Jane’s stony gaze pierced him. “You don’t think someone would witness that birth? And testify to the truth of the matter?”
“Witnesses can be bought easily enough, my dear. Trust me on that.”
“You really have become very cynical in these past few years,” Jane said in a hollow voice, “if you’re asserting that my cousin, a woman gently bred, is perpetrating a deception of such grand proportions as to make her a true villain! You may believe her capable of that, but I know she is not.”
Dom stared her down. “A woman will do much to secure her future if she feels it’s threatened. With things as they are now, Nancy inherits only her dower’s portion—a third of the rents. Any illegitimate child of hers would get nothing. No monies, no land, no title. So if her child is born a bastard, he—”
“Or she,” Jane put in. “You keep forgetting that none of this is by any means certain. Even Dom the Almighty cannot predict the sex of an unborn child.”
“True,” he conceded, trying not to bristle at the term Dom the Almighty. Did she really consider him such a pompous twit? “But after seeing what Father’s negligence wrought, George took great care to make his own will ironclad. If he had no son and couldn’t prevent me from inheriting the title and entailed estate, he dictated that anything not entailed be left to a daughter.”
When Jane blinked, clearly unaware of the niceties of George’s will, he went on ruthlessly, “And if Nancy does happen to bear him a son?” He choked down his ire at the thought. “The boy will gain everything. That would be a temptation for any woman who wants the best for her child.”
Though Jane blanched, she stood firm. “Nonetheless, Nancy wouldn’t do anything immoral to obtain that.”
Jane’s persistence in the face of the facts was starting to chafe him raw. “No? Even you, as principled as you are, are willing to marry a man you don’t love just to secure yourself a better future. So how much more would Nancy wish to do so, if she were—”
“Wait a minute.” Jane narrowed her gaze on him. “Why the devil would you think I don’t love Edwin?”
The question startled him . . . until he realized what he’d said.
He wasn’t even sure why he’d said it. Perhaps because he wanted it to be true. Because he wanted to think that despite her engagement, he still had a chance with her. Because he was a fool—a reckless, besotted fool.
No, it was more than just wishful thinking; he was sure of it. She hadn’t ever said anything about loving Blakeborough.
Then again, he hadn’t asked. Perhaps instead of thrusting his head in the sand, he should do just that. Because this had suddenly become much bigger than a matter of Nancy’s disappearance. The future of the viscountcy was at stake. And that meant the future of his life was at stake. In the midst of this turmoil, he needed one thing to be solid.
He needed to know where he stood with Jane.
“Dom, answer the question,” Jane said tersely. “What reason have you for thinking I don’t love Edwin?”
“Do you?” If she did, then Dom had already lost her. But if she didn’t . . .
A scarlet blush stained her cheeks. “I’m marrying him, aren’t I?”
In an instant, his world shifted. She hadn’t said yes. She hadn’t really even answered the question. He knew it, and she definitely knew it, judging from the way she averted her gaze.
So he had a chance with her after all. Perhaps not much of one, given that he could be about to lose the very things that would put him on a more equal footing with Blakeborough, but it was a greater chance than he’d had before.
“You don’t have to love him to marry him.” Deciding to take a risk, he stepped to within a breath of her. “I’ve been an investigator long enough to recognize the signs of love in a woman. You don’t show any for your fiancé.”
Her outraged gaze shot to him. “I beg your pardon?”
“You don’t speak his name with that softness a woman reserves for her sweetheart, you don’t refer to his opinions at every turn, and you don’t seem to be itching to return to him.” As she drew herself up for what would undoubtedly be a hot retort, he added swiftly, “And you didn’t kiss me yesterday as if you were in love with Blakeborough.”
Let her deny that, damn her.
A rigid mask descended over her features. “My, my, what interesting observations,” she said in a frosty tone. “I have to wonder exactly what sort of tawdry investigations you’ve been conducting all these years, to have learned what a woman ‘reserves for her sweetheart’ and how to read so much into a kiss.”
She was baiting him again, but this time he was prepared. He’d spent half the night analyzing her words and smiles and kisses yesterday, and figuring out, without the distraction of her presence, what they meant.
Coupled with her reaction to his words about her engagement, they meant she cared more for him than she dared show.
“I didn’t read anything into our kisses that wasn’t there.” His gaze locked with hers. “But I could use another test of my theory. Which would give you another chance to prove me wrong.”
Given the sudden glitter in the dark bronze of her eyes, she knew he was baiting her, now. She hesitated, obviously torn between fleeing and rising to his challenge.
But this was not the Jane who’d run from him years ago when he’d driven her away. This Jane didn’t run; she stood and fought.
Right now she seemed bent on fighting him, but that was all right. Let her get it out of her system. Then perhaps if he were careful and very, very lucky, they could move on together. If she didn’t kill him first.
A taut smile crossed her face. “I don’t have to prove anything to you.”
“Certainly not. As long as you don’t mind me drawing my own conclusions.”
Her smile vanished. “Which are . . .”
He shrugged. “That you refuse to kiss me again because you don’t trust yourself. Because you’re afraid you haven’t quite killed your feelings for me.”
