She was afraid of being caught. Of not being believed. Of being punished as a murderess.
Sometimes she found herself on the verge of blurting the whole truth to the Duke of Tresham. Part of her believed he would stand as her friend. But it would be foolishness itself to trust a man renowned for ruthlessness.
AFTER TWO WEEKSJOCELYNdecided that if he had to spend another week as he had spent the last two he would surely go mad. Raikes had been quite correct, of course, damn his eyes. The leg was not yet ready to bear his weight. But there was a middle ground between striding about on both legs and lying with one elevated.
He was going to acquire crutches.
His determination to delay no longer strengthened after two particular afternoon visits. Ferdinand came first, bursting with the latest details of the curricle race, set for three days hence. It seemed that betting at White’s was brisk, almost all of it against Ferdinand and for Lord Berriwether. But his brother was undaunted. And he did introduce one other topic.
“The Forbes brothers are becoming increasingly offensive,” he said. “They are hinting that you are hiding out here, Tresham, pretending to be wounded because the thought of them waiting for you has you shaking in your boots. If they ever so much as whisper as much in my hearing, they will all have gloves slapped in their faces hard enough to raise welts.”
“Keep out of my concerns,” Jocelyn told him curtly. “If they have anything to say about me, they may say it to my face. They will not have long to wait.”
“Your concernsaremine, Tresham,” his brother complained. “An insult to one of us is an insult to all. I just hope Lady Oliver was worth it. Though I daresay she was. I have never known a woman with such a slender waist and such large—” But he broke off suddenly and glanced uneasily over his shoulder at Jane Ingleby, who was sitting quietly some distance away, as usual.
Ferdinand, like Angeline and Jocelyn’s friends, seemed uncertain how to treat the Duke of Tresham’s nurse.
Trouble was brewing, Jocelyn thought restlessly after his brother had left. Just as it usually was over something or other. Except that normally he was out there to confront it. He had always reveled in it. He could not remember thinking, as he sometimes caught himself doing these days, that there was something remarkably silly and meaningless in his whole style of life.
The sooner he got out and back about his usual activities, the better it would be for his sanity. Tomorrow he would want to know the reason why if Barnard had not acquired the crutches he had asked for.
And then came the second visitor. Hawkins, come to announce the caller, looked disapproving. Jane Ingleby gathered up the book from which she had been reading and retreated to the corner where she always hid out while he entertained.
“Lady Oliver, your grace,” Hawkins said, “wishing for a private word with you. I informed her ladyship that I was not sure you were well enough to receive visitors.”
“Bloody hell!” Jocelyn roared. “You know better than to allow her over the doorstep, Hawkins. Get the woman out of here.”
It was not the first time she had come to Dudley House. The woman knew no better, it seemed, than to call upon a gentleman in his bachelor home. And she had come at a time when half the fashionable world was out and about and might happen by and see her or evidence of her presence.
“I suppose,” he asked rhetorically, “she came in Lord Oliver’s town coach and that it is waiting for her outside?”
“Yes, your grace.” Hawkins bowed.
But before Jocelyn could renew his command that the woman be removed from the premises immediately if not sooner, the lady herself appeared in the doorway. Hawkins, Jocelyn thought grimly, would be fortunate indeed if he did not find himself demoted to the position of assistant boot boy before the day was over.
“Tresham,” she said in her sweet, breathy voice. She raised a lace-edged handkerchief to her lips as visual evidence of the distress of a woman of sentiment.
She was, of course, a vision of delicate loveliness in varying shades of coordinating greens to complement her red hair. She was small and slender and dainty, though she did also, of course, have the bosom that Ferdinand had referred to earlier.
He scowled at her as she wafted into the room, her hazel eyes clouded with concern for him. “You ought not to be here.”
“But how could I stay away?” She continued wafting until she reached the chaise longue. She sank to her knees beside him and possessed herself of one of his hands with both her own. She raised it to her lips.
Hawkins, the arrant knave, had withdrawn and closed the door behind him.
“Tresham,” she said again. “Oh, my poor, poor dear. You shot gallantly into the air, it is said, when you might easily have killed Edward. Everyone knows your prowess with a pistol. And then you bravely allowed him to shoot you in the leg.”
“It was the other way around,” he told her curtly. “And there was nothing brave about it. I was not paying attention at the time.”
“A woman screamed,” she said, kissing his hand again and holding it against one cool, powdered cheek. “I am sure I do not blame her, though I would have swooned quite away if I had been there. My poor, brave darling. Did he nearly kill you?”
“The leg is far from the heart,” he said, firmly repossessing himself of his hand. “Do stand up. I will not offer you a seat or refreshments. You are leaving. Now. Miss Ingleby will show you out.”
“Miss Ingleby?” Two spots of color appeared in her cheeks suddenly, and her eyes flashed.
He indicated Jane with one hand. “Miss Ingleby, meet Lady Oliver. Who is leaving—now!”
But Lady Oliver’s look of jealous annoyance turned to indifference mingled with disdain when her eyes lit on Jane. What she saw, obviously, was a maidservant.
