“I didn’t know everything, did I?” she said irritably. “I thought I could mend the rift by getting you two to discuss things.” Eyes alight, she planted her hands on her hips. “If I’d had any idea that George had tried to get your brother killed, I certainly wouldn’t have pursued such a foolish plan.”
Dom could hardly breathe. All this time he’d been sure that Nancy had somehow convinced Barlow to involve George, that she’d done it to further her own future as she helped him alter his. “So it was your idea to bring George in,” he said inanely.
“Yes. Entirely my idea. I can’t believe you ever thought otherwise.” Jane shook her head at him as if he were a child. “She was risking her reputation to help you. Why would she do that in front of someone as dangerous and unpredictable as George?”
“She didn’t know he was dangerous,” Dom said hollowly.
He didn’t need Jane’s snort to tell him how idiotic that sounded. Because it finally hit him why he’d deliberately misconstrued the situation. It was easier to believe that Nancy had ended up with George through her own machinations than to admit his own part in bringing it about.
“Samuel tried to stop me,” Jane went on, “but I didn’t listen. I got rid of him and took George in there instead.”
“Oh, God, Jane. I never thought . . . I always assumed . . .”
“That’s what happens, Dom, when you play the puppet master. People aren’t puppets. People make decisions on their own and behave as they will.” Her voice was cold, accusing. “You can set a plan in motion, but as soon as it involves people, it will rarely commence exactly as you wish.”
The taunt sank deep inside his soul. He remembered a far more disastrous case of a plan going awry. It hadn’t been his plan, thank God, but he still hadn’t been able to alter its deadly outcome.
Men had died. Women and children had died, and all because some fool had thought to control an unruly crowd with violence. All because Dom’s hands had been tied. That was when Dom had learned the lesson that plans must be carefully laid whenever they involved people.
“It works far better,” Jane went on, apparently still intent on berating him, “when you trust those people with the truth. When you give them all the facts.”
Her tone put him on the defensive. “You mean, the way you did when you told me about Nancy’s disappearance?”
Jane paled. “Well . . . that was different.”
“How so?” He approached her with a scowl. “You left out the important fact that she might be pregnant. If I’d known, we would all have left for York as soon as Tristan could join us, and we wouldn’t have wasted so much time.”
Her throat moved convulsively. “You can’t blame me for that. I was protecting Nancy.”
“And all those years ago, I was protecting you,” he said fiercely. He took another step toward her. “I know you resent how I manipulated you into jilting me, but my damned brother had just torn my family apart, and I wasn’t sure what lay ahead of me. I couldn’t bear to watch your love for me die in the slums of London.”
“So you killed it instead?” she choked out.
His heart faltered. “Did I?”
Alarm spread over her face. Then she turned, as if to flee.
He grabbed her arm to tug her up close to him. She wouldn’t look at him, which only inflamed him more. “I answered your questions,” he rasped. “Now answer mine.”
He could feel her tremble, see uncertainty flash over her face in profile. Utter silence reigned in the room. Even the servants had apparently finished in the dining room across the hall, for no sound penetrated their private little sanctuary.
“I can’t,” she whispered at last. “I don’t know the answer.”
11
JANE KNEW FROM Dom’s flinch that he’d been hoping for a different response, but she couldn’t help it—she spoke the truth.
When he acted like a gentleman, as he had at dinner, she remembered exactly why she’d fallen in love with him. But when he reminded her of how he’d made assumptions and, worse yet, used those assumptions to decide her future for her, she couldn’t bear it. Because he was still doing it, still demanding his way and dictating terms and ignoring her concerns.
She understood the courtly gentleman. It was the autocratic devil she had trouble understanding.
And she might as well admit it. She twisted her head to look up at him. “I don’t know how I feel about you anymore.”
The pain that slashed over his features only confused her further. Was he genuinely hurt by the thought that he’d killed her love? Or was his pride merely bruised because he hadn’t been able to step right back into her life as if the past meant nothing?
“At least tell me the truth about Blakeborough,” he said hoarsely. “Do you love him?”
“Why does it matter?”
His eyes ate her up. “If you do, I’ll keep my distance. I’ll stay out of your life from now on.”
“You’ve been doing that easily enough for the past twelve years,” she snapped. “I don’t see why my feelings for Edwin should change anything.”
“Easily? It was never easy, I assure you.” His expression was stony. “And you’re avoiding the question. Are you in love with Blakeborough?”
How she wished she could lie about it. Dom would take himself off, and she wouldn’t be tempted by him anymore. Unfortunately, he could always tell when she was lying. “And if I say I’m not?”
“Then I won’t rest until you’re mine again.”
The determination in his voice rocked her. Unsettled her.
Thrilled her.
No! “I don’t want that.”
His fingers dug into her arm. “Because you love Blakeborough?”
“Because love is a lie designed to make a woman desire what is only a figure of smoke in the wind. Love is too dangerous.”
He released a heavy breath. “So you don’t love him.”
His persistence sparked her temper, and she pushed free of him. “Oh, for pity’s sake, if you must know, I don’t.” She faced him down. “Not that it matters one whit. I don’t need love to have a good marriage, an amiable marriage. I don’t even want love.”
