“Twenty-four seconds. And you are a fool if you think you’ll ever again see even so much as a farthing from me, for any reason. You’re an even greater fool if you expect me to believe money is the deciding factor in all of this.”
A tic formed in Utley’s jaw, and he moved his hand from Jane’s mouth to her décolletage, wetting his lips repeatedly through his sneer.
Heat rose up through Peter’s body and his head jerked involuntarily to the side and back. He felt, more than saw, Sinclaire and Neil both slip past him and closer to where Utley held Jane captive.
“You don’t like that, do you, Somerton? You want her for yourself?” Utley laughed. “It matters not to me—I wouldn’t bed her for the king’s entire treasury. She can be your plaything. But I will have her dowry.”
Peter’s rage turned his vision red. He dove for Utley, reaching for his throat. Neil pulled Jane away just in time.
A rip sounded as they all fell, two in one direction, two in the other.
Peter held onto Utley’s lapel and planted his fist into the bastard’s face over and over. Peter reached back to send another straight through his nose when a hand pulled back hard on his arm.
“Stop, Somerton.” Sinclaire tightened his grip and wouldn’t let go. “Enough.”
“Enough?” he roared. It would never be enough. He could never reclaim Mary’s honor. And now, he could never reclaim Jane’s honor, either.
He started to say just that, but Jane’s quiet voice stopped him. “Yes. It’s enough. Please.”
She sat in the corner of the room shaking almost as badly as Peter was with Neil at her side. The bodice of her gown was held up only by her hands. Still, she didn’t cry. Jane’s eyes pierced through his, pleading with him. “Let it be enough.”
One more. He only wanted one more shot.
But he couldn’t do it and then look at her again. Not when she asked him to do otherwise. Peter let go of Utley’s coat. A thud sounded when he hit the floor.
Peter’s eyes followed the bastard, and landed on his own hand. It was covered in blood. Had he hurt Utley that badly? The memory already faded into the distance.
When Utley painstakingly rose to his feet and stood in the dim light filtering in from the hall, streams of blood poured from his mouth and nose.
“Leave,” Peter said, his voice strangled, foreign sounding. “Never dare to step foot on my property again.”
Utley’s eyes were wild, but he said nothing. He turned and fled from the room, rushing for the back stairs only used by the servants. That must have been how he got inside Hardwicke House in the first place.
“I’ll follow him,” Neil said, just before Peter did as his feet impelled him to do and followed the bastard himself. “He won’t return.”
“I’ll go, too,” Sinclaire added and rushed out.
Peter didn’t trust his voice (nor himself, in terms of actually allowing the man to live), so he nodded and remained where he was as Neil and Sinclaire chased Utley down the stairs to some unknown end.
Jane still sat on her chair in the corner, her eyes never leaving him, her hand holding the tattered remains of her gown to her chest. Her eyes were bright, unwavering. Focused on him.
Both of them were still trembling.
Peter took a step toward her. When she didn’t flinch, he took two more. “I...” Thoughts left him faster than they arrived. Fiend seize it, what does one say at a time like this?
However, Jane seemed unconcerned about his inability to form a coherent sentence. She stood and walked slowly—meticulously slowly—to stand before him. With each step she took, he forgot to breathe.
How could she be so serene? So unruffled?
Peter was ready to rip limbs from the next man who stepped foot through the door—no matter who that man might be—if not worse. He wanted to bellow his agony from the rooftop for all of Town to hear.
He wanted to wrap her in his arms and assure himself no one would ever hurt her again.
“Peter?” she said, her voice a mere whisper.
He couldn’t answer; he must say nothing, so as to avoid saying something wrong. Hurtful. Damaging.
To avoid doing something he would regret.
There were enough regrets already in his life.
She drew ever closer, her eyes searching him for something he couldn’t give her. A foot away. A breath away.
A heartbeat away.
The heat radiating from her body would be his undoing if she didn’t back away that instant. He should push her aside—force some distance between them.
