More than a Mistress/No Man's Mistress (38 page)

He had come to her rescue—of course he had. It was the sort of thing the Duke of Tresham would do. She had left the house without his permission. She had been his mistress. He had determined that he would do the honorable thing and marry her. She was his possession.

But he did not believe she had been his friend.

He did not believe she would have made him hers by telling him the full truth about herself.

He did not trust her. He did not love her.
Of course he did not love her
.

Fortunately the journey to Lady Webb’s was short. But it was only as the carriage drew to a halt that Jane really thought about her. She must know that Jane was on the way. Did she know everything else? Would she welcome her?

But she had her answer even as a footman was opening the carriage door and putting down the steps. The door of the house opened and Lady Webb came outside, not just onto the doorsill, but all the way down the steps.

“Aunt Harriet!”

Jane scarcely noticed Jocelyn descending from the carriage and handing her down. It seemed that within a single moment she was enfolded in the safe arms of her mother’s dearest friend.

“Sara!” she exclaimed. “My dear girl. I thought you would never come. I have quite worn a path in the drawing room carpet, I declare. Oh, my dear, dear girl.”

“Aunt Harriet.”

Jane was sobbing and hiccuping suddenly and being led up the steps into a brightly lit hall. She had been taken up the staircase to the drawing room and seated in an elegant chair beside the cheerful fire there and handed a lace-edged handkerchief to dry her eyes before she realized that they were alone, she and Lady Webb.

He had gone.

Perhaps forever.

She could not have been more emphatic in her rejection of him.

And good riddance too.

There had perhaps not been any bleaker moment in her whole life.

I
T WAS A BUSY
morning. Jocelyn rode in the park, where he met Baron Pottier and Sir Conan Brougham. The latter had already spoken with the seconds of the two Forbes brothers and made arrangements for the duels to be fought on successive mornings one week hence in Hyde Park. He would single-handedly be bringing the park back into fashion as a venue for meetings of honor if he did not soon change the family of his dueling partners, Jocelyn thought wryly.

It was not a pleasant prospect. Two more men would be given their chance to snuff out his life. And he did not believe that the Reverend Josiah Forbes, at least, was one to be given the trembles by the famous black Tresham stare.

But Viscount Kimble joined them and then Ferdinand, and Jocelyn put the thought of the duels firmly behind him.

“Word spread last night like fire in a woodshed,” Ferdinand said with a grin. “Miss Jane Ingleby turning out to be Lady Sara Illingsworth! It is the sensation of the hour, Tresham. Those people who were at your soiree and heard her sing were preening themselves at Lady Wardle’s, I can tell you. Old Hardinge was trying to convince all who would listen that he had guessed it all along. She was far too genteel, he said, to be anyone but Lady Sara.”

“Where did you find her, Tresham?” Baron Pottier asked. “And how did you discover the truth? When I think that every time we called on you at Dudley House, there she was. And we never so much as suspected.”

“Is it true,” Sir Conan asked, “that her name has been cleared, Tresham?”

“It was all a mistake.” Jocelyn waved one careless hand and then tipped his hat to a couple of ladies who were riding in the opposite direction. “I spoke to Durbury last evening just before he set out for Cornwall. Jardine is not dead. Indeed, he has fully recovered from his little accident. Durbury came to town and hired a Runner to find Lady Sara simply to tell her there was nothing to worry about. The rumors spread, as rumors will, quite independently of him.”

“But the theft, Tresham?” Baron Pottier asked.

“There was no theft,” Jocelyn said. “How susceptible we all are to gossip. It makes one wonder if we need to find something better to do.”

His friends laughed as if he had made the joke of the morning.

“But rumors have a nasty habit of lingering,” Jocelyn continued, “unless there is something to take their
place. I for one will be calling upon Lady Sara at Lady Webb’s and even pursuing her acquaintance.”

Baron Pottier roared with laughter. “Ho, Tresham,” he said, “that will do it. That will create new gossip. It will be said that you are hankering after a leg shackle.”

