Sinful

by Charlotte Featherstone

  “That you were the woman at the hospital?”

  She nodded and followed the movement of his hand until it came down to rest upon her fingers, stopping her from opening the door.

  “Your name.”

  “There are thousands of Janes in London.”

  “But none with your voice.”

  “Matthew…”

  “Jane, believe me when I say I was entranced by everything about you, but it was your voice, an angel’s voice. When I heard it, it gave me such peace. When your voice grew soft in the ballroom, I knew. I couldn’t forget that voice, Jane.”

  His breathing seemed harsh to her ears. She struggled not to look away from that intense, almost passionate gaze.

  “We have done what we promised never to do,” he said, his voice husky in the dark quiet. “We—both of us—wished never to expose ourselves to the prying eyes of others. And yet we have done the unthinkable, we have sold ourselves to each other.”

  She could not help but stiffen at his words. Indeed, they had agreed to complete honesty, to shed the mantle of secrets they both wore, and yet, the reminder of it did little to settle her nerves. She had known what she was getting. She had known that her secrets would now belong to him, yet that had not prevented her from coming to him.

  “We are both damaged souls, Jane, marred by darkness and sin. We’re both scarred,” he whispered, brushing his thumb against the uneven skin of her top lip. “You wear your scars on the outside, while mine are hidden deep. But they’re there, Jane. You just have to look hard.”

  “And will you let me look deep, my lord?”

  “You’ve made it clear that this is the only way I can have you.”

  “Honesty will set you free.”

  He smiled, and a soft sound of amusement passed between his lips. “The truth enslaves. It will chain us, bind us in a way that the two of us will fight to get free from.”

  “I can bear the burden.”

  “I wonder if you can. Because beyond this door we will cease to be the people we show to the world. Agreed?”

  “Yes.”

  “I will be only Matthew here in this room with you, Jane. Tell me, who am I to expect? Who are you really?”

  “I do not know,” she said, her voice trembling despite her attempts to appear as though she were firmly in control of her feelings. “I always thought I knew myself so well. But then—” The words froze in her throat and she looked away, but he caught her chin with the edge of his fingers and turned her face to his.

  “Only honesty, Jane. We promised. We will not go beyond this door until I have your word that you will be completely honest with me, as I have vowed to be with you.”

  “I thought I knew what I wanted—who I was—that is, until that night in the hospital. You…you awakened feelings in me that were strange, terrifying yet exhilarating. These feelings were all things I forbid myself—feelings I’ve never wanted to have. I was quite satisfied with never having felt pleasure or passion, and then when I met you, I questioned everything I have ever believed in. You ask me who I truly am? The truth is, I do not know.”

  “Do you wish to know?”

  “I fear the answer I may uncover.”

  His expression seemed to soften. She saw the flicker of something in his eye, before he shielded it with his thick lashes as he watched his thumb glide along her mouth, parting her lips. “I, too, am afraid, Jane. I fear what I will find inside me, as well. I fear the things you will ask, and the answers I shall have to give you. Shall we forget this bargain of ours, then? Shall we pretend that we never agreed to bare our souls to one another? Should we forget that we ever met, ever touched. Ever kissed?”

  “Is that what you want?” she asked, fearing the answer.

  “No,” he replied in a hard, almost choking voice. “It is not what I want. I want to know you, Jane. I want to understand what makes you different from the women I have known. I want to understand these feelings I had, that I still have.”

  “Then we will go forward. And we shall never tell a soul what happens in this room. We will never speak of each other’s secrets or use them to hurt one another once this week is over. For, a week is all I dare give to you.”

  “Agreed. Our secret.”

  Together they released the latch on the door and stepped into the cottage. With a quiet click the door closed behind Matthew. They were now completely alone.

  When she turned and looked at him, Jane knew that Matthew would strip her utterly naked, and he would not have to remove one stitch of her clothes to do so.

  The room was warm from the fire that blazed in the small hearth. Candles flickered in candelabra that were scattered about the room and atop the fireplace mantel. It was a sitting room of sorts. As she looked about the small parlor, through the dancing shadows of candlelight that cast shifting shapes on the velvet wallpaper hangings, she realized that this cottage was Matthew’s private sanctuary.

  Taking a few steps forward, Jane came to stand before two oval portraits hanging above the mantel. The one was of a young boy whose black hair was a mass of riotous waves. His blue eyes were shadowed, cheerless. His lips, pink and full, were set in a hard line. His expression was severe, austere. Far too serious for someone as young as he. Jane could not help but reach up to trace the outline of the sad little face that looked down upon her.

  “You were not even happy as a little boy, were you?”

  “No. I was not.”

  “And now?”

  “I am not certain what exactly happiness means. I do not believe I have ever really experienced true happiness, or if I have, it was so fleeting that it left an unmemorable impression upon me.”

  Jane did not turn around to search him out. She did not need to see his face to know that he was feeling awkward, defensive. She heard all that and more in his voice.

  “I was seven when that portrait was painted. I despised the lace collar my mother insisted I wear. I loathed the artist and how he forced me to sit for hours in that chair and look out the window. It was bloody torture sitting for that portrait.”

