“I trust,” Jocelyn said, “you intend sooner or later to enlighten me on the topic of this fascinating conversation, Angeline. Might I suggest sooner as Cavalier is still frisky?”
“Itwasbeing said,” she explained, “that the Forbes brothers fled town in fear of retaliation from you for what they tried to do to Ferdie.”
“As well they might,” he commented. “They have some modicum of wisdom among the three of them if that was indeed the reason for their disappearance.”
“But now,” she said, “it is known for absolute certain—is it not, Maria?” She turned to Mrs. Stebbins for confirmation. “Mr. Hammond mentioned it at Mrs. Bury-Haugh’s two days ago and everyone knows that his wife is second cousin to Mrs. Wesley Forbes. So it must be true.”
“Incontrovertibly, I would say,” Jocelyn agreed dryly, using his quizzing glass to peruse the other walkers beyond the fence and the other riders within.
“They are not satisfied,” Angeline announced. “Can you imagine the gall of them, Tresham? When Ferdie might have been killed? They are not satisfied because you took the curricle and came to no worse harm than to ruin a pair of leather gloves.Theyare still vowing vengeance on you! When everyone knows thatyouare now the one with the grievance. They have gone for reinforcements and are expected back at any moment.”
Jocelyn turned about with a flourish to look at the grassy expanse behind him. “But not quite yet, Angeline,” he said. “The reinforcements to which you refer are presumably the Reverend Josiah Forbes and Captain Samuel Forbes?”
“It will be five against one,” she declared dramatically. “Or five against two if one counts Ferdie as he insists one must. It would be five against three if Heyward would not insist in his odious manner that he will not involve himself in childish capers. I will wheedle a gun out of him and start practicing my marksmanship again. I am a Dudley, after all.”
“I beg you to desist,” Jocelyn said firmly. “None of us would know which side was in more danger from you if you were to prove as adept at shooting now as you were as a girl.” He raised his glass again and looked her over from head to ankles. “That is a surprisingly elegant bonnet you are wearing,” he said. “But the poppy red flowers are a lamentably poor match for the pink of your walking dress.”
“Lord Pym met us ten minutes ago,” she said with a toss of her head, “and observed, foolish man, that I look like a particularly delectable meadow in which he could only wish he were strolling alone. Did he not, Maria?”
“Indeed?” Jocelyn’s manner became instantly frosty. “I trust, Angeline, you reminded Lord Pym that you are the sister of the Duke of Tresham?”
“I sighed soulfully and then laughed at him,” she said. “It was harmless gallantry, Tresham. Do you believe I would allow any man to take liberties with me? I shall tell Heyward about it and he will toss his glance at the ceiling and then tell me…well.” She blushed and laughed again, nodded to Kimble and Brougham, took Maria Stebbins’s arm, and resumed her promenade.
“London needs some new scandal,” Jocelyn observed as he rode onward with his friends. “It seems that no one has anything else to talk about these days except those cowardly scoundrels who claim kinship with Lady Oliver.”
“They are doubtless shaking in their boots, by Jove,” Viscount Kimble said, “since Joseph Forbes was rash enough to claim responsibility on behalf of all of them for your scraped palms. But they are probably hatching more mischief too—nothing as direct as a challenge, of course.”
“They may not have a choice—except loss of face and the last vestiges of their honor,” Jocelyn said. “But enough on the subject. I am sick to death of it. Let us enjoy the fresh air and sunshine.”
“To blow away the cobwebs?” Brougham asked. He looked beyond Jocelyn to address their other friend again. “Did you notice, Kimble, that according to Lady Heyward, Tresham was from home yesterday afternoon? Was he with you?”
“He was not with me, Cone,” the viscount replied, all seriousness. “Was he with you?”
“I did not set eyes on him between yesterday morning and this,” Brougham said. “She must beverynew andveryfrisky.”
“The devil!” Kimble drew his horse to such an abrupt halt and threw back his head to laugh with such loud merriment that he was almost unseated and had to exercise considerable skill to bring his mount under control again. “Right under our noses, Cone,” he said when he was able. “The answer, I mean.”
Conan Brougham’s and Jocelyn’s horses were prancing a little distance away.
“The delectable Miss Ingleby!” Kimble announced. “You rogue, Tresh. You lied. You do have her in your keeping. And she kept you from your friends and your obligations and your bed—your own bed, that is—most of yesterday and all night. She must have lived up to all the considerable promise she showed.”
“It has been staring us in the face, has it not?” Brougham agreed with a grin. “You actually danced—waltzed—with her, Tresham. And could not take your eyes off her. But why the secrecy, old chap?”
“I do believe,” Kimble said with an exaggerated sigh, “I am going to go into mourning. I have been considering hiring a Bow Street Runner to search for her.”
“You two,” Jocelyn said with his customary hauteur, “may go to the devil with my blessing. Now if you will excuse me, breakfast awaits at Dudley House.”
At first silence and then their laughter followed him as he rode off unhastily in the direction of home.
It was not like that, he kept thinking foolishly. It was notlikethat.
But if it was not like that—a man with a new mistress enjoying the novelty of a new female body with which to pleasure himself—then whatwasit like?
He hated the thought of even his closest friends snickering over Jane.
SHE MUST HAVE HEARDhim coming. She was standing in the doorway of the sitting room again, wearing primrose yellow today—another new dress of classically simple design. She had perfect taste in clothing, it seemed, once she had been forced out of the cheap gray monstrosities.
He handed his hat and gloves to the butler and moved toward her. She smiled at him with dazzling warmth and held out both hands, completely throwing him off stride. He had been feeling out of charity with the world and even with her and had been irritated with himself for being unablenotto come to her again this afternoon.
