by Jane Lark
“You know of his involvement at Farnborough? You will send some funds there to be given to my tenants, to make up for the loss, you understand?”
Murray looked up, met Robert’s gaze and nodded. “Of course, my Lord.”
“How will I know if he is tracing my properties?” Robert shifted forward in his seat, letting go of Jane’s hand to take the quill from Murray.
When Robert signed his name, he registered the sudden shift in his life. In less than a week, it seemed he was signing away most of what he’d previously thought important, his bachelorhood, and now his business interests. But Jane came above everything.
“I have taken the liberty, my Lord, in employing men to stay in the vicinity of your properties. If anyone begins to ask questions, we shall know. That is the only way I can think to counteract him. If I voiced any concerns in my own circles, I may draw attention rather than deter it. The Duke of Sutton seems to be able to bribe or blackmail every trade.”
Robert scratched the quill across the final page and set the paper aside, then let the quill drop and leaned back with a sigh, meeting Murray’s gaze again.
“If we can keep things hidden for long enough, he’ll grow tired of the chase, I’m sure,” Murray stated.
“No,” Jane chimed in with vehemence.
Robert looked at her as she faced him, shaking her head and shifting forward to the edge of the chair. “He won’t stop. His father stole my life. Even when he died, he did not let me go. Joshua will not stop.”
Robert laid one hand over hers as it gripped the arm of his chair. “No need for melodrama, darling. You’ll scare Murray off. I’m sure Sutton has his limits, the same as any other man. He is a man, isn’t he? He does bleed like one, doesn’t he?”
Her mouth twisted at his glib wit, and her hand pulled from under his, but he caught it and hung on.
“Well, then, my Lord, I’d better ensure your investments are doubly secure,” Murray interjected, nodding in Robert’s direction.
“What I wish to do is attack him.”
“You will not get close,” Jane interrupted.
“Lady Marlow is right, my Lord. Unfortunately, the Duke has too much power. You do not have the fortune it would take to manipulate a man like that. I did attempt some inquiries, but there are too many people in his pocket. There is no hope of attack. I’m afraid, my Lord, we cannot move against him. We can only hope to hide your investments.”
Minutes later, angry and frustrated, Robert found himself stewing in the carriage. He’d expected Murray to have some ideas to establish a counterattack, not shut him down. Robert was slumped back against the squabs with arms folded over his chest and one ankle resting on the other knee while he stared out the window at the busy street, unseeing. A little cough rang from the opposite corner of the carriage.
Jane sat with a straight back, her hands clasping her reticule.
She eyed Robert warily when he looked over. I am not the damn villain. “So, what do you wish to do then?”
“What do you mean?” she asked quietly, her almond-shaped eyes widening.
“If Sutton is so unstoppable, then what do you wish to do? Run?”
Jane watched Robert, and heard the same edge his voice had held at the abbey ruins. Her mouth opened to answer, but before she could speak, he continued. His words were as brooding and sulky as his body language. “I thought you said you did not want him to win, yet, at the moment, you seem devoid of any desire to fight. Therefore, I presume you’d rather retreat. If so, we’ll go abroad and leave him chasing his tail.”
Sighing, she crumpled back against the seat, and her eyes turned to the passing carriages and drays. “He’ll follow us there anyway. He will be in London in a day or two, as soon as he knows we are here. He won’t let us run, Robert. He’ll follow.”
“Every man has an Achilles’ heel, Jane. Mine was always you. Sutton must bloody well have one. There must be something, some weakness we haven’t seen.”
Her eyes spun back to him. He looked less angry now, but still determined to disbelieve her. “You don’t know the Suttons, Robert. I do. If your skill is sex, theirs is destroying people. They are masters at it.”
“So, all I am good for is taking you to bed? You certainly know how to put a man in his place, Jane. It’s nice to know you have such confidence in me.”
