More than a Mistress/No Man's Mistress (42 page)

Jocelyn, who still had not moved, did not look away from Jane. But even across the distance she could see one eyebrow lift in mockery.

Her fists, she realized, were still pressed to her mouth.

The Reverend Josiah Forbes was striding across the grass toward his dueling partner. At last Jocelyn turned and lowered his pistol.

“It seems I was mistaken, Tresham.” The Reverend Forbes was still using his pulpit voice. “I owe you an
apology and I withdraw my challenge. If you feel that you have a grudge against me, of course, then we will continue this meeting. My family is responsible, after all, for a dishonorable plot to harm yours.” Jane guessed that he had taken three of his brothers severely to task for the incident with Lord Ferdinand’s curricle.

“I believe,” Jocelyn said with a languid sigh, “that small matter has already been avenged, Forbes. And as for this, you were merely doing what I would do for my own sister.” He transferred the pistol to his left hand and extended his right.

There was a collective sigh from the spectators as the two shook hands and Captain Samuel Forbes stepped forward to offer his own apologies and withdraw his own challenge. Jane slowly lowered her hands and realized that she had left the imprint of eight fingernails on her two palms.

Lady Oliver swooned elegantly into her husband’s arms.

An honorable reconciliation had just taken place. Soon enough Jocelyn was alone again and looking toward the trees once more. He held up his left hand, palm out, to discourage his friends from approaching while at the same time beckoning Jane imperiously with the fingers of his right hand.

Everything fled from Jane’s mind except a mind-numbing relief and an overpowering fury—fanned to breaking point by those beckoning fingers. As if she were a dog! As if he were incapable of coming to her. She hurried toward him until she stood almost nose to nose with him.

“You horrid man,” she said, her voice low and trembling. “You
horrid
, arrogant, bull-headed man. I loathe
you! You faced death here this morning, but you would have died without a word to me. Even last night—even then you spoke not a
word
. If I needed more evidence that you do not care
that
much for me”—she snapped her fingers in his face with a satisfyingly loud click—“I now have it in abundance. I never want to see you again. Do you understand me? Never. Stay away from me.”

He looked back at her with lazy hauteur and no glimmering of remorse. “You came all this way at this hour of the morning and in this state of dishabille to command
me
to stay away from
you
, Lady Sara?” he asked with detestably cool logic. “You have flaunted propriety in order to tell me that I am
horrid
? Now, you will take my arm without further delay, and I will escort you to Oliver’s carriage—I assume that is where the lady is being carried. I daresay that in the drama of the moment they will forget you if we do not hurry, and then you will be left with a score or two of gentlemen for your sole chaperons and escorts. It is not the sort of situation Lady Sara Illingsworth should find herself in when her reputation is still in a precarious state.”

He offered his arm, but she turned away and began to stride in the direction of the carriage. He fell into step beside her.

“I suppose,” he said, “all this was your idea? It made for wonderful drama. Saved in the nick of time.”

“Not the nick of time part of it,” she said coldly. “I merely suggested to Lady Oliver last evening that perhaps it was time to tell the truth.”

“I owe my life to you, then.” But his words were spoken haughtily and held no note of gratitude.

“You may return to your friends,” she said as the carriage came into sight and it was clear that she would
reach it in plenty of time to accompany the still-insensible Lady Oliver home again.

He stopped and bowed to her and turned away without another word. But she thought of something as he began to stride away.

“Jocelyn!” she called.

He stopped and looked at her over his shoulder, a strange light in his eyes.

“I left my embroidery behind,” she said foolishly, unable even now to say what she wanted to say.

“I will bring it to you,” he said. “No. Pardon me. You never wish to see me again. I will have it sent to you.” He turned away.

“Jocelyn!”

Again the look over his shoulder.

“I left the
painting
behind.”

It seemed to her that their eyes remained locked for long moments before he replied.

“I will have it sent,” he said.

He turned and strode away from her.

Just as if last evening had never happened. And what
had
that been all about anyway? Just a stolen kiss between a man and his ex-mistress?

Jane turned and hurried toward the carriage.

ER EMBROIDERY, THE PAINTING, AND
Mansfield Park
were delivered the same day. Phillip brought them, though Jane did not see him. All she knew for certain was that he did not bring them himself. She was glad he did not. His behavior during the morning had been imperious and cold and offensive. She had simply imagined that there was tender yearning in his kiss last evening, she decided. His not coming in person with her belongings saved her from having to refuse to see him. She never wanted even to hear his name again.

Which argument was seen for the nonsense it was the following morning when Lady Webb was still in her dressing room and the butler brought the morning post into the breakfast parlor.

“There is a letter for you, my lady,” he said to Jane.

She snatched it from his hand and looked with eager anxiety at the name and direction written on the outside. But her heart immediately plummeted. It was not in the bold, careless hand of the Duke of Tresham. In her disappointment she did not immediately realize that she did nevertheless recognize the handwriting.

“Thank you,” she said, and broke the seal.

It was from Charles. A rather long letter. It had come from Cornwall.

The Earl of Durbury had returned to Candleford, Charles wrote, bringing with him the news that Sara had
been found and was now staying with Lady Webb. She would be reassured to know that the announcement had been made from Candleford that Sidney Jardine, who had for a long time been reputed to be at death’s door, was finally recovering his health.

