by Thea Devine
Well, he'd immured himself long enough. Life went on outside this house. He could see it clearly from behind the curtains of the front window: carriages passing by; people on their way to somewhere; friends in conversation, strolling down the wayside.
No one hiding because someone wanted to kill them.
But then again, their putative murderer wasn't walking baldly and boldly up to their front door, holding a cat in her arms. . .
He went very, very still as the doorbell pealed, as his butler, Poole, answered it and let her in. Turned slowly as he heard her step outside the parlor door.
Saw Emily first at her feet, trailing her as she came slowly into the room as if even she were uncertain how he would receive her.
And then, she was in his arms, and for the first time since their wedding, he kissed her.
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The kiss. The intimate, mouth-to-mouth, tongue-to-tongue kiss. A kiss that went long, wet, sweet, deep, deeper than even Lujan wished to go, but he couldn't help himself. Jancie was here.
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in his arms, flesh and blood, and he wanted no words, no excuses, explanations, or declarations.
He just wanted her body, pure and simple, and he was aroused enough to take her on the parlor floor.
Or on the table ... or on the sofa . . .
Oh God . . . when had he last kissed her? Didn't he used to kiss her when he was trying to seduce her? Why did she feel so new, luscious, delicious, virginal?
He couldn't let himself be seduced by her. He pulled away abruptly, even though it cost him; her dismay could not have been more obvious.
Or the deep breath with which she reordered her emotions and consciously removed herself from him.
And wiped away the kiss.
"Well," he said, because he didn't know quite what to say, and he disliked that his kiss might have been that distasteful—or that she was being spiteful.
Her eyes grew cool, her stance more combative. "I’m actually shocked to find you here."
"Why is that?" he asked, ringing for the butler and motioning for him to bring tea. As if he were entertaining some society doyenne for an hour, and not his own wife.
God, he was all turned inside out by this whole situation. And Jancie, here? And that kiss. Which now was as if it had never been.
"You will not like to hear this, as I didn't like to hear it, but your father and Kyger both thought I ought not to come because I would have to pry you out from between some whore's legs."
Oh Jesus. Damn his father and Kyger to hell. To hear those words from his wife's genteel mouth, the mouth he had just been devouring as if she were the only woman in the world—
She is the only woman in the world .. .
Not that once—six months ago, even—it would not have been true—
He swore mightily just as the butler rolled in the tea cart.
"Thank you, Poole."
"Sir. Shall I pour?"
"No, my lady will do the honor. Jancie?"
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She lifted the teapot and poured, and then looked at him expectantly.
"Well, what should I say, Jancie? Can a man not change his philosophy and act accordingly?"
She was fascinated. This was the rueful Lujan, open and beguiling, and as seductive as a kiss. "Truly, can he?"
He picked up his cup, wondering how much to say. But she was here, and not likely to initiate an attack in this house, surrounded by servants and security.
In fact, her presence was a possible answer to his quandary about confronting all of them.
He would challenge her first. "I won't lie to you. I don't know. I think so. I've had no great yearning to go out and about since I've been here. No pubs. No brothels. No—other women—"
She sent him a skeptical look.
"But the circumstances are such that—"
Circumstances; Ah, she thought, now they would get to the nub, the reason why he'd left. "Oh, are there circumstances?
"The accidents ... see it from my perspective. All of a sudden, three in a row, all after we wed, and after I laid down the parameters of our marriage .. . after which I left."
She laughed, a short derisive bark of a laugh. "You fairly bolted out of the house."
"I left," he said dryly, "and as I see it, it isn't inconceivable that you might have wanted both revenge and a way out..."
"Oh." She was dumbfounded. Lujan thought her capable of such violence . .. ?
Lujan went on inexorably: "Not inconceivable you could have wanted to choose another husband from the two who had already evinced an interest in marrying you, two who would most assuredly treat you more respectfully ..."
"And who would stay?" she interpolated sarcastically. She was nearly speechless at his theory. "You think I would attack you, I would kill you—so I could marry either Kyger or your father?? Are you insane??"
"Am I?"
She made a snorting sound. No help here. On top of the fact that he really didn't want a wife, the man thought she could be a murderer. These Galliard men had no qualms about the method
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of their kill—they stole from you, stripped away your emotions, or they figuratively put a gun to your head.
The only way to get away from them was to go away altogether, out of their sight, out of their minds, and out of their circle of power.
"You're deranged, Lujan." She put her cup down emphatically. "I'm sorry I came." She stood up, her back ramrod with anger. "Emily and I will leave in the morning."
She had a secondary plan: she'd go to India. She'd always meant to. And now, she could find out what she needed to do to go to India, to go to her father. She needed him now, needed the balm of his forgiveness for all she'd been through, and for the fact that she'd found no reparation for him.
That was what she needed—not Lujan, not sex, not surmises, not secrets.
But her leaving was the last thing Lujan wanted. He watched all the emotions play out on her face—the most important of which was her stupefaction at his suspicions.
