More than a Mistress/No Man's Mistress (25 page)

Or to convince himself that she meant nothing to him beyond a female body to be used for his pleasure?

Despite all her ignorance and inexperience, she would swear that the first time he had entered her he had not been using her. She had not been a mere woman's body. It had not been just carnal pleasure.

He had made love to her.
With
her.

He was ashamed now of having shown such weakness.

“That is a relief, then,” she said coolly. “There are several rearrangements to some of the other rooms that I hoped to start today, but I have already lost most of the afternoon.”

He looked over his shoulder at her without turning and regarded her steadily.

“You will not be put in your place, Jane, will you?”

“If you mean,” she replied, “that I will not allow you to make me feel like a whore, your grace, the answer is no, I will not. I will be here whenever you need me. It is our agreement. But my life will not revolve around your visits. I will not spend my days gazing wistfully from the window and my evenings listening expectantly for the door knocker.”

She remembered guiltily how she had paced back and forth to the windows all morning. She would not do it again.

“Perhaps, Jane,” he said softly, his eyes narrowing dangerously, “I should send a message in advance whenever I wish to bed you to ask if you can fit me into your busy schedule.”

“You were not listening,” she told him. “I signed a contract, and I mean to keep it and to see that you do too.”

“What
do
you do with your time?” He turned from the window and looked about the empty room. “Do you go out?”

“Into the garden at the back,” she said. “It is rather pretty, though it needs work. I have ideas and have started to implement them.”

“Do you read?” He frowned. “Are there any books here?”

“No.” He should know very well there were not.

“I will take you to Hookham's Library tomorrow morning,” he said abruptly, “and buy you a subscription.”

“No!” she said sharply. She relaxed again. “No, thank you, Jocelyn. I have plenty to do. It takes a great deal of time and energy to convert a brothel into a home, you know.”

“That was unprovoked impudence, Jane, and unworthy of you.” He looked very large and menacing, standing before her chair, his booted feet apart, his frown still in place. “I suppose if I told you I would come to take you walking in Hyde Park, you would be too busy for that too?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “You do not need to put yourself out on my account.”

He stared at her for a long time, his expression so unreadable that she could see nothing in him of the man who had loved her with unmistakable passion such a short time ago. He looked hard and humorless and untouchable.

Then he bowed to her abruptly, turned, and strode from the room.

She gazed in surprise at the door he had closed behind him and listened to the sounds of the front door being opened and then shut again. He was gone. Without a word of farewell or any hint of when he might come again.

This time she felt hurt.

Desolate.

HE ROOM NEXT TO THE SITTING ROOM HAD
been furnished with a daybed, a plusher than plush carpet, an inordinately large number of mirrors, which multiplied one's reflection at least ten times, depending on where one stood, sat, or lay, and the inevitable cushions and knickknacks.

In Jane's estimation it had been used either as a private retreat by the duke's ex-mistresses who enjoyed their own company more than anyone else's, or as an alternative to the bedchamber. She suspected the latter.

It was a room she had ignored while the two main rooms were being refurbished. But now, at her leisure, she was making it into her own domain. The lavender sitting room was now elegant, but it was not her.

The mirrors and the daybed were banished—she did not care what happened to them. She sent Mr. Jacobs out on a special commission to purchase an escritoire and chair and paper, pens, and ink. Mrs. Jacobs in the meantime was sent to buy fine linen and an embroidery frame and an assortment of colored silken threads and accessories.

The den, as Jane thought of the room, would become her private writing and sewing room. She would indulge there her passion for embroidery.

She sat stitching in her den, a fire crackling cozily in the hearth, during the evening following the consummation
of her liaison. She pictured Jocelyn at a grand dinner party and then moving on to a great squeeze of a ball, and tried not to feel envious. She had never had her come-out Season. There had been the year of mourning for her mother. Then her father had been too ill though he had urged her to accept Lady Webb's offer to sponsor her. But she had insisted on staying to nurse him. And then there had been his death and her year of mourning. And then the circumstances that had brought her under the new earl's guardianship.

Would Jocelyn dance tonight? she wondered. Would he waltz?

But she would not indulge in depressing thoughts.

For a moment her heart lifted when she heard a tap on the den door. Had he come back? But then she saw the butler peering around the door, his expression wary.

“I beg your pardon, ma'am,” Mr. Jacobs said, “but there are two great boxes just now arrived. What would you like done with them?”

“Boxes?” Jane raised her eyebrows and set her embroidery aside.

“From his grace,” the butler explained. “Almost too heavy to lift.”

“I am not expecting anything.” She got to her feet. “I had better come and see for myself. You are sure his grace sent them?”

“Oh, yes, ma'am,” he assured her. “His own servants brought them and explained they were for you.”

Jane was intrigued, especially when she saw two large crates in the middle of the kitchen floor.

“Please open one of them,” she said, and Mrs. Jacobs fetched a knife and the butler cut the string that held one of the boxes closed.

Jane pushed back the lid, and all the servants—the butler, the housekeeper, the cook, the housemaid, and the footman—leaned forward with her to peer inside.

“Books!” The housemaid sounded vastly disappointed.

“Books!” Mrs. Jacobs sounded surprised. “Well. He never sent books here before. I wonder why he sent them now? Do you read, ma'am?”

“Of course she does,” Mr. Jacobs said sharply. “Why else would she want a desk and paper and ink, I ask you?”

“Books!” Jane said almost in a reverential whisper, her hands clasped to her bosom.

She could see from the ones on top that they were from his own library. There were a Daniel Defoe, a Walter Scott, a Henry Fielding, and an Alexander Pope visible before she touched a single volume.

