“That, milord, would be your father.”
Matthew groaned deeply and cursed a filthy expletive, eliciting the desired effect from the duke.
“Get up this instant, you indolent, worthless—” His father’s tirade ended in gasping, stuttering outrage as Matthew’s bedmate stirred and stretched, purring like a well-fed kitten. Fuzzy images of sex-flushed skin flashed before his eyes.
Bloody hell, who the devil was it lying partly beneath him? And why the devil had he brought her to his home? And why were they in bed? He never fucked in bed. Never had women spend the night, for Christsakes.
His gaze caught the absinthe bottle, the slotted spoon and the granules of sugar that littered the table like diamond dust glistening in the sun. That’s why, he thought, savagely. Too much green fairy.
“Outrageously satisfying, my lord,” came the husky purr. “How do you come up with these naughty little amusements?”
A woman he remembered to be a buxom music-hall dancer slid her delicately arched foot along his calf, oblivious to the fact that another man was breathing fire at the side of the bed.
“Shall we indulge again?” she asked in a throaty whisper, “for you are gloriously large and hard this morning. One would hate for such a magnificent cock stand to go to waste.”
“You licentious, worthless…” As the duke struggled to find the words, the woman stiffened beside Matthew, at last aware they were no longer alone.
“Out of that bed, you shameless hussy. Out at once, I say!” his father roared as he tossed her her chemise. “Have you no morals? I will not have any depraved acts being carried on in any home I pay for.”
With a derisive snort, Matthew rolled over onto his back and propped himself up against the headboard. A bit too late to consider the thought of depravity. What a damn fool his father was. Her Grace, his father’s wife—the woman his father placed on a pedestal as a paragon—had the morals of an alley cat.
Matthew caught the eye of his bedmate as he scratched his back against the headboard. A queer pang began to squeeze in his chest. Refusing to examine the emotion, he reached for the money pouch that sat atop the commode and tossed it to her. “That’s for transportation back to Soho. And for the night,” he said, letting her know that their interlude was nothing but a transaction. He had purchased her body because he had needed to come, not because he desired anything more meaningful from her.
With a grateful curtsy, the dancer clutched her clothes to her chest and let herself out of his chamber with the help of his valet.
“You will not be taking that trollop beneath your roof. I forbid it!”
“She’ll not be my mistress if that is what concerns you. I have no need of a mistress. I never bed a woman more than once. Everyone is well aware how bored I grow after the initial bout of sex.”
“Have you no shame, sirrah?”
Sirrah. Gritting his teeth, Matthew strove for composure. He hated to hear that word sneered in his father imperial, autocratic tone. Nothing grated his nerves like the duke—especially while suffering through the undesirable effects of too much drink.
“Well? Haven’t you an ounce of honor?”
Matthew shrugged and ran his hands through his rumpled hair. “None whatsoever, I am afraid.”
“Now, you listen to me,” his father growled. “You’ve been gone nearly a year, traipsing about the East, whoring and drinking, and I’m through with it. Scampering off to Constantinople last spring was the last bloody straw. I’ve indulged you in this reckless behavior long enough.”
“Indulge? Surely you jest? Or have you developed a sense of humor, Your Grace?”
His father colored an unbecoming shade of scarlet. Matthew watched as the duke’s hands slowly curled into fists. Inwardly he smiled, triumphant that he was unsettling the old bastard.
“You have a duty to this estate and the title. You have a duty to me. You owe me,” his father enunciated with chilling ruthlessness. “Whatever you may think, sirrah, you have an obligation to me.”
“I have been obliged to you in one way or another for nearly thirty years. ‘Be a good boy’,” he murmured in mocking tones, imitating his pompous father. “‘I demand respect, you owe me at least that. Pass your courses, you owe it to me to be intelligent so that you may provide something useful to the title.’ I have owed and owed my entire life long. Pray tell me, how very expensive is one successful drop of your essence, Your Grace? For I have been paying for that dear drop the whole of my life and the cost seems a bit steep.”
