Jane shook her head in disbelief. “You think a few pretty dresses will convince me to become your mistress?”
“We’ll see how long it takes you to change your mind.” His lip curled back against his teeth. “I’ll have you yet.”
With as much dignity as she could manage, she turned for the door.
“Oh, I almost neglected to tell you.”
Jane glanced over her shoulder, unease trickling down her neck at his strangely amiable tone.
“I’ve taken the liberty in seeing your wardrobe relieved of anything save black. I’ve also acquisitioned your jewelry since you have no need of such while in mourning.”
Apprehension fluttered low in her belly. Had he found the necklace among her things? She had hid it, but who knew how thorough his search of her room.
“I trust you have no objections.” The laughter in his eyes told her exactly what he thought she could do if she did harbor objections. Dark anger bubbled to life in her belly.
Jane pursed her lips with determination. Well, she would do something. She would not be controlled so neatly, fenced in and constrained as though she were less than free.
She would most definitely do something.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Knightly.”
Gregory whirled around to find Lady Julianne sitting quietly and serenely on a bench beneath a large oak.
“Lady Julianne,” he greeted her, executing a neat bow to his employer’s sister as he realized she could not see the courtesy. Then, recalling she had addressed him by name, he asked, “How did you know it was me?”
“I smelled you.”
“Smelled me?” he queried, moving closer on the garden path and feeling a smile pull at his lips. “Am in need of a bath?”
“Indeed not. You smell rather like lemons. You always do. Most unique.”
“A habit I picked up aboard the ship. Chewing lemon drops helped ward off scurvy.”
“You were in the Orient with Seth?”
“I traveled as a midshipman with the lieutenant nearly everywhere—India, the African coast, China.”
She leaned forward on the bench, the movement pulling her bodice tighter across the swell of her breasts. For a tiny woman, she had generous breasts. They would fill his hands. He grimaced at the inappropriate assessment and rubbed the back of his neck. As a man he could not help but appreciate the sight. Even though he willed himself to be immune, he was not. From the first moment he met Lady Julianne, he had been struck by her prettiness.
“There was much of the war in the papers,” Julianne commented. “Hugely unpopular by all accountings.”
“Naturally…yet no English citizen wants to go without their tea,” he muttered. No one wanted the war, but they fully expected access to their beloved tea, an import seriously under threat had England not gone to war with China.
“What was it like?” she asked. “Seth doesn’t talk about such things.”
“For good cause. War is not a fit topic for a lady’s ears. Especially yours.”
“Especially mine?” she demanded in affronted tones, rising to her feet in a swift, elegant motion. She stared in his direction, her blank gaze fixed in the vicinity of his cravat. “Don’t tell me you’re like my brother and think me frail, incapable of wiping my own nose.” Her delicate hands fisted at her sides. “If so, I fear I shall scream.”
Gregory blinked, taken aback that the seemingly sweet-tempered lady possessed such fire. He had not thought such passion simmered within her.
She was really quite pretty and refreshingly candid. Not at all like other ladies who never spoke their minds because they were too busy saying what they ought to say and not what they wanted. If she were anyone other than Rutledge’s sister, he would like to know her better.
Her lips loosened in a rueful smile. “From your silence, I gather I have shocked you. Rebecca often tells me I am too outspoken. You are still here, aren’t you? You have not absconded over the nearest hedge?”
“Indeed not,” he replied a bit breathlessly.
She released a rich laugh that seemed too hearty for one so slight and delicate. “Splendid, Mr. Knightly. Would you care to escort Rebecca and me to the park this afternoon? I think I should enjoy more of your company.”
“I do not think that wise, my lady.”
She frowned. “Why not?”
He shook his head, marveling at her obtuseness. “I am in your brother’s employ.”
“That does not mean we cannot be friends. I find I’m in short supply of friends. Both my father and Albert never let me step foot outside the Priory. And now Seth, it seems, is little better.”
