by Olivia Drake
I meant it when I said I love you.
In spite of everything, the memory of her soft voice worked like a powerful aphrodisiac. Heat pooled in his groin, a heat fueled by the fantasies that plagued him without mercy. He imagined Jane warm and wanton in his arms, her hips lifting to meet his, her arms clasping him close. She couldn’t have faked her physical response to him; that made another point in her favor. He had coaxed her to climax thrice, the last time while he had been sheathed deep inside the tight velvet glove of her body.
He wanted to be there again.
Uttering a vicious curse, Ethan slammed his glass onto the table. He leaned forward and plowed his fingers through his hair. To Jane, he was only a means to an end. He must never forget that. Never.
Especially now, when his unwanted bride occupied the adjoining chamber.
Lifting his head, he scowled at the connecting door. A hundred times, he’d been tempted to open the white-painted panel and seek her out. A hundred times he’d reminded himself what a mistake that would be. Yet he knew if he stayed here, he would go to Jane.
He would claim his rights as her husband.
Ethan pushed up from the chair. He swayed a little; perhaps the spirits had had some effect, after all. Ignoring the ache in his loins, he strode out the door, past the place where he’d been caught with Jane only twenty-four hours ago. With no particular destination in mind, he walked down the corridor. He had to put distance between himself and temptation.
The house was silent, dark except for a candle in a glass sconce at the end of the passageway. He picked up the lamp and used it to light his way. His steps led him up a back staircase to the nursery, his bare feet silent on the wood floor. He walked through the gloomy schoolroom and headed for Marianne’s bedchamber.
Rhythmic snoring came from the nursemaid’s room next door. As always, he moved carefully to avoid awakening the servant. He preferred that no one know of his nightly visits. It was a time when he could be alone with Marianne without prying eyes to observe him. He liked the peace of watching her sleep, the satisfaction of knowing he had done at least one good deed in his life.
Tonight, a faint glow came from his daughter’s bedchamber. Had the nursemaid left a candle burning? He would have to chastise her. To prevent a fire, he had given strict orders to extinguish all flames at bedtime.
He hastened through the doorway and stopped dead.
A lone taper shone on a table that held an assortment of baby-care items, a washbasin and pitcher, a dish of pins, a pile of neatly folded nappies. In the shadows beyond the small circle of light stood a rocking chair. In it sat Jane, cuddling the swaddled baby.
Both were asleep.
A storm of emotions battered Ethan: anger that she had usurped his child, bitterness over her trickery, resentment that she had stolen even this private moment from him. Yet beneath those volatile feelings flowed a traitorous softness, an undeniable tenderness. Marianne rested a tiny fist on Jane’s bosom. Jane’s head was tilted onto the thick plait of hair that draped her shoulder. Her arms clasped the baby if she were more precious than gold. They looked like mother and daughter.
I love Marianne, and I was afraid to lose her.
In all his angry brooding, he had lost sight of that truth. He had made it brutally clear that he meant to separate her from the baby. Rather than return to Wessex alone, she had found a means to keep Marianne. Whatever her other faults, Jane would make a devoted mother. Didn’t her willingness to marry him prove that? She had acted out of love for his daughter. It was a devilish draught for his pride to swallow, to concede that she might have had cause to gull him.
Yet that didn’t absolve her of the deception.
He told himself it was concern for Marianne that drew him closer. If he didn’t restore the baby to her cradle, Jane might accidentally drop her.
The rug muffled his footfalls. He placed his lamp beside the candle, the added light illuminating the slumbering pair. Jane looked vulnerable in sleep, her lips soft and her lashes dark against her cheeks. The pale robe gaped in front, revealing a sheer white nightdress. He wanted to untie the ribbon at the bodice and slip his hand inside; he wanted to cup her unbound breasts and kiss her awake.
He cursed his foolishness. She couldn’t be trusted. She had robbed him of choices, forced him into making vows he did not believe in.