“Oh, that is so very clever of you,” his father thundered. “Be the satirical wit, then, if you must. Lord knows you haven’t the brains to be the intelligent wit.”
The rebuke stung. Matthew ruthlessly shoved the old barb aside, allowing his skin to thicken even more. “I did not ask to be born into this world as your heir, Your Grace.”
“I did not ask for it, either, but there it is. You are my heir and you will start conducting yourself as such.”
“Haven’t I been doing so? And here I thought I was getting along rather well in the role. After all, it is an heir’s duty to sit idly by with too much money in his pocket and too many hours to spend searching for amusement and vice. I thought I was spending your money and succumbing to vice with perfect alacrity.”
Matthew continued, heedless of his father’s florid expression. “It seems we have both been doing our bit to fulfill the responsibilities of this unwanted relationship we share. I have been playing my role, and you have seen to your duty. Am I not correct, Your Grace, that your duty as the interred duke is to keep the profits rolling in from the estates for my safekeeping, and then promptly expire, leaving everything to me?”
“Let me assure you, sirrah, I am nowhere near perishing. Your fervent hopes and prayers have all come to naught.”
“How very unnerving, to think the great creator has not heard any of my bedtime prayers.”
His father’s nostrils flared. The old bastard was in high dudgeon, and Matthew took perverse pleasure in seeing it. He, himself, was in a hell of a mood, and as the old saying went, misery did indeed love company.
“In case it escaped your notice, I have a family to consider—you have a family to do right by.”
“Have I?” he asked, acting bored. “I don’t recall.”
“You have a mother and three sisters, by God.”
“Correction. I have a stepmother who is only seven years my senior. A woman who was nothing but a girl and whom you married the moment your mourning for your wife—my mother—was over. Then you saddled me with three half sisters.”
“She was of a marriageable age, damn you!”
“She was barely eighteen and you were five and thirty!” he retorted. “She led you around by your cock.” He snorted. “And you played the smitten fool perfectly.”
“You, sirrah, will treat my wife with the respect that is owed her.”
“Why? You never treated my mother to anything she was entitled to. My mother would have done anything to make you happy, yet you ignored her as though she was nothing but a shadow on the wall.”
“I refuse to discuss that woman with you.”
“That woman was my mother. I am the product of your relationship with her. You may have dismissed her, but I am not so easy to send away. You need me. Proof of just how much you need me is evident by the fact that you are standing in my bedchamber while I am half-naked and still in bed.”
“You truly are worthless. Oh, aye, you’ve done a remarkable job making a damn joke out of your life—sitting about doing nothing but chasing skirts and spending my money and painting scandalous, pornographic portraits. Damn me, I had to hear of the whole sordid affair at my club. And you know how much pleasure it brings me when my nightly port is poisoned by reports of my useless, worthless son.”
Matthew shrugged and wiped his hand along his whiskered jaw. “Had you not decided to pinch pennies, I would not have been forced to pursue other avenues to secure what I need for my gallery.
”
“Your gallery.” His father snorted. “Painting was for sissies when you were ten, and it is even more so now. Bloody hell, get an occupation. Take a seat in the Commons. It will be no great trial to have you voted in for my riding. Learn the ways of parliament and great men so that when you take your rightful seat in the House of Lords you will be a force to be reckoned with—as any Duke of Torrington has been. At the very least, ride the estates with the steward and learn to do something useful with your days. Christ, a gallery. You’ll make me a laughingstock.”
“You have done that yourself—and quite admirably, I may say.”
His father’s blue eyes became angry slits. “From this moment forward you will do as I say or you will find yourself penniless in the streets. Do you comprehend me? Do you understand that I will make it so that you are completely dependent upon me?”
Matthew eyed him sharply, knowing what was to come. He would not be a part of whatever damn scheme his father had concocted for his future. He would not, by God.