  “How so?”

  “It was summer and for the entire week it was sunny and warm. I knew Raeburn and Anais and my other friend Lord Broughton would be down by the river, playing and fishing. I could hear the three of them, their laughs being carried on the wind. I saw them, running, Broughton holding the string of a kite while Anais and Raeburn chased him.” He smiled sadly and half turned his face from her. “Raeburn and Anais were hand in hand even then. I remember watching him run with her. I could see her smile, and I saw his, and Christ, I hated him for that, for his happiness. I hated him for his freedom, while I was stuck in my father’s ducal estate, trying to be the dutiful son and failing miserably.”

  “You wanted to be outside with your friends.”

  “Yes. I wanted to be out of the house. Anywhere away from my father.”

  “And your mother?”

  There was a very long pause in which Jane could hear his rapid breathing. She felt the tenseness in the room grow as the silence stretched on. “I loved my mother. That is her portrait beside mine.”

  “You look like her. You have her eyes, and her smile.”

  “How do you know? You’ve never seen me smile.”

  “Once,” she whispered, “when you shook hands with Lord Raeburn after the wedding toasts. You smiled then. You have a dimple in your left cheek.”

  Jane heard a shuffle along the floor. She peered over her shoulder to see that Matthew was gazing into the mirror, his head tilted to the side as his hand traced his jaw.

  “Your mother has the same dimple as you. The artist has captured it perfectly.”

  “I am the artist.”

  Jane started, then swung her attention back to the portrait. In the painting, his mother was dressed in a ruffled pink velvet wrapper. She was posed, reclining against a crème-and-gold-brocade settee. Numerous pillows were scattered about and a tray, filled with glass bottles of perfumes and silver tins o
f powders rested beside her. Her long blond hair was unbound, cascading over her shoulders.

  The painting was intimate, as if Jane had just happened upon her resting in her boudoir. She could not help but compare it to the memories she had of her mother, servicing her lovers with her cheap, harlot clothes and her rouged cheeks and lips.

  “I remember the morning I found her sitting just like that,” he said as he came to stand beside her. “I ran into her room and found her sitting on the settee, sipping her morning chocolate. I was so proud, I couldn’t wait to show her something, so I ran to her room and barged in, ignoring the shrieks of her maids.”

  “What did you have to show her?”

  “A perfect score on my Latin exam. My tutor had just given me the results, and I snatched it out of his hand and ran to show her. I remember her smile and the way she kissed my cheek.”

  Jane saw him stiffen then shake his head as if chasing the memory away. “It was one of the last times I saw her alive. I was ten when she died. No one else has seen this painting but you.”

  “I am honored. Truly. It is so very well done. But I must know something, you said it was one of the last times you saw her alive—”

  “Don’t,” he murmured, closing his eyes. “Don’t ask me that.”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to remind him of their pact, to thrust his words of honesty back into his face, but something in his expression, in his eyes—a pain she had never seen in him before, made her stop. A soul is never bought, she reminded herself. It is given.

  “Very well, I will not ask you. But tell me, how old were you when you painted this?”

  He let out his breath and relaxed somewhat. “Fourteen. My father always chastised me for my painting, saying it was for sissies, that if I were to grow up to be a real man, I would put aside my painting and daydreaming and concentrate on my studies. I was a miserable student, only average at best. Every bloody subject was such a chore for me to learn, but I tried, tried so damn hard to please her…to make it easier for her with him.”

  “And you didn’t?”

  He grimaced and looked away from the painting. “I rarely pleased anyone, least of all my parents. I’m afraid I was something of a disappointment to both of them.”

  “And your tutor, did you please him?”

  Matthew laughed, a humorless, hollow sound. “Not usually. He was a hard old bastard who was exceptionally fond of flogging.”

  “Did he flog you?” she asked, thinking of him as he was in his portrait, with his sad eyes and sullen expression.

  “Every chance he got. He took perverse enjoyment in it, and I refused to cry, which of course made him work harder.”

  Oh! She wanted to weep for him, to hold him.

  “I haven’t the mind for studies and books,” he said flatly. “I learn more by seeing and doing, but the English education system is not based that way, therefore I muddled through with nothing impressive to show my father, who would only accept excellence.”

  She glanced again at his portrait. “He wanted you to quit painting. Did you give it up like he asked?”

  “No, I hid it. I would stay in my room late at night when I was supposed to be studying and instead I would sketch. I would never dare attempt to paint for fear they would find out. I never cared about going against my father, but I never wanted to disappoint my mother, so I hid the fact that art was my world. My escape, so to speak. I have never shared my art, with the exception of a few pieces that Raeburn has seen, and the portrait I auctioned off.”

  “The one that was indecent.”

  He inclined his head, but held her gaze. “There is so much about me that is indecent, Jane. My entire life has been nothing but. But enough of me now,” he said, turning to her. “What of you and your mother?”

