She lifted her chin a notch, realizing only as he spoke that she had been desperately hoping he would argue, try to persuade her to stay, be simply Jocelyn again.
“I believe,” he said, “contracts are void if one of the parties uses an alias. I am no legal expert. Quincy would know. But I believe I am right, Sara.”
Foolishly, she did not notice for a moment. There was only a strange chill at her heart. But it was only a moment. The name he had used seemed to hang in the air between them as if the sound of it had not died away with his voice.
She sat down abruptly on a chair close by.
“That is not my name,” she whispered.
“I beg your pardon.” He made her an ironic half bow. “I forget that you insist upon formality. I should have saidLadySara. Is that better?”
She shook her head. “You misunderstand. It is not myname. I am Jane.” But she spread her hands over her face suddenly and found they were shaking. She lowered them to her lap. “How did you find out?”
“I had a visitor,” he said. “A Bow Street Runner. I understand that in his search for Lady Sara Illingsworth he called at the milliner’s shop of a certain Madam Dee Lorrent. I suppose he meant Madame de Laurent. Coincidentally your former employer, Jane, as well as Lady Sara’s. The Runner came to the intelligent conclusion that you were one and the same.”
“I was going to tell you.” She realized even as she spoke how lame her words sounded.
“Were you?” He raised his quizzing glass and regarded her through it with cold hauteur. “Were you indeed, Lady Sara? Pardon me for not believing you. You are as accomplished a liar as I have met. I am afraid of friendship and emotional closeness, am I? You ought not to have become my friend, ought you? To my shame I became your dupe. For a short while. No longer.” He dropped his quizzing glass and it swung on its ribbon.
The temptation was to beg him to believe her, try to explain that after the emotional intensity of his own disclosures two evenings ago she had decided to wait to tell her own story. But he would not believe her. She would not believe him if the situation were reversed, would she?
“Does he know where I am?” she asked. “The Bow Street Runner?”
“He followed me here last night,” he told her, “and stood outside while you were pleasuring me upstairs. Oh, do not be alarmed. I have called off the hunt, at least in this particular place, though I do not imagine he is deceived. He is more intelligent than his current employer, I believe.”
“Is the Earl of Durbury still at the Pulteney?” she asked. “Do you know?”
“He was there this morning when I called upon him,” he said.
Her face felt cold and clammy. There was a ringing in her ears. The air she breathed felt icy. But she would not faint. Shewouldnot.
“Oh, I have not betrayed you, Lady Sara,” he told her, his eyes narrowing.
“Thank you,” she said. “I would rather turn myself in than be dragged in. If you will give me a minute to fetch my bag from upstairs, you may see me off the premises and assure yourself that I am gone. Unless you have told anyone that I am your mistress, no one need know. I daresay Mr. Quincy and the servants here are discreet. It would be a condition of their employment, would it not? The scandal need not touch you too nearly.” She got to her feet.
“Sit down,” he told her.
The words were so quietly spoken but with such cold command that she obeyed without thinking.
“Are you guilty of any of the charges against you?” he asked her.
“Murder? Theft?” She looked down at the hands clasped in her lap. Her fingers, she noticed dispassionately, were white with tension. “I hit him. I took money. Therefore, I am guilty.”
“And jewels?”
“A bracelet,” she said. “It is in my bag upstairs.”
She would offer no explanations, no excuses. She owed him none now. Yesterday it would have been different. He would have been her friend, her lover. Now he was nothing at all.
“You hit him,” he said. “With an ax? With a pistol?”
“With a book,” she said.
“With abook?”
“The corner of it caught him on the temple,” she explained. “He was bleeding and dizzy. If he had sat down all might have been well. But he came after me, and when I stepped aside he lost his balance and cracked his head on the hearth. He was not dead. I had him carried upstairs and tended him myself until the doctor arrived. He was still not dead when I left, though he was unconscious.”
There, she had given in to the urge to explain after all. She was still watching her hands.
