“I suppose,” the duke said, turning his head to look down at her, “I should turn over a new leaf now, shouldn’t I, Miss Ingleby? Become that rarest of all social phenomena, a reformed rake? Defy my heritage? Marry a saint and retire to my country estate to become a model landlord? Sire a brood of model children and raise them to be model citizens? Live happily ever after in a monogamous relationship?”
He had made himself sound so abjectly meek that she laughed.
“It would be a fine thing to behold, I am sure,” she said. “Have you proved your point for this morning? Your leg is hurting, is it not? You are rubbing your thigh again. Come indoors and I shall make you comfortable.”
“Why is it,” he asked her, “that when you say such things, Jane, I forget any idea of turning over a new leaf and feel very unsaintly indeed?”
He had leaned slightly sideways. His arm was against her shoulder and there was no space on her other side to shuffle across to. She stood up.
That feeling of almost unbearable tension was happening altogether too often. With him, of course, it was deliberate. She believed he delighted in making suggestive remarks to her and looking at her with his eyes half closed. He was amusing himself by teasing her, knowing very well that she was affected. And shewasaffected. She could not deny that the sight of him—even the verythoughtof him—could quicken her blood. That the careless touch of his hand could make her ache for more.
“Take me back inside, then,” he said, getting up and onto his crutches without her assistance, “and perform whatever nursing duties you deem necessary. I will come meekly, you see, since you are not in the mood for dalliance.”
“And never will be, your grace,” she assured him firmly.
But it was a statement and a resolve that were to be tested later that very night.
JOCELYN COULD NOT SLEEP. He had been suffering from insomnia for a week or more. It was understandable, of course, when there was nothing to do after eleven o’clock at night—sometimes even ten—but go to bed and picture in his mind all the balls and routs then in progress and to imagine his friends moving on afterward to one of the clubs until dawn sent them homeward.
Tonight his sleeplessness was combined with a terrible restlessness. He could feel temptation grab almost irresistibly at him—the sort of temptation that had often got him into trouble when he was a boy until he had learned to curb his urges, especially when his father was at Acton. Finally he had suppressed them completely—except when occasionally they burst through all his defenses and would not leave him alone.
On such occasions he usually went to a woman and stayed with her until there was no energy left for anything but sleep and a return to his normal way of life.
He thought with brief wistfulness of Jane Ingleby, but he turned his mind quickly away from her. He enjoyed teasing her, flirting with her, annoying her. And of course she was powerfully beautiful and attractive. But she was off-limits. She was a servant beneath his own roof.
Finally, at something past midnight, he could resist no longer. He threw back the bedcovers, hoisted himself upward with his crutches, and hobbled through to his dressing room, where he donned shirt and pantaloons and slippers but did not bother with either waistcoat or coat. He did not light a candle as he did not have a third hand with which to carry it. He would light some downstairs.
He made his way slowly and awkwardly down to the ground floor.
JANE COULD NOT SLEEP.
The Duke of Tresham no longer needed a bandage. The wound had healed. He was getting about with crutches. He was restless and bad-tempered and would soon be going out. He would not need her.
He never had really needed her.
She would probably be dismissed even before the three weeks were at an end. But even if not, there was only one week left.
The world beyond the doors of Dudley House had become a frightening place that she dreaded having to step into. Every day one visitor or other referred to what was known as the Cornish incident. Today the duke and his friends had chatted merrily on the subject.
“I wonder,” the blond and very handsome Viscount Kimble had said, “why Durbury stays shut up in the Pulteney almost all the time instead of enlisting the aid of thetonin apprehending his niece or cousin or whatever the devil relationship the woman has to him. Why come to town to search for her and then hide away and let the Runners do all the work?”
“Perhaps he is grieving,” the brown-haired, pleasant-faced Sir Conan Brougham had suggested. “Though he does not wear mourning. Could it be that Jardine is not dead after all but is merely skulking in Cornwall with a broken head?”
“That would be in character,” the duke had said dryly.
“If you were to ask me,” Viscount Kimble had observed, “the woman should be awarded a medal rather than a noose if heisdead. The world will be a better place without the presence of Jardine in it.”
“But you had better watch your back with the rest of us once you leave the sanctuary of this house, Tresham,” Sir Conan had added with a chuckle. “Look out for a fierce wench wielding a pair of pistols or a hefty ax. Accounts vary on which she used to do the dastardly deed.”
“What does she look like, pray?” the duke had asked. “So that I may duck out of sight when I see her coming.”
“A black-eyed, black-haired witch as ugly as sin,” Sir Conan had said. “Or a blond Siren as beautiful as an angel. Take your pick. I have heard both descriptions and several others between the two extremes. No one has ever seen her, it seems, except Durbury, who is keeping mum. Have you heard about Ferdinand’s new team? I daresay you have, though, and from the horse’s mouth itself, so to speak. Will they decide to travel north when he gives them the signal to proceed south, do you suppose?”
“Not if he is a true brother of mine,” the duke had said. “I suppose he bought a frisky pair that will take a year to tame?”
The conversation had proceeded on that topic.
Now Jane could not sleep. Or even lie still. She kept seeing Sidney’s parchment-pale face and the blood on his temple. She kept thinking of the earl’s coming to London to search for her. And of the Bow Street Runners combing its streets and questioning its inhabitants to discover her whereabouts. She kept imagining herself taking her fate in her own hands and leaving Dudley House to confront the earl at the Pulteney Hotel.
