Sinful (27 page)

He gritted his teeth, trying very hard to shove the unseemly idea of choking her out of his mind. “I expect no pleasure out of you.” He raked his gaze over her body, and felt nothing but contempt. “Likewise, you should expect none from me. I desire your proficiency be in conceiving. I have no desire to fuck you more than absolutely necessary.”

“You may very well like it, fucking me, as you say.”

He scoffed, unable to credit it. He still had the taste of Jane on his tongue, her scent on his fingers. He hadn’t been able to wash them away, knowing he’d never again smell her on his skin. He could hardly believe that he was looking at this woman, knowing he would have to enter her body and spend himself. It sickened him, made him violent. An act that had once meant nothing to him but the pleasure of release was now the most sacred of acts. But it never would be hallowed with Constance.

“You look at me, my lord, as if I were a hideous beast. We both know I am not. I daresay I could be quite pleasing to you in bed.”

His head was pounding, the pain shooting into his eyes. He
wanted to quit this conversation, this room, this house, and barricade himself inside his cottage with his art, and the bed that still smelled of Jane.

“My lord?” she purred, pressing into him, “I know my attractions. They are the very sort that you’ve long admired in your lovers, are they not?”

He stiffened, hating the truth of her words. There was a time that he would have found Constance worthy of a tup, but that was before a green-eyed imp had stolen his soul. All he could see now was Jane, her lush body naked and adorned with orange blossoms.

“What do you say, Wallingford?”

He straightened out of his trance, trying to forget the days and nights he had spent with Jane. “In future, you will not discuss the physical act with me. Save it for the paramours you will take.”

She smiled, her eyes glistening with challenge. She was by no means put off by him and his cold disdain. “It all sounds so very reasonable. I get the title and the freedom to do as I please. You get your father off your back by getting yourself legshackled to a rich heiress who will provide you with an heir.”

“You’ve a very good understanding of matters, Miss Jopson.”

“But there is one other thing, my lord, I believe needs clarification. That sister of yours. I won’t put up with her. She’s an embarrassment I will not abide. How can I be expected to entertain with ease and style when at any moment an imbecile may come into the room?”

“You will put up with her, or you will find yourself in the streets, penniless, do you understand? She is none of your concern, nor will she ever be. Your only task in this house is to spread your thighs.”

“Then I assume if you are to humiliate me with your sister, then I may humiliate you by being seen with my lovers.”

“I don’t give a damn what you do. As long as you’ve provided me with my heir, you can move out and live in town with a harem of men. Just do not make the mistake of taking a lover before you conceive. If I am to have an heir, I want it from own tainted bloodstock, not that of a footman, or God above, a poet.”

“Is that a promise, my lord? You will not later decide to curb my…amorous pursuits with other men?”

“It is a promise you can take to the bank, Miss Jopson.”

“It seems we have reached an amicable solution to our marital discourse. I will be a vessel for your spawn, and you will be my way to all the finer things in life that I have come to covet. A woman could not ask for a better arrangement.”

Jane would, he silently thought as he slammed the door to his study. Jane would have asked for much more.

“What the devil do you mean you’re marrying that pit viper? You’re in love with Jane Rankin, for God’s sake.”

Matthew reached for a cheroot and tossed it back onto his desk. How easily he had fallen back into old habits. Jane had been gone only a few days and here he was descending into dissolution once again.

“Tell me why,” Raeburn demanded, “you would give up Jane for Constance.”

No one knew why. Only Jane. He wasn’t about to change that.

With a shrug, he muttered, “Because it suits me.”

Raeburn glared at him. “Your father. He’s blackmailing you.”

Damn Raeburn and his clear logic. “I liked you better when you were an opium addict,” he mumbled, fidgeting with the tip
of the discarded cheroot. “You never cared about anything then.”

“I always cared for you, and now that I am free of opium, I can see more than I ever have before.”

With a sigh, he said, “Believe me when I tell you that my father has a vise grip around my throat. He wants the money Constance will bring, not to mention the railroad connections with her family. He’s willing to use Sarah to get it.”

