More than a Mistress/No Man's Mistress (22 page)

He was not as impatient as his brother and sister to find the Forbeses and punish them. The time would come. They must know it as surely as he did. In the meantime, let them remain in their hiding place, imagining what would happen when they finally came face-to-face with him. Let them sweat it out.

Several people asked about Jane Ingleby. She had created even more of a stir with her singing than he had expected. He was asked who she was, if she was still employed at Dudley House, if she was to sing anywhere else, who her voice teacher had been. Viscount Kimble even asked him outright one evening at White’s if she was his mistress—a question that won for himself a cool stare through the ducal quizzing glass.

Strange, that. Jocelyn had never before been secretive about his mistresses. Indeed, he had often used the house for dinners and parties when he wished them to be a little less formal than such occasions at Dudley House inevitably were. His mistresses had always also been his hostesses—a role that would fit Jane admirably.

But he did not want his friends to know she was in his keeping. It seemed somehow unfair to her, though he would not have been able to explain if he had tried. He told them she had had temporary employment with him and was now gone, he knew not where.

“A devilish shame, Tresham,” Conan Brougham said. “That voice ought to be brought to the attention of Raymore. She could earn a more than decent living with it.”

“I would have offered her employment myself, Tresh,” Kimble said, “on her back, that is, not with her voice. But I feared I might be trespassing on your preserves. If you hear where she is, you might drop a word in my ear.”

Jocelyn, feeling unaccustomedly hostile to one of his closest friends, changed the subject.

He walked home alone later that same night despite the danger of attack by footpads. He had never feared them. He carried a stout cane and he was handy with his fives. He would rather enjoy a scuffle with two or three
ruffians, he had often thought. Perhaps any ruffians who had ever spotted him had been intelligent enough to estimate correctly their chances against him. He had never been attacked.

The mention of Jane Ingleby had made him unbearably restless. It had been five days, and it had seemed more like five weeks. Quincy had personally taken over that silly contract on the second day. To Jocelyn’s surprise she had signed it. He had expected her to haggle over a few small details out of sheer perverseness.

She was officially his mistress.

His virgin, unbedded mistress. How everyone who knew him would jeer if they knew he had engaged a mistress who had banished him from his own house, insisted upon a written contract, and kept the relationship unconsummated a full week after he had made her the proposition.

He laughed aloud suddenly, stopping in the middle of an empty, silent street. Ornery Jane. Even during the consummation she would doubtless not play the part of timid, shrinking virgin being deflowered.

Innocent, naïve Jane, who did not realize how clever she was being. He had desired her a week ago. He had yearned for her five days ago. By now he was on fire for her. He was finding it difficult to think of anything else. Jane with her golden hair, into whose web he could hardly wait to be ensnared.

He was forced to wait two more days before a note finally arrived. It was characteristically brief and to the point.

“The work on the house is complete,” she wrote. “You may call at your convenience.”

Cool, unloverlike words that set him ablaze.

*   *   *

J
ANE WAS PACING
. S
HE
had sent the note to Dudley House immediately after breakfast, but she knew that often he left home early and did not return until late at night. He might not read the note until tomorrow. He might not come for another day or two.

But she was pacing. And trying in vain not to look through the front-facing windows more often than once every ten minutes.

She was wearing a new dress of delicate spring-green muslin. High-waisted, with a modest neckline and short, puffed sleeves, it was of simple design. But it was expertly styled to mold and flatter her figure above its high waistline and to fall in soft folds to her ankles. It had been very costly. Accustomed to the prices of a country dressmaker, Jane had been shocked. But she had not sent the Bond Street modiste and her two assistants away. The duke had selected them and sent them with specific instructions on the number and nature of garments she was to have.

She had selected the fabrics and designs herself, favoring light colors over vivid ones and simplicity of design over the ornate, but she had not argued over the number or the expense, except flatly to insist upon only one walking dress and only one carriage dress. She had no intention of walking or driving out any time soon.