“Your brother has brought you to Town,” he reminded. “Soon you shall have friends more fit than I.” Strangely, that fact troubled him.
Her frown deepened into a scowl. “No good.” She tossed her head. “I want you.”
His blood raced at her declaration. He knew she did not mean her words as they sounded, but simply hearing them come out of that delectable cupid’s bow mouth of hers made him harden instantly. Made him realize how long he had gone without a woman.
To have such a reaction for Rutledge’s sister, the very man to have saved his life on more than one occasion, shamed him. He shook his head fiercely, forcing his gaze off that luscious mouth, off the enticing curve of her breasts within her bodice. Impossible. He was randy as a sailor fresh to port.
Without a word, he turned and strode from the courtyard, not caring how rude he appeared, only concerned with removing himself from her. At once.
“Mr. Knightly,” she called, but he pushed on, rounding a hedge of hawthorn, focusing on the sound of his feet crunching over the path, blocking out the sweet, beguiling tenor of her voice and vowing never to be caught alone or in conversation with the far too tempting woman again.
“Mr. Knightly, where are you going?”
Far from you, Lady Julianne. As far as I can get.
Jane paced the length of her room, her fury rising to choke her every time she glanced at her armoire, now bare of the gowns she had worn previous to Marcus’s death, the gowns she had planned on wearing again. Soon.
The indignity of knowing that Desmond had commanded a servant to rifle through her things washed over her in bitter waves. As a girl, she’d never been of particular importance to her parents, more often than not missing their detection altogether. They had invested all their energy in Madeline—the beautiful daughter who would marry well and drag the Spencer family from relative obscurity.
She had been neglected, to be sure, but free. That she had so little control now, less even than when she was a child, burned through her like acid.
She was no better than a prisoner in her own home. It was not to be borne. Her mind worked desperately, struggling to come up with a way to free herself from Desmond’s suffocating yoke. After several moments, she sighed, ceased her pacing, and collapsed on the small couch at the foot of her bed.
Her bedchamber door opened. Anna bustled inside. “What did that scoundrel do to you?” she cried. “I knew he was up to no good when he sent me halfway across Town to Leadenhall market for clams we could have purchased from the fishmonger who delivers to our very door!”
Jane shook her head. “I have to get out of here, Anna.”
“I know, love, I know.” The maid lowered her substantial girth onto the bench beside Jane. Wrapping a soft arm around her shoulders, Anna gave her a squeeze. She worked her hand up and down Jane’s arm, the rhythmic motion comforting. “I tried to stop that trollop from coming in here, but Mr. Billings was there. I couldn’t—”
“Trollop?”
“Yes.” Anna blinked. “I thought you knew Berthe was the one who…”
“Went through my things?” Jane finished, surging off the bench. “Oh, I’m sure she took great joy in that!” The little viper already gloated over Jane being relegated to a governess.
Her gaze drifted to her armoire, her stomach rolling at the thought of Berthe, Marcus’s favorite maid, rummaging through
her personal things. It brought to mind the day Jane had caught the maid trying on one of her gowns, twirling before her cheval mirror bold as a peacock. Jane never held hope that the girl would be dismissed, not when she earned her wages in Marcus’s bed.
“If I stay in this room a moment longer I shall go mad.”
Anna pulled back to look at her. “What are you thinking of?”
Jane lifted her chin. “They don’t own me.” A fire kindled in her blood, burning a smoldering path up her chest. “They may have confiscated my clothes and jewelry, but I’m not their prisoner. Nor am I a child to be led about. Anna, I’ll be venturing out tonight.”
“They can prevent you from taking a carriage,” Anna pointed out.
Jane paced. “The lack of a carriage did not stop me last time. I have friends. Lucy can loan me a carriage.” She glanced down at her gown. “And a dress more suitable for my destination.”
“Where are you going?”
It took only a moment for her to answer, and she realized that the answer had been there all along, a shadow hovering in the back of her mind—her goal perhaps from the start.
