Part 16 (1/2)
Jasmine nodded furiously. ”Oh, he did, he did. But I simply couldn't eat by then, having told myself I deserved to be miserable. Papa would have been infuriated if he could have seen me. He says to be careful to always make a good impression on Tanner. I sent away the tray without taking so much as a bite.”
”A nose and one ear,” Lydia muttered, shaking her head. ”But what does that have to do with that bruise on your cheek?”
At last Jasmine lowered her hand, and Lydia got a good look at her cheek. The skin wasn't broken in any way. Her cheek was red, swollen. And there was something else. Evidence of a slight abrasion along the right side of her chin.
Very like the one Lydia had needed to cover with rice powder before going down to supper.
A day earlier, and Lydia wouldn't have known what she was seeing. But a day earlier had been a lifetime ago in experience. Now, she knew, and her first thought went to schoolmaster Bruce Beattie. Was he here? Had he ridden from Malvern because she'd somehow sent a message to him, and he couldn't bear to wait until tomorrow to see her? Had Jasmine slipped out of the inn to see him? But, no, she couldn't ask those questions. She'd have to explain too much in order to ask those questions.
Jasmine crossed to the small dressing table set in front of the single window and sat down, inspecting her reflection in the fly-spotted mirror.
”Oh, dear, I really did it, didn't I? You don't suppose I broke anything, do you?” She touched two fingers to her cheek, wincing, before wiping away her tears with the hem of her dressing gown.
”I can't be the judge of that if you don't tell me what happened.”
Jasmine turned her back on the mirror, her bottom lip trembling. ”It does hurt, Lydia. That's why I was crying. I'm so sorry I disturbed you. Inn walls are so thin, aren't they? Do you know gentlemen often sleep six or more to a room in places like this? I can't imagine how anyone could-”
”Jasmine,” Lydia interrupted without a trace of regret, ”you can prattle on all you like, but I will continue to ask my question, and sooner or later you will answer me. Me, or Tanner. It's your choice.”
”Why? Is it important in some way that everyone know how foolish I was? I didn't know you could be so cruel.”
”Neither did I, but I seem to be discovering that there are limits to my patience. You are fast approaching one of those limits.”
Jasmine sighed, her slim shoulders rising and falling half in petulance, half in resignation. ”Oh, very well, since you're going to be that way. It's all so stupid. Mildred offered to sleep in here with me, and I should have agreed, but I didn't. So I didn't know where she was in this place, and I was so hungry. So...so I went searching for her.”
”Like that? In your dressing gown?” That Jasmine possessed a healthy appet.i.te did not come as any shock. There was, after all, that business with the sugared buns in the not so distant past. But she'd actually go traipsing about the inn in the dead of night to feed it? That was unsettling.
”The servant stairs are just outside my door, across the hallway. It wasn't as if anyone would see me, Lydia. I'm not such a dunce. The stairs lead up to the attics and straight down to the kitchens.”
Lydia rubbed at the back of her neck as she perched herself on the side of the bed, suddenly feeling very much older than Tanner's cousin. ”And which way did you go?”
”Well, up, of course,” Jasmine said, her tone implying that this was a question silly in the extreme. ”I know nothing of kitchens. How could I? So I held my candle high and tiptoed carefully up the stairs, calling out Mildred's name. But she never answered me, and I belatedly considered the possibility that the male servants of the inn patrons might be sleeping in the attics, as well. Tanner's man, and the baron's, and possibly even more. That gave me pause, I must admit to you, so I turned on the landing to make good my escape. But I forgot to be careful. I tripped on the hem of my gown-Mildred will hear about that, I tell you, as I've warned her that this hem is too long-and very nearly came to grief before I could catch myself. But not before I'd landed very heavily against the wall, and hit my cheek. I don't think it's broken. It can't be broken, can it?”
”How badly does it hurt?”
”Not so much anymore,” Jasmine admitted. ”But I was very frightened for those few moments I believed I might plunge to my death. I'll have nightmares for months and months of tumbling down dark stairs.”
Lydia remained unmoved by the girl's tears, but offered, ”I sincerely hope not. And what about your chin?”
”My chin?” Jasmine tentatively touched the center of her chin.
