He had forgiven her, somewhere in the middle of that brave, reckless speech she’d made in the dining room.
She touched his good arm. With a tremor in her voice, she said, “At least let me bind your wound. I’ve sent Cecily for supplies.”
She drew him into a spare bedchamber off to the right of the stairs.
“It’s barely a scratch,” he muttered, but he went with her, longing to be near her after starving of her company for far too long.
“Well, then, you must let me make you look more presentable. You can’t attend the ball looking like that, can you?” she said briskly.
“I wasn’t going to.” More than anything, he wished to go home to bed and take her with him. But no, he had to attend the ball, didn’t he? For Jane’s sake. And for his own pride, of course. Constantine Black would never fight a duel and then tamely go home.
“I’ll have to send for a new shirt.” He looked down at the wad of bloodied linen in his hand. “And a new neckcloth, too.” His waistcoat had suffered a little down the side, but his coat would hide that.
“Yes, I’ve already done so. One of Beckenham’s shirts will be bound to fit you.” With quick efficiency, Jane took the basin of water and cloth from the maid who brought them and set them on the dressing table.
“Sit here, if you please.” She indicated a low, padded stool.
He obeyed her, smiling a little at the way she took charge of him. A warm feeling spread in his chest, a feeling of coming home.
When Cecily arrived with bandages and fresh linen for Constantine, she was clearly agog. “I saw the surgeon go up to the gallery. You truly are the Wicked Baron, aren’t you? I hope you have not killed Trent or you’ll be obliged to kidnap Jane and fly the country.”
“No, he’ll live.” Unless an infection carried him off. Best not to think about that.
“Thank you, Cecily.” Jane’s tone dismissed her cousin.
With a pert curtsy and a speaking look, Cecily whisked herself out of the room.
Jane laid out bandages and basilicum powder on the dressing table, then dipped the cloth into the water.
She undid his waistcoat buttons and carefully slid it off him.
“Now for your shirt.” Her manner was businesslike, but he was too experienced not to catch the husky note in her voice.
Ordinarily he’d make some warm remark, but he didn’t feel equal to witty innuendo at this moment. With her help, he peeled off the bloodied garment, hissing when the sodden linen tore at his wound.
“Ah, yes, merely a scratch.” Relief colored Jane’s tone.
Carefully, she cleaned the blood from his arm, then dabbed at the six-inch slash that ran down his bicep. “I have definitely seen worse. My cousins,” she added, on a note of explanation. “They were always getting into fights.”
He squinted down at himself, and was relieved to see that the wound was not at all serious. He was acutely aware of her closeness, of her scent, of that soft, sensitive skin behind her ear that always begged him to kiss it.
“Brandy,” she murmured. She doused the wound thoroughly, making him wince.
Glancing up at him, she smiled a little. “You are very stoic.”
“Will you give me a sweet for being so brave?” The teasing words were out of his mouth before he could stop them.
Her gaze flew to his, her lips parting in surprise. For a moment that seemed a small eternity, she hesitated, then her gaze lowered. She reached for the basilicum powder and dusted it over his torn arm, then bandaged the wound.
“There,” she said, a trifle breathlessly. “Not so thick as to spoil the set of your coat.”
“Thank you.”
He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “There’s been no one else for me since I left Lazenby.” Best get that out of the way at once.
“No,” she said. “There has been no one else for me, either.”
The speed and violence of his fury at the mere thought of her with another man nearly knocked him sideways. He tried to hide it, but he wasn’t sure he managed too well.
Then he looked up, to see a teasing light in her eyes.
Ah. He deserved that, he supposed. He rose to his feet and took her hands in his.
Sobering, Jane said, “There never will be anyone else. Not if I live to a hundred. Not even if we part tomorrow.”
He drew her to him. “Well, my lady, that is a very good thing because I meant what I said about killing any man who touches you.”
And there it was, that rush of emotion so powerful, he thought she must see it reflected in his eyes. They’d been the hardest words for him to say. Now, it was as if he couldn’t exist a moment longer without saying them.
“I love you, Jane.”
The sheer brilliance of her smile suspended his breath. She flung her arms around his neck and tilted her face up to his.
