“I suppose Crenshaw thought an alliance with a ducal family would be to his advantage. And Annie was a woman accustomed to running a large household. Crenshaw had a nice enough estate very near Birmingham.” What he said made sense, but wasn’t it possible that Crenshaw had fallen in love with the girl? Beatrice kept silent, not wanting to interrupt the story.
Jess looked at Beatrice for the first time. Now the memory suffused his face with anger. “Crenshaw married her with my father’s blessing and they came to London.” He shook his head as if trying to understand how so great a wrong could have started so innocently.
“That must have been hard for all of you, especially Olivia. To lose her best friend and have her be at a distance where travel was not easy.”
“I suppose. I was in London, too, but beyond an initial call I rarely saw them. I sensed that Crenshaw was jealous and I did not want to make Annie’s life difficult. Beyond that, the entertainments of married couples are somewhat different from those of bachelors.”
He picked up a biscuit and then put it back down.
“To be honest, I wanted no reminders of my family. After my mother’s death, the duke, my father, became less and less pleasant. Those of us who could left home, and Olivia escaped to the kitchen. After my father died and my brother Lynford became duke, my life was firmly placed in London. The only time I recall going back to Pennford was for his son’s christening.”
Did he know how revealing that was? How important his mother had been to his father and perforce to the family as a whole? She would have to think more about that later.
“Olivia tells me there were letters and all was well enough. But then there was the accident that took his brother and the heir’s lives and suddenly Annie’s husband was Baron Lord Crenshaw.”
Grief that brought good fortune could make for a very difficult period in any marriage, Beatrice thought.
Jess was staring at his hands, which he held between his knees in a relaxed way that made Beatrice think of defeat. There was another long silence before he went on.
“The letters from Annie stopped and my brother, who was duke by then, ordered me to call and see if all was well. I put it off for a fortnight just to be difficult.”
Jess caught her eye again, and the pain she saw in his gaze made her reach for his hand.
He held on to it with both of his.
“She was unwell?”
“Thin to the point of starvation, with bruises on her arms and a black eye. I asked her what had happened, but I did so in front of the baron and Annie would only say she had been ill and had fallen in a faint.
“I wondered if she had suffered a miscarriage, if you will excuse me for mentioning such a delicate subject. Trusting time would heal her, I left to meet my friends.”
Oh dear, that could not have been the right thing to do, Beatrice thought.
“The next day, Annie’s lady’s maid came to me to tell me that Crenshaw was off at a meeting and that I must come talk to her mistress. Annie’s bruises had haunted my dreams and I went back to his townhouse.” He shook his head. “I think if I had done no more than write to my brother, she would have been dead within the year.”
“But you did not and she is safe now.”
“Thanks to Leonie Darwell.”
“Our Darwell was Annie’s maid?” What a small world they were part of now, but that did explain Darwell’s strong defense of Jess and how he knew her Christian name.
“Yes, Darwell was her maid,” Jess went on. “She brought me back and insisted that Annie tell me the truth, that whenever Crenshaw was angry he would use his wife as his whipping boy. When they were to go out socially and he did not want her bruises to be seen he would shut her up in her room and not allow her to eat.”
Beatrice gasped. “But that sort of treatment is grounds for divorce, is it not?”
“Yes,” Jess said, but he was not done. “When Annie finished her story I told her she was coming with me, leaving everything behind, and that I would take her home to the Pennistans’ house in London and then escort her to Pennford when she was well enough. She left