“It seems a funny sort of gift to me,” the housemaid said, “begging your pardon, ma'am. P'raps there's something better in the other box.”

Jane was biting hard on her upper lip. “It is a priceless gift,” she said. “Mr. Jacobs, are the boxes too heavy for you and Phillip to carry into the den?”

“I can carry them on my own, ma'am,” the young footman said eagerly. “Shall I unpack them for you too?”

“No.” Jane smiled at him. “I shall do that myself, thank you. I want to see all the books one at a time. I want to see what he has chosen for me.”

By happy chance there was a bookcase in the den though it had been covered with tasteless ornaments before Jane had cleared it off.

She spent two hours kneeling beside the boxes, drawing out one book at a time, arranging them pleasingly
on the shelves, pondering over which she would read first.

And occasionally blinking her eyes fast and even swiping at them with her handkerchief when she thought of him going home this afternoon and hand-picking all these books for her. She knew he had not simply directed Mr. Quincy to do the choosing for him. The books included ones she had mentioned as her particular favorites.

If he had sent her some costly piece of jewelry, she would not have been one fraction as well pleased. Such a gift would not even dent his purse. But his books! His own books, not ones he had purchased for her. He had taken them from his own shelves, and among them were his personal favorites too.

Some of the loneliness had gone from the evening. And some of the bewilderment at his leaving so abruptly during the afternoon, without a word of farewell. He must have gone straight home and spent time in his library. Just for her sake.

She must not, Jane told herself firmly, allow herself to fall any deeper in love with him. And she must not—she absolutely
must not
—let herself
love
him.

He was a man humoring a new mistress. Nothing more.

But she read happily until midnight.

T
HE NEXT MORNING THE
Duke of Tresham rode in Hyde Park at an hour when he often met some of his friends there on Rotten Row. The rain had stopped sometime during the night and the sun shone, making diamonds of the moisture on the grass. Fortunately for his need for
distraction, he ran into Sir Conan Brougham and Viscount Kimble almost immediately.

“Tresh,” the viscount said by way of greeting as Jocelyn joined the group, “we were expecting you at White's for dinner.”

“I dined at home,” Jocelyn told him. And he had. He had been unable to dine with Jane as his feelings had been rubbed raw and he had not wanted her to know it. And although he had dressed to go out, he had not done so. He was not quite sure why.

“Alone?” Brougham asked. “Without even the delectable Miss Ingleby for company?”

“She never did dine with me,” Jocelyn said. “She was a servant, if you will remember.”

“She could be my servant any time,” Kimble said with a theatrical sigh.

“And you were not at Lady Halliday's,” Brougham observed.

“I stayed home,” Jocelyn said.

He was aware of his friends exchanging glances before they broke into merry laughter.

“Ho, Tresham,” Brougham said, “who is she? Anyone we know?”

“A fellow cannot claim to have spent an evening at home alone without incurring suspicion?” Jocelyn spurred his horse into a canter. But his friends, who adjusted the speed of their mounts to match that of his, were not to be deterred. They rode one on either side of him.

“Someone new if she kept him from dinner at White's and the card room at Lady Halliday's, Cone,” Kimble said.

“And someone who kept him awake all night if this
morning's ill temper is anything to judge by, Kimble,” Brougham observed.

They were talking across Jocelyn, both grinning, just as if he were not there.

“Go to the devil,” he told them.

But they both greeted his uncharitable invitation with renewed mirth.

It was a relief to see Angeline approaching on foot beyond the fence with Mrs. Stebbins, one of her particular friends. They were out for a morning stroll.

“Provoking man!” Angeline exclaimed as soon as Jocelyn rode within earshot. “Why are you always out when I call, Tresham? I made a particular point of going to Dudley House yesterday afternoon as Heyward informed me you had left White's before luncheon. I was quite sure you must have gone home.”

Jocelyn fingered the ribbon of his quizzing glass. “Were you?” he said. “It would be redundant to inform you that you were wrong. To what, may I ask, did I owe the show of sisterly affection? Good morning, Mrs. Stebbins.” He touched the brim of his hat with his whip and inclined his head.

“Everyone is talking about it,” Angeline said while her friend made his grace a deep curtsy. “I have heard it three times in the past two days, not to mention Ferdie's speaking of it when I saw him yesterday. So I daresay you have heard it too. But I must have your assurance that you will do nothing foolish, Tresham, or my nerves will be shattered. And I must have your promise that you will defend the family honor at whatever cost to yourself.”

“I trust,” Jocelyn said, “you intend sooner or later to enlighten me on the topic of this fascinating conversation,
Angeline. Might I suggest sooner as Cavalier is still frisky?”

“It
was
being said,” she explained, “that the Forbes brothers fled town in fear of retaliation from you for what they tried to do to Ferdie.”

“As well they might,” he commented. “They have some modicum of wisdom among the three of them if that was indeed the reason for their disappearance.”

“But now,” she said, “it is known for absolute certain—is it not, Maria?” She turned to Mrs. Stebbins for confirmation. “Mr. Hammond mentioned it at Mrs. Bury-Haugh's two days ago and everyone knows that his wife is second cousin to Mrs. Wesley Forbes. So it must be true.”

“Incontrovertibly, I would say,” Jocelyn agreed dryly, using his quizzing glass to peruse the other walkers beyond the fence and the other riders within.

“They are not satisfied,” Angeline announced. “Can you imagine the gall of them, Tresham? When Ferdie might have been killed? They are not satisfied because you took the curricle and came to no worse harm than to ruin a pair of leather gloves.
They
are still vowing vengeance on you! When everyone knows that
you
are now the one with the grievance. They have gone for reinforcements and are expected back at any moment.”