More than a Mistress/No Man's Mistress (37 page)

The three Forbes brothers, as Jocelyn had guessed, could not avoid the meeting without losing face. The other gentlemen crowded after them, delighted by the
unexpected opportunity of watching a mill in Hyde Park of all places.

Jocelyn stripped off his coat and waistcoat while his brother did the same thing beside him. Then they both strode out into the grassy ring, formed by the crowd of acquaintances who had gathered to watch.

It really was a vastly uneven contest, Jocelyn realized with some disappointment and contempt before even two minutes had passed. Wesley Forbes liked to use his booted feet and clearly hoped to disarm his opponents with one well-placed kick to each. Unfortunately for him, Ferdinand, who had quick reflexes, caught his boot in midair with both hands just as if it were a ball and held him off balance while he used one of his considerably longer legs to poke the man sharply in the chin.

After that, and to enthusiastic cheering from the vast majority of the spectators, it was two against two.

Sir Anthony Forbes, who landed one lucky punch to Jocelyn's stomach, tried for some time to match his opponent strike for strike, but soon he began blubbering about its being unfair to fight him when it was Wes who had tampered with the curricle.

The crowd jeered.

“Perhaps it is poetic justice, then,” Jocelyn told him as he jabbed at Sir Anthony's defenses and waited longer than was really necessary before delivering the
coup de grâce
, “that I should be punishing the wrong brother.”

At last he let fly with a left hook and a right uppercut, which felled his opponent like a wicket going down before a cricket ball.

Ferdinand meanwhile was using Joseph Forbes's stomach as a punching ball. But hearing the general cheer as Sir Anthony went down, he ended his own bout
with one pop to the man's face. Joseph's knees buckled under him and he rolled on the ground, clutching his bloody nose. He did not attempt to get up.

Jocelyn strode over to the other two brothers, who had watched in silence. He nodded courteously enough. “I shall await further word from Sir Conan Brougham,” he said.

Ferdinand, without a visible mark on his body, was pulling his coat back on and laughing gaily. “One could have wished for all five,” he said, “but one must not be greedy. Well done, Tresham. That was inspired. No duels for those three but simple punishment. And audience enough to tell the tale for weeks to come. We have reminded everyone of the consequences of annoying a Dudley. Come to White's?”

But Jocelyn had just grown aware of how much time had been used up in this encounter.

“Perhaps later,” he said. “For now I have something of extreme importance to attend to.” He looked assessingly at his brother, waving off the gentlemen who would have come to congratulate them and mounting his horse. “Ferdinand, there is something you can do for me.”

“Anything.” His brother looked both surprised and gratified. It was not often that Jocelyn asked something of him.

“You might spread the word,” Jocelyn said, “subtly, of course, that it has turned out that Miss Jane Ingleby, my former nurse and the main musical attraction at my soiree, is in reality Lady Sara Illingsworth. That I have found her by happy chance and taken her to Lady Webb's. That all the rumors surrounding her name
are about to be proved as exaggerated and groundless as most rumors are.”

“Oh, I say.” Ferdinand looked vastly interested. “How did you find out, Tresham? How did you find her? How—”

But Jocelyn held up a staying hand. “You will do it?” he asked. “Is there any grand
ton
entertainment tonight?” He was dreadfully out of touch.

“A ball,” Ferdinand said. “Lady Wardle's. It is bound to be a horrid squeeze.”

“Drop word there, then,” Jocelyn said. “All you need do is mention the bare facts once. Twice perhaps for good measure. No more than that.”

“What—” Ferdinand began, but Jocelyn had his hand up again.

“Later,” he said. “I have to go take her to Lady Webb's. This is going to be a near-run thing, Ferdie. But we will pull it off.”

It felt rather good, he thought as he rode onward, to have made the discovery that his brother could also be a friend, as he had been when they were boys.

So there were two more duels to face—after he had dealt with this whole damned mess with Jane. Would she out of sheer principle, he wondered, be as prickly about being escorted to Lady Webb's as she had been about everything else earlier on?

Dratted, exasperating woman!

HE EARL OF DURBURY WHIPPED AROUND, HIS
eyes widening in astonishment.

“So,” he said, getting to his feet, “you have been ferreted out at last, have you, Sara? By the Bow Street Runner? Where is he?”

“I am not perfectly sure,” Jane said, strolling farther into the room in order to set her gloves and bonnet down on a small table. “The group of men who prevented him from abducting me had not decided what to do with him when I continued on my way here. I have come quite voluntarily to see you. To commiserate with you on your loss. And to demand what you mean by setting up a Bow Street Runner outside my house as if I were a common criminal.”

“Aha,” the earl said sharply. “He was right, then, was he? I might have guessed it. You are a strumpet, Tresham's doxy.”

Jane ignored him. “Your hired Runner,” she said, “who would have engaged in melodrama by dragging me here with my hands tied behind my back, called me a thief. What have I stolen, pray, that is yours and not mine? And he called me a murderess. In what sense am I criminally responsible for Sidney's death when he fell and banged his head while trying to grab hold of me so that he might ravish me and force me into marrying him? He was alive when I left Candleford. I had him carried
upstairs to his bed. I tended him myself until the doctor
I sent for
arrived. I am sorry despite everything that he died. I would not wish for the death even of a despicable creature like Sidney. But I can hardly be held responsible. If you wish to try to have me convicted of his murder, I cannot stop you. But I warn you that you will merely make yourself look ridiculous in the public eye.”

“You always did have a wicked, impudent tongue, Sara,” her cousin said, clasping his hands at his back and glowering at her. “We will see whether the word of the Earl of Durbury carries more weight with a jury than that of a common whore.”

