“I must protest, Kimble,” he said. “You have had the lady to yourself for too long. It is my turn.” He tucked her hand through his arm and led her closer to the pianoforte.
He was so very like his brother, Jane thought. Except that he was somewhat more slender and long-legged. And where there was darkness in Jocelyn, there was light in Lord Ferdinand. He was an easygoing, happy, uncomplicated young man, she guessed. Or perhaps not. Perhaps it was just that she had had more of a chance to learn the secret depths of Jocelyn’s character during the time she had been his mistress—and friend.
“There are more people here than I expected,” she said.
“Yes.” He smiled down at her. “I have almost as little experience with such select gatherings as you, Lady Sara. I usually avoid them.”
“Why did you not on this occasion?” she asked.
“Because Angie said you were to be here.” He grinned at her.
It was very much what Viscount Kimble had said earlier. Were these two gentlemen so smitten with her, then? Or did they both know exactly what she had been to Jocelyn?
“Will you sing?” Lord Ferdinand asked. “If I can persuade someone to accompany you, will you? For me, if for no one else? You have the loveliest voice I have ever heard.”
She sang “The Lass with the Delicate Air” to the accompaniment provided by Miss Meighan. The crowd about the pianoforte listened with greater attention than they had given the other performers. And more people came crowding in from the other rooms.
Among them the Duke of Tresham.
He was standing in the drawing room doorway when Jane smiled about her in acknowledgment of the applause that followed her song. Looking elegant and immaculate and not at all as one would expect a man to look who was to face death within hours.
Jane’s eyes locked with his for an endless moment while a curious sort of hush descended on the music room. Then she looked away and smiled again, and conversations resumed as if there had been no break in them.
“The devil!” Lord Ferdinand muttered from beside her as she made to move away from the pianoforte so that another young lady could take her place. “What in thunder isshedoing here?”
Lady Oliver was standing beside Jocelyn, Jane saw when she looked again. She was smiling up at him and saying something. He was looking down at her and replying. She was setting one hand on his arm.
Lord Ferdinand had recovered himself. “There are refreshments in the room across the hall,” he said. “Shall we go there? Will you allow me to fill a plate for you? Are you hungry?”
“Ravenous,” she said, smiling dazzlingly up at him and taking his arm.
Five minutes later she was seated at a small table with a heaped plate in front of her and four fellow guests in addition to Lord Ferdinand with whom to converse. She never afterward knew what was said to her or what she said in reply. Or what she ate, if anything.
He had come. Just as if a duel were nothing at all. Just as if his life meant nothing to him. And he had allowedthat womanto touch him and talk to him without loudly and publicly spurning her. Making himself look not only guilty but also lacking the good taste to keep his distance from his supposed mistress, a married lady. Did a man’s honor stretch so far?
Finally Lord Ferdinand led her out of the refreshment room and back across the hall to the salon and the two adjoining rooms. Was it too early, Jane wondered, to find Aunt Harriet and suggest that they return home? But how was she to live through even one more hour here without fainting or giving in to a fit of hysteria?
Someone stepped into the doorway of the salon as they were about to enter it. Jocelyn. He grasped her right wrist and looked at his brother but said not a word to him. Lord Ferdinand said nothing either, but merely slid his arm away from Jane’s and stepped into the room without her. And even she said nothing. It was a strange moment.
He led her back into the hallway and turned left, drawing her away from the lighted area of the party until they reached the darkened recess of a doorway. He turned her back against the door and stood in front of her, still holding her wrist. His face was all darkness and shadows. Except that she could see his eyes, which gazed back into her own with such an intensity of passion, sorrow, longing, and desperation that she could only gaze back, mute and heartsick.
Neither of them spoke. But the silence was pregnant with unspoken words.
I might die tomorrow or the morning after.
You might leave me. You might die.
This may be good-bye.
Forever. How will I face forever without you?
My love.
My love.
And then he gathered her into his arms and held her tightly, tightly, as if he would fold her right into himself. She clung to him as if she would merge with him, become eternally one with him. She could feel him and smell him and hear his heartbeat.
For perhaps the last time.
