More than a Mistress/No Man's Mistress (13 page)

He had made himself sound so abjectly meek that she laughed.

“It would be a fine thing to behold, I am sure,” she said. “Have you proved your point for this morning? Your leg is hurting, is it not? You are rubbing your thigh again. Come indoors and I shall make you comfortable.”

“Why is it,” he asked her, “that when you say such things, Jane, I forget any idea of turning over a new leaf and feel very unsaintly indeed?”

He had leaned slightly sideways. His arm was against
her shoulder and there was no space on her other side to shuffle across to. She stood up.

That feeling of almost unbearable tension was happening altogether too often. With him, of course, it was deliberate. She believed he delighted in making suggestive remarks to her and looking at her with his eyes half closed. He was amusing himself by teasing her, knowing very well that she was affected. And she
was
affected. She could not deny that the sight of him—even the very
thought
of him—could quicken her blood. That the careless touch of his hand could make her ache for more.

“Take me back inside, then,” he said, getting up and onto his crutches without her assistance, “and perform whatever nursing duties you deem necessary. I will come meekly, you see, since you are not in the mood for dalliance.”

“And never will be, your grace,” she assured him firmly.

But it was a statement and a resolve that were to be tested later that very night.

J
OCELYN COULD NOT SLEEP
. He had been suffering from insomnia for a week or more. It was understandable, of course, when there was nothing to do after eleven o’clock at night—sometimes even ten—but go to bed and picture in his mind all the balls and routs then in progress and to imagine his friends moving on afterward to one of the clubs until dawn sent them homeward.

Tonight his sleeplessness was combined with a terrible restlessness. He could feel temptation grab almost irresistibly at him—the sort of temptation that had often
got him into trouble when he was a boy until he had learned to curb his urges, especially when his father was at Acton. Finally he had suppressed them completely—except when occasionally they burst through all his defenses and would not leave him alone.

On such occasions he usually went to a woman and stayed with her until there was no energy left for anything but sleep and a return to his normal way of life.

He thought with brief wistfulness of Jane Ingleby, but he turned his mind quickly away from her. He enjoyed teasing her, flirting with her, annoying her. And of course she was powerfully beautiful and attractive. But she was off-limits. She was a servant beneath his own roof.

Finally, at something past midnight, he could resist no longer. He threw back the bedcovers, hoisted himself upward with his crutches, and hobbled through to his dressing room, where he donned shirt and pantaloons and slippers but did not bother with either waistcoat or coat. He did not light a candle as he did not have a third hand with which to carry it. He would light some downstairs.

He made his way slowly and awkwardly down to the ground floor.

J
ANE COULD NOT SLEEP
.

The Duke of Tresham no longer needed a bandage. The wound had healed. He was getting about with crutches. He was restless and bad-tempered and would soon be going out. He would not need her.

He never had really needed her.

She would probably be dismissed even before the
three weeks were at an end. But even if not, there was only one week left.

The world beyond the doors of Dudley House had become a frightening place that she dreaded having to step into. Every day one visitor or other referred to what was known as the Cornish incident. Today the duke and his friends had chatted merrily on the subject.

“I wonder,” the blond and very handsome Viscount Kimble had said, “why Durbury stays shut up in the Pulteney almost all the time instead of enlisting the aid of the
ton
in apprehending his niece or cousin or whatever the devil relationship the woman has to him. Why come to town to search for her and then hide away and let the Runners do all the work?”

“Perhaps he is grieving,” the brown-haired, pleasant-faced Sir Conan Brougham had suggested. “Though he does not wear mourning. Could it be that Jardine is not dead after all but is merely skulking in Cornwall with a broken head?”

“That would be in character,” the duke had said dryly.

“If you were to ask me,” Viscount Kimble had observed, “the woman should be awarded a medal rather than a noose if he
is
dead. The world will be a better place without the presence of Jardine in it.”

