“Intensely,” Jessie admitted with a sigh. “You had everything I wanted, Your Grace. Now, I discover I do not want it either.”
“Then pray, do not feel awkward around me, Jessie.” Diana stepped closer to Jessie, though she saw the young woman fidget, clearly slightly at odds by the proximity. “I simply want a way to escape my husband, a man that you and I both now know has a cruel heart indeed. Is that so bad a wish?”
“No, Your Grace. It is the same wish I have too. Though I cannot go yet.” She lifted her chin and sniffed as if restraining herself from shedding more tears. “You wish to know what he said?”
“Yes.” Diana waited, watching as Jessie fidgeted with her hands.
“I asked where he was going, and he shut down the conversation. He said he was going to do what he does every day, make money. When I asked about the fires, he became quite hostile. He grabbed my wrist.” She lifted her hand and showed it to Diana. “He’s never done that before,” she said quietly, her breath hitching.
Slowly, Diana reached out for Jessie’s hand, aware that as her fingers brushed the bruise on the maid’s wrist, Jessie flinched, either from the bruise or from the touch of a woman she had once detested so much.
“Jessie, we need to get some ice on this. It’s swollen.”
“I cannot go to the icehouse.”
“Yes, you can. I will come with you.” Diana steered Jessie back towards the door, looking down at the bruise constantly. “He did the same to me once. He used his grasp to toss me down to the floor.” She could see Jessie wince at the words as she dragged her out into the corridor. “Did he say any more of where he was going?”
“Only that he would be gone for a week. Nothing more.”
“This is madness. That’s what it is,” Diana said, pulling Jessie towards the servants’ staircase, determined to find some ice for her bruise. “This has to end, Jessie.”
“How?” she asked, her voice shaking.
***
“Where are you going?” Jessie cried out. The sudden sharp words made Owen turn back from the small cart he had borrowed from the stables. He was halfway climbing up into the seat of the cart when Jessie had caught him.
“Into town,” he answered her, sitting down and taking the reins of the one horse that would pull the cart.
“Does your duchess not need you?” Jessie’s words were tart as Owen looked at her again.
“Do you still intend to be cruel to her, Jessie?” Owen asked as calmly as he could, fixing the maid with a stare. She had the decency to blush and look down at her feet, scuffling her shoes along the stones on the earth.
“No,” she said eventually. “I do not blame her for what she feels or her affair with you. It is not so easy to abruptly like someone I have spent so long disliking.”
Owen couldn’t say anything in reply. He couldn’t imagine anyone disliking Diana. She was too sweet-tempered and kind to cause such anger in anyone’s breast. The only thing that could ever inspire ire against her had to come from jealousy alone.
“Where are you really going?” she asked, looking up from where she was scuffing her shoes.
Owen glanced around the stable courtyard, looking for anyone that could overhear them, but with the courtyard empty, he felt at liberty to talk.
“Perhaps I’m intent on answering the question you asked me yesterday.”
“What was that?”
“Whether the duke could be punished for what he has done.” His words made her brighten up, stepping forward with wide eyes.
“What are you going to do?”
“The duke’s associate, the gaunt man that visits here, his name is Mr Alfred Potts. It seems he has a friend, apparently someone who used to work with the duke as well. He is now in prison. In Bath City Gaol to be precise. I am going to see him.”
“Why?” Jessie asked.
“Because I have a feeling the news that the duke once hired a man convicted of assault might just be something in our favour.”
“Can I come?” Jessie asked, already reaching up to join him in the cart.
“What of your duties?”
