Chapter 18
Chapter 18
Jane woke up later than usual the next day, aware that an unnatural silence pervaded the house. Nine mornings out of ten Miranda awakened her with her pitiful practicing on the pianoforte, or Mama and Caroline would be arguing in the hall about the inappropriate state of Caroline’s attire.
“They have all gone to Belshire Hall in the country, Lady Jane,” the head parlormaid informed her after Jane had hastily dressed to investigate. “Except for Lord Tarleton, who left early for a horse race with your uncle, Sir Giles. The two gentlemen said they would be home in time for supper.”
“My own family left me here without asking if I wished to go?” Jane said in disbelief.
“Lady Belshire’s cousin has apparently taken sick, and she thought it was unnecessary for you to come along,” the maid replied, her eyes lowered as if she didn’t believe the story any more than Jane did.
“I don’t suppose any of them bothered to leave me a personal message,” Jane said in irritation as she turned away.
It seemed all very mysterious and suspicious, and her sense of unease was only confirmed when, on instinct, she ran into Caroline’s room and found a hastily scribbled note stuffed under the ink blotter on the desk.
And then there was a huge, ugly smear on the paper as if Caroline had been forced to hide it from whoever had entered the room.
“How peculiar,” she said to herself, gooseflesh rising on her forearms. “ ‘The lion has chosen his mate.’ Who—?”
She jumped as the footman knocked loudly at the door. “The marquess is here, Lady Jane. He has insisted I summon you without delay.”
“Summon me? Summon me for what?”
“I didn’t think to ask, my lady.”
“I wonder—you don’t think anything was wrong?”
Without waiting for an answer she hurried downstairs to the drawing room to find Grayson standing at the window, dressed in an elegantly tailored royal blue morning coat and snug nankeen trousers, his riding crop tapping against one iron-hard thigh. Tapping, she thought fleetingly, like the tail of an animal about to strike in anger.
“Well,” she said, so glad to see him that she started to laugh, “at least you haven’t abandoned me. My entire family has gone a little mad. It seems some cousin of mine has taken ill and my parents are gone on a mission of mercy to the country—”
Then he turned, and her breath caught in her throat. No man had the right to look so sinfully handsome this early in the day.
Her laughter faded as their eyes met, and for the second time that morning a prickle of foreboding raised goosebumps on her arms. She didn’t remember ever seeing that dark regard on his face before.
“Did you meet with Heath?” she asked, her heart thumping in her breast.
“Yes.”
“Oh.” Her legs felt unsteady as she searched his face for a clue to her fate.
“I’m afraid it is not good news, Jane,” he said heavily.
“No?”
“It seems your hopes of marrying Nigel must be forsaken. He does indeed appear to have run away.”
“To where?”
“Does it matter?”
She wondered if he could hear the erratic pounding of her heart. “I suppose not.”
“I say good riddance to him.”
How aloof his gaze had become. Or was she imagining things? “Yes.”
“You will not forgive him.”
“I—”
“It would be best to forget him, Jane.”
“But—” How much did he know? She was confused by his behavior. Did it embarrass him to break this news?
“He does not matter anymore.” He held out his hand, beckoning her. “Does he?”
A disconcerting flush of heat went through her. “No,” she said, staring at him, wondering if it could possibly be this easy. Was there the wildest chance he would not uncover the truth, or that he knew and they could continue to pretend that he didn’t? That he was content to say Nigel is gone, life must go on, and you, Jane, are part of my life?
“Now,” he said in a low, even tone, “fetch your pelisse. We have an appointment.”
Whatever shadowy emotion had darkened his gaze was gone before she could interpret it. There was a subtle difference in his manner toward her. Had Heath learned more than Grayson would tell? No. Nobody knew of Esther’s Hampshire home. And if Grayson knew, he would not be able to control his anger. Did he feel guilty about what they had done last night? Her blood quickened at the memory even as she wondered if his opinion of her had been lowered.
Tell him everything. Tell him the entire truth.
He does not matter anymore. . . .
She shook her head. “What appointment? I told you I was supposed to meet Cecily—”
“Your carriage is waiting, my lord,” the footman said from the door.
“Thank you,” Grayson murmured. “Bring Lady Jane a light cloak and meet us outside.”