“Quite so,” Jocelyn said agreeably. “One would certainly not wish the lady to be looked upon as someone who is somehow tainted, would one?”

“I will call upon her too, Tresham,” Ferdinand said. “I want to take another look at Lady Sara now that I know she
is
Lady Sara. I say, this is famous!”

“It will be my pleasure to call upon her too, Tresh,” the viscount said.

“I daresay my mother and my sister would be pleased to make her acquaintance,” Sir Conan added. “I’ll take them to call, Tresham. My mother has an acquaintance with Lady Webb.”

His friends understood, Jocelyn was relieved to find. Kimble and Brougham had the advantage of knowing the full truth, of course, but even the other two seemed to realize there was a certain embarrassment in his having employed the lady as a nurse for three weeks. All were willing to do their part in drawing Jane into society, making her respectable, helping squash any vestiges of doubt about the charges that had been made against her.

The new sensation that would finally replace the old, of course, would be news that the Duke of Tresham was paying court to the woman who had once been his nurse.

All would be well. None of the few people who knew that Lady Sara Illingsworth had been his mistress would
ever breathe a word of the fact. She would be safe, her reputation restored.

The conversation turned at length to a reliving of yesterday’s fight.

He was at breakfast later, having decided to remain at home to read the papers before proceeding to White’s, when Angeline arrived. She swept into the dining room unannounced.

“Tresham,” she said, “whatever could you have been thinking of, you and Ferdie, to have taken on
three
of the Forbes brothers in the park yesterday? I was all aflutter when I heard. But how perfectly splendid that all three of them had to be carried to the nearest carriage, two of them quite insensible and the other with a broken nose. What a shame it was not all five. That would have been a glorious victory for the Dudleys, and I daresay you could have done it too. I suppose it is true that you have been drawn into dueling with the other two. Heyward says such information is not for a lady’s ears, but he would not deny it so I daresay it is true. I shall not have a wink of sleep between now and then. You will be killed for sure, and what will I do then? And if you kill them, you will be forced to flee to Paris and Heyward
still
says he will not take me there, odious man, even though I would willingly forgo the pleasures of Brighton. And, Tresham,
what
is this I hear of the Ingleby woman’s turning out to be Lady Sara Illingsworth?”

“Do have a seat, Angeline,” Jocelyn said, waving one languid hand at the chair opposite, “and a coffee.” He raised one finger in the direction of the butler at the sideboard. “And do remove that more than usually ghastly pea-green bonnet, I beg you. I fear it will interfere with my digestion.”

“Is it true?” she asked. “Do tell me it is. It is just the sort of story we Dudleys revel in, is it not? You harboring an ax murderer as your nurse and presenting her to a select gathering of the
ton
as a nightingale. It is quite priceless.” She went off into peals of merry laughter as Hawkins bent over her to fill her cup with coffee.

She had made no move to take off her bonnet. Jocelyn regarded it with distaste. “Lady Sara Illingsworth is now at Lady Webb’s,” he said. “I would be obliged if you would call upon her there, Angeline. The Lord knows why, but you are the only respectable Dudley—probably because a dry stick like Heyward married you and keeps you on some sort of rein, though heaven knows it is not a tight one.”

She laughed merrily. “Heyward a dry stick?” she said. “Yes, he is, is he not? In public, at least.”

Jocelyn’s expression became more pained as her blush clashed horribly with the pink plumes of her bonnet.

“I shall certainly call at Lady Webb’s,” she said. “Heyward will escort me there this afternoon. I cannot resist having one more look at her, Tresham. Is she likely to be wielding an ax? How enormously exciting that would be. Heyward would be forced to risk his life in defending me.”

“She hit Jardine over the head with a book,” he said dryly, “when he was, ah, disrespectful. That is all, Angeline. The gentleman is alive and well, and it turns out that the stolen property was not stolen at all. A very dull story, in fact. But Lady Sara is not to be allowed to hover on the brink of society. She will need respectable people of good
ton
to draw her in.”