“Now then,” his father said with a sniff of superiority, “you’ve spent enough time fucking everything in a corset. I assume, after all these years, you’ve gotten the skill down pat. You may now set that particular talent of yours in a more useful pursuit and begin by finding a wife to force your infamous member upon. I want another heir to secure my bloodline will continue in the years to come.”
Remaining deceptively calm, Matthew crossed his arms against his naked chest and glared at his father. “A wife and brats are the last bloody thing I want in my life.”
“A wife and brats are going to be your only means of survival, my lord,” his father said with a self-satisfied smile. “You will marry and you will do so within the year. I want her breeding as soon as may be.”
“No.”
His father looked incredulous. “I beg your pardon?”
“I will not marry because you command it. You, Your Grace, may go to hell.”
His father came forward and tried his best to stare him down as if they were two mongrel dogs fighting for the last bone in the rubbish bin. “Obviously you’ve failed to understand what I am saying. You will marry, or you will be cut off from any financial support from me. And just so you know I am not blowing smoke, I will take this time to tell you that your monthly income has been reduced yet again.”
Matthew struggled to show little emotion. His father would be searching for signs of it. The last thing he wanted his father to know was that he cared that he might very well wind up in debtors’ prison.
“Do what you must,” he said with a careless air. “I am still not marrying.”
“Are you by any chance attempting to challenge me, sirrah?”
“Consider the gauntlet tossed to the ground, Your Grace. In this matter, I will fight to the death.”
“By God, I will make you suffer,” his father thundered. “I will reduce you to one of those begging disgraces that litter the East End. I will make it so none of the fine ladies you’re so fond of pricking will even look at you. One day, you’ll find that the only one willing to raise her skirts for you will be the saddest, poxy whore that walks the length of Petticoat Lane. Even then you will not likely be able to pay for her diseased sex.”
“Perhaps you should take one of those common streetwalkers to your bed, Your Grace. Perhaps it would do something to improve your disposition.”
His father’s expression grew livid. “Half. You have now had your income sliced in two. You may bid adieu to your fine boots from Henshaws, and your tailoring from Westons. No more scandalous parties, or trips to the East. No damn art gallery.”
“I shall move back to the estate then,” he said, knowing he held the ace that would end this conversation. “Imagine waking up every morning to find me at the breakfast table dining amongst your charming family. Imagine the influence I could be to my precious sisters.”
His father reeled back on the heels of his boots and his eyes began to bulge with rage. “You bloody bastard, you leave my family out of this.”
“You leave my income intact and I will leave you in peace with your wife and your chits.”
“I will find your Achilles’ heel,” his father growled as he stomped to the door of the chamber. “I vow, I will find your one weakness and when I do, God help you.”
“God?” Mathew said on a chuckle. “Christ, the devil himself threw me out of hell because I was too much competition for him. Do you really believe God will help me?”
“No, sirrah,” his father muttered, his gaze sweeping over Matthew’s tousled hair and indolent pose. “No, he will not save you. You are simply not worth the effort.”
Matthew watched his father leave, then turned his attention to the commode that stood next to his bed. On it was his sketchbook. He took it, flipping through the erotic sketches of a lovely female form that burned in his mind. He saw it every night, nearly every waking hour of the day. As he flipped through each sketch, he was haunted by the beauty of her, by the increasingly painful ache in his heart. He had drawn her in every kind of pose he could think of, and every position he wanted her in. Her hair was always a different shade. Her face—blank. With a growl, he threw the book on the bed, and impetuously knocked the empty absinthe bottle to the floor where it smashed into a thousand shards. Christ, his life was falling apart, and all he could think about was Jane. Where was she? Who was she with? And did she think of him anymore? Were her dreams clouded with thoughts of him?
Jesus, what was he going to do?
Fisting his hands through his hair, he pressed his eyes shut, willing himself to think of anything other than Jane. It wasn’t as if he had nothing else to do with his time but sit around and lament the loss of her.
