The Hidden Heart (31 page)

“It is. It is also why I love you to distraction. Jessica, end my torture. Tell me that you will marry me.” He paused and looked at her, then added a trifle uncertainly, “Do you…not love me?”

“Oh, no!” Jessica cried out, flinging her arms around his neck. “I do love you. I love you so much I was willing to stay here as your mistress!”

“I think I would prefer it if you stayed here as my wife,” he told her.

“Yes!” she cried. “Yes, I will marry you. I only hope you will not regret it.”

“I know I will never do that,” he responded, and closed her lips with another kiss.”

J
essica gave herself a final look in the mirror, experiencing a moment’s doubt that she looked the part of a duchess. Perhaps Rachel would take pity on her and guide her through it.

She smiled a little to herself. She was still fizzing with excitement inside. She imagined she probably would be for a long time.

Jessica walked over to her dresser and looked down at the box the General had left her. What had interested Lord Kestwick so about this box?

At that moment there was a tap on the door, and Jessica called, “Come in.”

The door opened to reveal Richard standing there, dressed for supper. “I thought I would escort you down to the dining room. What are you doing?”

“Just looking at this box, wondering why it held such meaning for Lord Kestwick.”

“And have you arrived at any answers?”

“No. Not really.” Jessica opened the box, and Richard came over to look down at it. “Except, perhaps, this locket.” She reached in and picked up a locket which, when opened, revealed a lock of blond hair. “I think this might have belonged to Lord Kestwick’s mother. The general was in love with her all his life, you see. He told me so just before his death—except at the time I did not know that she was Lord Kestwick’s mother.”

“Surely that would not be enough to cause Kestwick to murder people—or even to try so hard to get the box,” Richard said reasonably. “No one would know to whom the hair belonged.”

Jessica pulled out all the contents of the box one by one and piled them on the dresser, saying, “Perhaps there is something else here, something that we cannot see.”

“A false bottom perhaps?” Richard asked, trying to slide a fingernail between the felt-covered bottom and the side. “You know, it does look rather larger on the outside than what it seems inside.” He closed the lid and turned it over, looking for some sort of join on the bottom.

“Perhaps that is why Kestwick smashed my jewelry box. Perhaps he took it apart looking for a secret compartment. It wouldn’t have to be large, you know. It could hold a—maybe a letter. Maybe Lady Kestwick wrote the General a love missive, which Kestwick was afraid would cause a scandal.”

She subsided. “That seems a trifle strange, too, doesn’t it? How horrible a scandal could it be? Anyway, why would it get out? Even if I had found it, I would never have revealed anything that would have hurt the General’s good name.”

“Kestwick would not know that. I imagine he judged the world by his own standards, and obviously he was wicked enough to ruin a name or anything else.”

“That’s true.”

Cleybourne rapped his knuckles sharply against the bottom of the box, working his way across. “It sounds rather hollow.”

“Are you looking for the secret compartment?” came a voice from the door.

Richard and Jessica swung toward it in astonishment. Gabriela was standing in the door, watching them.

“There’s a secret compartment?” Richard asked.

“Oh, yes, the General showed it to me once. It’s terribly clever.”

“Obviously we should have let Gabriela attend the discussion this afternoon,” Richard said ruefully.

“Yes, you should have,” Gabriela agreed, coming across the room to join them. “Why?”

“There is something important about this box. It is why Lord Kestwick tried to kill me…well, one of the reasons.”

“He thought the General hid something in this box?” Gabriela asked, wide-eyed. “What?”

“We don’t know. That is why we were looking in it.”

“See, this piece of wood moves.” Gabriela pushed her finger against one piece of the inlaid wood, and it slid out, revealing a tiny lever. “Then…”

Gabriela tugged at the lever, and a hidden drawer in the bottom of the box glided slowly out. Inside the drawer lay two folded packets of papers. One was addressed to Jessica in the General’s shaky, aging hand. The other was addressed to the General, also in a hand Jessica recognized.

“My father…” she breathed. “That is my father’s handwriting.”

She reached into the drawer and pulled out the packet of papers. Both were sealed, the one from her father with his seal, which had been broken, as well as another, unbroken, wax imprint of the General’s seal.

With fingers that trembled slightly, Jessica broke the seal on her father’s papers and opened it. First was an official-looking document, stamped with the insignia of the navy and dated ten years earlier. Jessica looked at the date.

“Why, that is just a few days before my father died. What is this?”

Richard, looking over her shoulder, said, “I’m not sure. It looks like something to do with the war—movements of the fleet, men and material, rather secret sort of stuff, I should think. Wait!” He reached over her shoulder and snatched the paper out of her hand. “Look.” He pointed at the name written in flowing letters across the bottom. “Lord Kestwick!”

“His father?” Jessica asked. “The present Kestwick’s father?”

“Yes. He was quite high up in the government. My guess would be that this was a government document, probably meant to be kept secret. How did it get into your father’s hands?”