He would not have given her
carte blanche
over the house renovations if he had not intended coming back, she thought as she leaned close to the window yet again early in the afternoon. He would not have sent the modiste or the contract. Indeed, he had sent the latter twice, first two copies for her to peruse and sign and return,
and then just one copy to keep, with his own signature—
Tresham
—scrawled large and bold beneath her own. Mr. Jacobs had witnessed her signature, Mr. Quincy his.

But she could not shake the conviction that he would not come back. The week had been endless. Surely by now he must have forgotten her. Surely by now there was someone else.

She could not understand—and did not care to explore—her own anxiety.

But all anxiety fled suddenly to be replaced by a bursting of joy when she saw a familiar figure striding along the street in the direction of the house. He was walking without a limp, she noticed before turning and hurrying to open the sitting room door. She stopped herself from rushing to open the front door too. She stood where she was, waiting eagerly for his knock, waiting for Mr. Jacobs to answer it.

She had forgotten how broad-shouldered he was, how dark, how forbidding in aspect, how restless with pent-up energy, how—male. He was frowning as usual when he handed his hat and gloves to the butler. He did not look at her until he had done so. Then he strode toward the sitting room and fixed his eyes on her at last.

Eyes that looked not only at her dress and face and hair, she thought, but on everything that was her. Eyes that burned into her with a strange, intense light she had not seen there before.

The eyes of a man come to claim his mistress?

“Well, Jane,” he said, “you have finished playing house at last?”

Had she expected a kiss on the hand? On the lips? Soft lover’s words?

“There was much to do,” she replied coolly, “to convert this house into a dwelling rather than a brothel.”

“And you have done it?” He strode into the sitting room and looked around, his booted feet apart, his hands at his back. He seemed to fill the room.

“Hmm,” he said. “You did not tear down the walls, then?”

“No,” she said. “I kept a great deal. I have not been unnecessarily extravagant.”

“One would hate to have seen Quincy’s face if you had been,” he retorted. “He has been somewhat green about the gills for the past few days as it is. I understand that bills have been flooding in.”

“That is at least partly your fault,” she told him. “I did not need so many clothes and accessories. But the dressmaker you sent said you were adamant and she dared not allow your orders to be contradicted.”

“Some women, you see,” he said, “know their place, Jane. They know how to be submissive and obedient.”

“And how to make a great deal of money in the process,” she added. “I kept the lavender color in here, as you can see, though I would not have chosen it had I been planning the room from scratch. Combined with gray and silver instead of pink, and without all the frills and silly knickknacks, it looks rather delicate and elegant. I like it. I can live here comfortably.”

“Can you, Jane?” He turned his head and looked at her—again with those burning eyes. “And have you done as well with the bedchamber? Or am I going to find two hard, narrow cots in there and a hair shirt laid out on each?”

“If you find scarlet a necessary titillation,” she said, trying to ignore the thumping of her heart and hoping it
did not betray itself in her voice, “then I daresay you will not like what I have done to the room. But I like it, and that is what counts. I am the one who has to sleep there every night.”

“I am being forbidden to do so, then?” He raised his eyebrows.

That foolish blush again. The one sign of emotion it was impossible to disguise. She could feel it hot on her cheeks.

“No,” she said. “I have agreed—in writing—that you are to be free to come and go as you please. But I daresay you do not intend to
live
here as I do. Only to come when you … Well, when you …” She had lost her command of the English language.

“Want sex with you?” he suggested.

“Yes.” She nodded. “Then.”

“And I am not allowed to come when I do not?” He pursed his lips and regarded her in silence for a few uncomfortable moments. “Is that in the contract? That I can come here only for sex, Jane? Not for tea? Or conversation? Or perhaps just to sleep?”

It would be like a real relationship. It was too seductive a thought.

“Would you like to see the bedchamber?” she asked.

He regarded her for a few moments longer before the smile came—that slight smile that lit his eyes and lifted the corners of his mouth and turned Jane’s knees weak.

“To see the new furnishings?” he asked her. “Or to have sex, Jane?”

She found his raw choice of words disconcerting. But any more euphemistic way of phrasing it would mean the same thing.

