More than a Mistress/No Man's Mistress (26 page)

“Then why the devil,” he asked her irritably, closing the door and looking about the room, “did you not let me take you to the library?”

And why the deuce was she so ashamed to be seen? His other mistresses had never been more happy than when he escorted them somewhere where they would be seen in his company.

She was probably the daughter of a damned clergyman. But he would be double damned before he would start feeling guilt at having had her virtue.

She would not answer his question, of course. She smiled again, tipping her head to one side.

“You are in a black mood this afternoon,” she observed. “But I am not to be cowed by it. Has something happened that you would like to talk about?”

He almost laughed.

“The Forbes brothers have slunk off out of town to bring on reinforcements,” he said. “They are afraid to confront me with the odds of three against one. They are planning to increase them to five against one. They will discover that the odds are still in my favor. I derive a certain relish out of dealing with bullies and cowards.”

She sighed. “Men and their pride,” she said. “I suppose you will still be brawling when you are eighty, if you should live so long. Will you sit down? Shall I order tea? Or do you wish to go straight upstairs?”

Suddenly, strangely, alarmingly, he did not want her. Not in bed. Not now. It just seemed too—too what? Sordid? He almost laughed again.

“Where are the books?” he asked. “In the bedchamber? The attic?”

“In the next room,” she said. “I have converted it for my own use when you are not here. I think of it as my den.”

He hated the sitting room. Even though it was now elegant and tasteful, it still reminded him of a waiting room, an impersonal space in which certain civilities were observed before the inevitable adjournment to the bedchamber. And there were no personal touches here that made it Jane’s sitting room.

“Take me there,” he commanded.

He might have guessed that Jane would not simply turn and meekly lead the way.

“It is my room,” she said. “This is where I entertain you—and occasionally, perhaps, in the dining room. The bedchamber is where I grant you your contractual rights. The rest of the house I consider my personal domain.”

Jocelyn pursed his lips, undecided whether to bark at her for the satisfaction of seeing her jump with alarm or to throw back his head and laugh.

Contractual rights
, by thunder!

“Miss Ingleby.” He made her his most elegant bow. “Would you grant me the privilege of seeing your den?”

She hesitated, bit her lower lip, and then inclined her head.

“Very well,” she said, and turned to leave the room ahead of him.

The room was Jane. He felt that as soon as he stepped through the door. He felt as if for the first time he was entering her world. A world that was elegant and genteel on one hand, industrious and cozy on the other.

The fawn-colored carpet and draperies had always made the room look dreary, and all the attempts of her predecessors to brighten the room with cushions and shawls and garish gewgaws had only emphasized the gloom. The mirrors, added by Effie, had merely multiplied the gloom. He had made it a habit never to set foot in here.

Now the fawn colors, which Jane had made no attempt to mask, made the room seem restful. The daybed was gone. So, not surprisingly, were all the mirrors. Some graceful chairs had been added as had a desk and chair, the former strewn sufficiently with papers to indicate that it was not for display purposes only. The bookcase was filled with his books though one lay open on the small table next to a fireside chair. In front of the chair at the other side of the hearth was an embroidery frame over which was stretched a piece of linen. About it were strewn silken threads and scissors and needles.

“May I sit down?” he asked.

She indicated the chair by the book.

“If you wish,” she said, “you may deduct the cost of the desk and chair from my salary since they were purchased for my private use.”

“I seem to recall,” he said, “that I gave you
carte blanche
for the house renovations, Jane. Do stop saying ridiculous things and sit down. I am too much the gentleman, you see, to seat myself before you do.”

She felt uncomfortable, he could see. She perched on the edge of a chair some distance away.

“Jane,” he said impatiently, “sit at your embroidery frame. Let me see you work. I suppose it is another skill you learned at the orphanage?”

“Yes,” she said, moving her place and picking up her needle.

He watched her in silence for a while. She was the picture of beauty and grace. A lady born and bred. Fallen indeed on hard times—forced to come to London to search for employment, forced to take work as a milliner’s assistant, forced to become his nurse, forced to become a mistress. No, not forced. He would not take that guilt on himself. He had offered her a magnificent alternative. Raymore would have made her a star.

“This has always been my vision of domestic bliss,” he said after a while, surprising himself with the words, which had been spoken without forethought.

She looked up briefly from her work.

“A woman beside the fire stitching,” he said. “A man at the other side. Peace and calm about them and all well with the world.”

She lowered her head to her work again. “It was something you never knew in your boyhood home?” she asked.

He laughed shortly. “I daresay my mother did not know one end of a needle from the other,” he said, “and no one ever told either her or my father that it is possible occasionally to sit around the hearth with one’s family.”

No one had told him those things either. Where were these ideas coming from?

“Poor little boy,” she said quietly.

He got abruptly to his feet and crossed to the bookcase.

“Have you read
Mansfield Park
?” he asked her a minute or so later.

“No.” She looked up briefly again. “But I have read
Sense and Sensibility
by the same author and enjoyed it immensely.”

He drew the volume from the shelf and resumed his seat.

“I shall read to you while you work,” he said.

He could never remember reading aloud, except at his lessons as a boy. He could not remember being read to either until Jane had done it when he was incapacitated. He had found the experience unexpectedly soothing though he had never listened attentively. He opened the book and began reading.

