A Moment of Passion (The Ladies Book of Pleasures)

by Jess Michaels

  When the door to his office flew open, Jason didn’t look up from his paperwork, but held up a hand for the servant to wait so he could finish his thought. He was writing a letter to himself, detailing everything he needed to say to Jacinda when he saw her that night.

  But when his butler began to speak, his tone wild and upset, Jason recognized something was amiss.

  “I’m sorry, my lord, I tried to stop her, but—”

  Jason looked up just in time to see Jacinda practically shove his butler aside and stalk toward him. He had never seen her angry like this and he almost dropped his pen in the face of the glorious power of her emotion.

  Gone was the timid wallflower or the inexperienced lover. She had been replaced by a goddess of fire whose eyes sparked and whose cheeks burned. His lips parted in surprise and his body reacted with the desire he had come to expect to feel for Jacinda. After all this time, he was prepared for it, though perhaps not for the strength of it in that moment.

  What he was not prepared for was when she hauled a hand back and slapped him hard enough across the face that his head turned.

  “How dare you?” she ground out, her eyes filling with tears that pained him far more than his stinging cheek did.

  He jumped to his feet and waved off the servant. “Leave us.”

  “But what about Lady Jameswood,” his butler all but whined.

  Jason stared at Jacinda. “Grace?”

  Jacinda sucked back a sob. “She drove me here.”

  He nodded. “Please show the duchess to a parlor and be certain she has anything she requires. Miss Downing and I are not disturbed.”

  The butler nodded, but as he turned to go, Jason called out. “Willard, if what just happened here reaches the ears of other servants, I will be very angry.”

  The man turned, his gaze still wary as he looked at Jacinda. “I don’t know what you mean, my lord. I saw nothing worth discussing below stairs.”

  Jason breathed a sigh of relief as Willard left, firmly shutting the door as he did so. Once they were alone, Jason turned his entire focus on Jacinda.

  “You went to my father?” she said, her voice shaking even though she never turned her gaze from his. He found himself glad she didn’t, that she wouldn’t cower from him even at the height of her emotional display.

  “Let me explain,” he said, keeping his tone low and even.

  She fisted her hands at her sides. “What is there to explain, Jason? I asked you not to speak to my father about the issue of my dowry. I pleaded with you. And you did it anyway, behind my back, as if I was a marionette to be manipulated between you two.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” Jason protested, shocked by how drawn he was to her in this charged moment.

  Her hurt slashed at him, ordering him to comfort her, to fix this, to make her smile. He had never felt like that about anyone else in his entire life.

  “Wasn’t it?” she asked, backing away from him a long step.

  “I wanted to help you,” he pleaded, hoping she would let him finish a sentence. She glared at him, but did so. “Jacinda you must realize what kind of message the lack of even a token dowry sends. It reminds people of the past, of why your family cut themselves away from you. I hoped to convince your father to see the value in providing a message that said otherwise.”

  She shook her head. “Well, congratulations, you did that, Jason.”

  His brow wrinkled. “What do you mean? He refused me—did he change his mind?”

  “Oh no,” she breathed, the tears returning to her eyes even though she didn’t allow them to fall. “He will give nothing, but he now sees some value in inserting himself into my life again. He is forcing me back to his home, under his thumb, Jason. Within the week.”

  Jason could see from her demeanor how much that fact pained her, but to him it was a sign of hope.

  “Jacinda,” he said gently, trying not to belittle her feelings on the subject. “This could be a good thing. His support will help you.”

  She stared at him, face crumpled like she had smelled something rotting. “Help me?” she repeated, her voice raising as it had when she first entered the room. “I cannot go back there, Jason. It will be worse than with my aunt. She despises me, but she leaves me alone except when she is forced to chaperone me. My father will allow me no peace. He will push and berate and do everything in his power to bend me to his will.”

  Jason flinched. The certainty with which she said the words gave him a clear picture of what she had endured in the past with the man.