“But you had better watch your back with the rest of us once you leave the sanctuary of this house, Tresham,” Sir Conan had added with a chuckle. “Look out for a fierce wench wielding a pair of pistols or a hefty ax. Accounts vary on which she used to do the dastardly deed.”

“What does she look like, pray?” the duke had asked. “So that I may duck out of sight when I see her coming.”

“A black-eyed, black-haired witch as ugly as sin,” Sir
Conan had said. “Or a blond Siren as beautiful as an angel. Take your pick. I have heard both descriptions and several others between the two extremes. No one has ever seen her, it seems, except Durbury, who is keeping mum. Have you heard about Ferdinand’s new team? I daresay you have, though, and from the horse’s mouth itself, so to speak. Will they decide to travel north when he gives them the signal to proceed south, do you suppose?”

“Not if he is a true brother of mine,” the duke had said. “I suppose he bought a frisky pair that will take a year to tame?”

The conversation had proceeded on that topic.

Now Jane could not sleep. Or even lie still. She kept seeing Sidney’s parchment-pale face and the blood on his temple. She kept thinking of the earl’s coming to London to search for her. And of the Bow Street Runners combing its streets and questioning its inhabitants to discover her whereabouts. She kept imagining herself taking her fate in her own hands and leaving Dudley House to confront the earl at the Pulteney Hotel.

It would be such a relief to come out of hiding, to have everything out in the open.

To be thrown into jail. To be publicly tried. To be hanged.
Could
an earl’s daughter be sentenced to hang? An earl could not. But could his daughter? She did not know.

Why was her father’s cousin not wearing mourning? Was it possible that Sidney was not dead after all? But it would be foolish to hope.

She threw back the bedcovers eventually and stopped even pretending to be settled for the night. She lit her candle, threw her cloak about her shoulders, and
left her room, not even bothering to dress or to put on shoes. Perhaps she could find a book in the library into which to escape until her brain quieted down.

But she became gradually aware of something as she descended the stairs. Some sound. By the time she reached the bottom it was quite obvious what it was.

Music. Pianoforte music.

Coming from the music room.

But who could be producing it? It was far too late for visitors. It must be well past midnight. Besides, there was no light in the hall. The servants had all retired to bed. There was a thin thread of light beneath the music room door.

Jane approached it gingerly and rested her hand on the knob for several moments before turning it and opening the door.

It was the Duke of Tresham.

He was seated on the pianoforte bench, his crutches on the floor beside him. He was hunched over the keys, playing without sheet music, his eyes closed, a look almost of pain on his face. He was playing something hauntingly beautiful, something Jane had never heard before.

She stood transfixed, listening. And experiencing again, with a constriction of the heart, the feeling that the music came not from the instrument or even from the man but through them from some divine source. She had not believed there could be another musician with a talent to match her mother’s.

But now she was in his presence.

Five minutes or more must have passed before the music ended. He sat, his hands lifted an inch above the keyboard, his head bowed, his eyes still closed. It
was only in that moment that Jane realized she was a trespasser.

But it was too late. Even as she thought of withdrawing and closing the door quietly behind her, he turned his head and opened his eyes. For a moment they looked blankly into hers. And then they blazed.

“What the devil are you doing here?” he thundered.

For the first time she was truly afraid of him. His anger appeared somehow different from any she had seen in him before. She half expected him to get up and come stalking toward her.

“I am so sorry,” she said. “I came down for a book and I heard the music. Where did you learn to play like that?”

“Like what?” he asked, his eyes narrowing. He was recovering from his shock, she could see, and was looking more himself. “I dabble, Miss Ingleby. I was amusing myself, unaware that I had an audience.”

He had retreated, she realized suddenly, behind a familiar mask. She had never thought of him before as a man who needed defenses. It had never occurred to her that perhaps there were depths to his character that he had never shown her, or any of his visitors either.

