by Olivia Drake
Lady Rosalind guided Jane toward the door of the dining chamber. “Go to him, my dear. And remember, men like to be flattered. They also like to believe they are in charge, though of course, we women know better. We must use our wits to coax them to behave as they ought.”
“I can’t coax Ethan. He won’t let me.”
Lady Rosalind laughed. “Nonsense. He is not so indifferent to you as he would seem. I would venture to guess he is up there brooding about you right now.”
Jane wanted to deny his interest in her. She wanted to say they were enemies, not friends. But when she opened her mouth, she said, “He doesn’t brood. He sulks.”
Lady Rosalind laughed again. “There, you see? You understand him better than anyone. So please, for the sake of peace in this house, don’t let him sulk any longer.”
* * *
A short while later, Jane stood in the shadows of the garden. The smell of rain hung in the night air, and thunder rolled in the distance. She paid little heed as she gazed up at the tower. The crenellated black teeth of the roof bit into the scudding clouds. The faint yellowish eye of a candle glowed in the single window.
Ethan was up there. And she intended to seduce him.
Her palms felt damp and her heart raced. She had arrived at the scandalous decision after leaving Lady Rosalind. If indeed he was honorable enough to wed the woman whose innocence he took, then Jane would offer herself to him. It was an act of desperation.
Go back to Wessex.
Time was growing short. She had to act fast. Besides, the countess’s revelation also made Jane see his rejection of her in a new light. If he disdained marriage, of course he would avoid all virgins. He would avoid her. It was a startling explanation for why he’d goaded her, why he kept her at arm’s length.
The question was, how could she break through the wall of his scorn?
She stood near the very bench where, a week ago, he had kissed her. He had taken her in his arms and made her feel wanted … loved. If she closed her eyes, she could still feel that rush of excitement, the swooning heat and dreamlike pleasure. If Portia hadn’t come along just then, perhaps their embrace might have grown more intimate.
Jane had attracted him then. She could do so again.
Shivering in the damp, chilly breeze, she rubbed her arms. Her eyes strained through the darkness to pick out the door half-hidden in the ivy-covered wall. She hadn’t gone to his bedroom because that odious little valet would bar her entry. She had deemed it prudent to enter the tower room by way of the garden. If she could find the courage.
Go back to Wessex.
She couldn’t go back. Not without Marianne. And there was only one way to ensure no one could ever take the baby from her.
Drawing a deep breath, Jane marched through the darkened garden to the tower door. She tried the knob. Locked. But she had come prepared.
She drew out the ring of keys she’d borrowed from the pantry while the butler was in the dining room. Metal jangled musically; she made an effort to be quiet. There had to be at least twenty keys, and she tried them methodically until she found the one that fit the slot.
The tumbler clicked. To her relief, the door opened with only a minimal squeaking of iron hinges. She stepped into blackness. The air smelled as musty as ancient leaves. In the dim flash of lightning, she could discern a stone staircase that spiraled upward into inky oblivion.
She propped the door open with a rock from the garden. Not because she was frightened of the dark, but because she hated to lose her only source of light, faint though it was. Then she mounted the stairs.
Jane had to hug the wall to keep herself oriented in the darkness. She fought against giddiness and the irrational fear that her next step would send her plunging down into a black void. The stones felt cold and damp against her hand, and she swallowed a yelp when something sticky adhered to her cheek.
A spiderweb, she realized, brushing it away. She only hoped its creator had long since moved on.
Was this how Ethan spirited his lovers to the tower room? Did he meet them at a prescribed time in the garden and guide them upstairs to his cozy love nest?
A thought jolted Jane. What if he had a woman with him right now?
The stairs ended at a narrow landing. She inched forward, sliding one slipper, then the next. Feeling cautiously with her hands, she located the square outline of a door. A feeble light leaked from the bottom.
She put her ear to the heavy wood panel. No sound came from within, not even a murmur of voices. Did people talk while they engaged in bedsport? Or did they just hug and kiss and touch?
