More than a Mistress/No Man's Mistress

by Mary Balogh

  “He is a Bow Street Runner,” his secretary told him.

  Jocelyn merely stared at him.

  “Hawkins referred him to me with his questions,” Quincy explained. “I told him I knew nothing about any Miss Ingleby. He said he would wait and speak with you, then. When I told him he might have to wait a week before you found a moment to spare for him, he said he would wait a week. He is in the kitchen, your grace, and shows no sign of going away.”

  “With questions about Miss Ingleby.” Jocelyn’s eyes narrowed. “You had better show him up, Michael.”

  MICK BODEN WAS FEELING uncomfortable. Only very rarely did his work bring him to any of the grand mansions of Mayfair. Truth to tell he was rather in awe of the aristocracy. And the owner of Dudley House was the Duke of Tresham, reputedly the sort of man even his peers feared to tangle with.

  But he knew he was close. The servants were all lying their heads off, every last one of them. None of them knew any Miss Jane Ingleby, including his grace’s secretary, whom, to his shame, Mick Boden had taken for the duke himself at first, so grand a nob was he.

  Mick knew when people were lying. And he knew why these people were lying. It was not that they were protecting her or hiding her but that they were servants who valued their employment. And clearly one rule of that employment was that one did not open one’s mouth to strangers about any inhabitant of the house, even fellow servants. He could respect that.

  And then the butler, a man who had the habit of sniffing the air as if to catch the dirty odor of lesser mortals, appeared in the kitchen and fixed his disdainful eye upon Mick.

  “Follow me,” he said.

  Mick followed him, out of the kitchen, up the steep stairs, and through the baize door that led into the back of the hall. The sudden splendor of the main part of the house fairly took his breath away, though he concentrated upon not showing that he was impressed. The secretary was waiting there.

  “His grace will give you five minutes,” he said. “I will show you into the library. I shall wait outside to show you off the premises when you have been dismissed.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Mick Boden said.

  He was a little nervous, but he strode purposefully enough into the library after the butler had opened the door. He came to a halt six steps inside the door and planted his feet wide on the carpet. He held his hat with both hands and bobbed his head civilly. He would not bow.

  The duke—he supposed it must be the duke this time—was standing in front of an ornate marble fireplace, his hands clasped at his back. He was wearing riding clothes, but they were so well tailored and fit so perfectly that Mick immediately felt conscious of the cheapness of his own clothes, on whose nattiness he prided himself. He was being regarded steadily from eyes so dark Mick would swear they were black.

  “You have a few questions for me,” the duke informed Mick. “You are a Bow Street Runner?”

  “Yes, sir. Mick Boden, sir.” Mick resisted the urge to bob his head again. “I have been informed, sir, that you have a Miss Jane Ingleby in your service.”

  “Have you?” His grace raised his eyebrows and looked very forbidding indeed. “And who, may I ask, did the informing?”

  “Madame de Laurent, sir,” Mick Boden said. “A milliner. She employed Miss Ingleby until a month or so ago, when the young lady gave her notice and explained she was coming here to work for you.”

  “Indeed?” The duke’s eyes narrowed. “And what is your interest in Miss Ingleby?”

  Mick hesitated, but only for a moment. “She is wanted, sir,” he said, “for dastardly crimes.”

  His grace’s fingers found and curled about the handle of his quizzing glass, though he did not raise it to his eye.

  “Dastardly crimes?” he repeated softly.

  “Theft, sir,” Mick explained. “And murder.”

  “Fascinating,” the duke commented just as softly, and Mick, a good judge of character, knew without any doubt that this could be a very dangerous man indeed. “And a Banbury tale?”

  “Oh, no, sir,” Mick said briskly. “It is quite true. The name is an alias. In reality she is Lady Sara Illingsworth, who murdered Mr. Sidney Jardine, son and heir of the Earl of Durbury, and then ran off with the earl’s money and jewels. You might have heard about the incident, sir. She is a desperate fugitive, sir, and it is my belief she is here in this house.”