  “I’m sorry,” he said and meant it in every fiber of his being.

  “Sorry?” she said with disbelief. “Why? It seems you are willing to do exactly the same thing.”

  He sucked in a harsh breath. “Don’t compare me to a man like him, Jacinda,” he said, harder than perhaps he should have, but the sting of her accusation made him protective of himself.

  “I have a question,” she said, ignoring his request. “Why are you so insistent that I marry rather than become a mistress?”

  He shook his head at the sudden change of subject. “I—because you cannot go back to respectability if you choose the other path. And I think you could be happy if you wed and were allowed back into Society.”

  She snorted in disbelief. “Is it truly that, Jason? Or is it that you’ve made it perfectly clear that you will never wed, especially not wed me, so you know I won’t turn to you to fulfill that role. But if I chose to be a mistress, you fear I might ask you to be my protector, and turning me away would be difficult for you because you’ve already bedded me.”

  He stared at her, her words sinking in, stoking a fire in him that he could normally control. But with her there was no control. Not of desire, not of passion...not of anger.

  He moved on her swiftly, pressing into her space and not allowing her to escape even when she tried to dodge around him.

  “Is that what you think of me after all these years, Jacinda? What you think of yourself after all the nights we’ve spent together? That I don’t want you so I try to get rid of you by making you another man’s wife?”

  “Isn’t it?” she asked, but there was little certainty in her tone now. She was staring up at him, her gaze darting between his eyes and his mouth. He felt her desire, warring there with her disappointment and anger.

  It stoked his own even higher.

  “If you think I don’t want you, you are a fool,” he hissed, grasping her elbow to mold her against him. “I think I have proven, over and over, how much I desire you. But I won’t marry you, Jacinda. Not because I don’t want you, but because I will never marry anyone. Not just to thwart what my father wanted more than anything, but because I have seen what love can do. It destroys all it touches. My mother became a drunk over unrequited love for that bastard who sired me. And she died for that love in a pool of her own tears.”

  Her lips parted. “Jason—”

  He ignored the soft entreaty of his name and plowed on, unable to stop now. “And I am like him, Jacinda. Don’t mistake it. I may appear jovial, even flippant, in public. The charming rake, the wild rogue, but beneath that mask, there is a monster in me that comes from his blood. Even if I burn for you, which I do. Even if I think of you more than I should, which I do, I would never expose you to that monster. If he wakes, I’d hate to see what he would do to you.”

  He threaded the fingers of one hand into her hair, tilting her neck back to angle her lips closer to his. He could feel her breath against him, taste her skin even before he touched it, because he had memorized her flavor over the many nights he had come to her bed and stolen what he never should have touched. But he was helpless to her then, just as he was defenseless to her now.

  He dropped his mouth to hers, rough in the kiss, the claiming of what could never be his, because he would destroy it. Destroy her. All he could have was this, nothing more.

  “I can fuck you,” he whispered against her mouth. “But I cannot love you, Jacinda. No more than I could lo
ve anyone else.”

  Her eyes fluttered open and she looked up at him for a charged moment. Then she struggled out of his arms and away from him. He stared at her, disheveled and staring at him like she didn’t know him at all. The moment of unguarded truth had passed, leaving regret in its wake.

  “Once again,” he choked out, turning away from her. “I’m sorry.”

  She was silent for what seemed like a very long time, but Jason refused to allow himself the pleasure of looking at her. With what he had just done, said, he didn’t deserve that.

  Finally, she whispered, “Don’t come to me tonight, Jason. I’m going to stay with Grace, my aunt and my father be damned. I want to be alone.”

  He pivoted to face her and found her watching him, her head held high and her expression one of strength. She didn’t wait for him to respond to her request...order. She simply said, “Goodbye.”

  And she left him standing there, staring after her, unable to say a word. He had been gutted in her wake, broken by the very strength he had helped her find within herself. But with that strength, he had also had a very powerful realization.