She felt flushed just wondering about it. Her legs wobbled, and she braced herself against the jamb. She would be mortified to find Ethan with a woman—again. But she had come this far. She couldn’t turn back now.
She would do it for Marianne’s sake. An innocent little girl needed a mother to watch over her, to love her. To shelter her from a father who would leave her to the care of nursemaids.
Jane took a breath of stale air, gritted her teeth, and quietly turned the knob.
Chapter 16
Peering through the narrow opening, she saw a shadowy chamber decorated in masculine hues of green and brown. She could see part of a medieval tapestry covering the curved stone wall. Beneath a massive chimneypiece, a coal fire glowed on the grate.
Ever so slowly, she eased the door back a few more inches. A well-worn wing chair came into view. Beside it stood a table piled haphazardly with books. A volume had been left open on the chair with a glass paperweight to mark the spot.
There lay Ethan’s coat, draped over the footstool. One of his shoes sat near the hearth and the other rested by the table as if he’d kicked them off in haste. She listened again for voices, but could hear only the faint hissing of the coals.
Mentally counting to three, she pushed the door all the way back. Her gaze swept the circular chamber. Empty. To her surprised relief, there was no bed draped in silks and covered in pillows. There was no bank of burning candles, no paramours entwined in sin.
Bookshelves fitted the curve of the wall. A massive kneehole desk with many compartments occupied the space to her left. An oil lamp illuminated a blizzard of papers. As if waiting for its owner’s return, a wooden armchair upholstered in dark green velvet sat at an angle.
This was Ethan’s tower room? The place where he engaged in secret acts of corruption? The private territory he had forbidden to one and all? It looked no more sinister than a study.
Then she spied another door in the wall. Perhaps behind that half-open panel stood the wide feather bed, the braziers holding exotic incense, the perfumed trysting place where he practiced the art of seduction. A thrill eddied through her, raising a fine dew on her skin. With every breath, she could smell a trace of his male scent, the dark mystery of man.
She tiptoed across the plush oriental rug and pushed the door open. To her disappointment, she found herself gazing down another narrow stone staircase lit by a single candle flickering in a wall sconce. The winding steps curved around so that she could not see the bottom.
This could only be the passage down to Ethan’s bedchamber.
She hesitated to venture there just yet. Not because of any cowardly misgivings, but because she was curious. If he didn’t entertain women in this tower room, what did he do here that was so secretive? Her gaze flitted to the desk with all its papers. Did he transact business? Manage estate matters? Pay gambling markers?
She shouldn’t peek at his private papers. They had nothing to do with her purpose tonight. Yet it wouldn’t hurt to take a quick look. She wanted to know everything about him, to understand him better.
She veered toward the desk. Built of mahogany, it had numerous niches stuffed with documents. Crumpled paper littered the floor around a small rubbish bin. More foolscap scattered the flat surface of the desk, along with several quills, a sharpener, and an uncapped inkwell. Then something else captured her attention. A pair of gold-rimmed spectacles
lay atop the clutter.
She gingerly picked up the eyeglasses, bringing them to her face to peer through the glass ovals. She turned her gaze downward to the papers, and the handwriting looked blurred.
Ethan wore spectacles?
The notion struck Jane as so startling, she laughed aloud, covering her mouth and glancing toward the door down to his bedchamber. It was not that she thought the less of him for a physical imperfection. But picturing him in spectacles jarred with his image of devil-may-care rake.
She put the eyeglasses in a cubbyhole and examined the papers strewn across his desk. Rather than being bills or dun notices, they bore his handwriting.
Her first impression was that his penmanship had taken a turn for the worse. He wrote untidily with numerous ink blots and crossed-out words. At times the nib of the quill had torn a hole in the paper, as if he were writing fast, driven by the force of emotion. The words were difficult to decipher. More like a list than a personal letter, there were many short lines. She plucked another paper out of the mess, and her gaze riveted to the name at the top of the page.
Marianne.
Jane sank into the chair, tilted the sheet to the lamp, and scanned the rough writing.
