The spell was broken, and she tugged her arm. “You should go.”
“Must you be brought to the bridle like a horse?” he whispered, a hint of a smile turning up his lips that was anything but friendly.
She swallowed. “Please go,” she choked out.
Suddenly Carson came into view behind her and she had never been so happy to see his horrible, judgmental face in her life. “Miss Downing, another guest has arrived for you. Lord Northfield.”
Her knees shook as Carnthorn released her arm and stepped away to put a respectable space between them.
“Show him in right away,” she gasped.
Carnthorn arched a brow as they were left alone, albeit briefly. “You are entirely underestimated by the men of Society, aren’t you? Two callers on the same day, two men who must be of a mind.”
Jacinda flushed at his implication that Jason also wanted her, for she knew it was as far from the truth as one could get. She was not forced to answer, though, for Jason entered the room in the same moment.
“Hello, Jacinda,” he said, his tone as casual and friendly as it always was. But as he saw she was not alone, he stopped. “Carnthorn?”
The name was said as a question and the duke smiled slightly. “Indeed. It seems we had the same idea, Northfield.”
Jason’s posture changed ever so slightly. “And that was?”
“To call on me unexpectedly,” Jacinda filled in swiftly as she stepped forward to take Jason’s hand. She all but dragged him to the settee and urged him to sit. “I am a lucky woman indeed.”
Jason stopped staring at Carnthorn and instead his appraising glance fell on her. He searched every angle of her face, holding his eyes steady on hers for a moment too long. She wondered what he could see. Or if he would assume the worst of her.
“Shall I stay for tea?” he asked, his tone even.
She almost went limp with relief. He might or might not have guessed that Carnthorn was pressing a suit he had no right to make, but either way, Jason was offering to save her from it.
“Please.” She glanced up at the duke only because she could not turn him out without making a scene. “Your Grace?”
He smiled at her, but the light in his eyes remained the same as it had been when he clasped her arm. Dark. Predatory. Sexual.
“I’m afraid I cannot stay, Miss Downing, but I do hope you will think about my offer.” He grinned as her lips parted in shock and then bowed toward Jason. “Northfield. Do enjoy her.”
Then he was gone, leaving Jacinda alone with Jason. She forced herself to stand, but her legs were shaking and she had to brace herself on the back of the chair to keep from toppling over.
Jason was immediately on his feet. He caught her upper arm and steadied her. The touch was not all that different from Carnthorn’s and yet it didn’t feel like a prison.
“Great God, Jacinda, what is it?”
She blinked up at him. Normally they were not this close unless they were dancing, and she couldn’t help but notice how full his lips were. What would they feel like on her own? On her skin?
With a cry of humiliation, she wrenched her arm free.
“Nothing, it’s nothing,” she lied.
But he wouldn’t hear it. He caught her shoulders and drew her closer. “What is it? Please tell me.”
Tell Jason. Tell him what Carnthorn had offered her. Tell him why he had felt free to offer it. It would be an exercise in humiliation, but at the same time she needed advice. And not the kind that Grace or Isabel would give. She needed advice from a man who moved in the same circles as Carnthorn. A man who understood what had been offered to her in a way even her friends couldn’t.
Her silence was obviously misconstrued, for Jason pulled her a little closer. She felt the heat of his embrace and she shivered even though she didn’t want to react to him.
“Many years ago you heard my confessions and you never spoke a word of them to anyone,” he whispered. “Let me even the score at last, and know that I will be as discreet as you have been.”
Jacinda drew back in surprise. She knew the night Jason meant, a night long, long ago. She thought of it often, but she had always believed that drunkenness had made him unable to recall what he had said to her out of pain and heartache and whiskey-loosened lips.
And yet now he promised to be as good a confidante to her as she had apparently been to him.
She nodded and pulled herself from his arms. He couldn’t be holding her when she said what she had to say. It would be too...confusing.
“Carnthorn came here with less than innocent intentions,” she whispered, refusing to look at Jason. Refusing to see his doubt or his mocking or his pity. “He came here because he wishes to make me his...his...his mistress.”
Chapter Four
“Multiple lovers can be exciting, but be warned (or encouraged): nothing stokes a man’s interest like a rival.”—The Ladies Book of Pleasures
Jason couldn’t overcome his shock and his anger, even though Jacinda had told him about Carnthorn’s offer nearly five minutes before. Worse, after that horrible moment, she had left the room to get something so he would “understand”, abandoning him to stew on what she had confessed.
Finding the duke with Jacinda, especially after Jason’s conversation with Seth on her birthday, was already troubling enough. But to know his true intentions made Jason’s stomach turn.
It wasn’t that it was shocking that a man might make such an offer to Jacinda. In fact, it was more shocking that it had taken this long for it to happen. She didn’t recognize it, but there were times, especially when she was caught without the mask of her anxiety and discomfort, that she was really very pretty. Coupled with her past, she was the kind of woman many men kept as a mistress. Fallen and yet still proper enough to be discreet.
But Carnthorn…
He paced to the window and pressed a fist against the cool glass.
