They attacked her together, coming around both sides of the chair and grabbing for her. She hit out with both fists and then with both feet. She twisted and turned, jabbed with her elbows, and even bit a hand that came incautiously close to her mouth. And without even thinking she used language with which she had become familiar in the past few weeks.
“Take yourdamnedhands off me and go to thedevil,” she was saying when a quiet voice somehow penetrated the noise of the scuffle.
“Dear me,” it said, “am I interrupting fun and games?”
By that time Parkins was hanging on to one of her arms while the Runner had the other twisted up painfully behind her back. Jane, panting for breath, her vision impaired by the hair that had fallen across her face, glared at her savior, who was lounging against the frame of the open door, his quizzing glass to his eye and grossly magnifying it.
“Go away,” she said. “I have hadenoughof men to last me at least two lifetimes. I do not need you. I can do very well on my own.”
“As I can see.” The Duke of Tresham lowered his glass. “But such atrocious language, Jane. Wherever have you acquired it? Might I be permitted to ask, Durbury, why there is a male person—neither one a gentleman, I fear—hanging from each of Lady Sara Illingsworth’s arms? It appears to be a strange, unsporting sort of game.”
Jane caught sight of Mrs. Jacobs hovering outside the door, looking as if she were bristling with indignation. And Jane herself was feeling no less so. Why was it that two grown men, who had been quite ferocious enough to overpower her just a minute before, were now standing meek and motionless, looking as if for direction to one languid gentleman?
“Good day, Tresham,” the earl said briskly. “Cousin Sara and I will be leaving for Candleford before dark. Your presence here is quite unnecessary.”
“I came of my own free will,” Jane said. “You are no longer responsible for me in any way at all, your grace.”
He ignored her, of course. He addressed the Bow Street Runner. “Unhand the lady,” he said gently. “You already have a nose that is painful to behold. Are you responsible, Jane? My compliments. I would regret to have to give you eyes to match, my fine fellow.”
“Now see here—” Mick Boden began.
But the ducal glass was to the duke’s eye again and his eyebrows had been raised. Much as it was a relief to have her arm suddenly released, Jane could feel only indignation against a man who could rule merely through the power of his eyebrows and his quizzing glass.
“Dismiss this man,” the duke instructed the Earl of Durbury. “And your servant. Should this contretemps draw the attention of other hotel guests and employees, you might find yourself having to explain why a supposedly murdered man is alive and well and living at Candleford.”
Jane’s eyes flew to the earl’s. He was looking thunderous and rather purple in the face. But for the moment he said nothing. He did not protest. He did not contradict what had just been said.
“Exactly so,” the Duke of Tresham said softly.
“One would equally hate it to become public knowledge,” the earl said, “that you have been harboring a common felon in the guise of mis—”
“I would not complete that sentence if I were you,” Jocelyn advised. “You will dismiss the Runner, Durbury? Or shall I?”
Mick Boden drew audible breath. “I would have you know—” he began.
“Would you indeed?” his grace asked with faint indifference. “But, my good man, I have no wish to hear whatever it is you would have me know. You may wish to leave now before I decide after all to call you to account for the arm-twisting I witnessed a short while ago.”
For a moment it seemed as if the Runner would accept the challenge, but then he replaced his length of rope in his pocket and stalked from the room with a great show of bruised dignity. The earl’s valet followed him out willingly enough and closed the door quietly behind him.
Jane turned on the earl, her eyes blazing. “Sidney is alive?” she cried. “Andwell? Yet all this time you have been hunting me as amurderess? You have allowed me to believe since I arrived here in this room that he isdead? Howcouldyou be so cruel? And now I know why we were to return to Candleford instead of facing a magistrate here. You still believe you can persuade me to marry Sidney. You must have windmills in your head—or believe that I do.”
“There is still the matter of a vicious assault, which kept my son hovering between life and death for many weeks,” the earl retorted. “And there is still the matter of a certain sum of money and a certain costly bracelet.”
“Ah,” Jocelyn said, tossing his hat and cane onto a chair just inside the door, “it is gratifying to know that my guess was correct. Jardineisstill an active member of this vale of tears, then? My congratulations, Durbury.”
Jane turned her indignation on him. “It was aguess?” she said. “Abluff?And why are you still here? I told you I did not need you. I will never need you again. Go away.”
“I have come to escort you to Lady Webb’s,” he told her.
Her eyes widened. “Aunt Harriet’s? She is here? She is back in town?”
He inclined his head before turning away to address her cousin. “It will be an altogether more convenient place than Candleford at which to call upon my betrothed,” he explained.
Jane drew breath to speak. How dare he! But Sidney was alive and well. Aunt Harriet was back in London. She was to go there. It was all over, this nightmare with which she had lived seemingly forever. She closed her mouth again.
“Yes, my love,” Jocelyn said gently, observing her.
“Your betrothed?” The earl was pulling himself together. “Now see here, Tresham, Lady Sara is twenty years old. Until she is five and twenty she may not marry or betroth herself to any man who does not meet with my approval. You do not. Besides, this betrothal nonsense is humbug if ever I heard any. A man of your ilk does not marry his whore.”
