by The Rogue
The answer was simple, so simple he was mildly surprised he’d never realized it before.
Because love was Jane. She was everything that made life good—like lazy mornings and soft words and a kitten’s purr. Whether she spent those mornings in his arms or not, the world needed Jane more than it needed him.
So very simple indeed.
If being the man she wanted him to be meant losing her—if being true to her meant stabbing himself through the heart—then so be it.
Heartbreaking loss and peace filled him in equal measure. He would remain true to Jane and to England—and to hell with Maywell and the Liars.
He would remain alone.
Chapter Nineteen
A murmur of voices, very different from the clamor of madness, drew Jane from her corner at midday. She knelt at the front of her cell and gazed down to the lower gallery.
Visiting hours had begun. Bright color swirled past in a river of well-dressed humanity flowing down the walkway. Bedlam was all gray, from the uniforms of the attendants to the sooty, grimy walls themselves. To see the bright skirts and redingotes of ladies, and shimmering colorful waistcoats of gentlemen in the sunlight streaming through the high windows made her slit her eyes against the brilliance.
She did not close them entirely. This would be the time when Ethan would come. Already some of the observers were making their way up to the second gallery. Jane tried to search the crowd for him, but without the help of her usual height, she could not see over the people who came to stand before her own cell.
“This one is not so foul as the others,” one lady called to her fellows.
“Indeed she is not,” replied another woman. They came close to peer at Jane through the bars. They held their skirts high from the dirty floor, freely showing off their lace-clad ankles.
Jane revised her original opinion. These were not ladies, these were painted demireps, parading on the arms of their admirers. She answered their rudeness by glowering right back at them.
“Look at her stare at us,” said the first woman. She squinted at Jane. “Wills!” She tapped her escort sharply on the shoulder, never taking her hard gaze from Jane. “Wills Barstow, make her stop staring!”
Wills, a pudding-faced fellow of about twenty-five with evidently more money than taste or brains, rapped his walking stick on the bars. “You there! Don’t stare at the ladies!”
Jane slid her even gaze to meet his. “I don’t see any ladies, do you?”
The two women gasped, obviously appalled at the accusation. Jane barely refrained from rolling her eyes. “If you object to being accused of lack of gentility,” she advised them cordially, “then perhaps you should refrain from wearing so much paint.” She folded her arms, tsking softly. “And showing so much of your limbs in public? Now what would your mothers think of that?”
“Here, here!” Wills was really angry now. His face reddened and he stuck his walking stick through the bars, swinging it at her.
There would never be a better opportunity. Jane grabbed at it as it swished by, barely missing her in the confines of the cage. The second swing struck her knuckles hard, making them bleed, but she did not lose her focus on the stick. If she could only grab it—
One of the uniformed attendants stormed up. “Oy, sir! Don’t be swattin’ at the inmates! Some do-gooder’ll see them bruises and fuss at us for mistreating the wenches!”
Wills reluctantly pulled his stick back from Jane’s reach. She glared at the attendant who had ruined her chances of getting a weapon. He surprised her with a swift kick through the bars. His heavy boot struck her just below the knee, causing her to cry out and fall to the ground.
“See there?” The attendant nodded with satisfaction. “That won’t show.”
The painted women snickered. Wills spat at Jane’s collapsed form, spraying the side of her lowered face. With a jerk, she raised her head and glared at him. He took a step back from her fury.
“Your name is Wills Barstow,” Jane said in a low voice. Dangerous. “You shop on Bond Street and pick your women up in Shepherds Market. You live in Mayfair in a fine house and every afternoon you wake up and wonder if this is all there will ever be to your life.”
Wills gaped in horror, his face becoming absolutely ashen as he hurled himself back three steps.
“By God, she’s a—a witch!” He swallowed, hard, then turned on his heels and ran, leaving his companions to follow him as they would.
Jane smiled slightly and sat back in her corner.
The woman to her right, who had watched every moment with fascination, gazed at her in alarm. “Oy, ’ow did you know all that?”
Jane tilted her head at the woman, smiling sweetly. “Didn’t you hear what he said? I’m a witch.”
