“I am a Dudley,” the Duke of Tresham said by way of explanation. “We are a stubborn lot from the moment of conception. Dudley babes are reputed to kick their mothers with unusual ferocity in the womb and to give them considerable grief while proceeding into the world. And that is just the beginning.”
He was trying to shock her, Jane realized. He was looking at her intently with his black eyes, which she had discovered from close up were really just a very dark brown. Foolish man. She had assisted in the birthing of numerous babies from the time she was fourteen. Her mother had raised her to believe that service was an integral part of a life of privilege.
He looked more comfortable once he was settled and had his foot resting on the cushion. Jane stood back, expecting to be dismissed or at least to be directed to present herself to the housekeeper for further orders. The footman had already been sent on his way. But the duke looked at her consideringly.
“Well, Miss Ingleby,” he said, “how are you planning to amuse me for the next three weeks?”
Jane felt a lurching of alarm. The man was incapacitated, and besides, there had been no suggestive note in his voice. But she had good reason to be distrustful of gentlemen in their boredom.
She was saved from answering by the opening of the library door. It did not open quietly, as one might have expected, to admit either the butler or Mr. Quincy. Indeed, its opening was not even preceded by a respectful knock. The door was thrown back so that it cracked against the bookcase behind it. A lady strode inside.
Jane felt considerable alarm. She was a young and remarkably fashionable lady even if she would never earn full marks for good taste in dress. Jane did not recognize her, but even so in that moment she realized clearly the folly of being here. If the visitor had been announced, she herself could have slipped away unseen. As it was, she could only stand where she was or at best take a couple of steps back and sideways and hope to melt into the shadows to the left of the window curtains.
The young lady swept into the room rather like a tidal wave.
“I believe my instructions were that I was not to be disturbed this morning,” the duke murmured.
But his visitor came on, undaunted.
“Tresham!” she exclaimed. “You are alive. I would not believe it until I had seen it with my own eyes. If you just knew what I have suffered in the past day, you would never have done it. Heyward has gone off to the House this morning, which is bothersome of him when my nerves are shattered. I declare I did not get one wink of sleep last night. It was most unsporting of Lord Oliver actually to shoot at you, I must say. If Lady Oliver was indiscreet enough to let him discover that she is your latest amour, and if he is foolish enough to proclaim his goat’s horns to all the world with such a public challenge—and in Hyde Park of all places—thenheis the one who should get shot at. But they say that you shot gallantly into the air, which shows you for the polished gentleman that you are. It would have been no more than he deserved if you had killed him. But of course then they would have hanged you, or would have if you had not been a duke. You would have had to flee to France, and Heyward was provoking enough to tell me that he would not have taken me to Paris to visit you there. Even though all the world knows it is the most fashionable place to be. Sometimes I wonder why I married him.”
The Duke of Tresham was holding his head with one hand. He held up his free hand while the young lady paused to draw breath.
“You married him, Angeline,” he said, “because you fancied him and he was an earl and almost as wealthy as I am. Mostly because you fancied him.”
“Yes.” She smiled and revealed herself to be an extremely pretty young lady despite her resemblance to the duke. “I did, did I not? Howareyou, Tresham?”
“Apart from a throbbing leg and a head ten sizes or so too large for my neck,” he said, “remarkably well, I thank you, Angeline. Do have a seat.”
The last words were spoken with considerable irony. She had already sat down on a chair close to the chaise longue.
“I will leave instructions on my way out,” she said, “that no one but family is to be allowed in to see you. You certainly do not need any visitor who might be inclined to talk your head off, poor thing.”
“Hmm,” he said, and Jane watched as he raised his quizzing glass to his eye and looked suddenly even more pained than before. “That is a repulsive bonnet,” he said. “Mustard yellow? With that particular shade of pink? If you were intending to wear it to Lady Lovatt’s Venetian breakfast next week, I am vastly relieved to inform you that I will be unable to escort you.”
“Heyward said,” the young lady continued, leaning forward and ignoring his opinion of her taste in bonnets, “that Lord Oliver is telling everyone he is not satisfied because you did not try to kill him. Can you imagine anything so idiotic? Lady Oliver’s brothers are not satisfied either, and you know whattheyare like. They are saying, though not one of them was present, I understand, that you moved like a coward and prevented Lord Oliver from killing you. But if they challenge you, you simply must not accept. Consider my nerves.”
“At the precise moment, Angeline,” he assured her, “I am preoccupied by my own.”
“Well, you may have the satisfaction of knowing that you are the talk of the town anyway,” she said. “How splendid of you toridehome, Tresham, when you had been shot through the leg. I wish I had been there to observe it. At least you have diverted talk from that tiresome Hailsham affair and that business in Cornwall. Is it true that a beggar girl screamed and distracted your attention?”
“Not a beggar exactly,” he said. “She is standing there by the curtain. Meet Miss Jane Ingleby.”
Lady Heyward swiveled on her chair and looked at Jane in considerable astonishment. It was quite clear that she had not noticed there was anyone else in the room except her and her brother. Not that the curtain offered any great degree of shelter, but Jane was dressed as a servant. It was a somewhat reassuring realization that that fact made her virtually invisible.
“You, girl?” Lady Heyward said with an hauteur that gave her an even more marked resemblance to the duke. She could be no more than a year or two older than herself, Jane estimated. “Why are you standing there?”
“She is my nurse,” the duke said. “And she prefers to be called Miss Ingleby rather thangirl.” There was a deceptive meekness in his voice.
“Indeed?” The astonishment in the young lady’s face increased. “How peculiar. But I have to run along. I was to meet Martha Griddles at the library twenty minutes ago. But I had to come here first to offer what comfort I could.”
“What are sisters for?” his grace murmured.
“Precisely.” She bent over him and aimed a kiss at the air in the vicinity of his left cheek. “Ferdie will probably be calling on you later. He was incensed by the dishonor Lady Oliver’s brothers were trying to throw upon you yesterday. He was all for calling them out himself—every one of them. But Heyward said he was merely making an ass of himself—his very words, I swear, Tresham. He does not understand about the Dudley temper.” She sighed and left the room as abruptly as she had entered it, leaving the door wide open behind her.
Jane stood where she was. She felt cold and alone and frightened.
What was the drawing-room gossip to which the Duke of Tresham’s sister had so fleetingly referred?At least you have diverted talk from…that business in Cornwall.