Raeburn’s green eyes darkened. “How?”

“He’s threatened to send her to an asylum if I don’t wed the pit viper, as you call her. You know very well what those places are like. I cannot stand aside and allow her to be thrown to the devil, Raeburn. Damn me, my conscience has chosen to rise up, and I can’t shove it back down.”

Raeburn’s eyes closed. “I know of my own happiness with Anais. I wanted the same for you. Is there any chance at all that your father might change his mind?”

“About as much chance as me being welcomed into Almack’s with open arms.”

“And what of Jane?”

Matthew swallowed hard as he avoided his friend’s direct gaze. Christ, his head hurt. He was going to wind up with another one of those migraines, he thought with disgust. The damn things had plagued him since Jane left. And there was no Nurse Jane here to rub his temples and whisper to him in her angel voice.

“We have broken off,” he said in a voice he barely heard himself. “It’s for the best. I would only have ruined her. It was just a matter of time before I did.”

“Think this through, man!” Raeburn pleaded. “You can’t stand Constance. She’ll make your life hell. What comfort will she give you—”

“This is a business contract, Raeburn,” he snapped as he
pressed his fingers to his temple. “It isn’t a bloody romance novel.”

“You love Jane.”

“Well, I can’t have her,” he shouted as he punched the glossy top of the desk.

“You deserve her, Wallingford.”

“Don’t,” he thundered, pounding the desk again. “I don’t want to hear it. Leave it be. It’s over and done, and Jane is out of my life. Constance will be my bride.”

“And what sort of marriage will you have?”

Not the sort he had increasingly begun to dream of.

“We needn’t have any pretense between us, Raeburn. Both of us know exactly what sort of marriage it will be.”

“Why don’t you explain it to me, then?”

“Very well. We will marry in the estate chapel, and then I shall take my bitch of a bride to the bedchamber, do the deed and hope like hell she’s impregnated. Once she spits out an heir, she is free to see whomever she wants. Father gets her money and an heir, and Sarah will be safe.”

“Seems like a cold deal to me.”

“Downright glacial.”

“You cannot want this.”

“Of course I don’t want it,” he growled. “But life is full of bullshit we don’t want.”

“Anais will be devastated by this news. She had hoped…well, she thought that perhaps you and Jane might find happiness together.”

They had, he wanted to say, but then it was snatched away. Memories were all he would have now.

“How is your wife, by the way?” he asked, wanting to put an end to talk of Jane and his farce of a marriage.

“She’s fine,” Raeburn muttered. “But let us return to your life.”

“Why? It’s in utter shambles, and I prefer not to think about it. So, tell me, will you do me the honor of being my best man, or am I to ask Broughton?”

In the quiet of the night, Matthew sat down at the small secretary in the corner of his cottage. From his chair, he looked out into the room where he had spent so many hours with Jane, loving her, touching her. It was hard to believe she had been gone for a week.

So short a time. Yet a lifetime of changes had filled his hours. He was betrothed to a woman he despised. He would father a child with yet another woman who meant nothing to him.

Damn her, he cursed, pounding his fist against the desktop, why did she have to leave him? Why wasn’t it enough for Jane what they had, why did she have to ask for more than he could give? Didn’t she understand that he’d give her his lifeblood to make her happy?

The sins of his past roared up, along with the vision of Miranda. He had ruined his life, succumbing to her charms and his body’s urges. He had ruined Sarah’s by incurring Miranda’s wrath when he was about to leave for university. Now, he feared, he had destroyed Jane.

Anger and pain seared through his body and he jumped up, pacing the small perimeter of the cottage, searching for the safety of the coldness he had once used as an impenetrable shield.

Tears heated his eyes, and he fought them, refusing to weep, to feel.

“Why?” he screamed, letting the noise bellow out loud and ferocious. “Why can I not have some measure of peace?” he questioned.

“Matty…”
He heard Jane’s soothing voice as he collapsed
onto the bed and rested his head on the pillow that still smelled of Jane’s soap.

“I love you, Jane,” he whispered. “I will love you for eternity, and God curse me, I will love you beyond.”

