Page 31 of The Favourite

“Brother or sister?” Jane asked promptly.

“Brother. Older brother,” he added. “You see how generous I am, to volunteer two facts?”

Jane pushed away her apricots to concentrate instead on her bread and butter. “You are generosity itself, my lord.”

“It is heartening to learn we have so much in common, is it not?”

Jane’s eyebrows rose. She could only suppose he meant the fact they both possessed only one sibling and had dead fathers. “I do not really have a sweet tooth,” she admitted when he commandeered her bowl of abandoned apricots and started tucking into them. “I simply do not care for fish when breaking a fast.”

“Well, as you are being so open with me, I will confess I am not considered remotely generous,” he replied with a shrug. “In fact, quite the opposite. I am usually considered quite selfish.”

Jane frowned. By whom? His mistresses? Her thoughts startled her, but at least she had not spoken them aloud. “Speaking of generosity,” she said, “I have your jewels with me. I did not like to leave them unattended at the palace, although that seems rather foolish in light of the attack upon our wagons last night. They are packed in my trunk.”

“Mine?” he murmured, lifting his eyebrows. “I think not, and if you imagine I will be returning your garter, you are destined for disappointment.”

Jane hesitated. “Was the exchange not simply ceremonial?”

He shrugged. “I will take my bracelets back from you, for they were hanging off your wrists in an ungainly fashion, but you may keep the collar and belt for bride gifts.” Jane flushed and opened her mouth. “No, do not argue, for I grow bored of the subject already,” he begged with a wave of his hand.

Jane huffed. “If you are trying to convince me you are not generous, then you are doing a very poor job of it.” He lifted his eyebrows but made no reply. “Alisander.” To her annoyance, she felt her cheeks warm at her use of his given name. “Were those men going to rob us last night?”

“Doubtless, but do not let it concern you. It was nothing.”

Nothing? One man was dead and another was badly injured. Was life so cheap then, to this husband of hers? When he looked up, she lowered her own gaze.

“My dear, make sure you run up and put on your jewels before your uncle rises,” he said. “I would not want him to think your husband was cheap as well as self-absorbed.”

Instead of asking why he cared what Sir Phillip thought, Jane nodded. After the meal, such as it was, was finished, she made her way up the staircase and, on impulse, asked a passing servant to direct her to the nursery. The young woman led her in that direction, before scurrying off and abandoning her at the door. Jane knocked and walked in and was immediately confronted by three middle-aged women in wimples so wide they seemed almost to span the entire room.

“Can we help you?” one asked forebodingly, stepping forward. “Are you lost?”

Jane bristled at the woman’s tone. “I am not lost, no. I have come to visit with the child,” she finished, loath to use the word “niece” or “daughter” in connection with the infant. The whole business was so very awkward, and she was not at all sure that the events of last night would have reached the nursery staff. It certainly did not appear so.

“I am afraid,” the woman said with a chilly smile, “that our charge is sleeping presently and cannot be disturbed.”

Jane paused. “Is it possible that you are in ignorance of my standing in this house?” she asked with quiet dignity.

The woman colored faintly but stood her ground. “I am aware of your connection with both house and child, my lady,” she said with a shade more politeness in her tone, “but from the moment of my employ, I was made aware of the importance of this child’s standing. In short, that it is connected with the highest personage in this land and, as such, its safeguarding cannot be taken too lightly.”

Jane blinked. Clearly, Helen had not exaggerated when she had told her that at one time, she had thought to fit to rival the Queen herself. “Might I ask, at the moment of your employment, whether my sister was aware she had delivered a girl-child?” she asked, her tone dry.

The woman pressed her lips together. “I was employed a month before the Lady Helen was delivered,” she admitted stiffly.

Well, there you had it. At that point, Helen must still have been fervently hoping for a boy. “What is your name?” Jane asked after a heavy pause so that her pointed words might sink in.

“It is Lingard. Mistress Lingard.”

“Well, Mistress Lingard, the King himself has sanctioned my visit. Do you mean to tell me you will try and turn me away?”

The woman hesitated, as though she would like to do just that, but did not quite have the nerve. Reluctantly, she moved aside, leaving just enough room for Jane to pass her into the next room where the door stood ajar.

Jane walked through and made her way quietly toward the large wooden cradle in the center of the room. It was a grandiose affair of carved dark wood with embroidered sheets. Even in the dim light of the room, she could make out both her family’s coat of arms and those of the house of Argent.

To her shock, the Cecil family crest, that of an ash tree, was crowned with the coronet of an earl, something it had not had the right to display for many a day. Well, those would have to be burned. What had her sister been thinking? Had she anticipated the King would reward her son with the restoral of their late father’s title?

After all, if the babe had been a boy… It would not be the first time Wymer had rewarded a male bastard with a title. Perhaps Helen had been right, and the King might well have made this child the second Earl of Cecil. Jane gazed down at the sleeping baby whose birth had been such a bitter disappointment to her sister.

The vastness of the crib doubtless made the slumbering child look even smaller than it already was. Celestia, Jane thought. Such a little girl, for such a grand name. All she could see of the babe was its little pink face amidst a nest of sheets.