Her Notorious Viscount (17 page)

She turned her face. “I think you know I haven’t.”

“And I’m pleased by that.”

He turned to show her his back and she stared at the tattoo. In the dim bedroom that morning, there hadn’t been enough light to truly see the mark, and tonight while he sparred, she had been distracted and too far away. But now she saw it was a few characters that she didn’t understand. It was done in black ink and was about the size of two of her fingers pressed together. She found herself reaching up and tracing the marks with her fingertip.

Nicholas sucked in his breath, a harsh, hard sound that echoed in her own nerve endings. Touching him only led to trouble and more…but she kept her fingers against his warm skin.

“They are Chinese characters,” he explained, his breath as short as it had been during the fight. “I met a man from the Orient who taught me some different fighting skills. The word means ‘stone,’ which was my nickname in the underground.”

Jane nodded. She had heard Rage refer to Nicholas as such a few times. “Why put it on your body in such a permanent way?”

He turned, and her fingers glided across his skin before she pulled them away, clutching them to her chest as if they had been burned. He stared at her a long moment before he replied.

“Because Stone didn’t just come from my name, Stoneworth. A stone is hard, it does not bend. It has power when wielded as a weapon.” He shook his head. “I did not want to forget that. I still don’t.”

She nodded. There was much about this man she didn’t understand, but the pain that flickered in his eyes, she did.

He moved toward her, shocking her from her thoughts. There was a purpose in his movement, a swagger that always meant he was going to kiss her.

And she wanted that. But she hadn’t yet done the one thing she had vowed to do when she arrived.

Tell him the truth. And before she allowed him to kiss her, before she forgot everything but sensation, she needed to do that.

“Wait,” she whispered as his fingers moved into her hair.

He growled a deep, low sound of displeasure, and his fingers massaged her scalp until she moaned in response.

“I-I must tell you something,” she managed to squeak out as his lips descended to find the curve of her throat.

“It can’t wait?” he whispered against her skin, setting her on fire.

She choked on another moan. “No,” she admitted. “Your—your mother. She knows the truth. She knows that I’ve been training you to be a gentleman.”

Nicholas jerked back and stared at her. “What? How?”

She flushed. Now for the difficult part. “She knows because…because I told her.”

She looked utterly miserable.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “As I explained, it was an accident. The way your mother spoke to me that day made me think she knew. And once I said something, there was no way out. Lady Bledsoe is a very clever woman.”

Nicholas snorted out a sound of agreement. “Oh, that she is. Damn it. I only wish you had ignored her request and told me earlier. I feel like I’ve been unarmed in a battle.”

She tilted her head. “Do you really consider yourself at war with your family?”

He stopped pacing and let out a long, heavy sigh that came from deep within his very soul. “No, just with their expectations. And with my own nature.”

Jane nodded slowly, and it was as if she did understand his struggle. Bit by bit, the noose of his brother’s life was tightening around his neck. Soon enough, there would be nothing left of Nicholas, or at least not the
real
him.

“I hated to lie,” she said softly. “But I was in a difficult position. I had to tell you tonight because she has plans for us both.”

“Christ,” Nicholas bit out. He sank into the closest chair. “What is in her head?”

Jane clenched and unclenched her fists at her sides, a nervous habit that betrayed her feelings, but she didn’t stop looking at him. Direct and honest. Until this slip with his mother…which he understood, knowing the marchioness as he did…honest was what Jane had always been with him. Perhaps she was the only one, aside from Rage.

“Tomorrow you will receive an invitation to a ball your mother wishes to hold in your honor.” She hesitated. “I tried to put her off the idea, Nicholas, but she would not be swayed, no matter how strenuously I argued.”

His lips pinched. He should have seen this coming. The Season was already in full swing, and she was desperate to see him back in Society’s clutches. Desperate to see him take over his brother’s place.

He groaned at that idea. “Well, there will be no refusing her,” he muttered.

Jane moved toward him a halting step, but then stopped. He found himself wishing she hadn’t.

“But we haven’t reviewed certain things nearly enough. Your clothing is perfect now, but you’re still shaky on address. We haven’t even covered the basics of dancing.” She shook her head. “You aren’t ready, Nicholas. And I apologize, for it is my fault. I have allowed too many…distractions.”

He frowned. She said the word
distractions
like it was poison. But what she referred to were the stolen moments they had both allowed. Ones he had enjoyed immensely.

“We are both responsible for that, Jane,” he murmured without betraying his thoughts on the matter. “You cannot take the blame for my actions.”