“All of which Lady Webb will arrange for her,” she
said. “Why should you be interested, Tresham?” But she stopped after an uncharacteristically brief monologue, stared at him for a moment, her cup halfway to her mouth, set it down in its saucer again, and resumed her hilarity. “Oh, Tresham, you are
interested
! How absolutely famous! Oh, I cannot wait to tell Heyward. But he has gone to the House, provoking man, and I daresay he will not return until it is time to take me visiting. Tresham, you are
smitten.
”

Jocelyn used his quizzing glass despite the fact that it enlarged the garish bonnet. “I am delighted to have caused you such amusement,” he said, “but
smitten
and the Tresham name are mutually exclusive terms, as you ought to be aware. I will, however, be marrying Lady Sara. You will be pleased to learn that you are the first to know, Angeline, apart from the lady herself, of course. She has said no, by the way.”

She stared at him, and for one fascinated moment he thought she had been robbed of speech.

“Lady Sara has said no.” She had found her voice. “To you? To the Duke of Tresham? How absolutely splendid of her. I confess I scarcely noticed her when she was your nurse. She looked so very drab in gray. Whoever would wear gray when there are so many other colors to choose among? I was quite struck with her when she sang at your soiree. And she knew how to waltz. That should have been a clue, but I confess I did not pick up on it. But now she has refused you. I am going to like her. She must be a woman of spirit. Just what you need. Oh, I am going to love her as a sister.”

“She has said no, Angeline,” he said dryly.

She looked at him in incomprehension. “You are a Dudley, Tresham,” she said. “Dudleys do not take no for
an answer. I did not. Heyward was quite averse to marrying me for all of one month after I was first presented to him, I do assure you. He thought me empty-headed and frivolous and too talkative. The fact that I had you and Ferdie for brothers did not endear me to him either. But he did marry me. Indeed, he was horridly dejected the first time he asked and I said no. I feared he would go home and shoot himself. How could he not have fallen for my charms when I was determined that he should?”

“How indeed?” he agreed.

He was subjected to almost half an hour more of her incessant chatter before she took her leave. But he felt that the morning had been well spent. Jane’s respectability was assured. And by dropping a word in a fertile ear, he had lined up on his side powerful forces with which to storm the citadel of her mulish determination not to have him.

He did wonder briefly why he would want to storm her defenses. He could not admit, after all, to any personal need of her. It was just her very stubbornness, of course. Jane Ingleby had always had the last word with him.

Well, Lady Sara Illingsworth would not. It was as simple as that.

He found himself wondering what he would wear when he paid her an afternoon call. Just as if he were some moonstruck schoolboy.

OU ARE LOOKING PEAKED, SARA,” LADY WEBB
said. “It is quite to be expected, of course, after all you have gone through. We will soon put the roses back in your cheeks. I just wish we could go outside this afternoon for a walk or a drive. The weather is so lovely. However, this is one of the afternoons on which it is known that I am at home to visitors. Vexing as it may be, my dear, we must be ready to receive them.”

Jane was wearing a fashionable, high-waisted dress of sprigged muslin. It had been in the trunk of her belongings that had been delivered during the morning by Phillip and the Duke of Tresham’s coachman. Her hair had been dressed by the maid who had been assigned to her care. But ready as she appeared to be to face an afternoon of socializing, she broached the subject that was troubling her.

“Perhaps it would be best,” she said, “if I remained out of sight of your guests, Aunt Harriet.”

Lady Webb, who had been looking out through the window, came to sit down on a chair opposite Jane’s. “That is precisely what you must not do,” she said. “Although neither of us has put it into words, Sara, I am fully aware of how you have been living for the last little while. Appalling as it is that you felt driven to such a life, it is over. No one need know. You can be very sure that Tresham will silence anyone of his acquaintance who
suspects the truth. And of course he means to marry you. He is a gentleman and knows he has compromised you. He is not only prepared to do the honorable thing but will doubtless try to insist upon it.”