“ ‘About thirty years ago, Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park.…’ ”

He read two chapters before stopping and lowering the book to his lap. They sat in silence for a while after that. In a silence that seemed to him thoroughly comfortable. He was sprawled in his chair, he realized. He could nod off to sleep with the greatest ease. He felt … How
did
he feel? Contented? Certainly. Happy? Happiness
was something he had little or no acquaintance with and set no store by.

He felt shut off from the world. Shut off from his usual self. With Jane. Who was certainly shut off from her world and usual self, whatever they might be. Could this be perpetuated? he wondered. Indefinitely? Forever?

Or could it at least become an occasional retreat, this room that was so much Jane and in which he felt comfortable, restful, contented—all alien to his normal way of life?

He should put an end to these foolish, unrealistic, and uncharacteristic dreams without further ado, he thought. He should take his leave—or take her to bed.

“What is it you are working on?” he asked her instead.

She smiled without looking up. “A tablecloth,” she said. “For the dining room table. I had to find
something
to make. Embroidery has always been a passion with me.”

He watched her for a while longer from beneath lazy eyelids. The frame was tilted away from him so that he could not see the pattern. But the silks were autumnal colors, all tastefully complementary.

“Will your hackles rise,” he asked, “if I come and look?”

“No indeed.” She looked surprised. “But you are under no obligation to be polite, you know. You can have no interest in embroidery.”

He did not deign to answer. He hauled himself out of the deep, comfortable chair, setting his closed book on top of her open one as he did so.

She was working a scene of autumn woods across one corner of the cloth.

“Where is the pattern from which you work?” he asked her. He wanted to be able to see the whole picture.

“In my head,” she told him.

“Ah.” He understood then why it was a passion with her. It was not just that she was skilled with her needle. “It is an art with you, then, Jane. You have a fine eye for color and design.”

“Strangely,” she said, “I have never been able to capture my visions on paper or canvas. But through my needle pictures flow easily from my mind to the fabric.”

“I was never any good at portraying scenes,” he said. “I always felt that nature did so much better than I could possibly do. Human faces are a different matter. There is so much life and character to capture.”

He could have bitten his tongue as soon as the words were out. He straightened up in some embarrassment.

“You paint portraits?” She looked up at him, bright interest in her eyes. “I have always thought that must be the most difficult form of art.”

“I dabble,” he said stiffly, wandering to the window and gazing out at the small garden, which was looking remarkably well tended, he noticed. Had those roses always been there? “Past tense. I dabbled.”

“I suppose,” she said quietly, “it was not a manly pursuit.”

His father’s language had been far more graphically scathing.

“I would like to paint you,” he heard himself saying. “There is a great deal in your face even apart from exquisite beauty. It would be an enormous challenge.”

There was silence behind him.

“Upstairs we will satisfy our sexual passions,” he said. “In here we could indulge all the others, Jane, if you wished it. Away from the prying eyes and sneering lips of the world. This is what you have created in this room, is it not? A den, as you call it, a haven, where you can be yourself, where all the other facts of your life, including being my mistress, can be set aside and you can be—simply Jane.”

He turned his head. She was looking steadily at him, her needle suspended above her work.

“Yes,” she said.

“And I am the last person with whom you would wish to share the room.” He smiled ruefully at her. “I will not insist. In future you will entertain me in the sitting room whenever we are not in the bedchamber.”

“No.” She let a few moments pass before elaborating. “No, I will no longer think of this room as mine but as ours. A place in which our contract and our relative stations in life have no application. A place where you may paint and read, where I may embroider and write, a place where there can be a woman at one side of the hearth and a man at the other. A place of quiet and peace, where all is well with the world. You are invited to make yourself at home here whenever you wish, Jocelyn.”

He gazed at her over his shoulder for a long time without saying anything. What the devil was happening? There could be only one reason, one passion to bring him to this house. He did not want any other reason. He might become dependent upon it—upon her. And yet his heart ached and yearned with hope.

For what?

“Would you like tea?” She was threading her needle
into the linen and getting to her feet. “Shall I ring for the tray?”

“Yes.” He clasped his hands at his back. “Yes, please.”

He watched her do so.

“There is plenty of spare room in here,” he said. “I am going to have a pianoforte brought here. May I?” He could scarcely believe he was actually asking permission.

“Of course.” She looked gravely at him. “It is
our
room, Jocelyn. Yours as well as mine.”

He thought for one moment that it might be happiness that rushed to engulf him. But he soon recognized it as an equally unfamiliar emotion.

Terror.

ANE WENT TO BED EARLY, BUT SHE COULD NOT
sleep. She stopped trying after half an hour. She got out of bed, lit a candle, pulled a warm dressing gown over her linen nightgown, slipped her feet into her slippers, and went back downstairs to her den. Their den. Their haven, he had called it.

Mr. Jacobs was still up. She asked him to build up the fire again. The young footman brought the coals and asked if there was anything else he could fetch for her.

“No, thank you, Phillip,” she said. “That will be all. I can find my own way to bed when I am tired.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Don’t forget to put the guard about the fire, then, when you leave, ma’am.”

“I won’t.” She smiled. “Thank you for reminding me. Good night.”

“Good night, ma’am,” he replied.

She would read until she was too tired to keep her eyes open, she decided. She seated herself beside the fire, in the chair Jocelyn had occupied during the afternoon, and picked up a book. Not the one from which he had read. She left that where it was. Perhaps he would wish to continue with chapter three next time he came. She opened her book to the page at which she had left off reading the night before and set it on her lap.