The Passionate Love of a Rake

Another round of laughter, then the women began to rise, preparing to return to the ball.

“That will do, Gail,” Jane dismissed the maid, rising too, eager to accompany the women rather than walk alone. “Thank you,” she said in apology for her haste to the maid’s lowered head as the woman bobbed a curtsy. Then Jane turned and followed the other women from the room, two steps behind.

“I know if I had captured his attention, I would not have lost it for the world, and your Charles would do nothing even if you succumbed to Lord Barrington’s attentions. All the men are afraid of him. Rumour has it he killed someone,” the first woman confided to her friend, with a tap of her fan on her companion’s arm.

The third woman leaned closer, whispering conspiratorially, “I heard he currently favours Lady Baxter. He has been following her for nights.”

At the foot of the stairs, Jane left their trail to re-enter the ballroom via the route she’d used to leave it. A few moments later, she was weaving through the crush and glancing about, looking for Violet. When Jane reached the front of the crowd, her eyes scanned the dancers and the people at the edge watching. She did not spot Violet. Instead, her gaze struck the tall man who she’d sought to avoid before confronting Joshua. He leaned forward to speak into the ear of his partner, and his hair fell across his brow. The action was so familiar.

Robert.

Yet the hungry look he bestowed on the slim blonde as his head rose was foreign. His hand slipped from her waist to discreetly brush the curve of her breast.

He was so familiar, and yet, in other ways, it was like looking at a stranger.

“You set your mark high, Jane, if you aim for the Earl of Barrington as your first conquest.”

Jane’s cheeks heated with embarrassment as she spun about and faced Violet.

“I was not … ” Jane began then realised her denial probably made her appear guilty and halted. “I was looking for you.”

“While enjoying the view?” Violet’s eyebrows lifted as she laughed.

Despite their friendship, Jane had not shared her current, or former, woes. She did not wish to burden Violet with her problems. No one in the ton was aware of the history between the Dowager Duchess of Sutton and the Earl of Barrington, and it was far better left that way. What little had passed between them had been long ago, and only Robert’s younger brother was left to comment on their friendship. Their parents were long deceased, and Edward, Robert’s brother, had known nothing of their short affair.

“Jane, I have never seen you look so intently at a man before,” Violet said, her eyes turning to Robert. “But heavens, do not look now, for I think the feeling is mutual.”

Instinctively, Jane’s gaze swung back and met his. It was locked on her, reaching through the scores of dancers, capturing her in a steady observation which seemed to question her existence.

“I said, do not look,” Violet whispered in Jane’s ear as Jane found herself transfixed.

He was so astonishingly handsome. It was in the strong line of his jaw, the curve of his brow and his nose. He made her knees feel weak just as he’d done when she was younger. At fifteen, she’d followed him as though he was the sun to her flowering womanhood, but she had not realised his full potential then. Now, it was blatant.

She could not tell what he thought of her. There was no hint of emotion in the dark eyes holding hers. His face was blank and unsmiling, yet his gaze did not leave hers as he followed the steps of the dance, crossing with his partner.

“My, my,” Violet whispered. “There is quite a spark between the two of you, isn’t there?”

Jane tore her gaze away and looked at Violet. “Do not be ridiculous. He is merely staring because I am the only woman in the room wearing black. He probably thinks me improper.”

“The Earl of Barrington?” A short bark of laughter left Violet’s throat. “He is not shockable. He is scandalous. A titled gentleman can get away with murder, and he often does.” Violet’s brows lifted again, and Jane understood the implication. After all, she had read the frequent rumours of illicit affairs and forbidden duels which constantly surrounded him.

Remembering Joshua’s earlier threat though, the thought of a gentleman being beyond the law was no comfort.

With his usual skill for timely appearance, she saw Joshua in the crowd behind Violet. He stood in the corner, arms folded over his chest, observing Jane with a scowl.

Wicked, indecent ideas began forming in Jane’s head. Joshua would hate it if she took a rake like Robert to her bed, and she would so love to rub it in Joshua’s face and prove his threats could not restrain her.

“Please, tell me you are not contemplating it?” Violet whispered, her voice dropping to a shocked tone. “I know he is rumoured to be quite brilliant in bed, but he is not a man to toy with. He has a reputation for being callous. I prefer a man who will at least pretend to pamper me a little, like Sparks. Your Earl goes out with an aim for seduction, takes what he wishes and walks away.”

“He is hardly my Earl, Violet. All I have done is look at him, and all he has done is look at me.”

Jane glanced back at the dancers and found the man in question still looking.

