Fascinated (37 page)

I
’m here, Jane
. The urgent male voice sent a hot shiver of longing down Lady Jane’s spine.
I’m waiting.

Jane was dreaming. She knew she was dreaming, and in the dream, she opened her eyes.

As she had every night for the past three weeks, Jane found herself standing in a dark corridor carpeted with deep plush. Some nights she had been clad in only a white silk robe. Some nights she was dressed in a fantastic concoction of velvets like a medieval lady. Tonight, she was dressed for dancing in pale blue silk with three tiers of silver lace and rosettes. She felt the weight of plumes decorating her hair. But what truly mattered was the voice. Calling to her. Longing for her.

I’m here, Jane.

Jane began to run.

Doors flashed past her shoulders. Hints of movement caught at the corners of her eyes, but she did not stop.
He
was waiting, and she must find him.

Breathless and flushed, she stopped before one of the identical closed doors, knowing, in the way of dreams, that it was the right one. She laid her gloved hand upon the surface, anticipation quickening her pulse. This was where the dream would change and become new. The only thing that would be the same after this was the waiting man, and the feelings he aroused in her.

Jane opened the door.

Warm candlelight filled a chamber as spacious as any royal apartment. The room was an Oriental fantasy furnished with all manner of velvet couches and lounges, some big enough to accommodate four or five persons at once. Silken hangings adorned the walls and green velvet draperies hid the windows.

A man stood in the center of the room. Like her, he was dressed for dancing. Tight, white knee breeches encased his muscled legs and he wore a gray silk waistcoat embroidered in silver over a spotless white linen shirt. His coat was shimmering emerald green with more silver at the cuffs and throat.

But the beauty of his attire was nothing when compared to the beauty of the man. He was not too tall, only topping Jane by six inches or so. He wore his blond hair long, and tied back in a sailor’s queue. Neither was he too broad, but built in good proportion with himself. Everything about his form spoke of active living. His face was magnificent, with high cheekbones and a strong jawline. Jane’s breath caught in her throat as she met his bright green eyes. They slanted dramatically but were saved from being too feminine by his heavy brows.

“Sweet Jane.” He opened his arms. “You are very welcome here.”

Jane ran at once into her dream lover’s embrace. His mouth fastened on hers in a strong kiss. His tongue pressed against her
lips and she opened eagerly, ready for the strange, sweet sensation of his tongue stroking hers while his hands caressed her shoulders and her back, gliding down to the curve of her derriere, around her hips and up again to brush the sides of her breasts. Jane shivered again, and felt him smile against her mouth.

“Are you glad to be here, Jane?” he whispered as he drew his lips along the curve of her jaw.

“Very.” She sighed. His mouth brushed her throat, as if seeking to learn its every line, while his strong, capable hands caressed her waist and the curve of her belly through the layers of silk and muslin that clad her. For all he was a compactly formed man, he enfolded her completely in his embrace in a way her late husband never had. She liked that. She was no petite miss and had no wish to be treated as if she might break. Her mother had more than once despaired over Jane’s curves, which were of the sort much more suited to pannier skirts and cinched waists than this time of high-waisted gowns and minimal foundation garments. But her dream lover appreciated the whole of her body. As he claimed her mouth again, he took her derriere in both hands.

“Such a beautiful ass,” he murmured as he squeezed and kneaded, clearly relishing the softness of her flesh. He pressed her even closer to him, until her breasts rubbed his chest and her belly circled the ridge of his erection. Jane groaned with pleasure and tilted her hips against him. He smiled and took her hand, kissing the palm.

“Do you feel that?” He laid her hand against the outline of his cock, drawing her palm up and down its length. “This is yours. This is what you do to me.”

“I want you,” she whispered hoarsely. “I want to give myself to you.”

“Do you?” He smiled mischievously and leaned in to graze her lower lip with his teeth. “How would you give yourself to me?” He released her hand, turning her as he spoke, until he stood behind her, one strong arm wrapped around her waist to pin her against his hips. His cock was so hard and so strong that she could feel it pressing between the halves of her ass, despite the layers of her skirts and petticoats. His other hand closed possessively over her breast, making her gasp. “What would you do when you give yourself to me?”

She meant to answer, but he began to plump and pet her breast, and Jane found she could do nothing but groan. His fingers found her pebbled nipple and rolled it. It felt delicious and wicked, and all she could think was how much better these caresses would be without the barrier of their clothing between them.

“Tell me what you would do, Jane.” His breath was hot against her ear, his body a wall behind her. She had no strength. He supported her entirely.

“I would lay myself bare for you. I would open my thighs…”

“These thighs?” Without ceasing to play with her breast, he ran his other hand down her hip, his fingers knotting into the fabric of her skirt. “These luscious, smooth thighs?” He drew her skirt up as he lovingly spoke each word. Cold air touched the heated skin of her legs, sending fresh shivers rippling through her.

“Yes,” she said. “The whole of my body would be yours.”

“Would you touch yourself for me?” Now his hand traveled up the soft skin of her thigh, caressing her, slowly, possessively, almost reaching her straining center, but not quite. “Would you let me see how beautiful you are when you play with your breasts and this sweet pussy?” He cupped his hot palm over her damp curls
and she sighed with relief and pleasure. “Would you do that for me?”

