Her glance flicked to him and away. “I suppose you can guess. Your reputation.”
A breath hissed between his teeth. They walked on, retracing their steps toward the gravel path. It was so long before he spoke again that she didn’t think he would answer her at all.
“Montford ought to know better than to warn you against me. In my experience, nothing makes a man so interesting to the fair sex as a wicked past.”
“I do find your wicked past … intriguing, I admit.”
He shook his head. “Intriguing? My dear Jane, it is quite the reverse. I have done nothing to merit your curiosity.”
“I am sure you would not say so if I were a man,” she retorted.
“Oh, you wish to hear those stories.” His lips twitched in amusement. “And here I’d thought you were so straitlaced.”
“Yes, I suppose I am, compared to the hussies you normally consort with,” she snapped. The twitch of his lips goaded her into adding, “However, my natural repugnance for your past actions does not outweigh the sense of duty I feel toward the estate.”
“Ah. So this marriage will be in the nature of a sacrifice?”
She looked sharply at him. He still smiled, but anger simmered in his eyes. “I should not like to put it that way.” After a pause, she added, “I am sure you will be a satisfactory husband … according to your lights.”
Jane watched with interest as a muscle jumped in that firm, decided jaw.
He bowed. “I’m flattered by your confidence, ma’am.”
Tilting his head, he studied her form, running his gaze over her body with a lingering insolence she knew was meant to provoke her.
“And you, Jane?” he said, his voice low and rough as the gravel beneath their feet. “Will you be a satisfactory wife?”
Resolutely, she ignored the heat spreading low in her belly and made herself give a careless shrug. “I shall be precisely the sort of wife you deserve, Constantine.”
The dangerous look vanished and he laughed. “The Lord have mercy on my soul.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“You’re taking Luke fishing?” Jane stared at Constantine, then looked out the window. “But it’s going to rain again.”
Constantine clapped his curly-brimmed beaver hat on his head at a rakish angle. One side of his mouth quirked up. “We shan’t melt.”
A cook maid bustled in with a hamper stocked from the kitchen. She bobbed a curtsy. “Cook says there’s pork pie and ale, and jam tarts for sweet, just as you ordered, m’lud.”
“Excellent! Thank you.” He took the basket from her with a smile, sending the maid away all aflutter.
Jane rolled her eyes. She’d been obliged to speak rather sternly with the housemaids about the way they giggled and tittered over their handsome master. Constantine appeared oblivious to their reaction; he never took much notice of the female members of staff beyond their function in the household. However, unlike Frederick, who had rapped out orders like an army sergeant, Constantine was kind and courteous to his staff. It didn’t take much more than a smile from him to encourage the silly girls.
Indeed, a smile from Constantine was quite enough to encourage any poor female to fall into daydreams. Jane supposed she could not entirely blame them.
After checking the contents of the hamper, he resumed their conversation. “What’s a little rain? You wanted me to get to know the boy better.”
“I wanted you to have a serious talk with him about our marriage and your guardianship, not take him fishing in the wet.”
“Ah, but then you don’t know the male of the species well, do you, Jane? They don’t sit around and talk to each other. They do. Any conversation is purely incidental. Why do you think I’ve gone to the trouble of arranging a fishing jaunt? The boy’s more likely to let down his guard and confide in me if he’s actively occupied with something. He told me fishing is his favorite activity.”
“Outside of drawing.”
“Well, yes, but unless I commission him to take my portrait, sketching is a solitary sort of thing.” He appeared struck. “Do you think I ought to have my portrait painted? Lend the long gallery a bit of cachet?”
He was laughing at himself. Privately, Jane thought a portrait of Constantine would cast every one of his ancestors’ likenesses in the shade. “You should commission one,” she said lightly. “They’re often allegorical, aren’t they? Perhaps, since we’re in the Cotswolds, you could pose with a sheep.”
“A black sheep,” murmured Constantine, his eyes dancing.
She laughed. “Precisely.”
