“Well?” Sir Gerald’s voice was quite abrupt. “Am I correct?”
Jessie lifted her chin and met his gaze. “Yes, sir. You are quite correct. And I fear we have deceived you in the most appalling way.”
One eyebrow rose. “Appalling? How so?”
“I had met your son previously, Sir Gerald. In London.” She swallowed and felt her cheeks flushing, but refused to look away. If she was going to bare her sins, she would do so without shame. “I was…in a place I should not have been, but fortunately Mr Crawford managed to…protect me from the worst of it.”
“I see.”
“It was a brothel, Father,” interrupted Piers. “Jessie had been seeking shelter and ended up there through no fault of her own. You know her heritage and why she found it so hard to settle anywhere in London.”
“Yes, I do,” he nodded. “Maitland has a heinous reputation. His offspring have been painted with the same brush. But Miss Nightingale knows that I do not hold those circumstances against her.”
“Indeed, sir, and for that you have my eternal gratitude. But still I have deceived you by not informing you of my prior acquaintance with your son.” Jessie swallowed down fear. “That was ill done of me.”
Sir Gerald looked at Piers. “Is this all a plot, then Piers? Did you contrive to place Miss Nightingale where I might find her on a stormy day and take pity on her?”
“Yes, of course I did.” The tone was scornful.
Jessie blinked. “What?”
Piers turned to her, a sardonic eyebrow raised. “How could I have arranged for you to meet my father on the corner of whatever street it was where you encountered each other?”
She frowned and thought for a moment. “Well, you couldn’t, of course.”
“And you, Father, did I not suggest a trip to Barnsley’s for tea? Could I know you’d pass right by where Jessie was sitting? I have a certain native intellect thanks to my upbringing, but even so I’m notthatclever…”
“All right, ‘tis an absurd notion. I apologise,” Sir Gerald shook his head. “But if you felt that strongly about Miss Nightingale, Piers, could you not have simply brought her straight here?”
It was Jessie who answered. “I would not come.” She sighed. “He asked me, Sir Gerald. More than a few times. Even knowing my background, he persisted. And I so wanted to say yes, to let him take me away from the squalor and the fear. But I could not.”
“I don’t understand…” Sir Gerald shook his head in puzzlement.
Piers opened his mouth to speak, but Jessie reached out and touched his arm with a little murmur. “No, please. Let me.”
He inclined his head. “Very well, love. ’Tis your tale to tell.”
“All my life I’ve been called bastard, Sir Gerald,” She began. “I’ve been taught my worth is less than naught and those lessons were brutal on occasion. Yes, I have a mind and I’m proud of it, but that matters nothing to those who might have been able to put it to good use. They only cared about my lack of a decent parent. And as you pointed out, Maitland is a name abhorrent to many. His offspring—I suppose I could rightly refer to them as my stepsiblings, although I don’t know any of them in person—have managed to accumulate more than their fair share of notoriety. That is something that spreads and clings, whether deserved or not. How could I possibly bring that stench to the respectable house of a kind and well-respected gentleman?”
“Tosh,” responded Sir Gerald dismissively.
“You say that now, sir,” she shot back. “But if Piers had shown up last month with a bedraggled woman on his arm, one who had come straight from the brothel where he’d…where he’d found her and paid for her body…what would you have said then? Especially if you learned who I was? A Maitland bastardandwhore?”
Sir Gerald sighed. “I don’t know, my dear. I have to be honest and say I don’t know. I’d like to think I’d have given you both the benefit of the doubt, as I did when I invited you here to work for Crawford Hall. But…that’s a question I will thankfully never have to answer, since I have learned so much about you during your time working here on our behalf.”
“Are you going to dismiss me now?” The question had to be asked and it came trembling from her lips.
“Certainly not,” snapped back Sir Gerald, almost before she’d finished speaking. “Your abilities are beyond my expectations and I’m very pleased indeed with your results. You are industrious, intelligent and unafraid to approach problems or questions from a fresh perspective. I could not ask for more.”
Piers’ hand reached out and gripped Jessie’s. “So, if I were to state that I intend to marry our estate manager, would you be terribly upset, Father?”
The silence that followed was almost suffocating, and Jessie fought for breath, her mind blank with shock.
“Marry the woman you claimed in a brothel? Marry this particular Maitland bastard? Well, Piers, yes, I’d be horrified,” grinned Sir Gerald. “But only if such a marriage took her away from Crawford Hall.”
Two long breaths were exhaled and Jessie’s hand tightened around Piers’ fingers as she looked at him, a combination of fear and exhilaration churning inside her. “Really?You want to marry me?”
He nodded. “Will you?”
