Chapter 23
The earl awoke with a feeling of deep, deep satisfaction.
Surprisingly, despite the huge quantity of alcohol he’d consumed the night before, he had only a minor headache.
Smiling, he remembered the dream—making frantic love to Jane.
His smile disappeared. The pain began then, incipient, raw, from knowing he was a degenerate even in his subconscious.
He tried telling himself it had only been a dream, and then someone soft and warm snuggled against his side.
Nick’s eyes flew open.
He stared aghast at Jane.
Jane, sleeping in his bed.
With dawning horror, he jerked upright, the sheet falling from the both of them.
The first thing he saw was her long, lovely naked legs—her nightgown was twisted up around her thighs, revealing the bottom of one buttock.
Then he saw the bed—the splotch of blood on the pristine white sheets.
He looked down at himself and saw that his member was stained as well.
With an agonized cry, he shoved her to her back and saw the blood between her thighs.
“Ahh, God!” he cried. “What have I done?”
Jane blinked at him sleepily.
He was standing, naked, panting. He looked at Jane and she shrank against the headboard wide-eyed now.
He tried to recall exactly how it had happened.
He remembered getting drunk in the library.
He remembered the dream. He remembered coming to bed alone—or had he been so drunk he did not remember abducting her?
He turned his back to her, shoulders drooping with defeat.
He saw his own ravaged face in the mirror. “God, what have I done?”
She touched him.
He jumped.
She was an angel in her white nightgown and her splendid platinum hair. His gaze, horrified, riveted upon her bodice. It was ripped from the neck to the waist. Had he raped her?
“It’s all right,” she told him, big blue eyes wide and earnest. “I wanted to be with you.” She smiled tremulously.
“You are a fool,” he cried. “And I am perverted, sick, sick.” Bluntly he said, “I don’t remember what happened. Did I rape you?”
“No!” Her smile was at first hesitant, then it began to shine. “It was wonderful!”
He stepped back, as if struck. “Did I abduct you?”
She stared. Then, in a small voice: “No.”
“I don’t understand.”
She faltered. “You were sleeping. I only wanted to comfort you, hold you. But you were so beautiful, I—” Seeing his black expression, she froze.
“I was sleeping? What are you saying?” he roared.
“I didn’t think when I climbed into bed. I just wanted to hold you, and when you started kissing me, I … I … couldn’t stop …”
Relief was instant, flooding him. He hadn’t raped her, he hadn’t abducted her. Then the fury came. “You got into bed with me? While I was sleeping? And you let me make love to you? Damn you! Damn you!” he roared.
She flinched as if struck, then backed away. Tears filled her eyes.
“Ahh, shit,” Nick said, turning away, leaning on the bureau. He had to think—he couldn’t think. And then he heard someone in the hall. He whirled. He had to protect Jane’s reputation at all costs.
“Quick! Get into your robe! Don’t make a sound!”
He sent the maid off on a false errand, then rushed back into the room.
He whipped the bloody sheet off the bed, balling it up.
He would have to rinse it immediately, then spill red wine upon it.
“You get back to your room,” he ordered Jane in a deadly voice.
“And make sure no one sees you leaving this wing. Do you understand?”
She nodded, her face crumbling, a child on the verge of tears.
“And you await my summons there,” he said with a snarl.
The earl was sick.
It didn’t matter that she had come to him, although he thanked the God he did not believe in that he had not abducted her.
What was done was irreversible. He had ruined her.
He almost wanted to kill Jane. She was utterly reckless, impulsive, thoughtless!
So much for propriety, he thought savagely.
She did not have a proper bone in her body!
He recalled, too perfectly now, her passion as she writhed beneath him. No, she had not a proper bone in her entire body!
Nor did he. For with the memory came hot desire. He hated himself for wanting her again.
He could never find her a husband now. He would not even consider it. His own fate had been sealed, as had hers. He would, of course, do his duty and marry her.
You are kind and good.
He furiously shoved the echo of her words away.
He paced his sitting room. Anger was in every taut stride. He did not want to marry. He did not want a wife. Especially he did not want Jane as a wife.
Again, he thought of her uninhibited passion. When his body started to respond, he pushed the thoughts away. This was no reason for marriage. He could fuck anytime, anywhere. Damn her!
He sank onto the settee. And he felt it then—the fear.
For some unfathomable reason, Jane imagined herself in love with him.
She had a schoolgirl’s crush. He knew well enough that soon this would disappear.
Reality would replace fantasy. She would see him as he was, the way Patricia had seen him.
Patricia had not even known of Chavez, yet she had thought him uncouth and perverted in his appetites.
Soon Jane would too. She would hate him …
The Earl of Dragmore was afraid.
Abruptly he stood. What did it matter what she thought?
He was older, wiser. She would be his wife, bear his children, obey him.
