The Hidden Heart by Candace Camp Read Free Book Online Page B

bedroom was very pretty, if a trifle young for her, with a yellow embroidered coverlet and a lace canopy over the bed, and wallpaper of cheerful yellow roses climbing a trellis. There was a rocker beside the bed, as well as a white chest and a small white table and chairs.
    Jessica’s room, beside Gabriela’s, was much starker, with only a small oak chest for her clothes and a narrow oak bed, but Jessica did not expect anything more. Governess’s rooms, in general, were neither large nor particularly accommodating. At least this one boasted a small fireplace, which had not been the case in every house where Jessica had stayed.
    She was overwhelmed with weariness as soon as her eyes fell upon the bed, and it was all she could do to take the time to wash her face and change into her bedclothes. At last, with a grateful sigh, she stretched out between the sheets and closed her eyes.
    Tomorrow would be better, she told herself again, and she fell asleep, thinking about the troublesome duke.

3
    L ady Leona Vesey crossed her arms and looked over at her husband as if he were a rat that had just run into the room. They were sitting in the single private dining chamber in the Grey Horse Inn in the early afternoon, waiting for their luncheon to be brought. Leona had had more than enough of the uncertain service and unsophisticated amenities of a village inn. As if those things were not irritation enough, Lord Vesey had just told her that they were going back to the General’s manor house.
    “Have you gone mad?” she asked in a scathing voice, her tone implying that she had already answered her own question. “Why in the world would we want to go back to the General’s house—I’m sorry, I should say, to that misbegotten brat’s house? I, for one, have no liking for having the door slammed in my face.”
    Her husband scowled back at her. He had spent the evening after the reading of the General’s will comforting himself with a large bottle of port, and, as a consequence, this afternoon his tongue felt coated with fur and his head seemed to have acquired an army of tiny gnomes hammering away.
    Lord Vesey did not like his wife at the best of times. Right now he was entertaining cheerful visions of putting his hands around her throat and squeezing until her eyes bulged. “The door won’t be slammed in our face.”
    “Your brain is obviously soaked in port. Don’t you remember? The General kicked us out.”
    “Yes, you bollixed that one up, all right,” Lord Vesey agreed.
    “I?” Leona exclaimed, her eyes widening. “ I bollixed it up? You were the man’s great-nephew. It was you who made him despise you.”
    “Ah, but you were supposed to be able to wrap an old man around your finger. Remember?” Vesey grinned evilly as he reminded his wife of her earlier, confident words when they had first heard that General Streathern was on his deathbed.
    Personally, Lord Vesey had never admired his wife’s looks. He had married her because she was the only woman he had found in the Ton who was utterly indifferent to his little peccadilloes and quite happy to let him go his own way…as long as she was allowed to go hers. Other men fell all over themselves to get at those swelling breasts of Leona’s, but he found such lushness rather grotesque. He much preferred a lither, slimmer silhouette…such as the one on that Gabriela chit. Unconsciously he licked his lips as he thought of her. Leona was far too old, as well. It was the sweet bloom of youth that he preferred, and there was nothing quite like the joy of being the first to pick the fruit.
    He relished Leona’s look of chagrin so much that he went on. “That is the second one, you know. First you bungled that affair with Devin last summer, and now you couldn’t even rouse the interest of an old man. I fear you are losing your touch, my dear. Or is it your age showing, do you think?”
    Flame leaped in Leona’s eyes, and her face screwed up in an unattractive snarl.