“She deserves better,” he muttered, trying not to think of what he knew about the man. Harder was trying not to picture Jacinda trapped in that other man’s arms, being first seduced by him and then ensnared by his proclivities.
The door closed behind him and he turned to see Jacinda standing there, her hands behind her back. She blushed, a deep pink that streaked down her neck and disappeared into yet another gown which covered every inch of her chest. He wondered briefly how far down that fetching pink went and then shook off the unwanted thought. This was Jacinda, not some woman he was going to pursue. She needed his help, not his lechery.
“I’m sorry, I know the closed door is inappropriate, but we have so little time and what I’m going to show you is something no one can ever see,” she said, moving toward him. “But you must promise not to judge me.”
He drew back at the unexpected statement. “I would never judge you.”
She looked at him for a moment, and he saw her uncertainty and disbelief, but then she sighed and pulled a book from behind her back. But not just any book.
“The Ladies Book of Pleasures,” he breathed, taking the small volume from her hand and turning it over.
“You know of it,” she said, and he couldn’t tell if she was disappointed or relieved.
He nodded. “Oh yes, I know it well. A very naughty book, but very correct in a great many assertions about desire and women and men.”
She bit her lip and he was drawn to the sight of it. She had very pretty lips, soft and pink, the bottom one plump. He blinked.
Why was he thinking of Jacinda’s lips?
“How did you get it?” he asked, handing it back to her. She had a wide pocket in her pelisse, and she shoved it inside without looking at it.
“Someone gave it to me anonymously for my birthday,” she admitted, that pink blush returning to taunt him. “Probably as a cruel joke.”
All inappropriate thoughts faded at her pained tone and Jason tilted his head to look into her eyes.
“Jacinda,” he began, but she waved her hand to stop him.
“Oh please, don’t deny it. I am not so stupid as everyone seems to believe. I know where I stand and what people continue to think of me.”
He wanted so much to deny what she said, to tell her something that would comfort her, but nothing he could think of was appropriate in the slightest for a male acquaintance to say to a lady. So instead he focused on the troubling things she had told him when he first arrived.
“So you were given the book, but how does that relate to Lord Carnthorn?”
She swallowed hard and took a deep breath before she continued. “He—he walked in just when I had opened the gift and saw me with it. He didn’t say anything at the time. I wasn’t even sure he’d seen what I held, but then he showed up here today with...offers. Suggestions. Perhaps they were even demands.”
Jason’s eyes went wide. “Did he hurt you?”
She met his stare, her pupils dilated with surprise at his outburst, as well as a great many other emotions.
“No, no, he held me quite inescapably, but he didn’t hurt me.”
He turned away from her to look out the window again. There was a garden below his vantage point, but the cool green of it did nothing to temper a deep and unexpected anger at what Jacinda said. An anger that felt like it went deeper than just the thought of Carnthorn unleashing his violent desires on a friend.
Jason didn’t like the idea of her becoming any man’s mistress.
“Well, I’m glad you refused him,” he said, trying to temper both his tone and the unexpected emotion her confession brought out in him.
She was silent for a moment too long, and he faced her. She was pink again, damn her. Her dark eyes were turned down and her hands were clenched in front of her.
“Jacinda, you did say no, didn’t you?” he asked, moving toward her.
She shrugged. “I-I told him to leave.”
His eyes went wide. “That isn’t the same thing. Please tell me you aren’t considering this!”
She hesitated, her hand clenching becoming worse as she took her own turn pacing the room. Then she looked at him.
“And what if...what if I were?”
Jacinda spun away the moment the humiliating words were said and covered her hot face with suddenly cold and clammy hands. She hadn’t wanted her confession to go so far, but Jason had always been the least judgmental person she knew, and somehow she had to say the truth to someone.
“You must be disgusted by me,” she whispered, not daring to look at him.
He touched her arm, turning her slowly. When she dared to look up at him, there was no denying the shock on his face, but there was something else there too. Something she couldn’t place, but it made her feel warm, protected.
“I could never be,” he insisted. “But Jacinda, why?”
The utter confusion in his tone made her shake her head.
“Great God, Jason, do you think I like my life?” she said, shocked yet again by the honesty she hardly expressed even to herself. “I live in a prison with my aunt as guard, and she never lets me forget it. My family has all but cut me off due to my past, but when they do see me, they harangue me endlessly and make me feel like I am worthless. I do not keep company, I am hardly invited anywhere; even when I am, I don’t go. I sit alone in my bed at night and try desperately not to ponder all my lost dreams. Then a handsome man comes along and offers me a different life. And even though I know it is wrong, even though I am not comfortable in any way with him, I cannot lie and say that the idea isn’t somewhat...bewitching.”
“You find him handsome,” Jason said, staring at her with an unreadable expression.
She pulled away from him. “Is that the main point you got from that humiliating speech? That I am a woman who notices a man? You must think me utterly sexless.”
He shook his head. “No, my dear, I do not think that in the least. I’m sorry, you are right that there is far more to this than I might have implied with my quip about Carnthorn’s looks.”
“And you judge me for it?” she asked, watching him carefully for his response, needing desperately for this man not to see less of her. He was the only one who had ever seen more.
