More than a Mistress/No Man's Mistress

by Mary Balogh

  There was a chorus of protests from his friends who had gathered around him.

  “Fetch his horse? He is as mad as ever.”

  “I have my carriage here, Tresham. Ride in that. I’ll go and have it brought up.”

  “Stay where you are, Brougham. He is out of his mind.”

  “That’s the fellow, Tresham. You show them what you are made of, old sport.”

  “Fetch my damned horse!” Jocelyn spoke from between his teeth. He had a death grip on the girl’s shoulder.

  “I am going to be very late,” she scolded. “I will lose my employment for sure.”

  “And serve you right too,” Jocelyn said, throwing her own words back at her, his voice devoid of all sympathy as his friend strode away to bring his horse and the surgeon launched into a protest.

  “Silence, sir!” Jocelyn instructed him. “I will have my own physician summoned to Dudley House. He will have more regard for his future than to suggest sawing off my leg. Help me to my horse, girl.”

  But Lord Oliver appeared in front of him before he could turn away.

  “I am not satisfied, I would have you know, Tresham,” he said, his voice breathless and trembling as if he were the one who had suffered injury. “You will doubtless use the distraction with the girl to throw dishonor on my name. And everyone will laugh at me when it is known that you contemptuously shot into the air.”

  “You would rather be dead, then?” Death was seeming to be a rather desirable state to Jocelyn at that particular moment. He was going to black out if he did not concentrate hard.

  “You will stay away from my wife in the future if you know what is good for you,” Lord Oliver said. “Next time I may not accord you the dignity of a challenge. I may shoot you down like the dog you are.”

  He strode away without waiting for an answer, while another chorus of “Shame!” came from the gallery, some of whose members were doubtless disappointed that they were not about to witness the sawbones plying his trade on the grass of Hyde Park.

  “My horse, girl.” Jocelyn tightened his hold on her shoulder again and moved the few steps to Cavalier, whose head Conan was holding.

  Mounting was a daunting task, and would have been quite impossible if his pride had not been at stake—and if he had not had the assistance of his silent but disapproving friend. It amazed Jocelyn that one small wound could cause such agony. And there was worse to look forward to. The bullet was lodged in his calf. And despite his words to the surgeon, he was not quite confident that the leg could be saved. He gritted his teeth and took the horse’s reins from Conan’s hands.

  “I’ll ride with you, Tresham,” his friend said curtly. “You bloody idiot!”

  “I’ll ride on your other side,” Viscount Kimble offered cheerfully. “And then you will have someone to catch you whichever side you choose to slide off. Well done, Tresh, old chap. You gave that old sawbones a right setdown.”

  The serving girl stood looking up at Jocelyn.

  “I must be at least half an hour late by now,” she said. “All because of you and your foolish quarreling and more than foolish dueling.”

  Jocelyn reached for one of the pockets of his coat, only to be reminded that he was still wearing just his shirt and breeches and top boots.

  “Conan,” he said testily, “oblige me by finding a sovereign in my coat pocket and tossing it to this wench, will you? It will more than compensate her for the loss of half an hour’s wages.”

  But she had turned on her heel and was striding away over the grass, her back bristling with indignation.

  “It is a good thing,” Baron Pottier said, looking after her, his quizzing glass to his eye, “that shopgirls do not challenge dukes to duels, Tresham. You would be out here tomorrow morning again for sure.” He chuckled. “And I would not wager against her.”

  Jocelyn did not spare her another thought. Every thought, every sense, every instinct became focused inward on himself—on his pain and on the necessity of riding home to Grosvenor Square and Dudley House before he disgraced himself and fell off his horse in a dead faint.

  FOR TWO WEEKS JANE Ingleby had searched for employment. As soon as she had accepted the fact that there was no one in London to whom to turn for help and no going back where she had come from, and as soon as she had realized that the little money she had brought to town with her would not keep her for longer than one month even if she were very careful, she had started searching, going from one shop to another, one agency to another.

