by Jane Lark
The cold night, and perhaps fear, too, made her shiver. The balmy nights of summer were long gone. In her short-sleeved evening dress and shawl, she must feel it more than he did.
“You’re cold?” he whispered.
“I’ll manage.” She drew her shawl from her bent elbows up and over her shoulders with one hand, while her other kept a tight hold of his.
They walked the length of the terrace in silence. No one else was in view. The others must have already entered Devonshire’s library. Jane’s heels struck the paving in pace with his as they walked, and the sound resonated above the distant music and conversation from the ballroom. The night was drab and dark. The only light to guide their path spilled from the second set of French doors which stood open to the night air at the far end of the terrace.
“A cartel?” he overheard Sutton say as they approached the open doors leading into the library. The chilly autumn breeze caught the curtain, whipping it out in front of them, concealing him and Jane from Sutton’s view. Yet Robert had already seen Sutton standing before the hearth beside the Duke of Pembroke, a drink in hand, observing the rest of the group with speculation. Did Sutton recognise his enemies and suspect what was planned? “That is an idea I would support,” Sutton continued, his words compliant, but his tone hesitant and wary.
“There is one more member we are awaiting,” Pembroke continued.
Robert looked at Jane. This was their cue. Smiling, he squeezed her hand. She smiled in return, such a gentle, vulnerable look, it wrenched his heart. How the hell could the Suttons have treated a woman of her quality with such a lack of respect? She was worth ten dozen of them. Giving him a little nod in assent, she acknowledged she was ready to face the villain.
“Barrington,” Pembroke intoned as Robert stepped into the room, keeping a tight hold on Jane’s hand.
She hung back behind his shoulder as Sutton stared, hiding his emotions, although Robert could see the mental calculation running behind the fixed look on Sutton’s face.
“The fact is, Your Grace,” Robert began, unable to hold back the callous smile which lifted his lips, “this cartel of which the Duke of Pembroke speaks has been established solely to exclude you, not to include you.”
Sutton glared, the muscle of his jaw flickering with controlled anger in response. “What is this?” Sutton looked about the group, scanning each face. “I thought we had gathered to discuss business?”
“We have, and you are it.” Robert’s voice was deliberately cold. “We have had enough of your games, Sutton, your illegitimate practices that many of us can testify to. If you would rather we address this in a court and make it public, so be it. Or, you can accept our terms and withdraw.”
Sutton’s eyes narrowed. “Your terms?” He looked at Pembroke.
“You owe many of us here large sums. Our terms are that you pay back everything you have manipulated from others, excluding my wife’s inheritance. She does not care about your father’s fortune. Keep it. In return, we shall not press charges within a court. Your choice, Sutton. Public humiliation or repayment of the money you have blackmailed and forced from us, and if any of us hear of any further enforced deals, we break the agreement and present the evidence to a court.” Of course, Sutton could easily comprehend their stipulations. It was blackmail, after all.
Again, Sutton looked about the group, but then his eyes fixed on Jane.
Robert felt her fingers leave his, blocking any temptation he may have had to pull her closer.
Instead, she stepped forward, her eyes levelled on Sutton’s, while all others in the room watched her.
Robert’s hand reached involuntarily to her waist. His instinct to protect her was just as strong as hers to protect him.
“You bitch!” Sutton’s eyes flashed with unguarded hatred as his gaze set on Jane and his words sought to wound. Then he shot a look about the room, challenging each and every man. “If you are doing this because of her, she is just a whore. She stole my inheritance with her calculated wiles. She is not worth your effort!”
Jane’s chin tilted up, expressing defiance as one of her hands pushed Robert’s away from her waist. Her other lifted, palm outstretched, to silence the influential men in the room.
Robert’s chest swelled, his heart overflowing, not stirred by a desire to protect, but with immense pride in her strength.