But he couldn’t move.
Jane examined him, her eyes scanning his face, his chest, moving down to his hand. He focused on her eyes as she studied his battered, swollen, bloodied hand. Utley’s blood? Or his own? It hardly mattered at this point.
What mattered was that she took that hand—his hand—into one of her own and gingerly felt over it. Her touch was light as a feather.
It seared him.
“No,” Peter said. He attempted to pull his hand free, to finally force his body to separate from her—her heat—but her butterfly grasp turned to steel. She wouldn’t set him loose.
Once he stopped pulling against her, she trailed her fingers over the bones of his fingers, feeling for breaks. She bent to the ground and ripped a strip from her underskirts.
In the process, the hand which had been covering her bosom dropped away, and the torn fabric fell away with it.
He groaned and tried to look away, to look at anything other than the creamy, full breast bouncing below him. “We could have used my cravat,” he said wryly.
If his sarcasm was returning, particularly in a moment like this, perhaps he was finally regaining his sanity?
“This was faster than undoing such a fussy knot.” She tore the strip in two, then cleaned his hand with the first and wrapped the wound with the other. “This should do. The cut isn’t deep.”
After she finished her work, she stepped away from him—and finally remembered about her bared breast. Two hands flew up to cover her bosom, one clutching desperately at the remnants of fabric dangling precariously about her chest.
Too bad. It had been far too long since he’d seen such a lovely sight.
Good Lord, he was a cad. He was almost as bad as Utley, to think a thought like that at a time like this. Good thing the minx couldn’t see into his thoughts.
“Thank you,” she said.
Thank you. He certainly wasn’t deserving of her thanks at the moment—not while he was thinking about taking her to his chambers and undressing the rest of her. Not while he couldn’t remove his eyes from her.
“For...for rescuing me like you did.” Her voice trembled.
Please, Lord let her not cry. He could handle anything—well, almost anything—but a crying female. He had to do something to keep her tears from falling. “Thank you,” he blurted out. “For taking care of my hand.”
Bloody hell. Something shimmery and wet slid down her cheek, barely visible in the faint candlelight. She was crying. He had to find some way to stop her.
He searched his mind, and came up empty. There was nothing to be done but to kiss her.
Peter closed the scant distance between them in less than a heartbeat. His good hand fisted in the loose curls falling loose from her knot. With his bandaged hand, he dried the tears falling from her eyes.
Then lip met lip and she sighed—a shivery, needy sort of sound that Peter devoured. He could drown in her. She tasted of peaches, and her warmth was like a drug.
His tongue parted her lips and Jane shuddered in his arms. Tongues stroked against each other, plunging then retreating.
Her hands left her torn gown and wandered over his chest and arms, pulling him closer, searching for more. Giving more. Everywhere she touched him, he burned. Feathery, fiery trails slithered across his abdomen, his neck, his back.
He felt greedy. She gave and gave, but still he needed more. Wanted more. It wasn’t enough. It would never be
enough.
Peter needed...he needed her. He loved her. Good God. The realization hit him like a careening carriage slamming into a brick wall. He needed to taste her. He left her mouth and trailed a wet path with his tongue over her chin, down her neck, to the swell of her bared breast.
“Heavenly,” he said. “So sweet.”
When he suckled the hardened nub, she gasped and lost her control of her legs, collapsing against the desk behind her. There was no choice to be made—he had to follow her there, because her hands were clamped into tight fists in his hair, pulling his head closer to her breast.
A tiny nip of his teeth, and she moaned.
A breath of air on the wet heat, and she sighed.
Hands were everywhere. His dipping into and kneading her soft, luscious curves. Hers running beneath his coat, stroking over his chest, arms, abdomen.
Footfalls sounded in the hall, moving closer to them, and Peter pulled back suddenly. Christ, what had he been thinking? “Straighten yourself,” he ordered. It might be Neil or Sinclaire, but it could very well be any number of other people. His house was full to bursting at the moment, and Lord only knew where his servants were.