A few moments later Jane found herself suddenly ushered rather ungently into the hall and out the front door. “Grayson, kindly explain what you are doing.”
“Get in the carriage, Jane. I will explain in due time.” But he remained infuriatingly silent as the vehicle set off through the busy thoroughfares toward the shopping district of Bond Street. She was afraid to speculate on his intentions, or what this brooding mood of his meant. Clearly he had something on his mind. Perhaps it had nothing to do with her at all.
She knew it did.
“At least tell me where we are going.”
His gaze traveled over her briefly, bringing a blush of heat to her face. “To the modiste Madame Devine.”
“Devine—but she is the dressmaker for the demimonde, for Cyprians and dancers.”
He closed his eyes, his relaxed pose not deceiving her at all. “Her gowns are exquisite.”
Jane frowned. “I know. Cecily’s fiancé requested a few scandalous pieces for her trousseau, which reminds me. I should at least inform her we aren’t meeting today.”
The carriage passed an art gallery and pulled up before a fashionable Georgian-style brown brick shop, where a pair of footmen waited to escort customers inside the tiny candlelit interior. The small crowd of shoppers on the pavement watched them in curious silence. Wherever he went, Sedgecroft was certain to spark interest.
“Cecily will not be missing you,” Grayson said as he guided her past the front counter toward a concealed side staircase. “I took the liberty of notifying her you would be unavailable. Today and in the near future.”
“You did what?” She was certain she had misunderstood what he’d said.
He pulled her up the stairs. “Cecily’s friend, this Armhurst character, is not a suitable companion for you. And, Jane, I meant to ask you something last night,” he added as if it were an afterthought. “I suppose this is as private a place as any.”
Her temples began to throb. What was wrong? Something. Something different. Her family had deserted her, leaving her with this outrageous rogue, who might on the surface act like his usual arrogant self, but there was a change, and she still had to tell him—
“Ask me what?” she whispered, aware of movement in the hall above them.
“To be my mistress.” He glanced around in anticipation. “Ah, there is Madame Devine now. I have requested our own private fitting room.”
Her throat went dry, and her ability to think faltered for several moments. His mistress. The two words chilled her. This time there was no misunderstanding what he’d said. So this was what he had been leading up to all along. How stupid, how blind she had been to believe his pretense of kindness and responsibility. While she was falling in love with him, he had been planning the whole time to do what he did so well.
The ultimate seduction.
Well, had he ever claimed to be a saint?
She had blithely followed the same path as his other women. Step by step. No one had forced her.
He smiled down at her, obviously uncaring that he was breaking her heart with his indecent offer. “Darling, don’t look so surprised. It’s unlikely that a proper marriage proposal will ever come your way again. At least as my mistress your financial needs, as well as those of whatever children you give me, will be taken care of for life.”
“Children?” she said numbly.
He shrugged. “Mating as often as we will do, children are an inevitable part of a sexual relationship. I have always wanted a large family.”
“Have you?”
“A dozen or so of little Boscastle brats, the start of my own dynasty.”
“Far be it from me to stand in the way of your breeding ambitions.”
“Let’s discuss it in comfort, shall we?”
She stared up at him as if he had just revealed he was the devil, and before she could reply to his incredible gall, he had turned to climb the remaining stairs, whistling as if he did not have a worry in the world.
“Well, come along,” he added cheerfully over his shoulder. “I won’t keep you in my bed every night. There will be times when you’ll need to be well dressed to entertain. No more pigeon gray for my little dove.”
Her limbs leaden, she followed him into a small chamber furnished with a dressing screen, two comfortable armchairs, a looking glass, and a rosewood table on which sat a crystal decanter of sherry and two glasses alongside a stack of pattern books.
His mistress.
One of the outrageous women who had attended her sabotaged wedding.
He meant for her to become another Helene or Mrs. Parks. A woman he visited for sexual pleasure. A woman he paid to see in private. A partner he would discard when his interest in her waned.
Jane wanted to push him down the stairs and jump on his offer.
A pair of seamstresses bustled her behind the screen and efficiently stripped her to take her measurements while Grayson poured their sherry and explained to the trim, bespectacled Madame Devine and her assistant exactly what he wanted from the samples she brought him.
“Not that.” His low, arrogant laugh made Jane’s blood boil. “Too many buttons. I’m a man who prefers to have a woman in bed with a minimum of fuss.”
