She didn’t expect Denford to marry her; she had deeply disapproved of Windermere’s suggestion that he might wed a kitchen maid, even if spoken in jest. But apparently she, Jeanne-Louise de Falleron, had been Jane Grey for too long and absorbed the values of the bourgeois among whom she had spent the last decade. She would not share her lover, duke or no duke.
She wrote a stiff little note to him, demanding a private audience. She would tell Denford that it was all over between them and then . . .
And then she didn’t know what she would do.
She slumped at the table and stared at her note, high indignation draining away to be replaced by melancholy. Instead of finding Mr. Fortescue, she had entered an affaire de coeur with the head of the Fortescue family. With no immediate prospect of love or revenge, her life was in danger of drifting into uncertainty—or perhaps plummeting into a void.
She straightened her back, folded her letter, and set off to find a footman. It took less time than expected. Not ten yards down the passage, a liveried servant greeted her. “A message from His Grace, miss.”
Dear Miss Grey,
No visitor to the castle should fail to see the pride of Denford, the Maiden’s Keep. I have arranged for a private visit this afternoon. Come to the door at two and you will be admitted. Promptness and correct dress will be appreciated.
Denford
Since proper attire for a tryst with one’s lover—Denford’s request—was not the same as that for breaking off the affair—her intention—she wore a simple muslin gown, suitable summer attire for a governess.
She climbed the steep hill to the tower, the sun on her back in contrast to the chilled stone of the great fortress looming ahead of her. Absurd to feel that she would never be happy again; she hadn’t been happy in years. Yet that wasn’t true. She’d been happy as governess to the Osbournes and happy in Denford’s arms.
She’d scarcely knocked on the thick oaken door before it creaked open and she was tugged blinking into the gloom. The door slammed behind them.
“I’ve missed you so much, Jane.” He tried to kiss her but she jerked her head aside.
“You’ve managed well enough for three days. No doubt you have better company.”
“Never. You know why I couldn’t come to you at night. I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to send everyone away for the afternoon, and made an excuse about why I cannot accompany them like a good host. I even sent Hillthorpe in my place to tour the cathedral and to prevent him from interrupting us at the keep. He’s quite possessive about this place and I wanted to show it to you myself.”
“You are too late. Mr. Hillthorpe already brought me here.”
He took hold of her hands. “As I would know if we had exchanged more than a few words since my arrival. You’re angry with me. Can you accept my groveling apology, on bended knees if necessary?” He was half rueful, half amused. She said nothing. “Please Jane. Did you know there is a bedchamber in the tower?”
“Where the Saxon maiden was supposed to surrender her virtue to your ancestor?”
“Unfair!”
“I take back the implication. Why is there a bed here?”
“I am told that during the long summer, the younger men competed mightily for the privilege of sleeping in the tower. Would you like to see the room?” He stroked her hair, and his low whisper in the gloomy vaulted entryway sent waves of longing through her veins. She broke free and made for the staircase.
“I think not. Let us go to the top. We need to talk and the view is magnificent.”
“I don’t like the sound of that. It’s never a good thing when a lady wishes to talk, especially if she thinks I need the distraction of a fine view.”
“You, Your Grace? I was thinking of me.”
“I’m glad to hear you still need distraction. I was beginning to fear I had lost my touch.”
Unfortunately he hadn’t. His touch was as potent as ever and she needed to avoid it until she had said her piece. As she carefully mounted the uneven winding stairs she sensed his warmth two steps behind. Keeping a hand on the rough cold stones of the staircase wall helped her balance and prevented her from drifting into a sensual haze.
Emerging onto the roof, the light was almost blinding, and since she’d left her bonnet behind she risked a red face. She didn’t care. Closing her eyes, she tilted her head to the sun’s rays. Better the heat of summer than that of her body’s reaction to Denford. High above she heard a lark’s song.
“Upbraid me for my neglect,” he said. “I will take my punishment, for all that it is undeserved. I had affairs to attend to when I would far rather have been with you.”
“A gentleman’s affairs always come first.”
“You would have me neglect my duties? That doesn’t sound like my strict governess.”
“I understand your duties, Your Grace, and I know that one of them is to marry. I felicitate you. Mademoiselle Cazalet is a very fine young lady. Très gentille.” He didn’t seem to notice that in her agitation she almost reverted to French. “You should have told me what you intended. I believe I have the right.”
“Is that what this is about?” He gave a short crack of laughter. “I should have guessed that nothing can be kept secret in a small village or large castle. I’m sorry you heard this rumor, but I assure you I am not engaged to Miss Cazalet, or anyone else.”
“But you will be. And that is why we cannot meet again, alone. I will not be your mistress if you are promised to another.” She forced herself to look at him and tender her resignation when all she wanted to do was to fall into his embrace. “It will be better if I leave your service entirely. I shall depart shortly. I’m sure Lady Windermere will help you find a new governess.”
He seized her by the shoulders and pulled her close. “Don’t leave me, Jane. How can I do without you?” She had never seen him so serious with an expression that looked like anguish, heard his voice so raw and free of mockery. She averted her face from the power of his eyes, blue as the sky and framed in black lashes. “Who will teach me to be a better brother?” When Denford was teasing she found him delectable; his sincerity was irresistible.
