And that, Jack decided, was his cue to leave as well.
Not that he had any great love for the duke. Indeed, he'd had quite enough of his marvelous lordliness for one day and was perfectly happy to see his back as he left the room. But the thought of remaining here with the dowager...
Even Miss Eversleigh's delightful company was not enough of a temptation to endure more of that.
"I believe I shall retire as well," he announced.
"Wyndham did not retire," the dowager said peevishly. "He went out."
"Then I shall retire," Jack said. He smiled blandly. "End of sentence."
"It's barely dark," the dowager pointed out.
"I'm tired." It was true. He was.
"My John used to stay up until the wee hours," she said softly.
Jack sighed. He did not want to feel sorry for this woman. She was hard, ruthless, and thoroughly unlikable. But she had, apparently, loved her son. His father. And she'd lost him.
A mother shouldn't outlive her children. He knew this as well as he knew how to breathe. It was unnatural.
And so instead of pointing out that her John had most likely never been kidnapped, strangled, blackmailed, and stripped of his (albeit paltry) livelihood, all in one day, he walked forward and set her ring - the very one he had all but snatched from her finger - on the table next to her. His own was in his pocket. He was not quite prepared to share its existence with her. "Your ring, madam," he said.
She nodded, then took it into her hands.
"What is the D for?" he asked. His whole life, he'd wondered. He might as well gain something from this debacle.
"Debenham. My birth surname."
Ah. It made sense. She'd have given her own heirlooms to her favorite son.
"My father was the Duke of Runthorpe."
"I am not surprised," he murmured. She could decide for herself if that was a compliment. He bowed.
"Good evening, your grace."
The dowager's mouth tightened with disappointment. But she seemed to recognize that if there had been a battle that day, she was the only one who had emerged victorious, and she was surprisingly gracious as she said, "I shall have supper sent up."
Jack nodded and murmured his thanks, then turned to exit.
"Miss Eversleigh will show you to your room."
At that Jack snapped to attention, and when he looked Miss Eversleigh's way, he saw that she had, too.
He had been expecting a footman. Possibly the butler. This was a delightful surprise.
"Is that a problem, Miss Eversleigh?" the dowager asked. Her voice sounded sly, a little bit taunting.
"Of course not," Miss Eversleigh replied. Her eyes were clouded but not entirely unreadable. She was surprised. He could see it by the way her lashes seemed to reach a little higher toward her brows. She was not used to being ordered to tend to anyone except the dowager. Her employer, he decided, did not like to share her. And as his eyes fell again to her lips, he decided that he was in complete accord. If she were his, if he had any right to her...he would not wish to share her, either.
He wanted to kiss her again. He wanted to touch her, just a soft brush of hand against skin, so fleeting that it could only be deemed accidental.
But more than any of that, he wanted use of her name.
Grace.
He liked it. He found it soothing.
"See to his comfort, Miss Eversleigh."
Jack turned to the dowager with widening eyes. She sat like a statue, her hands folded primly in her lap, but the corners of her mouth were tilted ever so slightly up, and her eyes looked cunning and amused.
She was giving Grace to him. As clear as day, she was telling him to make use of her companion, if that was his desire.
Good Lord. What sort of family had he fallen into?
"As you wish, ma'am," Miss Eversleigh replied, and in that moment Jack felt soiled, almost dirty, because he was quite certain she had no idea that her employer was attempting to whore her off on him.
It was the most appalling sort of bribe. Stay the night, and you can have the girl.
It sickened him. Doubly so, because he wanted the girl. He just didn't want her given to him.
"It is most kind of you, Miss Eversleigh," he said, feeling as if he had to be extra polite to make up for the dowager. They reached the door, and then, before he forgot, he turned back. He and the duke had spoken only tersely on their outing, but on one matter they had been in accord. "Oh, by the by, should anyone ask, I am a friend of Wyndham's. From years gone by."
"From university?" Miss Eversleigh suggested.
Jack fought back a grim chuckle. "No. I did not attend."
"You did not attend!" the dowager gasped. "I was led to believe you'd had a gentleman's education."
"By whom?" Jack inquired, ever so politely.
She sputtered at that for a moment, and then finally she scowled and said, "It is in your speech."
"Felled by my accent." He looked at Miss Eversleigh and shrugged. "Pommy R's and proper H's. What's a man to do?"
But the dowager was not prepared to let the subject drop. "You are educated, are you not?"
It was tempting to claim he'd been schooled with the local lads, if only to witness her reaction. But he owed his aunt and uncle better than that, and so he turned to the dowager and said, "Portora Royal, followed by two months at Trinity College - Dublin, that is, not Cambridge - and then six years serving in His Majesty's army and protecting you from invasion." He cocked his head to the side. "I'll take those thanks now, if you will."
The dowager's lips parted with outrage.
"No?" He lifted his brows. "Funny how no one seems to care that they still speak English and curtsy to good King George."
"I do," Miss Eversleigh said. And when he looked at her, she blinked and added, "Er, thank you."
"You're welcome," he said, and it occurred to him that this was the first time he'd had cause to say it.
