He found his brother exactly where he expected to find him, exercising and training his new horses. At least Ferdinand had a good eye for his matched pair, Jocelyn discovered with some relief. They were not just a pretty pair, but superb goers too. The trouble was, of course, that Ferdinand had not had the handling of them for nearly long enough to race them, besides which point he was a restless and impulsive and reckless young man—a typical Dudley, in fact—with impatient hands and a tendency to make colorful use of all the most profane words in his vocabulary when he was frustrated.
“You have to let your hands talk firmly yet seductively,” Jocelyn said with a sigh after one particularly hair-raising tirade occasioned by the horses’ refusal to act as a team. “And you have to give your voice a rest, Ferdinand, or by the time you reach Brighton there will be none of it left with which to cheer your own victory.”
“Damned cattle,” his brother grumbled. “I have bought a couple of prima donnas.”
“What you have bought,” Jocelyn told him, “is an excellent pair that was cheap at the price. What you have to do, preferably before Friday, is teach them who is master.”
He was not entirely without hope of winning his substantial bet at White’s. Ferdinand was a notable whip though a somewhat erratic one, who appeared to believe that superiority consisted in taking unnecessary risks.
“Now, withyourcurricle, Tresham,” Ferdinand said with studied nonchalance, “I would leave Berriwether five miles behind my dust. It is lighter and better sprung than my own.”
“You will have to be content to leave him only two miles behind your dust, then,” Jocelyn said dryly.
“I’ll be giving Wesley Forbes a thrashing one of these days,” Ferdinand said later when the brothers were relaxing in his bachelor rooms, Jocelyn with his right foot up on a low table. “He was making offensive remarks at Wattier’s last night about people who stagger about on crutches to convince the world of their weakness but forget which leg they are supposed to have injured. Sometimes they lurch along with the right leg raised, he said, and sometimes with the left. He thinks he is the world’s sharpest wit.”
Jocelyn sipped on his glass of claret. “He could not have been referring to me, then, could he?” he remarked. “Don’t be drawn, Ferdinand. You do not need a brawl this side of the race. And never on my behalf. The very idea!”
“I would have planted him a facer right there in the card room,” Ferdinand said, “if Max Ritterbaum had not grabbed my arm and dragged me off to Brookes’s. The thing is, Tresh, that not a one of them will have the bottom to say anything like it to your face. And you can be damned sure that none of them will be decent enough to slap a glove across your cheek. They are too craven.”
“Leave them to me,” Jocelyn said. “Concentrate on the race.”
“Let me refill your glass,” Ferdinand said. “Have you seen Angeline’s latest monstrosity?”
“A bonnet?” Jocelyn asked. “The mustard one? Atrocious.”
“Blue,” his brother said, “with violet stripes. She wanted me to take her walking in the park with it perched on her head. I told her that either it or I would go strolling with her, but not both together. I would be the laughingstock, Tresham. Our sister was born with a ghastly affliction: no taste. Why Heyward encourages her by paying the bills is beyond me.”
“Besotted with her,” Jocelyn said. “As she is with him. No one would ever guess it to see them together, ornottogether, which is more often the case. They are as discreet about it as if they were clandestine lovers.”
Ferdinand barked with laughter. “Lord,” he said, “imagine anyone besotted with Angie!”
“Or with Heyward,” his brother agreed, idly swinging his quizzing glass from its ribbon.
It was an enormous relief, he reflected some time later as he made his way home, to be getting his life back to normal.
IFJANE HAD THOUGHTfor one moment that what had happened the night before had meant something to the Duke of Tresham, it did not take her long to learn the truth. Not that shehadthought it, but sometimes one’s emotions defied reason.
He did not return home until late in the afternoon. And even then he did not summon Jane, but closeted himself in the library with Mr. Quincy. It was almost dinnertime before he sent for her.
He was still in the library. He was seated on the chaise longue, his right leg elevated on the cushion. He was fully dressed minus his right boot. He was also scowling.
“Not one word,” he said before she had even thought of opening her mouth. “Not a single word, Miss Ingleby. Of course it is sore and of course Barnard had the devil of a time pulling off my boot. But it is time it was exercised, and it is time I took myself off out of here during the daytime. Else I will descend to rape and debauchery.”
She had not expected him to refer to last night after being absent all day. Last night seemed rather like a dream. Not perhaps their embrace, which was something so far beyond her experience or expectations that she could not possibly have imagined it, but the sight and sound of the Duke of Tresham playing the pianoforte and coaxing magic from its keys.
“I suppose,” he said, turning his black eyes and his blacker scowl on her for the first time, “you thought it was love, Jane? Or affection? Or some fine emotion at least?”
“No, your grace,” she said. “I am not as naïve as you seem to think me. I recognized it as physical desire on both our parts. Why should I believe that a self-acknowledged rake would have any fine feelings for his servant? And why would you fear that a woman like me would fall for your dangerous and legendary charm when I have been subjected to your ill temper and profane tongue for more than two weeks?”
“Why would Ifear?” His eyes narrowed. “I might have guessed that you would have the last word on the subject, Jane. How foolish of me to imagine that I seriously discomposed you last night.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “I daresay your leg is somewhat swollen. You will need to bathe it in cold water. Keep it submerged for a while.”
“And freeze my toes?”
“I imagine,” she told him, “that that discomfort is better than watching them turn black over the coming weeks.”
He pursed his lips and there seemed for a moment to be a smile lurking in his eyes. But he did not give in to it.