It should be easier now, to wake up in the morning and move through the motions of the day. But the fact was, it was not. For the past two months, Jane had thought of nothing but that morning when she had left Matthew standing at the window of his study, his palm pressed to the glass. She could not close her eyes for fear that the image of him standing there, telling her he loved her would sweep across her eyes. She was doomed to think of him. Every day without Matthew was increasingly harder to bear. She thought of him nonstop, dreamed of him every night. It was her hands, not Matthew’s, that traced the contours of her body while she tried to relive those beautiful moments in his arms.

When they had met, he had been in need of love. He had needed her touch. Now it was she who was shattering from the pent-up need to feel his hands caressing her. She wanted his breath in her ear. His words, uttered in his deeply masculine voice, piercing through her desire.

After all this time, her desire for him had not abated. She
doubted it ever would. He would always be there, an ever-present unanswered echo in her soul.

She was only glad that their stations in life would prevent them from crossing paths. He was lost to her now, and while it had been by her own hand, Jane still felt the decision was the right one for her. She wanted to be her own woman, living on her own terms, not a gentleman’s mistress who would shower her with gifts and pleasure when it suited him, only to discard her when he was through with her.

Jane had seen that happen too many times with Lady Blackwood’s friends. She heard the women at the hospital whispering amongst themselves about their ill-fated love affairs. She had lived it with her own mother.

A woman’s worth was more than a comfortable home and bedsport for a man. She had always believed that, with every ounce of her being. But lately, she had to remind herself that it was a mantra still worth believing.

She had wanted an honest relationship with him. A marriage, legal in the eyes of the law and the church. She did not want to live in sin, despite that it was love that had brought them together.

“Ah, there you are,” Lady Blackwood said as Jane entered the breakfast room. “How was your night at the hospital, dear?”

“Quite well, thank you,” she replied as she sat down and poured herself a cup of tea. It was increasingly difficult to hide behind the facade she had constructed. She didn’t want Lady Blackwood to suspect she harbored a wounded heart, as well as a pining one, for Wallingford.

“You’re working too much, gel. I see the weariness about your eyes. Take a break from the hospital. Inglebright will take you back whenever you desire. You know that. Besides, I’m certain you’ve tucked away the tidy sum you made while car
ing for the duke’s daughter—there is no reason to work for wages at the hospital.”

She couldn’t give up being a nurse. It was the only thing that kept her from going insane in the long, dark hours of the night.

Lady Blackwood’s rheumy gaze clouded even more. “You know, Jane, that you do not have to continue like this. It’s no secret that I am not rich, but I have put aside a portion for you after I depart this life. It will allow you to live quite well, I think.”

Tears stung her eyes, and Jane tried hard to swallow the tea without choking. A life without Matthew, and now the thought of losing the woman who was like a mother to her. “How can I ever repay you?”

“You already have, with years of exceptional care and friendship. I do not believe you have an inkling of your worth, Jane.”

“Thank you, my lady.”

Lady Blackwood cocked her head to the side and studied her. “Will you not confide in me, Jane?” she asked in a gruff voice. “It pains me to see you hurt like this. You try very hard to hide it, but you never were one capable of deceit.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she murmured as she reached for a slice of toast and the crystal jam bowl. “I’m just a bit tired.” Jane nodded to the newspaper, which was folded up and resting beside Lady Blackwood’s plate. “What gossip is there to be had this morning?”

“Oh, the usual,” she replied, resting her wrinkled and gnarled hand on top of it.

“Come now, you love to tell me of the gossip.”

“No, nothing of any import.”

“Well, that is a first, for every morning for the past fourteen years you have regaled me with the flummery of the society pages.”

“Jane, don’t,” she commanded, struggling to hold on to the paper as Jane pulled it out from beneath her hand. It was more than a command, Jane thought, freezing, it was a plea.

Very slowly, Lady Blackwood lifted her wrinkled hand and met Jane’s gaze. “The paper says that Lord Wallingford is to wed Constance Jopson today at his estate.”

