“I am beginning to believe you did not need gentleman lessons after all,” she said.
“Oh, but you are wrong,” he said, pulling her just a fraction closer and quickening her heart in the process. “I did need them. I am afraid I still do. You see, when I am holding you, I have remarkably ungentlemanly thoughts.”
Jane licked her suddenly dry lips, which elicited a small growl from Nicholas. Her body felt very heavy now. And it tingled madly in all the very worst places.
“Do you?” she squeaked.
He nodded slowly, his gaze never leaving hers. “I think I need some refresher courses. Will you meet me in the parlor off the second hallway in half an hour?”
Jane bit back a gasp. Utter temptation had just been laid at her feet, and yet she could not take it. Could she?
“My lord—” she began.
He shook his head. “I promise you, Jane, I just want to be near you.” He paused with a sheepish smile. “And kiss you.”
Jane flashed to all the wicked places he had kissed her a few nights ago. “Where?”
He laughed full-on this time, drawing even more attention to them. “Meet me,” he said, his voice growing quiet again. “Please.”
She nodded. She couldn’t help herself. This man was too compelling to deny. Too tempting to refuse.
And what was the harm in one kiss?
Nicholas folded his arms as he stared across the parlor at his father. Hugh Stoneworth, Marquis Bledsoe was pacing the room, his handsome face dark with anger and disappointment. It was a common occurrence when they were together; Nicholas had come to expect it.
What he hadn’t expected was how much it hurt him this time. He’d worked so hard to come up to his father’s standards, and still it wasn’t enough.
Nicholas tossed a quick glance at his mother and Lucinda, who had followed his father to the parlor when they saw him slip from the ballroom a few moments before. He hadn’t even realized Lucinda was at the ball, but she had explained, before all hell broke loose, that she had merely been watching.
Checking up on him, was what she really meant. It would have stung if she hadn’t then smiled at him with approval. At least one person in the room had some little faith in him. And his mother seemed to be leaning more toward approval than disapproval.
Of course all three of them would have been railing at him if they knew his true reason for escaping the crowd and finding refuge in this small, little-used chamber.
He’d been so anxious to meet with Jane that he had come early, and thank God. If the family had burst in when he was alone with her, it only would have made things worse.
“And what do you have to say for yourself?” his father snapped, rapping his knuckles on the side table near him.
Nicholas sighed as he dug in his pocket for a cigar. As he bit off the end and spit it toward the fire, he shrugged. “Tell me what you want to hear and I’m happy to say it.”
“Oh, Nicholas,” his sister-in-law breathed with a shake of her head. His mouth pinched at her drawn frown and the way his mother’s eyes widened.
“You see, Marianne,” his father said, turning to his wife with exasperation. “That is exactly what I mean. You may tell me all you like that the zebra has changed his stripes, but he is still a damned zebra.”
“As opposed to the prize racehorse that your favorite son was?” Nicholas asked bitterly.
His father turned back on him, pain lighting in his eyes as strongly as anger. “Yes. That’s right. You may dress better or tidy yourself up or even pretend at being polite, but you are still wild beneath it all. I’ve heard several reports of your behavior tonight that were enough to tell me you haven’t changed. You still aren’t—”
“Anthony?” Nicholas asked, low and dangerous. He met his father’s stare full-on and saw the answer even before his father said it.
“Nicholas, Hugh!” his mother pleaded, a tear running down her face. “This will only become more bitter if you do not stop it now.”
“But I never was, was I?” Nicholas asked, ignoring her interruption as he moved toward his father. “Never good enough. Never close to being what he was, no matter how I tried. So I stopped trying, Father. I became everything he wasn’t. And it was glorious.”
“Then why did you bother coming back?” his father snapped as he turned away. “If your life was so bloody perfect in that underground hell-hole where you think you were a god, why bother to come up to the surface?”
“Stop it!”
At first Nicholas was so wrapped up in the showdown with his father that he thought the feminine voice was his mother’s. But once it registered, he realized it wasn’t.
He was shocked to realize that it was Jane who had spoken.
Slowly, he turned to the door to find her standing inside. He nearly stumbled back with surprise. He assumed if she came to the room and saw it was occupied, she would have the sense to protect her reputation and slip away.
Instead, she stood before all four of them as if she had every right to be there. Her face was pale, especially against the dark silk of her gown. Her hands were fisted at her sides, trembling wildly, as were her full lips. She looked angry and pained and so deliciously beautiful that it took Nicholas’s breath away.
“Who are you?” Hugh Stoneworth asked in that haughty tone only one of his rank could master. The one Nicholas had despised as long as he could remember. “That little girl my wife has taken under her wing? Be gone, this is none of your affair.”
He dismissed her with a wave of his hand that would have made any other woman run. But not Jane. Nicholas watched in wonder as she denied his father’s order and slammed the door behind her.
“It is my affair,” she snapped, her tone as cold and regal as a queen’s. “You asked your son why he came back here, and I would like to edify you with the answer he is too proud and too good to give you.”
His father stepped back. Nicholas could have swallowed his tongue with the shock. His great and powerful father had actually stepped back from a woman who barely came to his shoulder and yet was controlling the room like a general.
