Heiress in Love (Ministry of Marriage Novels)

by Christina Brooke

  “You can’t!” He was on his feet, shouting at her. “You can’t do anything about it, all right?”

  Tears streamed down his cheeks. Jane went to her knees on the floor and wrapped her arms around him to hold him tightly. Murmuring endearments and reassurance, she stroked a hand through his hair. His small body shook; then he buried his face in her shoulder and broke into sobs—ugly, wrenching sobs that seemed to rip from his chest.

  “They say I’m a bastard. That my mother was a … a—”

  “Yes, I can imagine what they call her,” she interrupted, to save him the embarrassment of using such language to her.

  What on earth? “But it’s not true, darling. Your parents were most certainly married and your birth is as respectable as mine.”

  Jane’s heart wrung with pity for him. If she could have taken his pain into herself to spare him, she would have done it.

  He raised his face. “Why would they say such things if they weren’t true?”

  Jane shook her head, soothing his hair from his brow with one fingertip. “I don’t know, my dear. Sometimes children say hurtful things with no regard at all to the truth.”

  She drew back, searching his woebegone little face. “I want you to know that whatever happens, I will always love you and take care of you, and so will Lord Roxdale. We’ll find a way to stop this. You’ll see.”

  She heard a step outside and turned her head to see Constantine standing in the doorway.

  “What happened?”

  He came in, moving toward Luke with a frown in his eyes.

  Reaching to tip up the boy’s chin, he held his face to the light. “Full of pluck, aren’t you, son?” He lifted a brow at Jane. “Bruises? Bones broken?”

  She shook her head. “He is very shaken, though. And upset. And the stable boys?” asked Jane. “What did you do about them?”

  There was a grim set to Constantine’s mouth. He rested a hand on Luke’s head. “I dismissed them. I can’t have lads like that on the estate.”

  Luke’s head jerked up in surprise. His gaze fixed with almost worshipful intensity on Constantine’s face.

  Jane frowned, unsure whether she approved. “I think they’d have preferred a horsewhip.”

  “Possibly,” said Constantine. “But I don’t hold with corporal punishment. I gave them the choice of various highly unpleasant duties or leaving my employ. They chose the latter.” He sighed. “It goes against the grain with me to rob lads of their livelihoods, but they are young and strong. They’ll find work elsewhere. And their dismissal will serve as a warning to others that Luke is under my protection.” He paused. “We can’t have the poor lad terrorized in his own home, can we?”

  Luke had finally stopped trembling. Something like hope shone in his eyes.

  “Let’s hope that’s an end to it,” said Jane. “If anything like this happens again, you must run and tell us straightaway.” She hugged Luke to her and kissed the crown of his head, then released him. “Now, up to the nursery with you. Your bath should be ready by now. We must get you all lovely and clean.”

  “And afterward,” said Constantine, “how about another game of fox and geese?”

  * * *

  That night, Jane went up to the nursery to fulfill her promise to read Luke three entire episodes of Sir Ninian’s adventures. She didn’t even get through the first story before Luke slipped into dreams.

  For a long time, she sat watching him in the quiet.

  She loathed what had happened to him that morning. She ached for his pain, would have done anything to take it away. A hard lesson to learn that she couldn’t. He must bear it, and she must simply help him do that. Constantine had said something to her that resonated: Luke would be stronger for having survived this day.

  Constantine had spent hours with Luke today, joking and playing games, letting the boy forget about the horror of the morning. By suppertime, Luke had regained his usual buoyancy. Constantine had been wonderful, truly. She doubted any father could have bettered his performance.

  She anticipated that the awful incident would resurface in Luke’s mind often in the coming days and weeks. But she hoped the sting of it would lessen after today.

  Jane wiped her eyes with her knuckle and rose to look out of the window. Twilight lay soft in the air outside. The days were lengthening, and so was this magical time when the world hung between daytime and night.

  She took a deep breath and exhaled it shakily. Then she went down to her bedchamber to fetch a shawl and left the house.