“You and I both know how false that statement is, Your Grace.” Her voice was strong and assured. “So much so, I refuse to even protest against it. No one is here because of me. They are here because this time you have gone too far. No matter what you believe, you cannot just do as you please to the disadvantage of others. This, Your Grace, is your reprisal. You must face the result of your own actions. You are accountable, Joshua, not I.”
“As the lady states, it is your behaviour which is in question, Sutton. I have seen nothing inappropriate in Lady Barrington’s. There is no call to insult her when it is we who have approached you,” the Duke of Pembroke concluded.
Nods and echoes of agreement rose about the room.
Sutton sneered at Pembroke then at Jane. “Then why is she here?”
“Because Lady Barrington has been an equal victim in this.” Richard, the Marquess of Wiltshire stepped forward. “She rightly wished to be a part of the meeting, and any further slander or actions against Lord and Lady Barrington will equally incur our information being sent to the courts.”
Robert watched Sutton drain his glass and set it down on the mantel. The tension had gone from his body. “Very well.” The man faced the room, his gaze passing over those gathered. They had bound him fully. Sutton could make no further move against Jane. “It seems you have won then, Jane.” His eyes fixed on her. “Lord Barrington.” His eyes lifted to Robert’s as his hand reached inside his coat.
Robert held the bastard’s gaze. If Jane had refused to bow to his intimidation then Robert was hardly likely to bend. Give us what you have, Sutton.
The man drew a pistol and held it in Robert’s direction.
The room broke into an uproar as Sutton aimed at Robert’s head and the scene slipped into slow motion.
Jane spun and braced herself across his body, as though she could protect him from the shot.
Edward moved, too, leaping across to knock Sutton’s hand aside. The shot went wide, hitting the cornice in the corner of the room and sending down a shower of plaster. Others followed Edward’s movement, falling on to Sutton and knocking him to the floor.
When the commotion ended, Robert’s arm was about his wife, holding her secure and Sutton was pinned beneath several eminent lords, while Edward’s knee was across Sutton’s outstretched arm. Richard kicked the gun from Sutton’s hand.
“They could hang you for this, Sutton. I’ll call for a magistrate.” Devonshire stood at the open French door behind Robert, and the terrace was filling up with guests who’d heard the pistol fire.
“At least we can be certain he will be no more trouble.” Sutton’s gun dangled from Richard’s finger by the trigger.
“He had his choice. He made it,” Edward added, one hand now also pressing Sutton’s cheek to the floor.
“I have always thought you mad. You have only proven it by making such a foolish attempt at murder. Give it up, man. Your game is lost.” The Duke of Pembroke looked down on Sutton, who writhed on the floor, angry and fighting against his restraint.
“This is the fault of that bitch. I told you she is a whore, prostituting herself for Barrington’s aid.”
Jane hugged Robert harder, her face buried into his neck.
“No one is listening to him, Jane. Ignore it,” he whispered to her ear.
But her unwavering strength and courage shone through, and she lifted her head as he felt her spine stiffen.
He smiled.
“Thank you,” she whispered, pressing a discreet kiss on his cheek.
The Duchess of Devonshire stepped through the French door. “Lady Barrington? Do come away. There are many of us
who wish to apologise for believing the Duke of Sutton’s nonsense. Leave this to the men.”
Jane drew away from Robert, but her eyes said she did not wish to leave him.
“Go. He can do no more harm.”
Her emerald gaze shone with the uncertainty he knew she would only show him.
Curling one finger beneath her chin, he kissed her lips swiftly. “You’ll do, girl,” he said before the Duchess of Devonshire led her away.
Jane found herself at the centre of a mass of feminine attention as the details of what had occurred spread throughout the gathering. Many came to the drawing room, where Lady Devonshire had secured Jane, to offer their condolence, support, and commiseration for her earlier suffering.
Of course, many declared they had known there was something not quite right about the Dukes of Sutton and wished they had made a complaint against them earlier, or that they had come to the country to offer Jane support. But Jane knew these comments to be nothing but pretension. If the ton had cared for anything beyond their own ends, they would not have wished, but done.
