‘You feel it, too, don’t you, my darling?’ Harry murmured into her ear, bringing her back to the present with a jolt. ‘Being forced to meet only in secret is breaking your heart, is it not?’
‘Oh, er…’ Far from worrying about Harry, she had just spent the entire dance thinking about another man.
Lord Ledbury was invading her thoughts far too often. She would be glad when this evening was over and she would be free of him, as well as Harry. She would, she told herself sternly as her spirits inexplicably plunged at the prospect of seeing him heave a sigh of relief as he realized that he could bow out of her life for good.
Harry slid his arm round her waist and towed her from the dance floor. ‘Enough of this. Though it is delightful to hold you in my arms, I need to talk to you.’
He took her along a short corridor and into a conservatory. Seeing that it was already occupied by a couple of pairs of lovers, tussling on most uncomfortable-looking benches, he led her past them and out through French windows onto the terrace beyond. Then he turned and shut the doors behind them, so that she could scarcely hear the music from the ballroom any more.
She clasped her hands at her bosom, her heart pounding as she prepared to give him the little speech she had prepared in which she planned to tell him that she had mistaken her feelings, beg his forgiveness and urge him to forget her.
But then he seized her hands and said, ‘I cannot bear sneaking around like this. Give me the right to call you mine. Marry me. I know it will mean eloping, but…’
‘Harry, no…’
‘Darling, yes. We could just walk out of this ballroom, get into a cab and run away together.’
‘No, we could not…’
‘Ah!’ He smiled at her fondly. ‘You are thinking of the practicalities. You are right to do so, my clever darling. We must have the money to pay for a licence and so forth. You will have to go home first, and get hold of whatever you can…’
She could not help it. She snorted.
‘Well, my pin money is not going to get us very far.’
‘But surely your grandfather does not keep you short? You dress so well. And your jewels alone must be worth a fortune.’
‘I dress well because I have accounts all over Town and the bills are all sent to his man of business to settle. I have very little actual money to spend. But let us not talk about money. Harry, I have something I need to tell you…’
‘It will be different once we are married, though, will it not? There must be some kind of settlement which will mean that your husband will have charge of your fortune?’
‘What fortune?’ she scoffed. ‘If I marry a man of whom my grandfather disapproves I shall be cut off without a penny.’
‘I am sure he would not be so harsh…’
‘That’s because you don’t know him. He has already cut off his own daughter without showing a single sign of remorse. How much easier will it be to do the same to me?’
‘Daughter? What daughter?’
‘Oh. Well, it is not known outside the family. And even within it we only speak of my aunt Aurora in whispers. But she ran off with a penniless local youth, and Grandpapa not only banished her from the country but forbade anyone to speak her name in his presence.’
A look of confusion flashed across his face. ‘But surely your father must have settled something upon you. You cannot be entirely dependent upon your grandfather?’
‘I suppose we could live on the pittance that he set aside for me. But the bulk of his fortune, along with all the land, went to the new holder of his title.’
‘You mean you have nothing?’
That was not strictly true. The lawyers had drawn up what they considered a reasonable settlement when her mother had married the Marquis of Tunstall, to provide for any female offspring of the union. But in comparison with what a son would have had Lady Jayne considered her inheritance from him to be a paltry sum.
His face distorted with fury, Harry thrust her roughly away from him.
‘You bitch!’
She was not sure what hurt most. Her hip, where it had caught on the corner of the balustrade, or her feelings at being called by such a vile word. Or the expression of complete loathing on Harry’s face.
‘All this time you have been leading me on when you knew full well there was never any chance I could marry you!’
This was terrible. She had known he would be hurt when he learned it must end, but she’d never expected him to think she’d deliberately deceived him. No wonder he was furious.
‘I did not mean to lead you on,’ she said, stretching out her hand as she begged for his understanding. ‘I simply did not think.’
He seized her by the upper arms, his fingers digging into her flesh.
‘Well, if you think,’ he snarled, thrusting his face into hers, ‘that I am going to keep hanging around on the off-chance your grandfather might change his mind about me, then you are very much mistaken. This is farewell, my lady.’
Then his mouth came crashing down on hers. And it was horrible. Far worse than the last time he’d kissed her. It was as though he was trying to punish her. She could taste his anger in the metallic tang of blood when his teeth ground against her lips. Though she did not try to fight him off, as she had the last time he had pounced on her and taken liberties. She just stood there, rigid in his embrace, accepting the punishment she felt she fully deserved.
‘My God,’ he said, abruptly letting her go. ‘What a narrow escape I’ve had. You don’t even have what it takes to keep a man warm at night.’
She groped behind her for the balustrade. Her legs were shaking so much it was all that kept her from slumping to the ground.