The woman scuttled back as far from Jane as she could get. Jane felt a slight qualm for frightening the poor wretch, but it was really best for all concerned if Jane was left entirely alone.
She wished she did have magical powers, instead of just the power of acute observation.
Wills’s name, she’d heard from the ladybird. The second and third things she’d surmised from his clothing and the maker of the women’s shoes. Mayfair was a pure guess, but the last was something she’d recognized in his empty, dissatisfied gaze—something she’d experienced herself once upon a time.
It was odd, but she hadn’t felt that way since she’d met Ethan Damont.
Speaking of Ethan . . .
She let her head drop onto her folded arms, shutting out the asylum as best she could. “Where are you, you rotter?”
Light footsteps stopped outside Jane’s cell. “Look at this beggarly creature, darling,” said a cool feminine voice. “Isn’t she odd? Not at all like the others.”
Jane remained as she was, with her forehead lowered onto crossed arms over knees pulled high. For most of the day, she’d managed to avoid being singled out by the spectators. She’d discovered that if she bored them, they went away. Surely visiting hours must be ending soon. She bit her lip and tried to seem as dull as possible.
A heavier tread joined the first. “Oh, I don’t know, my sweet,” a masculine voice drawled—a voice Jane knew as well as her own. “They all seem much the same to me.”
Ethan. At last! Jane jerked her head up to see him gazing at her calmly from outside the cage. His arm was wrapped about the waist of a beautiful woman—another painted ladybird like the earlier ones, but this one was truly lovely. From the cheeks and hair that peeped out from beneath her deep bonnet, her coloring was much the same as Jane’s, but there the resemblance ended. Jane knew when she was outclassed.
She could only blink stupidly at them for a moment. Then she shook off her surprise and forced down the silly twinge of hurt at seeing Ethan with someone else. “Eth—”
He cut her off smoothly. “Do you think that bothersome guard can see us from here, my love?”
Jane opened her mouth, but the other woman answered. Jane flinched, then berated herself silently. Ethan had never addressed her so. There was no reason for him to start now.
“Yes, I believe he can. In fact, the bounder has been watching me ever since we passed him.”
Ethan looked away from Jane and gazed passionately into “My Love’s” eyes. “I don’t care,” he murmured huskily. “I cannot wait another moment to take you into my arms!”
“Oh, darling!”
“Oh, Bess!”
Before Jane’s disbelieving gaze, Ethan and the other woman—Bess?—dissolved into a grasping, torrid embrace.
If this was a rescue, it was a damn poor attempt! What was he trying to do, make her vomit her way out of Bedlam?
Jane’s cage rattled. She looked back to see that Ethan had pressed his ladybird up against the bars while passionately kissing her neck.
Apparently, this was nothing so new in Bedlam, for the other inmates were beginning to cheer the couple on. “She’s an ’ot one, sir!” “Best put out that fire afore she burns the place down!”
Jane was about to demand an explanation when she saw Ethan working his way down Bess’s neck to kneel at her feet. For the first time, Jane noticed that the gown Bess was wearing so well was a good ten years out of date. The waist was cinched and the skirts were outrageously full. If Jane had been wearing it, she’d have been laughed off the street.
Unfortunately, Bess looked lovely in it.
Ethan went to one knee and gazed worshipfully up at Bess. “My darling, I must!”
Bess tossed her head impatiently. “Go on, then, my stallion!”
Jane looked from one to the other, completely perplexed. Was Ethan going to propose? He was trying to kill her, wasn’t he?
It wasn’t a marriage proposal. It was much worse. Ethan flipped Bess’s hem high and dove underneath.
Jane clapped one hand over her mouth in shock and plastered herself to the back wall of her cell. The woman’s skirts flowed over the entire front of the cage. There was nothing to see but Bess with her back pressed to Jane’s bars and her head rolling from side to side with ecstasy. Ecstasy that had been denied to Jane, yet!
One day she was going to make her way free of this place, and when she did, she was going to hunt Ethan Damont down and kill him!
