held her sliding away. She murmured a protest. Gentle hands raised her head and coaxed more of the foul liquid past her lips.
Snatches of low-voiced conversations reverberated in her aching head, pounding viciously against the edges of her consciousness.
"It was a mercy ..."
"... prey upon her mind. "
". . . laudanum. Let her sleep. It's the best . . ."
Jane tried to capture each wisp of murmured voice, but the words scampered nimbly away, teasingly beyond comprehension. The effort to hear and understand exhausted her. Finally, she fell into a deep, dreamless slumber.
When next she woke there was brightness against her closed eyelids. Sunlight? She moaned and stirred restlessly. She was vaguely surprised to discover she lay on a soft mattress and was covered with cool, fresh, lavender-scented sheets. Such comfort seemed wrong, out of place; though she couldn’t think why. Jane tried to open her eyes, but they felt heavy. It was like lifting great weights.
Slowly her eyelids fluttered open. Everything was blurred and dizzyingly swirling. She closed her eyes, then tried opening them again. She blinked, and the world focused. She turned her head, gazing about. Dispassionately she realized that she recognized the bed hangings. They were from her room at Penwick. How did she get here? Last night she’d been near Royal Tunbridge Wells, hadn’t she? Last night...
The vision of a blackened and blood-blistered body swam up to her consciousness.
"Aa-hh!" she softly wailed, the sound catching achingly in her throat. She bit her knuckle as sobs wracked her slender body. "I killed him," she whimpered. "I killed him!"
"Hush, hush, Jane!" came an urgent, soothing voice from the side of her bed, the face indistinct yet comforting. A cool hand was laid against her brow. "It could not be helped. No one faults you. "
The blurred image with its gentle voice coalesced into Lady Elsbeth.
"I warned her. She dinna heed me warnins," mourned an Irish voice from somewhere near the end of the bed.
"That’s enough, Mrs. O'Rourke," snapped Lady Elsbeth over her shoulder. Then she turned back to Jane, gently pushing fine strands of black hair away from her face. "That woman—Sophie? She’s convinced it was a form of release for him. She says Georgie couldn’t reconcile his rough and crude existence with the knowledge of his better blood. He felt he should have naturally been refined and well-spoken. It tore at him that he could not rise above the circumstances of his upbringing; that his mother, having all the advantages in the world, could give him away as easily as one would a cast-off dress or jacket. I know he planned to present himself to his mother dressed and accoutered as befitted her station. He believed dress made the man. In the end, he would have been bitterly disappointed. I shudder to think what he might have done when that happened."
Jane nodded, then swallowed around the lump in her throat. "It is hard to believe he had all that in him, when one considers the bluff, hearty gentleman he played."
"I believe throughout history it has always been the same. Those who would act the buffoon for other’s enjoyment are generally people lacking joy in their own lives. Perhaps that’s what always gives the piquant flavor of truth to their antics, a sort of larger-than-life hopelessness that lessens our own."
Jane nodded listlessly. "But that still doesn’t excuse his death. Any man’s death diminishes me. He did not deserve to die."
Lady Elsbeth leaned back, her hands folded in her lap. "Now that will be enough maudlin missishness. I beg you to remember he was not beyond doing violence to you to achieve his ends," she said sternly.
"I suppose," Jane conceded, absently plucking at the sheet. Her lips twisted as she thought over the events of yesterday. "What time is it?" she asked suddenly, her expression serious.
Lady Elsbeth looked down at the pendant watch pinned to her bodice. "Almost one-thirty. Why?"
"One-thirty? In the afternoon?" Jane threw off the bed covers. "You must have been heavy-handed with the laudanum! Why did you give it to me? You know how I hate the stuff. And don’t try to deny that you did, for I won’t believe you! I heard you last night. At least, I think I did," she amended as she levered herself up to a sitting position.
Lady Elsbeth thought it wise to ignore Jane’s questions. "What are you doing?" she demanded.
"Getting up." She swung her legs to the floor.
"Jane! I’m not convinced that is wise. You have been through a