More than a Mistress/No Man's Mistress (26 page)

Jocelyn turned about with a flourish to look at the grassy expanse behind him. “But not quite yet, Angeline,” he said. “The reinforcements to which you refer are presumably the Reverend Josiah Forbes and Captain Samuel Forbes?”

“It will be five against one,” she declared dramatically. “Or five against two if one counts Ferdie as he insists one must. It would be five against three if Heyward
would not insist in his odious manner that he will not involve himself in childish capers. I will wheedle a gun out of him and start practicing my marksmanship again. I am a Dudley, after all.”

“I beg you to desist,” Jocelyn said firmly. “None of us would know which side was in more danger from you if you were to prove as adept at shooting now as you were as a girl.” He raised his glass again and looked her over from head to ankles. “That is a surprisingly elegant bonnet you are wearing,” he said. “But the poppy red flowers are a lamentably poor match for the pink of your walking dress.”

“Lord Pym met us ten minutes ago,” she said with a toss of her head, “and observed, foolish man, that I look like a particularly delectable meadow in which he could only wish he were strolling alone. Did he not, Maria?”

“Indeed?” Jocelyn's manner became instantly frosty. “I trust, Angeline, you reminded Lord Pym that you are the sister of the Duke of Tresham?”

“I sighed soulfully and then laughed at him,” she said. “It was harmless gallantry, Tresham. Do you believe I would allow any man to take liberties with me? I shall tell Heyward about it and he will toss his glance at the ceiling and then tell me … well.” She blushed and laughed again, nodded to Kimble and Brougham, took Maria Stebbins's arm, and resumed her promenade.

“London needs some new scandal,” Jocelyn observed as he rode onward with his friends. “It seems that no one has anything else to talk about these days except those cowardly scoundrels who claim kinship with Lady Oliver.”

“They are doubtless shaking in their boots, by Jove,” Viscount Kimble said, “since Joseph Forbes was rash
enough to claim responsibility on behalf of all of them for your scraped palms. But they are probably hatching more mischief too—nothing as direct as a challenge, of course.”

“They may not have a choice—except loss of face and the last vestiges of their honor,” Jocelyn said. “But enough on the subject. I am sick to death of it. Let us enjoy the fresh air and sunshine.”

“To blow away the cobwebs?” Brougham asked. He looked beyond Jocelyn to address their other friend again. “Did you notice, Kimble, that according to Lady Heyward, Tresham was from home yesterday afternoon? Was he with you?”

“He was not with me, Cone,” the viscount replied, all seriousness. “Was he with you?”

“I did not set eyes on him between yesterday morning and this,” Brougham said. “She must be
very
new and
very
frisky.”

“The devil!” Kimble drew his horse to such an abrupt halt and threw back his head to laugh with such loud merriment that he was almost unseated and had to exercise considerable skill to bring his mount under control again. “Right under our noses, Cone,” he said when he was able. “The answer, I mean.”

Conan Brougham's and Jocelyn's horses were prancing a little distance away.

“The delectable Miss Ingleby!” Kimble announced. “You rogue, Tresh. You lied. You do have her in your keeping. And she kept you from your friends and your obligations and your bed—your own bed, that is—most of yesterday and all night. She must have lived up to all the considerable promise she showed.”

“It has been staring us in the face, has it not?”
Brougham agreed with a grin. “You actually danced—
waltzed
—with her, Tresham. And could not take your eyes off her. But why the secrecy, old chap?”

“I do believe,” Kimble said with an exaggerated sigh, “I am going to go into mourning. I have been considering hiring a Bow Street Runner to search for her.”

“You two,” Jocelyn said with his customary hauteur, “may go to the devil with my blessing. Now if you will excuse me, breakfast awaits at Dudley House.”

At first silence and then their laughter followed him as he rode off unhastily in the direction of home.

It was not like that, he kept thinking foolishly. It was not
like
that.

But if it was not like that—a man with a new mistress enjoying the novelty of a new female body with which to pleasure himself—then what
was
it like?

He hated the thought of even his closest friends snickering over Jane.

S
HE MUST HAVE HEARD
him coming. She was standing in the doorway of the sitting room again, wearing primrose yellow today—another new dress of classically simple design. She had perfect taste in clothing, it seemed, once she had been forced out of the cheap gray monstrosities.

He handed his hat and gloves to the butler and moved toward her. She smiled at him with dazzling warmth and held out both hands, completely throwing him off stride. He had been feeling out of charity with the world and even with her and had been irritated with himself for being unable
not
to come to her again this afternoon.

“Thank you,” she said, and squeezed his hands when
he gave them to her. “How can I ever thank you sufficiently?”

“For the books?” He frowned. He had forgotten about the books. He had intended to take her straight up to bed today, to have his brisk pleasure of her before leaving to get on with the rest of his day, undistracted by thoughts of her. He had intended to get this relationship properly on track. At the same time he had hated the thought of Kimble's or Brougham's ribald remarks, which he was sure to hear this evening, and his own knowledge that there was truth in them.

“A mere nothing,” he said curtly. He freed his hands and motioned for her to precede him into the sitting room.

“To you, perhaps,” she said. “But to me, everything. You cannot know how I have missed reading since I came here.”

“Then why the devil,” he asked her irritably, closing the door and looking about the room, “did you not let me take you to the library?”

And why the deuce was she so ashamed to be seen? His other mistresses had never been more happy than when he escorted them somewhere where they would be seen in his company.

She was probably the daughter of a damned clergyman. But he would be double damned before he would start feeling guilt at having had her virtue.

She would not answer his question, of course. She smiled again, tipping her head to one side.

“You are in a black mood this afternoon,” she observed. “But I am not to be cowed by it. Has something happened that you would like to talk about?”

