More than a Mistress/No Man's Mistress (43 page)

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.”

“As soon as he is able,” he repeated. “Where has he been during the past month or so? I have not noticed him dashing about London searching for you, rescuing you from the clutches of your uncle or your cousin or whatever the devil Durbury is to you.”

“Where would he have looked?” she asked. “If the Bow Street Runners could not find me, what chance would Charles have had, your grace?”

“I would have found you.” He narrowed his gaze on her. “The world would not have been large enough to hide you,
Lady Sara
, if I had been searching.”

“Don't call me that,” she told him. “It is not my name. I am Jane.”

His mood softened and for the moment he forgot the irritation of Sir Charles Fortescue, milksop and bumpkin.

“Yes,” he agreed. “Yes, it is. And I am not ‘your grace,' Jane. I am Jocelyn.”

“Yes.” She licked her lips.

“Why are you cowering there, grasping the doorknob?”
he asked her. “Are you afraid I will make a grab for you and have my wicked way with you?”

She shook her head and advanced farther into the room. “I am not afraid of you.”

“Then you should be.” He allowed his eyes to roam over her. She was clad in pale-lemon muslin. Her hair glowed. “I have missed you.” But after all, he could not allow himself such vulnerability. “In bed, of course.”

“Of course,” she said tartly. “Where else could you possibly mean? Why have you come, Jocelyn? Do you still feel honor bound to offer for me because I am Lady Sara Illingsworth rather than Jane Ingleby? You insult me. Is the name so much more significant than the person? You would not have dreamed of marrying Jane Ingleby.”

“You have always presumed to know my thoughts, Jane,” he said. “Do you know my dreams now too?”

“You would not have married Jane Ingleby,” she insisted. “Why do you wish to marry me now? Because it is the gentlemanly thing to do, like facing death in a duel rather than call a lady a liar? I do not want a perfect gentleman, Jocelyn. I would prefer the rake.”

It was one of the rare occasions when his own temper was not rising with hers. The fact gave him a definite advantage.

“Would you, Jane?” He made his voice a caress. “Why?”

“Because the rake has some spontaneity, some vulnerability, some humanity, some—oh, what is the word I am looking for?” One of her hands was making circles in the air.

“Passion?” he suggested.

“Yes, precisely.” Her blue eyes gazed angrily back into
his. “I prefer you to be arguing and quarreling with me and insulting me and trying to order me about and reading to me and p-painting me and forgetting all about me and the rest of the world while you lose yourself in music. I prefer
that
man, odious as he can be. That man has
passion
. I will not have you acting the gentleman with me, Jocelyn. I
will
not.”

He held his smile inside. And his hope. He wondered if she realized just how suggestive her final words had been. Probably not. She was still in a towering temper.

“Will you not?” He strolled toward her. “I had better kiss you, then, to prove how much I am not the gentleman.”

“Come one step closer,” she told him, “and I will slap you.”

But she would not, of course, take one step back to put more distance between them. He took two steps closer until they were almost toe-to-toe.

“Please, Jane.” He made his voice a caress again. “Let me kiss you?”

“Why should I?” Her eyes were bright with tears, but she would not look away. And he was not sure whether they were tears of anger or sentiment. “Why should I let you kiss me? The last time you made me believe you cared even though you said nothing. And then the morning after you
beckoned
with your fingers and looked cold and arrogant, just as if I were your dog being called to heel. Why should I let you kiss me when you do not care a fig for me?”