Chapter 36
“You’re not going to come in?” Amelia gasped.
“Not tonight,” the earl said calmly as they stood on the doorstep of her brick town house. His carriage awaited him in the gas-lit, cobbled street beyond the small front garden and wrought-iron fence.
“Darling, really,” Amelia said, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her lush body against his. “Don’t be so moody.”
He unwrapped her, removing her from him. “Good night, Amelia.”
She grasped his hand, halting him as he turned to leave. “Are you going to be faithful to her?” she cried, her face white and angry in the lamplight. There was no question that she was referring to Jane.
A cruel look crossed his features, and he gripped her chin hard. “My wife has nothing to do with this.”
“No? Somehow, I doubt it! I think you have a tendre for her!”
The earl laughed, white teeth gleaming. “Don’t think to provoke me into your bed, Amelia.”
“Let me provoke you,” she said huskily, reaching to touch his flaccid penis through his trousers, rubbing it gently.
He removed her hand, ungently. “Do you ever have anything other than sex on your mind?”
“You didn’t come in last night either!”
“I’m sure that strapping twenty-year-old groom you make eyes at can accommodate you, Amelia,” the earl purred.
“Ooh!” She gasped, recoiling, yet shock and fear of discovery flared in her eyes.
He grinned. “Don’t ever underestimate me, my dear,” he said, low. “And never play me for the fool.” He turned his back on her and strode down the walk.
“You bastard!” she hissed. “How dare you insinuate such a thing!”
His laughter, soft, mocking, assured, drifted to her as he climbed into the carriage with the Drag-more crests. “Home, Eddie,” he called, not glancing back once at his furious mistress.
Tension reared itself in the earl. He sat stiffly, staring straight ahead at the opposite seat with its plush black leather upholstery, yet he saw only Jane. Jane pale, shocked, hurt. Impossibly beautiful, as fragile as an angel, as innocent. Something that felt like a knife twisted in his guts.
He did not want to hurt her.
Ever.
But she had hurt him. Had lied, deceived him, cheated him of his daughter.
She had left him too, after he had offered marriage—after he had realized he loved her.
She had never loved him, he realized now.
She had merely harbored an adolescent crush upon him, one that had passed readily enough.
Again there was the stabbing of an old, old pain.
And there was jealousy.
She only appeared innocent, and he reminded himself of this fact vigorously.
He did not like her relationship with Gordon.
Gordon was only fifty, a trim, elegant man, and maybe, once upon a time, he had been like a father to Jane.
The earl did not believe in fairy tales.
Jane was now a ravishing woman, and any man with one eye could see that, and no man could be immune to her intriguing combination of innocence and sensuality. Including Gordon.
Was he one of her lovers?
And what about Lindley? Had Lindley lied? He and Jane were awfully close, weren’t they?
The earl knew he was torturing himself, but he couldn’t help it.
When he had offered Jane marriage after discovering Nicole’s existence, he had never even dreamed it would be upon the terms she insisted on.
To the contrary—he had envisioned her in his bed, naked and wet and writhing beneath him while he slaked his endless lust for her.
He had envisioned giving her more children, beautiful blond, blue-eyed dolls.
Yet instead, he was keeping company with his oversexed mistress while Jane kept company with her own paramours.
His fist crashed down on the seat beside him. He was rigid now, seething, agonized. Damn her —he hated her!
He wanted to go back to Amelia and fuck her. Prove his manhood, prove his own disinterest in his wife. But he knew he would not, could not, knew he was only fooling himself if he told himself he did not want Jane. Oh, he wanted her, all right.
But never would he prostrate himself to her.
Never would he beg for her favors.
Never.
He lunged out of the coach when they arrived at the house on Tavistock Square. Thomas had dutifully waited up for him. “Is my wife here?” the earl asked abruptly.
“No, sir,” Thomas said.
Nick cursed and paced into his study. It was only half-past one. She was still at the restaurant, undoubtedly. He should either go to sleep or go out again. But he did neither.
He threw his jacket and tie on the sofa, where they slipped to the floor, and unbuttoned his shirt.
He paced restlessly, like a caged lion who scents the kill but is not freed to hunt it.
Tonight half a glass of whiskey sufficed, he could not contemplate more.
He put out three cigars, barely touched.
It was hot and humid this night, and his skin was damp and sticky.
