“What?” said Jane. “As if that makes him sound that way.”
“I mean, that he copies things that other men say, and he does not understand why they say them because he does not feel that way about women, so he does a bad job of knowing when to mimic them and when not to. I imagine he was nervous with you there, and he went too far, saying all manner of ridiculous things at that dinner. He was ever so insistent you stay, after all.”
“Well, he was that,” said Jane. “You think that was because he was nervous. I suppose he might have been, having just carried out a murder the evening before.”
“Yes, and we told him it went awry,” said Byron.
Jane thought back to Beaumont’s reaction. He had seemed to behave rather oddly.
“Anyway,” said Byron, “it has happened the way it has happened, and I am happy enough to have the entire matter closed, truly.”
“And you can go back to London, to your married mistress and the accolades of all the people who have read your poem, and I can stay here and realize I absolutely wasted my time finding a murderer who I let get away with it.”
Byron stopped walking. “I can see why you feel that way.”
She kept walking.
“I was quite serious about that masked ball, wherein everyone gets to sing the praises of your book!” he called after her.
She kept walking.
“Are you not even going to say goodbye to me?”
She paused, but she did not look back.
“Miss Jane,” he said, catching up to her. “We are friends now, are we not?”
“I don’t know, my lord,” she said. “How can I be friends with someone who shields his friends from justice even if they deserve it?”
“Well, that makes me a very good friend, actually,” said Byron. “And you must know I would do the same for you.”
“Oh, if I happened to murder someone.”
“Obviously,” said Byron. “Would you for me?”
“I don’t intend to murder anyone,” she said.
“Well, obviously, I don’t either.”
She scoffed. She resumed walking.
“Miss Jane!” he cried.
She didn’t pause this time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“I WISH TOhold babes,” said Jane to Cassandra. “I wish to cuddle tiny sweet smelling bundles with smooth skin and very tiny fingers and chubby little toes. I wish it now. Let us go to see Mrs. Spotts.”
“You are angling to find Mrs. Beaumont,” said Cassandra.
“So what if I am,” said Jane with a sigh. “She must come to visit often and likely stays for hours. I think it’s likely she’ll be there. Will you walk with me, however, for it will be ever so awkward to turn up on the doorstep all alone.”
Cassandra agreed, and they walked together.
As was her way, Cassandra was silent for some time before she finally could not stop herself and burst out with what she was thinking. “Tell me what your plan is, Jane.”
“I don’t have one,” said Jane. “But I know that I do not wish Beaumont to get away with this without any consequence, and I also know I don’t wish to punish poor Mrs. Beaumont.”
