by Mary Balogh
“Ferdinand,” Jocelyn said impulsively, “we had better switch curricles.”
His brother looked at him with undisguised hope. “You mean it, Tresham?”
“I have a better regard for my wager than to send you off to Brighton in that bandbox,” Jocelyn replied, nodding at the red and yellow curricle.
Ferdinand was not about to argue the point further. In a matter of minutes—and with only five minutes to spare before the scheduled start of the race—his groom had unhitched his curricle from the chestnuts and switched it with the duke’s.
“Just remember,” Jocelyn said, unable after all to resist the urge to give advice, “it is somewhat lighter than yours, Ferdinand, and more instantly responsive to your maneuvering. Slow down on the bends.”
Ferdinand climbed up to the high seat and took the ribbons from his groom’s hand. He was serious now, concentrating on the task ahead.
“And bring it back in one piece,” Jocelyn added before stepping back with the rest of the spectators, “or I’ll skin you alive.”
One minute later the Marquess of Yarborough, Berriwether’s brother-in-law, raised the starting pistol skyward, there was an expectant hush, the pistol cracked, and the race began amid a roar of cheers and a cloud of dust and a thundering of hooves.
It looked, Jocelyn thought, gazing rather wistfully after the curricles and the throng of riders, rather like a cavalry charge. He turned toward Ferdinand’s curricle and exchanged a few pleasantries with some other spectators.
He wished then that he had brought his groom after all. He would have to go home in order to have his horses stabled and the curricle put away in the carriage house before proceeding to White’s. But he need not go inside the house. He had no reason to do so and every reason not to.
He had kissed her again last evening. And had admitted that they could not go on as they were. The matter had to be dealt with. She had to go.
The trouble was, he did not want her to go.
He should have driven around to the mews, he remembered as he drove into Grosvenor Square and approached the front doors of Dudley House. He was not concentrating. He would drive around the square and back out of it.
But just as he gave his horses the signal to proceed, a series of incidents, which happened so fast that even afterward he was not sure of the sequence, changed all his plans. There was a loud snapping sound, a sudden lurching of the curricle to the left, a snorting and rearing of the horses, a shout in a male voice, a scream in a female’s. And a painful collision of his body with something hard enough to knock the breath out of him.
He was lying facedown on the roadway outside his own doors when rational thought returned. With the sound of frightened horses being soothed behind him, with the feeling that every bone in his body must have been jarred into a new position, and with someone stroking his hair—what the devil had happened to his hat?—and assuring him in a marvelous exercise of utter female stupidity that he would be all right, that everything would be all right.
“Bloody hell!” he exclaimed ferociously, turning his head to one side and viewing from ground level the ruin of his brother’s curricle, which was listing sharply to one side on its snapped axle.
Every house on the square, it seemed, was disgorging hordes of interested and concerned spectators—had they all been lined up at the windows to witness his humiliation?
“Just catch your breath,” Jane Ingleby said, her hand still in his hair. “A couple of the servants will carry you inside in a moment. Don’t try to move.”
That was all he would need to cap the mortification of one of the most wretched months of his life.
“If you cannot talk sense,” he said, shaking his head irritably to rid himself of her hand, “I suggest that you not talk at all.”
He planted his hands on the ground—there was a ragged hole in the palm of one of his expensive leather gloves, he noticed, with raw flesh within—and hoisted himself upward, ignoring the silent screaming of muscles that had just been severely abused.
“Oh, how foolish you are!” Jane Ingleby scolded, and to his shame he was forced to set a heavy hand on her shoulder—again.
But he was gazing narrow-eyed at Ferdinand’s curricle.
“It would have snapped when he was out in the country driving at breakneck speed,” he said.
She frowned up at him.
“It is Ferdinand’s curricle,” he explained. “The axle has broken. He would have been killed. Marsh!” he bellowed at his head groom, who was still soothing the horses while someone from another house was unhitching them from the vehicle. “Examine that curricle with a fine-tooth comb as soon as you have a chance. I want a report within the half hour.”
“Yes, your grace,” his groom called.
“Help me inside,” Jocelyn commanded Jane. “And stop your fussing. I’ll have bruises and scrapes for you to tend to your heart’s content once we have reached the library, I do not doubt. I have not broken any bones, and I did not land on my right leg. At least, I do not think I did. Someone did this. Deliberately.”
“To kill Lord Ferdinand?” she asked as they went inside. “So that he would lose the race? How absurd. No one could want to win a bet or a race that badly. It was an accident. They do happen, you know.”
“I have enemies,” he said curtly. “And Ferdinand is my brother.”
He hoped fervently that the curricle was all that had been tampered with. This had the signature of the Forbes brothers all over it. Underhanded, sneaky bastards.
JANE HAD RISEN WITH a firm determination to take her leave of Dudley House that very day. Her usefulness here, what little there had been, was at an end. The three weeks were over. And what she had agreed to and done last evening for the entertainment of the duke’s guests had been the ultimate madness. Fifty members of the beau monde had seen her—really seen her—when she was dressed, if not quite in the splendor of evening garments that would have set her on a level with them, at least in a manner that set her noticeably above the level of a maid.