  Finally, when depleted resources had been adding anxiety to the almost paralyzing fear she had already been feeling for other reasons, she had found employment as a milliner’s assistant. It involved long hours of dreary work for a fussy, bad-tempered employer who did business as Madame de Laurent complete with French accent and expressive hands, but whose accent became pure cockney when she was in the workroom at the back of her shop with her girls. The pay was abysmal.

  But at least it was a job. At least there would be wages enough each week to hold body and soul together and pay the rent of the small room Jane had found in a shabby neighborhood.

  She had had the job for two days. This was her third. And she was late. She dreaded to think what that would mean even though she had a good enough excuse. She was not sure Madame de Laurent would be sympathetic to excuses.

  She was not. Five minutes after arriving at the shop, Jane was hurrying away from it again.

  “Two gents fighting a duel,” Madame had said, hands planted on hips, after Jane had told her story. “I was not born yesterday, dearie. Gents don’t fight duels in Hyde Park no longer. They go to Wimbledon Common.”

  Jane had been unable to supply the full names of the two gentlemen. All she knew was that the one who had been wounded—the dark, arrogant, bad-tempered one—had been called Tresham. And that he lived at Dudley House.

  “On Grosvenor Square? Oh, Tresham!” Madame had exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air. “Well, that explains everything. A more reckless, more dangerous gent than Tresham it would be impossible to find. He is the very devil himself.”

  For one moment Jane had breathed a sigh of relief. She was going to be believed after all. But Madame had tipped back her head suddenly and laughed scornfully. And then she had looked around the workshop at the other girls, and they, sycophants that they were, had all laughed scornfully too.

  “And you would have me believe that the Duke of Tresham needed the help of a milliner’s assistant after taking a bullet through the leg?” Madame had asked. The question was clearly rhetorical. She had not paused for a reply. “You cannot take me for a fool, dearie. You saw some excitement and stayed around to have a gawk, did you? Did they take his breeches down to tend to his leg? I can hardly blame you for stopping to gawk at that sight. There is no padding in them breeches, I would have you know.”

  The other girls had tittered again while Jane had felt herself blush—partly with embarrassment, partly with anger.

  “Are you calling me a liar, then?” she had asked incautiously.

  Madame de Laurent had looked at her, transfixed. “Yes, Miss Hoity Toity,” she had said at last. “That I am. And I have no further need of your services. Not unless—” She had paused to look about at the girls again, smirking. “Not unless you can bring me a note signed by the Duke of Tresham himself to bear out your story.”

  The girls had dissolved in convulsions of giggles as Jane had turned and left the workshop. As she strode away, she remembered she had not even asked for the two days’ wages she had earned.

  And what now? Return to the agency that had found her this job? After working for only two days? Part of the problem before had been that she had no references, no previous experience at anything. Surely worse than no references and no experience would be two days of work ended with dismissal for tardiness and lying.

  She had spent the last of her money three days ago on enough food to last her until payday and on the cheap, serviceable dress she was wearing.

&
nbsp; Jane stopped on the pavement suddenly, her legs weak with panic. What could she do? Where could she go? She had no money left even if she did decide belatedly that she wanted to go in search of Charles. She had no money even with which to send a letter. And perhaps even now she was being hunted. She had been in London for longer than two weeks, after all, and she had done nothing to mask her trail here. Someone might well have followed her, especially if …

  But she blanched as her mind shied away from that particular possibility.

  At any moment she might see a familiar face and see the truth in that face—that she was indeed being pursued. Yet she was now being denied the chance to disappear into the relatively anonymous world of the working class.

  Should she find another agency and neglect to mention the experience of the past few days? Were there any agencies she had not already visited at least half a dozen times?

  And then a portly, hurrying gentleman collided painfully with her and cursed her before moving on. Jane rubbed one sore shoulder and felt anger rising again—a familiar feeling today. She had been angry with the bad-tempered duelist—apparently the Duke of Tresham. He had treated her like a thing, whose only function in life was to serve him. And then she had been angry with Madame, who had called her a liar and made her an object of sport.

