"Do you plan to read that to her?"
"To who?"
"To little miss Mary."
I was carrying the linen from the missus' room when I passed the library and heard my name. I wouldn't have stopped otherwise.
It was his voice and Jane's that I heard through the slightly ajar double doors. I stepped closer to the wall, cocking my ear to better hear.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he had replied blithely.
"I'm not a fool; do you really think I don't know what you do together?"
There was a long silence and a rustle of fabric as if he were moving or getting up. "We don't do anything together." I stared down at the carpet, my face reddening at his words.
"I'm sure. I know how stalwart you are to feminine wiles."
The clock in the hall ticked by as the silence grew before he fairly growled at her. "You talk too much of things you know nothing of."
"I know she lies with James."
"I beg your pardon?"
"What do you think they do out there at night? Talk?" She laughed a laugh that tempted me to rush in and land my fist into her face, but I resisted, silently seething outside the door as she ripped my reputation to shreds. "No, she talks to you but-"
"Be quiet." My fingernails dug into the linen as I heard the warning in his voice, frosty and low. "Maybe you should try acting like the lady you claim to be. And if you repeat that-"
"I'm merely stating the truth. And I can see it bothers you. You really have succumbed, haven't you? She has you all flustered." Her voice lowered as if she were standing closer to him. "You want to be that little gamekeeper, don't you? With your own little secluded hut-"
"They do nothing of the sort."
"Does it bother you that she leaves herself open for men, just like Charlotte, or does it bother you that she won't leave herself open for you?"
"Why do you hate her so much?" He sounded truly curious; I leaned closer to hear her reply.
"Why do you love her so much? She only wants to use you. She'd humiliate herself in hopes that you'd take care of her; she only wants to prey on that blasted compassion you insist on showing to her."
"If anyone in this house runs the risk of being humiliated, it is you, Jane. You think nothing bad can happen to you; one day it will, and I won't have any compassion for you."
"I don't want your compassion," she spat.
The door flew open suddenly, and he stalked out, his back to me, his morning coat billowing out behind him. He held a book in his hand, so tightly that his knuckles turned white. I scampered off the opposite way, certain that he had not seen me in the midst of his anger.