It was surely only a matter of time before the search for her led to the circulation among the ton of a description of her appearance. Indeed she was puzzled that it had not already happened. But when it did, a number of last evening’s guests were going to remember Jane Ingleby.
She had to leave Dudley House. She had to disappear. She would take the five hundred pounds—another madness, but she had every intention of holding the Duke of Tresham to his end of their bargain—and go into hiding. Not in London. She would go somewhere else. She would walk clear of town before trying to board any public conveyance.
Jane was determined to leave. Even apart from every other reason, there was last night’s lingering kiss, which had come alarmingly close to exploding into uncontrolled passion. It was no longer possible for her to remain at Dudley House. And she would not allow herself to indulge in any personal longing. For the moment at least she could not allow herself to have any personal feelings.
She fetched warm water and ointments and bandages as soon as she had settled him in the library. She was sitting on a stool before the fireside chair, rubbing ointment into his badly scraped palms, when his groom was admitted.
“Well?” his grace demanded. “What did you find, Marsh?”
“The axle had definitely been tampered with, your grace,” his groom told him. “It was not natural wear and tear that made it go like that.”
“I knew it,” the duke said grimly. “Send someone reliable over to my brother’s stable, Marsh. No, better yet, go yourself. I want to know exactly who has had access to that curricle during the past few days. Especially yesterday and last night. Deuce take it, but surely both he and his groom were careful enough to inspect the vehicle when it was to be used in a lengthy race.”
“I know you and I both would if it had been you, your grace,” the groom assured him.
He went on his way, and Jane found herself being scowled at.
“If you are planning to use those
bandages,” he said, “forget it. I am not walking around with two mittened paws for the next week or so.”
“Those cuts will be painful, your grace,” she warned him.
He smiled grimly at her, and Jane sat back on the stool. She knew that his mind was distracted with the morning’s events and with anxiety for his brother’s safety. But the time had come. She could wait no longer.
“I am going to leave,” she said abruptly.
His smile became more crooked. “The room, Jane?” he said. “To put the bandages away again? I wish you would.”
She did not answer but merely stared at him. He had not for a moment misunderstood her, she knew.
“You would leave me, then?” he said at last.
“I must,” she said. “You know I must. You said so yourself last night.”
“But not today.” He frowned and flexed the fingers of his left hand, which was less badly scraped than the other. “I cannot cope with another crisis today, Jane.”
“This is not a crisis,” she told him. “I have had temporary employment here and now it is time for me to leave—after I have been paid.”
“Perhaps,” he said, “I cannot afford to pay you today, Jane. Did I not agree to give you the colossal sum of five hundred pounds for last evening’s performance? I doubt Quincy keeps that much petty cash on hand.”
Jane blinked her eyes, but she could not quite clear them of the despicable tears that rushed to them.
“Do not make a joke of it,” she said. “Please. I must leave. Today.”
“To go where?” he asked her.
But she merely shook her head.
“Don’t leave me, Jane,” he said. “I cannot let you go. Can you not see that I need a nurse?” He held up his hands, palms out. “For at least another month?”
She shook her head again and he sat back in his chair and regarded her, narrow-eyed.
“Why are you so eager to leave me? Have I been such a tyrant to you, Jane? Have I treated you so badly? Spoken to you so irritably?”
“That you have, your grace,” she told him.
“It is because I have been pampered and fawned over since my youth,” he said. “I did not mean anything by it, you know. And you have never let me browbeat you, Jane. You have been the one to browbeat me.”
She smiled, but in truth she felt like bawling. Not just because of the frightening unknown into which she would be going but because of what she would be leaving behind, though she had tried determinedly not to think of it all morning.
“You must leave here,” he said abruptly. “On that we are agreed, Jane. After last night it is even more imperative that you leave.”
She nodded and looked down at her hands in her lap. If she had hoped he would try harder to persuade her to stay on the slim excuse of his scraped hands, she was to be disappointed.
“But you could live somewhere else,” he said, “where we could see each other daily away from the prying eyes and gossiping tongues of the beau monde. Would you like that?”
She raised her eyes slowly to his. She could not possibly misunderstand his meaning. What she could not believe was her own reaction, or lack of it. Her lack of outrage. Her yearning. The temptation.
He was looking steadily back at her, his eyes very dark.
“I would look after you, Jane,” he said. “You could live in style. A home and servants and a carriage of your own. Clothes and jewels. A decent salary. A certain freedom. Far more freedom than a married woman enjoys, anyway.”
“In exchange for lying with you,” she said quietly. It was not a question. The answer was too obvious.
“I have a certain expertise,” he told her. “It would be my delight to use it for your pleasure, Jane. It would be a very fair exchange, you see. You cannot tell me in all honesty, can you, that you have never thought of sharing a bed with me? That you have never wanted it? That you are in any way repelled by me? Come, be honest. I will know if you lie.”