“I have been more distressed than I can say,” Charles wrote, “that I was away from home when all this happened so that you did not have me to turn to with your troubles. I would have followed you to London, but where would I have looked? It was said that Durbury had hired a Bow Street Runner but that even he could not find you. What chance would I have had, then?”

But he might have tried anyway, Jane thought. Surely if he really loved her, he would have come.

“Durbury is also spreading another piece of news,” the letter continued, “though surely it cannot be true. My belief is that it is for my benefit, Sara, to hurt and alarm me. You know how much he has always despised our partiality for each other. He says that he has given his consent to the Duke of Tresham to pay his addresses to you. I daresay you will be laughing merrily when you read this, but really, Sara—Tresham! I have never met the man, but he has a reputation as surely the most notorious rake in all England. I sincerely hope he is not pestering you with unwanted attentions.”

Jocelyn, she thought. Ah, Jocelyn.

“I am going to come up to London,” Charles wrote, “as soon as I have dealt with a few important matters of business. I will come to protect you from the advances of any man who believes that this unfortunate incident has made you deserving of all manner of insult. I shall come to fetch you home, Sara. If Durbury will not consent to our marriage, then we will marry without his
consent. I am not a wealthy man and so hate to see you deprived of your own fortune, but I am well able to support a wife and family in comfort and even some luxury.”

Jane closed her eyes and bowed her head over the letter. She was dearly fond of Charles. She always had been. For several years she had tried to convince herself that she was fond enough of him to marry him. But she knew now why she had never been able to love him. There was no fire in his own love. There was only bland amiability. He obviously had no clear understanding of all she had suffered in the past weeks. Even now he was not rushing to her side. There were a few matters of business to be dealt with first.

Jane felt bleak almost to the point of despair as she folded the letter and set it beside her plate. She had not thought specifically of Charles since coming to Aunt Harriet’s. She had known, of course, that a match between them was now impossible, but only now, this morning, had she been forced to face that reality before she was quite ready to deal with it.

She felt as if somehow a comfortable lifeline had been finally severed. As if she were now thoroughly and eternally alone.

And yet he was coming to London.

She would write immediately and tell him not to, she decided, getting to her feet even though she had eaten no breakfast. It would be a waste of time and expense for him to come all this way. And breaking the news to him that she could not marry him would be more easily done on paper than in a face-to-face encounter.

*   *   *

I
T TOOK
J
OCELYN A
few days to realize fully that there was no more imminent threat of death, that the Forbeses and apparently Lord Oliver too were satisfied that Lady Oliver had told the truth during her dramatic interruption of the duel.

When Jocelyn
did
realize it, in the library one morning while he was reading over the latest report from Acton Park, he discovered that he was somewhat short of breath. And when he rested his elbows on the desk and held up his hands, he found with some fascination that they were shaking.

He was very thankful that Michael Quincy was not present to witness the phenomenon.

It was strange really since none of his previous duels had succeeded in bringing him eyeball to eyeball with his own mortality. Perhaps it was because he had never before come face-to-face with life and the desire to live it to the full. For the first time reading the dry, factual report of his steward brought on a powerful feeling of aching nostalgia. He wanted to
go
there, to see the house again with adult eyes, to roam the park and the wooded hills, remembering the boy he had been, discovering the man he had become.

He wanted to go there with Jane.

He ached for her. He would leave her alone until after her presentation, he had decided. He would dance with her at her come-out ball and then pay her determined court until she capitulated, which she would surely do. No one could defy his will forever.

But there was still a whole week left before the ball. He could not wait that long. He was too afraid that she would be the one to defy him, if anyone could. And while he waited, the likes of Kimble and even his own
brother were squiring her all over town, oozing charm from every pore, and drawing from her the sort of dazzling smiles she had been very sparing of in her dealings with him. And then he was furious at himself for admitting to jealousy of all things. If she wanted another man, let her have him. She could go to the devil for all he cared. He amused himself with mental images of fighting Kimble and Ferdinand simultaneously—with swords. One in each hand.

And a cutlass between his teeth, he thought in self-derision. And a black patch over one eye.

“Deuce take it!” he told his empty library, bringing the side of his fist down onto the desktop for good measure. “I’ll wring her neck for her.”

He presented himself at Lady Webb’s that same afternoon but declined her butler’s invitation to follow him to the drawing room, where other visitors were being entertained. He asked to speak to Lady Webb privately and was shown into a salon on the ground floor.

Lady Webb, he knew, did not approve of him. Not that she was ill bred enough to voice her dislike, of course. And it was perfectly understandable. He had not spent his adult years cultivating the good opinion of respectable ladies like her. Quite the contrary. She did not like him, but she clearly recognized the necessity of his making her goddaughter an offer.

“Though if she refuses you,” she told him before sending Jane down, “I will support her fully. I will not allow you to come here bullying her.”

He bowed stiffly.

Two more minutes passed before Jane appeared.

“Oh,” she said, closing the door behind her back and keeping her hands on the knob, “it is you, is it?”

“It was the last time I glanced into a looking glass,” he said, making her an elegant bow. “Whom did you expect?”

“I thought perhaps it was Charles,” she said.

He frowned and glared.
“Charles?”
All his good intentions fled. “The milksop from Cornwall, do you mean? The bumpkin who imagines he is going to marry you? He is in town?”

Her lips did their familiar disappearing act. “Sir Charles Fortescue,” she said, “is neither a milksop nor a bumpkin. He has always been my dearest friend. And he is coming as soon as he is able.”