The toast turned to sawdust in Jane’s mouth. She struggled to keep her facade, to find the right words that would throw her employer off the scent she had obviously discovered. But the thought of Matthew’s marriage, the finality of it all, made her disguise crumble.

“How very nice,” she replied, glancing out the window. “It’s lovely and sunny today. I hope the weather is the same in the north of the country.”

“Jane?” Her name was a question filled with worry.

“Is there any other entertaining news,” she asked, smearing more jam on her toast and averting the conversation her employer was bent on having.

“This came.” A white envelope with a red wax seal appeared from beneath the paper. One glance at the seal, and she knew who it was from. Her heart leaped in her chest, even as her hand tightened around the knife.

Lady Blackwood rose unsteadily from her chair. “I am rather tired,” she murmured. “I don’t believe I will need you today, Jane. Have the day with my blessing.”

A warm, leathery hand pressed affectionately atop her shoulder. “I am always here for you, Jane. Please remember that.”

With a nod, Jane struggled to hide the wetness in her eyes as her gaze strayed once more to the letter. With a gentle pat, Lady Blackwood left her alone.

When she picked up the missive, she brought the paper to her face, smelling the ink, the faint scent of his cologne and the acrid aroma of a cheroot. Closing her eyes, she rested the
missive against her cheek, holding it there as though it were his hand cradling her face.

She was at once eager, yet terrified, to read it. Either way, its contents would only bring pain. She could not go against her desires to be an independent woman and become his mistress. A mistress was chained to a man, bought by him solely for pleasure.

And what if he was not renewing his offer, she thought sadly. In all honesty, that would hurt her even more.

She wouldn’t read it, she decided. But she could not toss the letter aside, or throw it into the fire. She would keep it safe and in a place where she could look at it whenever she felt the need to be close to him once again. And one day, she might find the inner strength and emotional peace to read it.

The drizzle was cold. Damp. The sort of chill that found its way through woolens and down to the bone, yet he didn’t feel a thing. The sky, a gunmetal gray, was ominous, as the heavy rain-filled clouds hung low on the horizon. Leaning against the stone railing of the bridge, Matthew stared down at the deep, dark water below.

He always loved the garden in this weather. It looked hauntingly beautiful in this light. It looked ghostly and lonely, the drizzle only adding to the ambience, echoing what was inside him, the place where his soul and heart should have resided. A place that was now a desolate wasteland of emptiness.

It had been two months since he’d seen Jane, or heard her soft, whispering voice. Yet he recalled her face as clearly as if he had just left her in bed. He heard her voice—
constantly
—whispering to him throughout the day and night.

The throbbing in his chest, the need to see her once more had not dissipated over time, but only grown until it had become a consuming compulsion. He had all but moved into
his cottage, painting and sculpting all day and night, only to sleep fitfully in the bed they had once shared. Everything always came back to Jane. Even the sculpture of orange blossoms he had carved had been about Jane. His whole damn life revolved around her, and likely always would.

Not a word from her, he thought, fisting his hands together as he looked out on to the still waters of the lake. Every damn day he scoured the salver, searching for a letter, but none ever came. Did she even think about him anymore?

Pathetic though it was, his entire days were spent thinking of her. Wishing it could be different, wishing
she
could be different. If only she had been rich. If only she wasn’t so strong in her convictions. If only she could be bought…

But then she would not be his Jane. She would be Constance. It wasn’t Constance he wanted. He wanted Jane. The woman who had opened his eyes to life. The woman who had borne his cruel tongue and coldness. The woman who had slowly and carefully pulled away each of his defenses to see the bleeding core of him. The woman who understood his past and how he could have committed such reprehensible sin.

Jane…

Between his fingers, he watched the blood-red satin ribbon ripple in the breeze. She had freed him with this bind, yet once again he was bound. The memories of that afternoon constantly replayed in his mind. Alone in bed, he thought how much he wanted to be touched. How he craved the feel of Jane’s delicate fingers caressing his chest. He fantasized of her mouth on his cock, sucking him in deep, her tongue slowly trailing along his shaft. With her it had not been dirty and shameful. With her, he had not looked down between his thighs and seen something sinful and wrong. When he had closed his eyes, allowing himself the pleasure of experiencing Jane’s gentling suckling mouth, he had not seen Miranda be
tween his legs. He had not heard her cruel words. He had not been fifteen. A boy. He’d been a man.
Jane’s man.