“I am your mistress,” she said.

“Yes, so you are.” He strolled closer to her, his hands still at his back. He dipped his head closer and gazed into her eyes. “No sign of steely martyrdom. You are ready for the consummation, then?”

“Yes.” She also thought she was ready to collapse in an ignominious heap at his feet, but that fact had nothing to do with a weak resolve, only with weak knees.

He straightened up and offered his arm.

“Let us go, then,” he said.

T
HE FURNISHINGS HAD NOT
changed, only the color scheme. But he would scarcely have known he was in the same room if someone had blindfolded him, picked him up bodily, and deposited him here. It was all sage green and cream and gold. It was elegance itself.

If there was one thing Jane Ingleby had an abundance of, it was good taste, plus an eye for color and design. Another skill learned at the orphanage? Or at the rectory or country manor or wherever the devil it was she had grown up?

But he had not come to inspect the room’s furnishings.

“Well?” Her eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed. “What do you think?”

“What I think, Jane,” he said, narrowing his gaze on her, “is that I will see your hair down now at last. Take out the pins.”

It was not dressed with its customary severity. It was waved and coiled in a manner that complemented the pretty, elegant dress she wore. But he wanted to see it flowing free.

She removed the pins deftly and shook her head.

Ah. It reached to below her waist, as she had said it did. A river of pure, shining, rippling gold. She had appeared beautiful before. Even in the hideous maid’s dress and the atrocious cap she had been beautiful. But now …

There simply were not words. He clasped his hands behind him. He had waited too long to rush now.

“Jocelyn.” She tipped her head to one side and looked directly at him with her very blue eyes. “I am on unfamiliar ground here. You will have to lead the way.”

He nodded, wondering at the great wave of—oh, not desire exactly that washed over him. Longing? That sort of gut-deep, soul-deep yearning that very occasionally caught him unawares and was shaken firmly off again. He associated it with music and painting. But now it was his name that had aroused it.

“Jocelyn is a name that has been in my family for generations,” he said. “I acquired it when I was still in the womb. I cannot think of a single soul until now who has spoken it aloud to me.”

Her eyes widened. “Your mother?” she said. “Your father? Your brother and sister? Surely—”

“No.” He shrugged out of his tight-fitting coat and opened the buttons of his waistcoat. “I was born heir to my present title. I was born with an earl’s title, Jane. My family all used it until I became Tresham at the age of seventeen. You really are the first to call me by my given name.”

He had suggested it. He had never done so with his other mistresses. They had called him by his title, just like everyone else. He remembered now being shaken to hear his name on Jane’s lips a week ago. He had not expected it to bring such a feeling of—of intimacy. He had
not realized how he had longed for such intimacy. Just that. Someone calling him by name.

He tossed his waistcoat aside and untied the knot of his neckcloth. She was watching him, her hands clasped at her waist, cloaked in gold.

“Jocelyn,” she said softly. “Everyone should know what it is like to be called by name. By the name of the unique person one is at heart. Do you want me to undress too?”

“Not yet.” He pulled his shirt off over his head and pulled off his Hessian boots. He kept his pantaloons on for the time being.

“You are very beautiful,” she surprised him by saying, her eyes on his naked torso. Trust Jane to make such a remark! “I suppose I have offended you by using that particular word. It is not masculine enough, I daresay. But you are not handsome. Not in any conventional sense. Your features are too harsh and angular, your coloring too dark. You are only beautiful.”

An experienced courtesan could not have aroused him so deftly even with the most cunningly erotic words.

“Now what have you left me to say about you?” he asked, stepping forward and touching her at last. He framed her face with his hands, sliding his fingers into the warm silk of her hair. “You are not pretty, Jane. You must know that. Prettiness is ephemeral. It passes in a season. You will be beautiful when you are thirty, when you are fifty, when you are eighty. At twenty you are dazzling, breathtaking. And you are mine.” He dipped his head and touched his parted lips to hers, tasting her with his tongue before withdrawing a couple of inches.