Jessica Read Online Free Page A

that’s no whisper. Mind, I’ve always thought it were Sir Francis as she loved, and never Master Philip, but her folks wanted the Woodville marriage and anyway, Sir Francis had his heart set on you.”
    “Your instincts are nearly always right, Tamsin, and if you think she has always loved Francis then I am prepared to believe that it is so. But does Francis love her?”
    “Him? I doubt that if he did he would let her know. First off she were Master Philip’s wife, and now only recently widowed. He’d not make so low as to express his feelings one way or the other. He’m a gentleman through and through, a proper gentleman, not like some others as come to mind.”
    Jessica flushed. “The kettle’s boiling.”
    “Ah,” muttered Tamsin enigmatically.
    The kettle’s lid was rattling as steam billowed out. The tea hissed pleasingly in the silver teapot and Tamsin sat down while it brewed.
    “Miss Jess, I know as it’s none of my concern, but now seems as good a time as any to say what’s on my mind. Sir Francis loved you once, and today at the Feathers it seemed to me he was still smitten. Perhaps it was just his way, but nonetheless, that’s how it looked. Now, Miss Rosamund loved him those years ago when you jilted him for Master Philip. She saw Sir Francis hurt by you and she saw her own husband desert her for you. As if that weren’t enough, you now come back to Henbury and already you’ve been talking with Francis again. She’ll see you as a threat all over again. I beg of you, Miss Jess, stay well away from her, for any meeting ‘twixt the two of you will only be painful — and you’m the one as’ll be hurt the most for she’ve got right on her side. You didn’t then and you haven’t now.”
    “But I don’t want Francis.”
    “It don’t matter what you want now, it’s how she’s going to see it that counts.”
    “Two years is a long time, isn’t it?” Jessica’s green eyes were dark in the light of the candle Tamsin had set on the table.
    “Well, less’n you want to go to the poorhouse, Miss Jess, two years is what you must live here for. The sooner it passes the better for all concerned. Now then, drink this and then we can get us back upstairs to bed.” Tamsin frowned at the cut hem again. “That great, foolish man, cutting it like that. It be spoiled beyond redemption!”
    Jessica sipped the tea, thinking of what Tamsin had told her and thinking, too, about the strange affair of Sir Nicholas Woodville and the smugglers.
     

Chapter 4
     
    The sun was warm as Jessica walked slowly along the track above Applegarth. Ladywood was noisy with the singing of birds and now and then she heard the lazy humming of bees among the foxgloves that bloomed among the ferns. She would not go much farther now, just to the brow of the hill above Varangian to see the sea.
    She twirled her parasol, watching the twisting shadow on the road before her, and breathing deeply of the scented Somerset air. Everything was so sweet and warm, so much as she remembered it. A tubby black and white puppy erupted from the ferns close by, yapping and capering around her as if fit to burst.
    “Nipper!”
    She turned as a young man carrying a shepherd’s crook came from a hidden path calling the mischievous, disobedient puppy to heel.
    “Good morning, miss, I’m sorry if he frightened you.”
    She smiled, liking his pleasant look and friendly brown eyes. “He didn’t frighten me, he’s a little small to do that.”
    “He’s full of his own importance this morning, for he’s had his first working with the sheep.”
    “Whose sheep?”
    “Sir Francis’ — I’m his chief shepherd now my father’s dead and gone.”
    “You must be Jamie Pike then!”
    “Yes, miss.” He looked puzzled, “How? ...”
    “You don’t remember me do you? And yet once we sat next to each other in church and you pulled my hair until I scratched you and we were both chided in front of the whole congregation.”
    His eyes cleared.