Page 20 of The Favourite

“When then?” he pressed, and a sudden suspicion dawned. “While you were under his mother’s roof on your recent visit?” Of course, he would, the young degenerate.

Jane gave a violent start, her head whipping round to look at him. “How did you—?”

“Ah-hah! An intrigue,” he said calmly, though he felt anything but. “Did he kiss you, or did you—?”

Jane was halfway off the bench, and he had to catch hold of her elbow to draw her back down. He’d pushed her too far. “Shhh, now Jane, calm yourself, everyone will think we are having a quarrel. We would not want to set tongues wagging so soon after making our vows.”

She tried to wrench her arm free of him, and he saw her eyes go wide when she realized she could not. “I’m a lot stronger than I look,” he commented dryly.

“Sir! You are ungallant—and—and—incorrigible!” Jane whispered in a furious undertone, abruptly giving up her struggle.

“I know,” he admitted. “I am fully aware of my faults, but you must not be cross. Surely it is perfectly natural for me to wonder about rivals?”

“Rivals?” Jane repeated in horror. “Rodrey—I mean, Viscount Morpington and I—were never—!”

“And now, I am starting to think it is deliberate. You are trying to make me jealous,” he complained. “Am I not your husband? And all you have ever addressed me as is Lord Bardulf. Yet here you are, bandying around the first names of some other viscount as though you were on terms of perfect intimacy.”

“I assure you; we are no such thing!”

“It is too bad of you, Jane. You play fast and loose with me.”

She cast a quick desperate look about them. “People are starting to stare,” she finally noticed.

“People are starting to stare, Alisander,” he corrected her.

Jane gave a small gasp. “Alisander?” she repeated.

“Yes?”

“That is your given name?”

“It is.”

“Oh.”

“An observant woman would have noticed as much when we recited our names to the priest. For my part, I made particular note your middle name is Margaret.” Before she could make a reply he carried on steadily. “When you say, ‘we are no such thing,’ do you mean with Morpington, or did you mean that you and I are not on terms of intimacy?” he asked.

“I meant … that Viscount Morpington and I are nothing to one another,” she replied in strangled tones.

He felt his shoulders relax. “I still want to know about that kiss,” he said and was surprised to hear he almost sounded apologetic.

Jane glared at him. “It scarcely even qualifies as such,” she said in a furious undertone.

“What happened?” He gestured to a passer server and took a cup of wine from the tray. “And don’t skimp on the detail. I’ll know if you try,” he warned her.

Jane huffed. “Oh, very well!” She took a deep breath. “The dowager asked me to await her while she fetched a skein of the finest yarn to show me. In her absence, Rodrey pounced on me, and we struggled. We overturned a table; I got a pair of horridly wet lips glued to my brow and he got my elbow buried in his stomach. By the time his mother returned, he was retching in the corner as though he was about to lose the contents of his stomach.”

“Dear me!” Alisander’s shoulders shook. “Poor Rodrey!”

“He is an odious wretch!” Jane shuddered. “Fortunately, the dowager assumed he was suffering the after-effects of too much drink.”

She looked primly disapproving at this, and once again, Alisander wondered that he did not find her priggishness a stumbling block. “I see you are not to be underestimated when it comes to defending your honor.”

She looked at him a little askance. “I would hope such a necessity would not arise with my own husband.”

“You would not expect your husband to kiss you?” he asked with a lift of his brow.

Jane turned an interesting shade of puce. “Well, I—” She regarded him helplessly a moment. “Not like that, no!”