Slowly he slid his hands beneath the baby’s small form. He couldn’t avoid touching Jane’s robe, warm and silken as the flesh beneath it. Annoyed with the direction of his thoughts, he lifted his daughter from her.
* * *
Something nudged Jane from a dreamlike doze. Her arms clutched for the baby and met emptiness. A cry of alarm burst from her throat. “Marianne!”
Horror jerked her upright. Her eyes snapped open to see a dark shape looming over her.
“It’s all right,” a deep voice murmured. “She’s safe with me.”
Ethan.
The awful panic ebbed. “Thank heaven,” Jane breathed.
Limp and shaken, she watched him carry the slumbering baby to the lavish gilt cradle and deposit her carefully inside. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep. She had only wanted to rock Marianne for a few minutes, to hold her close and know she was loved. The last thing she remembered was the quiet tranquility that had washed through her, a sense of peace and rightness.
The candlelight touched Ethan’s white shirt and dark trousers as he bent down to tuck the blanket around the baby. For the space of a heartbeat, gentleness softened his hard features.
She knew in that moment why he had come here. He loved Marianne, too.
Anguish twisted inside Jane. If only they could be a family. If only he could forgive her. If only he would turn to her, take her into his strong arms, hold her close and never let go.…
He picked up the lamp and walked to the door. She called out softly, thoughtlessly. “Ethan. Wait!”
Over his shoulder he said gruffly, “Go to bed.” Then he vanished into the darkened schoolroom.
Jane lurched up, the rocking chair swaying, her tangled skirt catching her legs. She darted after him, but he was already striding out into the corridor. Clearly, he wanted nothing to do with her.
She sagged against the door frame. The wood felt cold to her sleep-warmed skin. She could not forget that brief moment of tenderness. He loved his daughter. That was the one bond they shared.
No, there was more. She knew from his poetry that he had hidden depths, that he was not the shallow scoundrel the world considered him to be. She wanted desperately to believe that in time he would understand her motive, that his fury at her would cool.
Lady Rosalind had said he’d been coerced to marry Portia, too. Yet Jane had seen them on their honeymoon, and he had looked happy, carefree, his attention wholly focused on his bride. If he’d been angry with Portia over the forced nuptials, he’d certainly overcome his rancor.
Was it possible he could be coaxed into forgiving his second wife?
A shiver of longing sent goose bumps over her skin. Wide awake now, Jane tiptoed back to the rocking chair and sat there for a long time thinking, pondering the problem from all angles.
Could she persuade him to relent and make their marriage real? Or would he reject her with cruel words? Would he disdain her in the years to come?
The candle had guttered and nearly gone out when she made her decision. Somehow, she would win him back.
Chapter 19
“If you won’t share my bed,” Jane said, “at least we could pretend to be madly in love to stop all the gossip.”
Scorched by her statement, Ethan jerked his gaze to Jane, sitting on the bench beneath the sunny window in the nursery. Her deep blue gown skimmed the lithe body he had denied himself for the past week. She had tricked him, and now she wanted him to behave like a smitten lover?
Angry, he calmed himself by looking down at Marianne, who lay in the secure perch formed by one of his legs propped on the other. His silver pocket watch dangled from his fin
gers, and the baby reached out to grasp the new toy. “What the devil do I care about gossip?” he said on a laugh.
“Why, you should care, for Marianne’s sake. Our behavior reflects upon her.”
“She’s an infant. By the time she grows up, people will have forgotten about our hasty wedding.”
“Perhaps. But I wonder if you know all they’re saying.” Jane shook her head. “Of course, you wouldn’t know. You’ve been hiding in the tower room for the past week.”
“Hiding? I haven’t been hiding.” He objected strenuously to the implication that he was craven, and catching his strident tone, Marianne whimpered. He stroked her soft cheek in a soothing caress. Moderating his voice, he stated, “I’ve been working.” At least he’d been trying to concentrate. But he couldn’t seem to write two lines that satisfied him. He had squandered far too much time brooding about his wife.