In moonlight glow she slumbers,
Little angel, one of numbers
Born in shame with hearts so pure,
And anguish destined to endure.
In this world where rules reign,
She rests in beauty unprofaned …
In a disbelieving daze, Jane deciphered several more stanzas of scribbled lines and scratched-out words until she reached the bottom of the page. A poem. This was a poem. A poem written by … Ethan?
Impossible.
Shaken, she read on, and the words exuded tender emotion, deep-felt and sincere. Dear God. If Ethan had penned these words—and he must have done so—then he truly did love Marianne. The revelation stabbed like a hot sword into Jane; she wanted to weep and exult at the same time.
Ethan had composed these exquisite words brimming with feeling and eloquence. Poetry so lovely it brought tears to her eyes.
This was his secret vice? This penchant for writing?
Glancing over the desk, she saw more poems in various stages of completion. In a delirium of discovery, she found sonnets and odes carelessly stashed in cubbyholes. None had been copied over to a neat, finished work of art. It was as if once he poured his thoughts onto paper, he never wanted to see them again.
A poet.
The notion astonished her. She had always thought him an intelligent man but an indifferent scholar, someone who preferred vice to visionary thinking, someone who fell shamefully short of his potential.
Now she remembered the ink stains she’d often seen on his middle finger. She thought about the long, late hours he’d spent up here. And there was the time she’d gone to his bedchamber to ask him about Marianne’s mother. She had glimpsed a paper with his handwriting and had assumed it was a list of potential mothers before he’d snatched it away.
She was wrong. It had been one of his poems.
Her hands trembling, she riffled through the papers, reading random passages, picking out perceptive phrases. She marveled at his command of lyrical language. This, from a man who professed to despise all verse as pap for milksops. The man who had scorned to listen to the readings this evening. He had lounged at the back of the chamber, whispering and laughing with Lady Big Bosom, behaving like the conscienceless rake he was.
The conscienceless rake everyone believed him to be.
Was he truly that man? Jane didn’t know what to believe anymore. It was as if the Earl of Chasebourne had turned into two different characters. She knew the outrageous charmer who loved women. Now she wanted to know the man who had written these poems. His thoughts and feelings called to her heart.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. Then another sound came from the inner door. The unmistakable thud of footsteps.
Jane sprang to her feet, Marianne’s poem clutched to her bosom just as Ethan came through the doorway.
He didn’t notice her at first. His dark head was bent as he leafed through the book in his hand. He wore black breeches and a white shirt with no cravat. His feet were bare. He looked wickedly handsome, yet it was more than his demon-dark attractiveness that fascinated her. Now she could discern a sensitivity to his mouth and eyes, the hint of emotional depths.
He looked up and his gaze clashed with hers. His eyes widened, and for one instant, she felt as if she could see straight into his soul, into the unguarded man who had penned profound verse, the father who had poured out his love into a poem.
He glanced at the paper in her hands. His black eyebrows lowered and his face hardened into a grimace of fury.
“I know I shouldn’t be here.” Her voice trembled, still shaken from the revelation of reading his poems. “But I was lonely, and I thought—”
“Damn you,” he said through clenched teeth. “Damn you.”
Flinging aside his book, he sprang at Jane.
Her first impulse was to step back, out of his path. But she stood wedged between the desk and the chair. She didn’t wish to run, anyway. She felt no fear of him, only a compelling need to learn why he’d concealed his talents.
He snatched the poem out of her hand. “Who gave you leave to come in here? Who?”
Your mother. “No one. I was curious to find out what you did up here, that’s all. And now that I do know—”
He hurled the paper onto the desk. “My mother told you to invade my privacy. She told you to wait for me. Didn’t she? This has the mark of her scheming.”
“Her scheming—” Jane paused, feeling sick inside. If you two have quarreled, I would advise you to speak to him at once. Had Lady Rosalind put the idea in Jane’s head? Yes, but it didn’t matter. They both wanted the best for Marianne. “Ethan, don’t blame your mother. I came here of my own free will. No one forced me.”