‘They call you Chilblain Jayne—did you know that? Because though you look delectable enough to heat a man’s blood to boiling point, the minute he tries to put his hands on you the frost you exude will freeze all his extremities.’ He laughed mockingly as she flinched. ‘Frankly, I don’t have the patience to try and thaw you out. Nobody would even attempt to without the lure of the Earl of Caxton’s fortune. You are just not worth the effort.’
And then he turned on his heel and stalked off into the house, leaving the French doors swinging wide behind him.
She pressed her hand to her bruised lips, feeling sick.
It had all been a sham. He had been pretending. Deceiving her because he wanted her money. Not her. Never her.
But then, when had anyone ever wanted her?
She felt like curling up into a ball and keening with pain. But she could not. She just could not bear to think someone might witness her humiliation.
She had to find Milly and get home.
She blundered her way back to the ballroom, half blinded by the tears she could not even wipe from her eyes because of the mask she dared not remove lest anyone recognise her.
But before she’d made it through the door a pair of arms shot out and grabbed her. A man, a very large and very strong man, whirled her right off her feet and carried her, kicking and struggling, back into the conservatory.
* * *
Lord Ledbury’s spirits had been steadily sinking since the night of the theatre trip. But they had hit rock bottom the night before, when he’d seen the bet written down for all to see. Two so-called gentlemen had staked a tidy sum on the precise amount of time it would take Morty’s successor to thaw out ‘Chilblain Jayne.’ His insistence that she appeared to welcome his suit had blown up in his face. Spectacu
larly.
He had only taken her for a drive once in Hyde Park—but she had never gone driving with any other man. Whenever he approached her in a ballroom he got a polite smile, and the pleasure of her company for a stroll about the room—whereas she sent every other petitioner about his business.
And then she’d accepted a seat in his private box at the theatre. He should have known from the amount of interest each of them had garnered individually at Lucy Beresford’s come-out ball that speculation would rise to fever pitch when they were seen together.
He had wanted to hit somebody. Thrash them. Only he was not quite sure upon whom to focus his anger. The men who’d made the repulsive wager, himself for making her the subject of vulgar speculation or Lieutenant Kendell for being the man with whom Lady Jayne was secretly already in love.
Ever since that night he’d stood beneath her window, savouring the miraculous effect she’d had on his manhood, he’d been having the most disturbingly explicit dreams about her. Dreams from which he woke in a tangle of sheets, covered in sweat and rock-hard. And every time they’d met since then his physical response to her had grown stronger.
But it wasn’t merely lust. The more he got to know her, the more he liked her as a person, too. Even when her behaviour irritated him he could see that she was acting from motives he couldn’t help admiring.
Worst of all was the fact that every other woman paled into insignificance in comparison with her. He’d hoped that since she’d resurrected his interest in sex he might be able to divert it to some other suitable female.
No such luck. She was the only woman he wanted to haul into his arms and kiss into submission.
And, to his annoyance, just lately he’d begun to daydream about the various ways a man could permanently dispose of a rival in a crowded city like London. Kendell would not pose much of a challenge. He might wear a uniform, but he’d never got it dirty. And he wouldn’t be expecting a physical attack…
Though his murderous daydreams always ended the same way. With Lady Jayne finding out what he’d done—for she was so bright she was bound to—and cheering as he was led to the gallows.
And she would. She didn’t like him. He’d thought she had begun to soften towards him a little, but since the theatre trip there had been a definite withdrawal. The few times he’d managed to insist they spend some moments together her smiles had been forced, rather than natural. And, no matter how much he’d goaded her, he hadn’t been able to rouse her from her abstraction.
Why should it feel so important to try, anyway? He’d come to Town to find a wife. Surely amongst the gaggle of girls on the catch for a husband there must be one who could oust Lady Jayne from the forefront of his mind?
But he could not face another night of searching in vain for some elusive quality that would raise one of this Season’s debutantes above the average. He could not stomach one more stuffy ton event, where everyone was on their best behaviour and nobody said or did anything real.
For just one night he needed to behave disgracefully. To get more than a little drunk and dance with a dozen women of the kind who would not take his interest in their charms as a prelude to a marriage proposal. Maybe even kiss one or two of them if he felt like it and they showed willing. And hopefully break the incomprehensible hold Lady Jayne had over him.
The Lambournes’ masquerade promised exactly the kind of mild debauchery he was seeking.
Almost immediately upon his arrival he’d begun to pursue a shepherdess whose main attraction had been a gown that was so low-cut he could actually see the outer edges of her nipples. He’d just persuaded her onto the dance floor and into his arms when he’d heard Milly laugh.
Since he hadn’t expected her to gain entry to an event like this he’d turned round, in some surprise, to see who had escorted her here.