He sighed and forced his mind to the matter at hand. Although he hated the idea of change, he
had
been paying attention to Jane’s lessons. Society was a viper’s nest, but he had certainly been in more dangerous situations.

Still, Jane was correct in some ways. He was rough and he wasn’t sure he would
ever
be what his parents wanted him to be. What Anthony had been. No matter how many lessons he took, no matter how much time passed while he studied and changed.

“You said she had plans for us both,” Nicholas said, changing the worrisome subject. “What nefarious plot is she involving you in?”

Jane smiled as she let her gaze return to him. And, as always, he felt a surge of triumph that he had softened her somber expression. She had so few pleasures, he felt like a king when he was responsible for one.

“Nothing nefarious, my lord,” she said with a laughing lilt to her tone, though a shadow remained in her expression. “Your mother wishes to repay me for my efforts regarding you.”

“Great God,” Nicholas groaned. “I can only imagine what she would consider repayment.”

Jane looked past him toward the window, her expression and tone suddenly far away. “She wishes to reintroduce me to Society. I believe her ultimate goal is to marry me off as well as my current circumstance can warrant.”

Nicholas’s stomach jolted, a wave of nausea hitting him with unexpected force and then vanishing. He stared at Jane, standing in the middle of his parlor in her faded gown, her ruddy, dark hair mussed from his fingers, her eyes so infinitely sad. The idea of any other man seeing her vulnerability, touching her as he had, claiming her in the one way he had not…it aroused emotions in him he could hardly believe.

“She wants to sponsor you with a Season?” he repeated flatly.

She nodded. “It seems we will both be reintroduced to Society during her ball.” She shook her head. “As you said, she is impossible to refuse.”

“And why should you?” Nicholas asked, his voice hollow in his own ears. “A woman like you does not deserve to be a servant. She deserves to have beautiful gowns and dance and laugh and be frivolous. If my mother and her cohorts are successful in marrying you well, you will have all those things and more.”

Jane stared at him, and for a moment he saw a flash of pain cross her face. It mimicked his own. And while it was edifying to know she felt the same way about their inevitable parting as he did, it didn’t change that inevitability. Nicholas was working toward reentering Society, but he was far from a true gentleman. For Jane to regain her status, she would have to marry someone with established respectability.

The same was true for him. If his brother’s legacy had been damaged by Nicholas’s behavior, the strongest repairs would be done when he married a woman of rank. He knew that to be true, despite the sinking feeling it created in his stomach.

Desire was all there could ever be between them. And that desire couldn’t ever be fully realized. He was enough of a gentleman to recognize that, if nothing else.

Jane folded her arms across her chest, and Nicholas was reminded of the way she had faced off with him at the beginning of their strange bargain. A warrior woman, unafraid even in the face of his aggression and ill manners. Even then, he had been moved by her.

But now, seeing her put up that armor, it cut him. She was readying herself for their ultimate break. For the moment when they would pretend they had never met. Never touched. Never been what he had called her earlier. Friends. For somehow she had become that to him. A friend.

“Marriage is not something I can consider now,” she said, filling the awkward silence. “It is a frivolous endeavor when I have more important things to focus upon.”

“Like your brother, you mean,” he said quietly.

She nodded as she fiddled with a loose string on her sleeve. “Pleasure isn’t something I can pursue until I know he’s safe.”

Nicholas couldn’t help his mouth dropping open. “Jane—”

She shook her head to cut him off. “I know what you will say. That we don’t know anything about Marcus. But we are getting close.” Her words were wistful. “So close. I will indulge your mother, but there will be no marriage for me.”

Nicholas hated himself when a rush of joy was his reaction to her statement.

She turned away. “I must be going now. Lady Ridgefield is having a mantua maker come tomorrow morning to fit me for a gown. But I will return in the evening for our final lesson. Dancing. I don’t know how we will cover that in one night, but I’ll do my best.”

Nicholas opened his mouth, but then shut it just as quickly. If he said too much, Jane wouldn’t return. And he found he wanted her there just one more time.

“Very well. Come close to midnight, if you can,” he said. “I will be out until then.”

She gave a brief glance over her shoulder and then nodded. “Yes, I will.”

She began to move toward the door, but Nicholas called out to stop her. “Jane, is it not polite to say farewell to your host?”

She stopped midstep and slowly turned back. His heart sank. For whatever reason, tonight had put a distance between them. One he knew was fully necessary, and yet he hated it with a passion.