“No, not judge you,” he said softly. “I am shocked, I admit. I foolishly didn’t think much about what your life has been like. I should have realized that you would feel imprisoned, stifled. But Carnthorn’s offer is not freedom, Jacinda. He is a man of certain...appetites.”
“Appetites?” she repeated. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Jason swore under his breath and shifted with discomfort. “He is not known to be a kind lover, Jacinda. He’s not someone even I would recommend as a prospect to any woman, but most especially not you.”
Jacinda gripped her hands before her. There was so much she didn’t know. She thought briefly about the book in her pocket, mocking her with its weight. Would she learn more if she dared explore it? If she did, would she be more ready for the kind of escape route a man like Carnthorn, or some other person, might offer.
Sex had destroyed her—could it save her if she managed to bear it?
“What about a different man?” she whispered.
“A different man…” he repeated, his hands clenching at his sides.
She nodded. “Surely there must be men in Society who treat their mistresses with more kindness or gentleness. What if...what if I could make one of them want me?”
Jason squeezed his eyes shut, drawing a few ragged breaths before he said, “Are you saying you wish to become a man’s mistress?”
She covered her face. “I don’t know. But I want something different. I don’t want to be trapped here anymore. The idea of sex, of desire—I hate it.”
“You hate it,” he repeated.
She nodded. “I know it only brings pain. But what if my sacrifice could give me the freedom Carnthorn offered?”
She paced away again, her mind racing. She was being utterly foolish and threatening her relationship with Jason by going on like this. She had to stop. Stop wishing, stop hoping, stop dreaming of something beyond the life that had been thrust upon her nearly seven years ago.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered without daring to meet his stare. “I’m being foolish and hysterical. I never should have brought you into his nonsense. Please forget it.”
“Jacinda,” he said softly, coming to catch her hand in his.
She stared at their intertwined fingers, then looked into his face. As always, the sight of him made her catch her breath. Unlike Carnthorn, Jason was a man she could picture allowing to touch her. She would bear quite a bit to have him claim her, even in a small way.
She broke the eye contact. “I am sorry,” she repeated.
He shook his head. “Don’t be. I’m glad I’m a person you feel you can be open with. I don’t judge you. Let me think, will you? Perhaps there is some way I can help you.”
She looked at him again. There was the pity she sometimes saw on the faces of others who were kind. Jason would try to fix her life, probably by asking her to dance more or arranging for her to be invited to a few more events. It was humiliating.
“Don’t trouble yourself,” she said, backing away. “Thank you for your kind ear and your discretion in this matter. Now I’m very tired and I hate to be rude, but—”
He nodded. “Of course. I’ll leave you.”
He moved to the door and there he hesitated, turning back. Jacinda’s breath caught, but he said nothing. He only shook his head and left her.
Jason had been riding through Hyde Park for more than an hour, but the exercise had done nothing to make his racing mind calm. He couldn’t stop thinking about Jacinda and their troubling conversation.
Worse, he couldn’t stop thinking about her finding some man, any man, to offer to be her protector. A desperation he had never seen in her before could drive her to do dangerous things. Just the fact that she would even consider Carnthorn for a moment, despite her misgivings about him, made that perfectly clear.
He turned his horse
away from the park and back to the street as he stifled a curse. He had been so shocked by her admission that he hadn’t handled the situation properly. He couldn’t have, for he was left with the uncomfortable feeling that Jacinda might still put herself in a very dangerous position.
But how to stop her?
“Stop him,” he muttered and found himself turning down a street that would take him to the duke’s London estate.
He urged the horse faster until they stopped at the large home. Jason tossed the reins to a footman and announced himself to the butler who greeted him at the door.
“Is your master in residence?” he asked.
“Let me check,” the servant said, taking his card and motioning him to a parlor.
Once inside, Jason paced the room. He hadn’t planned this meeting and he wasn’t quite certain what to say. After all, he felt no positive feelings toward Carnthorn, but to challenge him might simply encourage him in his pursuit of Jacinda. He needed to have a good reason to put him off, without humiliating her or making her seem even less than Society saw her.
“Northfield, what a surprise,” Carnthorn drawled as he entered behind Jason and shut the door. As Jason turned, he flinched at the arrogant smile on the duke’s face.
“Yes,” he said, trying to rein in all these unexpected emotions. “I’m sorry not to send word ahead of my visit, but I felt it was quite important.”
Carnthorn motioned Jason toward one of the chairs beside the fire, which he took reluctantly, for he hated to sit when his enemy remained standing.
“May I offer you a cigar or some brandy?” the duke asked, all politeness and charm. A façade to cover an ugly truth.
“No,” Jason ground out.
Carnthorn smiled as he lit his own cigar, then sat down in the chair opposite Jason and puffed out the first cloud of smoke.
“I must assume, given our recent meeting, that this urgent business you have with me must have something to do with Jacinda.”
Jason stiffened. “A bit familiar in your address of the lady, aren’t you?”
“I’ve heard you call her by her given name without preamble a great many times,” Carnthorn said with a shrug.
A Moment of Passion (The Ladies Book of Pleasures) Page 4
