A Precious Jewel by Mary Balogh Page A

human spirit, she had discovered with some surprise, was capable of carrying one unbrokenthrough even the worst of tribulations. It would carry her through a few months of loneliness and the absence of her lover. And if he no longer wanted her at the end of the summer, well then, she would live for as long as she could on the money she had saved and on the settlement he had agreed to pay her, and then she would do what she had to do to survive until she was thirty years old and able to inherit her mother’s fortune.
    She would not think of it. The present had troubles—and joys—of its own. The future would be dealt with when it came.
    As for the present, he had not left London yet. There was still each visit to be looked forward to and enjoyed. There was still pleasure to give and a little joy to take secretly for herself.
    “I HAVE BEEN thinking of getting rid of Lettie,” Bertie Ramsay was saying to Sir Gerald. “I want to go to Brighton for a month or so, and m’aunt wants me to trot down to Bath after that—m’uncle’s sixtieth birthday or something like that. Sixty-fifth, maybe it is. It seems hardly worth the expense of paying her to wait for me. The girl giggles too much, anyway.”
    The two of them were viewing the horses at Tattersall’s, though neither was buying.
    Gerald could sympathize on that last point. He had found Lettie’s giggle most irritating at Vauxhall a fewevenings before. Priss would never have got out of Kit’s or merited a second visit from him there if she had been even half the giggler.
    “I know what you mean,” he said. “I would probably drop Priss too if I did not have a lease on the house.”
    “If you ever think seriously of doing it,” Mr. Ramsay said, “you had better let me know, Stapleton. I would take her off your hands in a minute. A real lady is Prissy. Good between the sheets, is she? But then I daresay she is. She was one of Kit’s girls, wasn’t she? Kit always trains ’em well and slings ’em out on their ears if they don’t want to learn.”
    Sir Gerald concentrated on the chestnut mare he happened to be looking at. He did not answer the question. He felt his fingers curling into his palms and flexed them. If Bertie Ramsay imagined that he would ever pass Priss on to the likes of him, he must have feathers for a brain.
    “Coming to Brighton, are you?” Mr. Ramsay asked. “Or are you going to Brookhurst?”
    “Brookhurst,” Sir Gerald said. “I always look forward to getting down there. I don’t know why I don’t live there all year, in fact.”
    He did know, he thought almost as soon as he had spoken the words. There were too many ghosts at Brookhurst. Too many damned ghosts.
    “Perhaps I’ll call on you there,” Mr. Ramsay said. “Brighton can get tedious, and who wants to spendlonger than he needs to do in Bath with all the octogenarians?” He laughed loudly and merrily at his own joke.
    “You would be welcome,” Sir Gerald said.
    “I think I’ll walk over to Lettie’s now,” Mr. Ramsay said. “There’s not much for cattle here today, is there? I have my eye on Spender’s grays, but I doubt he will sell them cheap. I think I’ll plow Lettie a couple of times and then break off with her. I’ll miss that body, I must confess, but it don’t hurt to have a change every couple of months or so. How much do you think I should pay her, Stapleton?”
    Sir Gerald shrugged. “I suppose that is between you and Lettie, Ramsay,” he said. “You would not want to turn her out onto the streets without a decent settlement, though, would you?”
    “She don’t have to work the streets if she don’t want to,” Mr. Ramsay said. “She could get some respectable employment instead. There are plenty of jobs for girls in kitchens and such. She does it because she enjoys what she gets from the likes of you and me, Stapleton. All the same they are, the Cyprian breed. Prissy too, if you don’t mind my saying so. Quite the lady, she is. Could get a