  Were women of the lower classes so utterly powerless, so totally without any right to respect?

  That man needed to be told that he had been the means of her losing her employment. He needed to know what a job meant to her—survival! And Madame needed to know that she could not call her a liar without any proof whatsoever. What had she said just a few minutes ago? That Jane could keep her job if she brought a note signed by the duke attesting to the truth of her story?

  Well then, she would have her note.

  And he would sign it.

  Jane knew where he lived. On Grosvenor Square. She knew where that was too. During her first days in London, before she had understood how frighteningly alone she was, before fear had caught her in its grip and sent her scurrying for cover like the fugitive she now was, she had walked all over Mayfair. He lived at Dudley House on Grosvenor Square.

  Jane went striding off along the pavement.

  2

  HE EARL OF DURBURY HAD TAKEN ROOMS AT the Pulteney Hotel. He rarely came to London and owned no town house. He would have preferred a far less expensive hotel, but there were certain appearances to be kept up. He hoped he would not have to stay long but could soon be on his way back to Candleford in Cornwall.

  The man standing in his private sitting room, hat in hand, his manner deferential but not subservient, would have something to do with the duration of the earl’s stay. He was a small, dapper individual with oiled hair. He was not at all his lordship’s idea of what a Bow Street Runner should look like, but that was what he was.

  “I expect every man on the force to be out searching for her,” the earl said. “She should not be difficult to find. She is just a green country girl, after all, and has no acquaintances here apart from Lady Webb, who is out of town.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir,” the Runner replied, “but there are other cases we are working on. I will have the assistance of one or two other men. Perfectly able men, I assure you.”

  “I would think so too,” the earl grumbled, “considering what I am paying you.”

  The Runner merely inclined his head politely. “Now, if you could give me a description of the young lady,” he suggested.

  “Tall and thin,” his lordship said. “Blond. Too pretty for her own good.”

  “Her age, sir?”

  “Twenty.”

  “She is simply a runaway, then?” The Runner planted his feet more firmly on the carpet. “I was under the impression that there was more to it than that, sir.”

  “There certainly is.” The earl frowned. “The woman is a criminal of the most dangerous kind. She is a murderess. She has killed my son—or as good as killed him. He is in a coma and not expected to live. And she is a thief. She ran off with a fortune in money and jewels. She must be found.”

  “And brought to justice,” the Runner agreed. “Now, sir, if I may, I will question you more closely about the young woman—any peculiarities of appearance, mannerisms, preferences, favorite places and activities. Things like that. Anything that might help us to a hasty conclusion of our search.”

  “I suppose,” his lordship said grudgingly, “you had better sit down. What is your name?”

  “Boden, sir,” the Runner replied. “Mick Boden.”

  JOCELYN WAS FEELING QUITE satisfyingly foxed. Satisfying except that he was horizontal on his bed when he preferred the upright position while inebriated—the room had less of a tendency to swing and dip and weave around him.

  “ ’Nuff!” He held up a hand—or at least he thought he did—when Sir Conan offered him another glass of brandy. “ ’f I drink more, th’old sawbones will have m’leg off b’fore I can protest.” His lips and tongue felt as if they did not quite belong to him. So did his brain.

  “I have already given you my word that I will not amputate without your concurrence, your grace,” Dr. Timothy Raikes said stiffly, no doubt aggrieved at being referred to as a sawbones. “But it looks as if the bullet is deep. If it is lodged in the bone …”

  “Gerr irr—” Jocelyn concentrated harder. He despised drunks who slurred their words. “Get it out of there, then.” The pain had been pleasantly numbed, but even his befuddled mind comprehended the fact that the alcohol he had consumed would not mask the pain of what was about to happen. There was no point in further delay. “Ged on—get on with the job, man.”

