Sarah swallowed convulsively, but she didn’t answer. Her brain screamed for her to break free, to tell him no and mean what she said. He’d stop if she did that, she knew he would.
But swirls of pleasure obliterated that inner warning until she was nothing but heat and light that coalesced where he touched her and spread like wildfire to her loins. Despite their roughness, his words touched her soul as surely as his large, skilled hands caressed her body. What she felt for him was raw and deep and primitive and had nothing to do with poetry or sweet murmured gallantry. Nothing to do with love.
But it was equally dangerous. She mustn’t allow this.
He bunched up her skirts with one hand, skimmed beneath them with the lightest touch. The heat of his breath brushed her ear. “Husband and wife, Sarah. We could be like this every night. I could come inside you, deep inside, where you want me.”
She shuddered, inner muscles clenching at the thought of taking his thick length into her once more. Dangerous, fatal. She couldn’t let him weaken her this way. “No. Stop!”
Her voice rang with conviction. He froze. Then his hand left her thigh and he spun her in his arms and kissed her. His lips were earnest and seeking and scorching hot.
Sarah didn’t want him to find what he sought. She put her palms to her chest and pushed, but it was like trying to move the side of a building. He didn’t let her go, but he groaned softly, brushed a final kiss on her cheek, then bent to rest his forehead against hers. Their breaths mingled, both of them panting as if they’d run for their lives.
His body was like sun-warmed stone against her, so solid and strong, she might easily persuade herself to cleave to him, to forget the past.
With a sickening sense of déjà vu, Sarah passed a shaking hand over her lips. Gently, she disengaged from Vane’s embrace.
She stood there, growing cold without him, and faced the truth. Once more, she’d given in to passion. Once more, she’d allowed a man to overcome her reason with bold caresses. Hadn’t she learned her lesson with Brinsley? Hadn’t she learned it again that night with Vane?
She looked far into the future and saw where she would end. A slave to her own passion, long after Vane’s desire for her burned out. A captive of her own ungovernable lust.
No, she could never love again. She was in no danger of falling into that trap. But wasn’t this helpless infatuation of the flesh equally damaging? Vane could do with her whatever he willed; she was too weak to stand firm against him. Those hot words he’d whispered in her ear had shocked her, but they’d excited her, too.
What would become of her now? In her own defense, she’d made herself hard and unyielding against Brinsley. But Vane was so much more powerful than her dead husband. She already disliked the woman Brinsley had made her; she was terrified of the kind of woman she would have to become to succeed in withstanding Vane.
And she might destroy him in the process.
She glanced at him but there was no triumph or satisfaction in his face. His eyes were dark and watchful, as if he knew she sought a means of escape.
Sarah took a deep, shaky breath. “I need to go home. Peter said I was free to go.”
“Yes. Your mother is expecting you.”
She bit her lip. “I mean I wish to go home. To our—to the rooms in Bloomsbury.”
There was a pause. “Sarah, there’s nothing there.”
“What?”
“I went there yesterday afternoon. The place had been ransacked. They’ve even smashed your perfume stills to pieces.”
Her hand flew to her breast. All that work, destroyed. But that, of course, was the least of her problems now.
Vane went on. “I’ve ordered what’s left to be packed up and sent to your parents’ house until you decide what should be done with it. Your landlady has already re-let your rooms. You cannot go back.”
She sank into the nearest chair. What would she do now?
If there’d been a palatable alternative, she’d be glad she couldn’t return. Her stomach revolted at the thought of revisiting that blood-spattered parlor, but she had no money to take rooms elsewhere, no friends who would harbor her.
She looked up at Vane. “You mean to take me to my parents’ house?”
He nodded. “I believe we’ll have your mother to thank if we brush through this without gossip.”
Oh, yes. The countess was a master of discretion, of sweeping peccadilloes under the carpet like dust.
Vane cleared his throat. “We have a lot to discuss, about the wedding and so forth, but I daresay you don’t wish to go into that now. I’ll take you home and call on you in the morning.”