Jane looked up at him with fuzzy, confused eyes. Confound it. She was still lost in the haze of passion. She had no idea her entire life was about to change in the blink of an eye. Damnation, he should have killed Utley instead of letting him leave.
He pulled her to her feet and situated her hands on the torn fabric, holding it in place. “You must prepare yourself now, Jane.” Peter made certain his tone was firm, not leaving any room for her to misunderstand his meaning.
Realization reached her eyes just in time, and she stood a bit straighter.
“And just what have we in here?” demanded a sharp, shrill female voice.
Devil take it. That was certainly not either Neil or Sinclaire. Who on earth had discovered them?
“I daresay you wanted to be caught, you did, since the door’s wide open to the hall,” the unknown intruder continued, coming closer into the room and holding aloft a candle—the last candle burning in the hall—to see their faces.
Lady Plumridge. Damnation. Peter used his body to block the old biddy’s view of Jane, but it was too late. The damage was done.
Jane was ruined—and it appeared, at least to anyone in society, to have happened by his own hand.
The woman inched closer, surely trying to make out for certain who the victims of her vile gossip were. Blast, she wouldn’t be able to hold her discovery in for even an hour, let alone until morning.
Another step closer, then, “Your Grace? Oh, dear. Why, I was expecting...er...well, this is certainly a surprise, sir.”
Clearly, this had been Utley’s plan. Only he intended to be the man caught with Jane himself, instead of Peter. Thank God that hadn’t come to pass. He would never be able to forgive himself if Jane had to suffer such a fate.
“Well, step aside, Your Grace,” Lady Plumridge continued. “It must be known who your little doxy is, mustn’t it?”
“You will watch your tongue, madam, in the presence of my fiancée.” He kept his speech velvety-smooth—dangerous.
“Fiancée?” said Jane, her voice filled with dismay. She pushed against his back in an effort to be heard. He refused to budge, even when she kicked him in the back of his knee. He would have to deal with her later. At the moment, he was busy protecting her honor and virtue as best he could, now that he’d effectively ruined the very same. Blast, he was an idiot, much like she’d once accused him of being.
“And you’ll kindly refrain from ever referring to her in such a manner again,” he continued, ignoring Jane’s efforts behind him. “Remember that you are speaking of the future Duchess of Somerton.”
“She most certainly is not,” Jane said, much more loudly than the last time. She shoved herself to the side and awkwardly climbed from the desk, clutching her tattered gown to her chest with one arm while elbowing him in the ribs with the other. “Lady Plumridge, there seems to be a misunderstanding, ma’am.”
Her desperation would kill him if she didn’t compose herself soon. At least in front of one of the two biggest matrons of gossip in all of London. She could fall apart later and rail at him for hours when they were alone. But she had to understand the severity of their situation.
Lady Plumridge certainly did.
The gossipmonger couldn’t conceal the burgeoning smile upon her face if she tried—and he doubted she’d made any such effort. “Miss Matthews, I’m quite certain there is no misunderstanding at all. Under the circumstances, you have no alternative. You two must marry, and frankly, dear, the sooner, the better.”
Sinclaire rejoined them in the parlor. The combined looks of pity and fury he wore were a clear indication he’d heard at least the last part of the conversation.
“I agree with you, ma’am,” Peter said, looking all the while at Sinclaire. “In fact, I was hoping my mother would soon join us so we could inform her of the happy occasion. I’m certain she would wish to make an announcement this evening. What a coup this will be for her, to be able to announce her cousin’s engagement at the come-out ball she has given.” And perhaps, such an announcement would diffuse the situation Lady Plumridge and her gossip-loving friends would otherwise cause.
Sinclaire took the hint and left, presumably to fetch the dowager and apprise her of the goings-on above stairs.
“You both,” Jane said quietly, “seem to be misunderstanding me. I will not be marrying you, Your Grace.”
Damnation, this was not the time. “You will,” he ground out.
