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

Jane regarded her coldly and steadily. “You will not divert me from what I have sought you out to say, Lady Oliver,” she said. “The Duke of Tresham was never your lover. But he has always been a gentleman. He will die rather than contradict a lady and cause her public humiliation. The question is, ma'am, are you a lady? Will you allow gentlemen to suffer and perhaps die because a lie serves your vanity more than the truth?”

Lady Oliver laughed. “Is that what he has told you?” she asked. “That he was never my lover? And you believed him? Poor Lady Sara. You are an innocent after all. I could tell you things.… But no matter. You have nothing more to say? I will bid you good evening, then. I have friends awaiting me.”

“You will have an unenviable life ahead of you,” Jane told her, “if someone is killed on account of your lie. A life in which your conscience will plague you every single day and every night too. Even in sleep you will not be able to escape it. I pay you the compliment, you see, of believing that you do have a conscience, that you are vain rather than depraved. I will not bid you a good evening. I hope it is not good. I hope you will be tormented by the mental images of what may happen during one or both of those duels. And I hope that before it is too late you will do the only thing that is likely to win back the respect of your peers.”

She watched as Lady Oliver snapped her fan shut and swept away into the music room. And then she turned her head to find Lady Angeline on her brother's arm, Lady Webb on Viscount Kimble's, all waiting to gather her up into their company.

“Come, Sara,” Aunt Harriet said, “it is time to go home. I am thoroughly fatigued from so much pleasurable conversation.”

“I will take upon myself the pleasure of escorting the two of you out to your carriage, ma'am,” Lord Kimble announced.

Lady Angeline stepped forward and hugged Sara hard. Uncharacteristically, she said nothing.

Lord Ferdinand did. “I will wait upon you early tomorrow morning, Lady Sara,” he said.

To tell her if Jocelyn were alive or dead.

J
OCELYN THOUGHT THE NIGHT
would never come to an end. But it did, of course, after endless hours of fitful sleep, vivid, bizarre dreams, and long spells of wakefulness. It was strange how different this duel felt from any of the four that had preceded it. Apart from an extra burst of nervous excitement on those other occasions, he could not remember having disturbed nights.

He rose earlier than necessary and wrote a long letter, to be delivered in the event that he did not return. After sealing it and pressing his signet ring into the soft wax, he raised it to his lips and closed his eyes briefly. He had held her once more in his arms. But he had been unable to utter a single word. He had been afraid of coming all to pieces if he had tried. He was not good at such words as had been needed. He had no previous experience.

Strange irony to have found love just when he had this morning to face. And tomorrow morning if he survived today.

Strange to have found love at all when he had not believed in its existence. When he had thought of marriage, even to her, as a trap.

He pulled on the bell rope to summon his valet.

J
ANE HAD NOT SLEPT
. She had tried, but she had lain awake, staring at the shadowed canopy above her head, feeling dizzy and sick to her stomach. In the end it had been easier to get up, dress, and curl up on the windowseat of her bedchamber, alternately cooling a burning cheek against the windowpane and huddling for warmth inside a cashmere shawl.

She should have
said
something. Why had she remained silent when there was so much to say? But she knew the answer. There were no words with which to express the deepest emotions of the heart.

What if he should die?

Jane shivered inside the shawl and clamped her teeth hard together to prevent them from chattering.

He had come through four duels with no mortal injury. Surely he could survive two more. But the odds were against him. And Lord Ferdinand, who had been no match for Jane's determined quizzing during their drive in the park, had revealed not only the place and time of the meeting but also the fact that the Reverend Josiah Forbes, despite his calling, was a cold fish and a deadly shot.

Jane's thoughts were interrupted by a scratching on her door. She looked at it, startled. It was very early in
the morning. The door opened quietly, and her maid looked cautiously around it in the direction of the bed.

“I am here,” Jane said.

“Oh, my lady,” the girl said, peering into the semidarkness, “begging your pardon but there is a lady downstairs insisting on speaking with you. She got Mr. Ivy up out of his bed, she did, and he got me out of mine. She will not take no for an answer.”

Jane was on her feet, her stomach churning, her head spinning.

“Who is she?” she asked. She
knew
who it must be, but she dared not hope. Besides, it was too late. Surely it was too late.

“Lady Oliver, my lady,” her maid replied.

Jane did not pause to check her appearance. She dashed from the room and down the stairs with unladylike haste.

