The Hidden Heart Read Free Page A

the army, most of their acquaintances and friends, even the man she had thought loved her, had turned away from her, but General Streathern had not. He had come to pay his condolences after her father’s death, a courtesy few other of his military friends had seen fit to exercise.
    Her father’s death had left Jessica penniless. She had refused to seek the help of her father’s family, who had scorned him after the scandal. For a time she had stayed with her dead mother’s brother, but it had been an untenable situation. He had five daughters of his own, all coming up to marriageable age and making their debuts. The last thing they needed was another young female about the place, and Jessica, whose father had raised her to be strong-minded and independent, was accustomed to running a household, not living meekly in one. She and her aunt did not get along, and she had soon seen that she could not live with them, either. There had followed a series of positions as governess or companion, but she was generally considered too young or too attractive or too tainted by scandal to be hired, and when she was, she often found herself leaving because of the unwelcome advances of a male of the house.
    It had struck Jessica as grimly ironic that she, who had struggled through her younger years as a gawky, clumsy ugly duckling of a girl, had now somehow become the unwelcome object of male lust. She knew that the development of her late-blooming figure had had something to do with it, but she had difficulty recognizing that her despised riot of flame-colored hair was a lure to men, or that her features, once too large for her face, had matured into striking beauty. So, rather cynically, she laid the bulk of the blame for her attraction for men on the fact that they were drawn to her because she was no longer under her father’s protection. They wanted her, in short, she decided, because they thought she was an easy target now, a woman who was at their mercy because she had to work for a living.
    Dismayed and embittered, she had stopped applying for positions as a governess and had managed to scrape out a living taking in fancy sewing. She had a good eye and hand for needlework, and when she swallowed her pride and went humbly asking for work, a number of women of wealth and position had paid for beautiful embroidery. Still it was a difficult and minimal living, and there were times when she despaired. Winters were the worst, for it cost more to live, as she had to heat her small room. She tried to save on coal, but she could not do the fine threadwork with fingers that were freezing. One winter, about six years earlier, the amount of sewing that she had been given had fallen off, and then she fell ill and had to turn away work for a week. She found herself suddenly on the brink of disaster, and she was forced to consider going back to live with her uncle or even asking her father’s stiff-necked family for help.
    It was then that the General had appeared on her doorstep, a gruff, unlikely angel of mercy, and had offered her a position as companion and governess to his great-niece, Gabriela, whose parents had died a month earlier, leaving the General her guardian. The General had immediately thought of Jessica, with whom he had retained contact throughout the years. In fact, she had long suspected that he was behind some of the bonuses and gifts that she had received from her customers over the years. Jessica had seized on the offer of a position with joyful relief, and she had never regretted her decision.
    Her time here had been happy. She soon grew to love her charge, and as she stayed, she took on more and more of the running of the household. The servants relied on her for advice and orders, quick to realize her competence, and the General was happy to turn such “women’s things” over to her. She enjoyed her life here, and it seemed almost as if General Streathern and Gabriela were her family. She did not think she could have