  * * *

  Constantine had been at work in the grotto’s innermost chamber for the past two hours or more. He was pardonably pleased with the result.

  A multitude of silk cushions and pillows covered the floor, while embroidered hangings draped over its walls, softening the cavernous space. A bottle of champagne nestled snugly in its silver bucket. Beside that, he’d set two crystal flutes and a selection of viands delectable enough to tempt the most jaded palate. Wisps of incense smoke wafted from a miniature Oriental burner, scenting the air with a subtle hint of the exotic.

  He’d just lit the last candle when a movement behind him made him turn around.

  Jane stood at the chamber entrance, clutching the edges of her shawl together at her breast. She still wore her day gown but her hair was unbound, tumbling in glorious auburn waves around her shoulders. His fingers tingled with the need to sift through that soft, flowing mass.

  So elegant and slender, Jane appeared almost ethereal in the mysterious shadows of the grotto. Too pure and delicate for the profanity of his touch.

  His heart kicked into a hard gallop. He’d anticipated a moment like this for a very long time, perhaps since that first glimpse he’d caught of Jane staring down at him from her window. Only now did it occur to him that he’d never felt so … anxious about bedding a woman before.

  Everything hinged on this night. Their future together depended on his making the next few hours the most pleasurable of Jane’s life. What was more, she trusted him to accomplish that feat, despite the horror she’d suffered through with Frederick. It was enough to daunt the most hardened rake into nonperformance.

  But his apprehension didn’t stop his cock straining against his breeches at the sight of her. The primal, animal part of him roared in triumph. Finally, he would have this woman, possess her body, claim her in a thousand intimate ways.

  He waited for her to glance away from him and become aware of her surroundings. He’d taken some trouble to set the scene for this momentous occasion.

  She didn’t notice any of it, but walked straight into his arms.

  Then she said his name in her soft, clipped voice, took his face between her palms and kissed him with those warm, satiny lips. Something inside him flipped over. Constantine Black, celebrated rake, flung all his practiced maneuvers to the winds and wrapped himself in Jane.

  He splayed his fingers and plunged them through her hair, devouring her mouth with deep, long kisses, over and over again.

  He ran his hands over her, caressing the small of her back, pushing the shawl from her shoulders, touching, stroking, impatient for more. Clothing became an irritation, thwarting his progress. With a muttered oath, he turned her to face away from him. Fumbling a little, his fingers worked at removing her gown.

  Various aids to seduction that he’d arranged on the shelf remained where they were, all but forgotten. His plans for slowly stripping her in a long, drawn-out seduction unraveled faster than the damnably complex lacings on her corset.

  As her stays finally came undone and her petticoats fell away, he swept her hair aside to press kisses at her nape, resting his lips at the vulnerable place where her neck and shoulder joined. Gently, he bit down.

  She moaned his name, sagging a little in his arms.

  “Yes, you like that,” he murmured, pleased. He let his mouth linger, tracing the delicate blue shadow of a vein with his tongue, tasting the salty tang of her skin.

  When Jane shuddered,
he bit down harder, then sucked her flesh to soothe it. Her knees buckled but he held her up, one arm around her waist, one hand sliding under the neckline of her chemise to fondle the soft, firm flesh of her breast.

  The sudden press of her bottom against his groin made him gasp into her shoulder blade. He turned her and slid the sleeves of her chemise from her shoulders, baring her lovely breasts, letting the soft undergarment whisper to the ground.

  Jane surprised him then, reaching out to bunch her hands in his shirt to tug it free of his breeches. She gathered the linen in her hands, lifting it up. Obediently, he raised his arms over his head and helped her remove it.

  The appreciative light in her gaze as it wandered over his bare torso made his balls tighten painfully. She did that to him with just a look. What could she do with her hands, her mouth?

  To distract himself, he reached out and palmed her breast, curled his fingers underneath it, weighed it in his hand. With deliberate precision, he flicked one tight nipple with his thumb. Her eyelids fluttered closed as she gave a small, pleasured moan.

