The Clergyman's Daughter Read Free Page A

of the page to the final, “Wishing for your renewed health and productivity, we remain,” then she wadded the paper into a ball and flung it into the fire, just missing the edge of the soup kettle.
    Damn those clutch-fisted old bastards! she thought irritably. Would it really have been asking too much to expect them to pay her the extra few pounds she usually received for her work, especially when, by their own admission, the satirical cartoons of Erinys were proving to be the most popular item produced by their shop? Of course she deserved better compensation. She wasn’t a beginner anymore, begging for someone, anyone, to publish her work. Her scathing and expertly drawn indictments of the ton were enjoyed by the same people who relished those of Gillray and Rowlandson, and while she hesitated to equate herself with those master satirists, she knew that her work was superior to, say, the crudities of John Mason, her nearest competitor. She was certain that Mssrs. Haxton and Welles knew it too, and she found herself wishing desperately for a chance to go to London and confront them.
    But she could not to go London. Her carefully guarded anonymity was as much a trap as a protection. She could not face her publishers without revealing that “Erinys,” named after one of the avenging Furies of the Greek myths, was not only a woman, but also the notorious Jessica Foxe, the drawing teacher, upstart daughter of an impecunious country parson, who eloped to Scotland with the younger brother of an earl, and then, when her noble brother-in-law magnanimously recognized the marriage and allowed the errant couple to live at Renard Chase, his palatial country estate, proved herself to be quarrelsome and encroaching and utterly blind to the gracious condescension being shown her. The same Jessica Foxe who capped all her previous misadventures by running away the night of her husband’s funeral.
    Willa, reading with the accuracy of long acquaintance the grim expressions playing over Jessica’s bloodless features, handed her mistress a steaming mug of broth and said, “Here, eat something. There’s no problem in the world that doesn’t seem more solvable when you’re warm and have food in you.”
    Jessica accepted the cup with thanks, but she only half heard her friend’s comforting words. Smooth brow furrowed, she was lost in the memory of a dream-washed spring day eighteen months before, the day she had been made brutally aware that, for a poor clergyman’s daughter, at least, even some dreams could be dangerous….
    * * * *
    Looking back, she wondered if the day had really been as beautiful as she remembered, or if her memories were tainted by her own emotions. She had been nineteen and in love. Her eyes had challenged the fresh new leaves on the elm trees for greenness, her step had been light despite the heavy wooden sabots she wore, almost a skip, undaunted by the prospect of the eight miles she must walk from the Palladian grandeur of Renard Chase back to her home in the village. She knew that at the vicarage she would have no time to rest before she was expected to oversee the feeding and bathing of her numerous younger siblings, and later she would have to help her worn and ailing mother, who was rake thin except for her expanding belly, try to find enough good bits of fabric left in cast-off garments to piece together a new dress for the forthcoming baby. The twice-weekly drawing lessons Jessica gave—or rather, tried to give—to Lady Claire Foxe, the incredibly spoiled half sister of Lord Raeburn, a gawky fifteen-year-old with red hair and freckles, were regarded by her father as something of a holiday, a frivolous waste of time that he permitted only because the money she received helped eke out his inadequate stipend.
    Jessica herself knew how little enjoyment she received from those lessons. Lady Claire was willful and capricious, and when crossed, she was inclined to draw herself up like a disapproving dowager