However, she suffered their hollow professions of concern and accepted Lady Devonshire’s offer of tea in good grace while wishing desperately that Violet was still in town. Yet Jane was glad of Ellen’s company and looked from one woman to another, accepting condolences, though her eyes regularly turned to the door.
When, finally, she saw the one person she’d been waiting for, she called out, “Robert!” She set her cup aside and rushed to embrace him, like the tide pulled towards the moon.
“All is well, sweetheart,” he whispered as she held him. “We have seen the last of him, I hope.”
“May we go home?” she answered, looking up into his eyes.
“Home?” he echoed. “Wherever you are is that to me. Come then. At least now, I know you’ll be secure there.”
She nodded before turning back to the interested group of women. Damn them all. She didn’t care who had slept with him. Let them be jealous. He had eyes only for her now, and they had never truly known him anyway, not as she did. Her fingers caught Robert’s behind her back. “Thank you for your kindness, Your Grace.” She dropped a curtsy to the Duchess of Devonshire.
“Not at all, dear. You are welcome here whenever you wish, and may I call upon you?”
Requests to call upon them were then reiterated about the room. Jane accepted them with aplomb while Robert whispered, “Our afternoons of leisure are at an end then.”
She struck his hip with a balled fist behind her dress, offered another curtsy to the Duchess of Devonshire, and said, “Thank you” once more, then looked at her audience, “You’re most kind.”
“Now, if you will excuse us, I am sure my wife is tired. It is beyond time I took her home to bed.” Robert’s interjection cut the air, and his fingers gripped her elbow to defend himself from further blows, she assumed.
“Of course, Lord Barrington, do. You must be very fatigued.” The Duchess of Devonshire rose. “I will show you out.”
Robert’s fingers still pressuring Jane’s elbow, she followed Lady Devonshire.
“Such an appalling business,” the Duchess concluded as they reached the hall. “But at least now, you may sleep in peace, knowing it is at an end.”
“Your Grace. Thank you,” Robert said when the butler opened the door.
Jane saw James, Robert’s groom, in the street below, waiting with the open carriage door in his hand. He helped her in, then her husband’s tall, lean, muscular frame slid in beside her.
A few moments later, the horses pulled away and Robert loosened his cravat with one hand while picking up hers with the other and weaving their fingers together. “Thank God we are away. It is not sleeping on my mind.”
She turned and caught his rakish smile.
“We shall have to retire to the country immediately,” he added, “I am not sharing you with them.”
She laughed and hugged him. The devil then hauled her on to his lap.
She squealed. “Robert!”
“Robert, indeed! I want you to ride me home.” His voice was husky.
“Ride you?”
“I’ll tell you how,” he whispered to her mouth before he kissed her.
Her heart thumped, the scene with Joshua slipping from her mind. He was pushing boundaries again, and deliberately, to make her forget. “You are wicked.”
“And as I’ve told you before, you love it, my strait-laced ex-duchess. Lift your skirts and sit astride me.”
Her fingers pressed against his chest, and she held him back a little. “Will you never cease your rakish behaviour, my Lord?”
“Never,” he answered. “I’ve spent too many years fantasising about you, Jane. Now, I have all those years of fantasies to fulfill.”
She struck his shoulder with the heel of her hand. “Wretch. You’ve probably fulfilled them with half the women there tonight.”
“But none of them were you. You were the woman I fantasised for. God, I want to make that known. I want to shock the ton again. Let them know I love my wife. Shall I ravage you in the midst of the next ball? They already know you love me. You thoroughly glowed in that room when I walked in. Your reputation, my cold, proud, ex-dowager duchess, is in tatters. You’ll be the name on every tongue for days.”
“Then I shall accept your offer to move back to the country. I have no desire to be renowned as your latest conquest.”
His fingers curved beneath her chin. “Then I shall definitely ensure it is made public that it is the other way around. I am yours. Now, give me my husband’s due.”
“Rogue.” She struck his shoulder again in a half-hearted rebuke, but willingly complied, kissing him as she moved to sit astride his hips. She intended to ride him to oblivion. He’d beaten Joshua. He’d done it.