  Encouraged, he played there for a while, touching her with light, tantalizing strokes until she begged for relief. “Constantine. Oh, please.”

  He swept her up in his arms and carried her to the mountain of cushions. He laid her down, then stretched out beside her, marveling at the pleasurable anticipation in her gaze. This time, she didn’t seek to cover herself or shy away.

  The trust in her silvery eyes humbled him. He would make everything perfect for her or die in the attempt.

  Jane put out her hand to caress his chest, running her fingertips lightly through the hair there. She flattened her palm and trailed it down the bumps of his rib cage and across his abdomen, making his stomach muscles jump. His skin burned where she touched it; he couldn’t stand too much of this.

  Capturing her wrist, he pinned it lightly back against the cushions beside her and bent to kiss each breast in turn. He teased her with light sweeps of his tongue around each heavenly aureole, made her writhe as he lightly kissed the hardened tips.

  He sensed the restlessness in her body, the yearning for more. While he drew out her need with gentle kisses and licks, he released her wrist and trailed his palm down her side to the crease where her hip joined her stomach.

  Her belly tightened at his touch; she froze.

  Constantine clamped his lips over her nipple and drew on it firmly, flicking the peak with his tongue.

  Jane cried out, her back arching with tortured pleasure. He took his chance and stroked between her legs to the hot, moist flesh, never relenting in his torment of her breast.

  She let him caress her freely this time, and the feel of her was miraculous. She was searing hot and abundantly wet. He longed to put his mouth on her, but Jane wasn’t ready for that yet.

  He found the small knot of sensitive flesh and rubbed gently with his thumb. She gasped out a plea, lifting her hips. He obliged with a firmer touch.

  Her breath came in sobs. She was close to her crisis; he sensed it waiting for her like an approaching storm. Without breaking his thumb’s circular rhythm, he eased one finger inside her. She whimpered, perhaps in alarm, but she didn’t push him away. Her internal muscles clamped down as if they resented the intrusion, but he introduced a second finger after the first and pushed them in further, seeking the perfect, blissful spot in that tight, wet sheath.

  By now, his body was as primed and ready to explode as hers was. His cock throbbed painfully against the falls of his breeches. His teeth ground together with the effort of holding back his own climax.

  Jane’s whimpering cries escalated and he knew it was time. He pressed with his fingers and stroked with his thumb and sucked at her breast, and she came in great pulsing waves that convulsed her body and made her shriek out his name.

  With one last, voluptuous lick of her distended nipple, Constantine lifted his head to watch Jane ride the crest of her pleasure, sightless and scarlet-cheeked and gasping for air. He reveled in her sensual abandon, scarcely believing he’d once dubbed her the Ice Maiden. Tonight, she was pure fire.

  Before she could regain her senses, he pulled his member free of his breeches and settled between her legs. He reached down to moisten the head of his penis in her juices, deliberately rubbing against her sensitive bud, making her body quiver again and again.

  Hot pleasure surged through him in a dizzying rush. Gasping with the effort of holding his climax at bay, he pushed into her entrance the smallest way.

  At once, her body stilled; he thought her breathing suspended. She wasn’t nearly as abandoned to passion as he’d wanted her to be.

  His jaw ached from clenching it; his entire body was strung tight with need. Instinct urged him to thrust into her, hard and fast, but that was the opposite of what he must do.

  “All right?” he gritted out. Oh, hell, he hoped so.

  “Yes.” The word was what he wanted to hear, but it came out as a fearful squeak.

  Jane didn’t push him away. She didn’t clamp her legs together as she had last night, but she didn’t crave him inside her, either. She braced herself for him.

  Constantine hesitated, poised above her, his muscles straining, his cock pounding, begging for release. He wasn’t fully master of himself, he admitted that. If he wrecked this for her, he wouldn’t get a second chance. Jane trusted him, but oh, Christ, he didn’t trust himself to be as gentle and patient as he needed to be.