“Brinsley’s funeral is on Tuesday,” she murmured.
He gave a brief nod. “Of course. I’ll be there.”
An unpleasant task in the extreme, but he was not a man who shirked his duty. He looked so resolute and strong, she had to fight the urge to lean into him, to twine around him like a parasitic vine.
She must give him a chance to disentangle himself from this mess. “Vane, I have said I will marry you, and I will, but I want you to reconsider. Think carefully before you commit yourself.”
His eyebrows slammed together. “I’ve asked you to marry me. I’m not about to change my mind. What the hell do you take me for?”
“And when you think about this offer you’ve made me,” she continued huskily, as if he had not spoken, “remember what I am. Remind yourself that I dishonored my husband while he lay drowning in his own blood and then lied to him that I had not. That I was cruel to you—that was but a taste of how cruel I can be, Vane. You have no idea. That I am barren.” The last drop of warmth seeped away from her body, leaving her bleak as a winter’s night.
“That I do not love you. And never shall.”
Ten
VANE drove Sarah the short distance to her parents’ house in his phaeton and escorted her to the door.
“Don’t come in,” she said, staring past him. She felt remote from her body, as if nothing could touch her now.
It is done. He will marry you. You were weak. You said yes.
Sarah gave him her hand and told herself that her flesh was numb to the warm pressure of his touch. She turned to go inside. She didn’t look back at him, or flinch when the heavy door closed behind her, shutting him out. She didn’t need the door to cut him off from her. The process had started when he had forced her consent to their marriage.
Because the very thing she had feared had happened in that room at Peter Cole’s house. She’d surrendered control. Or rather, he’d taken it from her.
She looked around, blinking, suddenly bewildered by the soaring ceiling of the entrance hall, the pillars and marble statues of gods and heroes and senators ranged around the walls.
Fatigue, she thought. She had not slept for two nights. She needed rest and then she would face everything squarely. But she could not seem to summon the will to move her feet.
The butler was speaking to her but she hadn’t caught a word. She put a hand to her temple. “I beg your pardon, Greville?”
“Will your ladyship make an extended stay?”
“I don’t know. I expect so.” She drew a deep breath and tried to collect herself. “Yes, Greville, prepare a bedchamber, will you? My . . . baggage will follow directly. Where is my father?”
“The earl is from home, my lady, but Lady Straghan is in the drawing room.”
“Thank you. I’ll go to her.” She managed to smile at him. “It is good to see you.”
The butler beamed back. “And you, too, my lady.”
When Sarah walked into the drawing room she was surprised and relieved to see none of her mother’s friends in attendance. Perhaps the hour for tea and gossip had not arrived yet, or perhaps it was her mother’s day for paying calls.
The countess looked up and immediately put her embroidery aside. “Come in, Sarah. Where’s Vane?”
Straight to the point as always. “I told him not to stay.” She braced herself. “You k
now the story, then?”
“I know the one I’m supposed to give that brother-in-law of yours. Sit down, girl. Staring up at you like this is giving me a crick in my neck.”
Obediently, Sarah seated herself opposite her mother. So Vane had not given her the truth. She wondered how he had convinced the astute countess to lie without knowing the real circumstances. “You were to support my alibi?”
“That’s right. Vane asked your papa but he—” The countess lowered her gaze and plucked at the arm of her chair. “We thought it better if I did it.” She shrugged. “I am the more facile liar, for all that he is a politician.”
Vaguely, Sarah wondered that her mother should trouble to explain herself, but she shrugged off the thought. “I thank you, ma’am, but that is no longer necessary. I have told Faulkner the truth of where I was that night.”
“You did, did you?” Her mama regarded her shrewdly. “Thought to catch yourself a new husband, eh? Quick work, my gel, but risky. It doesn’t do to try to manipulate men like Vane. They have a way of making one regret it.”