  “Dear me,” his grace said after a short silence. “I perceive that I am fortunate indeed not to have woken one morning during the past month to find my throat slit from ear to ear.”

  Mick felt intense satisfaction. At last! The Duke of Tresham had as good as admitted that she was at Dudley House.

  “She is here, sir?” he asked.

  The duke raised his quizzing glass halfway to his eye. “Was here,” he said. “Miss Ingleby was employed for three weeks as my nurse after I was shot in the leg. She left a couple of weeks ago. You must pursue your search elsewhere. I believe Mr. Quincy is waiting in the hall to show you out.”

  But Mick Boden was not ready to be dismissed just yet.

  “Can you tell me where she went, sir?” he asked. “It is very important. The Earl of Durbury is beside himself with grief and will not know a moment’s peace until his son’s murderess has been brought to justice.”

  “And his jewels returned to his safe at Candleford,” the duke added. “Miss Ingleby was a servant here. Am I to know where servants go after they leave my employ?” His eyebrows rose haughtily again.

  Mick knew he had just slammed into a brick wall. He had come so close.

  “That will be all?” his grace asked. “The interrogation is ended? I confess an eagerness for my breakfast.”

  Mick would have liked to ask more questions. Sometimes, even when people were not deliberately hiding information, they knew more than they realized. Perhaps the girl had said something about her future plans, dropped some hint, confided in some fellow servant. But it was unlikely, he admitted. She knew she was a fugitive. Doubtless she had heard, during her weeks in this house, that the Runners were after her.

  “Well?” There was a force of arrogant incredulity behind the one word.

  Mick bobbed his head again, bade the Duke of Tresham a good morning, and took his leave. The duke’s secretary showed him out through the front door, and the Bow Street Runner found himself on Grosvenor Square, feeling that he was back where he had started.

  Though perhaps not quite.

  He had heard about the duel even before Madame de Laurent had mentioned it. The Duke of Tresham had been shot in the leg and incapacitated for three weeks. The rest of London’s nobs had probably beaten a path to his door to keep him company. The girl had been his nurse. She must surely have been seen by some of those visitors. Some of them might be more forthcoming than the duke himself.

  No, he had not come up against a brick wall after all, Mick Boden decided. Not yet at least.

  He would find her.

  ALL THE EVIDENCE HAD been staring him in the eyeballs, Jocelyn thought as he stood at the library window watching the Bow Street Runner make his slow way out of the square. Staring so closely, in fact, that it had thrown his mind out of focus and he had just not seen it.

  She had clearly been brought up a lady. She had demonstrated all the attributes of a lady from the start except genteel dress. She spoke with a refined accent; she bore herself proudly and gracefully; she was literate; she could play the pianoforte with competence if not with flair; she could sing superbly—with a trained voice and a knowledge of composers like Handel; she could command and organize servants; she was not awed by a man with a title, like himself, even when he was overbearing by nature.

  Had he for one moment believed her story that she had been brought up in an orphanage? For one moment, perhaps. But he had realized for some time that she had lied about her background. He had even idly wondered why. There was something about her past that she wanted to keep private, he had concluded. He had never been unduly curious about th
e secrets people chose to keep hidden.

  Lady Sara Illingsworth.

  Not Jane Ingleby, but Lady Sara Illingsworth.

  His eyes narrowed as he gazed out onto the now empty square.

  He had consistently misinterpreted the biggest clue of all—her reluctance to be seen. She had not wanted to venture outside Dudley House when she was here except into the garden; she did not want to venture outside the house where she was now. She had been very reluctant to sing for his guests. She had chosen to become his mistress rather than pursue what could undoubtedly be a brilliant career as a singer.

  He had thought she was ashamed, first of what people would think her relationship to him might be and then of what that relationship really was. But she had shown no other sign of shame. She had negotiated their foolish contract with practical good sense. She had redecorated her house because she would not be made to feel like a whore living in a brothel. There had been no shrinking from her fate the afternoon of the consummation of their liaison, no tears or other sign of remorse afterward.

