Sinful

by Charlotte Featherstone

  “Don’t close your eyes. I want you looking into my eyes as you come. Show me everything inside you, Jane.”

  He’d never before been struck by the beauty of lovemaking—the graceful movement of a female body in motion beneath him. He’d never taken the time to savor every sound, to watch as lips parted on a silent moan, or a plea for more. He’d never studied how lashes fluttered open and closed.

  He’d never felt his heart fill with emotion, or his soul come alive when eyes, glazed with passion, met and held his. He had never made love until he reached for Jane’s hand and pulled her up, encouraging her to watch him enter her body. She watched, wide eyed, as her body took him in and loved him.

  When he could no longer fight off the desire to spill himself, he pulled her to sit atop him, wrapping her thighs around his hips while he buried his lips in her hair. His hands squeezed her lush bottom, forcing her up and down, driving her to take all of him.

  He’d never experienced love until she clasped his head to her breasts and clung to his hair, her hips moving instinctively as she made love to him.

  “Loveliest Jane.” The strangled endearment was ripped from his throat and with a rough shout and a final deep, penetrating thrust, he pulled out, allowing his seed to splash between the cleft of her bottom.

  For minutes they sat, clinging to the other, arms clutching and hugging, faces buried in each other’s necks, a fine sheen of perspiration trickling down her back and his chest. Slowly he came back to earth, his angel still secured in his arms.

  He looked at her, traced the freckles on her nose, then kissed each one, sighing as he did so. “I love you, Jane Rankin,” he breathed, holding her tightly. “I love you more than you will ever comprehend.”

  20

  They walked back together, hand in hand, stopping to watch the swans swimming. Stepping behind her, Matthew wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her neck. “I adore you, Jane,” he murmured. “It was not the height of orgasm that made me say it.” Jane felt light, as if she was floating as she turned in his arms. “I love you, Jane,” he said, his lips lowering to hers.

  She kissed him, and caressed his cheek. “I love you, as well. So much.”

  He captured her hand in his and brought it to his lips. “You’re going to have dinner tonight with me,” he whispered, kissing her fingers. “In the cottage. Just the two of us.”

  “And will you paint me?”

  He tweaked her nose. “Yes, naked with blossoms scattered around.”

  Jane kissed his knuckles before she released his hand. “I’m going to see Sarah now. It’s been hours since I’ve checked on her.”

  “All right, I’ll meet you shortly, I have some business to attend to.”

  Jane walked the short distance to the house, lost in thought. She was in love. Oh, God, she was in love with Matthew, Lord Wallingford. And he returned that love. It still astonished her.

  They hadn’t talked of the future, no plans had been made, but Jane felt it, that deep, abiding connection that would see them through. They were of different classes, but that did not matter, because what they had defied the strictures of money.

  Strolling into the house, Jane passed Her Grace who was walking alongside a young woman dressed in the height of fashion.

  “Miss Rankin, won’t you come and be introduced to Miss Jopson?”

  Obediently, Jane strolled to where they stood outside the crimson drawing room.

  “Miss Jopson,” she murmured as she curtsied.

  The woman eyed her with amusement. She did not return the curtsey. “This is Miss Rankin, our little nurse that I was telling you about.”

  “Ah, yes,” Miss Jopson said, her eyes glittering with what Jane thought was malice. “Charmed.”

  “Miss Jopson will soon be joining our family,” the duchess murmured. “Won’t you wish her well, Miss Rankin?”

  “Indeed.” She was confused, not comprehending exactly what position this Miss Jopson was going to be filling.

  “Well, it’s teatime,” the duchess announced as the hall clock began chiming. “Good day, Miss Rankin.”

  The door promptly shut in her face.

  Jane had never cared for the duchess or the way she seemed indifferent to everyone, especially Sarah.

  Determined not to let Matthew’s stepmother sour her thoughts, Jane ran to Sarah’s room only to find her gone.

