Sinful

by Charlotte Featherstone

  “Say it, Jane,” he whispered as he circled her clitoris and shattered her mind, body—and soul, if Jane were being completely truthful. “Say it.”

  “Matty,” she whispered, catching his gaze. A tear slipped from her eye, trickling beneath the lens of her spectacles, before sliding down her cheek where he brushed it away with his lips. “What have you done to me?”

  17

  That evening, Raeburn and Anais came by to check on Sarah. Jane had been happy to see her friend, and Matthew had enjoyed watching her, remembering that afternoon when she had shuddered in his arms.

  He had not washed after their intimacy, wanting to smell her on him. He needed to be close to her, needed to be part of her.

  She had admitted she wanted him, but in what way, he didn’t know. What intimacies she would allow, he could only imagine and hope for. He wasn’t stupid enough to believe that Jane would give him her virginity. He knew he would not ask for it, for it came with a price, a price he would not ask Jane for.

  Still, though, he had thought of little else but claiming her virginity, of molding her body to fit him—only him. He had never cared about that, being the first man to claim a woman, except for Jane. There was something very primitive about breaking her, forging his way in, making her accept him, feeling her blood on his cock.

  It was base, monstrous how he was thinking, but he admitted that he would take great pride in seeing Jane’s virgin’s blood coating his shaft.

  Raeburn shifted against the balustrade and Matthew followed his friend’s gaze and saw that it was focused intently on Jane. He didn’t care for the amused glint in Raeburn’s eye, nor did he care for the smug smile that parted his lips.

  “My God,” Raeburn drawled as his smile widened. “You’ve gone and done it. You’ve fallen for the little peahen.”

  Matthew stiffened. “Don’t call her that,” he snapped, his gaze lingering on Jane and the curve of her graceful neck and the wisps of red hair that caressed her skin.

  “Why not, you do,” Raeburn taunted. “I specifically recall hearing you say she was nothing but an unremarkable and dour spinster.”

  “Well, perhaps I might have been wrong,” he said.

  Raeburn placed a hand over his heart and took a mocking step backward. “Wrong? The Earl of Wallingford mistaken about a woman? Impossible, my friend. You are never wrong where women are concerned.”

  Glaring at his friend, Matthew fumbled inside his jacket pocket, searching for a cheroot. After locating the wooden box of matches, he irritably swiped a sulfur match against the stone railing and lit the cheroot, inhaling deep breaths of smoke before waving the flame out and tossing the match to the ground.

  “Admit it, Wallingford, the peahen has somehow managed to catch your eye.”

  He caught Jane laughing as she sat down beside Anais. Even through the French doors he was aware of her, aware of the way the lamplight reflected in the glass lenses of her spectacles—aware of the way the firelight would dance along the deep auburn highlights in her hair that was pulled so severely back.

  Despite the distance between them, his body was as aware of her as if she were standing beside him. He saw her laugh again, then clasp Anais’s hands in hers. Her face turned pink and he was drawn in by the simple pleasure of watching her unguarded and laughing. She was full of life and exuberance, and her skin fairly glowed as she laughed with Anais. He thought of her, lying beneath him, her face awash in pleasure, her skin glowing pink with arousal.

  “She is no colorless bird,” he murmured, not knowing if he had intended to say the words aloud.

  “Is that so?” Raeburn asked as his gaze narrowed on Jane.

  “Indeed. There is something about her,” he said, unable to keep his gaze from her. “Something I cannot describe or understand. She is not the least bit beautiful by society’s standards, and yet I have not thought of another woman since I met her at your wedding. There is something about her face that draws me in.”

  “You find her beautiful?” Raeburn choked out.

  “Is that so damn hard to believe?” Matthew growled, tensing as his body filled with anger and a fierce protectiveness he had never felt toward a woman.