”No, not there. On the right side of your face. Far away from the bruise on your cheek where you collided with the wall, I would think. Did you perhaps bounce?”
When Jasmine turned on the low bench, to inspect her chin in the mirror, Lydia bent down and picked up one of the girl's slippers, abandoned on the carpet. She turned it over, touched its soft kid sole, and felt dampness. Quickly, she dropped the slipper beside its mate, her only conclusion the obvious one.
Jasmine had been outside.
She was leaning close to the mirror now, touching one finger to her chin. ”Is this what you were referring to, Lydia? My goodness, I can't imagine what happened. Unless it is these terribly rough sheets. When I was crying, you understand, and trying to hide my sobs by s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g my face into the pillow. I have such tender skin, you understand. Ah, to be like the baron, and be able to afford to travel with my own linens. But that is neither here nor there, is it?”
She pushed back the bench and stood up, turning to smile at Lydia. ”I'm feeling much better now, although very stupid for having wakened you. Please, go back to bed. I promise to be quiet now. Unless the hungry growling of my empty stomach can be heard through walls?”
Lydia got to her feet, barely able to look at the girl. She wanted to be on the other side of that door, as far from Jasmine as possible. But with her hand on the latch, she gave in to temptation. ”Yes, you never got as far as the kitchens, did you? A pity there are none of Tanner's cook's sugared buns left anywhere. Well, good night, for whatever is left of it.”
Jasmine's gaze slid quickly toward her reticule before she straightened her shoulders and looked at Lydia once more.
Had the fairly vacant eyes now narrowed with...what? Cunning? A pretty girl, her face didn't wear that particular expression very well. ”Yes,” she said, and then sighed. ”Lydia, may I ask you something?”
Lydia wanted her bed, and to be away from Jasmine, perhaps the latter more than the former. ”Can it wait until tomorrow?”
Jasmine sniffled, bottom lip trembling. ”I suppose it must.”
”Oh, all right. What do you want to ask me?”
The trembling lip reformed into half of a pleased smile. ”People often say things and don't mean them, don't they?”
Lydia tilted her head, wondering where on earth that question had come from. ”Yes, I suppose they do.”
”Then if someone says they'll do something if someone else says they won't do something-then they probably won't really do it?”
Lydia considered this. ”I...I imagine that would depend on the person doing the saying. Are you talking about someone issuing an ultimatum?”
Now Jasmine frowned. ”An ultimatum?”
Really, the girl was exhausting. ”Yes. That would be like saying that if you don't stop asking questions and let me go to bed, I shall box your ears, and you then saying you'll ask more questions anyway.”
”So you'd be angry if I asked more questions?”
Lydia resisted the impulse to roll her eyes, which she really shouldn't do, because everyone else could see her disgust when she did that. Not, she supposed, that Jasmine would notice. ”Yes, I'd be angry if you asked more questions. As, I feel the need to point out, you just did.”
”But you won't really box my ears.”
”No, I suppose not. Jasmine, what do you want to know? Really.”
”Oh, nothing,” the girl said, smiling brightly once more. ”You answered my question. People say things, insist on things, but then don't do what they said they'd do if you refuse to do what they want you to do. Especially if you do.”
Lydia was beginning to think she wasn't awake at all, but trapped in some bizarre nightmare. ”Especially if you do what?”
”Do what they said you had to do so that they don't do anything else, of course. Then they won't do it-what they'd said they'd do, I mean. I feel much better now. Thank you.”
”I suppose you're welcome. Goodnight, Jasmine,” Lydia said. Closing the door to her own chamber, she leaned against it, happy to be away from Jasmine's ridiculous ramblings.
But she couldn't forget that Jasmine had lied to her, and that she'd been outside. She had to wonder at what she had discovered. And, if her conclusions were correct, what did it all mean?
Worse, how could she possibly tell Tanner? After all, this was his cousin. And, if she provided him with Mr. Beattie's name, she'd also have to admit that she'd been, for lack of a more comforting word, snooping. Before Tanner had come to her, loved her. When it could still be believed that he would eventually honor his father's last wish and wed Jasmine.
Then she remembered what she had decided earlier last evening. Justin. She would tell Justin, and he would tell Tanner. At least then her embarra.s.sment would be from a distance.