He was watching her intently with complete disregard for his dancing partner who, a moment before, had held all his attention. His actions certainly bore out Violet’s words.

Yet the Robert of old had been a kind and tender-hearted youth. Surely he could not be so changed? If she were to take up with anyone, Robert would be her obvious choice. Despite Violet’s warning, Jane still felt she could trust him. But his fixed stare was predatory. It stole her breath away and sent her heart kicking into a sharp beat.

“I think he is more than looking, Jane. He is busy eyeing up his next course. And you, my dear, should armour yourself, for if I am not mistaken, that man shall soon be on the prowl and at your door.”

Violet’s words should have scared Jane, but instead, she felt an unfamiliar stir of excitement and expectation.

“Come, I am of a mind to save you. Let us seek a glass of punch.”

Jane complied with Violet’s proposal, but as Jane turned away, she took one last look across her shoulder and faced that powerful gaze again. His eyes followed her movement like a hunting wolf.

She turned away, a shiver of anticipation running down her spine.

Robert’s gaze tracked Her Grace, Jane Grey, as she disappeared amongst the crowd. The only woman who had the power to disturb his equilibrium had just appeared from nowhere and was now walking away from him, again. He’d been on the path of Lady Baxter for days, and he’d been winning, but now, he’d probably need to regroup and start again, having ignored her for nearly the entire dance. Yet he simply could not draw his attention back to the luscious blonde with whom he danced. His thoughts had been captured by the singular, familiar beauty of the brunette across the room. Jane.

Lady Baxter had given him a rare opportunity for diversion by persistently refusing his attempts to persuade her. He’d been enjoying the chase. Yet now he’d seen Jane, it was like holding up a rock to a diamond. Jane’s superior beauty had always outshone every other woman in his head, and now he’d seen the reality again, he doubted any woman could ever appease the constant need in him for her, for Jane.

The melody of the dance ceased. Robert turned to Lady Baxter and bowed over her hand. “Forgive me.” He suddenly felt angry and frustrated. With no further explanation, he let her hand fall, then walked past her in the direction Jane had gone. If he was being obvious, he did not care.

He’d heard Sutton had died and realised the implication – Jane was free. Yet he’d not expected to see her in town so soon, not mere weeks after the man was buried, and he’d had no intention of denting his pride by seeking her out.

In fact, when he’d thought of her, and he would not even admit to himself how many times he had, he had always imagined his desire would be for revenge, not her. Yet here he was, acting like a dog, chasing after her bloody bones.

His superior height gave him an advantage when he reached the open double doors of the refreshment room. He spotted Jane easily. She stood at the edge of a table, holding a glass which she sipped from in between speaking. While he watched, Lord Sparks approached and bowed to Jane, but his attention seemed focused on the woman Jane was with, Lady Violet Rimes.

Violet was not to Robert’s taste, nor did he think he was hers. They had rarely shared more than two words. Yet a renowned flirt was not the sort of woman he’d expected to see the Jane he’d once thought he’d known and loved, with. Yet that Jane was not the Jane who’d married Sutton. That Jane had merely been his fiction.

Did I ever know her? He would not have thought for one moment the woman … Woman? In honesty, now, when he looked back, she’d been little more than a girl. But still, that girl had callously tossed him aside for a man more than four times her age. How she'd lived her life since, Robert had no idea. For all he knew, she’d slept with every man in Suffolk.

What would he make of that? So many emotions seemed to be vying for control within him, he could not say whether the idea was gratifying, arousing, or disgusting.

Jane’s eyes turned towards him as her companion engaged Sparks in conversation.

He had forgotten how the ground could shift beneath his feet at just a simple look from Jane. He’d always thought her exceptionally pretty, even outstanding, with her unfashionably dark and sensual look. Yet now, she seemed to have truly grown into her beauty, her features were more mature, defined. The aura of it hung about her.

Holding her gaze, he gave her a lilting smile, not moving from his position at the open door. Would she come to him, or would she wait to see if he would go to her? He was an expert at this game of cat and mouse with women.

Unmoving, he waited for the next steps to play out as they would. It was her turn. He’d followed, and now she had to decide how she would react. His gaze lowered, following the line of her dress. She was slimmer than he remembered. The high bodice tucked beneath her breasts presented a clear definition of her smallish but beautifully lush bosom. There was ample to cup in his palm with little unneeded excess. A memory of his hands at her waist, her lips meeting his, sent a shaft of painful arousal to his groin. He had been almost as innocent as her in those days, even though he was the elder by three years.

