“And yet,” he said softly, “it appears that you are in the process of obeying my command, Miss Ingleby.”
“But with a mutinous heart,” she said, leaving the room before he could have the last word.
She returned with the cushion a couple of minutes later, crossed the room without a word, and, without looking at him, positioned it carefully beneath his leg. She had noticed in his bedchamber earlier that yesterday’s swelling had gone down. But she had noticed too his habit of rubbing his thigh and baring his teeth occasionally, sure signs that he was in considerable pain. Being a proud man, of course, he could not be expected to admit to feeling any at all.
“Apart from the thin line of your lips,” the duke said, “I would not know you were severely out of charity with me, Miss Ingleby. I expected at the very least that you would jerk up my leg and slam it down onto the cushion. I was all ready to deal with such a show of temper. Now you have deprived me of the opportunity to deliver my carefully rehearsed setdown.”
“You are employing me as a nurse, your grace,” she reminded him. “I am to comfort you, not harm you for my own amusement. Besides, if I feel indignation on any subject, I have the vocabulary with which to express it. I do not need to resort to violence.”
Which was as massive a lie as any she had ever told, she thought even as the words were issuing from her lips. For a moment she felt cold and nauseated, her stomach muscles clenching in the now-familiar feeling of panic.
“Miss Ingleby,” the Duke of Tresham said meekly, “thank you for fetching the cushion.”
Well. That silenced her.
“I do believe,” he said, “that almost elicited a smile from you. Do you ever smile?”
“When I am amused or happy, your grace,” she told him.
“And you have been neither yet in my company,” he said. “I must be losing my touch. I am reputed to be rather superior, you know, in my ability to amuse and delight women.”
Her awareness of his masculinity had been a largely academic thing until he spoke those words and looked at her with the characteristic narrowing of his dark eyes. But suddenly it was no longer academic. She felt a totally unfamiliar rush of pure physical desire that did alarming things to her breasts and her lower abdomen and inner thighs.
“I do not doubt it,” she said tartly. “But I daresay you have already used up this month’s supply of seductive arts on Lady Oliver.”
“Jane, Jane,” he said gently. “That sounded remarkably like spite. Go and find Quincy and fetch the morning’s post.Please,” he added as she moved toward the door.
She turned her head to smile at him.
“Ah,” he said.
5
NGELINE CAME AGAIN IN THE LATE MORNING, escorted this time by Heyward, who had accompanied her in order to inquire civilly after his brother-in-law’s health. Ferdinand came before they left, but more with the purpose of talking about himself than out of any great concern for his brother’s recovery. He had become embroiled in a challenge to race his curricle to Brighton against Lord Berriwether, whose skill with the ribbons was rivaled by no one except Jocelyn himself.
“You will lose, Ferdinand,” Heyward said bluntly.
“You will break your neck, Ferdie,” Angeline said, “and my nerves will never recover so soon after this business with Tresham. But how dashing you will look tearing along the road as fast as the wind. Are you going to order a new coat for the occasion?”
“The secret is to give your horses their heads whenever you have a straight stretch of road,” Jocelyn said, “but not to get too excited in a pinch and not to take unnecessary risks on sharp bends as if you were some circus performer. For both of which vices you are famous, Ferdinand. You had better win, though, now you are committed. Never make a boast or a challenge you are incapable of backing up with action. Not especially if you are a Dudley. I daresay youwereboasting.”
“I thought perhaps I might borrow your new curricle, Tresham,” his brother said carelessly.
“No,” Jocelyn said. “Absolutely not. I am surprised you would waste breath even asking unless you think a hole in my leg has made me soft in the brain.”
“You are my brother,” Ferdinand pointed out.
“A brother with a working brain and a fair share of common sense,” Jocelyn told him. “The wheels on your own curricle were round enough when last I saw them. It is the driver rather than the vehicle that wins or loses a race, Ferdinand. When is it to be?”
“Two weeks,” his brother said.
Damn! He would not be able to watch any part of it, then, Jocelyn thought. Not if he was obedient to the commands of that damned quack, Raikes, anyway. But in two weeks’ time, if he was still confined to a sofa, his sanity might well be at stake.
Jane Ingleby, standing quietly some distance away, had read his mind, Jocelyn would swear. A single glance at her showed her with her lips compressed in a thin line. What did she plan to do? Tie him down until every last day of the three weeks had passed?
He had refused her request to be excused when his family members arrived. He refused it again later when more visitors were announced while she was taking his letters one at a time from his hand as he perused them and dividing them into three piles according to his instructions—invitations to be refused, invitations to be accepted, and letters whose replies would necessitate some dictation to his secretary. Most of the invitations, except for those to events some time in the future, of course, had to be refused.
“I will leave you, your grace,” she said, getting to her feet after Hawkins, who seemed far more in control of his own domain in the front hall today, had come to announce the arrival of several of his friends.