With her eyes sparking fires, she leaned up to whisper in his ear, “You have no idea how thoroughly I’ve killed my feelings for you.”
That was definitely bravado in her voice.
“Well then, let’s see how thorough that is, shall we?” And catching her by the chin, he tipped her head up for his kiss.
She froze. Snaking an arm about her waist, he pulled her up against him and proceeded to kiss her most ardently.
Curiously, though, she neither fought nor responded. She just let him kiss her, as if waiting for him to finish.
Damn her. He’d hoped that a surprise attack might give him the advantage, but clearly he’d put her too firmly on the defensive. It maddened him. He was sure her impassive acquiescence was an act. It was his own fault, too, for making the kiss into a challenge in the first place.
So be it. He would alter the challenge.
When he drew back to see the smug triumph in her face, he schooled his own expression to boredom. “It appears you really did kill your feelings for me. And now you’ve very nearly killed mine for you, too, because that had to be the most insipid kiss I’ve ever experienced. Though I suppose I should have expected that from a spinster of some years.”
Her eyes narrowed on him. “Spinster?” Her voice rose. “Of some years? Oh, it’s just like you to turn that back on me as if somehow it was my fault I’ve stayed unmarried. Next you’ll be claiming that my ‘insipid kiss’ is why you found me so easy to toss aside.”
She set her shoulders. “Well, Dom the Almighty, when I’m done with you, you will never dismiss me as a ‘spinster of some years’ again. But you will heartily wish that you could.”
Then, clasping his head between her hands, she drew him back for a most un-insipid kiss.
Now that was more like it. Her lips were soft, her mouth luscious, and her lavender scent swirled about him so sweetly it mad
e him dizzy with the delight of being this close to her again.
He fought the rampant urge to yank her up against him and kiss her with all the pent-up passion of their years apart. Better to let her control the kiss for as long as he could stand it.
He did, however, open his mouth. When she accepted the invitation to make their kiss more intimate by exploring inside with little darting thrusts of her silky tongue, he exulted.
When a moan sounded low in her throat and she threaded her fingers through his hair possessively, that was all he could take. He wrapped his arms about her waist and dragged her flush up against him.
She went still, and for half a second he feared he’d acted too hastily. But then she melted against him and slipped her arms about his neck to anchor him to her, and his mind went blank.
There was only Jane in his arms again, Jane kissing him again . . . Jane, the only woman he’d ever truly desired, sharpening that desire to a keen edge that cut through the past and left him open and bleeding and yearning for nothing but her.
How had he ever let her go? He must have been mad. She was everything he remembered and more—lush and womanly and passionate, the grown-up version of his young sweetheart. He couldn’t get enough of her.
He feasted on her mouth as his hands roamed her back, memorizing curves, finding the feminine shape that lay beneath her layers of clothes.
She tore her mouth from his. “You . . . you tricked me . . .”
“Did I?” He nuzzled her ear. “As I recall, you kissed me.”
“You practically dared me to.”
“After you drove me mad with your coldness.” He laved her ear with his tongue. “After you refused to answer my question.”
“What question?” she breathed against his cheek.
“Do you love Blakeborough?”
“Ah. That question.” She flattened her breasts against his chest, making him ache to touch them, fondle them.
She’d probably done it purposely, the sly minx. And most effectively, since now that the idea of touching her breasts had been planted in his head, he could scarcely think of anything else.
He fought clear of the fog of desire. “I want an answer, Jane,” he choked out, then nipped her earlobe.
“You don’t have the right to an answer.” She nipped his earlobe.
“That’s what you said yesterday about kissing, too, yet here we are again.” He dragged openmouthed kisses down her jawline. “Kissing. A lot.”
“I know, curse you. But . . . but we shouldn’t.”
He buried his face in her neck. “I’ll stop whenever you ask.”
She didn’t ask, though she did groan most feelingly when he tongued the pulse that beat wildly in her throat. Inflamed, he tried to kiss lower. When her tucker got in the way, he ripped it from her bodice, desperate to see the soft upper swells of her bosom that had tortured his memory since the Keanes’ ball three months ago.
“Dom! What the devil are you . . .”
He scattered kisses along the freckles dotting her nicely displayed décolletage.
She caught her breath. “Sweet Lord, Dom! Your family could come in any minute!”
“They know better.” His sister for certain would give him enough rope to hang himself if it meant pairing him off with Jane.
“Still . . . You shouldn’t . . . That’s not . . . ” Her protests trailed off as he took his time kissing every inch of her partially exposed breasts.
But soon it wasn’t enough. Soon he wanted the forbidden. Driven by the fire burning in his blood, a decade-long, smoldering flame, he cupped the pillowy softness of one breast through her gown.
Her eyes went wide, her cheeks turned scarlet, and she covered his hand as if to pull it away. Before she could, he kneaded her breast with his palm, knowing it might be his only chance to do so. He had to touch her intimately. Know her more intimately.
To his amazement, she didn’t stop him. She watched him wide-eyed, then whispered in a voice full of shock and awe, “Ohhh, Lord, Dom . . .”
What else could he do? Filling both his hands with her breasts, he took her mouth once more.
