Read Online The Clergyman's Daughter by Julia Jeffries - Free Book Online Page B

remarked her new clothes and the color that was already returning to her cheeks due to her improved diet. “My dear sister-in-law,” he said icily, “most women would be on their knees with prayers of gratitude at such an opportunity. To have one’s wants so generously provided for with no requirement in return beyond a modicum of common courtesy—surely such duties will not be too taxing for someone of your undeniable…resources?”
    His voice lifted interrogatively, reminding Jessica of his repeated questions on the subject of how she had survived during the past year. She knew he was frankly mistrustful of her claims that she had supported her family by giving drawing lessons, and she suspected that only the patent lack of any male presence in her household had prevented him from accusing her of accepting some man’s carte blanche. More than once she had been tempted to tell him the truth, disclosing her identity as the cartoonist Erinys, but each time she opened her mouth to speak her furious denials had been silenced by the ominous realization that she needed to preserve her anonymity in case she and her child should have to flee the Chase again. She thought with grim satisfaction of her secret account in the Brighton bank. To Raeburn the sum of Jessica’s assets would seem niggling, pitifully small, but to Jessica that small amount of money spelled security. On that day when the earl at last manufactured some pretext for taking Lottie from her, he would discover to his chagrin that his widowed sister-in-law was not the typically helpless, utterly vulnerable female that he assumed her to be….
    The carriage passed through the arched gates and onto the smooth graveled driveway, shifting slightly at the difference in road surface. The baby whimpered uneasily in Willa’s arms, and the maid crooned soothingly to her. Jessica glanced warily at Raeburn. Like most men, he was not enamored of young children, and he had assumed that Lottie would travel separately with Willa in the slower baggage coach; however, when Jessica had reminded him, flushing, that she needed to stay beside her daughter in order to feed her, he had vetoed the suggestion that she too ride with her maid. The breaking weather had made it unlikely that Raeburn would then elect to make the journey on his great gray stallion while the women rode inside the elegant carriage, but still Jessica had thought that somehow he would find a way to travel apart from them. When they had all been crowded into the coach, Raeburn ignoring Willa as if she were invisible and taking only minimal notice of Lottie, Jessica wondered irritably if he feared she would try to leap from the moving carriage if he did not keep her under constant surveillance.
    But when, at irregular intervals, Jessica had draped her shawl modestly over her thin shoulders before she unbuttoned the bodice of her dress to nurse her baby, her irritation was superseded by another emotion that she was unable to name.
    Raeburn watched her actions with a hooded intensity that disturbed her deeply, his close gaze making her extremely reluctant to bare her breast in his presence, even for this most natural of purposes. Somehow all she could think of was that day by the roadside when his large hands had fondled her in a way no man had ever done before, and she blushed deeply, wondering if he remembered it too…. Inevitably her tension had communicated itself to her child, making Lottie fussy and colicky. The dreary journey out of London had begun to stretch endlessly.
    “It’s good to be home,” Raeburn said fervently when the carriage swayed to a halt at the foot of the wide steps leading up to the colonnaded portico. He glanced at Jessica as if challenging her to dispute his exclamation, and she refrained from commenting that in winter she found the cold marble facade of Renard Chase about as inviting as an iceberg.
    Silently she adjusted her bonnet, her lips pursed, her green eyes unreadable. An