“Nicholas came here because he loved his brother. He loved Anthony with a power you will probably never fully fathom.”
Nicholas couldn’t help the strangled groan that escaped his lips at those words. They were ones he hadn’t said out loud to anyone in his family. Hadn’t said out loud to anyone at all in a very long time. So hearing them from Jane, feeling their truth…was like a punch. And Jane seemed to understand that, for she shot him a briefly apologetic glance before she refocused on his father.
“Perhaps he behaved poorly at first. In our grief, we can do many things we later come to regret. But once he realized his actions would reflect poorly on his brother’s wife and his children and his good name…your good name, Lord Bledsoe, he did his damnedest to change.”
Now it was Lucinda who stiffened. Her pale face grew even more ghostly white and her eyes filled with tears. But when she looked at Nicholas, she smiled, and he could see that she was recalling their conversation that night so many days ago. Lucinda had set him on this path. Set him to finding Jane.
Another reason to be eternally grateful to her.
“Did his damnedest?” his father barked, and then gave a humorless laugh. “What would you know of that, girl?”
Jane clenched her fists at her sides. “More than you will ever know. He fought, long and hard, and surrendered so much of himself, and all in order to make you happy. But I can see just from watching you for five minutes that you shall never be happy no matter what he does. Because you aren’t angry or disappointed with Nicholas. You are angry and disappointed that Anthony died.”
Every person in the room gasped at her candor. Nicholas stepped forward, ready to come between the now purple marquis and the amazing woman who looked ready to go to battle right there in the parlor.
Her voice grew softer now, but lost none of its power. “I understand loss, my lord, God knows I do. And it
is so easy to turn to anger and hatred when we are broken.” She swiped at a tear. “But you have a son, Lord Bledsoe. You have a son right here who is alive and healthy, despite all recent events. Do not throw him away because you grieve the one you lost. All it will do is make you lose them both.”
It seemed all of Jane’s bluster and bravado went out of her in the instant she said the final words. As if she had woken from a dream, she shook her head and then stared up at the marquis with a sudden flicker of fear in her brown eyes.
But his father was simply staring at her, mouth agape, stunned into silence for the first time that Nicholas could recall. His mother was all but sobbing now, tears streaming silently down her face as she looked from father to son.
Finally, it was Lucinda who came forward, taking slow steps. The stark black of her mourning gown and the far-reaching sadness that seemed to permeate her very being was a harsh reminder of everything the family had lost.
She stopped in front of Jane and extended a hand.
“We have not met. I am Lucinda Stoneworth, Anthony’s wife.”
Jane swallowed hard before she held out a trembling hand. “A pleasure to meet you, my lady.” As they shook, she said, “I hope I did not offend you.”
Lucinda smiled. “To the contrary, I think you said what I have been thinking for six months.”
She turned to Nicholas’s father and gave him a sad smile as she reached up to pat his cheek with great affection. “Miss Fenton’s passionate words were correct, my lord.”
Lord Bledsoe stiffened further, but Lucinda caught his hand and squeezed. Nicholas stared in wonder, for in that moment he saw the utter grief on every line of his father’s face. Somehow he hadn’t fully recognized it before. In his own pain, in his own frustration, he sometimes forgot that his father had lost a son. One whom he had been closest to for so many reasons.
He felt a powerful empathy for the man. And a new understanding.
“No one will ever replace my husband,” Lucinda said softly. “Or the father of my children. Or your son. But it isn’t fair to punish Nicholas for that simply because he and Anthony have a similar face.”
She turned and smiled at him again. “Nicholas is himself. And Anthony loved him for it.”
The last words were choked out, and Lucinda lifted her hand to her mouth to cover a quiet sob. Then she nodded to each person in the room and hurried out.
Nicholas stood stiffly, waiting for his father to renew his tirades. But instead, the older man turned and speared his son with a look. But it wasn’t one of censure, not this time. It was just a stare. As if he hadn’t seen Nicholas for a long time and was finally doing so.
He opened his mouth and shut it a few times before he choked out, “Marianne, we should see about Lucinda.”
Then he turned on his heel and left the room in a jerky clip. Nicholas’s mother hesitated for a moment before she rushed after him, leaving Jane and Nicholas alone.
As soon as the others had gone, Jane turned to him. Her face was pasty pale and tear-streaked from the emotional encounter.
“I-I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice breaking.
Nicholas shut the door quietly and then moved toward her. “Do you know what you did?”
Her chin dropped and began to wobble. “I never should have interfered, but when I heard him speaking to you in that manner—”
“Hush,” he soothed, wrapping his arms around her and drawing her close.
He dropped his mouth to hers for a kiss. Jane was stiff with surprise for a moment, but then her arms came around his neck and she clung to him as if she feared they would never kiss again. Part of him understood that fear. Shared it.
Finally, he drew back and looked down at her. “No one has spoken up for me like that in an age. No one since—”
He stopped abruptly, unable to complete the sentence after everything that had just transpired. Jane’s face softened, and he saw she understood without his having to say another word. She knew he was referring to Anthony.