She sighed again. She was angry and frustrated, too. Why did he not understand? She should never have come back to him. This is what she’d known would happen. “Don’t be silly. You know that is not what I meant.”
“Silly? You annihilated my character before my man of business with your lack of faith. I am not incapable, Jane. And Sutton is just a man. Not the damned devil. There will be a way to beat him. I just need to find it. But it would help, Jane, if you had some belief in me and stopped criticising me.”
Her ire rose, and her fingers gripped the edge of the carriage seat as she leaned forward and let her temper fly its leash. It had never done before. “I am not criticising you! I am telling you the truth! Is it not better you know it rather than set yourself up to fail and lose everything? Why would I lie to you? I don’t want you to get hurt!” She turned away again, her fingers still gripping the seat as she looked out the window.
The stubborn, belligerent man, he simply refused to listen. She was worn out with worrying and fighting. What was the point when they could not succeed? “I should not have come to you. I should have stayed with him.”
Within a second, Robert moved. His fingers gripped her elbow, and she was hauled unceremoniously across the carriage on to his lap. He braced her chin with one hand while his other arm was about her shoulders, and his dark, thunderous gaze bored into her. “If I hear that from you one more time, I will not be responsible for what I do. Do you understand?”
“So now you threaten me?” she whispered.
“Yes! You deserve for me to thrash you. But I’ll think of another form of recompense.” His voice had dropped an octave and turned seductive, and she was instantly physically aware of him, of the muscular thighs beneath hers, and the firm chest her fingers pressed against. His brown eyes glittered at her with anger and desire.
She’d never dared shout at anyone. It felt good to have shouted at him. She wasn’t afraid of him. She felt better for it.
“Bloody hell, Jane.” His tone had gentled, and there was a soft glow in his eyes suddenly. “Just trust me. I will find some way to win, but it will be much easier if you are on my side, not working against me. No more talk of regrets.” His eyes swept every feature of her face, as if looking for disagreement.
She so wanted to believe in him. She just knew better. But she’d made this choice, and now must simply make the best of it. If he needed her to support him, she should.
“Silly girl,” he continued, all anger gone from his voice. “I know you’re frightened, but I will not let him near you.”
His hand left her chin and fell to her thigh. Then they kissed, her arms about his shoulders. She lost herself in it and felt him slip the ribbons of her bonnet free and toss it on to the opposite seat. Then his hands were in her hair and his tongue in her mouth and they were in a carriage, on the busy London streets, in the middle of the day.
She broke the kiss, her palm slipping to lie over the lapel of his coat, over his heart. “You are wicked, do you know that?”
“But you love it.”
“I love you,” she answered the moment before he began kissing her again.
When he broke the kiss a little later, he whispered, “And I, you, sweetheart, but just trust me, please?”
She met his gaze.
“Why did he want your money so badly? Did he not have enough?”
She shook her head. “I told you at Farnborough. It is not all about the money. He is like his father. He needs control. It’s in his blood. My escape will have vexed him, and your instigating it will rankle. He will be unable to focus on anything else until he has the two of us brought to heel.”
&nbs
p; The black of Robert’s eyes widened. “And how will he do that?” He was fighting against his anger, she could see, but he was listening.
“I don’t know, Robert. I’ve never escaped him before. Even when I was in London or at Farnborough, I knew he was simply biding his time. I was still trapped. This is the first time the Suttons have had no chain on me. I don’t know what he’ll do.”
He kissed her sharply once on the lips then shifted her off his lap, seating her beside him. Her arms remained about his neck, pulling him with her. He laughed. “We are nearly home, sweetheart. Time to look respectable.”
She kissed the corner of his mouth then whispered, “I hate being respectable. I prefer being wicked, with you.”
He pressed another sharp kiss on her lips then reached to unlace her arms from his neck. He laughed. “I like you wicked, but not right now.”
“Take me up to bed,” she answered as the coach drew to a halt outside his London townhouse, and her fingers trailed across his clean-shaven jaw.