  Not bothering to change, Matthew barged into the drawing room, eliciting gasps as he slammed the door shut behind him. In the room were his father, stepmother and a young woman whom he supposed was going to be his wife.

  Miranda, his scheming stepmother, spoke first. “Wallingford, meet Constance Jopson. Won’t she make a lovely bride?”

  He glared at his stepmother and barely looked at his prospective bride. “I won’t be marrying her, or anyone else you pick out.”

  Miranda’s eyes glittered. “Make him see reason, darling,” she cooed, brushing her hand along his father’s arm. Clearing his throat, his father glanced curiously at Constance. “Oh, Miss Jopson and I have spent the morning having a little tête-à-tête. It is all out in the air, Your Grace.”

  Matthew glared at Miranda who smiled and rose from her chair to look out the window. Just what damn deal had she struck?

  He caught Constance’s cool expression and realized that she was a younger miniature of Miranda. His stepmother caught his gaze from across the room and smiled knowingly, setting his hair rising on his neck.

  “You will marry Constance,” his father announced. “It’s been all arranged.”

  “No.”

  His father’s right eye twitched, and he glanced at Miranda who motioned him on. His father pulled at his cravat as if it was choking him. “If you do not, then I will send Sarah away to an asylum for the insane.”

  His world came crashing down. “No,” he roared, thundering toward his father. Miss Jopson wisely jumped up from her chair and ran for the door, opening it, preparing to flee. His father stepped back, but maintained his position.

  “She will be locked up, shut away from the world with all the other idiots no one wants.”

  “I want her!” he stormed.

  “And you have no rights to her or her care. I am her father and I will decide what it is best for her.”

  “And locking her away where she will be mistreated and ignored is your idea of what is best for her?”

  “Then marry Constance, and she’ll be safe.”

  There was a gasp at the door, and Matthew snapped his attention to the horrified sound.

  Jane.

  He ran to her, but she disappeared down the hall and out the front door. Miranda followed him into the hall. When she smiled, he pushed her back against the wall and wrapped his hand around her throat.

  “How could you?” he snarled. “How could you do this to your own flesh and blood?”

  She clutched at his wrists, clawing for air, and he squeezed, wanting to crush the windpipe he felt beneath his hand.

  “You know I love her, and you can’t stand it.”

  He thrust her back and she coughed, falling onto the floor.

  “I won’t let you take her away from me.”

  “It’s too late,” she gasped. “She’s already gone. She’ll return once you’ve agreed to the marriage.”

  “I won’t,” he roared. “I’ll tear this house down looking for her. I’ll search the countryside, but I’ll never marry Constance Jopson.”

  Miranda sent him a scathing sneer. “You pathetic fool, she’s already been taken away, and you’ll never find her. Never.”

  Jane ran until her lungs burned, till she couldn’t see any longer. Until she was at the temple and leaning against the wall, crying.

  What had she thought? That they could be together? There was no future for a woman like her and a man like Matthew. He was going to be a duke, and she was…nothing. Nobody.

  And Constance Jopson. She sobbed as she thought of the beautiful, fashionable creature. She was perfect fo
r him, the sort of wife he should have on his arm.

  But what they had done, what they had shared that afternoon, it had been more than their bodies. They had held one another, touching and whispering. They had confessed their love—and she had believed him.

  “Jane.”

  He came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her, holding her tight. Rocking her, he whispered in her ear. She held on to him, sobbing, not caring that she was acting silly. He had made her no promises, offered her nothing but pleasure. It had been her own naïve fantasies that had made her think that they had a future together.

  “Jane, I must,” he whispered, clutching her. “I’m sorry.”

  She flung herself from his arms. “Why?”

  “Because I must wed,” he said, coming to her and taking her hand. “But it needn’t interfere with us.”

  She slapped him hard across the cheek. When he looked at her, his eyes were dark, stormy. “I love you.”

  She hit him again, hating him. “And what am I to be?” she cried. “Your…whore?”

  He held her wrist. “My lover? My mistress?”