Chapter Twenty-three
Robert watched Jane move about the crowded room. They had settled at Farnborough and fallen into a natural routine. Today, they were holding their first social gathering for family and friends. Unlike in the summer, Jane was truly part of them.
She was circulating, undertaking her duty as his wife. She left Ellen in the company of his friends, the Forths, to speak to the Duchess of Pembroke. Then she glanced across the room at him. He leaned back against a windowsill, his arms folding over his chest, and smiled, giving her a reassuring look, but feeling hungry to be alone with her again. She smiled, too, but then scowled at him, a smile in her eyes.
Robert looked away, biting his lower lip to stop himself from laughing. She’d read his thoughts; she knew what he’d been thinking. Who’d have known he would find her expanding figure so alluring? God, there was something very precious about knowing he’d instigated the bulge clearly visible beneath her day dress. Each time he thought of their child, growing inside her, he felt a sudden wave of awe sweep over him.
He was going to be a father. Not an uncle. A father. His and Jane’s child was busy forming in there.
“She is good for you.”
Robert turned to look at his brother.
Edward smiled and nodded in Jane’s direction.
Robert smiled more broadly. “She is more than good for me. She is me.”
Edward sipped from a glass of champagne, and his eyes strayed to Ellen, who was also visibly with child, before returning to Robert. “I’m sorry. I misjudged you for years. But I still do not see how you kept this thing with Jane from me when we were young.”
Robert’s lips tilted as he remembered the moment Jane had fallen from her horse and this had begun. “You stayed with friends at times during the holidays. It left us together. When you were here, we passed each other messages in a code Jane developed to tell me where to meet her and when.”
“Your early morning rides, when you wanted peace and quiet. Your afternoon walks, when you needed to think. I thought you had outgrown me.”
Robert laughed, and Edward turned to put his glass down on the tray of a passing footman. Robert caught Jane’s eye, smiled and winked
twice, then tilted his head to the right. She narrowed her eyes at him and shook her head, but then, having glanced about to check no one watched, gave him a wicked seductress smile as her finger lifted and rubbed her ear.
He nodded just as Edward turned back.
“Ridiculously,” Edward said, “I’d have probably never met Ellen if you and Jane had not gone your separate ways, because you’d never have gone abroad.”
“No.” Robert stared at his brother. He’d not thought of that, and Ellen was perfect for Edward.
“Uncle Robert!” Mary-Rose barrelled through the French doors, the fresh smell of spring carried with her in her clothes. Bending, Robert captured her as the tot charged into his leg, squealing. He lifted her to his hip as her elder brother, John, raced in behind her. Robert imagined his own children thus, when they came. He was impatient for that day.
“Coward,” John accused as he approached, his skin flushed and his chest heaving. Robert saw grass in John’s hair and knew, without doubt, Mary-Rose was responsible. John was growing up, and he did not always wish to play her childish games, and Mary-Rose had run to her uncle for safety because she knew Robert was soft on her. There was tension in John’s jaw. He rarely lost his temper. He was, in general, a placid lad, but he was in the turbulent years of his life, and he had grown much quieter lately, and more solitary. John lifted his chin with a look too much like His Grace, the Duke of Pembroke, John’s grandsire, for comfort.
“She is an imp, Papa. Send her to bed without supper.”
Mary-Rose grinned at her brother, unrepentant.
Robert eased the argument by offering to take John riding tomorrow and telling him he might stay with the men after dinner, and then to Mary he offered ice cream in the nursery as her appeasement.
Edward agreed to both of Robert’s offers and then took John away to play billiards, leaving Mary-Rose in Robert’s arms.
One of Mary-Rose’s hands rested on his shoulder, the other touched his cheek then slid to his earlobe. Her small fingers rubbed it.
It was a thing she’d done since a babe. It was a subtle sign she was tired. Her head tipped against his shoulder and he settled her more securely on his forearm. “Uncle Robert?”
