But she had turned on her heel and was striding away over the grass, her back bristling with indignation.
“It is a good thing,” Baron Pottier said, looking after her, his quizzing glass to his eye, “that shopgirls do not challenge dukes to duels, Tresham. You would be out here tomorrow morning again for sure.” He chuckled. “And I would not wager against her.”
Jocelyn did not spare her another thought. Every thought, every sense, every instinct became focused inward on himself—on his pain and on the necessity of riding home to Grosvenor Square and Dudley House before he disgraced himself and fell off his horse in a dead faint.
FOR TWO WEEKSJANEIngleby had searched for employment. As soon as she had accepted the fact that there was no one in London to whom to turn for help and no going back where she had come from, and as soon as she had realized that the little money she had brought to town with her would not keep her for longer than one month even if she were very careful, she had started searching, going from one shop to another, one agency to another.
Finally, when depleted resources had been adding anxiety to the almost paralyzing fear she had already been feeling for other reasons, she had found employment as a milliner’s assistant. It involved long hours of dreary work for a fussy, bad-tempered employer who did business as Madame de Laurent complete with French accent and expressive hands, but whose accent became pure cockney when she was in the workroom at the back of her shop with her girls. The pay was abysmal.
But at least it was a job. At least there would be wages enough each week to hold body and soul together and pay the rent of the small room Jane had found in a shabby neighborhood.
She had had the job for two days. This was her third. And she was late. She dreaded to think what that would mean even though she had a good enough excuse. She was not sure Madame de Laurent would be sympathetic to excuses.
She was not. Five minutes after arriving at the shop, Jane was hurrying away from it again.
“Two gents fighting a duel,” Madame had said, hands planted on hips, after Jane had told her story. “I was not born yesterday, dearie. Gents don’t fight duels in Hyde Park no longer. They go to Wimbledon Common.”
Jane had been unable to supply the full names of the two gentlemen. All she knew was that the one who had been wounded—the dark, arrogant, bad-tempered one—had been called Tresham. And that he lived at Dudley House.
“On Grosvenor Square? Oh,Tresham!” Madame had exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air. “Well, that explains everything. A more reckless, more dangerous gent than Tresham it would be impossible to find. He is the very devil himself.”
For one moment Jane had breathed a sigh of relief. She was going to be believed after all. But Madame had tipped back her head suddenly and laughed scornfully. And then she had looked around the workshop at the other girls, andthey, sycophants that they were, had all laughed scornfully too.
“And you would have me believe that the Duke of Tresham needed the help of a milliner’s assistant after taking a bullet through the leg?” Madame had asked. The question was clearly rhetorical. She had not paused for a reply. “You cannot take me for a fool, dearie. You saw some excitement and stayed around to have a gawk, did you? Did they take his breeches down to tend to his leg? I can hardly blame you for stopping to gawk at that sight. There is no padding inthembreeches, I would have you know.”
The other girls had tittered again while Jane had felt herself blush—partly with embarrassment, partly with anger.
“Are you calling me a liar, then?” she had asked incautiously.
Madame de Laurent had looked at her, transfixed. “Yes, Miss Hoity Toity,” she had said at last. “That I am. And I have no further need of your services. Not unless—” She had paused to look about at the girls again, smirking. “Not unless you can bring me a note signed by the Duke of Tresham himself to bear out your story.”
The girls had dissolved in convulsions of giggles as Jane had turned and left the workshop. As she strode away, she remembered she had not even asked for the two days’ wages she had earned.
And what now? Return to the agency that had found her this job? After working for only two days? Part of the problem before had been that she had no references, no previous experience at anything. Surely worse than no references and no experience would be two days of work ended with dismissal for tardiness and lying.
She had spent the last of her money three days ago on enough food to last her until payday and on the cheap, serviceable dress she was wearing.
Jane stopped on the pavement suddenly, her legs weak with panic. What could she do? Where could she go? She had no money left even if she did decide belatedly that she wanted to go in search of Charles. She had no money even with which to send a letter. And perhaps even now she was being hunted. She had been in London for longer than two weeks, after all, and she had done nothing to mask her trail here. Someone might well have followed her, especially if…
But she blanched as her mind shied away from that particular possibility.
At any moment she might see a familiar face and see the truth in that face—that she was indeed being pursued. Yet she was now being denied the chance to disappear into the relatively anonymous world of the working class.
Should she find another agency and neglect to mention the experience of the past few days? Were there any agencies she had not already visited at least half a dozen times?
And then a portly, hurrying gentleman collided painfully with her and cursed her before moving on. Jane rubbed one sore shoulder and felt anger rising again—a familiar feeling today. She had been angry with the bad-tempered duelist—apparently the Duke of Tresham. He had treated her like a thing, whose only function in life was to serve him. And then she had been angry with Madame, who had called her a liar and made her an object of sport.
Were women of the lower classes so utterly powerless, so totally without any right to respect?
That manneeded to be told that he had been the means of her losing her employment. He needed to know what a job meant to her—survival! And Madame needed to know that she could not call her a liar without any proof whatsoever. What had she said just a few minutes ago? That Jane could keep her job if she brought a note signed by the duke attesting to the truth of her story?
Well then, she would have her note.
And he would sign it.
Jane knew where he lived. On Grosvenor Square. She knew where that was too. During her first days in London, before she had understood how frighteningly alone she was, before fear had caught her in its grip and sent her scurrying for cover like the fugitive she now was, she had walked all over Mayfair. He lived at Dudley House on Grosvenor Square.
Jane went striding off along the pavement.