She was magnificent in her fury. He wanted to stoke it, use it, possess it, devour it. "Deny it, then."
"I can't—because it's too tempting to contemplate right at this moment."
"Jancie ..." He grasped her elbow and turned her around to face him.
"No, I'm immune to that, Luujan." But she wasn't. The heat of his hand fairly burned through the sleeve of her morning dress, the dress she had not changed from this morning in her haste to get away from "Waybury House before Hugo became aware that she was gone.
"Why did you come?"
She didn't want to answer that. It was hardly worth mentioning after his draconian accusations. He had instantly negated everything by his suspicions of her.
"It doesn't matter now, does it? If you think I'm capable of wanting to harm you."
His voice dropped, husky and hot. "And yet I still want you."
She didn't doubt it. Lujan wanted anyone with nipples and a cunt.
"So?"
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That—that—she just didn't care what he wanted, and he hated that, despised that tone of voice, that insolent disinterest. That. . . he didn't know what it was, but it made him wild to subjugate her and make her beg. For him. For his penis. For his sex.
He was furious. He dropped her arm roughly, and stalked to the window. So? He wanted to retaliate against that disdainful so.
"Well, that says something, doesn't it? You couldn't care less if you fuck me, Kyger, or my father, could you? Or was that the original intent of your coming to Wayburv, to seduce one of us to get something back for your father?"
She froze, shocked that he would think it, hot with guilt because she had succumbed to it, and she couldn't deny reparation had played a part in it.
"Your father requested my services," she said through stiff lips. "It was not my intent to come to Waybury—ever."
"And yet, there you were. One
wonders who put the idea into my father's head. Knowing what a penurious sort he is. Knowing he'd be resenting all those years of supporting someone else's child in a posh boarding school."
A red fury took hold of her. "Oh, he did, he did—such support, such luxury. Yes, let me tell you about the attic suite, the mice, the vermin, the cold, the wind, the five girls who slept in one bed, huddling together when the snow poured in the broken windows. No heat, no water, no blankets. No boots, no coats..." She had wrapped her arms around her midriff as she raged around the room, almost as if she could feel the cold, the loneliness, the destitution.
". . .The classes in the finer points of slicing potatoes and onions and how to serve the wealthy tuition girls. Very posh that was. And then there were the classes in dancing around, letting a duke's son seduce you and get you enceinte. Yes, I did learn some French there, Lujan. It was an education, all right. As elegant as ever a girl could want. But who would want it? For what?"
He couldn't bear to look at her stormy face. There were other forces at work, and she might well have been a pawn, but his father had had a purpose every bit as obdurate as hers. "For your gratitude, Jancie, so you'd do whatever he needed you to do whenever he requested it of you."
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She wanted to disabuse him of that notion. "I felt no gratitude at all."
It made no impression. "Nevertheless,. ."
"It was not my doing."
"It was your father."
That stopped her in her tracks. Did he mean that? "No."
"Your father suggested it."
She denied again. "No." But she saw it could be so—Hugo would not have dreamt up the idea on his own. She wished she could remember the details, but it was too long ago to remember the fine points. Just that Hugo had sent her a letter and asked her to accommodate him after all he'd done for her.
She'd thought it was a way out of St. Boniface, finally. She remembered that her father had encouraged her to take the position, that he thought she would be better off at Waybury than coming to India at that time.
She remembered the moment when she realized just what he hoped might happen. A year or two later, she thought, as she cast her mind back. But never had she thought he engineered her presence there for just that purpose.
Dear heaven.
But why should that surprise her, really? Her father had been feeding her the fairy tale of his dealings with Hugo from the time she was old enough to listen to his stories, and always about all he'd lost, all that Hugo had taken from him, all he was owed.
And in the end, all he'd asked of his former partner was tuition for Jancie's schooling. It had never made any sense to her until she had finally comprehended his true intention.
And by then, she was that far gone with deeper feelings for Lujan and he was hot in pursuit of her.
More secrets.
She couldn't bear any more secrets. She knew too many herself. And Lujan knew too many of hers.
It was useless going any further.
"Maybe he did," she said finally. "Maybe he planned everything, just as you said, all those years ago—" But dear lord, that was such a long road to vengeance—even given the years Edmund had lost his memory.
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"And so here you are—the cat among the pigeons, and all you have to do is marry them and kill them off slowly, one by one., until Waybury is finally yours, and your father's revenge is complete."
"No." She put up her hands as if to ward off his words. "NO!" But her denials were sounding weaker and weaker. Edmund had demanded so little in return for everything Hugo had allegedly made him suffer.
So if she could find a way to insinuate herself into his family ... to marry one of his sons—a marriage was forever.
And Edmund would triumph by proxy.
"And he never got his hands dirty."
No, he never did, she thought dully. And all of it made too much sense, and made her feel like nothing less than a pawn in a game she didn't know she was playing.