  “If my daughter would just come,” the doctor said uneasily. “She is a good, steady-handed assistant in such cases. I sent for her as soon as I was summoned here, but she must have left Hookham’s Library before the messenger arrived.”

  “Blast your daughter!” Jocelyn said rudely. “Get—”

  But Conan interrupted.

  “Here she is.” There was marked relief in his voice.

  “No, sir,” Dr. Raikes replied. “This is merely a housemaid. But she will have to do. Come here, girl. Are you squeamish? Do you faint at the sight of blood as his grace’s valet does?”

  “No to both questions,” the housemaid said. “But there must have been some mis—”

  “Come here,” the doctor said more impatiently. “I have to dig a bullet out of his grace’s leg. You must hand me the instruments I ask for and swab the blood so that I can see what I am doing. Come closer. Stand here.”

  Jocelyn braced himself by grasping the outer edges of the mattress with both hands. He caught a brief glimpse of the housemaid before she disappeared beyond Raikes. Coherent thought vanished a moment later as everything in his body, his mind, his world exploded into searing agony. There was nowhere, no corner of his being, in which to hide as the physician cut and probed and dug deeper and deeper in search of the bullet. Conan was pressing down with both hands on his thigh to hold his leg immobile. Jocelyn held the rest of himself still by dint of sheer willpower and a death grip on the mattress and tightly clenched eyes and teeth. With dogged determination he concentrated on keeping himself from screaming.

  Time lost all meaning. It seemed forever before he heard the physician announce with damnable calm that the bullet was out.

  “It’s out, Tresham,” Conan repeated, sounding as if he had just run ten miles uphill. “The worst is over.”

  “Damn it to hell!” Jocelyn commented after using a few other more blistering epithets. “Can’t you perform the simple task of removing a bullet, Raikes, without taking all morning over it?”

  “I worked as fast as I could, your grace,” his physician replied. “It was embedded in muscles and tendons. It is difficult to assess the damage that has been done. But haste on my part would almost certainly have crippled you and rendered amputation unavoidable.”

  Jocelyn swore again. And then felt the indescribable comfort of a cool, d
amp cloth being pressed first to his forehead and then to each of his cheeks. He had not realized how hot he was. He opened his eyes.

  He recognized her instantly. Her golden hair was dressed with ruthless severity. Her mouth was in a thin line as it had been the last time he saw her—in Hyde Park. She had shed the gray cloak and bonnet she had been wearing then, but what was beneath them was no improvement. She wore a cheap, tasteless gray dress, primly high at the neckline. Despite his inebriation, which his pain had largely put to flight, Jocelyn seemed to recall that he was lying on his own bed in his own bedchamber in his own London home. She had been in Hyde Park on her way to work.

  “What the devil are you doing here?” he demanded.

  “Helping to mop up blood and now sponging away sweat,” she replied, turning to dip her cloth in a bowl and squeeze it out before pressing it to his forehead again. Saucy wench.

  “Oh, I say!” Conan had obviously just recognized her too.

  “Who let you in?” Jocelyn winced and swore as Dr. Raikes spread something over his wound.

  “Your butler, I suppose,” she said. “I told him I had come to speak with you, and he whisked me up here. He said I was expected. You may wish to advise him to greater caution about the people he admits. I might have been anyone.”

  “You are anyone!” Jocelyn barked, tightening his grip on the mattress as his leg was moved and a universe of pain crashed through him. The doctor was beginning to bandage his wound. “What the devil do you want?”

  “Whoever you are,” the doctor began, sounding nervous, “you are upsetting my patient. Perhaps you—”

  “What I demand,” she said firmly, ignoring him, “is a signed note to the effect that you detained me against my will this morning and thus caused me to be late for work.”

  He must be drunker than he had realized, Jocelyn thought.

  “Go to the devil,” he told the impertinent serving girl.

  “I might well have to,” she said, “if I lose my employment.” She was dabbing at his chin and neck with her cool cloth.