Lady Oliver was pacing the hallway. She looked upward when Jane came into sight and hurried toward the foot of the staircase. In the early dawn light, which was augmented by one branch of candles, Jane could see her agitation.

“Where are they?” she demanded. “Where are they to meet? Do you know? And when?”

“Hyde Park,” Jane said. “At six.”

“
Where
in Hyde Park?”

Jane could only guess that it would be the same place as before. But how could she explain exactly where that was? Hyde Park was a very large place. She shook her head.

“Why?” she demanded. “Are you going there?”

“Yes,” Lady Oliver answered. “Oh, quick, quick. Tell me where.”

“I cannot,” Jane said. “But I can show you. Do you have a carriage?”

“Outside the door.” Lady Oliver pointed. “Show me, then. Oh, quick. Run for a cloak and bonnet.”

“There is not time,” Jane said, hurrying past her visitor, grabbing her sleeve as she did so. “It must be well after five already. Come!”

Lady Oliver needed no urging. Within a minute they were seated in her carriage and on their way to Hyde Park.

“If he should die …” Lady Oliver dabbed at her nose with a handkerchief.

He could not die. He could not. There was too much living to be done. Oh, he could not die.

“He has always been the best of brothers,” Lady Oliver continued, “and kinder to me than the others. He was the only one who would play with me as a girl and allow me to follow him around. He must not die. Oh, can that wretched coachman not go faster?”

They were in the park at last, but the carriage could not drive all the way to that private stretch of grass beyond the trees. The coachman, loudly berated by his mistress, set down the steps in haste, and Lady Oliver, looking reasonably respectable in cloak and bonnet and gloves, fairly tumbled out, followed by a bareheaded Jane in morning dress, shawl, and slippers.

“This way!” Jane cried, and broke into a run. She was not sure, of course. It might not be the right place. And even if it were, they might be too late. She listened tensely for the sound of shots above that of her own labored breathing and Lady Oliver's sobs.

It was the right place. As soon as they had stumbled
through the trees, they could see the gathered spectators, all of whom were silent.

There could be only one reason for their silence!

The Reverend Josiah Forbes and the Duke of Tresham, both clad only in shirt, pantaloons, and Hessian boots, were back to back, pacing away from each other, their pistols pointing at the sky. They were stopping. They were about to turn to take aim.

“Stop!” Jane cried. “STOP!” She obeyed her own command and came to a full halt, pressing both fists to her mouth as she did so.

Lady Oliver screamed and stumbled onward.

Both gentlemen stopped. Jocelyn, without turning or lowering his pistol, found Jane out with a single glance. His eyes locked with hers across the distance. The Reverend Forbes both turned and lowered his pistol, frowning ferociously.

“Gertrude!” he bellowed. “Go away from here. This is no place for a woman. I will deal with you later.”

Lord Oliver, looking both flustered and embarrassed, stepped forward from among the spectators and would have taken his wife's arm and propelled her firmly away. But she jerked her arm free.

“No!” she declared. “I have something to say.”

Jane, returning Jocelyn's stare unwaveringly, nevertheless listened. It took her only a moment to realize that Lady Oliver had chosen to play the part of brave martyr, sacrificing her own reputation for the life of her dear brother. But it did not matter. At least she was doing what she should have done long ago, before the meeting of her husband with the Duke of Tresham.

Strange, Jane thought dispassionately. If Lady Oliver had done the right thing at the start, she herself would
never have met Jocelyn. How fragile were the moments of chance on which the whole course of one's life hinged.

“You must not shoot Tresham, Josiah,” Lady Oliver implored. “Neither must Samuel. He has done no wrong. There was never anything between him and me. I wanted there to be, but he would have none of me. I wanted to be the subject of a duel—it seemed grand and romantic to me. But I was wrong, and I will admit it now. You must not shoot an innocent man. You would have it on your conscience for the rest of your life. So would I.”

“Even now you would defend your lover, Gertrude?” the Reverend Forbes asked, using the voice he must use from the pulpit, Jane guessed.

“You know me better,” she told him. “If it were true, I would not so abase myself before an audience. I have simply decided to do what is right. If you still do not believe me, you may speak to Lady Sara Illingsworth, who came with me this morning. She was a witness to the snub I received from Tresham when I called upon him after the last duel. He was never my lover. But he was too much the gentleman to call me a liar.”

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.