  He tried to tell himself that this was just another woman, that he could last all night with others, that he’d never, ever lost command over his body. Not since he was a randy youth.

  It didn’t work. He made the decision and rolled away from her, wrapping his hand around his turgid cock. After a couple of quick pulls, he came hard, his seed spurting in hot jets over the cushions.

  He was aching and far from sated and utterly, comprehensively furious with himself. What a hellish, unmitigated disaster.

  After a few moments of fulminating silence, he made himself turn back to face Jane. He must try to salvage something from the wreck he’d made of this night.

  He drew her into his arms, and when he kissed her cheek, he tasted tears. He squeezed his eyes shut, cursing himself for a brute and a fool.

  “Jane, Jane, I’m sorry—” But she pressed her fingertips to his lips, halting his apology.

  “No, no,” she said. “I want to thank you.” Raising herself on her elbow, she smiled down at him.

  “What?” Why the devil would she thank him? He’d failed her. Constantine searched her face but found no hint of irony in her expression.

  “You might not think it, but you have given me a great gift tonight.”

  She must have read bafflement in his eyes, for she smiled again. Leaning over, she brushed her lips against his in a soft, tender kiss. “Constantine, don’t you see? You have given me hope.”

  * * *

  In the end, Montford elected to accompany deVere to the Cotswolds. He’d been toying with the idea, but the letter from Jane requesting his presence decided the matter. Better to be on hand to direct matters—subtly, of course—than to be obliged to mediate a raging battle of wills later.

  Lady Arden was not the type of woman to cower at a display of deVere’s temper. The Blacks and the deVeres could never deal well together; his lordship was spoiling for a fight, and Lady Arden would be all too willing to give him one.

  Montford certainly hadn’t undertaken the journey out of a desire to rush to Lady Arden’s rescue.

  Nor was it to ensure deVere did not take advantage of the lady in an amorous sense. No, Lady Arden could take care of herself. It was one of the things he admired in her the most.

  He’d elected to ride, because hours on end shut up with deVere in a carriage was more than he could stomach. Besides, the baron was a little like a child: exercise him well, and you took the edge off his tantrums.

  Instead of going directly to Lazenby Hall, Montford decided to put up at deVere’s nephew’s hou
se. He could keep an eye on things well enough from there.

  Montford had some acquaintance with the nephew, Adam Trent. He was a presentable young fellow, and from all appearances, as good a candidate as any for Lady Roxdale’s hand. Trent had the added advantage that Jane knew and liked the man. Then, too, if she lived at Trent Manor, she’d see young Lucas Black as often as she wished.

  An alliance to further strengthen the ties between the deVeres and the Westruthers was also an excellent piece of strategy. Particularly if Rosamund balked at the final hurdle and refused to marry Griffin deVere, Earl of Tregarth.

  Montford and Lord deVere had put off their traveling clothes and adjourned, at Trent’s suggestion, to the billiards room, a well-appointed apartment on the ground floor.

  Montford surveyed his host as Trent racked up the billiard balls on the table. One point further in Trent’s favor—no one had heard anything ill of the man’s morals. His honor, unlike Constantine Black’s, was entirely intact. He was also a most talented swordsman, as Montford had discovered on previous visits to Lazenby.

  A vast pity the gentleman was such an ass.

  “Your Grace, you do me great, great honor by visiting me here. I trust you will let me know if there’s any way I might serve you.”

  Make that a sycophantic ass.

  “Not at all,” the duke replied. “I trust my intrusion won’t cause you any undue inconvenience.”

  He interrupted Trent’s assurance that he was delighted, honored, more than happy … “To be sure.” Montford smiled. “The sooner we get the matter of Lady Roxdale’s marriage settled, the sooner I may be on my way.”

  With a grunt, deVere made his shot, scattering balls over the baize-covered slate. “Ha!” He prowled around the table, and sank two more balls before he missed one and gave up his place.

  Montford took his cue and leaned over the table, lining up his shot. He paused. “DeVere tells me you have an interest in the lady, Trent.”