so old it was splitting apart.
James was embarrassed, mumbling as he seated his wife at the foot of the table, “I bought the property from Boomer Bankes. He’d been a widower for many years. He paid no attention to the house. I’m very sorry, Jessie, Duchess.”
“I daresay we’ll all survive,” the Duchess said as she settled Charles in the middle of a blanket in the corner of the room, a sugar tit from Old Bess in his mouth. The moment she laid eyes on him, Old Bess adored Charles, cooing over him, telling him he was the sweetest little bite she’d ever seen and that his mama was the prettiest little sweetie she’d ever seen as well, not as pretty as the new mistress, but very fine nonetheless. “Loyalty,” the Duchess had remarked to her husband, “is an excellent thing.”
“The room’s a nice size,” Jessie said. “The windows are large, the prospect pleasing.”
“Just fancy,” Thomas said from the doorway, “the house is filled again. We’re all so pleased that you’re the mistress now, Miss Jessie.”
“Thank you, Thomas.
“Of course, Jessie,” Badger said. “Mr. Thackery, would you please give the bread to Mrs. James?”
After breakfast, James took Marcus off to inspect the stables. Thankfully, Anthony, filled with more energy than the rest of them combined, went with them. During breakfast he’d exclaimed that he couldn’t wait to leave to find Blackbeard’s treasure. The Duchess had said in her calm way, “That’s fine, Anthony. You can go with your father to search us out a ship.”
“Another ship, Mama?”
“Certainly. We can’t very well go overland. We’ll get to be on board a ship again, just fancy that.”
Anthony hadn’t said another word. All of them wanted a bit of a rest, but not a long one. That treasure was there waiting for them, they all knew it.
Jessie, her stomach settled down, went with the Duchess into the parlor, as she’d told the Duchess it was called here in the Colonies.
“Now, Jessie, before you and I begin to make plans, I imagine that you will want to visit your parents and your sisters.”
Not really, Jessie thought, flinching from the idea of Glenda staring at James’s crotch. Surely she wouldn’t do that now that he was married, would she?
“I have missed my father.”
“Thomas suggested that you write a note to your parents and tell them that you and James will be visiting them for luncheon. Do you feel well enough to do that?”
“It comes and goes,” Jessie said. “I feel marvelous right now, but in five minutes, I could be tossing up Badger’s wonderful bread and Old Bess’s strawberry jam I ate for breakfast.”
The Duchess eyed her closely. “Your clothes are hanging on you, too. You want to be the mistress of Marathon, Jessie, the independent, married relative, when you see them. You don’t ever want them to think of you as their daughter again, thus someone they can bully and order around. Let’s speak to Maggie. Among the three of us, we can dress you up properly.”
“Unfortunately it won’t matter,” Jessie said, staring down at her shoes. “My mother and James’s mother grew up together.”
“Oh dear.”
“At least my mother will be pleasant to you, Duchess.”
It was two o’clock that afternoon when James and Jessie rode in his old carriage to the Warfield Farm. All the trees and flowers were still in late-summer bloom. The air was rich with warmth and the scent of the land. “It’s good to be home,” James said as he lightly flicked Bellini’s reins.
“James, is Glenda going to stare at your crotch again?”
He started, jerking on Bellini’s reins, and laughed when the horse snorted. “I hope not, but with Glenda I’ve learned over the years never to try to outguess her. If she does, well, just ignore it. Are you certain you’re ready for this, sweetheart?”
Sweetheart. It sounded wonderful coming from James Wyndham to her, Jessie Warfield, the girl he’d considered an obnoxious brat for six years. Maybe he still did.
“Are you going to keep visiting Connie Maxwell?”
He didn’t look at her, rather just kept looking through Bellini’s ears. “I will see her, naturally, to tell her of my marriage.”
“Oh.”
“What does that mean? You think I’d still make love to her? Well, say something. Damn you, Jessie, we’re married. I happen to believe in marriage vows. I won’t betray you. You will never betray me either, because I won’t allow it.”
“All right,” she said, feeling tears well in her eyes. She didn’t understand herself. One minute she wanted to laugh, the next she was sobbing like a broken woman. It was unnerving. Maggie had just patted her hand and told her it was the babe making her behave in such an unpredictable manner. But Maggie didn’t have any children. How did she know?
“Good. Now, here we are. Are you ready for this?”
She’d poked her chin a good three inches in the air. He lightly punched her chin, grinning. “You look beautiful. I like your gown. Is it one of the Duchess’s?”
“Yes. Maggie took a few tucks here and there. She also washed my hair. It doesn’t look too bad, does it, James?”
He hated that ridiculous doubt in her voice. “The streamers are even saluting.” She didn’t look bad for a woman who was clutching Badger’s bread in one hand. He watched her take a bite then push the rest of it down into her pocket. He tossed Bellini’s reins to one of the stable lads, leaned over to kiss his wife’s mouth, and said quietly, “You are my wife. You are now independent of your family. Do you understand? Once we get all this family business over with, once we get furnishings ordered for the house, once everyone is ready to face a ship again, then we’ll go to Ocracoke and get Mr. Tom out of your mind and out of our lives.”