Then something else caught her attention at the front of her cage. A fold of Bess’s full gown had lapped over the catch and lock—and there was something going on under that fold!
Reason finally beat down her shock and—admittedly—jealousy. Of course, Ethan would never come here simply to flaunt another woman in front of her! He had a plan!
Relief spun through Jane, making her dizzy with it. Her clever Ethan! And here she’d been vowing revenge! How silly! She would wait to kill him until after she thanked him.
She heard a faint metallic click and a jingle. Then the door to the cage inched forward slightly, digging into the folds of Bess’s gown. A manly hand came up from under the hem and beckoned her forward with one finger.
Normally, Jane would not have been inclined to insinuate herself beneath the skirts of a prostitute, but today was not a normal day. She eagerly wiggled through the narrow opening in the gate and slipped under the wall of scarlet brocade. Above her, Bess continued to carry on, her cries of ecstasy growing louder.
Jane found herself in a stuffy, dimly red-lit space crowded with skirt hoop and the blessedly pantalets-clad limbs of another woman. And Ethan. He pulled her to him to greet her with a hard desperate kiss. As she pulled back, a small damp laugh broke from her. “Hello to you too, Mr. Damont!” she whispered.
“Take off your gown!”
Jane blinked. “Not until we’re married,” she shot back. Ethan started. “What?” Then he shook his head. “Janet, I’m not—”
“Ah, sir?”
The deep tones of the burly guard’s voice close by froze them both. Jane was sure they were caught until she realized that Bess’s cries would have covered up their own hissed whispers.
Ethan gazed wild-eyed at Jane. “Y-yes?” he called out. “What is it?”
His tone was that of a bored aristocrat being disturbed by an unwanted servant. Hysterical laughter began to rise within Jane. She pressed one fist to her lips and gazed helplessly at Ethan while her shoulders shook.
“Visitin’ hours is near gone, sir.”
Ethan shot Jane a warning look, but she could tell he was having trouble restraining his own sense of the ridiculous. “I see—ah, yes. Thank you, my good man.”
From above them, they heard Bess purr. “Yes, thank you most kindly. We won’t keep you but a moment longer.” The entire dress heaved with the force of Bess’s sigh. Jane’s giggles soured as she thought of what a sigh like that would do to the woman’s substantial décolletage. Such effect was apparently not lost on the guard either.
The man cleared his throat with obvious difficulty. Jane hoped he managed to wipe his chin as well. “All right then—I’ll just go on then and . . .”
“What a wonderful idea,” Bess cooed. “You go on then.”
Jane had never heard so much sexual promise conveyed in so few words. “I’m going to have to practice that,” she murmured, as she heard the guard’s footsteps move hesitantly away.
Ethan’s hand came over her mouth. Instead of protesting, Jane surprised herself by wanting to melt into the hard warmth of that hand. She was tired of being brave. She wanted to be held and told everything was going to be fine.
Ethan came close to whisper into her ear. “Everything’s going to be fine,” he said softly. Then he slipped back out from their silken cage and was gone. If it hadn’t been so stuffy in there, Jane would have felt cold with his absence. How did one man give off so much heat?
Above her, Ethan began to coo nonsense to Bess again. “Let me hold you for just one moment more, my sweet, just one precious moment more . . .” Then the toes of his boots appeared beneath the flounced hem next to Jane’s hand. Jane glared at those boot tips with narrowed eyes. “That’s close enough,” she muttered. Close enough to pull Bess into his arms, apparently.
“Oh, my darling! Oh, my sweet!” Various wet sucking sounds ensued.
Ethan and Bess sounded as though they were having entirely too much enjoyment. Jane crouched low and sourly considered elbowing the man she loved in the kneecap. If she didn’t do it too hard, he wouldn’t be permanently crippled, would he?
“I must have you, my darling, my love!”
The gown bucked and swayed around her. Jane bit her lip. She knew it was false—or at least hoped it was!—but she didn’t think she could bear much more.
Then Bess dropped to her knees next to Jane. “Hullo, dearie!”