  “Aye, it is,” Raeburn said with a grin. “It is almost unbelievable. I’ve never known you to look at a woman with more than a passing glance. Your gaze strays to the most superficial trappings. But it seems you have looked deeper where Miss Rankin is concerned. You’ve seen beyond the spectacles and her severe manner of dress and seen the beauty within.”

  “You’re talking rubbish, Raeburn,” he grunted as he took a long, calming drag on his cheroot. “Obviously your honeymoon has made you into a romantic halfwit. You’re romanticizing whatever this…this attraction is I hold for Miss Rankin. An attraction, I fear, that is fueled not by lust or affection, but by pride. She won’t have me, you see, and I am afraid that my ego cannot bear it.”

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew them for a lie. Knew that at first, when he had pursued her at Raeburn’s wedding, it might have been a case of bruised pride. However, he had to admit that those were not his feelings now.

  “I don’t believe you, you know,” Raeburn said beside him. “You see, I’ve known you too long, and I’ve seen you with too many women—women, I may add, that you have never looked at quite the way you look at Jane.”

  “I don’t know what you mean, Raeburn, nor do I care.”

  “You don’t have to pretend, my friend. I understand how damnably confusing the whole thing can be.”

  “What whole thing?” he asked as he studied the blunt end of his cheroot.

  “Giving your heart to another.”

  He laughed, a hollow, bitter sound from deep in his chest. “I have no heart to give, surely you know that.”

  Raeburn looked at him with a strange intent gaze. “You have one, I’m sure of it, you just have to find it. However, I’ll wager it’s locked up tighter than the crown jewels.”

  Raeburn knew nothing. Matthew grunted and looked away. He had no heart. He was heartless. He was not kind, he was selfish and merciless. He could not give anything—most important, his heart—to Jane Rankin. And what was more, he didn’t have it in him to offer anything meaningful to any woman.

  “Well, then,” Raeburn muttered as he looked up at the night sky. “I suppose it is time to retire. Anais has been exhausted. I don’t want her overdoing it.”

  “How is she feeling?” Matthew asked as he stomped out the end of the spent cheroot.

  “She is feeling very well, just tired. Everyone is trying to assure me that it is very normal for her to be so tired this early in her pregnancy.”

  “You’re worried,” Matthew stated, hearing the fear in his friend’s voice.

  “I am.” Raeburn took a deep breath and blew it out in a great rush. “I fear what could happen. Childbirth is so damn unpredictable. I couldn’t bear it—living through the agony of losing her.”

  Nodding, he studied his friend, marveling at the true fear he saw in Raeburn’s gaze. He had never thought of childbearing in such a way. Children were heirs, and the begetting of them was nothing short of a breeding practice, much like a good broodmare being paired with a stud. He had never stopped to think of the emotional bond that tied a man and woman when a child was created out of love.

  He was not fool enough to believe that he would ever have that bond with a woman. His children would be heirs to the ducal dynasty, and the woman who bore them, nothing short of a vessel to ensure the propagation of his family’s lineage. Such a cold, calculated scheme—nothing at all like the way Raeburn and Anais had conceived their child.

  Raeburn seemed to pull himself out of his morose thoughts while he only sank further into his. “Night, old boy,” Raeburn muttered. “I’ll see you in the morning for a few hours of fishing?”

  Nodding, Matthew turned his back on the French doors and the glittering lamplight pouring out from the salon, and looked up at the black-velvet sky. Christ, his mi
nd was a mess. He was thinking things he had never once thought of—never once cared about. A wife and children? He’d never wanted them. To continue the ducal dynasty? He’d always wanted it to die out with him, thereby exacting the cruellest revenge on his father. But he was thinking of these things tonight, and what was worse, he was looking at Jane Rankin when he thought them.

  “Matthew?”

  He stiffened, as though he’d been hit with a lash. Jane’s voice, low, husky, tore into his flesh and he curled his fingers around the stone balustrade. How the intimacy of hearing her call his name in the dark made his blood grow hot. How he hated the weakening of his resolve. He was not the man Raeburn was, he reminded himself. He did not love women, or care for their feelings. He did not think of them as wives and mothers and lovers. He thought of them as sexual beings—beings to be fucked and discarded. He was callous and cruel, and he was only deluding himself into believing that he was something other than a libertine.

