she gave John a grateful smile as the Duke did exactly that—only to once again find herself the focus of those all-seeing gold-coloured eyes as the Duke paused briefly and gave her one last narrow-eyed frowning glance.
Her smile faded, and she clutched the parasol and shawl to her bosom as she found herself held mesmerised by that penetrating gaze for several long, heart-stopping seconds. He took in her appearance from red hair to slippered feet, before those thin, chiselled lips tightened once more and the Duke turned to continue his gracefully elegant way up the stairs.
Jane breathed shakily as she found herself continuing to watch him, her breasts quickly rising and falling, her cheeks feeling uncomfortably hot, and her pulse racing as she stared at the broadness of the Duke’s shoulders in that perfectly tailored jacket, admired the slight curl in the darkness of his fashionably styled hair…
‘For goodness’ sake, Jane. I said my shawl embroidered with the pink roses, not the yellow.’ Lady Sulby finally seemed to have seen her on the staircase. ‘Really!’ She turned confidingly back to the Tilltons. ‘I declare the girl does not understand even the simplest of instructions.’
Jane knew, as she turned to go back up the stairs and saw Olivia’s expression of derision, that she had understood Lady Sulby’s instruction perfectly—that it was Lady Sulby who was being deliberately awkward. But it would serve no purpose to contradict Lady Sulby. Especially not in front of her guests.
The blush intensified in Jane’s cheeks as she reached the top of the stairs and saw that the Duke had once again paused on his way to his rooms, on the gallery overlooking the hallway this time. His top lip was now curled back in cold disdain as he stood witness to Lady Sulby’s waspish set down.
‘Your Grace.’ Jane gave a polite inclination of her head as she approached, and then hurried past him down the hallway, knowing that the blush on her cheeks would clash horribly with her red curls, and that the unattractive freckles on her nose would be rendered more visible by her high colour.
Not that it particularly mattered what the Duke of Stourbridge made of her. He was far, far above her precarious social station, and as such would have no further reason to even notice her existence.
If, that was, for the rest of his stay Jane desisted from falling down the staircase into his arms or attacking him with a parasol!
How could she have been so ungainly, so inelegant, so utterly without grace? Jane wondered as she sat down shakily on the side of Lady Sulby’s four-poster bed, dropping the shawl and parasol on the bedcover beside her as she put both her hands against her hot and flustered cheeks. the Duke, as had been obvious from that last disdainful glance in her direction, had obviously been wondering the very same thing.
Oh, this was dreadful. Too horrible for words. She just wanted to curl up in a ball of misery in the window-seat in her bedroom and not appear again until that beautiful black carriage, with its ducal crest and its illustrious guest inside, had rolled back down the driveway and disappeared to London, whence it came.
‘Whatever are you doing, Jane?’ A stunned Lady Sulby came to an abrupt halt in the doorway to her bedchamber, and a guilt-stricken Jane rose from her sitting position on the side of her silk-covered bed.
The older woman’s gaze moved critically about the room, a frown marring her brow as she saw the jewellery box on the dressing table. Jane had earlier intended returning it to the still open top drawer, but had totally forgotten to do in the excitement of the Duke’s arrival.
‘Have you been looking at my things?’ Lady Sulby’s demand was sharp as she swiftly crossed the room to lift the lid of the jewellery box and check its contents.
‘No, of course I have not.’Jane was incredulous at the accusation.
‘Are you sure?’ Lady Sulby glared.
‘Perfectly sure.’Jane nodded, stunned by her guardian’s suspicions. ‘Clara must have left the box out earlier.’
Lady Sulby gave her another searching glare before replacing the jewellery box in the drawer and closing it abruptly. ‘Where is my shawl, girl? And you have failed to bring Olivia’s parasol down to her,’ she added accusingly.
‘Which I need if I am to accompany Lady Tillton and Simon Tillton into the rose garden.’ Olivia smiled smugly as she stood in the open doorway.
Jane had not even noticed the younger girl until that moment, and avoided meeting Olivia’s triumphant gaze as she hurriedly handed her the parasol, her own thoughts still preoccupied with Lady Sulby’s earlier sharpness concerning the jewellery box.
Why would Lady Sulby even suspect her of doing such a thing? As far as Jane was aware the box contained only the few costly jewels owned by the Sulby family and several private papers, none of which was of the least interest to Jane.
‘It really is too bad of Lord St Claire not to have accompanied His Grace after all,’ Lady Sulby murmured distractedly once Olivia had departed for her walk in the garden. ‘Especially as it has caused me to rearrange all my dinner arrangements for this evening. Still, the influenza is the influenza. And I do believe that the Duke was rather taken with Olivia himself,’ she added with relish. ‘Now, would that not be an advantageous match?’
Jane was sure that she was not expected to make any reply to this statement—that Lady Sulby was merely thinking out loud while she plotted and planned inside her calculating head.
But Jane’s silence on the subject did not mean that she had no thoughts of her own on an imagined match between Olivia and the Duke of Stourbridge. Her main one being that it was ludicrous to even think that a man as haughtily arrogant as the Duke would ever be attracted to, let alone enticed into marriage with, the pretty but self-centred Olivia.
‘Why are you still standing there, Jane?’ Lady Sulby demanded waspishly as she finally seemed to notice her again. ‘Can you not see that my nerves are agitated? I shall probably have one of my headaches and be unable to attend my guests at all this evening!’
‘Would you like me to send for Clara?’ Jane offered lightly, knowing that Lady Sulby’s maid, a middle-aged woman who had accompanied Gwendoline Simmons from her father’s home in GreatYarmouth when she had married Sir Barnaby twenty-five years ago, was the only one who could capably deal with Lady Sulby when she was beset by ‘one of her headaches’.
A regular occurrence, as it happened, but usually relieved by a glass or two of Sir Barnaby’s best brandy. For medicinal purposes only, of course, Jane acknowledged with a rueful grimace.
‘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