“You bore me, Cousin Harold,” Jane said, seating herself on the nearest chair and hoping that the shaking of her knees was not evident. “I should like some tea. Will you ring for service, or shall I?”

But he was given no chance to make a choice. There was a knock on the door, and the silent valet turned to answer it. The Bow Street Runner stepped into the room, breathing rather heavily and looking somewhat disheveled. His nose was as red as a beacon and surely swollen. In one hand he clutched a handkerchief on which Jane could see bloodstains. A thin red line trickled from one nostril. He glared accusingly at Jane.

“I apprehended her, my lord,” he said. “But to my shame I confess she is more sly and dangerous than I had anticipated. I will tie her up here and now if it is your wish and drag her to a magistrate before she can play any more of her tricks.”

Jane felt almost sorry for him. He had been made to look foolish. She guessed that such a thing did not happen often to upset his dignity.

“I shall be taking her back to Cornwall,” the earl said.
“She will meet her fate there. We will be leaving tonight, as soon as I have dined.”

“Then if I were you,” the Runner advised, “I would not trust her to sit meekly beside you in your carriage, my lord, or to enter inns along the way without kicking up a fuss and having you set upon by a parcel of ignorant fools who would not see the truth if it peered into their eyes. I would not trust her not to bash you over the head as she did to your son as soon as you nod off to sleep.”

“I really have hurt your feelings,” Jane said pleasantly. “But you cannot say I did not warn you that I would scream.”

He looked at her with dislike. “I would have her trussed up hand and foot if I were you, my lord,” he said. “And gagged too. And hire a guard to travel with you. I know a woman who would be willing to take on the task. My lady here would not play any of her tricks on Bertha Meeker, believe me.”

“How ridiculous!” Jane said.

But the earl was looking uneasy. “She always was headstrong,” he said. “She was never biddable despite all the kindnesses we showed her after her father's passing. She was an only child, you know, and spoiled atrociously. I want her back at Candleford, where she can be properly dealt with. Yes, do it, Boden. Employ this woman. But she must be here within two hours or it will be dark even before I leave London.”

Jane had been feeling an enormous sense of relief. It had all been a great deal easier than she had anticipated. Indeed, she had been finding it hard to imagine that she had been so unexpectedly craven for so long. She should never even have been tempted to go into hiding, to give
in to the terrors of what might happen if none of the witnesses was willing to speak the truth of what had happened at Candleford that night.

Now once again terror assailed her. They were going to tie her up and send her back to Cornwall as a prisoner with a female guard. And then she was going to be tried for murder. The air felt suddenly cold in her nostrils.

“In the meantime,” Mick Boden said, his gaze fastening nastily on Jane again, “we will confine my lady to that chair so that you may have your dinner in peace. Your man will help me.”

Anger came to Jane's rescue. She shot to her feet. “Stay where you are,” she commanded the Runner with such hauteur that for a moment he halted in his tracks. “What an utterly gothic suggestion! Is this your idea of revenge? I have just lost the final vestiges of respect I felt for you and your intelligence. I will accompany you to Candleford of my own free will, Cousin Harold. I will
not
be hauled there like a common felon.”

But the Runner had that length of rope out of his pocket again, and the valet, after one uneasy glance at the earl, who nodded curtly, took a few steps toward her.

“Tie her down,” the earl said before turning away to shuffle the papers on his desk.

“Very well.” Jane gritted her teeth. “If it is a fight you want, a fight you will get.”

But this time she could not scream. It would be too easy for the earl to convince would-be rescuers that she was a murderess resisting arrest. And of course she would lose the fight—she was pitted against two men with her cousin to add his strength to theirs if it became necessary. Within a few minutes she was going to find
herself back on her chair, tied hand and foot and probably gagged too. Well, she would not go down without leaving a few bruises and scratches on each of her assailants. All fear had vanished, to be replaced by a strange sort of exhilaration.

They attacked her together, coming around both sides of the chair and grabbing for her. She hit out with both fists and then with both feet. She twisted and turned, jabbed with her elbows, and even bit a hand that came incautiously close to her mouth. And without even thinking she used language with which she had become familiar in the past few weeks.

“Take your
damned
hands off me and go to the
devil,
” she was saying when a quiet voice somehow penetrated the noise of the scuffle.

“Dear me,” it said, “am I interrupting fun and games?”

By that time Parkins was hanging on to one of her arms while the Runner had the other twisted up painfully behind her back. Jane, panting for breath, her vision impaired by the hair that had fallen across her face, glared at her savior, who was lounging against the frame of the open door, his quizzing glass to his eye and grossly magnifying it.

“Go away,” she said. “I have had
enough
of men to last me at least two lifetimes. I do not need you. I can do very well on my own.”

“As I can see.” The Duke of Tresham lowered his glass. “But such atrocious language, Jane. Wherever have you acquired it? Might I be permitted to ask, Durbury, why there is a male person—neither one a gentleman, I fear—hanging from each of Lady Sara Illingsworth's arms? It appears to be a strange, unsporting sort of game.”

Jane caught sight of Mrs. Jacobs hovering outside the door, looking as if she were bristling with indignation. And Jane herself was feeling no less so. Why was it that two grown men, who had been quite ferocious enough to overpower her just a minute before, were now standing meek and motionless, looking as if for direction to one languid gentleman?

“Good day, Tresham,” the earl said briskly. “Cousin Sara and I will be leaving for Candleford before dark. Your presence here is quite unnecessary.”

“I came of my own free will,” Jane said. “You are no longer responsible for me in any way at all, your grace.”