Sinful

by Charlotte Featherstone

  “Jane, I live for you now,” he whispered, his voice breaking. “How can you not know that? How can you not believe it?”

  She believed it, felt it with every fiber of her being. She lived for him, as well. Her heart beat for him, and always would.

  “Jane, believe me when I tell you I can give you everything you ask for, and things you don’t. I will hand you the moon and stars if they be your desire. I can make love to you every night, every morning. I can let you touch me. I will cherish those touches, will welcome them—crave them.”

  “But you cannot give me the one thing I have yearned for my whole life.”

  He sucked in a breath, his hand trembled in hers. “Jane—”

  “You cannot give me respectability, Matthew.”

  He exhaled long and deep, a tortured sound from deep in his wounded chest. “What is a piece of paper worth when it’s only a signature? What does it mean when the heart is not in it? It means nothing, Jane. It is just a document. I have spoken of my love, my feelings. I have given you something much more important than my name, I have given you my trust. My body. My heart.”

  He tipped her chin up and smoothed his thumb along the wet trail of her tears. “What I have shared with you—my love, my body, the secret I have kept for seventeen years—it is more sacred, more powerful than any wedding vow. Jane, you are my confidante, my helpmate, my friend. My lover. You are everything the word wife means to me. In my heart, we are wed. In my soul, you are mine. Does the title mean so very much to you, Jane?”

  His fear shone in his eyes and she ached to soothe it. “No, Matthew, your title means nothing to me. I do not need to be a countess. I do not aspire to be a duchess. I only aspire to be your wife, in name, Matthew, not in a higher, philosophical plane. But the mortal plane, where society dictates the rules. I do not want to be hidden away in a cottage by the sea, waiting for you to come to me. I do not want to be called whore or mistress. I do not want any children we might be blessed with to be labeled bastard.”

  He squeezed her hand hard, fighting to keep her within his clasp. She gripped him back, showing him the violence of her feelings. “Jane, you are breaking my heart.”

  “I am broken, too, Matthew. I wish it could be different for us. But if we are to stay true to ourselves, then we must do what is best for us. You must marry Constance to save Sarah, or hate yourself…or worse, hate me for making you choose. And I must leave you, because you cannot offer me what I need. Passion. Love. Lust…it is so very strong between us now, but will it be that way in a year? Two? Will we despise ourselves later for our weakness now?”

  “Shh, don’t say it, Jane.”

  “I could never make you choose between Sarah and me, Matthew. It is not in my nature to do such a thing. You are an honorable man, and I would not ask you to do something that would mar your sense of right and wrong. It is right to do this, to give Constance your name. And while I wish it could be me, I can say that I have fallen even deeper in love with you today, knowing the sort of man you are.”

  He reached for her, held her about the shoulders. His eyes were glowing with unshed tears. “Stay, Jane. I have not asked for anything since I was a ten-year-old boy chasing after my mother’s carriage…but I am asking now…no, I am begging you. Don’t leave me!” Crushing her to his chest, he buried his face in her hair. She felt the warmth of his tears trickle down her neck, and she clutched him tight, holding him safe. “Don’t leave me, Jane…don’t, please.” He shuddered.

  “I will never fully leave you, Matthew. Somehow I think you know that. A part of me will always belong to you, as you will always belong to me. What we’ve shared cannot be taken from us. I will clutch the memory of you—of us—to my breast for the rest of my days.”

  He clung to her, murmuring over and over, “No. No, you will not leave. I will not allow it. I forbid it. I can’t bear it. Jane, I will not know how to go along without you. I cannot go back into the cold, not when I’ve been thawed by your warmth.”

  Standing at the window of his study, Matthew watched as the door of the carriage shut behind Jane. Their gazes met, and despite the fact that Jane had asked that he not see her off, he had not been able to resist one last look at the woman who had changed him, who’d awakened not only the man, but the heart inside him.

  Jane… Resting his flattened palm on the glass, he tried to connect with her, if only for a fleeting second. I need your touch…

  Despite the silence, Jane heard him and his desperate plea. Her own small hand, devoid of a glove, rested against the carriage window, holding him palm to palm, despite glass, brick and mortar. The sun chose that moment to shine, illuminating the copper curls that had escaped her bonnet, and the glistening trail of tears that slid down her pale cheeks.

  Pressing his forehead to the cool glass, he held her gaze, her palm, his eyes pleading with her. Don’t go. Don’t leave me.

  Suddenly he was ten all over again, running down the lane after the carriage that was carrying his mother away. He had been hurt and confused then, afraid of the future. He knew now what the future would bring for him and he could not bear it, couldn’t stand to awaken to another morning without Jane lying there beside him. Could not endure feeling his newly mended heart shatter once again.

  I love you, he mouthed, and watched as she covered a sob with her hand.

  The driver cracked the whip, and slowly the heavy coach lumbered forward. He watched her leave him, the black carriage rumbling down the gravel drive. His palm and forehead still rested on the window until the carriage was nothing more than a tiny speck on the horizon.

  He was heartsick. Devastated. Numb.

  Jane was gone, and with her, she had taken his heart. His pleasure. His reason for living.

  Come back, Jane, he pleaded as he closed his eyes. Come back.

  “I see the nursemaid has left at last. A wise decision.”

  The coldness of that voice cut him to the quick, and he found his old armor, his indifference, his contempt, his tongue that could cut down anyone unfortunate enough to be caught by it.

  “You will not come into this room unannounced ever again.”

  Constance laughed as she shut the door behind her with a soft click. “Why? Is this where you entertain your little nurse?”

  “You will never speak of her again, do you hear me?”

  Softly she came up to him. He watched her movements in the reflection of the glass. She circled behind him, much like a shark circling an unsuspecting swimmer. Oh, she was every inch a predator. He saw her scheming expression and he hated her. Despised everything she stood for.

  “Very well, my lord. Now that the obstacle is rid of, let us get to the ground rules of our alliance.”

  He whirled on her, his voice dripping with coldness and venom. “The ground rules are, we will be married and you will be the Countess of Wallingford. Once my father dies, you’ll be a duchess, entitled to all that the position allows. But you will never be my wife.” Her eyes flared, and he stepped closer, intimidating her. “In exchange for my title, you will keep out of my way until I summon you. Then you will lie on your back, and I will fuck you for however long it takes for you to bear the next heir. For your sake, I do hope you’re proficient.”

  She had the audacity to smile. “Proficient in bed?” she asked. “Like your little whore, the nurse?”

  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 wou
ld 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, al
ong 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.”

  22

  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.