His eyes met hers again. They were distinctly green, the colour of emeralds. He’d particularly revered their unusual shade in his youth as something individual to Jane. He’d seen no one else with eyes like hers then. Though now he’d travelled widely, he’d seen the same a few times in other women, but even so, when visions of Jane disturbed his sleep or threatened his waking thoughts, it was always those green, almond-shaped eyes which haunted him. Her broad, genuine smile had charmed him as a boy, too, and brought him to his knees at her feet when he was a youth. Well, he had learned his lesson there. He’d never made the same mistake again, never trusted another woman so openly.

She’d made no move towards him, and suddenly, he was in a mood to drag this out and not bend. He did not doubt for a moment that eventually she would be too intrigued not to seek him out. Disengaging his gaze, he turned away. He had lived without her for years; what did he care if she chose not to rush?

His feet carried him back into the ballroom, and his gaze searched for Lady Baxter.

“Robert.” Light fingers caught the sleeve of his black evening coat.

So she did intend to rush after all.

He turned back with a lazy smile, feeling incredibly smug to realise his skills had even worked on the ice maiden. When they’d parted, she’d held all the aces. Well now, the whole pack of cards was in his hands.

“Jane?”

When Robert turned to face her, Jane felt the floor drop away beneath her. If she had found his looks imposing from a distance, close to him, with that rakish smile lifting his lips, his handsomeness was devastating. It took her breath away. She sought to speak, but no sound came out. In his shadow, she was gauche.

“You had something to say to me, I presume?”

“Yes, I … ” Words erupted and then dried up. She shut her mouth and drew herself together. What had she come to say to him? She had just seen him turn away and knew she could not let him go without speaking. Say something. “I – I … ” She stopped again, then suddenly grasped control of her stray wits. “Could we go somewhere to talk?”

“Because you do have something to say to me?” His languid voice, his falling smile, and the suddenly intent look in his eyes implied she could have nothing to say he wished to hear.

She would not apologise to him. What had happened had not been her choice. She’d longed for him to save her even as she had said the words that turned him away. He had not come to her defence, and she’d hoped beyond reason he would come back, right up to the moment when she’d stood before the altar in Sutton’s small church, feeling bewildered and betrayed, and said, "I will."

Common sense returning, she dropped a slight curtsy in parting. “No, of course not. I was wrong to think we have anything to speak of. Forgive me for interrupting you, my Lord.” She turned away.

He caught her elbow and stopped her, his grip gentle. “You confound me, Jane. There was something you wished to say.”

The truth struck her. It was in his expectant tone. He knew of the magnetic tug which had drawn her across the room. “No, I’m sorry. There is nothing we can have to say.” She stepped back as he let go of her arm, and then saw Joshua across Robert’s shoulder, observing everything.

“Nothing?” Robert prompted in a deep burr.

If she left Robert now, she would face Joshua’s recrimination. The threat was written on Joshua’s face. She needed to get out of the ballroom, out of the house, and away from the reach of her stepson. Her eyes met Robert’s dark-brown intense gaze, the central onyx pools glinted in the candlelight and offered more than conversation. Spiralling warmth stirred in Jane’s stomach. “But perhaps we could find somewhere private.” There, the hint was laid down, and in her mind, Jane thought of Violet at her most flirtatious and tried to act the same. She lowered her eyelids a little, veiling her eyes.

God, that coquettish look heated his blood. Well, the mystery of her intervening years was answered; she knew how to play the game, and she played it fast. Yet there was still a question in his thoughts, a nagging doubt about her. She’d seemed almost as shy as a virgin, at first. But he supposed the cause of that lay at the door of their previous acquaintance, probably guilt or embarrassment, which he’d mistaken for innocence in his pathetic need to see and know his fictional Jane again. But even if he could never have his fictional Jane, it was still satisfying to know he could have her. He could take her for one night and finally free his blood of the poison her desertion had injected into his veins years before.

Oh yes, he would enjoy seeing her face in the morning when he was the one to say it has been nice, but goodbye. Was he heartless enough to want vengeance? Hell, yes! Too right, I am. He would dine on it for weeks. He could make the woman a laughing stock, if he chose, her husband but weeks dead, and yet, perhaps he was not cruel enough to go that far. He surprised himself. He had thought not an ounce of conscience left in his beleaguered honour.

“Very well, then.” His words were blunt, but he smiled, speculating on the pleasure for them both. Bending to her ear, he whispered, “To your house, or mine, sweetheart?” Touching her elbow as he spoke, to add pressure and steer her from the room, he felt her jump and saw pink flood her cheeks.

