My Lady Jane(30)

“My lady, if you continue to insist, we will call for someone to escort you out of the palace.”

Her face was hot with anger. How dare they block her from seeing her cousin?

Unless . . .

Unless Edward was getting worse and had ordered himself into isolation, but why would he isolate himself from her?

As she left the palace—without an escort—she decided to write a letter to him.

She stopped just before entering her carriage and glanced up at the turret.

A silhouette filled the top-floor window for a moment. Edward? Before her return to Bradgate Park, she’d have recognized the shape of her cousin anywhere, but now he’d grown so thin she couldn’t tell if the shadow had been him or not.

She stepped into her carriage and drove away.

Jane spent the afternoon in Chelsea, avoiding her mother’s questions as Adella and a handful of maids packed for the honeymoon. She’d written a few notes, had the letter to Edward sent out, and then took an hour to decide which fifty books she would bring to the country. They’d be there for weeks, and she wanted to be prepared for a lot of quality alone time. Apparently Gifford would be spending his days as a horse, and thus useless for company.

Maybe that was all right.

A little before dusk, she took a carriage back to Durham House and returned to Gifford’s bedchambers. He was still in horse form, sleeping, as far as she could tell. The bed had been moved to one side, and in the corner sat a cold pile of, well, the expected result of a large animal being trapped inside a room all day. She pressed a handkerchief to her nose and opened the window to air out the stink, then went to the wardrobe, where she found a shirt and trousers.

She lit a few candles, and then sat on the bed to wait while the sun fell toward the horizon.

Last time, the change had been sudden, just a burst of light she hadn’t expected, and when she’d finished blinking away the sparks, her husband had been a horse.

Now that horse stood there sleeping, his sleek coat shining in the last rays of sunlight. It seemed incredible that those slender legs could carry the entire body, and not just carry, but run and jump and prance. She hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d told Lord Dudley that his son was a magnificent beast. If only he could control it. Well, it was fortunate he’d married her, as she knew quite a lot about E?ians. If anyone could help him learn to govern his gift, it was Jane. And her books.

Then it happened. Light flared and the sleeping horse became a sleeping man, lying naked on the floor.

His eyelids fluttered and his nose wrinkled at the stench of his own manure. Jane leaned over the side of the bed and lowered his trousers in front of his face.

“Thank you, Billingsly.” His voice was groggy.

“You’re welcome.”

Gifford’s eyes went wide as he snatched the trousers and shoved the wad of fabric over his nether region. Jane sat back on the bed while her husband scrambled to his feet.

“My lady, please! I am indecent.”

“You are,” Jane agreed. “Not to mention the fact that you are also unclothed.” She slipped off the opposite side of the bed, away from him and his nudity, but also away from the pile of unfortunate smells. “Is there a reason, Gifford, that you didn’t tell me about your condition?”

“Please call me G.” He adjusted his grip on the trousers, letting the legs hang in front of him as though he were wearing them. Almost. “Everyone calls me G.”

“I’ve never heard anyone call you G. Besides Billingsly, but he is a servant. He would call you Josephina if you ordered. Anyway, you haven’t given me an answer as to why I spent my wedding night attending an ale-stinking sot, and the morning after sharing a bedchamber with a horse.”

“Well, when you put it that way . . .”

“I’m sorry, but how would you put it?” She refused to grin, even though his discomfort was delicious. After the utter mortification of earlier, both with Lord Dudley and the guards, she reveled in this feeling of power over him. It was about time something went her way.

“I would say you spent our wedding night with a charmingly tipsy gentleman who was hesitant to pressure an obviously virtuous lady to rush into . . .”

Oh. That.

Jane blushed and glanced out the window toward the busy street. She chose a passing cart full of apples to find fascinating, but it was quickly gone.

“And as for the equestrian awakening, I fail to see a downside.”

“You mean the thing no one warned me about? It seems like a subject that might come up. For example, ‘Oh by the way, your future husband changes into a horse as soon as the sun rises every morning.’”

He shrugged.

“Do you even try to control it?”

“It’s a curse, my lady. Controlling it would defeat the purpose.”

“And what is the purpose?” Perhaps if she knew the nature of it, she could better help him solve this pesky problem.

“I don’t know.”

“Gifford, you never get to see the light of day.” Yet he failed to see a downside. “I fail to see an upside, except for the possibility that I will one day need a quick escape, in which case it will be useful to have a fast horse.”

Gifford grunted. “There will be no riding the horse! In fact, I believe this is an opportune time to set some ground rules for this marriage.”