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the footman gawked at her with dropped jaw as if he expected her to be felled by a thunderbolt in the very next moment.
    “I am a Dudley,” the Duke of Tresham said by way of explanation. “We are a stubborn lot from the moment of conception. Dudley babes are reputed to kick their mothers with unusual ferocity in the womb and to give them considerable grief while proceeding into the world. And that is just the beginning.”
    He was trying to shock her, Jane realized. He was looking at her intently with his black eyes, which shehad discovered from close up were really just a very dark brown. Foolish man. She had assisted in the birthing of numerous babies from the time she was fourteen. Her mother had raised her to believe that service was an integral part of a life of privilege.
    He looked more comfortable once he was settled and had his foot resting on the cushion. Jane stood back, expecting to be dismissed or at least to be directed to present herself to the housekeeper for further orders. The footman had already been sent on his way. But the duke looked at her consideringly.
    “Well, Miss Ingleby,” he said, “how are you planning to amuse me for the next three weeks?”
    Jane felt a lurching of alarm. The man was incapacitated, and besides, there had been no suggestive note in his voice. But she had good reason to be distrustful of gentlemen in their boredom.
    She was saved from answering by the opening of the library door. It did not open quietly, as one might have expected, to admit either the butler or Mr. Quincy. Indeed, its opening was not even preceded by a respectful knock. The door was thrown back so that it cracked against the bookcase behind it. A lady strode inside.
    Jane felt considerable alarm. She was a young and remarkably fashionable lady even if she would never earn full marks for good taste in dress. Jane did not recognize her, but even so in that moment she realized clearly the folly of being here. If the visitor had been announced, she herself could have slipped away unseen. As it was, she could only stand where she was or at best take a couple of steps back and sideways and hope to melt into the shadows to the left of the window curtains.
    The young lady swept into the room rather like a tidal wave.
    “I believe my instructions were that I was not to be disturbed this morning,” the duke murmured.
    But his visitor came on, undaunted.
    “Tresham!” she exclaimed. “You are alive. I would not believe it until I had seen it with my own eyes. If you just knew what I have suffered in the past day, you would never have done it. Heyward has gone off to the House this morning, which is bothersome of him when my nerves are shattered. I declare I did not get one wink of sleep last night. It was most unsporting of Lord Oliver actually to shoot at you, I must say. If Lady Oliver was indiscreet enough to let him discover that she is your latest amour, and if he is foolish enough to proclaim his goat’s horns to all the world with such a public challenge—and in Hyde Park of all places—then
he
is the one who should get shot at. But they say that you shot gallantly into the air, which shows you for the polished gentleman that you are. It would have been no more than he deserved if you had killed him. But of course then they would have hanged you, or would have if you had not been a duke. You would have had to flee to France, and Heyward was provoking enough to tell me that he would not have taken me to Paris to visit you there. Even though all the world knows it is the most fashionable place to be. Sometimes I wonder why I married him.”
    The Duke of Tresham was holding his head with one hand. He held up his free hand while the young lady paused to draw breath.
    “You married him, Angeline,” he said, “because you fancied him and he was an earl and almost as wealthy as I am. Mostly because you fancied him.”
    “Yes.” She smiled and revealed herself to be an extremely pretty young lady despite