He removed his shirt with a growl, a lion pricked by a thorn, and balled it, threw it aside.
And his flesh, his flesh was pulsing with anger and jealousy and unfulfilled need.
It was three-thirty before she returned.
Three-thirty.
The earl heard the long-awaited sounds of the coach, the horses, the hounds, and finally her sweet voice thanking a servant who let her in. Fists clenched, he loomed in the doorway of the library, backlit by the swelling lights from within. She jumped upon seeing him.
He stared at her rudely. Her hair, he saw, was still caught up in the chignon, not a hair out of place.
Her face was pale, eyes wide and bright, lips unswollen.
Her low-cut dress was immaculately in place, perfectly buttoned, perfectly adorned.
He found his gaze lingering upon her breasts and he imagined them filling his hands.
When he jerked his eyes back to hers, he saw that color had crept along her cheekbones.
“Where the hell have you been?” he demanded harshly.
She started, then her blue eyes flashed. “That, my lord, is none of your affair!” She sneered his title.
“Oh, it’s my affair all right,” he said softly, dangerously, stepping closer to her. She backed off a step. “Where in hell have you been!”
“Where have you been?” She lifted a pale eyebrow regally.
He grabbed her before she could dodge him, catching her small wrist, so she could not flee. “Answer me, Jane.” His tone was ominous.
“I was with Robert Gordon, as you well know!”
“Where?” he said with a snarl.
“It’s none of your concern!” She tried to free her hand and failed.
“As your husband, every goddamn breath you take is my concern.”
“We have an agreement,” she cried. “Or have you forgotten?”
“Forgotten?” he purred, pulling her closer. She gasped when he drew her so close their breaths mingled, her skirts touching his knees. “How could I ever forget?”
Just for an instant, Jane couldn’t reply.
His face was so close. Dark, deadly, his eyes silver with fury and hot, glittering passion, his mouth so sensually curved, parted, and so near hers.
She could even feel the heat of his slickly damp, bared torso.
He wanted her, she knew it. He was going to kiss her.
Her heart was thumping its way right out of her breast.
“I could never forget.”
His words scorched their way right to her heart. She tried to twist free, failing. “Obviously you haven’t forgotten,” she cried. “Obviously you are making good use of our ‘agreement.’” Images of Amelia rose to torment her further.
“Very good use,” the earl agreed.
“Let me go!”
“Is he good?” the earl asked cruelly. “Does he please you, Jane? Can an old man like that even give you orgasms?”
Jane gasped, recoiling.
He yanked her hard to him, wrapped one steel arm around her waist, crushed her breasts to his naked, wet chest, and kissed her brutally.
Jane felt panic on the heels of her shock.
He was all steel strength, and he was so dark and angry, that her struggle was futile unless he chose to release her.
Yet even as her mind grappled with panic, the feel of his damp skin on her partly bared breasts caused her nipples to harden with agony, caused shafts of need deep within her.
Then he pulled his mouth away from hers.
“You would kiss him but not me, your husband?”
Jane was furious. She had had enough. And that he would think she and Robert lovers was unbelievable. Yet she had only to recall him and Amelia to know she would not deny it. “Let me go,” she said with forced calm.
“I don’t think so.”
As she stood imprisoned in his embrace, her body hot and pulsing in response to him, her control snapped. “Perchance,” she said too sweetly, “Amelia doesn’t satisfy you?”
He froze.
“If she did,” she cried, “you would not have so much energy left over to torment me with! Or is it just your style to leap from her bed to mine? Is this perhaps the new fashion? Is it the fashion nowadays to parade one’s mistress in public before one’s wife—within days of the wedding?”
In that instant his grip tightened, and she saw both pain and anger wrenching on his face. She stood very still, her heart slamming; and he released her abruptly.
Jane backed away, breathing hard. The earl slumped against the wall, a mocking smile distorting his beautiful mouth. “Go back to your lovers, Jane,” he said wearily. “I don’t want you.”
As if doused with water, the fires of her rage dimmed and died.
As her pulse slowed from its mad gallop, her eyes never left him.
With her heart, she wanted to tell him the truth; with her heart, she wanted to go to him, touch his brow, smooth the pain away, and somehow take away what had been said and start over.
But she responded with her mind and with her pride.
Tears welling, lips pursed, she backed away, found the stairs, and fled up them into the refuge of her room.