He closed his eyes and found her lips and kissed her with a deep, animal hunger that knew no limits, no constraints. Under his ravishing fingers, pins fell from her hair and scattered with little clacks on the floorboards. Her scent rose to meet him and he breathed it in as he devoured her. He was desperate to instill this moment in his senses as well as in his heart and mind.
Her hands explored his chest, his shoulders, his waist, firing his blood and sending it racing to his loins. She gave a frantic, choking noise in the back of her throat that made his groin throb with need.
Music floated up from below. She drew a shuddering breath. “We have to stop.”
Yet her hands caressed him as if they disagreed heartily with their owner’s sentiments and her lips continued to feather kisses over his chest.
He gasped, then nodded. “Yes. Stop. In a minute or two.” He drove a hand into her hair and gently tipped her head back so he could kiss her, then maneuvered her toward the bed.
“Turn around,” he murmured, his fingers deftly working through buttons and tapes. “This, we must preserve.”
“It is a stunning creation,” she sighed.
“It’s a damned work of art when you’re inside it, princess.”
He undressed her with the skill of a seasoned lady’s maid and laid the gown carefully over a chair. Next came petticoats, corset, shift. He unwrapped her soft, silky flesh as if it were the most precious, desirable gift in the world, murmuring his appreciation as he went.
The ball might be in full cry below, but now was likely the last time he’d have her like this before their wedding night, and he wanted to wring every last ounce of enjoyment from it.
When she was finally naked, all pink and white and deep, glorious auburn, he picked her up, laid her on the bed, and simply gazed for a moment. She stared back at him, flushed and trusting, completely open to him.
Love and gratitude for such a gift flooded his chest. He turned from Jane to lock the bedchamber door and shuck his own clothes. When he came back to her, he was fully naked, as vulnerable as she’d made herself. He stretched out on the bed beside her.
They lay face-to-face on their sides, staring into one another’s eyes. There was a smile in her gaze, a questioning tilt to her brow.
No games, no tricks this time. With a slight shake of his head, he leaned in and pressed his mouth to hers. He savored her lips with soft, clinging kisses, while he stroked his fingertips lightly down her spine. After a while, he let his hand wander lower, cupping the globe of her bottom, then smoothing over the back of her thigh. Without flourish or fanfare, he hooked her knee over his hip and guided himself inside her.
Their sighs mingled as he slid home. With slow, easy thrusts, the tension built and built, until his entire body trembled with the effort of holding that steady rhythm. Jane’s eyes fluttered closed, but he watched her face. He gauged every nuance of her reactions, every fleeting change in her expression, until with a final, deep surge, he sent her spilling over into a sweet, shuddery climax.
With a guttural groan, he let himself follow her, falling into the deepest, most resonant pleasure he’d ever known.
“Mmm.” Her lips drifted over his shoulder. “Wouldn’t that be a scandal? You’d have to make an honest woman of me.”
He gasped a laugh. “I believe I’ve rather made a wanton of you, but you won’t hear me complaining.”
He put a finger to her chin and tilted it upward, stared down into those silvery eyes. “Tonight, my darling Jane, you will waltz only with me.”
She made a face. “I would, but I don’t dance.”
When she reached up for another kiss, he murmured against her lips, “Princess, you will dance at the ball. Trust me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Montford never danced, but he appreciated music and he admired the ease and grace of the waltz when performed adroitly. Indeed, the dance was quite instructive to an observer: there was very little men and women could hide about their emotions when they moved in such close physical proximity to one another.
Rosamund twirled gracefully down the room with her cavalry officer. A fine figure of a man, he gazed down at her with a worshipful look on his face that reminded Montford somewhat of a spaniel pup. Those sad eyes. Ah, to be young and thwarted in love.
Rosamund herself looked troubled. Despite her partner’s obvious absorption, she kept darting glances around the floor. Looking for Jane, perhaps? Well, he’d not deny that he was anxious, too.
“What a stirring evening it has been,” said Lady Arden, at his side. “One feels quite invigorated!”
Her ladyship trusted in a happy outcome. He was not so sanguine.
“Rosamund is in great beauty this evening,” Lady Arden commented. “Captain Lauderdale is like to devour her with his eyes.”