“Of course, forgive me,” she said softly. Coming back to him, she held out a hand for him to shake. “Thank you for your assistance tonight, my lord.”

He frowned at her formality, but took her hand. Her skin was warm and soft beneath his rougher palm. Instead of shaking it, he turned her hand over, palm up, and lifted it to his lips. Gently he pressed his mouth to her skin, breathing in the soft scent of rosewater.

“Good evening, Jane,” he said softly before he let her go. “I shall see you tomorrow.”

She blinked a few times, then hurried from the room without further comment or explanation. And Nicholas wondered if the ache around his heart would be the same when she was gone from his life for good.

“Jane has gone?”

Nicholas looked up from the paperwork strewn across his desk as Rage entered his office.

“Yes, an hour ago. You sound surprised.”

His friend arched a brow as he threw himself into the nearest chair and stared at him. “I am. There was so much tension in the air between you, I honestly thought you might bed her.”

Nicholas bunched his hands into fists on the desk as anger flooded him. It was part upset that Rage would disparage Jane, and part anger at himself for not doing exactly as his friend had expected.

“Jane Fenton is a lady,” he growled. “One does not bed a lady. Not without offering her more than a tumble.”

“I suppose,” Rage said after a long pause.

Nicholas could feel his friend reading his every movement, his every word. It was as if they were in a fight again and Rage was determined to find the chinks in his defenses.

“All that isn’t important,” Nicholas said, trying to avoid further scrutiny. “I promised Jane I would find her brother. That hasn’t changed. I want to go back into the underground tomorrow night.”

Rage shook his head. “You don’t seem to recall this, but your original plan
wasn’t
to find her brother. You didn’t think it was possible and I agreed. Your original plan was to make her
think
you were looking for the man, while you allowed her to train you. And your original plan wasn’t to teach her to fight off the advances of her cousin, either. Or to look like someone stole your dog every time she left.”

Nicholas glared at his friend. “Shut your bloody mouth, Rage. Plans change. Now that I have learned more about the situation, I think I might be able to resolve the issue with her brother for her. Why should I not do that after all Jane has sacrificed for me?”

“Yes, why not?” Rage said, sarcasm dripping from every word. “For charity purposes. Poor,
poor
Jane.”

Nicholas glared at him. “Not for fucking charity, Rage.”

“You’re not admitting that your little mouse has gotten under your skin, are you?” Rage smiled.

“Of course not,” he snapped, returning his gaze to his papers, if not his true attention. “Don’t be foolish.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t blame you if you had,” Rage said as he leaned back in his chair, his hands folded behind his neck. “The woman
is
interesting, after all. And lovely. That little sense of sadness about her is quite fetching. Makes a man want to cheer her up. If you truly do not want her, I might have a try.”

His friend was goading him, of course, trying to force a response to make him reveal his weakness. Nicholas recognized the trap, but couldn’t stop himself from falling into it.

“Careful now,
friend
,” he said in a tone that left no doubt as to the consequences of continuing down that line.

His friend hesitated, but then a slow smile crept over his features. “You see, you are besotted.”

Nicholas pushed away from his desk with a screech of wood on wood. He paced to the window. “Christ, you are annoying. You’re talking out of your arse, Rage.”

“Am I?” his friend said softly, without moving from his seat. “You say you have no feelings for Jane beyond an obvious desire. In the past, you wouldn’t have cared if I made a play for a woman who fit that description. In fact, you used to know I would never try to ‘take’ any woman who was yours.”

Nicholas flinched. “She’s not my woman.”

“No?” Rage laughed. “I must have been confused by the way you can’t take your eyes off of her.”

“Please.” Nicholas snorted a laugh of his own. “I have had many women who captured my attention. The only difference with Jane is that I can’t follow through on that desire because of her position. She isn’t some barmaid I can tup and leave behind. With Jane, there would be expectations and consequences. If I could merely take her to bed, I’m certain I would think little about her after it was over.
That
is all you sense, my friend. All there is.”

At least that was what he intended to keep telling himself. That Jane was only a distraction of body.

“Hmmm.” Rage frowned. “Very well, if that is what you insist upon. Then let us talk of something else. You know you will have to marry. If not this Season, then next. That is how your strange little world works. If you want acceptance, a good marriage is the way to attain it.”

Nicholas spun on his friend. “I fucking realize I have to take on this mantle of responsibility that my saintly brother left behind, and part of that is producing sons as heirs and spares to carry on our fine family name. For that I need a wife.”