It hurt too much when her heart was trampled upon. Dom had done that once before. How could she be sure he wouldn’t do it again?
Eyes gleaming in the firelight, he said in a low voice, “You used to want love.”
“I was practically a child. I didn’t know any better. But I do now.”
“Do you? I wonder.” He circled her like a wolf assessing its prey’s weaknesses. “Very well, let’s forget about love for the moment. What about passion?”
“What about it?” she asked unsteadily as he slipped behind her. Nervous, she edged nearer the impressively massive pianoforte that sat in the center of the room.
“What part does passion play in your plan for a safe and loveless marriage?”
She pivoted to face him, startled to find that he’d stepped to within a breath of her. “None at all.”
He chuckled. “Does Blakeborough know that?”
“Not that it’s any of your concern, but Edwin and I have an arrangement. He’ll give me children; I’ll help him make sure Yvette finds a good husband. We both agree that passion is . . . unimportant to our plans.”
“Really?” He raised an eyebrow. “It certainly aids in the production of those children you’re hoping for. To quote a certain lady, ‘You can set a plan in motion, but as soon as it involves people, it will rarely commence exactly as you wish.’ You may not want passion to be important, sweeting, but it always is.”
“Not to us,” she said, though with him standing so close her legs felt like rubber and her blood raced wildly through her veins. “Not to me.”
With his gaze darkening, he lifted his hand to run his thumb over the pounding pulse at her throat. “
Yes, I can tell how unimportant it is to you.”
“That doesn’t mean . . . anything.”
“Doesn’t it?” He backed her against the pianoforte. “So the way you trembled in my arms this morning means nothing.”
It meant far too much. It meant her body was susceptible to him, even when her mind had the good sense to resist.
And curse him to the devil, he knew it. He slipped his hand about her waist to pull her against him. “It means nothing that every time we’re together, we ignite.”
“People do not . . . ignite,” she said shakily, though her entire body was on fire. “What an absurd idea.”
She held her breath and waited for his attempt to kiss her, determined to refuse it this time.
But he didn’t kiss her. Instead he fondled her breast through her gown, catching her so by surprise that she gasped, then moaned as the feel of his hand caressing her made liquid heat swirl in her belly.
Devil take the man.
“I don’t know,” he rasped, “you certainly feel warm to me.” He kissed her flaming cheek, then dragged his mouth down her jaw to her throat. “God knows I’m on fire. You’ve set me aflame.”
She curled her fingers into his coat sleeves, meaning to pull him away. But he was tonguing her throat and kneading her breast, and her mind was all a muddle. It felt so . . . so good. Which meant it had to be wrong.
“Dom . . . we mustn’t . . .”
“No?” His thumb stroked the edge of her bodice. “Why did you wear this provocative bit of scarlet silk to dinner, then, if not to entice me? You can’t tell me you had no other gowns in your trunk.”
She closed her eyes in a vain attempt to steel herself against his words. “Perhaps I simply wanted to torture you for not choosing me when you had the chance.”
“Then it’s working.” His voice turned ragged, rough. “I spent the entire dinner desiring you, yearning to touch you like this.”
“Good,” she said, rather gratified that he saw her as such a siren.
“You like that, don’t you? You enjoy tempting me into madness.” His breath beat hot against her cheek as he thumbed her nipple.
It instantly hardened, the traitorous thing. He’d taken control yet again, turning her to putty just by touching her.
All right, then. While it might be beyond her power to stop desiring him entirely, she didn’t have to let him control the attraction. In her years of dreaming of him—the admittedly chaste dreams of a virgin—she had been in control, making him burn and yearn, making him regret that he’d ever put her aside.
Perhaps it was time to fulfill those dreams.
She opened her eyes to find him watching her with a heavy-lidded gaze that promised all manner of sensual pleasures if she would just give herself over to him. She would make him keep that promise . . . but without giving up herself.
Edwin would undoubtedly disapprove of this dalliance, but just now she didn’t care. Dom was about to learn that she wouldn’t be ruled by him or any other man.
Looping her arms about his neck, she rose up on tiptoe to kiss his mouth. This time she was the one to instigate the duel of tongues and lips that sent her senses reeling. This time she was the one in control.
Until Dom pulled down her bodice and corset and shift to bare her breasts. Oh, sweet Lord in heaven. He was more wicked—and more wonderful at this—than even she could have imagined.
But she could be wicked, too. Remembering what Nancy had told her about men, she reached down between them to cup the hard length of him through his trousers.
He jerked back. “What are you doing?”
How wonderful to be the one to shock him! Though she noticed he didn’t step away or pull her hand off him. And his flesh seemed to grow beneath her very fingers. “Don’t you like it?” she said in what she hoped was a sultry-sounding voice.
“Good God, yes.” He practically groaned the words. “But where the blazes did you learn to do it?”
“Nancy said men like to be touched . . . down there.”
“Wonderful. Now the sinner is instructing the saint,” he muttered before he took her mouth again, giving her no chance to protest that she wasn’t as saintly as he assumed.
