This was infuriating. She wanted to at least lay eyes upon her intended before they were to be wed. Was that so much to ask?
Stan turned his head, momentarily blocking the sun with his nose. “I see you’re upset. I’m terribly sorry, but you know my brother never has time for ladies until after dark.”
Ladies . . . plural?
Sir Nose went on: “You must be . . . Anne? Frederica? Janette?”
Jane blinked at him. “I’m sorry? Who?”
Stan crossed his arms and inspected her more closely. “Red hair. That is unusual. I can’t recall my brother mentioning one of his ladies was a redhead.”
“One of his ladies?” she managed to squeak.
“Surely you didn’t think you were the only one. But I’d thought he usually preferred brunettes. Taller. With more . . . shape.”
Jane gasped. This was outrageous. Who did this Stan fellow think he was? Why, Jane was of royal blood (her great grandmother was a queen, after all), cousin and friend to Edward VI. She had the king’s ear, and it would not be long until that royal auricle heard all about the rude, impolite, presumptuous, rotten man—
She was saying none of this out loud, she realized. Instead she was standing there, slack-jawed, while the mouth beneath the Dudley nose continued to guess her name. There were so many names. At least one for every letter of the alphabet. Did Gifford have relations with all of these women? Or was Stan simply being mean?
“All right,” Stan said. “I give up. I’ll tell him you came by, if you tell me who you are.”
She mustered the strongest tone she could. “I am Lady Jane Grey. His fiancé.”
Stan went still for a moment, and then hurried into a bow. “Oh, I see. My lady. I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize. I should never have said all those things. It’s just you have such red hair for a highborn. I mean . . . I would never have mentioned the other ladies. Because there are no other ladies. Anywhere. In the world. Except my wife. And you. Gifford will be a faithful and loyal husband to you. Like a dog! Well, not like a dog.” He sighed. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything—”
Jane just glared at him. Well, at his nose. It was hard to see much else.
“Please accept my sincerest apologies, my lady.” Stan Dudley made several feeble attempts at reparation, mumbled something about leaving her to her thoughts—which were surely as pure as the whitest blossoms of the most virginal tree—and then he was gone.
So. Her husband-to-be was a philanderer. A smooth operator. A debaucher. A rake. A frisker. (Jane became something of a walking thesaurus when she was upset, a side effect of too much reading.) No wonder no one had seen him, since the libertine was too busy with the horses during the day—allegedly—and too busy with the strumpets at night.
This was not acceptable.
Jane stomped back to her carriage. She imagined all the things she would say to Gifford, Edward, her mother, and whoever else had arranged this marriage for her. Angry, angry things.
She’d thought this engagement would ruin Gifford’s life. But for the first time (in, perhaps, ever), she’d been wrong: the engagement to Lord Gifford Dudley would ruin her life.
Unless she put a stop to it.
Jane straightened her spine. She was not going to marry Gifford Dudley. (And what kind of name was Gifford Dudley, anyway? Honestly!) Not Saturday. Not ever.
THREE
Gifford (call him G!)
The worst part about waking up when the sun went down was the distinct grassy taste of hay in his mouth, an unfortunate side effect of actually having hay in his mouth. But the affliction of unwanted-hay-in-the-mouth-itis (or “hay-mouth” as his mother referred to it, like someone else would refer to morning breath) was not to be avoided when one ended each day as an undomesticated horse and began each night as an undomesticated man.
Almost man, his mother would say. At nineteen years of age, he was almost a man. Definitely undomesticated.
As he pushed himself into a crouching position, and then into a standing position, G (please call him G, and avoid referring to him by his terrible given name, Gifford Dudley, the second—and therefore insignificant—son of Lord John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland) stretched out his haunches, which were now hips.