More than a Mistress/No Man's Mistress

by Mary Balogh

  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.

  * * *

  IT TOOK JOCELYN 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 suggest
ive 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?”

  “A fig?” he said. “I do not even like figs, Jane. I like you.”

  “Go away,” she told him. “You toy with me. I suppose I have much for which to thank you. Without you I would be in Cornwall now battling it out with Sidney and the Earl of Durbury. But I am not convinced you did not help merely for your pride’s sake. You were not there for me when I really needed you to confide in. You—”

  He reached out and set one finger across her lips. She stopped abruptly.

  “Let me tell it,” he said. “We grew close during that week, Jane. Closer than I have ever been to anyone else. We shared interests and conversation. We shared comfort and emotions. We became friends as well as lovers. More than friends. More than lovers. You convinced me without ever preaching at me that to be a whole person I had to forgive myself and my father too for what happened in the past. You convinced me that being a man does not consist of cutting off all one’s finer feelings and more tender emotions. You taught me to feel again, to face the past again, to remember that there was joy as well as pain in my boyhood. And all this you did by just being there. By just being Jane.”

  She drew her head free of his finger, but he would not allow her to speak. Not yet. He cupped her chin in his hand.

  “You told me,” he said, “that you would have confided in me as I had in you if I had not discovered the truth about you just when I did. I should have believed you, Jane. And even when I first learned the truth, I should have reacted far differently than I did. I should have come to you. I should have taken you in my arms, as you had taken me the night before, told you what I had discovered, and invited you to tell me all, to trust me, to lean on me. I knew how difficult it was to relive some memories. I had got past that difficulty just the night before and should have been far more sensitive. I failed myself, Jane. And dammit, I failed you.”

  “Don’t,” she said. “You are despicable. I cannot fight you when you talk like this.”

  “Don’t fight me,” he told her. “Forgive me, Jane? Please?”

  She searched his eyes as if to judge his sincerity. He had never seen her so defenseless. She was not even trying to hide her yearning to believe him.

  “Jane,” he said softly, “you have taught me that there really is love.”

  Two tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks. He blotted them with his thumbs, cupping her face with both hands, and then he leaned forward to kiss the dried spot on each cheek.

  “I thought you were going to d-die!” she blurted suddenly. “I thought we would be too late. I thought I would hear a shot and find you dead. I had a feeling about it here.” She patted her heart. “A premonition. I was desperate to reach you, to say all the things I had never said, to—to … oh, why can I never find a handkerchief when I most need one?” She was fumbling around at the pocketless seams of her dress, sniffing inelegantly.

  He handed her a large white one.

  “But you did reach me in time,” he said, “and you did say all those things. Let me see if I can remember accurately. Horrid man? Arrogant? Bull-headed—that was a nasty one, Jane. You loathed me? I was never ever to come near you again? Have I missed anything?”

  She blew her nose and then appeared not to know what to do with the handkerchief. He took it from her and put it away in his pocket.

  “I would have died if you had died,” she said, and he had the satisfaction of seeing that she was growing cross again. “Horrid, loathsome man. If you ever again get yourself into a situation that invites a challenge from another man, I will kill you myself.”

  “Will you, my love?” he asked her.

  She compressed her lips. “You are determined to have me, are you not?” she asked him. “Is this all a ruse?”

  “If you knew what I am suffering, Jane,” he said. “I am terrified that you are going to say no. And I know that if you do, there will be no shifting you. Have pity on me. I have never been in this position before. I have always been able to have my own way with ease.”

  But she would only look back at him with the same expression on her face.

  “What is it?” he asked her, but she shook her head slightly. “Jane, I long to go home. To go back to Acton—with you. To start creating our own memories and our own traditions there. You thought you knew my dreams. But this is my dream. Will you not share it with me?”

  She pressed her lips even harder together.

  “Why have you stopped talking to me?” He clasped his hands at his back and leaned his head slightly closer to her. “Jane?”