“I’m ready!” Luke tramped in, carrying rods under one arm, his sketchbook under the other, his tackle box and his tin of charcoals.
“Here. Let me help you.” Constantine took the rods with a quirk of his brow. “A sketchbook?”
Laughing, Jane ruffled the boy’s hair. “He never goes anywhere without it, do you, Luke?”
Luke shrugged. “You never know what might need drawing.” He slanted a glance at Constantine. “Lord Roxdale here might catch a big ’un, and I should need to capture that for pos … posterity.”
“Ho, now I’m on my mettle,” said Constantine.
Chuckling, Jane glanced outside. Though overcast, the rain seemed to be holding off for the moment. She was supposed to meet with Cook this morning but …
Impulsively, she said, “May I come with you?”
“Yes!” Luke cried. “My lord, wouldn’t that be splendid?”
She glanced an inquiry at Constantine. He tilted his head, and there was an appreciative smile in his eyes. “Indeed. I’m sure there are more than enough jam tarts for everyone.”
* * *
As Constantine had predicted, the fishing expedition was a success. Luke accepted the news of Constantine’s guardianship with a thoughtful nod that made all Jane’s worry on the subject seem as if it had been for naught. To Luke, it mattered little who was legally responsible for him, as long as his day-to-day existence wouldn’t change.
Now that the question of their marriage was settled, Jane was able to reassure him that it would not. Having a man in his life who spent time with him doing masculine things seemed to be benefiting Luke. He’d never had that sort of relationship with Frederick, much as Jane had tried to promote amity between them.
She hadn’t been able to coax Luke to tell her more about the bullies in the village, however. While there didn’t appear to have been any repeat of that behavior, the incident still concerned her.
She was sitting in the drawing room, embroidering a cushion cover and worrying, when Adam Trent strode in.
“Jane!”
Startled, she jumped and stabbed her finger with a needle. With a cry of annoyance, Jane put the embroidery aside and stood to face him, sucking the blood that bloomed on her fingertip.
Oblivious, Trent rapped out, “I heard you drove with that fellow to the village. Alone! Without even a groom to lend you countenance!”
Icily, she said, “I beg your pardon?” What did he mean, storming in here to lecture her?
He threw up his hands. “It was all over the village. Probably all over the county by now.”
“Mr. Trent! Whom I choose to drive out with is not your concern. What’s more, that fellow happens to be the master of this house, and I’d thank you to remember it.”
He also happened to have secured her hand in marriage, but she wouldn’t tell Trent that. The betrothal still didn’t feel real to her. She suspected she would not trust in it until she had Montford’s approval.
For a moment, Trent looked taken aback. Then he gave his urbane smile. “Ah! You don’t understand, Jane. But how could you? You’ve lived so sheltered, you have no notion what men like Constantine Black are.”
The soothing, patronizing tone irked her. No matter how Constantine might provoke her, he never treated her like an infant who was unfit to tie her own bootlaces.
She raised her brows. “Did it never occur to you, Mr. Trent, that I have family and pro
tectors enough who have already warned me against Lord Roxdale? Your interference is superfluous, and yes, officious, too.”
“They don’t know him the way I do,” he muttered.
Hoping to steer the conversation to less personal matters, she replied, “Ah, yes. You were acquainted as boys, weren’t you?”
Trent’s eyes narrowed, as if to bring the past into perspective. “Black was always wild to a fault. Always getting into trouble. Forever charming his way out of it, too.”
Trent’s upper lip curled. “Turned my stomach the way they all fawned over him, even old Lord Roxdale. Frederick thought the sun shone out of him until he saw his true colors, at last. At least there’s that satisfaction.” Trent seemed to speak to himself. “Now, everyone knows Constantine Black for the scoundrel he is.”
He fixed his gaze on her. “Except you, Jane. Why do you insist on remaining blind?”
It was exactly the question she’d avoided asking herself. Touched on the raw, Jane’s fury erupted. “For heaven’s sake! It was a drive to the village, Mr. Trent, not a midnight jaunt to St. James’s!”
