More Than a Mistress, Chapter Five

The Duke's brother (Ferdinand) and sister (Angeline, aka Lady Heyward) visit again and make much fuss about themselves.  In fact, the narrative notes that Ferdinand came "more with the purpose of talking about himself than out of any great concern for his brother's recovery."  There is much talk about a bet Ferdinand has made that he can win a curricle race (a curricle turns out to be a two-wheeled, horse-drawn carriage) against Lord Berriweather.  Angeline performs her usual histrionics about her nerves.  The Duke realizes he won't be able to go watch the race because of his leg wound.

The Duke insists that Jane attend him in the parlour as he receives guests, an order that clearly upsets her.  When a group of his friends arrive, she tries to excuse herself, looking "almost frightened.  Did she expect that he and his friends were going to indulge in a collective orgy with her?"  Out of stubbornness, he makes her stay and so she gets to eavesdrop on some locker room talk between the Duke and his buddies.  She misses, however, the part where his friends joke about how Tresham must be sleeping with her.  He not only shuts down this line of thought immediately, but notices that he feels quite annoyed by his friends' joking accusations.  "Jocelyn did wonder fleetingly why he cared."

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It was at this point in the book that I had a revelation about myself.  The following has nothing whatever to do with this novel or romance in general, and everything to do with my own distaste for said romance, whether on the page or the screen.  In my experience, there is some mystery about love.  I can't explain why I love my husband, at least not in a way that demonstrates my ironclad conviction that I will be with him for the rest of my life.  There's nothing really special or different about him to distinguish him from any other perfectly decent man out there.  I certainly can't begin to explain why he loves me.  Love is ineffable, you know?  But when I am reading a book about romance, or watching a romantic movie, the writers have to make me believe that the two characters are falling in love, and in doing so they have to provide some explanation for it.  I can't actually put myself in the characters' heads and go on that journey with them.  It's easier in movies, where you have chemistry and reaction shots and can express a whole lot with no actual dialogue.  In books, you have to describe how he looked, and how she looked, and how they looked at each other, and the fascinating physiological responses that happened because of those looks (heart pounding, palms sweating, face blushing, etc.).  Which is just scintillating as hell to read, right?  Anyway, I realized that I constantly raise one complaint about romance books/movies, which is: What on Earth made these two characters fall in love?  It pisses me off when there isn't any lead-up to the love, for example when filmmakers give in to that HORRIBLE trope about a couple who argues and fights and trades quips and just generally can't stand each other and then SUDDENLY THEY ARE IN LOVE AND THE VIOLINS ARE SWOOPING.  Also when an author shows no evidence of characters actually loving and valuing each other, but just tells the reader that they have a Great Love and expects us to believe it.  I'm not saying Mary Balogh does either of these things, just saying I realized that this is why I actively seek out NOT to read/watch romance media: it's really easy to do this stuff wrong, and it really pisses me off when that happens.  End self-revelation.

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Through the gossip of Tresham and his friends, we get to learn more about the "Cornish scandal" that seems to have some connection to our heroine Jane.  The rumour is that Jardine - son of the Earl of Durbury, the guy who is in town trying to find the "green girl" who harmed his son - is now dead, having never regained consciousness after the attack.  Tresham points out that it must have been hard for Jardine to describe his attacker if he remained unconscious.  He notices that Jane is quite pale, and attributes this to their graphic descriptions of Jardine's brains falling out of his head, while we readers suspect there is a more personal reason for her discomfort with the topic.  However, the gossip continues, with various theories being discussed: Jardine is not dead, but ashamed to show his face after being beaten up by a girl; the girl had a pistol; the girl was trying to rob him.

Later, the Duke shouts at Jane and insists that she remove her cap.  He finds it dull, ugly, and offensive.  At this point, we know she is wearing the cap despite his wishes as she wants to remain anonymous and her "golden tresses" are her most identifiable feature.  But Tresham is determined to cut the thing to ribbons, which brings Jane to tears.  He misinterprets her emotions once again: "This is not about the cap at all, is it?  It is because I forced you to remain in the room with a horde of male visitors."  Jane agrees, and she is dismissed to her room, but not before he reminds her that the cap is forbidden while in his service.  Jane runs to her room and throws herself across her bed, so that she can fully digest the shocking news: "Sidney Jardine had died and there was no way anyone on this earth was going to believe that she had not murdered him."  Oh, so she didn't murder him?  "He had been despicable and she had hated him more than she had thought it possible to hate anyone.  But she had not wanted him dead.  Or even hurt."  Hmm, so she knew him, but she didn't kill him.  "It had been a pure reflex action to grab that heavy book and the pure, mindless instinct of self-defense to whack him over the head with it."  Um ... so I think maybe you did kill him then ... if in fact he is dead, which isn't confirmed by anything but rumour. 

Jane's remembrance of the events continues: Sidney touched his bloodied head, laughed, called her a vixen, and continued to "advance on her".  As she moved to avoid his grasp, he lost his balance and fell forward onto the marble hearth, cracking his forehead.  Though there had been witnesses to the scene, none could be relied upon to tell the truth and stand up for her; instead, they would doubtless testify that she had been caught stealing.  And, we learn, "the gold, jewel-studded bracelet ... was still at the bottom of her bag."  So she did steal a bracelet, for whatever reason.  Though Jane took Sidney's pulse to determine that he was still alive - though unconscious - his friends made such threatening comments that she decided to flee during the night, because - "oh, there were a number of reasons."

More exposition (much appreciated at this point) reveals that the Earl of Durbury was her (late) father's cousin.  Both he and the Countess dislike Jane, and furthermore they were away at the time of the incident. Her "neighbour, friend, and beau," Charles Fortescue was also away.  Feeling abandoned and alone, Jane rushes to London to see her godmother, Lady Webb.  But Lady Webb was away from home and not expected back any time soon.

This all happened three weeks ago, during which time Jane has tried to fit in, find employment, and remain undetected.  Which, of course, just makes her look all the more guilty.  Though we now know that Jane did steal jewels and money, and did issue a violent blow to a man who is now either in a coma or dead, we remain sympathetic to her because she didn't mean to kill Jardine.  There is more to learn about the circumstances surrounding this incident, but I'm relieved to have some part of this plot revealed.  It's strange to me that Jane's only recourse as a semi-innocent ('it was self-defense') woman is to leave her home in the dead of night.  But then again, I've never seen an episode of "Law and Order: Regency England" so I'm not sure how the system worked at that time.  Gossip and rumour and unreliable witnesses were likely the order of the day.

Jane reflects on the fact that she doesn't really know the truth of Jardine's situation: he may still be only unconscious, or perhaps he is recovering nicely ... or perhaps he truly was dead.  She decides to wait until she is able to learn the truth, before deciding what to do next.