  That word ended any hope she had of any sort of future with Matthew. She could not be a mistress, not Matthew’s, not any man’s.

  “No.”

  “Jane,” he said in a nauseating placating tone that made her want to slap him for a third time. “Be reasonable.”

  She couldn’t. Not when her heart was breaking into a million tiny pieces.

  “I need you to understand that this is out of my hands.”

  “Why must you marry her?” she demanded.

  “Because she is who my father wants.”

  “And you have no say?” His gaze flickered to hers, and the muscle in his jaw tightened.

  “No. I have no say.”

  “I don’t believe you. You’re a liar,” she spat.

  “The truth is, Jane, that I must. They will send Sarah away to a lunatic asylum if I decline. You know she won’t survive that. She won’t…” He looked away and fisted his hand against a pillar. “I can’t let her go, Jane.”

  “And what of me?” she asked, trying to stem the pain in her voice. “Will I just go on and survive, then? Why? Because I am tougher? Because I am not a lady?”

  He took a step closer, and reached for her, but she backed away, stumbling as tears clouded her vision. “Or am I just easier to replace, and therefore, the logical choice to go?”

  He looked at her with such agony that Jane knew the answer.

  “Don’t make me choose, please,” he begged.

  “I’ll make it easy for you, my lord. You won’t have to.”

  She turned and walked away, and he roared her name, which she ignored. He came after her, stomping down the incline. He grabbed her arm and she pulled viciously, freeing herself from him.

  “Jane, don’t leave this way.”

  She didn’t reply, but she picked up her skirts and hurried her pace. She was going to sob uncontrollably and she didn’t want to do it in front of him.

  “Jane, please, you don’t understand. I can’t let her go.”

  But he could let her go, and the knowledge was killing her. Despite the pain, Jane continued marching down the incline. She had no idea that he had followed her until she felt his touch on her arm, halting her.

  “I can’t choose, Jane.” Her heart broke and she looked away, but he caught her chin and forced her to look up at him. His gaze faltered, and he looked away, then immediately it swung back to her.

  “Jane, Sarah is my child.”

  21

  The words were out. His shameful secret was known.

  “Your child?” she asked, the words just a whisper. He hated to see the tears in her eyes, the pain his actions were causing her. He longed to wipe them away, but he knew he no longer had the right to touch her—not with his filthy hands.

  “My daughter. Yes.”

  She stumbled, her expression dazed. He helped her to sit, and he sat down beside her, wishing he could hold her. He needed her now, more than ever. Her mouth opened, then shut. She looked at him, then away. He feared her response, the horror of her thoughts as she wrote the story in her mind.

  “I was fifteen when Miranda, my stepmother, came to me one day in the stable.” He stopped, blinked a few times and took a deep breath. He had never said the words aloud—to anyone.

  “I was big, nearly full grown. She used to look at me,” he said, unable to say the words. “And…and…”

  “Don’t,” Jane whispered, tears were streaming down her face, but he couldn’t stop, not now that the words were out.

  “That day in the stable, she cornered me. She had been looking at me for months, leading me on, a glance, a brief touch, whispered innuendos. I…I didn’t know what to think. But that day,” he said in a quiet voice, “she came to me. She dropped to her knees and undid my britches.”

  “Oh, God,” he heard Jane whisper beside him, but he had to go on. The words were spilling out of his mouth.

  “She handled me so well. I’d never been touched, only by my own hand.” He closed his eyes, refusing to relive the visuals that threatened to come upon him. “I was so damn hard,” he said through gritted teeth. “And when she took me into her hand, and then…into her mouth…” He clenched his jaw. “Christ, I didn’t want it to end. I…hated it, seeing her there between my legs with my cock in her mouth, but I liked the way it felt. She made me watch, her eyes looking up at me. It was wrong and shameful. She was my father’s wife. But she was only twenty-two at the time and had already given him two daughters. I hated her, but I loved what she did to my body. She would come to me in the dark and wake me with her mouth. She tutored me in sex, and it became dark and disturbed.