But clearly he’d guessed because he leaned into her hand, letting her fully explore the male appendage that Nancy had only described in furtive whispers.
To Jane’s delight, the more she rubbed him through his trousers, the more his kiss changed, grew bolder, hotter, fiercer. How delicious! They had certainly never done anything like this in their youth. Perhaps if they had, he wouldn’t have been so content to toss her aside.
It was definitely making her ignite. Or perhaps it was his hands roaming her body doing that. Whichever the case, an unfamiliar ache began between her legs that made her want to squirm. So she focused on caressing him with renewed vigor, hoping to regain control over this . . . insanity.
He grabbed her hand to still it.
She tore her mouth from his. “What? Am I doing it wrong?”
“If you do it any more right, I will embarrass myself.” He fixed her with a dark stare. “Or perhaps that’s what you want. Another way to torture me.”
“I don’t know what you mean. Am I doing it right or am I torturing you? Which is it?”
He searched her face, then, apparently satisfied with what he saw there, smiled faintly. “Both.” Taking her by surprise, he dropped onto the pianoforte bench and tugged her across his lap. “Here, I’ll show you.”
As he drew her skirts up to her knees, she froze. “I don’t know if this is . . . such a good idea, Dom.”
“Oh, trust me, it’s a fine idea.” He smoothed his hands up her stockings and past her garters until he came to her drawers. “Before you go running off to seal your ‘arrangement’ with Blakeborough, you should at least have a taste of passion. Just so you’ll know how important it really is.” Pressing his mouth to her ear, he added, “Men aren’t the only ones who like to be touched there, sweeting.”
That remark really made her want to squirm, but before she could ask about it, he kissed her mouth again and she gave herself up to the kiss. And then he was stroking her between her legs, right where she ached.
Her legs fell open, she wasn’t even sure how. Then his clever fingers were inside her drawers and finding the delicate flesh beneath her curls and doing outrageous things to it that made her shimmy and wriggle on his lap.
“Feels good, doesn’t it?” he rasped against her lips.
“Yes. Is it . . . too very wicked?”
He gave a strained laugh. “Not too very wicked.” He delved inside her with one finger.
“Dom!” she squeaked, but he continued the caress, and her heart felt as if it might leap from her chest, it raced so hard. “Dom . . . That’s . . . oh . . .”
“God, sweeting,” he said as he slid his finger in and out, driving her insane, “don’t ever tell me again that passion means nothing to you. You’re so warm and wet. Perfect. So beautifully perfect.”
Seizing her mouth again, he stroked her with slow, sensuous movements that melted all her insides. Then he kissed his way down her chin to her neck and farther as he bent her back so he could reach her breast.
She made no attempt to halt him. She wanted his kiss there, as it had been this morning through her gown, wanted his tongue on her nipple. With a growl of pure satisfaction he took her breast in his mouth.
“Oh, sweet Lord,” she whispered.
His fingers fondled her oh so cleverly below, and his mouth sucked her oh so cleverly above, and all she could do was clutch his neck and hang on for dear life as a rush of feeling swept up her body.
So this was passion, these intense sensations centered below her belly that made her feel boneless as satin and . . . and hot as . . .
Faith, she couldn’t think what. Her knees were open and her boso
m bare, and she just wanted more. More. More heat, more stroking, more . . .
A keening began low in her throat that matched the building intensity between her legs. His fingers inside her fell into a provocative, rushing rhythm that was like . . . like . . .
“That’s it, my lovely Jane,” Dom whispered against her breast. “Give yourself to the dance.”
Ah, yes, like dancing. Only better. Because the music rising inside her came from her pounding heart and beating blood, from Dom’s devilish playing upon her privates, from the crescendo . . . of her own . . . quickening . . . gasps . . .
Someone screamed. Her, apparently, for Dom uttered an oath seconds before he swallowed her cry with his kiss.
And just like that, she vaulted out of the dance into heaven. Her body shook and her hand gripped his neck hard enough to leave marks, and it was marvelous. Every inch of her felt alive, from bones to flesh to skin.
She wanted to shout, but Dom’s mouth wouldn’t leave hers. His tongue slid silkily in and out, slowing, softening, bringing her down from wherever it was she’d been.
After a while, his kiss gentled to a tender sweetness that made her ache in a different way.
In her heart. Her stupid, foolish heart.
Regretfully, she drew her lips from his, and he let her, though his gaze didn’t leave her face. He drew up her bodice, pulled down her skirts, and lifted her until she was sitting straight up on his lap.
His thing felt like a rod of iron beneath her bottom, but he made no move to have her touch it again. Which was good because at the moment, she could only sit there, limp and panting.
He briefly kissed her forehead. “That, sweeting, is passion,” he said in a throttled voice.
She nodded. It was all she could manage.
“And if you wish to leave this room an innocent, you’d best go without delay.”
That startled her. But she was grateful for the warning. Because now that their encounter was done, and she was returning to reality, she realized how mad this was. If she still meant to marry Edwin . . .
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