He shot her one quick look. Then his gaze dropped again to the carpet.
“I wish it were true,” Jessica said. “If she truly loved him, she would never subject him to such a risk. She would put his welfare first—as your own mother did,” she dared to add. “Shedid not drag a little boy off on a dangerous sea voyage, with no assurance she could provide for him—if, that is, he managed to survive the journey. But her case was tragic, and one must grieve for her. Charity Graves…Ah, well, in some ways she is a child herself.”
“My mother is a tragic heroine and Charity Graves a child,” Dain said. He pushed away from the edge of the desk and moved behind it, not to the chair but to the window. He looked out.
The storm was abating, Jessica noticed.
“Charity wants pretty clothes and trinkets and the attention of all males in the vicinity,” she said. “With her looks and brains—and charm, for she has that, I admit—she might have been a famous London courtesan by now, but she is too lazy, too much a creature of the moment.”
“Yet this creature of the moment is single-mindedly bent upon my icon, you informed me on the way home,” he said. “Which she has never seen. And for whose existence she relies upon the word of a village looby who heard it from someone else, who heard it from one of our servants. Yet she is convinced the thing is worth twenty thousand pounds. Which amount, she told you, was the only counteroffer you could make—and you had better make it in sovereigns, because she had no faith in paper. I should like to know who put this twenty thousand pounds into her head.”
Jessica joined him at the window. “I should, too, but we haven’t time to find out, have we?”
With a short laugh, he turned to her. “We?It isn’t ‘we’ at all, as you know perfectly well. It’s ‘Dain,’ the pitiable, henpecked fellow who must do exactly as his wife tells him, if he knows what’s good for him.”
“If you were henpecked, you would obey me blindly,” she said. “But that is not the case at all. You have sought an explanation of my motives, and you are now attempting to deduce Charity’s. You are also preparing to deal with your son. You are trying to put yourself in his shoes, so that you may quickly make sense of any troublesome reactions and respond intelligently and efficiently.”
She drew closer and patted his neckcloth. “Go ahead. Tell me that I’m ‘humoring’ you or ‘managing’ you or whatever other obnoxious wifely thing I am doing.”
“Jessica, you are a pain in the arse, do you know that?” He scowled at her. “If I were not so immensely fond of you, I should throw you out the window.”
She wrapped her arms about his waist and laid her head against his chest. “Not merely ‘fond,’ but ‘immensely fond.’ Oh, Dain, I do believe I shall swoon.”
“Not now,” he said crossly. “I haven’t time to pick you up. Get off me, Jess. I’ve got to go to bleeding Postbridge.”
She drew back abruptly. “Now?”
“Of course now.” He edged away. “I’ll lay you any odds the bitch is there already—and the sooner I get this damn nonsense over with, the better. The storm’s letting up, which means I should have something like light for a few more hours. Which means I’m less likely to ride into a ditch and break my neck.” He quickly skirted the desk and headed for the door.
“Dain, try not to explode upon them,” she called after him.
He paused and threw her an exasperated look.
“I thought I was supposed to mow her down,” he said.
“Yes, but try not to terrify the child. If he bolts, you’ll have the devil’s own time catching him.” She hurried up to him. “Maybe I should come along.”
“Jessica, I can handle this,” he said. “I am not completely incompetent.”
“But you are not accustomed to dealing with children,” she said. “Their behavior can be very puzzling at times.”
“Jessica, I am going to collect the little beast,” he said grimly. “I am not going to puzzle about anything. I shall collect him and bring him to you, and you may puzzle over him to your heart’s content.”
He moved to the door and jerked it open. “For starters, you can figure out what to do with him, because I’m hanged if I have a clue.”
Dain decided to take his coachman with him, but not the coach. Phelps knew every road, path, and cattle track in Dartmoor. Even if the storm rebuilt and headed west with them, Phelps would get them promptly to Postbridge.
Besides, if he could help his mistress make trouble for her husband, Phelps could damned well help Dain get out of it.
Dain wasn’t sure how Jessica had managed to talk his loyal coachman into betraying his trust these last weeks, but he saw soon enough that she didn’t have the man completely wrapped around her finger. When Jessica rushed out to the stables to make a last plea to accompany them, Phelps negotiated the compromise.
“Mebbe if Her Ladyship could make up a parcel for the lad, she’ll feel some’ at easier in her mind,” the coachman suggested. “She be worried he’ll be hungry, ’n mebbe cold, ’n you be in too much hurry to heed it. Mebbe she might find a toy or some’ at to keep him busy.”
Dain looked at Jessica.
“I suppose that must do,” she said. “Though it would be better if I were there.”
“You willnotbe there, so just put that idea out of your head,” said Dain. “I will give you a quarter hour to make up the damned parcel, and that’s all.”