The sharp breath Trent inhaled through his nostrils told her he was grievously shocked by her outburst. Ladies like Jane should know nothing of the nocturnal activities in the region of London’s gentlemen’s clubs.
Trent shook his head, as if to clear it. “Obviously, your nerves are still overset by Frederick’s death.” Jane wondered if he realized how pompous he sounded and decided he hadn’t the faintest clue.
“I came to see you, not wishing to speak of him,” Trent added. “But … Well, I must warn you to be on your guard.”
“Against what, pray?”
Her neighbor’s mouth took on a curiously constipated look. As if he burned to unleash a torrent of words but he simply couldn’t bring himself to force them out.
She guessed the reason. Trent dearly wished to regale her with some horrid tale of Constantine’s debauchery expressly designed to shock and disgust her. However, her neighbor’s priggish nature forbade him to utter such an anecdote to a gently bred lady.
Thank heaven for small mercies. The faint tug of curiosity she felt was one she could easily ignore. Such curiosity was prurient and unworthy of her; she did not wish to receive such tawdry confidences from Mr. Trent.
He darted a glance at her. “Jane, I—”
Jane tilted her head. “Do you know, I believe you are right, sir. I find my nerves are overset, what with recent events, not to mention your unmannerly interruption just now. In fact, I should very much like to get back to my needlework, if it’s all the same to you.”
“But—”
She rose, putting an end to conversation. “Thank you for calling, Mr. Trent. Good day.”
With a high choler and a hardened jaw, Mr. Trent bowed and took his leave.
Dear Lady Arden,
No doubt you have received Lord deVere’s urgent summons to a meeting of the Ministry of Marriage in order to discuss Lady Roxdale’s future. I have managed to delay the proceedings somewhat, but you know how deVere is; I cannot stave him off forever.
Discreet inquiry has revealed that you are—shall we say—taking the bull by the horns. It will not do, madam. DeVere has his own candidate to put forward—a good one. You’d best make haste to Town for the meeting, or you will have no opportunity to argue your case. I cannot answer for the consequences if you fail to appear.
Yours, etc.
Montford
Constantine didn’t finish in the muniments room until well after midnight. He’d pored over ledgers and documents for so many hours that his eyes were starting to feel the strain and his joints ached like an old man’s.
A good bout of physical activity would sort him out, but the only kind of nocturnal exercise he craved wasn’t available to him at Lazenby Hall.
Yet.
She’d been skittish ever since they’d agreed to wed. Uncharacteristically, he’d resolved to behave himself. Though he burned to take every advantage of his new status as her betrothed, some niggling apprehension held him back.
Their wedding couldn’t come soon enough now, as far as he was concerned.
Pending that auspicious occasion, he tantalized himself with heated imaginings. His mind slid into a fantasy of soft white skin and wine-red lips …
Constantine woke to find himself in near darkness, a single, guttering candle throwing a sporadic glow over his desk. He rubbed his hands over his face and stretched his legs, feeling oddly alert.
Ordinarily, he’d be three sheets to the wind by now, but lately he’d made a habit of falling into bed alarmingly sober. And it wasn’t brandy he craved at this moment, he realized, but some more of Marthe’s excellent cooking.
The house was silent as he made his way down to the kitchens, a warm feeling of anticipation in his chest. Raiding the larder was something he hadn’t done since his boyhood. He found a good portion of roast lamb, mint jelly, and potatoes with butter and some herb or other that lent a piquant flavor to the dish. He loaded a tray with these as well as brandied apricots and a pot of cream.
Something sleek and sinuous wove through his legs, startling him. An imperious miaow told him he was in the company of the kitchen cat. He looked down to see a pair of luminous green eyes staring back unblinkingly from the darkness.
“I suppose you wish to join me,” said Constantine. “Come along, then.”
Discriminating creatures, cats. They didn’t make friends with just anything on two legs. On the whole, cats liked him. Generally, he left them alone, but when they came to him, he knew exactly how to appreciate them.