Madame Devine gave a girlish giggle. “Mais oui, my lord. I understand. These undergarments, perhaps . . . ?”
“No. The lady doesn’t need her bosom enhanced. Nature has endowed her with all I can handle.”
“Ah. Well, then, this pink satin?”
“Oh, yes. And that black lace, too.”
Madame Devine’s assistant sighed. “Very, very nice together, under a ball dress.”
“What dress?” he murmured. “I thought she could wear them alone.”
The woman blushed. “These stays with the ribbon knots, my lord?”
“Why bother? I prefer the natural feel of a female’s flesh.”
At that the assistant rose to open a window; the atmosphere had grown so steamy that Madame’s glasses had fogged over. This was a man on a very wicked mission indeed.
Jane stuck her head around the screen to glare at him. “I think that will be quite enough of your nonsense, Sedgecroft.”
“Jane, you are surely not going to refuse me the indulgence of spending a fortune on you?” he said placidly.
She was aware that the ears of the seamstresses pricked to attention at this question. She replied, “Grayson, I am not a complete idiot. You may indulge me until you are bankrupt.” She paused. “But I am not promising anything in return.”
He fixed her with an infuriating smile. “Famous last words, my dear. I shall have as much fun taking those things off you as I will buying them. Now let me see what you have in the sheerest silk,” he instructed the modiste, settling back in his chair. “Something I can see through. Yes, those drawers with the slit are nice.”
Jane’s cheeks flamed, and her embarrassed gaze met the envious eyes of the two seamstresses in the mirror. He was a rogue to the marrow.
She told him as much when the four flustered women finally left them alone to discuss the details of her wardrobe. “Are you quite mad?” she demanded, taking the sherry he handed her with an innocent smile.
“I intend to lavish gifts on my mistress,” he said in an injured voice. “Is anything wrong with that?”
“Only that I have not agreed to any of this,” she said between her teeth. “My father will be livid.”
He examined the glass in his hand. “Sweetheart,” he said gently, “your father is a man of the world. He understands.”
“Why in heaven’s name would you say such a thing?”
“Because he and I talked at length last night about your future,” he replied with a shake of his head. “Yes, at first he resisted, but logic won out.”
“I do not believe you. My father would die of shame if he thought I—”
“Your family is dying of shame, darling. One must face facts. Your marriageable days are over.”
“They are not.”
“They most certainly are,” he insisted. “No one is marrying my mistress.”
“I will not agree.”
“Of course you will.” He gave her a knowing look. “Remember last night? I carried you halfway to heaven already. A person in your position must be practical. This is the most sensible solution to your dilemma.”
She took another burning swallow of the sherry, tempted to hit him over the head with the whole bottle. Coughing, she sputtered, “I don’t want to be a kept woman.”
He reacted with an indulgent smile. “What do you want?”
“I want . . . well, I suppose I want love.”
“Love?” He tsked in amusement. “Ask me for a chest of diamonds. Or a palatial manor. A shipload of silk.”
“You needn’t make it sound like an obscenity.” She came to her feet, the potent sherry, his offer, making her feel light-headed. “Some people do fall in love, Grayson.”
“Do they?” He stood to tower over her, his eyes sparkling. “Ah, I had forgotten how deeply you loved Nigel. I trust your attachment to him will dwindle over time.”
She took an involuntary step back. “I told you last night that I never loved him.”
“Then that leaves room for me in your affection, doesn’t it?” he asked without hesitating.
She stared at him, her stomach clenching at the cool mockery in his voice. “I feel unwell all of a sudden. Would you please take me home?”
His blue eyes reminded her of storm clouds, darkness brewing in their depths. “Of course, Jane. Pleasing and protecting you are part of our bargain.”
Heath raised his brow when Grayson recounted the details of his day in the privacy of his study. “All in all, I’d say it went rather well.”
“I cannot believe you took her to Devine’s. In broad daylight. What of her reputation?”
Grayson stared at him, shrugging off a faint sense of guilt. “What of it? It was my original goal to protect Jane from the damage Nigel’s fictitious desertion had done. But she did not care a fig about her name when she constructed her scheme.”
