that she would suffer the ignominy of being turned away from the door. Besides, she was not sure that she would wish to be beholden to the earl for anything. Perhaps he would use his generosity against her in the future.
That was unfair, though, she realized as soon as the thought had entered her mind. Had he wished to use anything against her, he might have taken advantage of her physical presence in his bed and her verbal agreement to become his mistress at the Blue Peacock Inn. And it was very unlikely that a man of Lord Rutherford's rank and physical appeal would wish to renew his attentions to someone who had repulsed him in quite such a way.
She would have to call at Berkeley Square, she realized finally. She had completed her journey to London on the stagecoach despite Lord Rutherford's almost insistent invitation to ride with him in his carriage. She had refused to allow him to take her to his elderly acquaintance, but had been willing to accept only a written name and address. She had had to spend another night on the road.
Part of her had bitterly regretted her refusal to join the earl in his carriage. He had left before the stagecoach, and from the moment of his departure until her arrival in London she had had to suffer the vicious sarcasm and more open condemnation of her fellow travelers. In fact, the female next to whom she had sat on the previous day had refused to share a seat with 'a gen'leman's bit o' fluff.'
By the time she had arrived in London her spirits were so low, her confidence so bruised, that she had been rash enough to stay at a respectable hotel. It was not a grand place and not expensive, but it was far beyond her means. She could afford to stay there only one more night, and that was provided she did not eat at all during the day. She had to go to Berkeley Square. And she would have to hope that the Dowager Duchess of Middleburgh would be able to find her an immediate situation.
But she would not beg, she thought, as she stood in the middle of the salon, afraid to approach too near to the fire, although her long walk through the streets of London had thoroughly chilled her, lest she look too forward to the lady when she came. A duchess! She had tried to shut her mind to that fact. Berkeley Square was bad enough.
The door was opened by a footman eventually and a tall, angular lady of exaggeratedly upright bearing swept into the room. Jessica's heart sank. The woman's face was decidedly stern. She looked at Jessica along a thin, pointed nose, for all the world as if she were inspecting a worm and trying to decide if she should have it speared and thrown outside or if she would merely squash it with her foot.
Jessica curtsied and found herself unconsciously resuming the meek manner she had always deemed necessary with the Barries.
'Miss Moore?' the lady said in a voice that matched exactly the expression on her face. 'You wished to see me?'
'Yes, your grace,' Jessica said, wishing that her voice did not sound quite so thin and breathless. 'The Earl of Rutherford said I might come here and beg you to help me find employment.' Not at all what she had wanted to say, she thought, annoyed at herself.
'And does the Earl of Rutherford think I am an employment agent?' the duchess asked, eyebrows raised. 'If it is work in my scullery you are seeking, child, you must go around to the kitchen door and speak with my housekeeper.'
Jessica allowed herself one hurried look up into the stern face. 'I have been a governess, your grace,' she said. 'But I see that Lord Rutherford assumed too much. Please forgive me, ma'am. I would not have come without his assurances that I might.'
'My grandson is a presumptuous puppy,' the duchess said. 'It comes of being the only son of his father and the only grandson of his grandmother. The boy has been spoiled. Thinks he can twist us all around his little finger. And very often succeeds.'
Her grandson! She might have known, Jessica thought. The two shared that air of haughtiness. But she felt even more embarrassed than she had already been. He had sent her to his grandmother.
'I-I did not know,' she said foolishly. 'Please forgive me. I shall not take any more of your time.'
'I thought you came for help,' the duchess said, sweeping across the room and seating herself with straight back on the edge of a chair by the fireplace. She motioned to a chair opposite hers. 'Sit down, gel. Your nose is red. Cold outside, is it? But then it usually is in November. Warm yourself. I shall send for coffee.'
'That is very good of you, your grace,' Jessica said, taking the offered chair after a moment's hesitation.
She was not a little disconcerted to find herself the object of a silent and intense scrutiny for all of the next minute.
'Well, the boy was right about one thing,' the duchess said at last. 'You are a gray governess. Did that
Barrie woman insist on such dreary and tasteless garments? Take off your bonnet, child.'
Jessica blushed as she obeyed.
The duchess clucked her tongue. 'Ruinous on the hair,' she said. 'Scraping it back like that takes all the natural shine and life out of it, gel. Miss Barrie is not a beauty, I take it?'
'Ma'am?' Jessica's eyes widened in incomprehension at this apparent
'The Barrie woman must be a clothhead if she thought to make you uglier than the gel by disguising you like this,' her companion continued. 'You only look the more intriguing. I don't wonder at Charles's trying to seduce you.'
The color flooded into Jessica's cheeks. She stared at the duchess, mesmerized.
'You must have some character,' the old lady said. 'I do not believe there are many females who have refused an invitation to Rutherford's bed. And you did it twice! I would give a bag of gold to have seen his face when you did so.' She chuckled with what sounded like genuine amusement. 'Did he turn quite purple?'
Jessica swallowed. 'He acted like a gentleman,' she said.
The old lady threw back her head and laughed with open amusement. 'I don't believe you know what you say, child,' she said. 'You mean he behaved as a gentleman is supposed to behave. After he had politely requested that you drop your clothes at the side of his bed, of course. But I am embarrassing you, gel. I have always spoken exactly what was on my mind. I was born for a different calling, the duke often used to tell me, except for one essential fact. I had the mind and the tongue but not the inclination. Now then, my dear, who are you?'
'Jessica Moore, your grace,' Jessica said.
'My butler told me that this morning and my grandson yesterday,' the duchess said patiently. 'I wish to know who Jessica Moore is.'
'My father was a clergyman,' she said. 'He was not a wealthy man. When he died, I was forced to seek employment. I have been governess to Lord Barrie's daughter for two years. I worked hard, ma'am, and tried to do a satisfactory job.'
'Did you often walk barefoot in the library at midnight?' the old lady asked with a return of the severity she had shown at the start of their interview. 'And with your nightgown on and your hair down your back?'
Jessica bit her lip with mortification. Did Lord Rutherford keep nothing from his grandmother? Did the old lady regarding her so closely know that she had lain in bed with him two nights ago, his hands touching even the most secret parts of her?
'I was forbidden to leave my room after bedtime,' she said. 'I am afraid that I disobeyed on three occasions during the two years.'
'And if I recommend you for employment as a governess again,' the duchess said, 'will I be accused in perhaps a few months' time of recommending a young woman who likes to tempt the male members of the household and then turn the prude?'
Jessica looked jerkily down at the hands clasped in her lap. 'I swear you will not, ma'am,' she said. 'I have learned my lesson, and I am truly sorry for what I did. Your reproof is well deserved.'
'Handsomely said,' the duchess commented. 'And where was your father's parish, gel?'
Jessica named a place in Gloucestershire.
'Your mother died before him?' the older lady asked.
'When I was but two years old,' Jessica said.
'In childbed?'
'Yes,' Jessica said. 'The baby died too. My brother.'
'Hm,' the old lady said. 'These things happen, gel. What will you do if I fail to help you?'
'I do not know, ma'am,' Jessica said, closing her eyes briefly against panic.
