you they were not!’ Jane scorned knowingly. ‘And you had no right to make such enquiries—’
‘I had every right!’the Duke grated harshly as he swung fiercely back to face her. ‘Damn it, woman, the Sulbys could have been dragging neighbouring ponds and searching the woods for miles around for your dead body!’
Jane frowned at his vehemence. ‘And were they?’ she finally ventured, with a return of her earlier caution.
He flexed his tensed shoulder muscles. ‘The report I received this morning claims that Lady Sulby has suffered a complete collapse of the nerves following your disappearance, and has had to be removed to her brother’s home in GreatYarmouth in order to take advantage of the bracing air to be found there.’ His tone was grim.
Jane’s frown became scathing. ‘Are you saying that I am the cause of Lady Sulby’s supposed collapse?’
Hawk’s mouth was a thin, uncompromising line. ‘You doubt the information acquired by my man of business?’
‘Not at all.’ Jane gave a weary shake of her head, sure that anyone the Duke employed was certain to be impeccably meticulous in his duties. ‘What I doubt is that Lady Sulby would feel anything but jubilation at having finally rid herself of my unwanted presence in her household!’
The Duke did not speak for several long, tense seconds. ‘Perhaps,’ he finally rasped icily. ‘But I am given to understand that it was not only your own departure that caused that lady’s collapse, but the loss of her jewellery.’
Jane stared at him blankly. Lady Sulby’s jewellery? Could Hawk possibly be referring to the only jewels that Lady Sulby possessed of any value? The Sulby diamond earrings and necklace given to her by Sir Barnaby on the event of their marriage twenty-five years ago?
But what relevance did they have to Jane?
‘Several of Lady Sulby’s jewels disappeared on the same day you did, Jane,’ the Duke continued flatly.
Her eyes widened incredulously, her face paling. Was Hawk saying—? Could he possibly be accusing her of—?
‘I know absolutely nothing of their disappearance!’ Jane burst out incredulously, her expression anxious. ‘Hawk, you do not seriously believe that I—’
‘What I do or do not believe about this matter does not signify, Jane.’ His mouth was set grimly.
Her hands clenched at her sides. ‘It matters to me!’
He shook his head. ‘The fact is that on the day you left the Sulby household Lady Sulby’s jewels also disappeared. The matter has been reported to the appropriate authorities and an order issued for their recovery. And for your arrest. Do you understand what that means, Jane?’ he prompted impatiently.
Jane understood exactly what it meant. But the fact that the authorities were actively looking for her, that they would arrest her for the theft of Lady Sulby’s jewels when they found her, paled into insignificance when compared to the fact that Hawk obviously did not believe her when she told him she had no knowledge of the disappearance of Lady Sulby’s jewels…
Hawk’s frustrated anger with the situation increased as he looked upon Jane’s bewildered countenance. If she thought for one moment that he was enjoying this conversation…
‘I know how upset you were that day, Jane.’ His tone gentled slightly. ‘I appreciate that Lady Sulby had deeply wounded you in some way—’
‘How dare you?’ Jane cut in furiously, angry colour having returned to her cheeks now, and the green of her eyes glittering with that same anger. ‘How dare you stand there as my accuser and my judge on the word of a woman who on the last occasion we met expressed nothing but hatred towards me?’
The last thing Hawk wanted to do was judge Jane, or condemn her. He wished only to help her. But he could not do that if Jane would not tell him why she had left the Sulbys’ that day.
‘It is not only Lady Sulby’s word, Jane,’ he told her softly.
‘Who else accuses me?’ she demanded angrily.
‘Miss Olivia Sulby—’
He was interrupted by Jane’s dismissive snort. ‘She is of the same mould as her mother, and her opinion does not count.’
‘In that you are wrong,’ Hawk told her impatiently. ‘I can assure you that Olivia Sulby’s testament against you is as valid as any other. And Olivia Sulby claims that on the day prior to your sudden flight she remembers accompanying her mother to her bedchamber, and that both of them chanced upon you there, in possession of Lady Sulby’s jewellery box.’
Jane thought back to that day a week ago. It was the day the guests had been arriving for Lady Sulby’s house party. The day Hawk himself had arrived…
She remembered going upstairs to collect Lady Sulby’s shawl and noticing the jewellery box had been left out on the dressing table before being totally distracted by the arrival of the magnificent black coach bearing the Duke of Stourbridge.
Then there had been that momentous first meeting with the Duke on the stairs, followed by Lady Sulby’s scathing comment that Jane had brought her the wrong shawl and she was to return to her bedchamber at once and collect the correct one—and Jane’s own embarrassment when she had returned up the stairs and realised that the Duke had stood on the gallery above as silent witness to the whole exchange.
Jane also remembered Lady Sulby’s reaction when she had burst into the bedroom a short time later, Olivia behind her, and found Jane loitering in the room, the jewellery box still sitting on the dressing table.
Jane recalled how bewildered she had felt—how Olivia had looked at her with such triumphant satisfaction when the older woman had questioned Jane accusingly as to whether or not she had looked at the contents of her jewellery box.
But the following day Jane had learnt the reason for Lady Sulby’s sharpness when the other woman had acknowledged that she had hidden there the letters Jane’s mother had written to her married lover…
And now Hawk—the man who had made love to Jane so intimately the evening before—chose to believe the word of the two vindictive Sulby women over her own…
‘Jane, I cannot even attempt to help you if you will not be honest with me,’ he reasoned frustratedly.
Jane drew herself up proudly, determined not to show how hurt she was by his lack of faith in her complete innocence in this matter. ‘I do not remember asking for your help, Your Grace.’
‘You prefer to be arrested and imprisoned?’ Hawk could barely contain the anger he felt at her stubborn refusal to confide in him.
Her mouth twisted scathingly. ‘For something I did not do?’
Hawk was a local magistrate. He knew far better than Jane how the law worked. And with two such credible witnesses against her as Lady Sulby and her daughter, coupled with her own sudden flight from Markham Park, Jane would be found guilty before the case was even presented in a court of law.
He stepped forward to grasp her shoulders impatiently and shake her into looking up at him. ‘Can you not see, Jane, that it will not matter whether or not you are guilty of the crime?’