  “I hated her more for what she was making of me. I tried to degrade her, but she liked it, found the perversion titillating. It destroyed me, Jane.”

  She reached for him and held him, her tears trickling into his hair. “She raped you.”

  He looked up at her and shook his head. He wished to God he could lie and say she had, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t lie to Jane. “No, Jane. I agreed. I wanted it. Sometimes, I searched her out, too. Some nights I lay in bed, playing with my cock, hoping she would come to me.”

  He lowered his head and rested it against her breast, hiding his face from her gaze, ashamed by this necessary admission. “It was my first sexual experience, Jane. I was only fifteen. I didn’t know how to control my body or my needs. I was just learning about sex, and Miranda…she taught me to use and be used. And all the time she told me not to tell. Who was I going to tell?” he scoffed. “She was my stepmother, for Christsakes. No one has an illicit affair with their stepmother, and at fifteen.”

  “Matty,” she whispered kissing his brow. He clutched at her gown and rubbed his cheek against the swell of her breast.

  “It went on for months, and then she became pregnant with Sarah. She came to me in a panic. She was pregnant and had not slept with my father in months. We planned his seduction, and she convinced him that she had conceived that night. I tried to break it off, but she wouldn’t hear of it. I tried,” he said, clutching Jane. “But she would return to me night after night, and when you’re fifteen, Jane, and hard whenever the wind blows, you want it. God, my body wanted it so much that it won out over my mind. I hated her, even as she pleasured my body. She would come to me, pleasuring me as my child grew within her. It disgusted me what we were doing, especially when I saw what I had created with her. But I…I couldn’t stop, Jane. And then she had Sarah.” He paused and looked up at her. “I named her, you know. When I saw her, I loved her. Not because of Miranda. But because she was a piece of me. My own. Miranda hated that I loved Sarah. She was perversely jealous. The summer I was seventeen, Sarah was turning two. I was leaving for university and Miranda didn’t want me to leave. We were still…fucking,” he said, remembering those times with disgust. “On the day before I was to leave, I met her down by the lake. As I crossed the bridge, I sa
w something floating in the lake. And then I saw Miranda, she was holding Sarah beneath the water.”

  Jane held on to him, clutching him as he began to tremble. “I thought she was dead as I pulled her out. But she lived, and she is how she is because of me. Because of what I did with Miranda.”

  “Matthew,” Jane sobbed. “My heart is breaking.”

  “Then, stay, Jane, because the thought of you leaving is making my heart break, as well. Stay because I need you. Because I love you. Stay because I cannot live without you.”

  Later that evening, after Jane had had a bath and cried until she had no tears left, she sought out Matthew and asked him to walk with her.

  He followed, silent, pensive, until he reached for her hand and brushed his thumb over her knuckles. Stopping her, he kissed her palm, and then wrapped it around his cheek. “Stay.”

  She closed her eyes, blocking the desperation she heard.

  “I can offer you everything you could ever want, Jane.”

  She looked away, biting her lip. No, he could not. It had taken hours for her to admit that. Hours of introspection and tears and heartache.

  “Jane, look at me.”

  They were standing on the bridge with the sun setting behind them. He lifted her chin, and she saw him through a veil of mist. She heard his breath catch. His voice shook.

  “You undo me with your tears, Jane.”

  “I do not mean to.”

  “Your happiness is now vital to my existence, you’re vital to my survival.”

  “Matthew, it cannot be. To skulk and hide…to love in secret like it is a crime, a shame—”

  He held on to her, stepped close to her so she was forced to tip her head back to see him. “Is it so very bad to want me, Jane? To want the pleasure I feed your body and soul? Is it so very sinful to love me?”

  Am I that sinful? The question burned in his eyes. Reaching for his hand, she brought it to her lips, kissed his chafed knuckles and pressed his hand to her warm cheek. A tear fell from her eye, and she let it roll down and splash onto his hand, where it trickled between his fingers.