More than a Mistress/No Man's Mistress (41 page)

Neither of them spoke. But the silence was pregnant with unspoken words.

I might die tomorrow or the morning after
.

You might leave me. You might die
.

This may be good-bye
.

Forever. How will I face forever without you?

My love
.

My love
.

And then he gathered her into his arms and held her tightly, tightly, as if he would fold her right into himself. She clung to him as if she would merge with him, become eternally one with him. She could feel him and smell him and hear his heartbeat.

For perhaps the last time.

He found her mouth with his in the darkness, and they kissed with openmouthed passion, heedless of the proximity of so many of their peers in the nearby rooms. Jane felt his heat, his taste, his maleness, his essence. But all that mattered was that he was Jocelyn, that he was the air she breathed, the heart that beat
within her, the soul that gave her life meaning. And that he was here, warm and alive and in her arms.

She would never let him go. Never.

But he lifted his head, gazed down at her for a long moment, then released her and was gone. She listened to the sound of his footsteps receding down the hall in the direction of the salon and was alone.

More alone than she had ever been in her life before. She stared blankly into the almost dark hall beyond the doorway.

Neither of them had spoken a word.

“There you are,” a voice said gently perhaps a minute later. “Allow me to escort you to Lady Webb, ma’am. Shall I ask her to take you home?”

She could not even answer him for a few moments. But then she swallowed and stepped resolutely out of the doorway. “No, thank you, Lord Ferdinand,” she said. “Is Lady Oliver still here? Do you know? Will you take me to her, please?”

He hesitated. “I don’t believe you need worry about her,” he said. “Tresham is not—”

“I know that,” she said. “Oh, I know that very well. But I wish to talk to her. It is time
someone
did.”

He hesitated, but he offered his arm and led her back to the soiree.

L
ADY
O
LIVER APPEARED TO
be having some difficulty working her way into any group. She was standing alone in the middle of the drawing room, fanning herself and smiling rather contemptuously as if to say that it was beneath her dignity to join any of the groups there.

“I’ll wager she did not even receive an invitation,” Lord Ferdinand muttered. “Lady Sangster would not have invited both her and Tresham. But she would be too polite, I suppose, to turn the woman away. Are you sure you wish to talk to her?”

“Yes, I am,” Jane assured him. “You need not stay, Lord Ferdinand. Thank you. You are a kind gentleman.”

He bowed stiffly to Lady Oliver, who turned and raised her eyebrows in surprise when she saw Jane.

“Well,” she said as Lord Ferdinand walked away, “the notorious Lady Sara Illingsworth herself. And what may I do for you?”

Jane had intended to try to draw her away to the refreshment room, but it seemed they were in a small island of privacy, enclosed by the noise of group conversations and the sound of music coming from the next room.

“You may tell the truth,” she said, looking very directly into the other woman’s eyes.

Lady Oliver opened her fan and plied it slowly before her face. “The truth?” she asked. “And to which truth do you refer, pray?”

“You risked your husband’s life and the Duke of Tresham’s because you would not tell the truth,” Jane said. “Now you would risk the lives of two of your brothers and that of his grace again. All because you have not told the truth.”

Lady Oliver visibly blanched and her hand stilled. There was no mistaking the fact that she had just been dealt a severe shock, that she had not known about the duels until this moment. But she was evidently made of stern stuff. She pulled herself together even as Jane watched, and began fanning her face again.

“I count myself fortunate that I have brothers to defend my honor, Lady Sara,” she said coldly. “What do you want? That I should call them off and save your lover? You might be better served if he died in a duel. It would save you the ignominy of being shed like a soiled garment when he is done with you. That is what Tresham inevitably does with his doxies.”

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.”