"In that case," Jessica said, "I am glad I resisted, my lord. I think it most unfair to jump a queue, don't you?"
His eyes narrowed. "You are impertinent," he said. "And you have no business in this ballroom. And even less speaking with my mother and my sisters. In fact, I find myself not at all in the mood for dancing. I have a great deal to say to you, Jess, and a ballroom is not quite the place to say it. Come with me. We will find somewhere more private."
He bowed elegantly to her and held out his arm. He even smiled. Jessica did not want to go with him. She did not wish to speak with him. But what could she do? she thought in the split second before she reached up a hand and laid it on his sleeve. He was the Earl of Rutherford, watched at that very moment, no doubt, by almost every lady in the room. And she was a newcomer, whom these people had accepted with remarkable kindness. To refuse to go with him would be to draw attention to herself. To begin some scandal, no doubt. She would be announcing to half the ton that she, a mere nobody, had had the effrontery to quarrel with no less a person than Lord Rutherford.
He led her out of the ballroom, along a hallway past several opened doors, all of which revealed rooms that were occupied. Finally he opened a closed door, glanced inside, and led her in. It was in darkness, the only light coming through the unshuttered window. It was some sort of small office, its only furniture a desk and chair and an old chaise longue.
"This," Lord Rutherford announced, closing the door firmly behind them, "will do very nicely. Now, Jess Moore, we will have a full explanation of this masquerade you and her grace have chosen to play."
6
"I should not be here with you unchaperoned," Jessica said, knowing even as the words came out of her mouth what a stupid thing it was to say. "Her grace would not like it."
Lord Rutherford laughed, as she had feared he would. "This is the first I have heard of servants needing chaperonage," he said. "And in light of what happened-or almost happened-between you and me little more than a week ago, I think your protests rather silly. Do you not agree?"
Jessica could think of nothing to say. She crossed the small room and stood staring out into the darkness.
"What story did you tell her grace?" Rutherford asked. "You were utterly destitute a week ago. You were sent to her to beg help in finding employment. And this is the employment you have found? Masquerading as a lady and making all the people here tonight your dupes? I find your appearance and your presence here distasteful, to put the matter lightly. I await your explanation."
"Her grace has been kind enough to take me in for the winter," Jessica said. "I told no lies and used no tricks. Indeed, I begged her to find me employment. If you object to what she has done, my lord, I believe it is to her you should speak and not to me. I do not feel that I owe you an explanation."
"Who are you?" The words exploded into a stunned silence. "Who is Miss Jessica Moore? I assume that if you had employment as a governess, you are not precisely a nobody. You obviously have some breeding, some education. Your father has some claim to the name of gentleman, I assume. Which fact makes you in the most general application of the term a lady. But there is a difference between being a lady and being of the sort of rank that would gain you admittance to a gathering such as this. You have no business here."
"Her grace apparently disagrees," Jessica said.
"Who is your father?" Rutherford asked. She could see, turning from the window, that his hands were held in fists at his sides.
"My father was a clergyman," she said. "A village clergyman. An impoverished village clergyman. He never had the means to send me to school. When he died, I had no choice but to seek employment." Her voice hardly wavered over the lie.
He nodded. "It is as I thought," he said. "My grandmother is growing older and more eccentric every day. Obviously she was taken by your youth and beauty and decided to amuse herself by trying to pass you off as a lady of the highest class. It will not do, Jess. You will be found out. Any gentleman you hope to ensnare as a husband will inquire into your background. He will want more than this mysterious reference to a grandmother who was one of her grace's dearest friends."
"Then you will be able to enjoy my public exposure to ridicule," Jessica said.
He made an impatient gesture with head and hand. "Enough of this impertinence," he said. "I have my grandmother's reputation to consider as well. I cannot tolerate any continuation of this charade. It must end. If you have no alternative, then I will renew my former offer. You may still become my mistress and retain this taste for pretty clothes that you have clearly acquired. That is more the life to which you belong, Jess."
"In your bed," she said.
"When I choose to put you there, yes," he agreed.
"And don't pretend that you would find those occasions distasteful, Jess. We both know different, don't we? But you will not spend the whole of your life in my bed. I will provide you with a home to enjoy. You wil have a carriage in which to travel around almost at will. I will take you to entertainments where it is acceptable for you to appear. Come, I think the time has arrived when you really have little other choice."
"On the contrary," Jessica said. "I find your offer insulting, my lord, when I have already rejected it once and when I am a guest at your grandmother's home and in this house tonight. Very insulting. I believe I shall return to her grace in the ballroom. She will be worried about me."
She lifted her chin, looked him in the eye in the semi-darkness, and tried to walk around him to the door. It was a foolish move to make, of course, as she discovered immediately. His hand clamped around her upper arm so that she bit her lower lip with the pain of it.
"Oh no, you don't," he said between his teeth. "I think I will have you learn, Jess Moore, that I am not to be trifled with. Haughty manner and saucy speeches are not suited to a common servant. And that, my dear, is precisely what you are, despite the patronage of a rather foolish old lady. Indeed, there would be many who would call you slut or worse if they knew just one half of what happened between you and me both in and out of a certain bed in a country inn a week ago. Did you not know that unmarried ladies of the ton do not lie with men or offer their bodies for free exploration?"
If he hoped to make her blush and cringe, he was not going to succeed, Jessica decided. She glared back into his eyes, only inches from her own. "Do you threaten me, my lord?" she asked. "Am I to expect the story of our night together to become common drawing room gossip if I refuse to repeat that night with you-with a different ending, of course?"
"My patience is wearing very thin," he said. "I do not need to threaten, Jess. I have never had to resort to using any sort of force to attract women to my bed and would certainly not begin on someone of such impertinent character. But I give you fair warning that I will not allow you to hurt anyone in this masquerade of yours. Do not try to win a rich or distinguished husband for yourself, Jess, or any influential female friend. Be sure that if you do, I shall find out all the details of your background for myself and pass them along to your chosen victims. That is no threat. That is statement of fact. I trust I make myself understood?"
"Oh, eminently so, my lord," Jessica said. "Tell me, pray, am I permitted to seek out a wealthy or influential protector? May I become another man's mistress without your carrying out the dreadful threat to expose my past? Or do you feel that by having lain in your bed and allowed your hands to touch me I have taken your stamp of possession on me? Pray tell me. I do not like nasty surprises. I should hate to have a future protector suddenly discover that my papa was an impoverished country clergyman."