“I most certainly will not.” Her glare was heated enough to melt a glacier.
Lady Plumridge giggled with mirth, sounding far more like his daughter than a woman quite so long in the tooth as she. Gossip of such magnitude had not been passed about all Season, and she had to be desperate to be the first to tell of it.
Blast it, he needed to talk to Jane alone—to make her understand the repercussions of what she was saying. “Lady Plumridge, might I have a word alone with my fiancée?”
“Oh, no, Your Grace. I don’t believe that would be appropriate at all. Why, look at the trouble that’s already happened, simply because the two of you were alone together?”
“Ah, but we’re betrothed. Society does allow for some brief time alone for engaged couples, doesn’t it?”
“Well...” The busybody seemingly searched her mind for any excuse to stay and hear everything that was said.
“We are not betrothed!” Jane said. “You haven’t asked, I haven’t accepted, and I might as well inform you now that I will not accept, no matter what your ideas on the matter may be.” With each point, she poked her finger into his chest.
Lady Plumridge smiled in victory. “It certainly would not be appropriate for you to be alone if you are not engaged, Your Grace, and the lady claims you are not. Therefore, I simply can’t agree to leave you.”
He couldn’t decide which woman he would prefer to be the first in his life he’d ever struck: Lady Plumridge for having the audacity to contradict his edict, or Jane for behaving like an unreasonable chit hardly out of the schoolroom.
Cross that off the list. He would never actually strike either woman, irrespective of how much they infuriated him. Instead, he settled with drawing a hand through his hair and coming away with a few strays.
Thankfully, before he thoroughly lost his temper with the two, Sinclaire and his mother rushed into the room, both winded from the exertion. They had arrived upstairs in the blink of an eye. Sinclaire must have put the fear of God in Mama. Peter would have to find a way to thank him later.
“Mama,” he said, “I didn’t want you to learn this way, but Jane and I will be marrying.”
Jane opened her mouth to interrupt him—or perhaps more likely to contradict him—yet again. He put an arm around her waist and pulled her sharply to his side, glaring at her as fiercely as he had ever done as a warning to remain silent. Her mou
th snapped to a close, and then she stomped on his toes.
Deuced minx.
“Quite soon,” he added on a groan, hoping to further infuriate her.
She elbowed him in the ribs.
“Perhaps tomorrow. I don’t particularly care to wait.”
Jane huffed in response. Finally, she remained still and quiet. She really needed to learn her place—particularly now that she would be his duchess.
His duchess. His wife. Good God.
His mother beamed at them from just inside the doorway. “Oh, how splendid. We’ll have to make an announcement this evening, of course. There won’t be time for an engagement ball, it seems, but we’ll plan a celebration for afterward, if that will suit you, Jane.”
Mama stopped and truly looked at Jane for the first time since entering the parlor. “Oh, dear. You must go up to Meg at once and change into a new gown. Hurry along. There’s no time to waste.”
“But...”
His mother had joined them before the desk and now placed her hand where Peter’s had been. “But nothing. You can’t possibly rejoin the ball looking as you do. Go. Shoo.”
Lady Plumridge had been creeping toward the door. The harridan likely wanted to be the first to return to supper so she could spoil the surprise or cause some other sort of uproar.
Mama, ever aware, took care of that possibility, as well. Once Jane was out the door and headed toward her chamber to change, Mama turned to Lady Plumridge. “Why, Sybil. I’ve not spoken with you yet this evening. Will you not be so kind as to sit with me for supper? We have an opening at our table.” She firmly took hold of the other woman’s arm and led her away, despite the woman’s tittering and glancing over her shoulder.
Peter’s head felt like Wellington’s army was marching through it. Blast, how had this happened again?
“Will you please go down to supper, as well?” he asked Sinclaire. “Explain our absences as you will.”
His friend inclined his head with a look of pity in his eyes, then went on his way.
Twice, women he had had no intention of offering for would become his wife.
A Lord Rotheby's Holiday Bundle Page 81