“Yes. The Duchess said the same thing, both about Mr. Tom and about my parents. She told me not to forget I was now a married lady and free of them or she’d write a ditty about me I wouldn’t like.”
“Good for her. Let’s go.” He lifted her down from the carriage, brought her close to him, and said, “Oslow grinned like a fool when I told him we were married. Your father will do the same.”
Portia Warfield pushed past Polly, the black girl in her floppy mop cap who answered the door. “Well,” she said, eyeing her daughter. In truth she could think of nothing more to say because her wayward daughter didn’t look at all as she had when she left Baltimore nearly four months before. She looked elegant. It was disconcerting. It was infuriating.
“I know all about this illicit marriage of yours, Jessie Warfield. James, your mother visited me this morning and told me of this outrage. However, the reason for her outrage is quite different from mine. You don’t look right, Jessie. You don’t look how you’re supposed to look, the way you’ve looked since you were a child. It doesn’t suit you, all this silly finery, your hair all done up like a loose fem-ale’s. You will change everything immediately. You will become yourself again. I order you to do as I say.”
“I can’t, Mama,” Jessie said, squeezing closer to James.
“May we come in, ma’am? Jessie would like to sit down. The voyage was long, and she’s still tired.”
“You might as well. Poor Glenda is prostrate, has been for weeks and weeks. Now today she discovers that you stole away the man she was going to marry, Jessie. She is a shadow of her former self. She is miserable, the poor pet. She barely ate her breakfast.”
“I thought Mrs. Wyndham came here to tell you of our marriage,” Jessie said, confused. “Surely she didn’t come before breakfast?”
“Don’t be smart, miss. Your poor sister didn’t sleep well last night. She probably had a premonition of what treachery was to come. She didn’t have her breakfast, indeed her lunch as well, until after noon, and that is when James’s mother came. You might as well sit down. I will have your poor father fetched from the stables.”
“Is something wrong with Papa?” Jessie asked, thoroughly alarmed.
“Don’t be a fool.” Mrs. Warfield swept from the parlor. James turned to Jessie and grinned. “She puts on as fine a performance as does my precious mother. Don’t heed her, Jessie.”
Jessie ran her tongue over her lips. “I’ll try,” she said. “But she just keeps battering at you. It’s hard to get away from it.”
“Here, eat a bit of Badger’s bread.”
She did and was still chewing slowly when her father strode into the room, shouting with pleasure when he saw the two of them. “Ah, my boy, you married my little girl. A fine day it is for me. Jessie, goodness, girl, whatever have you done to yourself? You look like a princess, that’s it, a princess, with that yellow gown and your hair all shiny and stylish. Just look at those cute little curls.
“And here’s your mother again. Well, we can’t have everything perfect, can we? My dear, can you have some tea fetched? Perhaps some cakes as well?” He waited until his wife had left the parlor, then hugged his daughter and shook hands with his new son-in-law. He held both their hands as he said, “You’
“I surely hope so, Papa, since James has gotten me pregnant.”
“What? You’re with child? Now? But you’ve only been married a matter of short months, just a summertime of months, not more than three months and you’re already pregnant? Oh goodness, I’m going to be a grandfather?”
“Papa, I’m going to be ill.”
It was nearly an hour later when Jessie was once again seated next to her husband in her mother’s parlor, her hair brushed, her gown straightened. She was still too pale even after she’d pinched her cheeks, but her stomach had settled. James had fed her weak tea and Badger’s bread until she was lying all relaxed on her old bed.
“When is my grandson going to be born?” her father asked immediately, rubbing his hands together, looking more excited, his wife thought, as she stared at him, than he had when she’d been pregnant with their first. Damn him. Silly old man. So pleased he was when he knew that James should have married sweet Glenda, not her hoyden sister.
“Next April we think,” James said.
Her mother stared at her with new eyes. Jessie, pregnant. It boggled the mind. For a very long time she’d been without anything to say. Now, she found her tongue, remembered her grievances, and said, “I doubt it will be a grandson, Oliver. If she’s this ill, it’s probably a girl. Another one in the family. It seems to be all the Warfields can breed.”
James said easily as he took Jessie’s limp hand, “I would be delighted to have half a dozen girls, ma’am, all of them with splendid red hair and Jessie’s beautiful green eyes.”
“She never before had splendid hair,” Mrs. Warfield said. “It’s her grandmother’s hair. Jessie was cursed with it just as her grandmother was also cursed, but at least her grandmother kept it hidden beneath all sorts of frightful caps and bonnets so no one would gape at her.”
At that moment, Glenda tottered into the room. She looked as pale as Jessie, her eyes red from weeping, her gown wrinkled. James rose and smiled at her. Her eyes fell immediately to his crotch.