“Oh, well, if you say so,” Jane said breezily. She leaned forward so that he had a view of the lush terrain of her bosom, and his body reacted with annoying swiftness. “But I’ve been out in society,” she added. “I’ve noticed the looks, the stares. People believe I was seduced by the wicked earl.”
He refused to feel sympathy when it was a situation of her own making. “So let them. They’ll move on to another scandal soon enough.”
“That’s not all. Just yesterday at tea, Lord Keeble and Mr. Duxbury were kind enough to inform me about something else people are whispering.”
“Don’t believe those two buffoons. They start half the rumors that circulate.”
“I fear they’re right about this one. The entire ton is speculating that Marianne is not a foundling, but your child—”
“That’s nothing new.”
“—and mine. They’re saying I am her birth mother.”
He should have thought of that, and he covered his shock with a jest. “Then we should remind them that at the time of Marianne’s conception, you wore shapeless black gowns buttoned to your chin. And you were peevish enough to wither a man.”
Instead of gasping in outrage, Jane smiled and rose from the bench, strolling to his chair. She bent down to stroke the baby’s hair, and he caught a whiff of Jane’s feminine scent, a scent that made him hunger to press his face to her skin. “Is that so impossible to believe?” she murmured. “That you might have been mad with passion for the dowdy Miss Maypole?”
He was mad with passion now. Seven nights had passed since they’d lain together, seven days in which she had controlled his thoughts. It didn’t help that her breasts loomed just inches from his mouth, an offering for his pleasure. His wife. He wanted to drag her back to his chamber, strip her naked, and lose himself in her heat.
Gruffly, he said, “People here didn’t know you back then, so the point is moot.”
She arched an eyebrow, but didn’t argue. “Lord Keeble and Mr. Duxbury also said—”
“Said what? If they insulted you…”
“They merely brought to my attention that there’s more talk. People suspect that I’m increasing—again. Hence, our hurried wedding.”
That shouldn’t surprise him. Nor should he feel seized by the notion of making that particular bit of gossip come true. He already had a daughter to love. She lay warm and contented in his lap, gumming his pocket watch with single-minded determination.
No, he shouldn’t want another child, a child by Jane. He was angry with her for beguiling him into wedlock. For pushing her way into his life and robbing him of freedom. For discovering his secret penchant for writing poetry.
He was angry with himself, too, for being duped. Again.
“Time will prove that rumor false,” he said. “Nine months, to be precise.”
“Will it?” she said in a suggestive voice. “We don’t know that yet.”
Her warm smile lured him though he kept his expression bland. “I suppose not,” he conceded. “It’s a few weeks too soon to tell.”
Jane nodded, her eyes flashing silvery blue in the sunlight. “And what of the talk that you seduced me? I won’t have anyone telling Marianne someday that her papa is a scoundrel who took advantage of her mama. That is why we must convince people we married for love.”
A jolt of denial burned him. “Don’t be absurd. Everyone will have forgotten by then.”
“Not if we still behave coldly toward one another.”
Quite unexpectedly, she slipped her fingers inside the back collar of his shirt and stroked the nape of his neck. That one touch sent heat flashing to his groin, and he curbed the inappropriate reaction. Couldn’t she see he held a baby in his lap? He twisted his neck away. “For God’s sake, stop that.”
“Why? Ethan, I’ve waited a week for you to come to my bed. I’ve lain there all alone, thinking about you, remembering our night together. I want to experience that again. I want you to teach me all you know.”
Sweat broke out over his skin. Where had her bold eroticism come from? Much as his body liked it, he was suspicious of Jane the seductress. Their old acquaintance had felt comfortable, like a well-worn riding boot. He wanted her to behave again like Jane, the prickly spinster.
“Ours is hardly a normal marriage,” he said sharply. “So you can’t expect me to treat you with all the attentiveness of a husband.”