  Jane stilled and fisted her hands at her sides as the unwanted memories began to float back into her mind. “My mother was lovely—nothing at all like me. She was blonde and blue eyed. Angelic. She was an opera dancer and an actress when she met my father. After…” Jane swallowed hard, ashamed to admit what her mother had been. “After my father left us, my mother was forced into prostitution.”

  “And your father?”

  “An aristocrat. My mother was his mistress. I am illegitimate.” She looked up to gauge his reaction, but he hardly even blinked at the news she was a bastard. “I barely remember him,” she said, gathering her courage to tell him of her past. “He left my mother when I was seven, tossing us out onto the streets. I’ve never seen him since. My mother always said I have his eyes. The garish red of my hair is a mystery. I am not certain what hateful ancestor bequeathed it to me.”

  “It is not garish.”

  “Kind words are not necessary,” she said with a fleeting smile. “I’m well aware that it’s a terribly bright color. Not at all fashionable.”

  “You are mistaken. It is not at all offensive. In fact, I like the way it burns in the firelight. It glows,” he said as he curled a loose ringlet around his finger. “It feels like silk. I would like to see it unbound and resting over your shoulders.”

  A little tremor snaked down Jane’s spine. She hid it by stepping away from him and walking about the perimeter of the room. But the sensation of his touch still discomposed her, and she fought to think of anything other than the image of her unpinning her hair for him.

  “Is this your studio, then?” she asked, thinking it better to return to a safer, less intimate topic.

  “It is. It was my mother’s cottage. I used to spend hours here with her, watching her write or read. I began to sketch here. We would sit for hours in our quiet pursuits. It’s the only time I can ever remember feeling at peace. Perhaps it was even happiness I felt here in this room with her.”

  “So you left it the same, trying to recapture those days with her.”

  “Yes, I suppose so. The window overlooks the orchards, and when they are in blossom like they are now it’s the most spectacular, inspiring sight. I hope you will come to this room in the daylight and see for yourself.”

  “Perhaps I will,” she murmured as her gaze hungrily drank in her surroundings. Empty frames and canvases were scattered about. Easels and paint jars with abandoned brushes littered the tables. In the middle of the room was a black velvet lounge with gold cording and tassels that decorated the curved arms. Behind it was a black-lacquered screen with painted pink blossoms on it. In the corner, by the window, sat a delicate rosewood desk. Atop it were painted miniatures of Matthew as a child, and a young woman, who, she suspected was his mother.

  As she walked, she allowed her fingertips to graze the pictures and the furniture, taking everything in about the room and her rich, luxurious surroundings. Matthew’s sentimentally struck her as incongruent with his callous shell. She would never have thought that the Earl of Wallingford would have had a soft spot for his mother.

  “I was ten when she died,” he murmured, his voice thick. He turned away from her, giving her his back as he looked out the window. Yet he still continued. “She left us—me,” he clarified. “My father made it intolerable for her. I was her only method to get to him, you see. It was me, my successes, my failures that made my father either happy with her, or unhappy. He felt it was her fault if I was bad or…stupid,” he said, “and I tried very hard to be what my father needed, for my mother’s sake. But I was a miserable failure. It was not long before my father turned completely from her. She loved him, but that love turned to melancholy. I tried to replace that love, but she turned from me, as well. She took a lover, and left. I followed her, running down the lane after the carriage, begging her to come back. But she would not. Finally I could run no more and was forced to watch the carriage disappear amongst the dust. When it turned the corner, the harness broke, and it sent the coach tumbling down the hill. She was killed while running away from me.”

  Jane went to him, and held him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders as she pressed her face against his back. “Matthew.”

  He stiffen
ed and Jane felt his breath freeze in his lungs before he gathered himself and stepped away, unable, or unsure how to accept her touch.

  He turned and looked at her, pain and sorrow etched in his eyes, but there was something else there, as well, lurking in the dark blue depths. He spoke in an urgent rush of words.

  “I wish to change our bargain.”

  “In what way?” she asked skeptically, her instincts suddenly on alert.

  “I wish to reserve the right to ask a favor of you in lieu of a question. And you may do the same of me.”

  Jane stared at him for a long while, trying to understand what he was asking of her. “I thought you wished to paint me. Is that not what you wanted in return for answering your questions?”

  “Yes, and I still do. However, I want…” He cleared his throat and tugged at his cravat. “I want other things.”

  “I will not sleep with you.”

  His gaze flew to hers. “Are you an innocent then, Jane?”

  Any other woman would have been outraged by such a question, but Jane was not. How could the question not have come up in his mind, especially after the events that day in his carriage, and in the hall with Thurston?

  Taking a step back, she walked toward the settee and trailed her fingers along the soft nap of velvet. “In the physical sense, yes, I am still innocent. But am I an innocent?” She smiled sadly and walked around the settee watching him warily. “No, I am afraid I am not an innocent. I have seen things that no woman or child should ever see. I have lived in places that no human should have to live. My innocence, if I ever had any, was stripped from me when my father left my mother and me destitute…” She trailed off and watched as her fingers, so white, sunk into the black velvet. “After he abandoned us, I truly learned what hell was like.”

  “And you plan on staying a virgin, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “For how long?”

  “Until I am ready to relinquish it.”