Sadly, the dowager was not unique in her sense of entitlement. Soldiers were occasionally feted, and it was true that the uniforms were quite effective when attracting the ladies, but no one ever thought to say thank you. Not to him, and especially not to the men who'd suffered permanent injury or disfigurement.
"Tell everyone we shared fencing lessons," Jack said to Miss Eversleigh, ignoring the dowager as best he could. "It's as good a ruse as any. Wyndham says he's passable with a sword?"
"I do not know," she said.
Of course she wouldn't. But no matter. If Wyndham had said he was passable, then he was almost certainly a master. They would be well-matched if ever they had to offer proof of their lie. Fencing had been his best subject in school. It was probably the only reason they had kept him to age eighteen.
"Shall we?" he murmured, tilting his head toward the door.
"The blue silk bedroom," the dowager called out sourly.
"She does not like to be left out of a conversation, does she?" Jack murmured, so that only Miss Eversleigh could hear.
He'd known she could not answer, not with her employer so close, but he saw her eyes dart away, as if trying to hide her amusement.
"You may retire for the night as well, Miss Eversleigh," the dowager directed.
Grace turned in surprise. "You don't wish for me to attend to you? It's early yet."
"Nancy can do it," she replied with a pinch of her lips. "She's an acceptable hand with buttons, and what's more, she doesn't say a word. I find that to be an exceptionally good trait in a servant."
As Grace held her tongue more often than not, she decided to take that as a compliment, rather than the rear-door insult it was meant to be. "Of course, ma'am," she said, bobbing a demure curtsy. "I shall see you in the morning, then, with your chocolate and the newspaper."
Mr. Audley was already at the door and was holding out his hand to motion for her to precede him, so she walked out into the hall. She had no idea what the dowager was up to, giving her the rest of the evening off, but she was not going to argue further.
"Nancy is her maid," she explained to Mr. Audley once he reached her side.
"I'd guessed."
"It's most odd." She shook her head. "She - "
Mr. Audley waited rather patiently for her to finish her sentence, but Grace decided the better of it. She had been going to say that the dowager hated Nancy. In fact, the dowager complained most bitterly and at painful length each time she had a day out and Nancy served as a substitute.
"You were saying, Miss Eversleigh?" he murmured.
She almost told him. It was strange, because she barely knew him, and furthermore, he could not possibly be interested in the trivialities of the Belgrave household. Even if he did become the duke - and the thought of it still made her somewhat sick to her stomach - well, it wasn't as if Thomas could have identified any of the housemaids. And if asked which ones his grandmother disliked, he'd surely have said, All of them.
Which, Grace thought with a wry smile, was probably true.
"You're smiling, Miss Eversleigh," Mr. Audley remarked, looking very much as if he were the one with a secret. "Do tell why."
"Oh, it's nothing," she said. "Certainly nothing that would be of interest to you." She motioned toward the staircase at the rear of the hall. "Here, the bedchambers are this way."
"You were smiling," he said again, falling in step beside her.
For some reason that made her smile anew. "I did not say that I wasn't."
"A lady who doesn't dissemble," he said approvingly. "I find myself liking you more with every passing minute."
Grace pursed her lips, eyeing him over her shoulder. "That does not indicate a very high opinion of women."
"My apologies. I should have said a person who does not dissemble." He flashed her a smile that shook her to her toes. "I would never claim that men and women are interchangeable, and thank heavens for that, but in matters of truthiness, neither sex earns high marks."
She looked at him in surprise. "I don't think truthiness is a word. In fact, I'm quite certain it is not."
"No?" His eyes darted to the side. Just for a second - not even a second, but it was long enough for her to wonder if she'd embarrassed him. Which couldn't be possible. He was so amazingly glib and comfortable in his own skin. One did not need more than a day's acquaintance to realize that. And indeed, his smile grew jaunty and lopsided, and his eyes positively twinkled as he said, "Well, it should be."
"Do you often make up words?"
He shrugged modestly. "I try to restrain myself."
She looked at him with considerable disbelief.
"I do," he protested. He clasped one hand over his heart, as if wounded, but his eyes were laughing.
"Why is it no one ever believes me when I tell them I am a moral and upstanding gentleman, on this earth with the every intention of following every rule."
"Perhaps it is because most people make your acquaintance when you order them out of a carriage with a gun?"
"True," he acknowledged. "It does color the relationship, doesn't it?"
She looked at him, at the humor lurking in his emerald eyes, and she felt her lips tickle. She wanted to laugh. She wanted to laugh the way she'd laughed when her parents were alive, when she'd had the freedom to seek out life's absurdities and the time to make merry over them.
It almost felt as if something were waking up within her. It felt lovely. It felt good. She wanted to thank him, but she'd sound the veriest fool. And so she did the next best thing.
She apologized.
"I'm sorry," she said, pausing at the base of the stairs.
That seemed to surprise him. "You're sorry?"
"I am. For...today."
"For kidnapping me." He sounded amused, vaguely so. Perhaps even condescending.
"I didn't mean to," she protested.
"You were in the carriage," he pointed out. "I do believe that any court of law would brand you an accomplice."
Oh, that was more than she could take. "This would, I assume, be the same court of law that sent you to the gallows earlier that same morning for pointing a loaded gun at a duchess."
"Tsk tsk. I told you it wasn't a hanging offense."