Jessica still held a sheet of paper in her hand. It was a letter in her father’s handwriting. “Here,” she said. “This explains it. It is a letter from my father to the General. Apparently he sent it with the document.” She read from the letter “‘As you can see, the secrets are slipping out through Kestwick’s office. I believe that he knows nothing of it, but he takes many of his documents home to look through and stores them in a locked safe there, believing them well kept. It is his son who is the traitor. He has been stealing them from his father and passing them to the enemy for money. I have managed to infiltrate the group, and that is how I got this. He meets the French agents at the house of a courtesan named Marie MacDonald.’”

“That is why he killed Mrs. Woods!” Richard exclaimed. “She knew what he used to do and when she saw him, she decided she would make a bit of extra money by blackmailing him. So he killed her.”

Jessica nodded, reading on. “‘Many of the young officers and other young gentlemen frequent it. My operation is now complete, and I can assure you that I wait eagerly for this terrible stain to be lifted from my name.’”

Jessica lifted her face, tears standing in her eyes. “This is what Kestwick wanted. Proof that he was a traitor during the war.”

Richard nodded. “No wonder he was so eager to have it. This would have ruined him.”

“It ruined my father,” Jessica said.

“Oh, my dear.” Richard wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against his chest. “I am so sorry. This was why your father was cashiered from the army, wasn’t it? It was a ruse so that he could infiltrate a gang of traitors.”

“Yes. Of course. I should have known. That was why Father could not tell me the truth of it. It was highly secret.”

Gabriela observed her guardian’s arms around her governess with interest, but it was the age-old scandal about which she spoke. “But what happened? Why didn’t anyone know about this?”

“The General must have,” Jessica said, her voice tinged with bitterness. “My father must have been found out and killed by Kestwick—or else he simply had the bad fortune to have been caught in a tavern brawl while he was acting out his charade of having fallen from grace. But obviously General Streathern received this letter, for it is in his possession.”

“So Gramps knew and never said anything?” Gabriela asked in a troubled voice.”

“Yes, I am afraid he did,” Richard told her. “I cannot imagine why.”

“I know why,” Jessica said in a leaden voice. “Because he loved Kestwick’s mother. Remember?”

She tore open the other letter, the one to her from General Streathern, and began to read:

“But how could Gramps do that?” Gabriela asked plaintively. “It is so cruel!” She looked at Jessica with some trepidation. “You must hate me now.”

“No! Of course I do not hate you. Don’t ever think that. I love you dearly. Whatever your great-uncle did or did not do could not affect the way I feel about you.” Jessica enfolded the girl in a hug. “And though it does grieve me sorely that the General did not remove the stain from my father’s name, I cannot find it in me to hate him, either. I know quite well the things one is willing to do because of love, even things that are wrong.”

She cast a glance at Richard as she said this, remembering the way she had longed so much for his touch, wished so much to be with him, that she had been willing to throw away her reputation and live in sin with him.

Jessica saw Gabriela’s interested gaze follow her own glance to Richard, and she said, “Now, would you like to know something that no one else does?”

“Yes, of course.” Gabriela brightened.

It was Richard who answered. “Miss Maitland is no longer going to be your governess.”

“What?” Gabriela looked horrified. “But that is not good news at all!”

“The good news is that she will be your guardian’s wife.”

Gabriela’s jaw dropped, and she swung toward Jessica. “Truly? Oh, Miss Jessie, I am so happy for you!” She threw her arms around Jessica and hugged her enthusiastically. Suddenly she stepped back and looked at Richard. “Does that mean you are not giving me away to Lady Westhampton?”

“That is right. Rachel will be most unhappy about it, but I shall tell her that she must content herself with being your aunt.”

“Oh, thank you!” Gabriela said, her eyes beaming. “I promise you, you won’t regret it.”

“I am sure I will not.”

“May I tell Lady Westhampton?” she asked, fairly quivering in her excitement.

“That I am going to be your guardian? Yes. As to the other, no, it is still a secret. You are the first to know.”

“And you want to tell her yourself. I understand. I won’t breathe a word, I promise.”

With another impulsive hug for Jessica and then, as though she could not resist, for Richard, as well, she ran out of the room.

“I wonder how long that secret will last,” Richard mused, smiling.

“I think she will not tell Rachel. Gabriela will consider it a point of honor. However, I would not be surprised if Rachel guesses from her manner that something more than your being her guardian is afoot.”

“We shall tell her and Michael the news as soon as we can get them alone. And we can tell them what we discovered. We will need to clear your father’s name, and I imagine Michael will have an idea how best to go about it. He’s a brainy sort.”

“Richard…I am not so sure about clearing my father’s name.”

“What?”

“What about Gabriela? The General’s name will be even more tarnished by this than my father’s ever was. I mean, yes, I would love to have his name restored, but it has been ten years, and many people have forgotten. But Gabriela’s name will be hurt by it, and she will be making her coming-out in a few years. It will hurt her chances terribly…whereas I have dealt with it long ago. Of course, it would be better for your family,” she added, realizing that it would mean his marriage to her would be less of a shock to the polite world.