Chapter 24
If it was the last thing Jessie did, she was going to find her way back to Charlestown!
She was not—absolutely not—about to remain in this crude hollow even one more instant! In the short time she’d been out of the room, someone had managed to unpack her trunks.
Angrily she now searched the bureaus for her personal items, and when she found them tucked neatly away into Christian’s wardrobe, she snatched them out at once, stomping across the room and shoving them wrathfully back into the trunk in which they belonged.
She would not remain near that man for even one more accursed moment! Not if she could help it!
She didn’t bother to turn as the door opened, knowing very well that Christian was the only one who would dare enter while she was within without knocking.
She was ready for him now, she swore. If he came near her, if he dared to touch her, if he so much as dared utter a word, she knew just what to say to the man, besides, of course, I loathe you.
Good Lord! What was wrong with her that she would lose even her ability to speak coherently when in his presence?
She was startled speechless when it was Quincy who spoke behind her instead.
“Anythin’ else I can do fer ye, mum?”
She turned abruptly, her eyes wide with surprise, though she recovered enough to fix the old man with a wrathful glare.
If her eyes had been pistols, Quincy would have tumbled lifeless to the oak floor.
“Did—you—do—this?” she ground out fiercely, each word sharper and more hostile than the last. She waved a handful of her clothing at him, and the old man nodded warily, backing away a pace.
“Well! I never gave you permission to unpack my belongings, now did I? And it is because I do not—I repeat, do not!—intend to stay!”
Cramming the green silk dress Christian had chosen for her earlier and a pair of matching slippers into the largest trunk, she slammed it shut and fastened the tarnished brass clasp.
“Now, Jessamine,” Christian appealed as he sauntered into the room at last. “There is absolutely no cause for you to be taking your frustrations out upon poor Quince. He did only what I requested he do.” She spun about to face him, ready to do battle.
Nodding discreetly to Quincy, Christian commanded the old man to leave.
“Now,” he directed, “unpack your trunks. You’re not going anywhere.”
“You can’t keep me here!” she shouted madly. “And I won’t stay!”
“And you loathe me. So I’ve heard.” He laughed then, the mirthful sound infuriating. “Unpack your things, Jessamine,” he said again, still chuckling.
“I will not!” She turned and slammed the lid down definitively.
Her breathing labored and her heart hammering, she stood an instant, weighing her options as she stared blindly at her trunks.
Truly, there were no options available to her, for how would she go back?
She gritted her teeth in outrage. God curse him, but she certainly didn’t have to share the cad’s bed, now did she?
Nay! She didn’t! Seizing the side handle of the smallest trunk, she jerked it into movement.
With some effort, she pulled it toward the door.
Christian leaned against the doorframe, watching her with unconcealed interest, eyeing her as though she were some novel curiosity. Not until she’d moved the trunk into the hall did he speak.
“Would you care to tell me what you’re doing?”
“Picking gooseberries, can’t you see!” He chuckled, and she said, “I’m not sharing your filthy bed!”
Brows raised, Christian glanced at the newly made bed, his gaze returning to her. “Actually,” he countered, grinning, “It is a perfectly clean bed.”
Jessie had made little progress back into the room since moving the one trunk into the hall, and he thought it might be because she’d managed to trap her skirt beneath the unwieldy baggage. With some difficulty, he resisted the urge to aid her, and the greater urge to laugh.
Unable to keep himself from it, he chuckled when Jessie finally discovered her skirt pinned and uttered an almost inaudible groan of mortification.
He might have asked her if she needed his help, but he rather doubted she would accept it.
Besides, he was thoroughly amused watching her struggles at the moment.
“You might at least tell me where you intend to go,” he said much too jovially.
She gave him a very unladylike snort, a deadly glare, and turned again to the stubborn trunk upon the bed, shoving it with all her might. She said nothing until she’d passed him by, and was in the nail.
“’Tis none of your concern where I intend to sleep!”