It knocked the fight out of her. She wished she hadn't come. Wished she'd never acceded to Hugo's wish that she come to Waybury. Wished she hadn't become so fond of Olivia, hadn't felt the responsibility of trying to make reparations to her father, because she hadn't known she had already claimed the reward he had always wanted: her marriage to Lujan.
If he had known all three of them wanted her .. . ? Would that have trebled his triumph?
She felt sick to her stomach.
Why had they all simultaneously wanted her?
Did she really want to know?
"There's nothing more to say," she said stiffly. "I'll leave tomorrow. And I won't return to Waybury."
Lujan stepped toward her. "Jancie—"
"I think we've both said enough. Poole can show me to my room."
******************
His wife was in the house. His WIFE was not two rooms away, down the hall from him, and in his anger, he'd managed to alienate her within an hour after she had voluntarily come to him.
He didn't know where that argument arose from. Maybe it had always been under the surface, waiting to bubble up, and his frustration, his need, and his distance from Waybury had brought
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it to the fore. As if the further he got from there, the clearer everything seemed to become.
Because it all meshed, it all made sense in a way that none of it had made sense before. Had no one in his family ever considered that Edmund Renbrook had instigated Jancie's presence at Waybury as a means to settle his score with Hugo?
Even he, with all his initial suspicion of her, had never guessed the depth of her father's desire to exact satisfaction for all he had lost.
And, by the look on her face—if it was real—neither had she.
So the woman he'd been craving, missing, yearning for was not only the one person who had the perfect reason for wishing him harm, but she was also the perfect instrument of her father's revenge.
That alone ought to have sent him running.
Instead he lay in bed, thinking of her, erect as a pole and perfectly willing to submerge all his clamoring distrust and suspicion of her in the depths of her naked body.
God. He had no scruples at all. He hadn't changed—he'd just sloughed everything off onto something else, as usual.
And meantime, he thought, Jancie was down the hallway, lying in bed, probably sleepless, angry, regretting she'd come, furious at her father for the way he had manipulated her. And unforgiving of him for parsing out the exact details.
But in the middle of the night, steeped in secrets and silence, none of that seemed to matter. There was something about being removed from one's normal circumstances that made critical things seem less crucial.
Everything could wait till tomorrow—till next week. Forever.
He wanted Jancie. It seemed like the only critical thing at the moment. And that the night was forgiving, enfolding, warm and enveloping—like the endless reaches of her body.
He'd never thought she would come to London.
Why had she come to London? Not to kill him. She had looked utterly stunned at the idea. Not to hear him rail about her father's covert plan for revenge, either. Obviously, that had appalled her, too.
Why had she come?
Maybe he didn't want to know. Maybe she was best left alone.
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But after nearly a week of self-imposed exile from her, that hardly seemed the solution.
He was a man who never could leave anything alone. And certainly not Jancie. She'd had a purpose in coming, and he wanted to know what it was.
And obviously, there was only one way to find out. . .
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She didn't know why she had thought anything would be different. Everything was, in fact, worse. The awful things Lujan had said. It sounded worse coming from him than her belated realization that her marrying into the family was Edmund's true desire. Finding proof of
how viciously Hugo had cheated him and treated him really had gone secondary to that.
But she'd never thought of it as revenge—just reparation for her family by virtue of her marriage to Lujan.
Now that she'd heard it from Lujan's perspective, it sounded horribly, irreversibly wrong. Lujan didn't want her love—he had no sense his family owed Edmund any justice. He was perfectly-content pursuing his usual course, and getting his own way.
Only now he was saddled with her.
What if he didn't wish to have a wife anymore? What if he were tired of her, disgusted by her father's schemes, and screwing around with some other woman he'd met since he'd come to Town?
What if he wanted to get rid of her?
Lujan was not the kind of man to settle down and marry. He might, at some future time, step up to his responsibilities at Way bury, but he was not a man to be leg-shackled to one woman forever.
Innocent as she was, in her heart, she'd always known it. He was one who wanted constant variety, stimulation, and entertainment. There wasn't a woman in the world who could provide that. So he would buzz around like a bee and spray his pollen everywhere, strutting his power and prowess, and that was all that Lujan was about.
And not for the likes of her.
Tomorrow7, she would leave, go to a hotel, a travel agent, and start the process to go to India. Lujan would be rid of her forever. Hugo could keep his secrets, his money, his empty rooms.
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M'euuww. Emily, soft, padding over to the chair where Jancie sat, dressed in her gauzy lawn nightgown, with her legs pulled up so she could rest her chin on her knees.
She was never going to sleep this night. How was she going to tell Edmund she had failed in all quarters—that she was leaving the marriage, leaving Waybury, and coming to India? And that she'd found nothing, not a shred of proof that Hugo was living off their unlawfully gotten gains.
just a mysteriously missing child, a handful of stones, and something wooden under a bed, something that had subsequently disappeared.
Nothing. She had nothing. She'd alienated Hugo, denied Kyger, and now that Lujan comprehended the depth of her treachery, and thought her capable of murder, she'd lost him, too.