“I am staying with Lady Rimes … ” she faltered, her voice implying an intention to offer an excuse.

He was not about to let her articulate it. He’d set his mind on this now. He was not going to let her balk.

“Then it is mine. We’ll take my carriage.” He refused to let her deny him.

She shook her head. “I must tell Violet. She will wonder—”

“Leave a message with a footman. He’ll pass it on.”

He let go of her elbow and splayed his hand on the small of her back, applying an encouraging pressure to move her forward. She shifted and pulled away from his touch, walking a little ahead and separating them in the crowd.

He assumed she did it to conceal their joint exit, which meant she was ashamed to be seen with him. The thought made him irritable again.

Reaching the hall, he drew closer, his wicked and vengeful demons wanting to disconcert her – the part of him that was still hurt and angry at the way she had discarded him so easily years before. He settled his fingers on the curve of her waist in a possessive fashion. Her muscles jumped. Ignoring it, he walked on with his arm about her.

They passed four women returning from the retiring room. She kept her gaze fixed towards the door.

“The Dowager Duchess of Sutton’s cloak.” His voice echoed in the space about them. One footman disappeared. “And send for my carriage. Oh, and once we have left, please tell Lady Rimes the Duchess has gone.” Robert smiled, telling the man their reason for leaving.

When the footman returned, he held up her cloak, but Robert claimed it and put it on for her, stealing the opportunity to brush the skin at her nape and across her neckline from the back of her gown over her shoulders.

She shivered, and he saw her fingers tremble as she tied it.

It was pleasing to know he could discompose her. In fact, the thought sent his blood thrumming in his veins and a weight into his groin.

How would it feel if she shivered from his touch and his kiss when they lay naked?

The muffled sound of his carriage drawing up outside penetrated the door and his thoughts. A footman opened it and stepped back. Robert splayed his hand across her back again and felt her muscles tighten further. Her head was high and her back straight, apparently ignoring the footman’s speculation.

James, Robert’s groom, stood before them, holding the carriage door open. The step was already lowered.

Robert nodded up at his driver, Parkin, before taking Jane’s hand and helping her ascend. Once she was inside, Robert turned and whispered instructions to James, then followed her in, climbing the step and ducking inside.

He neither lit the internal lamp nor drew the blinds. Instead, he let the gas lamps in the street give them a little light, but there were not many, and the carriage was frequently thrown from light into shadow as it rolled forward.

She’d taken a seat in the opposite corner, her back still stiff, her fingers clasped on her lap, and her eyes turning to the view from the far window.

He did not break the silence, but leaned against the window beside him, propping his shoulder against the pane of glass, his elbow resting on the narrow sill and his chin on his fist. He lifted one foot to the seat on the far side, leaving his knee bent. But he did not look out the window; he looked at Jane.

Lord, she was beautiful. At times, he’d thought her beauty embroidered from his patchy memories, as much of a fiction as her personality had been. Yet she was sitting before him now – it had never been a fabrication.

He’d spent his entire life since Jane honouring the beauty of women, learning to appreciate their every form, and Jane was the pattern card he judged them all by. But when he’d appreciated a woman’s body and compared it to Jane’s, it had only ever been an imagined view. He’d never seen her naked, never touched her beyond a superficial fondle. She’d been innocent, so had he, and he’d treasured it then, and treasured her.

Now, though? Now, they were experienced, mature players of the game. Now, he would know if she was all he’d dreamt.

The thought was disarming. In a way, he almost did not wish to know. He did not want his blissful illusion shattered. No, he’d loved a fictional Jane, and perhaps he had idolised a fictional Jane all through these empty years, too. Did he really want to know the truth?

She neither moved nor spoke, her eyes on the street, but he was certain she was not looking at anything in particular, just away from him.

He remained silent, too. He was in no mood to be conciliatory or ease her path.

If she’d been his intended companion, Lady Baxter, he would have had the woman pressed down upon the seat by now and his hands up her skirt.

A smile pulled at his lips. Sometimes he did not even get a woman as far as Bloomsbury Square before he had taken what he wished and set her down.

But with Jane, he required more than that. He intended to savour each moment, to learn every inch of her body and consign it to memory. It would take hours of slow appreciation to satisfy the thirst which had been in his blood for years.

His mind began crafting images, the ideas, the method of her seduction, and the achievement of their completion. Oh yes, he intended to enjoy this, and he intended to enjoy it in the comfort of a bed, unrestrained by time or space. The weight in his groin grew denser merely at the thought of touching her.

His impatience beginning to build, he reached up and tapped the carriage roof twice, ordering Parkin to stir up the horses.