A little more than an hour later Jessica was seated in the stagecoach between two large persons, one male and one female, both of whom were displaying their disappointment at her late arrival to take the empty middle seat by ignoring the fact that she was there at all. Not that she wished for their conversation. But it would have been far more comfortable if they had at least acknowledged her need for room on the seat. She resigned herself to two days of discomfort. Indeed, she must enjoy these two days. At least while the journey lasted she belonged somewhere. Her meager resources would not keep her for very long in London. She had had to pay for her own ticket on the stagecoach.
Had he asked that she be dismissed? Jessica wondered. Did he even know that she had been? She had expected it, had lain awake all night wondering what her punishment would be and fully expecting that it would be dismissal. After all, this was not like the time when Lady Barrie's brother had kissed her beneath the mistletoe while his wife and all the rest of the family had looked on, laughing merrily. Her punishment that time had been merely nine days confined to her room and the schoolroom abovestairs until the visitor she had enticed with her wicked ways had finally taken himself and his wife home.
This was different. This time she had practiced her wiles on the intended husband of Sybil. There could be no forgiveness for such a heinous crime, even after a suitably harsh punishment. A suitor had arrived from London, and the suitor was to be converted into a betrothed and a husband with all due speed so that Sybil could have the great distinction of being a countess at the age of seventeen. Despite the extreme plainness of her face and figure and despite her petulant and bad-tempered nature. No governess was to be allowed to distract the attention of the suitor.
And so she had been verbally abused early that morning by Lady Barrie, called whore among other insults, and told that she might take herself away from the house within three hours. She was not invited to speak a word and indeed did not attempt to do so. She had stood quietly before her employer, looking her calmly in the eye, a daring action that had only stirred the other into further wrath. Servants were expected to direct their eyes at the floor when Lady Barrie condescended to speak to them, like Moses, afraid that the light from the Godhead's countenance would blind them if they looked into it.
Jessica was too accustomed to her former employer to feel any great anger or bitterness at her treatment. It was to be expected. But what about him, the Earl of Rutherford? Was she angry with him? Did she now hate him? She tested the idea in her mind and came to the conclusion that no, she did not really blame him for the course events had taken. Not unless he had asked for her dismissal, that was. But she did not believe he had. What would be his motive? She had refused to go to bed with him. That would not be of sufficient importance to provoke the Earl of Rutherford into vicious revenge. She could say with some certainty that at least three of the chambermaids would have been only too willing to warm his bed at any moment of the night or day.
"Some persons thinks they can turn up at the last moment and take the whole seat that decent folks has paid good money for," the large female at her left remarked loudly to the large male on her right. She was attempting to locate something in the covered basket she held on her knees.
"Some persons do like to put on airs," the male agreed with a wheeze. "Prob'ly used to traveling around in their private coaches where they can spread out all along one seat and stretch their feet on the pposite one."
"Nobody better not try to put their feet on this seat," a passenger of superior wit across from them said. "Not unless they wants ter walk on stumps that begins above the ankles for the rest of their born days, that is."
Jessica was further squeezed by the hearty laughter of her neighbors. She wisely chose to ignore all remarks and won a sniff and a charge of being "uppity" from the female beside her for her pains.
She had found him powerfully attractive from the day of his arrival. As who would not? she asked herself. The Earl of Rutherford was a good-looking man by any standard: tall, athletically built, his aristocratic features, very dark hair, and blue eys designed by heaven to make any normal female heart skip a beat. To a lonely, love-starved young lady he appeared quite irresistible.
She had rarely been in the same room with him, had never been closer to him than the width of a room, had spoken not a word to him. He had not even noticed she existed, she had believed. But she had looked when no one was observing her, and what she saw had filled her with longing, the longing for pretty, flattering gowns, for wearing her hair about her face, for the freedom to smile and lift her eyes to the world. She had longed for one of his looks, one indication that he knew she existed, one sign that he knew she was a woman.
She had been kept severely in the background. Even her usual task of chaperoning Sybil during visits and walks was usurped by the girl's middle-aged abigail. She had been sent back to her room one morning when it was judged that her hair was not tightly enough pulled back and some wave remained.
She had not expected him to notice her. Indeed, she had not thought he would stay long. He had come there by some chance as a prospective suitor for Sybil. It seemed unlikely to Jessica that he was as firm in his intentions as Lord and Lady Barrie seemed to believe. Such a man would have no trouble at all finding a wife. Even if his pockets were to let, he could surely find a more amiable wife among the ranks of the wealthy than Sybil. Jessica did not believe that in two years she had made any impression on the girl's character whatsoever. She was as bad-tempered, as selfish and uncontrolled now as she must have been from childhood. And she had no beauty with which to blind a suitor to the defects of her character until after a marriage had taken place.
But he had been there a whole week, and he had noticed her. He had even known her name last night. Of course, he had noticed her in one way only. She was a governess. A servant. And apparently presentable enough in her nightgown and with her hair down to be deemed worthy of a night in his bed. There was nothing remotely flattering about such notice.
But oh, she had been tempted!
He had looked quite suffocatingly masculine, dressed as he was only in his breeches and a silk shirt open at the throat. His hair had been tousled, as if he had just risen from his bed. And those blue eyes, seen at close quarters, had been disturbingly direct.
She had felt almost instant desire. She had wanted to be held against that tall, strong body. She had wanted his hands and his mouth on her. And truth to tell, she had felt her knees weaken at the thought of going to his bedchamber with him and allowing him any intimacy that he chose to take. Virtue, chastity, virginity had seemed dreary taskmasters for a few mad moments. She had had but to say the word. She could have experienced delights to dream of for a lifetime. He had assured her that he was skilled, that he liked to give as well as receive pleasure. And she had not doubted him for a moment.
Why had she held back, then? Why had she denied her own desire, her own deepest need? Perhaps it was just the knowledge that what for her would have been the experience of a lifetime would have been merely the delight of a moment for him, something he would have forgotten after a few days and the next woman. She had found when it came to the point that she could not degrade herself to that extent. She could not allow herself to become what all men seemed to expect female servants to be: ready bedfellows. Not persons at all. Merely the human instruments through which they could satisfy their sexual appetites. She could not do it and live with herself the next day.
But she was not at all sure, Jessica thought, sighing inwardly as the large female changed position and jostled her further with hip and elbow, she was not sure at all that she would be strong enough to make the same decision if it were hers to make all over again at this very moment. It would be something indeed, something worth having, to be granted just a few minutes out of a life of neglect and insult in which to be the full focus of a gentleman's attentions. To know that for those minutes he would be intent only on her, on both pleasuring and being pleasured. To be seen fully just once, wanted fully.