More than a Mistress/No Man's Mistress (9 page)

“As I remember it,” Pottier said, “Jardine did not
have
a great deal of hair. Not too many brains either.”

“He never regained consciousness.” Jocelyn, attempting to shift his position to rid himself of a few cramps, inadvertently knocked the cushion to the floor. “Come and replace this, Miss Ingleby, will you? He never regained consciousness and yet—according to some accounts—he was able to give a perfectly lucid account of the attack and his own spirited and heroic defense. He was able to identify his attacker and explain her motive for breaking his skull. A strange sort of unconsciousness.”

Jane bent over him and placed the cushion in just the right spot, lifted his leg onto it as gently as she always did, and adjusted the top of the bandage, which had curled under. But she was, he noticed when he glanced at her, white to the very lips.

He was almost sorry then that he had insisted upon her remaining in the room. Clearly she was uncomfortable in the company of all men. And no doubt with their talk. As stoic as she had been over his injury, perhaps the talk of hair and blood and brains had been too much for her.

“News of his death may be just as exaggerated,” Garrick said cynically, getting to his feet and helping himself to another drink. “It could well be that he is simply ashamed to show his face after admitting to having been overpowered by a mere slip of a girl engaged in a robbery.”

“Was she not clutching a pistol in both hands?” Jocelyn asked. “According, that is, to the man who never regained consciousness from the time she struck him with one of them until the moment of his demise? But
enough of that nonsense. What sort of a cork-brained scheme is this that Ferdinand has got himself into? A curricle race against Berriwether of all people! Who made the challenge?”

“Your brother,” Conan said, “when Berriwether was boasting that you will be eating humble pie at all your old sports now that you will have one lame leg to drag about. He was claiming that the Dudley name would never again be one to be uttered with awe and admiration.”

“In Ferdinand's hearing?” Jocelyn shook his head. “Definitely not wise.”

“No, not exactly in his hearing,” his friend explained. “But Ferdinand got wind of it, of course, and came striding into White's with flames roaring from his nostrils. I thought for one moment he was going to slap a glove in Berriwether's face, but all he did was ask as polite as you please what Berriwether thought your finest accomplishment was apart from your skill with weapons. It was your skill with the ribbons, of course. Then came the challenge.”

“And how much has Ferdinand wagered on the outcome?” Jocelyn asked.

Garrick provided the answer. “One thousand guineas,” he said.

“Hmm.” Jocelyn nodded slowly. “The family honor worth one thousand guineas. Well, well.”

Jane Ingleby was no longer standing in her corner, he saw idly. She was sitting there very straight-backed on a low stool, her back to the room.

She did not move until his friends took their leave more than an hour later.

*   *   *

“G
IVE ME THE DAMNED
thing!” The Duke of Tresham was holding out one imperious hand.

Jane, standing beside the sofa, where he had summoned her the moment after the drawing room door had closed behind his visitors, unfastened the ribbons beneath her chin and removed the offending cap. But she held it in her own hands.

“What are you intending to do with it?” she asked.

“What I am intending to do,” he said irritably, “is send you to fetch the sharpest pair of scissors my housekeeper can provide you with. And then I am going to have you watch while I cut that atrocity into shreds. No, correct that. I am going to have
you
cut it into shreds.”

“It is mine,” she told him. “I paid for it. You have no right whatsoever to destroy my property.”

“Poppycock!” he retorted.

And then to her horror Jane knew why he had suddenly blurred before her eyes. An inelegant sob escaped her at the same moment as she realized that her eyes had filled with tears.

“Good God!” he exclaimed, sounding appalled. “Does the wretched thing mean that much to you?”

“It is mine!” she said vehemently but with a lamentably unsteady voice. “I bought it and one other just two days ago. They cost everything I had. I
will
not allow you to cut them up for your own amusement. You are an unfeeling bully.”

Despite the anger and bravado of her words, she was crying and sobbing and hiccuping quite despicably. She swiped at her wet cheeks with the cap and glared at him.

He regarded her in silence for a few moments. “This is
not about the cap at all, is it?” he said at last. “It is because I forced you to remain in the room with a horde of male visitors. I have hurt your sensibilities, Jane. I daresay in the orphanage the sexes were segregated, were they?”

“Yes,” she said.

“I am weary,” he said abruptly. “I believe I shall try to sleep. I do not require your presence here to listen to me snore. Go to your room and remain there until dinnertime. Come to me again this evening.”

“Yes, your grace,” she said, turning from him. She could not say thank you even though she knew that in his way he was showing her a kindness. She did not believe he wished to sleep. He had merely recognized her need to be alone.

“Miss Ingleby,” he said when she reached the door. She did not look back. “Do not provoke me again. In my service you will wear no cap.”

She let herself out quietly and then raced upstairs to her room, where she shut the door gratefully on the world and cast herself across the bed. She was still clutching the cap tightly in one hand.

He was dead
.

Sidney Jardine had died and there was no way anyone on this earth was going to believe that she had not murdered him.

She clutched a fistful of the bedspread in her free hand and pressed her face into the mattress.

He was dead
.

He had been despicable and she had hated him more than she had thought it possible to hate anyone. But she had not wanted him dead. Or even hurt. It had been a pure reflex action to grab that heavy book and the pure,
mindless instinct of self-defense to whack him over the head with it. Except that she had swung the tome rather than lifting it and bringing it down flat, because it had been so heavy. The sharp corner had caught him on the temple.

