He stared at her for a long time, his expression so unreadable that she could see nothing in him of the man who had loved her with unmistakable passion such a short time ago. He looked hard and humorless and untouchable.
Then he bowed to her abruptly, turned, and strode from the room.
She gazed in surprise at the door he had closed behind him and listened to the sounds of the front door being opened and then shut again. He was gone. Without a word of farewell or any hint of when he might come again.
This time she felt hurt.
Desolate.
15
HE ROOM NEXT TO THE SITTING ROOM HADbeen furnished with a daybed, a plusher than plush carpet, an inordinately large number of mirrors, which multiplied one’s reflection at least ten times, depending on where one stood, sat, or lay, and the inevitable cushions and knickknacks.
In Jane’s estimation it had been used either as a private retreat by the duke’s ex-mistresses who enjoyed their own company more than anyone else’s, or as an alternative to the bedchamber. She suspected the latter.
It was a room she had ignored while the two main rooms were being refurbished. But now, at her leisure, she was making it into her own domain. The lavender sitting room was now elegant, but it was not her.
The mirrors and the daybed were banished—she did not care what happened to them. She sent Mr. Jacobs out on a special commission to purchase an escritoire and chair and paper, pens, and ink. Mrs. Jacobs in the meantime was sent to buy fine linen and an embroidery frame and an assortment of colored silken threads and accessories.
The den, as Jane thought of the room, would become her private writing and sewing room. She would indulge there her passion for embroidery.
She sat stitching in her den, a fire crackling cozily in the hearth, during the evening following the consummation of her liaison. She pictured Jocelyn at a grand dinner party and then moving on to a great squeeze of a ball, and tried not to feel envious. She had never had her come-out Season. There had been the year of mourning for her mother. Then her father had been too ill though he had urged her to accept Lady Webb’s offer to sponsor her. But she had insisted on staying to nurse him. And then there had been his death and her year of mourning. And then the circumstances that had brought her under the new earl’s guardianship.
Would Jocelyn dance tonight? she wondered. Would he waltz?
But she would not indulge in depressing thoughts.
For a moment her heart lifted when she heard a tap on the den door. Had he come back? But then she saw the butler peering around the door, his expression wary.
“I beg your pardon, ma’am,” Mr. Jacobs said, “but there are two great boxes just now arrived. What would you like done with them?”
“Boxes?” Jane raised her eyebrows and set her embroidery aside.
“From his grace,” the butler explained. “Almost too heavy to lift.”
“I am not expecting anything.” She got to her feet. “I had better come and see for myself. You are sure his grace sent them?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am,” he assured her. “His own servants brought them and explained they were for you.”
Jane was intrigued, especially when she saw two large crates in the middle of the kitchen floor.
“Please open one of them,” she said, and Mrs. Jacobs fetched a knife and the butler cut the string that held one of the boxes closed.
Jane pushed back the lid, and all the servants—the butler, the housekeeper, the cook, the housemaid, and the footman—leaned forward with her to peer inside.
“Books!” The housemaid sounded vastly disappointed.
“Books!” Mrs. Jacobs sounded surprised. “Well. He never sent books here before. I wonder why he sent them now? Do you read, ma’am?”
“Of course she does,” Mr. Jacobs said sharply. “Why else would she want a desk and paper and ink, I ask you?”
“Books!” Jane said almost in a reverential whisper, her hands clasped to her bosom.
She could see from the ones on top that they were from his own library. There were a Daniel Defoe, a Walter Scott, a Henry Fielding, and an Alexander Pope visible before she touched a single volume.
“It seems a funny sort of gift to me,” the housemaid said, “begging your pardon, ma’am. P’raps there’s something better in the other box.”
Jane was biting hard on her upper lip. “It is a priceless gift,” she said. “Mr. Jacobs, are the boxes too heavy for you and Phillip to carry into the den?”