“You will manage,” she muttered.
“No,” he said, “I will not. I do not think I can manage without you. You have bewitched me like no other woman in all my life.”
It was shocking, coming from him. Denford the cynic, the devil-may-care, the scorner of all sentiment, had vanished. His fingers dug into her flesh and she relished the pain that bore witness to the intensity of his feelings. She wanted to tell him that she was his and he could do with her what he wished.
He took a deep breath and relaxed his grip. “Let me try and explain.” He led her to the bench, the stone hard and cool through her muslin skirts. “I play a delicate game. I told you of my ambitions to sell a collection of pictures to the king. Cazalet is the key to his acceptance. I must have his recommendation and until he has given it, I have let him believe I may be his son-in-law.”
Just as Windermere had surmised. “That’s unfair to Miss Cazalet.”
“You bullied me into being nice to my sisters. You can’t expect me to reform all my wicked ways. Not even Jane Grey can make me a saint.”
How could she, when she was hardly a saint herself? All her sins and lies were intended to culminate in the act of murder. Justifiable, but murder nevertheless. She had never fooled herself that plunging a knife into Mr. Fortescue’s flesh was an act that God would forgive. In comparison to hers, Denford’s transgressions were peccadilloes.
“I wouldn’t want you to be a saint, merely a halfway decent man. And I believe that you are and always were. You like to pretend to be devilish with your black garments and your long hair and your twisted smile but you don’t deceive me. You were never as black as you pretend. There is a soft heart underneath that alarming shell.”
He retreated into flippancy. “If so, let it be our secret or my reputation for ruthlessness will be quite ruined.”
�
��Not if you break Miss Cazalet’s heart.” Or another heart in greater danger.
“She doesn’t give a damn about me. I can tell if a woman cares, and she does not. If Henrietta Cazalet accepted my proposal, which I have no intention of making, it would only be to please her father and Lady Ashfield.”
“Impossible. Why would she turn you down?”
“How delightful that you can’t believe a woman wouldn’t want me.”
She’d given too much away. “You are a duke,” she said with a shrug. “Anyone would want to marry a duke.”
Shifting along the seat until they touched, side to side, he placed one large hand over the two clasped in her lap. His breath tickled her ear, and his low voice reverberated in her head. “You give a damn about me, Jane Grey. You care for me. Can you deny it?”
She couldn’t, mort et damnation! Of course she cared for Denford. But it was far worse than that. She had fallen in love with him. The knowledge, long denied, swelled her heart with joy and twisted her gut with misery. She tore herself away, ran across the circular enclosure, and leaning her head against a stone battlement, covered her face with her hands.
“Go away,” she whispered when he followed her.
“Deny it,” he said with his breath and lips on her ear, his fingers branding her waist. She was bursting with love, ready to explode if she had to keep it in. “Deny it,” he repeated. “Tell me you don’t care for me.”
With her heart a lump in her throat, she could barely speak. “I cannot.”
He seized her roughly and turned her so that she was in his arms, holding her fast against his chest. “I cannot deny it either. I care for you. So very much.”
Then he captured her mouth in a wet, hot, all-consuming kiss that made her forget every other thing in the world and in her life, past or future. The universe narrowed to Denford and her and the tiny space they occupied under a bright blue sky. There was nothing gentle or sweet about the fever that possessed them. His afternoon stubble burned her chin; she clawed his back in her desperate hunger; he gripped her bottom to lift her against his erection; her hands lowered to his waist, fruitlessly seeking his buttons; she felt the silken summer air on her thighs as he lifted her skirts. Somehow they managed to set aside enough of their garments so that he could push her against the wall, lift one of her legs, and guide himself inside her with a relentless drive.
She cried out, again and again, in chorus with the soaring lark, mindless with bliss such as she’d never experienced. It wasn’t gentle or pretty but raw and true, and as she screamed her fulfillment to the skies, she knew that she could never leave this man.
Julian had her in his arms. They’d stumbled laughing, drained of strength, tipsy with joy, down the short, perilous flight of stairs to the only furnished room in the Maiden’s Keep to lie naked and entwined in the narrow bed.
“I’ve never felt better in my life. It must be the nearly two weeks without you that made that so extraordinary.”
“We should make a practice of extended abstinence then.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Is this the longest you have ever gone without?”
“No, Madame Curiosity, it is not. I’m not such a diehard rake. What about you? Was there anyone else after your dastardly solider?”
“I had one other lover.”
“I hope he was better than the first.”
“I chose him myself and that was an improvement.”
Julian was both glad and jealous, an entirely foreign sentiment. He didn’t wish that Jane’s past had been completely miserable, but it was all he could do not to ask her if he was the better lover. He wouldn’t do it, wouldn’t put her in the position of having to tell a lie to flatter him. Or tell the truth and make him wretched. Yet he didn’t think he was mistaken in finding something new in Jane’s response to their lovemaking.
“There was something different between us today. I felt you lose yourself more than in the past. Of course I was fairly lost myself.” He averted his head, suddenly unsure that he was right, and turned it into a jest. “Perhaps it was the effect of the open air. Shall we always do it outside? It might be uncomfortable in dead of winter.”