“But the ton—”
“I have never cared what the ton thought,” Grayson interjected. “Anyway, all’s well that ends well. Once we are married, the gossip will stop. It’s amazing how holy wedlock can restore honor.”
Heath managed a grim smile. “Did it ever occur to you that something might go amiss with this line of reasoning?”
Grayson glanced through the stack of letters on his desk, dismissing his brother’s warning. “I have a legal contract with her father’s signature to marry her. Will Jane be angry? Perhaps. But in the end she will realize that she has no choice. I do believe she loves me.”
Heath gave a worried sigh. “Well, I certainly hope you know what you’re doing. And that nothing goes wrong in this game.”
“It won’t.” Grayson looked up, meeting his brother’s concerned look. “As you said, it is a game, and I will not take it too far. A few days at the most. What could possibly go wrong?”
“Tell him I’ve taken desperately ill,” Jane whispered in her bedroom to Simon three hours later. “Tell him I have a raging fever. The plague. Malaria. Cholera. Smallpox.”
Simon felt her forehead in concern. “I did tell him. He sent Weed to his physician for advice. He’s been waiting here all evening.”
“All evening?” A note of panic crept into her voice. “Grayson has been in our house that long?”
“He was playing billiards with Uncle Giles. The man is determined to have you.” He hesitated, looking completely at a loss. “What have you done, Jane? I know you’re in dire trouble somehow.”
She covered her face in her hands. “Don’t ask me. I can’t tell you. I cannot explain. It’s such a hideous mess, and I caused it all myself.”
“Then you can hardly expect me to help,” he said in bewilderment.
“There’s nothing you can do anyway,” she muttered.
“Are you certain? Jane, you—you aren’t with child?”
“Oh, Simon.”
“Well. It’s not that bad then, is it?” he asked in a hopeful voice.
“I have dug my own grave,” she said. “It is beyond bad.”
“Sedgecroft is a powerful man. Perhaps he has a solution.”
“Don’t you understand anything? It is Sedgecroft who is my problem. He wants me to be his mistress. Yes, Simon, he asked me this afternoon.”
He glanced down at the floor, a flush of anger suffusing his face. “I suppose this is all Nigel’s fault,” he said awkwardly. “I could kill the fool for this. What are we going to do?”
What Jane wanted to do was hide under the covers and pretend she had never started this whole debacle. “You’re my brother,” she said in desperation. “You know what Papa would do in your place. Make him leave.”
For a moment Simon looked so appalled at the prospect of confronting a personage like Sedgecroft that Jane might have laughed. Had she not wanted to die.
Then Simon’s gaze slid away from hers, and she knew she had lost her last defender. “That’s the problem,” he said, swallowing hard. “As much as I’d like to plant the marquess a facer, Papa left me explicit instructions that I was not to interfere in this courtship. Strange, now that I think of it.”
“Courtship?” Jane cried. “This is not a courtship. It is Wellington taking Toulouse, the French peasants storming the Bastille, the . . .” The color drained from her face. “Do you mean to say that Papa has no objection to my becoming Sedgecroft’s mistress?”
“Ah,” said a deep voice from the doorway. “Our patient is well enough to argue. There is hope for her then.”
Jane shrank beneath the covers even as that velvet baritone seemed to penetrate into her bones. “Grayson, this is most unseemly. What are you doing in my room?”
He came up to the side of the bed, his masculine face a mask of oversolicitous concern. “Simon had been gone so long, I began to fear you’d taken a turn for the worse. I must say you look better than I expected, Jane.”
“I thought so, too,” Simon said, throwing another clod of dirt on Jane’s self-dug grave. “In fact, I never would have believed there was a thing wrong—” His voice cracked at the frown she shot him. “Except for the fever, of course.”
“Let me check.” Grayson leaned down and pressed his cool hand to Jane’s forehead, his blue eyes boring into hers. “Oh, dear.”
She felt a traitorous glow of pleasure at his familiar touch. “ ‘Oh, dear’ what?” she asked suspiciously.
“You are rather warm.” He leaned down a little lower, his voice a teasing murmur. “Is it really the fever, or are you thinking about what we did last night?”
“Go away,” she whispered. “My brother is watching.”
“Shall I ask him to leave?” he whispered back.
“You’re the one who should leave,” she managed to choke out. “Simon?”