  He doubted that whatever transpired between him and Jane this week would mean a damn to him once they returned to London. He doubted he would even care, or remember all her sordid little secrets. He was damn certain he would not remember the feel of her wet body clinging to him, or recall the way he had felt strong and masculine, protecting her and whispering away her fears with soft words. He would not allow himself to remember the way she had looked up with admiration as he carried her along the dock. No, damn it. He was no goddamn knight in shining armor. His past was a cesspool of debacles and debauches. He could not change what he was, and what was more, he didn’t think he could bear to. Because caring who he was would mean that he would have to care about Jane and her opinion of him; and caring about Jane Rankin was something that would only cause him pain.

  “Matthew?” she whispered, but this time she rested her hand on his forearm. The image of her small hand on his coat sleeve played havoc with his mind. He felt himself begin to soften, begin to believe in this that could not be. As he looked down at her hand, anger began to rage inside him. And as irrational as it was to feel angry with himself, it was even more irrational to wish to lash out at Jane.

  “Do you wish for me to meet you in your studio?” she asked, her voice quiet and unsure. “Or perhaps—”

  “It is our bargain, after all, isn’t it, Jane?” he snapped, hating the venom he heard in his words, and the sound of her startled gasp. Christ, he despised the fact that he was lashing out at Jane because he was confused by what he was feeling. He felt utterly worthless and undeserving. “Yes, I want you in the studio. You are here for me to paint, and I am here to tell you whatever it is you want to know about me.”

  “I think I learned all there is this afternoon,” she whispered, and he saw a fleeting glimmer of what he thought might be hope in her eyes. Hope that perhaps his reputation might be overblown, hope that he was really a gentleman who carried ladies safely from danger. Hope that he was anything other than the notorious earl.

  “Is that what you think?” he asked, lowering his head so that he was glaring at her.

  “I think I know you better than you think I do.”

  He whirled around and smiled cruelly. “My dear, you haven’t even begun to know the worst of me.”

  Running to keep pace behind Matthew, Jane struggled for breath and found herself being thrust forward into his studio. With a slam of the door, she was alone with him.

  “You aren’t shocked, are you?” he drawled, untying his cravat and tugging it from his neck. “You might have thought I was a gentleman, but I am afraid that I rarely act as such. I take what I want and leave what I don’t. In general, I really don’t give a damn what anyone thinks of me.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “That is your mistake then, Jane.”

  “What is your most painful secret, my lord? What is it that makes you despise women so much?”

  He shut his eyes, pressing his lids tightly together as if he was under a great deal of pain. “Do you mean my painful secret, or my most shameful, Jane?”

  The rawness of his words sent gooseflesh rising along her arms, but she refused to allow him to intimidate her. “You said just a few minutes ago that I did not know the worst of you. Perhaps you were right. Perhaps I want to know.”

  He laughed and tossed his cravat onto the settee. “All right, then. I will acquaint you with the real Wallingford. The real Wallingford doesn’t give a damn about women and their sensibilities. He doesn’t care what people think of him or say about him. He just doesn’t care about anything or anyone at all.”

  “I don’t think that is entirely true.”

  He stared at her, his eyes narrowing. “Really? And what makes you a goddamn expert?”

  “I saw a different side of you when you were ill.”

  “And I saw a different side of you, as well. You basically told me that what I saw was an illusion. It is not the real you. Well, Jane, that was not the real me.”

  “You’re lying. I know you are.”

  “Am I? You seem to be under the misapprehension that I am a gentleman. I am not.”

  “You claim to not care for anyone or anything, but I know that for a falsehood. You love and care for your sister.”

  “I love and care for her when it is convenient for me to do so.”