If she hated him, it did not matter. If he repulsed her, it did not matter.
He was not the same man he had been five years ago.
He had since grown a thick, impenetrable skin.
He could handle seeing her eyes, now filled with adoration, glazed with disgust. Besides, there was no choice. They were getting married.
Yet the fear was there, cloying.
He knew that if he loved her, she would hurt him.
The earl was uneasy, standing near the door, now closed, just within Jane’s bedroom. Jane was nervous too. She stood anxiously by the bed, hands clasped, her eyes luminous upon him. “I’m sorry!” she blurted before he could speak.
He ignored her. “We are getting married.”
Jane gasped.
“Hopefully,” he continued, his tone impassive, “you are not pregnant. We will marry as soon as decorum allows, so as not to seem hasty.”
Jane was trembling, and a smile transformed her face. Her eyes shone. She loved him—and now she was going to become his wife! None of her other dreams mattered anymore, only this, her marriage to the earl and the life they would share. Her smile broadened. Did this mean he loved her?
His face grew dark. His tone was distinctly dangerous. “You look pleased.”
“Oh, I am,” Jane cried.
He reached her in a stride and grabbed her. Jane cried out. “Was this a seduction, then? Are you nothing more than some scheming little fortune hunter? Did you plan all of this, right down to the final act where I took your damn virginity? You were a virgin—were you not?”
He was shaking her, hurting her. Jane’s eyes teared, but from the hurt in her heart, not his hands upon her flesh. “No, no.”
He stared at her, trying to assess the truth.
“I love you,” she told him. “That’s why I want to be your wife.”
He laughed, tossed her away. “Love?” He snarled. “You do not know the meaning of the word. Love does not exist, except for fools. What you feel is a child’s adolescent infatuation and, to be crude, pure lust.”
She felt as if her world were crumbling, brick by brick, beneath her very feet. “It’s not true.”
“No?” he taunted. “You would tell me about love, about lust, about men and women?”
She hugged herself. “Why are you doing this?” she whispered. “Why do you want to hurt me?”
“Why do you think?” he shouted. “Goddamn you, did I ask for a ward? I already have a son, I do not need another child to look after! Did I appear to be in need of a wife? Did I?” He roared.
Tears crept down her cheeks. “You don’t want to get married, do you?”
He laughed caustically. “Top of the class, Jane.”
She turned away, her heart breaking. “You don’t love me.”
He didn’t answer, and it was answer enough.
She looked at him through thick tears, her vision blurred. He was dark and hard and angry. “Why are you marrying me?”
“Duty. One thing I have always done is my duty.”
“You hate me.” She gasped, stunned.
He stared, then abruptly turned and slammed out of the room. The walls shook.
Jane sank to the floor, tears pouring from her eyes. He was marrying her because of duty and honor and other such nonsense. He did not love her, not even close. He hated her. She had seen it in his eyes.
That night she left him.
The earl found the note the next day when Jane did not appear for dinner and the maid said her bed had not been slept in. It was brief and to the point and emotionless:
Dear Nicholas,
I do not want to marry either. I told you I am going to be an actress.
I will be eighteen in October, and I hope you realize that I am quite old enough to take care of myself.
I know you can find me if you choose, so I will not hide my whereabouts from you.
I will be with my dear old friend Robert Gordon, the manager of the Lyceum.
Please realize that this is the best solution for the both of us.
Jane
His vision was swimming.
Nick was shocked to realize he had dampness on his cheeks.
He crumbled the letter, crushing it.
And the pain was unbearable.
She had left him.
Jane had run away rather than marry him. He had known all along that it would come to this. When given the choice, she had chosen what all women would choose—not to spend a lifetime with him.
He remembered everything then, and the memories were torture.
The first time he had seen Jane, with her aunt Matilda.
Her trepidation had been vast, while she was sweet and innocent, like an angel, her eyes big and blue as she stared at him.
He saw her as she played with Chad, he saw her white-faced in stunned surprise as she fell from the old nag in Regents Park.
He saw her in glorious fury as she told the Duchess of Lancaster that she was wicked and depraved.
He recalled how she had laughed and flirted with Lindley.
He recalled how she smiled at him. And he recalled the night before last, now, more clearly than ever before.
Her frantic response to him, her body arching and twisting beneath his, her hands claws upon his back.
He still wore her marks. Her heat, her sweetness.
Mostly he recalled last night, his cruelty and her stricken, hurt expression, the tears welling and slowly falling.
He knew then that it was too late. What he had fought from the beginning had happened. He loved her. He loved her as he had never loved anyone before, not even Patricia. But it did not matter.
She had run away from him. She did not want him.
Hadn’t he known all along that this would happen?
Jane had left him. It was over.
He closed his eyes. The pain was unbearable.