Constantine hacked off a couple of hunks of bread and carved a few slices of lamb, feeding tidbits to the big tabby as he went along. “I know I shouldn’t, for you won’t bother catching mice if I feed you, but I don’t suppose it matters just this once.”
Delicately the cat accepted another succulent morsel of lamb. “Genteel manners for a kitchen cat,” commented Constantine. “I wonder where you learned them.”
A snicker from the stairs caught his attention. He raised his candle, but the light didn’t reach that far.
“Who’s there?”
“Only me,” said a low voice. A furtive figure in a long white nightdress flitted down the stairs.
“Jane.” His chair scraped a discordant note on the tiled floor as he rose.
“Hush! Do you wish to wake the household?”
He feared she’d retreat, but she didn’t. She tilted her head to listen. After a frozen second or two she drifted forward, gathering her shawl tighter around her.
“Are you cold? Here.” He shrugged out of his dressing gown and moved forward to put it around her shoulders. Her long, unbound hair was trapped beneath the gown. Without thinking, he threaded his fingers through the curly mass and lifted it free.
Soft … His hand wanted to stroke through those heavy tresses until she purred like the kitchen cat. The scent of lilies filled his head. He had to force himself to stop there, to step back.
“What were you doing down here?” she asked.
“What? Oh.” He indicated the tray he’d been preparing. “A midnight feast.”
She took in his attire, and he was reminded that he still wore his evening kit, minus his coat. That his cravat must be disordered, his shirt points limp. “Have you been up all night?”
He nodded. “Wrestling with the accounts.”
“Oh.” She made a face. “Dull work.”
“Strangely, I find it’s not so tedious, after all,” he said, leaning against the table. With a gleam of humor, he added, “But don’t tell anyone I said that, will you? My credit would never survive.”
It was a good thing his mouth operated independently of his brain. He couldn’t seem to clear his senses. He still felt the soft brush of her curls against his fingertips, the delicate turn of her nape under his hand. The scent of lilies lingered in the mists of his brain.
Jane looked tousled and heavy-lidded, as if she’d rise
n from a troubled sleep. Outrageously feminine, a contrast with the mannish tailoring of his dressing gown.
“It suits you,” he said.
“Thank you.” Unconsciously, she lifted a hand to touch the silk, tracing her fingertip along the gold embroidery.
Constantine swallowed hard. For some reason, he felt her gesture on his own skin.
“You should keep it,” he said.
The candlelight was too dim for him to see her blush but he was certain she did. “Oh, no!” She laughed, gathering up all the excess folds of silk. “What would I do with it?”
Come to my bed in it, he thought. In that and nothing else.
Perhaps his thoughts showed in his face, for she stammered a little. “I c-came down for some warm milk.” She gave a hospitable wave of her hand. “Won’t you sit and continue with your meal?”
His voice rasped. “I find I’m … not hungry anymore.”
“Oh,” she said again. Her eyes widened. Her lips parted. Desire slammed into him with the force of a stampede. He had to clench his fists at his sides to stop himself reaching for her.
There was a quiet thump on the table. He looked down to see the cat poised above his plate, about to help herself to his meal. Laughing, he scooped up the feline and set her down on the floor. “Not so well-mannered, after all.”
Remembering his own manners, he indicated the tray. “Would you like some? Or shall we find you some milk?”
Slowly, she shook her head. “I’m not hungry, either. And I don’t want milk.”
Their gazes locked. His heartbeat seemed to throb in his brain, reverberate through his body, pound in his cock. She moistened her lips—out of nervousness, he supposed—and his member gave a decided twitch.
She took a small step toward him, but in one last attempt at nobility, he held up a hand. “Restraint has never been my strong point, Jane. Go back to your bedchamber. Now.”
He heard the soft gasp she gave, watched her throat ripple as she swallowed. Slowly, she put up her hands to remove his dressing gown, presumably to give it back to him. But before the garment left her shoulders he was there, catching the warm, slippery silk, bunching it in his hands, pulling her toward him.
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