Christian’s smile faded and his gut twisted as she halted beside the only other door along the corridor. His tone warning her, he asked, “Surely not with Ben, my love.”
Her gaze flew to his angry blue eyes. “Oh! You would think such a despicable thing, wouldn’t you? Nay!” she shrieked. “Not with Ben! And not with you, for certain!”
She had the bloody trunk halfway to the stairs now, and shaking his head, Christian wondered just how she expected to carry the thing below. “You do recall,” he told her presently, “that there are no available rooms beyond this wing... unless, of course, you count the entrance hall.”
“I shall take my chances, my lord. Surely I would prefer to sleep outside—in the rain,” she added with a cutting smile, “to your delightful company!”
No matter that he’d braced himself against her anger, her stinging words, expertly flung, cut him to the quick. “Suit yourself, then.”
He muttered an inaudible curse and then turned his back on her hapless struggles, reentering his room and slamming the door so hard that it shook the walls.
Later that night, Jessie was forced to admit the truth of the matter: Christian had been right, and he had warned her, so she had not even the solace of blaming him for her misery.
There had, in fact, been no other rooms available for her use. Only the one wing was complete. Below stairs there was the dining hall and Christian’s study, both of them without doors or even curtains on the wretched windows. Anyone could have peered within.
The other wing, the one she now occupied, remained only partially constructed, but at least this room was windowless, because the windows were as yet boarded up.
Here, at least, no one could spy her—unless, of course, the person somehow managed to climb atop the high brick walls. She shuddered at the thought.
A strong, sturdy, lockable door separated this one wing from the rest of the house.
The only problem, however, was that it locked from the other side, probably to keep out prowlers, judging by the size of the bolt.
She’d managed only to drag the one trunk out of his chamber, and it now sat flush against the door, barring it from any who would enter.
Striving for a comfortable position, she fidgeted upon the pallet she had made from scraps of wood in the hall and a lone blanket she’d borrowed, but try as she might, she couldn’t find relief from the stone-hard bed she had made for herself—much less sleep!
Staring despondently through the skeletal roof, she spied the half-moon peeping through a muddy night.
It seemed to be eyeing her sleepily. She sighed at her fancy and shivered.
The night air was much too cool for comfort.
Heaven help her, she wanted desperately to close her eyes and forget where she lay, but she could not. Oh, that man, he was insufferable!
Crickets trilled softly. An owl hooted in the distance.
Jessie listened intently to those peaceful night sounds, the tender music of nature, and despite the chilly November air, she felt at last the inexorable lure of sleep.
Exhausted by the trials of the day, she closed her eyes, but even as she did so, an ominous roar sounded in the near distance.
Her eyes flew wide to see the skies suddenly burst with light.
“Oh, dear God... don’t let it rain! Not now!
Not tonight! please, please…” But He was not to hear her; a mere instant later, she felt the first tender droplets, carried all the way to her pallet by the rising wind.
Staring incredulously at her hand, at the glistening moonlit raindrops, she felt suddenly like weeping.
She lay there for the longest time, wishing the rain away, telling herself that it was but a dream and mat she would awaken snug and dry and safe in her cousin’s home. “Oh, God,” she sobbed. “’Tis a bloody nightmare!”
Once the rain had thoroughly soaked her blanket, she moved onto the crude unfinished wood floor, into the far corner, but that spot was no better than the first, and she moved back to her pallet to lie there, resigned to her misery.
Her eyes squeezed tightly shut as she remembered her pledge to Christian, that she would prefer the cold, bitter rain to his company.
God was surely punishing her now for her cruel words.
And curse Christian, for he’d merely smirked at her before turning his back and leaving her in the corridor to fend with her trunks alone.
By God, she would not go crawling to him now, even if it rained all blessed night, even if she sickened from it, even if she died of exposure.
But she would not die! she told herself firmly. She would not!
She would live to regret this.