  His mind should have worked its way around to understanding that she was afraid to be seen in public lest she be recognized and apprehended. He had simply not seen the obvious—that she was in hiding.

  That she was wanted for theft and murder.

  Jocelyn stepped back from the window, paced to the other side of the room, and set his hands flat on top of the oak desk.

  He did not care a fig for the fact that he was harboring a fugitive. The notion that she was dangerous was patently absurd. But he cared the devil of a bit over the fact that he had discovered her identity too late.

  Offering employment as his mistress to a penniless orphan or even to a destitute gentlewoman was a perfectly unexceptionable thing to do. Offering the same employment to the daughter of an earl was a different matter altogether. Perhaps it should not be. If they lived in a perfect society, in which all people were seen as equals, it would make no difference.

  But they did not.

  And so it did make a difference.

  He had had the virginity of Lady Sara Illingsworth, daughter of the late Earl of Durbury of Candleford in Cornwall.

  He was not at this particular moment feeling kindly disposed toward Lady Sara Illingsworth.

  Damn her. He thumped one fist down hard on the desk and clenched his teeth. She should have told him. She should have enlisted his aid. Did she not realize that he was exactly the sort of man to whom she could openly admit the worst without fear that he would have a fit of the vapors and send for the Runners? Did she not understand that he must hold men like Jardine in the utmost contempt? The devil! He pounded his fist hard onto wood again. What had the bastard done to her to provoke her into killing him—if he was dead? What had she suffered since in guilt and fear and loneliness?

  Damn her all to hell! She had not trusted him enough to confide in him.

  Instead she had locked and bolted a shackle about his leg and thrown away the key. Even if it had been done unwittingly—in fact, undoubtedly she had not intended it since she trusted him so little—it had been done effectively indeed.

  For that he would find it hard to forgive her.

  Damn the woman!

  And something else. Oh, yes, there was something else. He had bared his soul to her last evening as he had never done to any other human being. He had trusted her that much.

  But she did not return his trust. Ever since he had first set eyes upon her, she must have been suffering unbearable torment. Yet she had kept it all from him. Even last night.

  Skeletons are dreadful things to have in our past, Jane, he had said to her. I do not suppose you have any, do you?

  No, she had replied. None.

  Damn her!

  Jocelyn’s fist banged onto the desk once more, causing the inkpot to jump in its silver holder.

  JOCELYN SPENT THE DAY at his clubs, at Jackson’s boxing saloon, at a shooting range, at the races. He dined at White’s and spent a couple of hours at an insipid soiree, at which his sister informed him that he had become quite the stranger and that she had talked Heyward into taking her to Brighton for a few weeks in the summer to mix with Prinny’s set and sample the pleasures of the Pavilion. His brother, who also commented that he had become a stranger, was seething with indignation.

  “The point is, Tresham,” he said, “that the Forbeses are still hiding yet are still spreading the word that you are the one afraid to meet them. Not to mention what they must be saying about me hiding behind my big brother’s coattails. What are you planning to do about them? That is what I want to know. I have never known you to drag your feet like this. If they do not show up within the week, I am going in search of them myself. And bedamned to that toplofty elder brother pronouncement that they are your concern. It was me they tried to kill.”

  Jocelyn sighed. Yes, he had procrastinated. All because of an infatuation for a woman.

  “And me they hoped to humiliate,” he said. “I will deal with them, Ferdinand. Soon.” He refused to discuss the matter further.

  But while he had been dallying with his mistress for the past week, talking and reading and dabbling with music and art, he had been allowing his reputation to tarnish. It would not do.

  It was not until late evening that he finally contrived to get Brougham and Kimble alone. They were strolling together to White’s from the soiree.

  “You have not, either of you, mentioned the name of my mistress to anyone, have you?” he asked.

  “The devil, Tresham.” Brougham sounded irritated. “Do you need to ask when you requested us specifically not to?”

  “If you do, Tresh,” Kimble said with ominous calm, “perhaps I should plant you a facer. You have simply not been yourself lately. But maybe the question was rhetorical?”

