Free The Clergyman's Daughter by Julia Jeffries Page B

lord’-ing. Will you mind very much? Somehow ‘Uncle Graham’ makes you sound rather cuddly….”
    Raeburn said repressively, “Considering that I’ve been aware of my new status as an uncle for scarcely a week, I’ve hardly had time to give the matter much thought.”
    “That’s funny,” Claire said, still teasing. “I’ve thought of nothing else since you sent word that….” Her voice faded as she turned back the edge of the blanket and gazed down at the baby’s tender features, petal-smooth skin startlingly white against the flaming curls that peeked from under the edge of the soft infant cap. “Oh, Jessica,” Claire whispered reverently, “she’s—she’s beautiful.” When she looked up again, her soft eyes shimmered. “Andy would have been so proud,” she said hoarsely.
    Jessica felt her throat constrict, and she shivered with a spasm of some curious emotion that might have been guilt. In all her battles with Raeburn, her continuing arguments over what was best for her child’s welfare, not once had she asked herself what Andrew would have wanted for his daughter….
    From the doorway behind them, another voice, feminine but querulous, intruded on Jessica’s reunion with her sister-in-law, rapping sharply, “Claire, come here!”
    Claire’s shoulders slumped. When Jessica glanced around and saw the woman standing behind her, her plump form framed by the tall menservants on either side of her, her spirits sank. She did not have to meet the glare of those pale eyes squinting balefully to know that at least one member of the household had not altered her opinion of the upstart drawing teacher. “Aunt” Flora Talmadge, a distant cousin of the Foxes and Claire’s chaperon when Raeburn was not at hand, regarded Jessica with open dislike. Her small mouth curled disdainfully as it had in those days when she had spied on Jessica and Andrew’s clandestine meetings in the portrait gallery, giving her pudgy face the pinched, tentative expression of someone about to sneeze. Jessica noted with spiteful triumph that the woman’s upper lip was still spotted from the cucumber lotion with which she bathed it nightly in a futile attempt to bleach out her grizzled ghost of a mustache.
    Mrs. Talmadge’s gaze shifted to her charge. “Claire, how many times must I tell you not to go out of doors without your cloak? You’ll catch your death. Come inside at once!” the woman snapped, and Claire flushed hotly.
    “Yes, Aunt,” she mumbled, staring down at the ground like a scolded child, but before she could turn toward the door, Raeburn’s large hand closed firmly over her shoulder, “Really, Aunt Talmadge,” he said with quiet force, “I hardly think my sister should be chided for her enthusiasm in greeting a member of the family who has been too long absent from us. At such a happy moment, anyone could be excused for forgetting such a trifle as a cloak, unless she were already unwell. Claire enjoys good health, does she not?”
    “Oh, yes, of course, Graham,” the woman persisted unctuously, “as I always say in my letters, I have made Lady Claire’s well-being my primary—”
    Raeburn waved her to silence. “I’m sure you’ve been most diligent,” he drawled. Then, glancing at the servants assembled on the steps, some visibly shivering beneath their smart livery, his gray eyes narrowed. “Would that someone took as good care of my staff,” he muttered. “Tell me, Aunt, whose idea was it for everyone to stand on parade in the cold?”
    “You sent word that we should make our guest feel welcome,” Mrs. Talmadge said doggedly.
    “I said to prepare for my sister-in-law’s return to the family,” Raeburn corrected with scathing emphasis. “That, my dear aunt, is another thing altogether, as you must well know. In such a case, too much ceremony is quite as offensive as too little. I suggest that you exercise a little moderation in future.”
    “As you wish, Graham,” she muttered, but the