He almost laughed.

“The Forbes brothers have slunk off out of town to bring on reinforcements,” he said. “They are afraid to confront me with the odds of three against one. They are planning to increase them to five against one. They will discover that the odds are still in my favor. I derive a certain relish out of dealing with bullies and cowards.”

She sighed. “Men and their pride,” she said. “I suppose you will still be brawling when you are eighty, if you should live so long. Will you sit down? Shall I order tea? Or do you wish to go straight upstairs?”

Suddenly, strangely, alarmingly, he did not want her. Not in bed. Not now. It just seemed too—too what? Sordid? He almost laughed again.

“Where are the books?” he asked. “In the bedchamber? The attic?”

“In the next room,” she said. “I have converted it for my own use when you are not here. I think of it as my den.”

He hated the sitting room. Even though it was now elegant and tasteful, it still reminded him of a waiting room, an impersonal space in which certain civilities were observed before the inevitable adjournment to the bedchamber. And there were no personal touches here that made it Jane's sitting room.

“Take me there,” he commanded.

He might have guessed that Jane would not simply turn and meekly lead the way.

“It is my room,” she said. “This is where I entertain you—and occasionally, perhaps, in the dining room. The bedchamber is where I grant you your contractual rights. The rest of the house I consider my personal domain.”

Jocelyn pursed his lips, undecided whether to bark at her for the satisfaction of seeing her jump with alarm or to throw back his head and laugh.

Contractual rights
, by thunder!

“Miss Ingleby.” He made her his most elegant bow. “Would you grant me the privilege of seeing your den?”

She hesitated, bit her lower lip, and then inclined her head.

“Very well,” she said, and turned to leave the room ahead of him.

The room was Jane. He felt that as soon as he stepped through the door. He felt as if for the first time he was entering her world. A world that was elegant and genteel on one hand, industrious and cozy on the other.

The fawn-colored carpet and draperies had always made the room look dreary, and all the attempts of her predecessors to brighten the room with cushions and shawls and garish gewgaws had only emphasized the gloom. The mirrors, added by Effie, had merely multiplied the gloom. He had made it a habit never to set foot in here.

Now the fawn colors, which Jane had made no attempt to mask, made the room seem restful. The daybed was gone. So, not surprisingly, were all the mirrors. Some graceful chairs had been added as had a desk and chair, the former strewn sufficiently with papers to indicate that it was not for display purposes only. The bookcase was filled with his books though one lay open on the small table next to a fireside chair. In front of the chair at the other side of the hearth was an embroidery frame over which was stretched a piece of linen. About it were strewn silken threads and scissors and needles.

“May I sit down?” he asked.

She indicated the chair by the book.

“If you wish,” she said, “you may deduct the cost of the desk and chair from my salary since they were purchased for my private use.”

“I seem to recall,” he said, “that I gave you
carte blanche
for the house renovations, Jane. Do stop saying ridiculous things and sit down. I am too much the gentleman, you see, to seat myself before you do.”

She felt uncomfortable, he could see. She perched on the edge of a chair some distance away.

“Jane,” he said impatiently, “sit at your embroidery frame. Let me see you work. I suppose it is another skill you learned at the orphanage?”

“Yes,” she said, moving her place and picking up her needle.

He watched her in silence for a while. She was the picture of beauty and grace. A lady born and bred. Fallen indeed on hard times—forced to come to London to search for employment, forced to take work as a milliner's assistant, forced to become his nurse, forced to become a mistress. No, not forced. He would not take that guilt on himself. He had offered her a magnificent alternative. Raymore would have made her a star.

“This has always been my vision of domestic bliss,” he said after a while, surprising himself with the words, which had been spoken without forethought.

She looked up briefly from her work.

“A woman beside the fire stitching,” he said. “A man at the other side. Peace and calm about them and all well with the world.”

She lowered her head to her work again. “It was something you never knew in your boyhood home?” she asked.

He laughed shortly. “I daresay my mother did not know one end of a needle from the other,” he said, “and no one ever told either her or my father that it is possible occasionally to sit around the hearth with one's family.”

No one had told him those things either. Where were these ideas coming from?

“Poor little boy,” she said quietly.

He got abruptly to his feet and crossed to the bookcase.

“Have you read
Mansfield Park
?” he asked her a minute or so later.

“No.” She looked up briefly again. “But I have read
Sense and Sensibility
by the same author and enjoyed it immensely.”

He drew the volume from the shelf and resumed his seat.

“I shall read to you while you work,” he said.

He could never remember reading aloud, except at his lessons as a boy. He could not remember being read to either until Jane had done it when he was incapacitated. He had found the experience unexpectedly soothing though he had never listened attentively. He opened the book and began reading.

“ ‘About thirty years ago, Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park.…' ”

He read two chapters before stopping and lowering the book to his lap. They sat in silence for a while after that. In a silence that seemed to him thoroughly comfortable. He was sprawled in his chair, he realized. He could nod off to sleep with the greatest ease. He felt … How
did
he feel? Contented? Certainly. Happy? Happiness
was something he had little or no acquaintance with and set no store by.

He felt shut off from the world. Shut off from his usual self. With Jane. Who was certainly shut off from her world and usual self, whatever they might be. Could this be perpetuated? he wondered. Indefinitely? Forever?

Or could it at least become an occasional retreat, this room that was so much Jane and in which he felt comfortable, restful, contented—all alien to his normal way of life?

He should put an end to these foolish, unrealistic, and uncharacteristic dreams without further ado, he thought. He should take his leave—or take her to bed.

“What is it you are working on?” he asked her instead.

She smiled without looking up. “A tablecloth,” she said. “For the dining room table. I had to find
something
to make. Embroidery has always been a passion with me.”