Simon cleared his throat. “What did your physician say about her condition, Sedgecroft?”
“Well, without a complete examination, his best advice was either a bloodletting or a holiday by the sea.”
“I am not submitting to a bloodletting,” Jane said with a shiver of repugnance.
Grayson straightened, his gaze moving over her huddled form. “And so I told him. Which is why I have made arrangements for a stay at my villa in Brighton. We leave first thing in the morning.”
“Well,” Simon said, missing his sister’s frantic looks. “There’s nothing like the sea air to revive one’s spirits.”
“Except that we are going to meet the family at Belshire Hall,” Jane said in a shrill voice. “An unplanned holiday really is tempting but impractical.”
Grayson stared down at her, his eyes glittering with unholy determination. “Where your health is concerned, Jane,” he said in dulcet tones underlaid with iron, “we will not take risks. I insist you stay at the seaside. I refuse to allow you to go to the country.”
“Good for you,” Simon said; he was obviously of the mind that peace should be had at any price. “She never listens to my advice.”
Jane sat up slowly, her gaze locked with Grayson’s. “Are you going to force me?”
His lips curled into a thin smile. “If it comes to that. I have promised your father that I would protect you in his place. I would be remiss in my duty if I did not take this illness of yours seriously.”
“I suddenly feel much better,” she said with enforced heartiness.
He shook his head. “The strain of what you have suffered recently has finally come home, Jane. Perhaps it is not good to stay in London.”
“Do you suggest I go into hiding?”
“We cannot have you languishing in bed to grow plump, my little pigeon.”
“I do not want to go,” she said, biting off each word.
“You need a holiday, Jane. I shall push you along the promenade in a bath chair with all the other hypochondriacs.”
“Talk about a tempting offer.”
“A donkey ride then.”
“I know who the donkey will be.”
He smiled. “You might enjoy a scrubbing down with the local seaweed.”
“I might enjoy strangling you with it.”
“I shall have a maid help you pack,” Grayson said in a quiet voice, his stare challenging.
She stared back at him and wondered whether the first woman who had fallen victim to the Boscastle Blues felt as she did now. For while she was in shock over what he had proposed, in her heart of hearts she wished to go wherever the gorgeous devil beckoned. She wanted to be in his arms, to give herself to him, to be the woman he desired. Foolishly she had fallen in love with the illusion of a protector.
“Your offer is more then generous, Grayson,” she said in one last attempt to resist him. “But I can hardly go off on a holiday with you alone.”
He raised his heavy eyebrows in surprise. “Of course not. Uncle Giles and Simon will be there for the sake of decency.”
There was a pause, his diabolical smile informing her that decency was the last thing on his mind.
So, everything had changed between them. He had planned this down to the last disgraceful detail. A calculated coolness had come over him, a detachment that signaled danger. Yes, he was as charming and attentive as ever, but beneath those virtues he displayed the cunning of a . . . a jungle animal waiting for just the right moment to attack.
Had she imagined all that gentleness, the good-natured instincts that made him so irresistible to a woman? Or was her own guilty conscience muddling her ability to see? Never in her wildest imaginings had Jane envisioned herself the mistress of a rogue. Her life had taken an appalling detour off the road of decency, and it would be a dark, hard journey back. Perhaps an impossible one. Perhaps she would even enjoy it.
“Really,” she said, with more courage this time, “it isn’t possible, or proper. A woman alone with three men, even if two of them are her family.”
His smile patronized her, made her suspect he’d moved two steps ahead in their game. “Jane, you know me better than that. Naturally I have asked Chloe to accompany us.”
“And she agreed?”
“Yes,” he said.
But, he thought cynically, only after two hours of threatening and tears, followed by Chloe concluding that her presence at Brighton might be the only consolation in Jane’s devastating fate: a Boscastle seduction. Not that Chloe or anyone else would interfere in the lesson he intended to teach his darling deceiver. Grayson was merely setting the stage with the appropriate props. Oh, how he was looking forward to this holiday.
“Of course Chloe agreed,” he said. “She will come to enjoy your company as I do.” He turned back to the door, the matter clearly settled in his mind. “It works out quite well, really,” he added offhandedly. “This way I can keep my eye on both of you.”
“You mean keep us both under your thumb, don’t you?” Jane called out to his retreating figure.