The Hidden Heart. Candace Camp

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СКАЧАТЬ on a marble bench near the front door. The footman stood a few feet away from her, almost as if he were standing guard. Gabriela was swinging her feet, scuffing them against the marble in a way that under normal circumstances Jessica would have reprimanded her for. But as it was, all she could think was how thin and young and lost Gabriela looked, and her chest tightened with sympathy.

      “Gabriela.”

      The girl whirled around, rising to her feet apprehensively. Jessica smiled at her.

      “It is straightened out now,” she told her with all the cheerfulness and confidence she could muster. “The duke had not read my letter yet, so he did not understand why we were here. It was, you know, so hastily done….”

      “Yes, of course. But now it is all right?” Gabriela’s face brightened. “He wants us to remain?”

      “Of course.” Jessica omitted the man’s reluctant agreement that they must stay. No matter how much she might dislike him, she did not want to influence his ward’s feeling for him. “He remembered your father with affection and sorrow. I think he was merely caught by surprise, not expecting anything to have happened to the General.”

      “Am I to meet him now?” Gabriela shook out her skirts a little and began to brush at a spot.

      “No, I think it is best that we wait for that. He was quite considerate and pointed out that you must be very tired and not up to meeting anyone yet. Tomorrow will be much better.”

      “Oh.” Gabriela’s face fell. “Well, yes, I suppose it would be better to meet him when I am looking more the thing.” She paused, then went on curiously, “What manner of man is he? What does he look like? Is he tall, short, kind—”

      “In looks he is quite handsome,” Jessica admitted, pushing back her other, less positive, thoughts of him. “He is tall and dark.” She thought of him, the brown throat that showed where his shirt was unbuttoned, the breadth of his chest and shoulders beneath that shirt, owing nothing to a padded jacket as some men did, the piercing dark eyes, the sharp outcropping of cheekbones. “He is, well, the sort of man to command attention.”

      “Then he looks as a duke should look?”

      “Oh, yes.”

      “Good. I was so afraid he would be short and pudgy. You know, the kind whose fingers are like white sausages with rings on them.”

      Jessica had to laugh. “That is most unlike the Duke of Cleybourne.”

      “I’m glad. Is he nice, though? I mean, he’s not high in the instep, is he?”

      “He did not seem to stand on ceremony,” Jessica told her carefully. She did not want to describe the man’s cold reception or his reluctant acceptance of Gabriela, but neither did she did want to paint too rosy a picture of him or Gabriela would be severely disappointed when she met him. “As to what sort of man he is, I think we must wait and get to know him better. It is difficult to determine on such a brief meeting, after all.”

      “Yes. Of course.” Gabriela nodded. “I will be able to tell much better when I meet him tomorrow.”

      “Yes.” Surely, Jessica thought, the duke would be in a better mood tomorrow. He would think about the General’s letter and his old friend Carstairs, and by tomorrow morning he would have accepted the situation—perhaps even be pleased at the idea of raising Carstairs’ daughter. He would not be so rude as not to invite Gabriela to his study for an introductory chat.

      They did not have to wait much longer before the butler came to them. Jessica was pleased to see that the old man bowed with not only politeness but a certain eagerness, as well, as though he was pleased to welcome the girl to the household.

      “Miss Carstairs. My name is Baxter. I am His Grace’s butler. I am so pleased to meet you. I remember your father quite well. He was a good man.”

      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?” СКАЧАТЬ