He caught her hand and squeezed it as the carriage door opened. “There are things I should do. I ought go to my club and find out what gossip there is on Sutton.”
“Don’t leave me alone,” she said as he moved to descend. “Do as you wish later. Stay with me now.” She tried to keep her voice light, but the tone was hollow, giving away what she really wished for, to forget Joshua and think of Robert.
He sighed and glanced back, his expression concerned as the groom lowered the step and stood back. She let Robert go, and he climbed out, then waited for her on the pavement, lifting his hand to help her down. She took it, and once she was beside him, gripped his forearm instead. A sharp crack of a whip cut the air, and she looked beyond him.
Shock imprisoned the breath in her lungs, and an ice-cold chill solidified her blood. “Joshua.” She said his name aloud, without even realising it.
Robert looked.
Joshua was sitting in his curricle a little further up the street, a groom holding the horses steady. Joshua had clearly flicked the whip to draw her attention.
“Ignore him,” Robert said, turning back. Jane looked up at the front door as her heart thumped in her chest and her hand slipped from his arm.
She measured her pace, but she could think of nothing but getting inside. Jenkins, Robert’s butler, already held the door open, which surely meant Joshua had been there long enough for him to cause the household some concern.
He’d been awaiting their return.
They had been in town for three hours, and he’d found them.
Robert was close behind her when she crossed the threshold, and the door shut immediately once they were through. Her fingers pressed to her throat, and she felt as though she could not breathe. Her hands shook. She let them fall and struggled to remove her gloves. Robert caught her hands and held them still until she looked up and met his gaze.
“I’ll not go out,” he stated bluntly. Then he turned to Jenkins. “Fetch Lady Marlow a glass of brandy.” His fingers worked loose her gloves, and when they were off, he gave them to a footman as Jenkins returned with a bottle and a glass. Robert took both in one hand and gripped her elbow. “Come on, girl, you are made of sterner stuff than that. Let’s go upstairs.”
She gave him a shaky smile and let him lead her. He took her to his bedchamber – their bedchamber. Once there, he kicked the door shut and let her go, then uncorked the bottle with his teeth, poured some brandy into the glass, and held it out to her. When she didn’t immediately take it, he said jokingly, “It’s a good medicine for nerves.”
She couldn’t smile, though she knew that was what he wished her to do, but she took the glass. “I didn’t think he would be this quick. But I was right. He came. He has nothing else to divert him as much as we shall now.”
“Just drink it, Jane. Forget about him for a bit.”
She sipped the burning liquid, more to appease him than because she wanted to. Its heat slid straight into her veins. She closed her eyes and felt the warmth relax her muscles.
A shout rang out in the street below the window. Jane opened her eyes and turned.
It was a distinct, deep, masculine voice, the words indefinable, yet the threat clear. Then a hullabaloo broke out beneath the window. There were numerous voices, shouting and barking orders, arguing. Jane lifted the glass and drank all the brandy as she’d seen Robert do, then coughed, choking as it burned her throat. Robert took the empty glass and set it aside. She crossed to the window and held back the swathe of curtain so she could look from behind it without making her presence obvious. A group of eight rough-looking men were addressing Joshua in loud voices, ordering him to move on.
Jane sensed Robert at her shoulder and glanced back as he also leaned over and looked down. He smiled.
“My new footmen,” he stated, as though they watched nothing more than someone taking a picnic in the park. “Jenkins has a good eye. I wonder where he got them. I’d make a guess at the docks. Handy that they are not in uniform yet. Sutton cannot blame me. They’ll look even more impressive when they are though. They are to be our own private army, Jane. What do you think?”
“You will just rile him further.”
Robert straightened and looked at her. His brown gaze was deep with satisfaction, clearly congratulating himself on winning this round.