8
THANK HEAVEN JANE still had her arms looped about Dom’s neck, or she would surely collapse onto the floor. Bad enough that his bold tongue driving inside her mouth over and over reduced her to pudding. But his hands were now doing things . . . Oh, Lord, such wonderful things!
He rubbed and fondled her breasts through her gown until her nipples felt hard and aching, until a strange stirring far below made her squirm and press her thighs together.
She should stop him, really she should. Even her tolerant fiancé would not approve of this. She shouldn’t approve. At the very least, she shouldn’t . . . like it quite so much. Though how she was to stop that, she wasn’t sure.
Through a haze of pleasure and need, she felt Dom draw down the bodice of her gown and her corset to bare her breasts, draped only in her thin shift. What was wrong with her? Why wasn’t she protesting this . . . this outrage? This amazing . . . intoxicating . . .
Hunger rose up in her . . . sharp, piercing, and so strong she ached. For him. For the only man who’d ever commanded her heart . . . and was now commanding her body.
Except that it wasn’t the cold, arrogant Dom who’d always set her off, but the ardent suitor she’d first fallen in love with. She’d begun to think that that Dom had vanished. Clearly he had not.
His kiss grew harder, hotter. He thumbed her nipples through the linen, and sensations screamed through her, so foreign and delightful that her head spun. The room spun. Lots of things were spinning. Perhaps that was why she felt dizzy.
“Do it again,” she whispered against his mouth, then cringed at the breathless wantonness of the request.
He paused, then said huskily, “How about if I do something even better?”
“B-better?” she squeaked.
Locking his gaze with hers, he drew down her shift, then lowered his head to suck her nipple.
Oh, Lord, better.
She slid her hands up into his hair, fully intending to pull him away. But her hands ignored her orders and clutched him tightly to her breast instead.
So she gave up. Because what he was doing to her breasts with teeth and lips and tongue was astonishing.
“You taste even better than I imagined,” Dom whispered against her skin. “Sweet, delicious Jane.”
“This is . . . mad . . .” Anything this wonderful had to be some form of insanity.
“Then I’ve been mad for twelve years.” He tugged at her nipple with his teeth, and she gasped. “Because I imagined this often. Holding you . . . touching you.” He laved her nipple with his tongue as if to soothe it. “I tried not to torture myself, but . . . it was impossible that I should never indulge in . . . the fantasy of you like this, in my arms again.”
He’d thought of her all these years? And done nothing about it?
“You could have . . . had me whenever you wanted,” she choked out, even as she thrilled to his words. “You just didn’t . . . want me.”
“Not true.” His breathing labored, he dragged his mouth from her breast to kiss his way back up to her throat. “I couldn’t allow myself to want you. There’s a difference.”
None that she could see. But just now, she could hardly think. One of Dom’s hands worked its magic on her breast, his mouth seared kisses into her tender skin, and his other hand snaked around to cup her derriere and pull her flush against him.
Something hard pressed into her through her skirts. What the devil?
“Jane,” he rasped against her lips. “My darling Jane . . . still mine . . .”
The possessive note in his voice drove out every other thought. She was losing the fight against him.
Sweet Lord, she couldn’t. Mustn’t, until she was sure he wouldn’t become Dom the
Almighty again. Until she was sure he wouldn’t trample her into dust, the way he had before when things hadn’t been exactly how he wanted them. She couldn’t go through that again.
She pushed him back, breaking his hold on her. “Not yours,” she said firmly. Her breath still came in heavy gasps, and she fought to get it under control. To get herself under control. “Not anymore.”
He stared at her a long moment, his eyes ablaze and his hands flexing at his sides as if regretting the loss of her already. “Will you never forgive me for what I did so long ago, Jane?”
The soft question caught her off guard. “Would you do it again if you had the chance?” She could hardly breathe, awaiting his answer.
With a low oath, he glanced away. Then his features hardened into those of the rigid and arrogant Dom he had become. “Yes. I did the only thing I could to keep you happy.”
Her breath turned to ice in her throat. “That’s the problem. You still really believe that.”
His gaze swung to her again, but before he could say anything more, noises in the hall arrested them both.
“It’s gone very quiet in there.” It was the duke’s voice, remarkably clear, sounding as if it came from right outside the door. “Perhaps we should knock first.”
Oh no! As Jane frantically set her gown to rights, she heard Lisette say, “Don’t you dare bother them, Max. I’m sure everything’s fine. Let’s come back later.”
With panic growing in her belly, Jane glanced around for her tucker. Wordlessly, Dom plucked it from the back of a chair and handed it to her.
Without meeting his gaze, she pinned it into her bodice, hoping to hide the tiny holes where Dom had unwittingly ripped it free of its pins.
“Besides,” drawled Tristan, “it’s not as if Dom will seduce her or anything. That’s not his vice.”
Sweet Lord, were they all right outside the door?
“I’m not worried about that,” Max answered. “Miss Vernon isn’t the sort to let him seduce her.”
As Jane tensed, Dom hissed under his breath, “Do the blasted idiots not realize we can hear them?”
If the Viscount Falls Page 11