She threw back her head and laughed, not daintily as young ladies were taught, but with full-throated vigor. The same vigor she had showed him that night in the tower room. “Oh, don’t be a prude,” she said. “Scruples have never stopped you in the past.”
“A prude?” he choked out. “Me?”
“Why, yes. People will think that if you ignore your bride. They expect newlyweds to be enthralled with each other.” Her voice grew husky, her gaze seductive. “And I am enthralled by you, Ethan. Very much so.”
Her suggestion shouldn’t tempt him; he despised the restrictions of marriage, being shackled to one woman for the rest of his life. The woman who had betrayed his trust in her. “Enough,” he said through gritted teeth. “I have no interest in playing out another of your lies.”
Rather than look offended, she smiled at Marianne. “Isn’t your papa grumpy this afternoon?” she crooned. “Perhaps he needs a moment alone.”
The baby cooed and smiled.
Jane gathered Marianne in her arms and dangled the pocket watch by its fob in front of Ethan. When he caught it, the silver was wet from Marianne’s mouth and it almost slipped from his grasp. He yanked out his handkerchief and polished the scrolled cover.
All the while he moodily watched Jane, eyeing her willowy grace when she carried the baby to the window, noticing the curve of her bottom as she leaned forward and pointed to a swift building its nest in the oak tree, listening to the charming lilt of her voice as she spoke to Marianne. The late afternoon sunlight bathed them in brilliance, picking out the coppery strands in Jane’s dark hair, reminding him of the fire hidden in her.
He ought to leave. Now, while she was preoccupied with the baby. He had come here to spend a few minutes alone with his daughter; instead he’d found Jane already in the nursery, and she had persuaded him to stay. Now he knew why. She’d wanted to put another scheme before him, to twist him into knots. When had she changed into a creature of passion?
She had seduced him once already, and look at where his self-indulgence had landed him. Locked in a marriage he did not want, bound to a wife who had proven herself a liar, tortured by memories of the sweetest pleasure he’d ever found. The last time he had been set so off balance by a woman he had been made a fool, a cuckold, an object of censure. Yet Jane was not Portia. He could never imagine Jane lowering herself to that level.
And she was his wife. He had every right to use her body.
As he watched her play with Marianne, love softening her face, he could grudgingly understand how wrenching it would have been for Jane to have lost the baby. She was right; it was best for Marianne to have two parents. For that reason alone, he must accept their marriage.
It was a disturbi
ng truth to face. He must do his best to forget Jane’s deception; he must try to get along with her. It would serve Marianne ill to have parents who behaved like cold strangers. They could be civil, partake of meals together, discuss the trivialities of their daily lives.
And he could make love to Jane. He could slake his passion until he purged himself of this obsession for her. Why practice celibacy when she was there for his pleasure? His wife, his lover.
Even as the prospect excited him, he resolved to keep her from probing his private thoughts. She knew too much about him already. What would she do with that knowledge?
Very soon, Gianetta came to feed the baby and it was time to dress for dinner, so they went downstairs. Seeming to have forgotten their quarrel, Jane chattered on about Marianne’s future, how she needed a governess who would train her in the same subjects a boy would learn. He liked the way Jane gripped his arm firmly, without false girlish delicacy, and he didn’t object when she followed him into his bedchamber.
“I’ve been thinking, Ethan. We cannot allow Marianne to remain illegitimate. We must adopt her so that she has all the privileges of being your daughter.”
“My solicitor is already seeing to the matter. She’ll be legally ours before the month is out.”
Jane threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, I’m so glad.”
He caught her close, relishing her slim form, strong and yet womanly, fitting him to perfection. Her breasts felt soft against his chest. Her fresh rainwater scent made him long to take down her hair, to unbutton her gown and kiss every inch of her fragrant flesh. He fought the urge to rub himself against her.
She was his wife, he reminded himself. His to use as he willed.
But the sound of drawers opening and closing in the dressing room stopped him. Wilson was in there, readying the earl’s clothes for dinner. Ethan swore under his breath. He must wait for nightfall and go to her then.