“Oh, no,” she said, aware even as she spoke that perhaps it would be wiser to remain silent. She stepped right into the room and closed the door. “You are no dabbler, your grace. You have been gifted with a wondrous and rare talent. And you were not amusing yourself. You were embracing your talent with your whole soul.”

“Poppycock!” he said curtly after a brief silence. “I have never even had a lesson, Jane, and I do not read music. There goes your theory.”

But she was staring at him with wide eyes. “You have never had a lesson? What were you playing, then? How did you learn it?”

She realized the truth even as she asked the questions. He did not answer her but merely pursed his lips.

“You do not wear it loose even to bed?” he said.

Her hair. He was talking about her hair, which was in a thick braid down her back. But she was not to be distracted.

“It was your own composition,” she said. “It
was
, was it not?”

He shrugged. “As I said,” he told her, “I dabble.”

“Why does your talent embarrass you?” she asked. “Why are you eager to belittle and even deny it?”

He smiled then, slowly. “You really do not know my family,” he told her.

“I suppose,” she said, “that playing the pianoforte, composing music, loving it, is something quite unworthy of a Dudley male.”

“Bordering on the effeminate,” he agreed.

“Bach was a man,” she said, walking toward him and setting her candle down on the pianoforte beside the candelabrum that had been giving him light. “Were all the famous composers effeminate?”

“They would have been if they had been Dudleys.” He grinned rather wolfishly at her. “Bare feet, Jane? Such shocking dishabille!”

“According to whom?” She would not allow him to change the subject. “You? Or your father and grandfather?”

“We are all one,” he said. “Like the trinity, Jane.”

“That is blasphemous,” she told him firmly. “Your father must have been aware of your talent. Something
like that cannot be hidden indefinitely. It will burst forth, as it has tonight. He did not encourage you to develop it?”

“I soon learned never to play when he was at home,” he said. “Not after he caught me at it twice. I never did particularly enjoy having to sleep on my front all night because my rear was too sore.”

Jane was too angry to say anything. She merely stared at him with compressed lips—at the hard, cynical, dangerous rake who had had all traces of his more sensitive, artistic nature thrashed out of him by a father who had been ignorant enough and weak enough to fear all things feminine. Why was it that men of that type did not realize that the mature, balanced person, regardless of gender, was a fine mix of masculine and feminine qualities? And here was this foolish man trying to live up to the ideal set him by ignorant men—and doing rather a good job of it most of the time.

He turned his attention back to the keyboard and began to play softly. This time it was a familiar tune.

“Do you know it?” he asked without looking up.

“Yes,” she said. “It is ‘Barbara Allen.’ ” One of the lovelier and sadder folk songs.

“Do you sing?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she admitted softly.

“And do you know the words?”

“Yes.”

“Sing them, then.” He stopped playing and looked at her. “Sit on the bench here beside me and sing. Since you have come, you might as well make yourself useful. I shall try to play as if my fingers were not all thumbs.”

She did as she was bidden and watched his hands as he played some introductory bars. She had noticed before
that he had long fingers. Because he was the Duke of Tresham, it had not occurred to her then that they were artistic hands. It was obvious now. They caressed the keys as if he made love to the music rather than merely produced it.

She sang the song through from beginning to end, long as it was. After an initial self-consciousness, she forgot everything but the music and the sad story of Barbara Allen. Singing had always been one of her greatest joys.

There was silence when the song came to an end. Jane sat straight-backed on the pianoforte bench, her hands clasped in her lap. The duke sat with his hands poised over the keys. It was, Jane thought, without quite understanding the meaning of the thought, one of life’s most blessed moments.

“My God!” he murmured into the silence. It did not sound like one of his all-too-common blasphemies. “Contralto. I expected you to have a soprano voice.”

The moment passed and Jane was very aware that she was sitting beside the Duke of Tresham in the music room, clad only in her nightgown and outdoor cloak, her braid loose down her back. With bare feet. He was wearing very tight pantaloons and a white shirt open at the neck.

She could think of no way to stand up and remove herself from the room without making a grand production out of it.