  “This is all about you, is it not?” she blurted. “About what you want? About your dreams? What about me? Do you even care about me?”

  “Tell me,” he said. “What about you, Jane? What do you want? Do you want me to go away? Seriously? Tell me if you do—but quietly and seriously, not in a passion, so that I will know that you mean what you say. Tell me to go and I will.”

  Even facing Forbes’s pistol a few days before had not filled him with such terror.

  “I am with child,” she cried. “I have no choices left.”

  He recoiled rather as if she had punched him on the chin with the full force of her fist. Good God! How long had she known? Would she have told him if he had not come today? Would she ever have told him? Ever have confided in him, trusted him, forgiven him?

  She glared at him in the silence that followed her words. He clasped his hands so tightly behind his back that he felt pain.

  “Ah, so,” he said softly at last. “Well, this changes everything, Jane.”

  26

  ADY WEBB OPENED JANE’S DRESSING ROOM DOOR and stepped inside. Dressed in midnight blue with matching plumed turban, she formed a marked contrast to Jane, who looked almost ethereal in a fashionable low-cut gown of white lace over white satin, silver thread gleaming on the scalloped hem, the sash beneath her bosom, and the short scalloped sleeves. She wore long white gloves and silver slippers and had a narrow white, silver-shot ribbon threaded through her golden hair.

  “Oh, Sara, my dear,” Lady Webb said, “you are indeed the daughter I never had. How fortunate I am. But how I wish your poor mother could be here to see you on surely the most important day of your life. You look positively beautiful.”

  Jane had been critically examining her appearance in the long pier glass in her dressing room. She turned to her godmother.

  “You said exactly the same thing yesterday when I was forced to wear those horrid, heavy, old-fashioned clothes that the queen insists upon when one is being presented at one of her Drawing Rooms,” she said. “I certainly feel better tonight.”

  “Your presentation at court was obligatory,” Lady Webb said. “Your come-out ball is your personal, triumphant entry into society.”

  “Will it be a triumph, do you suppose?”

  Jane picked up her fan from the dressing table. She was feeling a fluttering of anxiety about the evening ahead. All day there had been a great hustle and bustle in preparation for the ball. Since returning from a morning outing with her maid, she had watched in wonder as the ballroom was transformed b
efore her eyes. It was decked out all in white and silver ribbons and bows and flowers, the only color provided by the lush green of leaves and ferns. The great chandeliers had been lowered and cleaned and filled with hundreds of new candles. The orchestra had arrived late in the afternoon and set up their instruments on the dais. The dining room had been set with all the best porcelain and crystal and silverware for a sumptuous supper banquet at midnight.

  “Of course it will be a triumph,” Lady Webb said, approaching Jane and hugging her, though not closely enough to rumple either of them. “How could it not? You are Lady Sara Illingsworth, daughter of the late Earl of Durbury and a great heiress. You are as lovely as the princesses of fairy tales. And you already have a considerable court of admirers.”

  Jane smiled ruefully.

  “You could make any of a number of brilliant matches,” her godmother told her. “Viscount Kimble, for example, has been markedly attentive and could be brought up to scratch, I believe. You need not feel obliged to allow Tresham to continue paying court to you—if he intends to do so, that is. He came and made you a decent offer—at least, I trust it was decent. But the choice is yours, Sara.”

  “Aunt Harriet,” Jane said half reproachfully.

  “But I will say no more on that subject,” Lady Webb said briskly. “I have already said enough—perhaps too much. Come, we must go down to the ballroom. Our guests will be arriving soon. Cyril and Dorothy will be waiting for us.”

  Lord Lansdowne was Lady Webb’s brother. She had invited him and his wife to help her host the ball. Lord Lansdowne was to lead Jane into the opening set of dances.

  The ballroom had looked magnificent in the light of late afternoon. Now it looked nothing short of breathtaking. The candles had all been lit. They sparkled gold above all the white and silver, their light multiplied by the long mirrors along the walls.