“Quite so. You are both determined to make hell of my life.” His eyes shone like dark mirrors, reflecting nothing. “So tell me. What are you supposed to do next? Offer yourself to me?”
Despite his anger, she felt a thrill of longing. She could smell his scent, dark and feral, enticing. They were alone here. He could do whatever he liked to her. And in the morning, he would feel obliged to wed her.
She stepped toward him, stopping so close she could feel his heat. “Is that so impossible?” she whispered. “For you to desire me?”
With a snakelike hiss, the coals settled in the grate. Another roll of thunder sounded closer. The lamplight flickered on his hard expression, bad-tempered and suspicious. There was nothing of the vulnerable man visible; he might have been Lucifer himself.
“Get out,” he said.
Her heart sank. Yet she couldn’t give up. She had to think of a way to distract him. “No. Not yet. First, we must talk about your work. Why did you never tell me you wrote poetry?”
He walked away, pacing the circular chamber. “It’s scribbling, that’s all. Forget you ever saw it.”
“I can’t forget. It’s too beautiful. Especially the poem about Marianne.” Emotion tangled her throat and made her voice hoarse. “You really do love her, don’t you?”
“She is my daughter. I told you, I shall never forsake her.”
“I know.” His vehemence made Jane more determined than ever to stand at his side as Marianne’s mother. If only she had the chance, she could teach him to be a good father. “I could see your feelings for her in your poem. You have a way with words—”
“If you like trite nonsense.”
He swung around and swept his arm across the desk. While Jane stared in frozen shock, he shoveled the papers off the surface. They snowed down into the waste bin and onto the carpet.
Aghast, Jane hastened to his side. “Stop! Have you gone mad? You must have worked hours on these poems.”
“Whether I did or not is no concern of yours. You’re meddling.”
“Yes, I am.” S
he snatched a wrinkled paper out of his hand and smoothed it out against her skirt. “These are your thoughts, your feelings. They should be treasured, recopied and properly preserved.”
“They should be kept away from busybodies like you. Now, get out of here.” He clamped his hand around her upper arm and gave her a push toward the door.
She stepped in front of him and seized his muscled arms. “Stop it, Ethan. I’m not leaving. And I bloody well won’t let you destroy a part of yourself.”
Against her bosom she could feel the rise and fall of his chest. He glared fiercely, and in the silence, lightning crackled. Slowly the wildness fled his eyes, and the rigid set of his mouth eased a little. “You swore, Miss Maypole.”
Oddly, she felt a little twist of pleasure at hearing him use that pet name. “Only in the interest of making my point—that your poems are precious. They express your unique vision of the world.”
Turning abruptly, he walked away. She tensed, prepared to stop him from scattering more sheets, but he merely combed his fingers through his hair and prowled the circular room. “My vision,” he muttered. “You had no right to snoop through my private papers.”
“I apologize for intruding. I thought I knew you—but I didn’t even know you wore spectacles for reading.”
“Why should you? As you said, we’re merely acquaintances.”
“But why did you never tell me you’re a poet? Why did you behave so badly at the poetry reading this evening? Verse is nothing to be ridiculed. Do you not realize how gifted you are?”
“Keep your false praise. I don’t need anyone’s approval, least of all yours.”
Though he spoke harshly, Jane felt a flash of tenderness. He paced like a caged wolf. It surprised her that a confident man like him could be so defensive about his writing. Poets held an honored status in society—even those tainted by controversy like Lord Byron and Mr. Shelley. Yet Ethan didn’t seem to realize just how wonderful he was, or that his writings added a deeper, richer dimension to his character.
Kneeling by the rubbish bin, she gathered a handful of papers, carefully smoothing the crumpled ones and making a tidy pile. “Gaining approval isn’t the point. I’ve studied enough poetry to know the good from the bad. I helped my father with translations of old English epics. I believe you ought to have your work published so that people can share your thought-provoking insights. I could help with the recopying—”
