interpreted, meant the female part)—saw things quite otherwise. Jessica, for all her advanced years, could not possibly be allowed to remain behind, since that would mean her returning alone. Poor Ruth, apparently, counted for nothing. All sorts of harm might befall Jessica in the form of footpads or highwaymen or rude hostlers at inns or wild beasts or broken axles or torrential storms.
“Besides which,” her grandmother, the Dowager Countess of Riverdale, had pointed out as though to clinch the matter, “it simply is not done for any lady to travel alone, Jessica, as you must be well aware. Even someone my age.”
Grandmama was well into her seventies.
Jessica’s protests had gone unheeded.
“You cannot possibly stay here,” Jessica’s mother had said at last, a note of finality in her voice, “as much as I understand your longing to spend more time with Abigail—and hers to have you. I cannot possibly remain here with you. The Season is about to begin and I will need to get ready for the removal to London. So will you, Jessica. Perhaps we can arrange something for another time.”
Jessica had cringed at the very thought of going back to London in order to participate in all the glittering entertainments of yet another Season—her sixth. Or was it her seventh? She had lost count. It was not that she hated balls and picnics and concerts and all the other parties and such with which the ton amused itself during the months of spring, while Parliament was in session. But these entertainments could very quickly become repetitive and tedious. And one tended to see the same people year after year and wherever one went.
Her continued single state was always more apparent in London than it was in the country.
“Oh, Mama,” she had protested. Aunt Matilda had been smiling sympathetically at her, but it was not sympathy she had needed. It was a defender.
That was when Avery—her brother, the duke—had come to her rescue. He had listened in silence to the family conference, sitting in one corner of Gil and Abby’s sitting room holding Beatrice, the newest addition to his family, while she sucked partly on her thumb and partly on one formerly pristine fold of his elaborately tied neckcloth. When he had spoken, it had been with what sounded like a sigh, as though he had found the whole proceeding excruciatingly tedious, as no doubt he had.
“I daresay,” he had said, “you would all consider Jessica both safe from harm and properly preserved from scandal if she were to travel home in the ducal carriage with her maid while Edwin Goddard followed close behind in another carriage, each conveyance manned with a coachman and a footman upon the box, and half a dozen outriders to serve as escorts.”
The Marquess of Dorchester, Abby’s stepfather, had chuckled. “All of them clad in the brightest ducal livery, I suppose, Netherby?” he had said.
“But of course.” Avery had raised his eyebrows as though surprised that the matter could even be in doubt.
“It is a splendid idea,” Anna had said, beaming at her husband and her sister-in-law. “Avery will send them whenever you are ready to leave, Jessica. How lovely it will be for you and Abby to enjoy some time together after the whirlwind of the celebrations during the past week.”
And that had settled it. Though Avery spoke only rarely during family gatherings, when he did speak no one ever seemed to question his pronouncements. Jessica had never quite understood it. He did not look like an overwhelmingly powerful man or even behave like one. He was of only average height. He was also slight and graceful of build, with very blond hair and a face of angelic beauty. He might have looked . . . well, effeminate. But he did not, and somehow he wielded a great deal of power without ever having to bluster or bully or even raise his voice. Jessica suspected that most people outside his immediate family feared him but did not understand why any more than she did.
The result of those few words he had spoken after the lengthy discussion that had preceded them was that now, three weeks after everyone else had left, she was on the road back to London, at the very heart of a cavalcade that drew astonished stares and awed scrutiny in every town and village or hamlet through which it passed.
Being a woman—or, rather, being a lady—certainly had its frustrations despite the luxury of cushions that wrapped her in comfort and