and chest of her belongings. Given the humble nature of her wardrobe, packing her clothes into the trunks took no time at all, and only her letters now remained to be sorted. She changed from her gown into her nightshift, brushed out her hair from its customary tightly pinned knot and wrapped an oversized wool shawl around her shoulders against the chill. Then, with fresh determination, she scooped the bundled papers into her arms and headed for the front bedchamber.
Once Signora della Battista had understood that Jane had arrived alone, without the English ladies who had been expected, she’d given the governess leave to use the other two bedchambers as well. It was of no concern to the signora who occupied them; she’d already been handsomely paid in advance long ago by the duke’s agents.
But for Jane, the luxurious bedchambers had only added to the dream-like quality of her visit to Venice. Each room had exuberant carved and gilded panelling and swirling paintings of frolicking ancient goddesses and cupids. Huge looking-glasses reflected the view of the canal and the garden, and magnified the dappled light off the water as well.
Jane hadn’t gone so far as to sleep in either of the huge bedsteads—each more like a royal barge than a mere bed—but she had permitted herself to spend time in the rooms, and she’d taken to writing letters at the delicate lady’s desk overlooking the Grand Canal.
Now she set her papers on the desk’s leather top, and settled in the gilded armchair. First she turned to the journal that had accompanied her ever since they’d left Aston Hall late last summer. This tour of the Continent had been planned to put the final finishing on the educations of Lady Mary and Lady Diana before they returned to London society and, most likely, suitable husbands and marriages. The trip was also meant to restore the reputation of Lady Diana, singed as it had been by a minor scandal. Her father had decided that a half-year abroad would serve to make people forget Diana’s misstep, and Jane had guided the girls with the mixed purpose of education, edification and whitewashing.
To Jane it had been a glorious challenge. She’d begun by recording her impressions each day in her journal in precise short entries, from their crossing to Calais, the carriage across the French countryside to Paris and then on to Italy, to Florence and Rome and finally here to Venice.
But those initial brief entries had soon blossomed into longer and longer writings as Jane had succumbed to the magic of travel, and the journal bristled with loose sheets of unruly scribbled notes and sketches that she’d hurriedly tucked inside. But that wasn’t all. Pressed into the journal were all kinds of small mementos, from tickets and playbills to wildflowers. Jane smiled as she rediscovered each one, remembering everything again. Not even his Grace could take such memories away from her, and with special care she tied the journal as tightly closed as she could.
Yet there’d been far more to her journey than medieval cathedrals, and this was to be found in the letters she’d received from Lady Mary and Lady Diana since their marriages. These were filled with rare joy and the happiness that each of them felt with their new husbands, and so much love that Jane’s eyes filled with tears.
How she missed her ladies, her girls! Jane had thought she’d been prepared for their inevitable parting, the lot of all governesses; shejusthadn’t expected it to come so soon. As much as she’d enjoyed Venice, she would have much preferred it in their company, the way it was originally planned. But love, and those two excellent young gentlemen, had intervened, and though Jane would never wish otherwise for Mary and Diana, there were times when her loneliness without them felt like the greatest burden in the world. The two newlywed couples planned to meet here in Venice for Carnivale later in the month, and at their urging, she’d decided not to risk the hazardous winter voyage back to England, but remained here instead to see them once again. They’d convinced her that, since everything had been long paid for, she might as well make use of the lodgings, and she’d hesitantly agreed. But now, everything had changed.
She’d never expected the duke to surprise her like this, or to make so perilous a journey on what seemed like a whim. Yet as soon as she’d seen his face, she’d understood—he’d missed his daughters just as she missed them now, and he would have travelled ten times as far to see them again. She’d been stunned by the raw emotion in his face, the swift transition from anticipation to bitterest disappointment. At Aston Hall, he never would have revealed so much of himself; he was always simply his Grace, distant and omnipotent, a deity far above mere governesses.
Yet tonight, she’d glimpsed something else. Loneliness like that was unmistakable, as was the love that had inspired it. Didn’t she suffer the same herself?
Swiftly she tied the letters together once again. Better to go to bed than to sit about weeping like a sorrowful, sentimental do-nothing. She climbed into her bed, blew out the candle and closed her eyes, determined to lose her troubles in sleep.
But the harder she tried to sleep, the faster her restless thoughts churned, and the faster, too, that her first sympathy for the duke shifted into indignation on behalf of Mary and Diana.
She could just imagine him, snoring peacefully in the huge bed in the front bedchamber upstairs. Even asleep, he’d be completely resistant to the notion that his daughters might be happy with men of their own choosing instead of his. He didn’t want to hear their side. He’d already made his decision, and he was so stubborn he’d never change it now, either.
He wasn’t just a duke. He was a bully and a tyrant to his own daughters, and it was time—high time!—that someone stood up to him on their behalf.
She flung back the coverlet and hopped from her bed, grabbing her shawl from the back of the nearby chair. She gathered the ribbon-tied letters from Mary and Diana into her arms and, before she lost her courage, hurried from her room and up the stairs to the duke’s chambers. The rest of the house was silent with sleep, and by the pale light of the blue-glass night lantern hanging in the hall, her long shadow scurried up the stairs beside her.
She stood only a moment at the duke’s tall, panelled door before she thumped her fist. She waited, her bare feet chilled by the marble floor, heard nothing, then knocked again. In truth, she was only summoning the duke’s manservant, Wilson, or perhaps Mr Potter, but she’d still make her point.
The duke. Hah, more like the Duke of Intolerance than the mere Duke of Aston, to say such impossibly cruel things of his own new sons-in-law, without so much as the decency of—
‘Yes?’ The door swung open, not just a servant’s suspicious crack, but all the way. ‘What in blazes—Miss Wood!’
She gasped, clutching the letters more tightly in her arms. Not Wilson, or Potter, but the duke himself stood in the open door, scarce a foot apart from her. Clearly she’d roused him from his bed, and from a deep sleep, too, for he was scowling at her as if he wasn’t quite sure who she might be. She understood his confusion; she’d never seen him like this, either. He wore only his nightshirt, rumpled and loose, yet somehow revealing far more than his usual dress did because beneath all that snowy linen, he was…naked. The darker shadows beneath the fabric, the way the linen draped over his body, left no doubt, and Jane’s cheeks flamed at the horrible realisation. To make matters worse, the throat of the shirt was unbuttoned and open to reveal his chest and a large thatch of dark curling hair, his sleeves were pushed up over his well-muscled arms, and his stocky legs and large, bare feet showed below.
Hastily she looked back up to the safer territory of his face. Or perhaps it wasn’t. In all the time she’d been in his Grace’s employment, she’d never seen him this dishevelled, his hair loose around his face and his jaw roughened with a growth of darker beard, his whole expression without its usual reserve and control. It was unsettling, seeing him without his guard like this, and it made him less like his Grace, and more simply like any other man.
A