“Julian?” She pressed his cheek, forcing him to look at her again. “It was different. I never felt anything like that with Henri, and assuredly not with Mathieu. I never felt like this before and I have never given myself with such”—she stopped to think—“lack of thought or worry.”
So both her lovers had been French, no surprise. “The act of love should always be without worry, and without thought except for the pleasure of the participants.”
“Should one worry about pleasing the other?”
As they talked he had been idly stroking her breasts, ribs, and stomach, relishing the texture of her skin and the pliant flesh beneath. “I can’t speak to that in universal terms, but I promise that you need never have the least concern about pleasing me. Whatever you do, or don’t do, makes me happy so you should do what pleases you.” His cock stirred again at even remote memories of her past attentions and he wanted to strangle those so-called lovers for making her doubt herself. He didn’t want any details about them, but he wished she would tell him the truth about herself.
She relaxed catlike into his touch until she fairly hummed with pleasure, but their caresses were for intimacy, not for passion. “Where did you spend your childhood?” he asked, and felt her body tense for a moment.
“In Saint Lucia.”
“I wasn’t sure if you had lived there all your life before coming to England.”
“All of it, yes,” she said after a brief pause.
She wasn’t going to tell him and he didn’t want to hear more of her lies. He wanted her to trust him. If she confessed the truth, perhaps he would respond in kind. They say that confession is good for the soul. Jane, who thought him a good man, might convince him to forgive himself for the past. He tried to imagine what she would say about the Fallerons and what he should do.
He opened his mouth to tell the story, then stopped. Why spoil this sublime moment? He would tell her, but later, after his grand unveiling.
Besides, he didn’t have to ask for advice, only absolution. Jane would tell him what he already knew: that he had no right to the marquis’s art collection. Since the family had all died he could not return their property. But he need not profit from it either. If the king would agree to build a national gallery for the nation, he would donate the paintings. Given his fortune, it was scarcely a sacrifice.
“I have a big event planned for tomorrow night,” he said.
“Yes?” Deft fingers sent streaks of lazy pleasure through his body.
“The Long Gallery in the south wing has been unused for decades. Hillthorpe tells me it was built for the ladies of the house to take indoor exercise during bad weather. I don’t know if it stopped raining in this part of Sussex, or if the Fortescue ladies became infected with laziness. I decided it would make a splendid gallery. It has windows all down one side facing north, perfect for the display of pictures. I ordered it freshly painted and my collection has been hung. Tomorrow night I shall unveil it to the world.”
“That’s wonderful. I hope Lord Cazalet will be impressed and do as you wish.”
“Will you be there, Jane? I think you have been avoiding the company.”
“I had the headache last night.”
He didn’t believe her. “Now that you know there’s no reason to fear meeting Miss Cazalet, please accompany the children after dinner. I would like you to see my collection and I want you to share it with me, be it triumph or disaster.”
There was always the possibility of disaster if Sir Richard Radcliffe decided to make trouble. Julian had invited him to Denford because, whatever Radcliffe had in mind, he’d rather have the wily baronet under his roof where he could see him. He and Windermere also hoped that Radcliffe would be tricked into exposing his part in the troubled history of the Falleron property, whether it was the original b
etrayal back in France, or the more recent attempt to wrest the pictures from Julian. It was a risky strategy that might end in Julian looking the greater villain, not Radcliffe. Julian had too much unwilling respect for the man to think he’d let the pictures go to the king without an attempt to interfere.
“I will be there,” Jane said. “I am curious to see these great masterpieces you are so mysterious about.”
“I believe you will bring me luck. I will astonish the world, and Britain will have the basis of a national gallery of art worthy of a great nation.”
His decision solved all his problems. The collection was too fine and the offer too generous for Cazalet to quibble when Julian broke the news that he wasn’t going to offer for Henrietta. Rolling over, he gathered Jane close and kissed her hard.
The woman he loved was in his arms, and in a dizzying revelation he realized that she was also the only bride he wanted. Astonishingly, he wanted a bride. With growing exhilaration the idea of a lifetime with Jane took hold of his head and heart. A lifetime of joy and perhaps, finally, peace of mind.
Tomorrow night he would make his confession and beg her to tell him her history. In a strange way, if he could make Jane, or whatever French name she’d been born with, happy, it might be a small payment against the debt he owed the Falleron family and could never discharge.
Chapter 17
Jane fingered the fine silk of her best evening gown, touched the delicate beads scattered on the overdress. Closing her eyes, she envisioned the blue gleam in Julian’s when he saw her dressed as a duchess or a mistress should be. As much as she wanted to look beautiful for him, she didn’t forget that Louis was still here. Not daring to present herself in her true guise, she must remain an inconspicuous mouse of a governess, observing the proceedings from a quiet corner in an old blue dress.
Reluctantly she folded the rose gown and put it away. No handsome armoire for her at Denford, only a simple washstand and a corner cupboard. The garments she couldn’t wear lived on the bottom shelf, piled on top of her knife.
The Duke of Dark Desires Page 21