“Vauxhall.”
Chapter 12
People teemed Vauxhall, their voices a heavy thrum that competed with the blare of the orchestra. Even though he stood outdoors, Seth craved air. Air and space.
He had decided almost instantly that Fiona Manchester would never do as his wife. She could not look long upon his face. Not an uncommon reaction, to be sure—especially from a lady. He should have come to expect no less. Call him fool, but he wanted a wife that could at least bear the sight of him.
When he addressed her, she held his gaze only a moment before her eyes trailed the line of his scar, then darted away as skittish as a bird.
And that was another matter. She looked as though she could break beneath the slightest pressure. Indeed, she reminded him of some delicate piece of crystal to be handled with utmost care. Not the kind of woman he wanted in his bed.
The image of a full-bodied woman in a gold dress flashed in his head. Now that was a woman he could handle without fear of hurting. And Jane, a voice whispered, unbidden, across his mind. The voluptuous body that strained against her widow’s weeds was made for a lover’s hands.
His palms tingled and he closed them into tight fists, cursing himself a fool. Jane was not the sort of female to entertain an illicit affair. For no other reason could he have walked away from her earlier today. Not with desire for her pumping through him, fierce as the tide. However, she was the sort a man took to wife. Only not him. He may have put the past behind him, but he was not fool enough to marry into the Spencer clan.
Whether he wished it or not, Fiona Manchester was the sort he should wed. Theirs would be a marriage of politeness and formality—what he had claimed to want.
The question at hand, he reminded himself, was whether she could be trusted to care for Julianne. That was all that mattered. The only thing to be considered. Not his personal desires.
“Lord St. Claire, are you not enjoying yourself?” Miss Fiona Manchester asked, flicking him with her fan coyly. A forced gesture, to be certain. That she took pains to flirt with him, despite her obvious distaste, marked her every bit the social climber he first judged her.
He opened his mouth to respond, then froze at the sight of another woman, wondering if the vision was real or merely an extension of the dreams he had suffered these last nights. Garbed in the same gown of gold silk, she weaved among the throng of people, dodging the hands that tried to grasp her arm and pull her into their circle.
She walked haltingly, her neck craning as though she searched for someone. As breathtaking as the first time he clapped eyes on her, she wore the black domino again. The golden diamonds at her throat glittered in the lamplight.
Seth shook his head, telling himself she couldn’t be real. Couldn’t be here.
Still, he felt himself moving, breaking from his group, leaving the startled Miss Manchester in midsentence as he advanced on his mystery woman with steadfast purpose. The blood rushed through his veins, filling his ears with a desperate tempo to rival the beat of the orchestra. As he shoved through the crush, other men stopped to gawk and devour the sight of this lone enchantress, and he knew she was no vision, but real. Flesh and blood woman. His Aurora, set free to fly the night. Even as he told himself it was insanity to react so strongly to a woman whose face he had yet to see, whose name he had yet to speak, he moved, stalking her like a jungle cat honing in on its prey.
She would not get away this time. He would not be fool enough to let her walk away from him. Not this woman who made the blood burn in his veins, who stared at him without fear or revulsion in her gaze, but something else. Something unidentifiable, something akin to admiration. Here, he thought, was a woman he could have…perhaps even keep.
Drinking in the sight of her, he vowed to believe whatever he read in her gaze. If only for tonight. For one night he would allow himself to believe he deserved whatever she would lavish on him with her eyes, and, the devil take him, her body.
Jane felt his presence before she saw him. A heat radiated at her back and the tiny hairs at the nape of her neck tingled in familiar awareness. With a small gasp, her hand flew from the stone railing she clutched and she spun around to find herself face-to-face with Seth. He was alone. No sign of his companions. No sight of the lady he was supposed to evaluate as his bride.