  “There is a person,” Jocelyn explained, “a Runner with oiled hair and shudderingly awful taste in clothes but with shrewd eyes, who will very possibly be asking questions soon about Miss Jane Ingleby.”

  “A Bow Street Runner?” Brougham stopped walking.

  “Asking about Miss Ingleby?” Even in the darkness of the street Kimble’s frown was visible.

  “Alias Lady Sara Illingsworth,” Jocelyn explained.

  His friends stared at him in silence.

  “He will be questioning you among others,” Jocelyn assured them.

  “Miss Jane Ingleby?” Kimble’s expression had become a blank mask. “Never even heard of her. Have you, Cone?”

  “Who?” Brougham frowned.

  “No, no,” Jocelyn said gently, and began to walk again. His friends fell into step on either side of him. “It is known that she nursed me during my recuperation from my injury. I admitted as much this morning when the person was standing in my library doing his damnedest not to look servile. For three weeks. After which she left my employ. But who am I to have followed the progress beyond my doors of a mere servant?”

  “Was there such a servant?” Brougham asked carelessly. “I confess I did not notice, Tresham. But I tend not to notice other people’s servants.”

  “Was she the one who sang at your soiree, Tresh?” Kimble asked. “Pretty voice for those who like that sort of music. A pretty enough girl too for those who like simple country misses in muslin when all the ladies present are clad enticingly in satins and plumes and jewels. Whatever did happen to her?”

  “Thank you,” Jocelyn said briskly. “I knew I could trust you.”

  “I say, though, Tresham,” Brougham asked, his voice returned to normal, “what did happen with Jardine? You are not about to ask us to believe, I hope, that Lady Sara murdered him in cold blood because he apprehended her stealing.”

  Kimble snorted derisively.

  “I do not know what happened,” Jocelyn said through his teeth. “She has not seen fit to confide in me. But let me say this. Jardine had better be dead as the proverbial doornail. If he is not, it will be my distinct pleasure to make him wish he were.”

  “If you need any help,�
�� Brougham offered, “look no further than yours truly, Tresham.”

  “What are you going to do about Lady Sara, Tresh?” Lord Kimble asked.

  “Thrash her within an inch of her life,” Jocelyn said viciously. “Get to the bottom of that ridiculous story. Get leg shackled to her and make her sorry for the rest of her life that she was ever born. In that order.”

  “Leg shackled.” Conan Brougham winced. “Because she is your mistr—” He was overtaken suddenly by a fit of coughing, brought on perhaps by a sharp dig in the ribs from Viscount Kimble’s elbow.

  “Leg shackled,” Jocelyn repeated. “But first I am going to get foxed. Inebriated. Drunk as a lord. Three sheets to the wind.”

  The trouble was, of course, that he never seemed able to get drunk when he wanted to, no matter how much he imbibed. He rather believed, by the time he left White’s alone at something past midnight, that he had consumed a vast quantity of liquor. But unless he was drunker than he realized, he was walking a straight line in the direction of his mistress’s house, and he still felt only coldly furious instead of passionately angry. How could he thrash her—not that he ever could literally beat her or any other woman. How could he deliver one of his famous tongue-lashings, then, if he could feel no heat with his anger?

  By the time he had reached the house and let himself in with his key, he could think only of humiliating her, of reminding her of her very subordinate position in his life. He was going to have to marry the woman, of course, even if she did not realize it yet. She would be his wife in name. But she would soon understand that always, for the rest of her days, she would be less to him than a mistress.

  19

  E CAME AFTER MIDNIGHT, LONG AFTER JANE had given up expecting him, though she was still up, pacing from the den to the dining room to the sitting room, knowing that something was terribly wrong. She was in the den, gazing at his portrait of her, her arms wrapped defensively about her waist, when she heard his key in the outer door. She hurried to meet him, picking up a candlestick as she went. But she mustered the self-respect to step quietly into the hall. She was glad of that restraint a moment later.