Still silent, she lifted up on her tiptoes and kissed him. It was a gentle kiss, something meant for comfort, but the moment their lips touched a second time, he realized he wasn’t going to be able to let it stop there. He wanted her.
Actually, it went deeper than that. He needed her. Needed her to forget the ugliness with his father. Needed her to make the dull ache of grief for his brother fade.
Slowly, he backed her toward the door. He leaned her against it, pressing himself fully to her frame as he reached around to turn the key in the lock.
“Nicholas?” she whispered, her tone a question as she looked up at him.
He didn’t answer with words, but with another searing kiss. She moaned, a muffled sound against his mouth, and made no protest when he began to hike her silky skirt up around her hips. He cupped her gently, and his erection grew even harder when he found she was already wet and hot, ready for him. She arched against his fingers, her head tilting back and her eyes shutting with an expression of pleasure.
“We don’t have much time,” he panted as he wrestled with the fastenings on his trousers.
She nodded as she helped him, freeing his hard cock with her soft fingers and stroking him just once, gently. He growled with the pleasure of her touch.
He cupped her backside, stroking the silky skin of her hips as he lifted her up against the door. She groaned when he slid the tip of his erection over the slick heat of her body, and then he glided forward.
She was wet enough that he fitted to the hilt inside her in one long stroke, and they both sighed in unison. She gripped her legs around his back, her fingers digging into the heavy fabric of his coat as he began to move.
Although he fought for finesse, his emotions were so wild and wired that it was a losing battle. Soon his hips jerked out of control, his pelvis ground against hers without any rhythm except that of his overpowering desire.
But his lack of control didn’t seem to diminish her pleasure. She arched, biting back little cries as she thrust back against him, creating a delicious friction that had him right on the edge of release within moments.
Finally, she stiffened and her sheath began to pulse wildly around him as a powerful orgasm washed over her. The feel of her body at the height of pleasure, the look of pure release on her face stole any remaining control he had left, and he let himself be lost, pouring his essence into her as he braced on the door and choked back a wild cry.
For a long time, they remained joined, foreheads touching, panting breaths finally slowing until their chests rose and fell in time. Gently, Nicholas helped Jane slide away from him, parting their bodies with a little groan of displeasure. She touched his cheek before she slipped her tangled chemise and gown back around her and reached up to right her hair as best she could.
“I must go back,” she said, glancing at the door where they had just coupled so wildly. Her expression had a wistful quality, and Nicholas knew she would much rather stay here with him.
“I know.” He sighed as he fastened his trousers. “And I should find my family. I want to be certain Lucinda and my mother are well. And I suppose it is past time that I have a talk with my father.”
Jane nodded, but he saw the twisted emotions that darkened her expression. She shook her head.
“I am sorry my outburst upset them. Your mother, especially, has been nothing but kind to me, and I’m certain I hurt her and made her regret ever taking me under her wing.”
She caught his hands in hers and held them against her heart as she looked up at him. In the soft light of the room, she almost looked like an angel. His angel.
“But Nicholas, I meant every word I said to them. I tried to change you when I taught you those rules of Society. I tried to make you fit into some kind of mold, but that was wrong. You are you, Nicholas. With both flaws and wonderful qualities. Don’t lose them. Not for anyone.”
He stared at her in wonder, struck dumb by the power of what she was saying. No one had ever given him suc
h unconditional acceptance before. Even his twin had wished for him to change.
She leaned up and pressed a soft, almost chaste kiss against his cheek.
“Goodbye, Nicholas,” she whispered before she slipped from the room.
He stood in the same place where she had left him for a long time after she was gone, running over in his mind everything that had happened. And it took him almost that long to realize Jane had not said good night, but goodbye.
Chapter 23
“It’s no wonder you have a headache,” Lady Ridgefield said as she patted Jane’s hand while they waited in the foyer for her carriage to be brought around. “What a night you have had.”
Jane gave a weak, bemused smile. If only her former employer knew the half of it. But perhaps it was best she didn’t. Jane had already made enough enemies tonight. And lost so much.
But she didn’t regret what she had done. Nicholas deserved every defense she had made of him. And her reward…that last beautiful moment in the parlor when they made love, well, that would remain in her memory forever. It was a perfect farewell.
“Oh, my dear, your eyes are filled with tears,” Lady Ridgefield said with a frown. “You must be in such pain, allow me to go out and see what is taking that footman so long!”
Jane nodded, too worried she would burst into tears to say anything. As she stood in the foyer, she drew in a few breaths to calm herself. And then she felt another person’s presence behind her.
She turned to find Lady Bledsoe standing in the hallway.
“I’m glad to catch you alone,” the other woman said as she entered the small entryway.
Jane swallowed hard as her heart rate increased tenfold. “M-my lady,” she stammered. “I—”
“Everything you said tonight was right, Jane,” Lady Bledsoe said. In the bright light, Jane could see she had been crying. “It hadn’t been said before, probably because I was too tangled in my own grief to do it. But it wasn’t fair to Nicholas. And I’m glad he has someone who loves him enough to defend him.”
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