  He was in love with Jacinda. His Jacinda. His friend, his confidante, his lover. Despite what he had told her about never being able to do so, he did love her. But it was because of everything else he had said that he could never speak that love, allow that love, surrender to that love.

  There was only one thing to be done now. He had to let her go.

  Jacinda stared at the bowl of fragrant soup that had been set before her who knew how long go. Time hadn’t exactly passed in a normal fashion since her showdown with Jason.

  “Jacinda,” Grace said, reaching over to take her hand.

  Jacinda jolted at the touch and gave Grace an apologetic glance. “I suppose you must be regretting arranging for me to stay here tonight. I’m such a terrible guest.”

  “Not at all,” Grace scoffed. “I’m very happy to have you here. I only wish I could find a way to make this a permanent arrangement.”

  Jacinda shrugged. “You’ve tried before, but my father won’t allow it. And even less now that he is determined to have me under this thumb again.”

  Jacinda could see her far-too-observant friend was ready to launch into a “discussion” with her about the day’s events and she wasn’t fool enough to believe she could avoid it. Not with Grace the one wishing the conversation. The duchess got what she wanted. But Jacinda wanted to put it off just a little longer.

  “How did you convince my aunt to allow me to stay with you for a night, unchaperoned?” she asked.

  “I didn’t convince her,” Grace said with a shake of her head. “I simply told her it was happening and demanded she send your maid along with enough things for the night.”

  Jacinda smiled for the first time since leaving Jason’s. “Since she did send Hattie to your home, I suppose she felt she couldn’t argue with you.” Her smile faded. “I envy your power, but most especially your independence.”

  Grace held her stare. “It came at a sacrifice,” she said softly.

  Jacinda blushed at the gentle reminder. Grace rarely spoke of him, but she had obviously cared for her late husband. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking before I spoke.”

  Grace shook her head. “I don’t say it to scold you, my dear. In fact, it is a very fine thing to be able to do as I wish. I simply don’t want you to romanticize it as if there is no consequence to that ability. Everything has a cost.”

  Jacinda stared at her uneaten soup but didn’t truly see it. “That is what Jason has been trying to tell me as well.”

  Grace nodded to her servants and they swept away her empty bowl and Jacinda’s cold one before they disappeared to fetch the next course.

  “If Northfield has said so, he is wiser than perhaps any of us give him credit for.”

  Jacinda thought of his bubbling anger today when she confronted him, of the darkness and the kindness which he hid from everyone beneath a swirling cloud of frivolity and rakish ennui.

  Well, everyone but her. She had seen it all.

  “He is many things that others would not guess,” she said softly.

  Of course, none of those things erased the fact that he had gone behind her back to her father and now her life was about to be irrevocably changed. Her stomach hurt each time she thought of it, and when the servant placed a beautiful plate before her, filled with sliced roast, perfectly cooked vegetables and a delicious sauce, she pushed it away.

  “And you are in love with him,” Grace said.

  Jacinda stiffened, her hands clenching on the table before her as she slowly turned her gaze on her friend. Grace was not asking a question—she was stating a fact. A fact Jacinda had been trying to hide, one she had been fighting to deny even to herself.

  But if there was anyone in the world who she could trust, it was Grace. And with her mind swirling with emotions, the idea of confiding in the duchess was a bewitching one, indeed, for she knew that confidence would never be betrayed.

  “I do. I love him,” she admitted quietly and a weight suddenly lifted off her shoulders as she finally said out loud what had been in her heart for days. In truth, perhaps much longer than days or weeks or even months.

  Grace didn’t physically react to the confession, nor did she launch into a long verbal response of either how foolish Jacinda was or how it would all work out. Instead, she simply said, “Which complicates things, I assume.”

  Jacinda nodded. “Very much so. At least for me. He has made it ever-so-painfully clear that he could never love anyone.” She shifted. “Perhaps that is just a kinder way of saying he would never love me.”

