Page 26 of The Favourite

“Will he live?”

“I expect so, my lady. His constitution don’t look delicate to me.” Privately, Jane agreed with him, for Davis looked a roughhewn type. “A good thing them robbers attacked him and not your lord and master,” he added, and Jane wondered about that for a moment.

In the flickering light of the fire, Viscount Bardulf did not quite cut the figure of fashion he did at the palace. He was wearing traveling clothes of course, though they were nearly as gorgeous as his court garb. Still, they somehow invested him with a different air than that of frivolous courtier.

He looked tall and more than a little sardonic as he watched her uncle’s discomfiture, a smile curving his lips. It was not a nice smile, and he did not look like a nice man. She wondered about those robbers who had faced him in the rainy forest. Did they count themselves fortunate to have met him, this dark night?

Remembering the blood on his hand, she doubted it somehow. Was that man dead? she found herself wondering, remembering the figure she had seen them prop up against that tree trunk. Jane shivered. Suddenly, she was not so sure she wanted the answer.

“My lady?” It was Wat. “Take this chair beside the fire,” he urged. “You are cold, and little wonder. I will see to Davis.”

Jane allowed herself to be ushered to the seat before the fire. Moments later, she saw Mistress Beth flit discreetly into the room and glance about in some surprise. She was as neat and presentable as the previous occasion Jane had seen her. As soon as she caught sight of Jane, she hurried to her side. “Lady Jane!” she exclaimed. “I little expected to see you back at Kinnerton so soon.”

“No? But you must have heard my promise to my sister?” Jane was not really sure why she said it, for she was not usually so confrontational, but the girl flushed guiltily and lowered her eyes.

“I—that is, yes,” she admitted. “But I did not think—”

“You did not think that I would keep my word?”

She hesitated. “It was a tall order,” Beth admitted, “and no small thing your sister asked.”

Well, that was true enough. “The child is well?” Jane asked, changing the subject.

“She has everything a baby can require and more.”

“Do you see much of her?”

Mistress Beth shook her head. “Your sister, the Lady Helen, enlisted the very best and most experienced nurses to care for your niece. They keep mostly to themselves and their own company.”

“I see.”

“Sir Phillip does not think it beneficial that the child should mix much with the rest of the household.”

“Because of the risk of disease?”

“Sir Phillip never explained his reasoning to me.”

Suddenly, unwelcomely, Jane remembered Ayleth’s words, that Beth was her uncle’s lover. “Where is Ayleth?” she asked. “Does she take an interest in the child?”

“Ayleth?” Beth looked pained. “Alas, Ayleth has not left her room once since the Lady Helen was laid to rest. She has been wholly abandoned to her grief.”

Jane nodded slowly. Ayleth had always been devoted to Helen. She remembered the old servant’s red-rimmed eyes at Helen’s graveside. She had not come to bid Jane farewell when she had left the next afternoon and Jane had not blamed her. Still, that had been over a week ago.

Her uncle’s sudden upraised voice distracted her from pondering Ayleth’s fate, and she found him stood aggressively in front of her husband with his hands on his hips. Viscount Bardulf flicked something off his sleeve and looked vaguely embarrassed at Sir Phillip’s excess of emotion.

“You roll up here at some ungodly hour—”

“A little after ten,” Alisander corrected him mildly.

“And have the unmitigated gall to have me thrown out of my own bedchamber!”

“There are plenty of guest chambers, I am sure.”

“Then, why can’t you use one of them? Answer me that!” her uncle demanded.

“Because, my good sir, we are not guests here.” Alisander shot him a pitying look as though her uncle’s wits had gone begging.

“I will complain to the palace itself about my shocking treatment—”