“Upsetting him suits me.” His fingers gripped her waist as he spoke. He bowed his head, and her arms came up about his neck. They kissed. It was tender and full of thirst, and when he broke it, he whispered across her lips. “Now, where were we? Ah, yes, I remember. You were begging me to stay and make love to you. I have decided to concede, sweetheart. Come along.” He took her hand and began walking backward towards the bed.
She smiled at the devilish glint in his eyes – of avarice.
~
Robert loved her with a hard, intense determination. He wished to make her forget. He hurried into the main event to that end, bringing her on top of him, so she could feel some control over her life and know she could have that with him.
They were hidden from the world within the shroud of her long, dark hair, but once she’d broken, she was too languid, and her limbs too weak to move, so he took charge and concentrated on dominating her thoughts, dropping her weight hard and thrusting up, burying himself deep within her, over and over.
This was bliss, this, now, when she was utterly in love with him and thought of nothing else. She was so beautiful when she was like this, completely free of burdens.
He tipped her back on to the bed so he could move more freely, one hand gripping her breast as he continued besieging her senses, deliberately driving her mad for him while he gritted his teeth, refusing to race towards his own end.
He desperately wanted her mind free of Sutton and full of him. He wanted her to trust him and cease thinking and speaking of Sutton.
“Jane,” Robert whispered as he drew nearer the end.
She loved him, he knew that. Her body gave him its faith, her heart, too. He just had to convince her head.
When she broke one more time, he followed her into that sea of serenity, his shoulders shivering as she gripped them, and his forehead fell to rest on hers as he braced himself against the torrent of feeling that swept into every vein, muscle, and nerve.
He was damp with sweat, and his muscles trembled when he lifted his head. She smiled. He smiled, too, feeling a warm pain about his heart.
Rap, rap. Two sharp strikes hit the wood of the bedchamber door. The pair of them jumped. Robert rolled off her and on to his back, his breathing not yet steady.
“My lord?”
Jenkins.
Surely they’d got rid of Sutton.
“What is it?” Robert called.
“Lord Edward is at the door, sir. Shall I let him in?”
“Yes, I’ll come down.” Robert rose and reached hurriedly for his clothes as he saw Jane do the same. Her face was crimson.
Gripping his garments in one hand, Robert wen
t to the window. There was no sign of the Duke of Sutton’s phaeton, but there was a black hansom carriage pulled up before the door. Robert couldn’t see Edward. He must already be in the hall. Which meant Jenkins must have responded with something like I’ll see if his lordship is at home, which meant Edward must know Robert was here and was probably already upstairs waiting.
He looked back to see Jane hurriedly dressing and did the same.
“I’ll greet him,” Robert said quietly once he was fully clothed. “There’s no need for you to rush; call for a maid and take as long as you like. I’ll tell him you are resting or something.”
“Don’t say that,” she hissed back at him, her eyes bright from their lovemaking and her hair all mussed.
He smiled.
She frowned. “You look a state, Robert. Pray, do not say I am lying down, because he will know who has been lying down with me.”
Laughing, Robert turned away and pulled the cord to ring for the maid. Then he left.
When he stopped at a mirror in the hall, to run his fingers through his hair, and straightened his pathetic attempt at tying his cravat, Edward appeared from the drawing room. “There you are, Robert. I am offended. News of your wedding is published in the papers before I hear a word. Where was our invite? Ellen is positively peeved. I believe she has taken it as a personal affront. How could you not even tell us?”
“We told no one,” Robert answered as Edward came towards him. “There was a need for haste. No insult was meant, I can assure you. I’m sorry. I know Jane would have preferred it if you could have attended, but it was not possible, otherwise, I promise, I would not have had you miss my shackling for the world. I am sure it would’ve amused you.”
“Hardly.” Edward held out his hand. Robert shook it. “My brother marrying my surrogate sister suits me fine. She is truly my sister now. You’re happy, both of you?”
Robert nodded. Edward let go his hand. “Fine, Ed, things are just not straightforward, that is all.”
“Problems then?” Robert fell into pace beside his brother, and they walked back towards the drawing room.