  Though today he had said such unexpected things about thinking of her, burning for her, wanting her...things she had never expected a man, not to mention Jason, to feel for her.

  “Don’t you think his actions belie that statement?” Grace asked in the same utterly neutral tone she had been using since she first began the conversation.

  “How?” Jacinda asked with a humorless bark of laughter. “He betrayed me to my father and has set in motion a series of events that I cannot bear to think about.”

  “But he betrayed you as a misguided attempt to take care of you,” Grace pointed out. “Which seems to be what he has been doing for a very long time indeed.”

  Jacinda bent her head. “I wouldn’t say that a fortnight of trying to save me is a long time.”

  “But the seeds were sown years ago,” Grace protested. “I speak of the friendship you and Jason have shared as long as I have known you.”

  Jacinda pursed her lips, for she had no retort to that statement. “Yes, he has been a friend to me since I was young.”

  “Certainly when you fell from grace, he could have turned away from you, as so many others did. But he didn’t, did he?” Grace pressed.

  Jacinda shook her head, unable to keep herself from a small smile. “No. He never turned away. In fact, I believe he was the first and only person who danced with me the first night I returned to Society. He behaved as if the fall never happened. He never even asked me about it until we became lovers. It was as if it didn’t matter to him.”

  As she said the words, she recognized just how important they were. How important Jason had been and continued to be to her.

  “And then there is this madcap plan of his to land you a husband,” Grace said with a low laugh.

  Laughter Jacinda didn’t join. “I fear he does that out of pity, not caring.”

  Grace shot her a look. “Please, Jacinda. There are certainly far more pitiable wallflowers in our circle and I cannot imagine he would do what he is attempting for anyone else. His plan is especially for you.”

  Jacinda rested her elbows on the edge of the table and covered her face. Grace was confusing her, making her believe Jason had a heart that could beat for her when she knew that wasn’t true.

  When she moved her fingers away from her face, she found Grace had obviously signaled again for her plate to be t
aken, for it was gone. The duchess smiled at her servants. “I realize there are further courses, but I believe Miss Downing is not hungry at present, so please hold them and give us privacy.”

  The footman nodded and the remaining servants trailed out after him, leaving the two women alone. The moment they were, Grace returned her full attention to Jacinda.

  “Let us talk about the delicate subject of Jason’s becoming your lover,” she said one fine brow arched.

  “I forced him to do that,” Jacinda argued. “Because I said that Carnthorn wished me to become his mistress, because I am considering that life. Jason only bedded me out of desperation.”

  Grace covered her mouth with one hand and for a moment Jacinda thought she had said something too shocking to be borne, even by the sophisticated duchess. But just as she was ready to apologize, she heard Grace’s muted laughter from behind her hand.

  Jacinda’s eyes narrowed. “You mock me?”

  Grace shook her head. “No, my dear, of course not,” she said between her laughter. “But you must forgive me if the idea of anyone forcing a man like Jason to bed them strikes me as wildly amusing.”

  Jacinda folded her arms. “What other reason would he have?”

  “That he desires you?” Grace offered, wiping her eyes as she made some attempt to calm herself. “Evidently he must, because he has not come to you just once, has he? You said earlier in the day that it was nightly.”

  Jacinda wanted to cover her burning cheeks with her own cold hands, but resisted the urge. “Yes.”

  “And he gives you pleasure.” Grace didn’t ask, just stated the facts. “In fact, it seems to me that the pleasure is the gift he wants to give to you, a way to erase past memories created by that bastard Hodgend.”

  Jacinda shut her eyes as memories of her nights with Jason bombarded her. Of him telling her that he was her first even though they both knew that he was not and would never be, of his gentle care as he allowed her power over him, of the wracking pleasures that he gave to her over and over again.

  “Yes,” she whispered, her body tingling even though at present she didn’t want to desire Jason so desperately. “He is a constant well of pleasure, living proof that The Ladies Book of Pleasures is correct about desire.”