Many would speculate on the reason for this marriage, but only the countess would dare voice those doubts to her daughter’s face. Sarah’s spine stiffened until her neck felt like a steel rod. “I certainly did not do it for that reason. Credit me with some integrity, I beg you.” She bit her lip. “They told me Vane was a suspect. He had a public altercation with Brinsley that evening. The theory was that he had come back to Bloomsbury to finish Brinsley off.”
“Hmph! Seems unlikely to me.”
“I know, but they gave me to understand that unless Vane could prove his whereabouts he’d be arrested. I was obliged to tell the truth.”
A smile flitted over the countess’s features. “Were you, indeed?” she murmured. “Yet you were not prepared to tell the truth to save yourself, I gather.”
Sarah didn’t know what to say to that. Her mother was right; she had sacrificed her honor for Vane.
And he’d been furious.
If she’d considered the matter logically and waited, if she’d hesitated to rush to his defense, everything would be different now. She would have her reputation, and she would not have had Vane’s proposal.
“I’ll . . . I’ll go up and change, shall I?” said Sarah after an uncomfortable silence. She rose to go. Then she remembered she’d brought no other clothes.
Faltering on the threshold, it took all her courage to turn and voice her request. “Mama, I don’t seem to own any gowns appropriate to mourning.” She looked down at herself. “This one is borrowed from Miss Cole. Do you have something I might wear?”
Without pause, the countess rose and moved toward her. There was no triumph or satisfaction in her eyes. “You and I are still much the same in build, though perhaps I have the advantage in height. It should not be too difficult. Come to my bedchamber and we shall see.”
Inordinately grateful to have been spared one more humiliation—her mother’s pity—Sarah followed the countess upstairs to her domain.
The paneled door swung open, and Sarah tumbled back in time.
Perhaps the cobalt blue curtains were new, and the chairs had not always been upholstered in precisely that pattern of cream and gold, but essentially, everything was as it had been when Sarah left at the age of seventeen.
She remembered, vividly, watching her mother dress for a ball or the opera. The way the rich satins and silks shimmered and swirled over the countess’s elegant figure, the priceless jewels that glittered like stars in the candlelight. The teasing, exotic scents that Sarah burned to reproduce herself one day.
The memories of shared smiles in that mirror blurred, tainted by the knowledge Sarah later acquired: The countess did not dress to please her husband.
After Sarah discovered what went on in the countess’s boudoir during the earl’s frequent absences, she couldn’t bear to watch her mother dress again.
Oh, her mother had been thoroughly discreet in her af faires. If Sarah had not been sent home early from a country holiday with a friend due to an outbreak of measles in the household, she would never have stumbled upon the gentleman leaving Lady Straghan’s boudoir, kissing his fingers to her as he turned to go down the stairs.
Idolizing her father, Sarah had suffered her mother’s infidelity as a personal betrayal. She’d told no one what she’d seen. She’d never returned to her mother’s boudoir if she could help it.
And she’d never forgiven her.
The countess dismissed her dresser, which Sarah knew boded ill. Her mother wished to be private, which meant she was not done probing into Sarah’s affairs. Well, she couldn’t blame her for being curious. The past two days seemed fantastical to Sarah; they must be doubly so to anyone who knew her. She’d flouted the very principles that had been the main-stay of her life for more years than she cared to count, with disastrous consequences. And now, she didn’t know where to turn.
Suddenly, all Sarah wanted was to crawl into her mother’s lap and sob, as she had often done as a little girl all those years ago. Before adult awareness of what her mother was had been thrust upon her by a stupid twist of fate.
Lady Straghan rummaged through her clothespress and threw a number of gowns onto her large, cream coverlet on the tester bed. The yards of unrelieved black deepened Sarah’s somber mood.
“Black can be elegant. You need not look like a crow, you know,” her mother was saying. “And it suits you, with your coloring. You are more fortunate than some.”
Sarah didn’t reply, just stood staring down at a black silk evening gown, fingering the jet beading. She hadn’t worn anything that fine in years.