He’d bought the little run-down shop in Bloomsbury for his gallery with the proceeds from the auction nearly a sennight past. Workers were even now beginning to fit the place according to the designs he’d drawn.
He could go there. Escape to his make-believe world of art and leave the haunting memories of Jane behind. He could take a hammer and bring down walls, with powerful vicious strokes, exorcising Jane from his blood with each thrust.
Destruction…. He could vent his pent-up rage there until he was utterly exhausted, his brain too worn out to think of Jane and all the things he wanted to do to her tempting body.
Jane…. He opened his eyes, focusing on the sunlight that streamed through his window. It always came back to her. When would it stop? he wondered, fearing that it might not.
“My lord, I’ve run the bath and your trunk is packed.”
Matthew glared at his valet. “Packed for what?”
“Your trip to Bewdley, milord. The wedding,” he clarified when Matthew gave him a blank look. “You are still Lord Raeburn’s best man, are you not?”
Damn it. He had forgotten all about the wedding. In his post-Jane delirium, he had forgotten many things.
“Right,” he grumbled, “I’ll be along in a second. Marlborough,” he called, stopping his valet at the door. “Has the post arrived?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Is there…was there anything of a…personal nature?” he asked, feeling his cheeks crest with embarrassment. But his valet, professional as always, barely blinked.
“No, my lord.”
Matthew nodded and fisted his hand in the sheet. It was time to forget her. Forget everything about her. Most especially the way she had seemed to awaken him from his decades of slumber.
“Is there anything else, my lord?”
“No, nothing.” There was simply nothing else, he thought morosely as he made his way to his dressing room.
She was gone, disappeared amongst the coal smoke and fog. He had no chance of finding her now. London was the place to hide when you didn’t want to be found. And it was obvious now that Jane didn’t want him discovering her in her secret hideaway.
Parting the velvet curtains of the carriage, Jane revealed more of the rolling countryside that lay outside the window
of their traveling coach. It was early May and the mountainous county of Worcestershire was awakening from a long hard winter.
The trees were in full leaf, and the fields were now a sloping array of light greens and dark emeralds. In the distance, outlined by the horizon, loomed the rugged heath-covered Malvern Hills. The county, a varied mix of mountains intertwined with fields of crops and orchards, was dotted with quaint little market towns that had been virtually unchanged in centuries. Industrialized progress had not ravished the countryside as it had in many of the other northern counties of England. There were no giant stacks belching out clouds of thick black smoke. No farmland destroyed to make way for huge factories or railway tracks. Perhaps if the inhabitants of Worcester were fortunate, they would avoid the poisonous tentacles of industrialization for a few more years, preserving, in Jane’s opinion, the most spectacular scenery in all of England.
Outside the window, tulips and daffodils were growing wild beneath the trees. Tall pussy willows and wild grasses that grew rampant in the ditches at the side of the road swayed and rustled in the warm breeze. It was an ideal spring day, being neither too cool nor too hot. The breeze was just right and the sun was shining brightly, with nary a cloud to be found in the powder-blue sky. A perfect spring day.
She had always enjoyed this ride up to see Lady Blackwood’s nieces. As a child her world had been London’s dirty and gritty East End. She could never imagine that the world, let alone England, could look this beautiful. Every year she and Lady Blackwood made this journey, and every year, Jane still marveled at the countryside. She should have been resting back against the plump squabs enjoying the breathtaking scenery and the tranquil peace. However, she could not stop her mind from continuously belaboring the events of the past weeks, nor could she stem the restlessness that had seemed to grip her for the past two days since leaving London.
There was a strange mixture of fear and apprehension in her that she did not understand. She only knew that as they came closer to Bewdley—a sleepy little Georgian village in the north of Worcestershire—the trepidation grew stronger until she could no longer stem the tide of uneasiness rising in her belly.
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