  She shook her head, knowing he was acting in such a way to protect himself, pretending that he didn’t have a conscience, when, in fact, she knew he did.

  That afternoon, she had seen the real him. It had been there. She wanted to see it again, wanted to give in to that man, that man she was falling hopelessly in love with despite her intentions not to.

  “You’re a gentleman—”

  He laughed. “Perhaps I was the gentleman at the hospital because it suited me. It amused me to play the part because you were so obviously smitten by it.”

  “You attempt to hurt me with words, but I have learned to have a thick skin, my lord. I will not be persuaded by you and this show of anger and hostility. It will not prevent me from learning all I can about you.”

  “What makes you any different from the scores of women I’ve bedded? I never gave them anything. What makes you think I’d give you what you want?”

  “You make it a habit of speaking lightly of the women you have made love to.”

  “I never call it that. I despise the term. It is never about love. It is about lust, the sort of animal-like emotion that every male, of every species, succumbs to.”

  “Has there never been one special woman whom you thought highly of, whom you felt something for?”

  “No. I have never allowed a woman to touch me with anything more meaningful than sexual superficiality. I fuck women, Jane. I do not make love to them. I do not let them into my soul. I do not feel them creep into my heart. Women are for physical release, nothing more.

  “You are no doubt wondering about that afternoon in the carriage. You are probably questioning if that was only fucking, too. You are wondering if I felt anything more for you than fleeting physical lust.”

  “You are wrong,” she said, her voice trembling with hurt even though she tried to disguise it. “You forced me to admit that what we shared was not an act for either of us. You made me tell you the truth. Now, you tell me the truth. Tell me why you would pretend, still, to be the heartless roué.”

  With a flash of anger, he had her pressed up against the wall. “I am heartless. Haven’t you realized that yet, Jane?”

  “Matthew—”

  He shoved his body against hers, trying to intimidate her. “Why do you insist on seeing the good when it is not there? Go back, Jane, before I ruin you.”

  She smoothed her hands down his chest and he moved away. “Don’t…paw me,” he gasped, shuddering.

  What she saw confused her. She had touched him before, while she had cared for him. He had wanted it, yet now he recoiled from it. What had happened to him to make him so angry, so full of pain?

  The dreams, the crying out in his sleep. She remembe
red, when he was ill, he had fought the night men. He hadn’t wanted to be touched then.

  Suddenly she wanted to hold him, to love him, to erase the past with her body.

  “Matthew, tell me the truth, what happened in your past to make you abhor being touched.”

  He looked shocked at her assumption, but it was swiftly replaced by anger. “You wouldn’t be able to listen to all the sordid details, Jane. You couldn’t possibly fathom the atrocities I have committed with this body.”

  She reached for him but he evaded her touch. “Christ, leave me alone. Get out of my life! I don’t want you in it.”

  “What of your soul, Matthew? Will you be able to relinquish me there?”

  He glared at her, his chest heaving in agitation. “I haven’t got a soul, Jane. Besides, it’s been all of what, two days? You are hardly embedded inside me.”

  “It’s been weeks, Matthew. I think we became entwined the moment you arrived at the hospital. There is no denying what we shared.”

  “What? Lust?” He laughed. “I wanted sex, Jane. Fucking. Can’t you understand that? It’s still what I want, to fuck the virginal spinster. I want to see if I can make you pretty as I shove my cock into you. There? Is that what you wanted to hear?”

  She shook her head, denying his words, his purposefully hurtful words that he intended to use to make her run away from him.

  “Do you know what I do to women like you, Jane? I look down my nose at them and laugh. I stomp all over their tender little feelings and don’t look back. You amuse me, Jane.”

  “What has made you so full of hate?” she whispered. She reached out to touch him, but he captured her wrist before she could do so. Her lip quivered and she blinked back the tears that threatened to spill. He was hurting, lashing out because she had glimpsed a side of him he didn’t want her to know about. She wanted to soothe him, but oh, God, his words hurt, and her heart…it was being crushed.