“I do not have to lie,” she said. “I do not have to answer at all. I will have five hundred pounds plus my three weeks’ salary. I can go wherever I want and do whatever I want. That is a fortune for a frugal person, your grace. I am not compelled to accept carte blanche from you.”
He laughed softly. “I do not believe, Jane,” he said, “that I would ever be fool enough to try to compel you to do anything. I am not seducing you. I am not tempting you. I am offering you a proposition, a business one, if you wish. You need a home and a source of income beyond what you already have. You need some security and someone to take your mind off your lone state, I daresay. You are a woman with sexual needs, after all, and you are sexually drawn to me. And I need a mistress. I have been womanless for an alarmingly long time. I have even taken to cornering nurses outside their rooms when I escort them there and stealing kisses. I need someone I can visit at my leisure, someone who can satisfy my own sexual needs. You can, Jane. I desire you. And of course I have the means with which to enable you to live in style.”
And in hiding.
Jane looked at her hands, but her mind was considering his offer. She could not quite believe that she was doing so, but she deliberately stopped herself from reacting with simple horror and outrage.
Even assuming she was never caught, she could never go back to being Lady Sara Illingsworth. She could never come into the inheritance due her on her twenty-fifth birthday. She had to think practically of her future. She had to live somewhere. She had to work. Five hundred pounds would not last forever no matter how frugally she lived. She was perfectly capable of taking employment fitted for a gentlewoman—as a teacher or governess or lady’s companion. But to do so she would have to make application, she would have to have references, she would have to risk discovery.
The alternative was to grub out an existence at menial tasks. Or to become the Duke of Tresham’s mistress.
“Well, Jane?” he asked into the lengthy silence that had followed his last words. “What do you say?”
She drew a deep breath and looked up at him.
She would not have to leave him.
She would lie with him. Outside wedlock. She would be a mistress, a paid woman.
“What sort of a house?” she asked. “And how many servants? How much salary? And how are my interests to be protected? How am I to know you will not dismiss me out of hand as soon as you have tired of me?”
He smiled slowly at her. “That’s my girl,” he said softly. “Feisty.”
“There is to be a contract,” she told him. “We will discuss and agree to its terms together. It is to be drawn up and duly checked and signed by both of us before I become your mistress. In the meanwhile I cannot stay here. Is there already a house? Are you one of those gentlemen who keeps a house especially for your mistresses? If so, then I will move to it. If we cannot come to an agreement on a contract, then I will, of course, move out again.”
“Of course I have such a house,” he said. “Empty of all but two servants at present, I hasten to add. I will take you there later, Jane, after Marsh has returned with news from my brother’s stable. I have to do something to fill in the time before word comes from Brighton. We will discuss terms tomorrow.”
“Very well.” She got to her feet and picked up the bowl and the bandages. “I will have my bag packed and will be ready to leave whenever you summon me, your grace.”
“I have the feeling,” he said with deceptive meekness as she reached the door and turned the handle, “that you are going to drive a very hard bargain, Jane. I have never before had a mistress who insisted upon a contract.”
“The more fool they,” she said. “And I am not your mistress yet.”
He was chuckling softly when she closed the door.
She leaned back against it, thankful that there were no servants in sight. All her bravado went from her, and with it all the strength in her legs.
What on earth had she just done?
What had she agreed to—or almost agreed to?
Sh
e tried to feel a suitable degree of horror. But all she could really feel was enormous relief that she would not be leaving him today, never to see him again.
12
T WAS A HOUSE HE HAD OWNED FOR FIVE YEARS. It was on a decent street in a respectable neighborhood. He had had it decorated and furnished at great expense. He had hired decent, reliable servants, two of whom had been there for all five years, staying to maintain the house even when it had no occupant.
It was a house of which Jocelyn was fond, representing as it did a world of private and sensual delights. And yet as soon as he stepped across the threshold with Jane Ingleby, he felt uncomfortable.
It was not just the house. It was the whole idea of her becoming his mistress. He wanted her, yes. In bed. In all the usual ways. Yet somehow the idea of Jane Ingleby as his mistress did not seem quite to fit.
“Jacobs,” he said to the butler, who bowed deferentially, “this is Miss Ingleby. She will be living here for a while. You and Mrs. Jacobs will take your orders from her.”
If Jacobs was surprised to find his master choosing a mistress from among the working classes—she was, of course, wearing the cheap gray cloak and bonnet she had worn in Hyde Park—he was far too well trained to show it.
“We will do our best to see to your comfort, ma’am,” he said, bowing to her.
“Thank you, Mr. Jacobs,” she said, inclining her head regally before he withdrew discreetly to the nether regions of the house.
“They will hire more servants, of course,” Jocelyn said, taking Jane’s elbow and beginning a tour of the house with her. “Shall I give the orders, or would you prefer to be in charge of it yourself?”
“Neither yet,” she said coolly, looking around the sitting room with its lavender carpet and furnishings, its pink draperies and frilled cushions. “I may not be staying longer than a few days. We have no agreement yet.”