He was dead.
Sidney Jardine had died and there was no way anyone on this earth was going to believe that she had not murdered him.
She clutched a fistful of the bedspread in her free hand and pressed her face into the mattress.
He was dead.
He had been despicable and she had hated him more than she had thought it possible to hate anyone. But she had not wanted him dead. Or even hurt. It had been a pure reflex action to grab that heavy book and the pure, mindless instinct of self-defense to whack him over the head with it. Except that she had swung the tome rather than lifting it and bringing it down flat, because it had been so heavy. The sharp corner had caught him on the temple.
He had not fallen but had touched the wound, looked down at his bloodied fingers, laughed, called her a vixen, and advanced on her. But she had sidestepped. He had lost his balance as he lunged and had fallen forward onto the marble hearth, cracking his forehead loudly as he went down. Then he had lain still.
There had been several witnesses to the whole sordid scene, none of whom could be expected to tell the truth about what had happened. All of whom doubtless would be eager to perjure themselves by testifying that she had been apprehended while stealing. The gold, jewel-studded bracelet that would seem to prove them right was still at the bottom of her bag. All those people had been Sidney’s friends. None of them had been hers. Charles—Sir Charles Fortescue, her neighbor, friend, and beau—had been away from home. Not that he would have been invited to that particular party anyway.
Sidney had not been dead after the fall even though everyone else in the room had thought he was. She had been the one to approach him on unsteady legs, sick to her stomach. His pulse had been beating steadily. She had even summoned a few servants and had him carried up to his room, where she had tended him herself and bathed his wounds until the doctor arrived, summoned at her command.
But he had been unconscious the whole while. And looking so pale that a number of times she had checked his pulse again with cold, shaking fingers.
“Murderers hang, you know,” someone had said from the doorway of the bedchamber, sounding faintly amused.
“By the neck until they are dead,” another voice had added with ghoulish relish.
She had fled during the night, taking with her only enough possessions to get her to London on the stagecoach—and the bracelet, of course, and the money she had taken from the earl’s desk. She had fled not because she believed that Sidney would die and she would be accused of his murder. She had fled because—oh, there were a number of reasons.
She had felt so very alone. The earl, her father’s cousin and successor, and the countess had been away at a weekend house party. They had little love for her anyway. There was no one at Candleford to whom to turn in her distress. And Charles was not home. He had gone on an extended visit to his elder sister in Somersetshire.
Jane had fled to London. At first there had been no thought of concealment, only of reaching someone who would be sympathetic toward her. She had been going to Lady Webb’s home on Portland Place. Lady Webb had been her mother’s dearest friend since they made their come-out together as girls. She had often come to visit at Candleford. She was Jane’s godmother. Jane called her Aunt Harriet. But Lady Webb had been away from home and was not expected back any time soon.
For more than three weeks now Jane had been well-nigh paralyzed with terror, afraid that Sidney had died, afraid that she would be accused of his murder, afraid that she would be called a thief, afraid that the law would come looking for her. They would know, of course, that she had come to London. She had done nothing to hide her tracks.
Worst of all during the past weeks had been knowing nothing. It was almost a relief to know at last.
That Sidney was dead.
That the story was that she had killed him as he had been apprehending her in the process of robbing the house.
That she was considered a murderess.
No, of course it was not a relief.
Jane sat up sharply on the bed and rubbed her hands over her face. Her worst nightmares had come true. Her best hope had been to disappear among the anonymous masses of ordinary Londoners. But that plan had been dashed when she had so foolishly interfered in that duel in Hyde Park. What had it mattered to her that two gentlemen who had no better use for their lives were about to blow each other’s brains out?
Here she was in Mayfair, in one of the grand mansions on Grosvenor Square, as a sort of nurse/companion to a man who derived some kind of satisfaction out of displaying her to all his friends. None of them knew her, of course. She had lived a secluded life in Cornwall. The chances were that no visitors to Dudley House over the coming weeks would know her. But she was not quite convinced.
Surely it was only a matter of time.…
She got to her feet and crossed the room on shaking legs to the washstand. Mercifully there was water in the pitcher. She poured a little into the bowl and scooped some up in her cupped palms, into which she lowered her face.
What she ought to do—what she ought to have done at the start—was simply turn herself over to the authorities and trust to truth and justice. But who were the authorities? Where would she go to do it? Besides, she had made herself look guilty by running away and by staying out of sight for longer than three weeks.
Hewould know what she ought to do and where she should go with her story. The Duke of Tresham, that was. She could tell him everything and let him take the next step. But the thought of his hard, ruthless face and his disregard for her feelings made her shudder.
Would she hang?Couldshe hang for murder? Or even for theft? She really had no idea. But she had to grip the edge of the washstand suddenly to stop herself from swaying.
How could she trust in the truth when all the evidence and all the witnesses would be against her?
One of the gentlemen downstairs had said that perhaps Sidney was not dead after all. Jane knew very well how gossip could twist and change the truth. It was being said, for example, that she had been holding a pistol in each hand! Perhaps word of Sidney’s death had spread simply because such an outcome titillated the senses of those who always liked to believe the worst.
Perhaps he was still only unconscious.