He had not fallen but had touched the wound, looked down at his bloodied fingers, laughed, called her a vixen, and advanced on her. But she had sidestepped. He had lost his balance as he lunged and had fallen forward onto the marble hearth, cracking his forehead loudly as he went down. Then he had lain still.

There had been several witnesses to the whole sordid scene, none of whom could be expected to tell the truth about what had happened. All of whom doubtless would be eager to perjure themselves by testifying that she had been apprehended while stealing. The gold, jewel-studded bracelet that would seem to prove them right was still at the bottom of her bag. All those people had been Sidney's friends. None of them had been hers. Charles—Sir Charles Fortescue, her neighbor, friend, and beau—had been away from home. Not that he would have been invited to that particular party anyway.

Sidney had not been dead after the fall even though everyone else in the room had thought he was. She had been the one to approach him on unsteady legs, sick to her stomach. His pulse had been beating steadily. She had even summoned a few servants and had him carried up to his room, where she had tended him herself and bathed his wounds until the doctor arrived, summoned at her command.

But he had been unconscious the whole while. And
looking so pale that a number of times she had checked his pulse again with cold, shaking fingers.

“Murderers hang, you know,” someone had said from the doorway of the bedchamber, sounding faintly amused.

“By the neck until they are dead,” another voice had added with ghoulish relish.

She had fled during the night, taking with her only enough possessions to get her to London on the stagecoach—and the bracelet, of course, and the money she had taken from the earl's desk. She had fled not because she believed that Sidney would die and she would be accused of his murder. She had fled because—oh, there were a number of reasons.

She had felt so very alone. The earl, her father's cousin and successor, and the countess had been away at a weekend house party. They had little love for her anyway. There was no one at Candleford to whom to turn in her distress. And Charles was not home. He had gone on an extended visit to his elder sister in Somersetshire.

Jane had fled to London. At first there had been no thought of concealment, only of reaching someone who would be sympathetic toward her. She had been going to Lady Webb's home on Portland Place. Lady Webb had been her mother's dearest friend since they made their come-out together as girls. She had often come to visit at Candleford. She was Jane's godmother. Jane called her Aunt Harriet. But Lady Webb had been away from home and was not expected back any time soon.

For more than three weeks now Jane had been well-nigh paralyzed with terror, afraid that Sidney had died,
afraid that she would be accused of his murder, afraid that she would be called a thief, afraid that the law would come looking for her. They would know, of course, that she had come to London. She had done nothing to hide her tracks.

Worst of all during the past weeks had been knowing nothing. It was almost a relief to know at last.

That Sidney was dead.

That the story was that she had killed him as he had been apprehending her in the process of robbing the house.

That she was considered a murderess.

No, of course it was not a relief.

Jane sat up sharply on the bed and rubbed her hands over her face. Her worst nightmares had come true. Her best hope had been to disappear among the anonymous masses of ordinary Londoners. But that plan had been dashed when she had so foolishly interfered in that duel in Hyde Park. What had it mattered to her that two gentlemen who had no better use for their lives were about to blow each other's brains out?

Here she was in Mayfair, in one of the grand mansions on Grosvenor Square, as a sort of nurse/companion to a man who derived some kind of satisfaction out of displaying her to all his friends. None of them knew her, of course. She had lived a secluded life in Cornwall. The chances were that no visitors to Dudley House over the coming weeks would know her. But she was not quite convinced.

Surely it was only a matter of time.…

She got to her feet and crossed the room on shaking legs to the washstand. Mercifully there was water in the pitcher. She poured a little into the bowl and scooped
some up in her cupped palms, into which she lowered her face.

What she ought to do—what she ought to have done at the start—was simply turn herself over to the authorities and trust to truth and justice. But who were the authorities? Where would she go to do it? Besides, she had made herself look guilty by running away and by staying out of sight for longer than three weeks.

He
would know what she ought to do and where she should go with her story. The Duke of Tresham, that was. She could tell him everything and let him take the next step. But the thought of his hard, ruthless face and his disregard for her feelings made her shudder.

Would she hang?
Could
she hang for murder? Or even for theft? She really had no idea. But she had to grip the edge of the washstand suddenly to stop herself from swaying.

How could she trust in the truth when all the evidence and all the witnesses would be against her?

One of the gentlemen downstairs had said that perhaps Sidney was not dead after all. Jane knew very well how gossip could twist and change the truth. It was being said, for example, that she had been holding a pistol in each hand! Perhaps word of Sidney's death had spread simply because such an outcome titillated the senses of those who always liked to believe the worst.

Perhaps he was still only unconscious.

Perhaps he was recovering quite nicely.

Perhaps he was fully recovered.

And perhaps he was dead
.

Jane dried her still-hot cheeks with a towel and sat down on the hard chair beside the washstand. She would wait, she decided, looking down at her hands in
her lap—they were still shaking—until she had discovered the truth more definitely. Then she would decide what was best to do.

Was there a search on for her? she wondered. She pressed her fingers against her mouth and closed her eyes. She must stay out of sight of future visitors just in case. She must remain indoors as much as possible.

If only she could continue to wear her caps.…

She had never been a coward. She had never been one to hide from her problems or cower in a corner. Quite the contrary. But she had suddenly turned craven.

Of course, she had never been accused of murder before.

ICK BODEN OF THE BOW STREET RUNNERS
was standing in the Earl of Durbury's private sitting room at the Pulteney Hotel again, one week after his first appearance there. He had no real news to impart except that he had discovered no recent trace of Lady Sara Illingsworth.