Last night, alone in his cottage, he sat in bed, his back to the headboard while he lazily stroked himself. It had felt good, his fisted hand sliding up and down his shaft. He had thought of Jane, her hand, her mouth, and his release had been explosive, coming in hot spurts on his belly. He had gone to sleep like that, spent, yet still hungry for more.

“You’re going to get sick.”

Drawn out of his thoughts, he saw Sarah standing beside him. She offered him part of her umbrella. Standing close to him, she sheltered them. “What are you doing out here at this time of the morning, it’s not much more than six,” he asked.

“I saw you leave your cottage. You looked sad.”

He could not look her in the eye, so he turned his gaze to the water once more.

“You’re always sad now,” she said quietly. “My heart hurts when you’re sad.”

He said nothing, and she pressed closer to him, resting her head on his shoulder.

“I want to make you smile again, brother.”

His eyes closed, hating the lie on her lips. He’d done nothing but lie to her, and here she was, trying to give him solace. She would never understand the circumstances of her birth, or what Miranda had done to her and why. He would never be able to tell her that he was not her brother, but her father.

“Matthew, does your heart hurt because you miss Miss Rankin?”

“Yes.” He could not lie to Sarah, not about Jane. It felt wrong to lie about someone he loved so much, someone who meant so much to him.

“I miss her, too. Maybe she’ll come back.”

“She will not be coming back,” he gasped in a choked voice.

“Lady Raeburn says that if you want something bad enough, that you must pray for it. I’ve prayed every night for her to come back to be my friend. Have you prayed, Matthew?”

“Yes.” His voice was a pained whisper. Christ, he had prayed, begged, bartered for some miracle to be created so that he would not have to go through with this marriage. So that he could have Jane once more.

Sarah reached for his hand and clutched his fingers. “I know it’s not the same, Matthew, but I will be your friend.”

Clinging to her hand, he finally brought his gaze to her face. Such a beautiful face, with honest guileless eyes. The color was his, but his eyes had never shone with such open trust, his eyes had always glittered with mockery and pessimism.

He kissed her forehead, taking her strength. “You are the very best of me,” he whispered.

They stood quietly for a few minutes, before Sarah brightened.

“There is the black swan that Miss Rankin liked so much,” she said, pointing to a spot where the branches of a weeping willow dipped into the water. Paddling through was a lone swan, its feathers black as midnight.

“Its mate died. He swims about all day looking for her. It would be awful to be alone all the time, wouldn’t it?” she asked.

“Yes. Terrible,” he replied, thinking how he had floundered about these past months searching for a way to be with Jane.

“Do you know that swans only mate once in their lives?” Sarah asked him. “That poor swan will be alone without his mate for the rest of his life. How long will he live?” she asked.

“Mercifully, not long,” he replied, thinking of the decades he had lying before him.

“Humans are like swans, they only love once, too, don’t they?”

His voice became choked. “Yes, they do. But sometimes love is not enough to keep the one you love with you.”

Looking down at his hand, he opened his fingers and allowed the crimson ribbon to flutter down. He watched it spiral down to the water, a feather falling from the sky.

It began to rain then, the drops heavy, landing on the satin as it floated atop the water. It reminded him of teardrops, and he was thrust back to his cottage when he chased the shadows of raindrops on Jane’s skin.

“Goodbye, Miss Rankin,” Sarah murmured quietly beside him.

Matthew watched as the water took the satin beneath its depths. “Goodbye, Jane.”

Like an automaton, Matthew reached for the handle and opened the door to his wife’s bedchamber. Christ! His wife. He’d been married that morning, only a few short hours after being on the bridge, saying his goodbyes to Jane.

It had been a simple, short service. Without any of the fripperies that came with a wedding. The vows had been shortened to within an inch of what was considered a legal marriage. He absolutely refused to say “with my body I thee worship.”