“Why so glum, my dear? Do not tell me you sincerely grieve for that blackguard!”
No, she didn’t. Wasn’t that an awful thing to admit? Sarah drew a long breath. “It was a horrible way to die.”
The countess gave a small shudder. “Pray, spare me the details.” Throwing one final garment on the bed with a rush and rustle of silk, she shut the clothespress. “What do you mean to do now?”
“I don’t know.” Vane’s proposal rushed to the forefront of Sarah’s mind. Another man might think better of his offer upon reflection. She was a bad bargain all around. But Vane was determined, perhaps even obsessed. He wouldn’t let her go.
The countess went on. “Of course, you may make your home here as long as you choose. That goes without saying, I hope.”
Did it? She hadn’t felt welcome in her parents’ house in many years. How violently she wished she’d never opened her lips on the subject of her mother’s licentious behavior, especially when she’d done it in defense of Brinsley. A vicious irony that now she stood squarely in her mother’s place.
She deeply regretted the years they had lost. Pride had become a vast chasm between them, one that only the Marquis of Vane’s intervention had managed to bridge. Perhaps the countess had learned her lesson, for she made no mention of Sarah’s disgrace. For her own part, she would never presume to judge someone else for their peccadilloes again.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Sarah said stiffly, gesturing at all the finery before her. “You are kinder than I deserve.” She raised her gaze to her mother’s. “I am sorry for everything, all of it. I—”
Her mother held up a hand to silence her. “Yes, yes, never mind that now. Of course you must stay here. We are family, are we not? Besides, you won’t be here long if Lord Vane has his way.”
Sarah frowned. Her mother had always been annoyingly acute, especially in matters of the heart. Then again . . . “What has he told you?”
“Nothing at all. But with men you must always look at what they do, not what they say. He has stood by you. He would have moved heaven and earth to save your reputation if you’d let him. And now you’ve made such a mull of it, he will marry you, I daresay.”
Mortified, Sarah wrapped her arms around herself, staring down at the gowns her mother had laid out for her. “He did offer for me,” she admitted. “I accepted. But I asked him
to think on it carefully before he committed himself.”
“Sarah, once Vane has asked you, he will consider himself bound.” She felt her mother move closer, try to look into her face. “Don’t you want this marriage?”
If she were a young debutante, stainless, with a whole heart to give, she wouldn’t hesitate. But she’d learned how susceptible she was. How a man could break her down, piece by piece, until there was nothing left of her but a stark core of pride. And in the end, between them, Brinsley and Vane had struck at her pride as well.
“No,” she said in a hollow voice. “I do not wish to marry the marquis.”
The countess stared. “Then you are a fool, my dear.”
SARAH stood on the threshold of her father’s music room, listening to the notes of the pianoforte tinkle and ripple like a fast-flowing brook. The earl had arrived from the country a bare hour earlier, but she hadn’t yet seen him. He had immediately immersed himself in music upon his return.
She ought not to disturb him. She ought to wait until he sent for her, she supposed, but she hated putting off their inevitable meeting. Papa would be the most disappointed in her for the tangle she’d made of her life. Of all people, his was the opinion that mattered most.
In the days that followed her incarceration, the sorrow and shame ebbed and flowed. Sometimes, for five minutes, perhaps ten, she’d forget and find small pleasure in something. A piece of music, the single, perfect bloom of a daffodil, or an elusive scent that teased at her mind and sent her hurrying down to the stillroom to see how she might capture it.
But all too soon, awareness flooded back, swirling over her like a wave. In those moments, her heart rolled over and died a little more. She would never feel clean again. She could not bear to think of what she’d done, yet she could scarcely think of anything else.
She thought often of Tom. She’d said she’d return to see him when she’d visited Maggie Day, but the ensuing disaster had driven the scheme out of her head. She’d meant to make plans for him. She’d meant to do something to relieve his dreadful situation. But all she’d done was embroil herself in this awful mess.
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