He’d frozen when he’d seen the woman standing on the edge of the dance floor beside her.
Lady Jayne. With Kendell.
Well, if she held him in such disdain she thought she could flout their agreement, then to hell with her!
He’d pulled the shepherdess hard against his loins and resumed dancing in a way that paid no heed to the proprieties. But in spite of the gratifying response the shepherdess gave him he was painfully aware of Lady Jayne, swirling round the dance floor with Kendell, a look of dreamy absorption on her face.
When they left the ballroom, arm in arm, they took with them any last remnant of desire he’d fleetingly felt for the wanton little shepherdess. The thought of Kendell holding Lady Jayne in his arms, kissing the lips that he dreamed of nightly not fifty feet from where he was standing, made him feel physically sick.
He broke out in a cold sweat. Suddenly it all made sense. When some of his fellow officers had talked about falling in love they’d described the same symptoms from which he was suffering. They’d said it made them blind to the attractions of all other women. To think he’d scoffed at them, insisting all cats were grey in the dark.
Well, he knew better now. He hadn’t seen it sneaking up on him, but he’d been well and truly ambushed by the one emotion he’d never thought would come into his life.
He’d gone and fallen in love with the most unsuitable, unattainable woman in London.
He rather thought he must have groaned, because the shepherdess looked up at him with concern.
‘You ain’t gonna cast up your accounts, are yer?’
He managed a strained smile. ‘I hope not. But just in case…’ He pried her arms from about his neck. She readily took the hint, patting him on the shoulder sympathetically before skipping off in search of a fresh partner.
Goddammit. In spite of just saying Lady Jayne could go to hell as far as he was concerned, he’d been lying to himself. He was the one in hell. He turned to glare at the door through which she’d wafted with Kendell—only to see the man himself come storming back into the ballroom with an ugly look on his face.
But without Lady Jayne.
He waited for her to appear in his wake, and when she did not he just knew something dreadful must have happened.
He pushed his way through the swirling crowd of dancers. He had to find her. She was alone out there somewhere, and unprotected, at the kind of event she should never have come to in the first place.
He’d barely got through the door when she ran full tilt into him and, before he’d had a chance to identify himself, began lashing out at him in a panic.
There was only one thing to be done. He picked her up, placing one hand over her mouth to stifle her protests, and carried her into the conservatory.
‘Hush,’ he said once he’d set her on her feet. ‘You’re safe now. I’m here.’
She looked up at him then, but if anything her eyes grew even more panicked.
‘Don’t you recognise me?’ he said softly, when it looked as though she was desperately thinking of some way to dart past him.
Lady Jayne looked up at the face of the masked man who’d just picked her up and hauled her into this darkened alcove with such ruthless determination. When she’d tried to scream for help he’d put his hand over her mouth. He hadn’t appeared even to notice when she’d kicked out at him with her flimsy evening slippers. It had felt like trying to wrestle with a walking…oak tree. What kind of a party was this? No wonder Lady Penrose had had second thoughts about allowing her to come here. She must have known the kind of disgraceful things that went on.
The oak tree had put her down eventual
ly, but with her back to the wall. And his shoulders were so broad they blocked her view of the rest of the room. Though she already knew that the other occupants of the conservatory were so intent on their own pleasure that they had not even noticed a struggling nun being carried into the room by a…corsair! For that was what he looked like. She could see now that he’d set her down. He wore a mask, and a red bandana over his hair. He had a cutlass tucked into the belt that spanned narrow hips clad in indecently tight breeches. His ruffled silk shirt was open to the waist, and a pair of thigh-length sea boots completed the outfit. He took his hand from her mouth the moment she stopped struggling. Not that she would yield to the rogue! But he was so big and powerful she would never be able to escape him—except perhaps by persuading him to let her go.
‘Lady Jayne…’
The gentleness of the voice saying her name pierced right through her mounting panic. She looked properly into the eyes that were regarding her through the slits in his black mask. They were grey. And full of concern.
As they had been that night he’d wiped the tear from her face.
‘L-Lord Ledbury?’ The rapid pounding of her heart steadied and slowed when he nodded and took his arm from her waist. But thankfully he remained exactly where he was. Shielding her from view.
Protecting her from possible exposure.
It was not some lecherous stranger, intent on making sport of her. It was Lord Ledbury come to…to tell her off for behaving so badly, no doubt. But, even so, she had never been so glad to see anyone in her life.
‘I was so careful with my disguise,’ she began to excuse herself. ‘How on earth did you recognise me?’
‘How did I recognise you?’ He shook his head ruefully. Her image was imprinted on his brain. Though she was covered in the most unflattering garment ever devised, she could not hide her height, or the shape of her figure.
An Escapade and an Engagement Page 9