Rushed to the Altar by Feather Jane

Author:Feather, Jane [Feather, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Pocket
Published: 2010-06-22T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Jasper decided to leave seduction to follow its own course for the time being. They dined companionably and he set himself to find out as much as he could about Clarissa’s past. “Did you grow up in Bedfordshire?” It was a casual question, asked as he passed her a dish of artichokes. “Is that where your family is from?”

Clarissa helped herself to the vegetable, her mind working rapidly. It was time now to come up with a story, a convincing life story that would explain her choice of profession and her presence at 32 King Street. She racked her brain trying to remember what she knew of Bedfordshire, a county of which she had absolutely no experience. Bedford was the county town, that much she did know.

“My parents had a small farm when I was a baby. I don’t really remember much about it. It was in the country outside Bedford. And then something happened, I don’t know exactly what, and my father lost the farm.” She sliced into the breast of capon on her plate, looking up to give him what she hoped was a bleak smile. “My parents moved to Bedford, where they thought my father could get work, but then the plague came and they both died.”

“How old were you?” He passed her a bowl of crisply roasted potatoes, watching her closely.

She shrugged, taking a potato, hoping that indulging her appetite wouldn’t lessen the poignancy of her tale. “Three or four . . . I was put on the parish and sent to the workhouse. They didn’t work us little ones until we were five or so, then we worked in the kitchens and the laundry, and every now and again well-dressed women would come and we’d be paraded before them and if they took a fancy to a girl they took her on as a maid.”

Jasper’s clear gaze didn’t waver from her countenance as she spoke. “Did that happen to you?”

“Yes, quite quickly. A lawyer’s family in Bedford. The woman wanted a new maid-of-all-work she could train up.” As she spun her tale, she kept in her mind’s eye the image of the little girl, breakfastless, scrubbing the steps with her chapped hands and cheeks on a frigid morning. “There was a housekeeper, who was kind enough, but the mistress was hard.”

“Who taught you to read?”

She looked at him, startled. She hadn’t expected such a question. But of course a woman with the life story she was inventing would probably be illiterate. He knew she could write her own name, but that didn’t necessarily argue for all-round literacy. “How do you know I can?”

He shook his head with a short laugh. “What do you take me for, Clarissa?”

“Not a fool,” she responded, rapidly concocting a convincing explanation.

Jasper was beginning to doubt the truth of that, but he pressed on. “Then answer the question.”

“There was one son, seven years older than I was. He took a fancy to me. At first he teased me because I couldn’t read or write, and then he offered to teach me.

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