‘I do not know what you can possibly find to smile about, Jane.’ Lady Sulby threw herself down onto the chaise, her hand raised dramatically to her brow as the sun shone in through the window. ‘You would be much better served returning to your room and changing for dinner. You know I cannot abide tardiness, Jane.’
Lady Sulby’s comment on Jane changing for dinner caused her to frown. ‘Did you not tell me earlier that I was to dine belowstairs this evening—?’
‘Have you not been listening to a word I said, girl?’ Lady Sulby’s voice had once again risen shrilly, and she glared across at Jane, not even her faded beauty visible in her displeasure. ‘The Duke has arrived without his brother, leaving me with only thirteen to sit down to dinner. A possibility I cannot even contemplate.’ She shuddered. ‘So you will have to join us. Which will make an imbalance of men to ladies. It will not do, of course, but it will have to suffice until our other guests arrive tomorrow.’
Jane’s own face had lost all colour as the full import of Lady Sulby’s complaints became clear. ‘You are saying, ma’am, that because Lord St Claire is indisposed you wish me to make up the numbers for dinner this evening?’
‘Yes, yes—of course I am saying that.’ The older woman glared at her frowningly. ‘Whatever is the matter with you, girl?’
Jane swallowed hard at the mere thought of finding herself seated at the same dinner table as the formidable Duke of Stourbridge, sure that after their disastrous meeting on the stairs earlier it was probably his fervent wish never to set eyes on her again!
As Lady Sulby had already remarked, it really would not do.
‘I am sure I do not have anything suitable to wear—’
‘Nonsense, girl.’ A flush coloured Lady Sulby’s plump and powdered cheeks as she bristled at this continued resistance to her new arrangements. ‘What of that yellow gown of mine that Clara altered to fit you? That will do perfectly well, I am sure,’ Lady Sulby announced imperiously.
Jane’s heart sank as she thought of the deep yellow gown that Lady Gwendoline had decided did not suit her after all, and which had been altered to fit Jane instead.
‘I really would not feel comfortable amongst your titled guests—’
‘I am not concerned with your comfort!’ Lady Sulby’s face became even more flushed as her agitatation rose. ‘You will do as you are told, Jane, and join us downstairs for dinner. Is that understood?’
‘Yes, Lady Sulby.’ Jane felt nauseous.
‘Good. Now, send Clara to me.’ Lady Sulby lowered herself down onto the cushions once again, her eyes closing. ‘And tell her I am in need of one of her physics,’ she added weakly, as Jane moved obediently to the door.
Jane waited until she was outside in the hallway before giving in to the despair she felt just at the thought of going down to dinner wearing that horrible yellow gown. Of the arrogantly disdainful but devastatingly handsome Duke of Stourbridge seeing her in that bilious yellow gown.
Chapter Two
‘Is this some new sort of party game? Or is it just that you are contemplating what singular delights you might have in store for me later this evening?’ Hawk mused derisively to the woman standing—hiding?—behind the potted plant at his side. ‘Perhaps you intend spilling a glass of wine over me during dinner? Or maybe hot tea later in the evening would be more to your liking? Yes, I am sure that hot tea would cause much more discomfort than a mere glass of wine. That potted plant really is an insufficient hiding place, you know,’ Hawk added, when his quarry made no response to any of his mocking barbs.
His humour had not been improved when he’d come downstairs to the drawing room some minutes ago, to meet and mingle with his fellow house guests before dinner. His bath water had been hot, but of insufficient quantity for his needs, and his valet, Dolton, was no happier with his present location than Hawk. In his agitation he had actually caused the Duke’s chin to bleed whilst shaving him, an event that had never happened before in all his long service.
But Hawk had found his darkly brooding mood lightening somewhat a few minutes later when, while in polite conversation with Lady Ambridge, an elderly if outspoken lady he was long acquainted with, he had spotted what appeared to be an almost ghostly yellow being flitting from behind one oversized plant pot to another. He had assumed it was in an effort not to be noticed, but it had actually achieved the opposite.
It was testament to how bored Hawk already was by the conversation of his fellow guests that he had actually excused himself from Lady Ambridge’s company to stroll across the room and stand beside the plant at that moment hiding the elusive creature.
A single glance behind the terracotta pot had shown her to be the earlier perpetrator of the painful bump in his chest followed by the even more painful dig in his stomach with a parasol. Hawk’s surprise that she was not a maid after all but was obviously a fellow guest was completely overshadowed by the strangeness of her behaviour since entering the drawing room.
He was also, Hawk realised with not a little surprise, more than curious to know the reason for it. ‘You may as well come out from behind there, you know,’ he advised, even as he continued to gaze disdainfully out at the room rather than at her, impeccable in his black evening clothes.
This time, at least, he did receive an agitated reply. ‘I really would rather not!’
Hawk felt compelled to point out the obvious. ‘You are only drawing attention to yourself by not doing so.’
‘I believe you are the one drawing attention to us both by talking to me!’ Her voice was sharp with indignation.
He probably was, Hawk acknowledged ruefully. The fact that he was the highest-ranking person in the room, and so obviously the biggest feather in Lady Gwendoline Sulby’s social cap, also meant that he was attracting many sidelong glances from his fellow guests while they pretended to be in conversation with each other.
As the Duke of Stourbridge, he was used to such attention, of course, and had learnt over the years to ignore it. Obviously his quarry did not have that social advantage.
‘Perhaps if you were to explain to me why it is you feel the need to hide behind a succession of inadequate potted plants…?’
‘Would you just go away and leave me alone? If you please, Your Grace,’ she added with guilty breathlessness, as she obviously remembered exactly who she was talking to, and in what way.
For some inexplicable reason Hawk had the sudden urge to laugh.
And, as he rarely found occasion to smile nowadays, let alone laugh with a woman, he noted it with surprise. Women, those most predatory of beasts, as he had found during the ten years since he had inherited the title of Duke following the death of both his parents in a carriage accident, were no laughing matter.
He sighed. ‘You really cannot hide away all evening, you know.’
‘I can try!’
‘Why would you want to?’ His curiosity was definitely piqued.
‘How can you possibly ask that?’
His brows rose. ‘Perhaps because it seems a reasonable question in the circumstances?’
‘The gown,’ she answered tragically. ‘Surely you have noticed the gown?’
Well, yes, it would be difficult not to notice such a violent yellow creation, when all the older ladies present were wearing pastels and Miss Olivia Sulby virginal white. The colour really was most unbecoming with the vivid red of this girl’s hair, but…
‘Please do go away, Your Grace!’
‘I am afraid I really cannot.’
‘Why not?’
Hawk, having no intention of admitting