Lindley didn’t answer, grimmer now.
“Damn her!” Nick exploded. “Will she come between us again, destroy the one friendship important to me?”
“I’m sorry,” Lindley said. “Damn it! She made me promise not to tell! How can I break my promise?” His gaze was imploring.
The earl paced. He turned. “I will find out. Keep your promise. Are you fucking her?”
“No.”
The earl knew his friend well enough to know when he was telling the truth. He felt it then, the relief.
“Why do you care?” Lindley asked softly. “Not because she is technically your ward.”
“I don’t care,” the earl stated flatly. “I only wanted to know the facts.”
“Well, I do care,” Lindley said. “I care about Jane. She is warm and special and she deserves to be happy. Leave her alone, Shelton. For some damn reason she doesn’t want to see you. Just leave her alone.”
The earl turned his back on Lindley, his strides hard and long, exiting the room, the house.
“I wish I could come with you to Charing Cross, darling, but I can’t,” Jane crooned, hugging Nicole. Anxiously she looked at Molly. “You have everything? Money, the extra blanket, sweaters?”
“I have everything, mum, don’t worry,” Molly said, reaching for Nicole. They stood outside on the front stoop of Jane’s house. A hired hansom waited in the street to take them to the depot at Charing Cross. To avoid the scrutiny of her neighbors, an elaborate hat and veil hid Jane’s face and hair.
Jane hugged Nicole again. “Good-bye, darling, it’s only for a week.” She gave her daughter to Molly, kissing the woman’s plump cheek. “Send me a telegram when you arrive, and every day as well. Just don’t mention Nicole, only that everything is fine.”
“Yes’m. Don’t worry, mum, everyone goes to Brighton.”
“Yes, yes,” Jane said nervously. She kissed them each again, then watched Molly and Nicole, small valise in hand, heading through the gate to the cab. She felt a sense of loss, her anxiety acute, but knew she was only being a foolish mother parting with her baby for the first time.
And she would not think about tomorrow.
Tomorrow she would confront the Earl of Dragmore.
30
He waited outside the theater, across the street, in plain sight but shielded slightly by the many passersby and the shadows of the awning over a pharmacist’s. He guessed she would arrive from the side street instead of Picadilly Circus, and he was right. What he had not guessed was that she would be protected by bodyguards.
Stunned, furious, the earl watched Jane exit the coach accompanied by three men, all big and burly with revolvers and clubs, clearly detectives. They disappeared into the back entrance of the theater. Gordon was with them.
At least Lindley was not.
He had not a single doubt that she knew he was after her and that the guards were there to protect her from him.
What was she so afraid of? Did she think he would hurt her? Almost two years had passed since she had crawled uninvited into his bed. He grew grim. Uninvited? Hah! He had wished her there the entire short time she had been at Drag-more and he damn well knew it! She might have seduced him, but he had been a willing victim, and he had not a doubt that had she seduced him while he was wide awake and sober as a judge he’d have been willing then too.
But two years had passed. Why was she afraid of him?
What was she hiding?
This was not the Jane he had known, who was open and honest and direct and guileless. This was a woman keeping secrets. A desperate woman—he had heard the fear in her voice last night before she had fled from her dressing room.
His curiosity, his suspicions, were aroused.
Patiently he waited.
And when she left hours later, still accompanied by the guards, he followed on foot discreetly. The earl was in magnificent form, and he had no trouble keeping up. In fact, he enjoyed the hunt, the chase. He kept to the shadows and out of the streetlamps, trotting tirelessly. His years growing up in the wilds and his Comanche blood were paying off.
His glee was savage when she alighted from the coach at a town house on Gloucester Street. He had not a single doubt that this was where Jane lived. This was her kind of home, cozy and cheerful, honeysuckle creeping along the iron fence, the shutters painted yellow, the door a royal blue, purple pansies spilling from the window boxes. She entered the house and her escort remained outside, bidding her good night. The detectives returned to the coach, Gordon with them, and the carriage pulled away.