Jane started wildly. “But—!” She looked up. The gown was still being clenched by a passionate Ethan. She heard his amorous murmurs continue. She looked back at Bess, who was clad in nothing but a chemise and pantalets.
“Quickly now,” Bess urged, tugging at Jane’s gray flannel gown. “Get that thing off and give it to me.”
Jane could only stare stupidly at her. “But I’ve nothing underneath!”
Bess smirked. “Trust the voice of experience, dearie. You won’t die of it. Besides, I’m giving you mine.”
Finally, the entire, mad lovely plan bloomed in Jane’s mind. “Oh, my.”
Wasting no more time, she pulled the oversized gown over her head and thrust it at Bess, keeping her blushing face averted.
She felt Bess push something small and thin into her hand. She looked down. Hairpins.
“Pin that braid up,” Bess urged as she scrubbed at her face paint with a handkerchief. Beneath it, Jane was surprised to see an ordinary freckled snub-nosed face emerge. Bess grinned at her. “Go on! Get up there. He can’t carry on like that forever!” Then she smirked cheerfully at Jane. “Although he’s been known to try.” Then Bess pulled her own hair down and felt beneath the hem for the cage door. “Be seeing you, dearie.”
Jane stopped trying to hide her nudity long enough to put a hand on Bess’s arm. “Will you be all right?”
Bess blinked as if she hadn’t expected Jane to care. “Oh, sure. I’ll take myself a rest cure for a few days, and then—” She held up an iron key just like the guard’s. In fact, Jane rather thought it was the guard’s! “I nicked it off his belt just now!” Bess winked. “Don’t worry, dearie. It’ll be worth it!”
Then she flipped up the hem and was gone. Jane heard the lock clink back into place.
“Janet!” Ethan’s urgent whisper came down through the neckline of the gown. “Get your lovely arse into this dress!”
Fortunately, Jane was intimately acquainted with the construction of such dresses, since she had refitted and resewn her mother’s old gowns for both of them over the years. Her mother had taken every single stitch of clothing with her when she and Jane had made the trip to the Dowager House, for that wealth of wardrobe had supplied the two of them with fabric and trims throughout the following ten years. Jane’s mother had drifted through the rotting rooms of the Dowager House clad in the sam
e costly gowns as she had always worn, as if she walked in halls of gold.
As Jane eased her way up the statuesque gown, she bit back another semi-hysterical giggle. She’d done her share of silent cursing at recalcitrant hoops and corsets over the years. She felt as though she ought to apologize to every single one as she popped up through the gown that was going to save her life.
She eased her head up to peer at Ethan, who was glaring at her through the open neckline.
“Hurry it up, will you?” he hissed at her. “That guard could come back to the upper gallery at any moment!”
“Close your eyes,” Jane told him.
Ethan shut his eyes obediently—at first. Then, as he felt her begin to rise and fill the empty dress in his arms, he found himself compelled to open them the tiniest slit. After all, he’d never claimed to be a gentleman!
She was completely nude. He could see directly down the dress to nearly every part of her elegant, rose-tinted body. She was having a bit of trouble fitting her arms into the sleeves from that angle and Ethan got an eyeful of round pert breasts that swayed very temptingly with her every movement. She glanced suspiciously up at him a few times, but Ethan had spent years on his poker face. He knew she could not see past his lashes to his slitted eyes and he knew that no sign of his rousing lust was displayed upon his face.
He should have thought of this method years ago. All he’d ever needed to do to get a woman naked was to rescue her from Bedlam.
Finally Jane managed the sleeves and rose to her feet completely. Her head popped out and Ethan released the dress enough to do the tiny buttons up the back.
Oddly, his hand shook far more this time than when he’d undone them for Bess.
Jane was looking down at herself in dismay. Ethan tried not to be irked that she ignored the fact that she was wrapped in his arms.
“I’ve not half the bosom to fill this bodice,” she hissed.
Ethan finished the buttons at last and clapped the fallen bonnet on her head.
“No one will notice,” he said absently, as he tried to tie the ribbons beneath her chin to hide her face. Damn his trembling hands! What the hell was wrong with him?