She had imagined finding him ensnared in the spell of another woman. Despite deliberately wearing the gold dress and black domino again, she feared he would be too enthralled to give her notice. Relief pinched at her heart to see his dark gaze fixed on her face with single-minded intensity.
She opened her mouth to say something, to offer up some witty greeting, one of the countless quips she had heard during the years she had propped herself against ballroom walls, watching and listening to coy debutantes.
Before she could utter a syllable, he grabbed hold of her wrist and turned, pulling her away from the courtyard and down one of the many dark winding paths. He avoided the wide lamplit lane where groups and couples strolled, choosing dimmer paths where many a maid or matron had lost her virtue.
Still, Jane found she could not speak, could only bid her feet to keep up with his swift pace, could only pray her pounding heart did not burst from her chest. She had ventured out tonight to prove to herself that no one ruled her—that stealing her clothes and jewelry did not steal her spirit, her will. And, if she were perfectly honest with herself, she had come to immerse her barren heart in what it had long been denied. To finish what they had started today at Seth’s townhouse.
They rounded one bend, then another, the hedges seeming to thicken around them. Still, Seth strode ahead, his long strides so purposeful she felt certain he had a destination in mind.
His fingers slid from her wrist to her fingers, twining with them. The intimate hold sent her heart racing even harder, and she recalled the times she had stared at his hands, watched in longing as he took her sister’s lily-pale hand in his own when they walked ahead of her. How she had wanted to feel her own entwined with his. To walk through his family’s orchard with him at her side. Her chest grew tight at the feel of their palms pressed tightly together.
He stepped off the path and plunged them into the foliage. She tripped over a root. He caught her close to his hard chest, and she imagined she could feel the beat of his heart, as wild as her own, through their clothing. Her free hand came up to grasp a hard bicep and his muscles tensed, bunching beneath her touch.
In one sudden movement, he backed her against a tree, its trunk a wide wall at her back, scratching the delicate fabric of her gown.
“I will not let you go again,” his voice scraped the air, hard with resolve.
“I do not want you to,” she returned. The truth, but irrelevant. Because she would go. No matter what she wanted. She would have this time, this moment. And she would go.
She could barely make out the o
utline of him looming over her. The crowd laughed in the distance and faint applause filled the air.
Almost as if he read her mind, he vowed thickly, “It’s going to be good between us.” His hand cupped her cheek, the callused pad of his thumb tracing the seam of her lips.
She opened her mouth, but no sound emerged. She had no idea what to say at this point. A coy response felt wrong. Instead she bit the pad of his thumb, then sucked where her teeth had nipped.
He groaned. “I’ve not stopped thinking of you.”
“Me too,” she breathed, then flushed with embarrassment. “I m—mean,” she stammered, “you…I have not stopped thinking of you.” For nearly all my life.
“There is no escape this time,” he announced, his hands coming down on either side of her head, caging her in as he had done earlier today.
Her heart tripped. I don’t want to escape you. I never did. You were the one I wanted to run to.
Almost as if he heard her words, he answered the call to her parched soul, her deprived body, pressing his solid length against hers so that she felt his every angle, every hollow, right down to the hard bulge prodding her belly.
And then he was kissing her.
Her eyes drifted shut, lost to the joy of it. Bliss. Seth. The very one of whom she had spun impossible fantasies. As a girl, she convinced herself that if she wished it enough, if she hoped and prayed hard enough, he would be hers. One day it would happen. Could happen. Eight years had passed since her heart had harbored that foolish dream. Since Seth had disappeared. Since she had wed Marcus. Since she had forgotten how to dream.
But tonight, it seemed, the dream would become reality. Tonight, he would be hers. Or rather Aurora’s. For a single night, at least. It would be enough. She would make it so.
Tongue tangling with hers, his fingers slid into her hair, scattering the pins. And with those pins, her inhibitions—if any remained—fled. A lick of heat curled low in her belly, tightening and twisting until she grew wet between the legs. His hands slid lower, seizing her buttocks through the fabric of her gown.