“Whatever you would want.”

“And if I should want to play games of desire?” His mouth was on her shoulder now, kissing soft, sensual trails down her bared skin. “If I should wish to hold you helpless to our pleasure while I worked my will upon you?” Skilled and infinitely wicked, his fingers played with her folds, sending flashes of desire through her body.

“Yes, anything.”

“Anything, as long as I do not stop,” He laughed, but he did not stop. He stroked her and cupped her. His knowing fingers found her damp slit and pressed into it, and she writhed with delight. He caressed and massaged her breasts roughly even while his arms made sure she remained tight against the length of his body so the halves of her ass rubbed hard against his cock.

“Yes, please.” She did not think on what she said. She only thought of his hand on her breast and his fingers in her slit, for he had found the hot and swollen center of her pleasure and was rubbing it in earnest now.

“Such a sensitive little clit. So eager to be pleased,” he crooned, and the fire in her roared higher. Jane felt her whole self begin to slip away into the glorious current of pleasure.

“That’s it, Jane. Come for me. I want you to come for me.”

“I want you!”

“You shall have me soon, but you must obey your lover, and come for me now.”

He thrust his fingers deeply into her, pressing hard, stroking fast until the sensation of that decadent friction became too much
to contain. Pleasure broke from her in long, simmering pulses, rocking her buttocks against his cock and wringing wordless cries from her.

“That’s it, Jane. That is so very good.” His breath hitched in his throat as he cradled her body made limp by the force of her satisfied desire. “Every moment brings you closer to me, my beautiful Jane. Soon I will hold you in truth, and then you will have all that you desire.”

And he was gone.

Jane woke with a start, the aftermath of pleasure still coursing through her veins. But the essential vitality had vanished along with the dream, and now she felt deflated. Jane lay curled in a truckle bed with a lumpy straw mattress at the feet of her new and profoundly pregnant mistress; Her Royal Highness Princess Victorie of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, now Duchess of Kent and wife of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathern. The sounds of the sea rippled through the open window along with the salt breeze. Slow hooves thudded on the dirt lane, and a bird twittered tentatively. Calais was beginning to wake.

Sweet Jane was as far gone as her dream lover, and she was only Lady Jane DeWitte once more. Biting her lip against a groan of fatigue and disappointment, Jane curled her knees tighter to her chest. How much longer could these sweet, torturous dreams continue? Each night of the journey across the Germanies and France, her nameless lover had called to her in her sleep. Each night his urgent voice had led her to a scene of sensuous luxury. There, his words and intoxicating caresses sent her hurtling over the crest of pleasure. But each time when she woke, she was only restless and bereft.

Because despite all she had been given, Jane wanted more.
During the daytime as the carriages bumped over the country roads, she had found plenty of time to imagine what that “more” might involve. She had yet to see her dream lover naked, had yet to bare herself fully to him. They had not performed the marital act. Widowed as she was, Jane was familiar with the feeling of a man inside her. But Lord Octavius had never touched her as her dream lover did. She had never before been aware there existed such a dizzying height where she could ride delicious waves of feeling. Surely, having her dream lover inside her would be similarly intense. That idea regularly robbed her of her breath, until she had to reach for her violet water to calm herself.

Women dreamed of men. Jane knew that. As a girl on the threshold of marriage, she’d often dreamed of being held and being touched. But to have such dreams occupy so much of her waking thought now that she was full grown and much more experienced was ridiculous. No, it was insupportable, and possibly a sign she had somehow become unbalanced.

But even that did not frighten her as much as the possibility that this new plaguing restlessness of her body might drive her to risk her reputation and position by entering into a liaison with a man.

Tomorrow the ducal party would all board the royal yacht and return to London for the birth of the child her mistress carried. That child might very well one day wear the crown of England. To have secured a place in the household of the royal family was no small feat for a woman who had been left without family or money. To have such a place in the household of the heir presumptive was nothing short of miraculous. Jane could not do anything to jeopardize her standing.

The dreams will eventually end.
Jane knotted her fists in the
inn’s stiff bedsheet.
I will simply have to bear it until they do.
Jane squeezed her eyes shut, shuddering against the sense of loss that accompanied the thought.

Mad.
The word whispered itself in her mind.
I am going mad.

“J
ane! My dear Jane!”

A familiar, and very welcome voice cut through the glitter and elegance of Lady Darnley’s ball. Jane turned to see Georgiana Martins—who had lately become Lady Hibbert-Jones—make her way through the crush of London’s finest, all invited to welcome the Duke of Kent home.

“Georgiana! How good to see you!” Jane stretched out her hand, deeply relieved. The ducal party had only arrived in London that afternoon. Her maid, Tilly, had not even finished unpacking the trunks, and yet the duchess had insisted Jane be here.

“You are to pay particular attention to what the ladies say,” the duchess had told her earnestly. “I know the prince regent would rather we had stayed in Saxe-Coburg. It is vital to know if the lords of England think the same. Their ladies can tell us that.”

So, here Jane was, turned out in her finest ice blue satin with its gold netting and scallops. She smiled and made small talk, and
was ready to fall asleep on her feet. She reached out to Georgiana as she would to a lifeline.