Page 8 of The Heir
“We must get back. I have to tell Mama. And I’m perfectly fine.” Her pinched, pained face and chattering teeth gave away this blatant lie. Still, Jane was perfectly happy to pretend.
She handed over the reins and pulled Smokey back just far enough so that the princess could take the lead. That would make things look less like a disaster. Like there was less to blame useless Jane Conroy for.
A shout went up from in front of them. They’d been spotted. Now that Jane had attention to spare, she could see the palace gardens and the yard were filled with shifting figures. People surged toward them. The duchess or Papa had grown worried, and the palace staff had been turned out to find them.
Her. They are all out to findher.
A flock of grooms and what seemed like half of Kensington’s footmen surrounded them. Everyone was crying and exclaiming and shouting orders. The footmen—begging their pardon, moaning over the state of them—pulled them off the horses. They were then handed off to the flock of uniformed maids and cloaked ladies-in-waiting, who surrounded them and whisked them back inside.
* * *
Of course the duchess was there in the sitting room. In fact, the duchess stood in the same spot by the windows where the princess had been earlier. Father stood there with her, holding her hands as she gazed, panic-stricken, through the blurred glass. Louise Lehzen, the princess’s governess, and Lady Flora hovered in the background.
The cluster of maids herded Jane and the princess—who hugged Dash to her chest—into the room. Lehzen charged forward to pull the princess away from them. Jane was left beside the doorway. Victoria was shaking badly. So was Jane.
The duchess dropped to her knees in front of the princess.
“You little fool!” She wrapped her arms around her daughter, wailing in grief and outrage. “I begged you! I pleaded with you! Oh, my God! She will die! She will die like her father died!”
Jane thought no one had noticed her. She was wrong. Father strode forward, brushing past the princess and the duchess. When he reached her, he raised his hand. His fingers curled. Jane blinked.
Father struck her across the face.
Jane’s head snapped back and slammed against the wall, barely cushioned by her ruined bonnet, and for a moment, she could see nothing but stars.
“Stop!” shouted the princess. “It was not Jane’s fault!”
There was silence, except for the ringing in her ears. Jane brought her head upright again gingerly. The movement hurt. The room seemed oddly blurred, as if she still peered through the rain.
The princess twisted herself out of her mother’s arms. “Iwas the one who decided to gallop. Jane’s Smokey cannot keep up, and I got ahead of her. I fell because Prince was startled and he shied. Jane had no part in it! You have no reason to treat her so!”
Her jaw throbbed with pain. Her tongue was coated with a weak slime that tasted of salt and warm copper.
Blood.
She did not want to swallow but had no choice. Her kerchief had been lost somewhere, and if she moved, she would be noticed, and there would be another glare, another order, perhaps even another blow. She might topple over and this time be unable to rise.
The princess had turned to the kneeling duchess, deliberately cutting Father from her notice. “Mama, there is a dead man on the green.”
The duchess lurched to her feet.“What?”
“There is a dead man on the green,” the princess repeated. “I saw him. That was why Prince was startled. The guard should be sent.”
The duchess, genuinely alarmed, stared at Father. Father’s expressive eyes went briefly blank and distant, as they usually did when he heard something unexpected and unwanted. Jane’s cheek throbbed as if in answer, and she swallowed more of the slick copper taste. He’d forgotten her, forgotten the blow and all the sins that merited it. He was somewhere else entirely, and Jane was grateful. And she was frightened.
“Hornsby saw him, as well,” the princess announced.
“I’ll go look into this.” Father bowed, sharp and crisp, and marched through the door. He did not spare Jane so much as a glance.
Jane, trembling, was grateful all over again.
“If you please, your grace,” said Lehzen to the duchess. “We must get Her Highness out of these wet things before she catches cold.”
The duchess turned dead white at the mention of a cold. “My God, yes, yes, yes, at once. She is ill! That is why she says such things. She is delirious!”
Led by Lehzen and the duchess, the fluttering ladies and maids enfolded the princess and bore her away to the boudoir to be changed and warmed and plied with sugared tea. Perhaps a spoonful of brandy.
Jane stood against the wall. She was alone. Not even Dash remained. Tears blurred her eyes, but they would not fall. Her jaw ached, and she was certain it had swelled. Her hands and feet were ice cold. She felt sick. She wanted to sit down, but somehow she couldn’t make herself move.