Montford’s mouth hardened. “Unfortunate, that. But I shall deal with it.”
“I’ve no doubt.” A slow smile spread over her face. “If your delicate rosebud cannot stomach that great brute deVere found her for a husband, I assure you I have picked out the very man for her.”
“Oh, Lady Rosamund will go ahead with the match, never fear,” returned Montford. “I did let you have one Westruther heiress. Don’t be greedy.”
“I wonder shall I have her a second time?” murmured Lady Arden, craning her neck to peer through the crowd. “Where can the two of them be?”
Then, it came. A glimpse of red, flickering through the crowd.
Montford’s eyes widened. Jane, dancing? Waltzing, no less, in Constantine Black’s arms.
They whirled toward where he and Lady Arden stood. Jane gazed up at Roxdale with her heart in her eyes, a pretty flush mantling her cheeks. The awkward, shy girl had vanished forever, and a confident, loving woman stood in her place.
Constantine smiled down at her with such tenderness, Montford felt vaguely embarrassed by it. Yet, he couldn’t take his eyes off the pair of them.
“Oh!” cried Lady Arden, clutching his arm. “Oh! I think I’m going to weep.”
He took out his handkerchief and passed it to her. “My lady, you grow sentimental.”
“I do not!” She snatched the monogrammed linen from him and carefully wiped her eyes. She sniffed and blinked rapidly. “Only, don’t they look so marvelously happy together?”
Yes. Indeed. Montford was forced to admit they did.
* * *
“Well, princess?” Constantine whirled Jane in a powerful spin that nearly lifted her feet from the floor. “Didn’t I tell you you could waltz?”
With him, she felt as if she might fly. “I can tonight,” she said breathlessly. “I’m floating on air. I cannot believe that finally we are together.”
She sighed. “I wish we could be married this very minute. I don’t want to spend another second apart.”
He pulled her scandalously close. “What, and miss a society wedding?”
“You know I don’t care for society.” She moistened her lips, tasted a hint of rouge. “In fact,” she said huskily, “I believe if you were to kiss me here, now, during a waltz, in the middle of a ball, I should not care a button.”
His gaze snagged on her mouth. His hold tightened on her hand. “Oh, wouldn’t you?” he said softly. “Well, I should care. My wife shall be like Caesar’s—above reproach.”
“That sounds horridly dull.”
“Nonetheless.”
She pouted.
“Where did you learn to do that?” he growled.
She fluttered her eyelashes. “Do what?”
“Don’t play the innocent with me. What did you do, attend a school for wayward temptresses while I was gone?”
She slid him a sideways glance, brimful of triumph. “It’s working, then?”
On a muttered oath, he danced her down the ballroom, through the open doors, and onto the terrace.
Without breaking stride, he swept her into his arms and kissed her. Deeply, passionately, for so long that the rest of the world fell away, left them melded together with the night. Tonight, Constantine truly claimed her as one who had the right.
“I love you, Jane.” He rested his forehead on hers, his breath warm on her lips. “I was going mad without you.”
She reached up to take his beautiful face between her hands. Softly, tenderly, she kissed him again. “And I love you. Let’s get married tomorrow.”
He smiled. “Why not?” Then he threw back his head and laughed and swung her around in a circle. “Shall we go up and tell Luke the news?”
Her happiness filled her heart and flowed over. “Yes! By all means. Yes.”
EPILOGUE
“Haven’t Jane and Constantine left yet?” said Rosamund. “They said their farewells half an hour ago.”
Cecily stood at the sitting-room window, her hand resting on Luke’s shoulder.
Rosamund moved to join them. She gazed out into the distance, beyond the winding gravel drive.
“They’re probably off kissing somewhere,” said Luke, rolling his eyes. “They’re always kissing and cuddling these days.”
Cecily sighed. “He’s right, of course. They are the most nauseatingly happy couple. The sooner they get to Scotland for their wedding tour, the better.”
A wistful ache took up residence in Rosamund’s chest. Constantine and Jane were blissful together, it was true. Their wedding reception had seemed more like a public day than the traditional breakfast; Lord and Lady Roxdale were as eager to share their joy with their tenants as their tenants were to join in the celebration.
While Rosamund was deeply thrilled for Jane, such a surfeit of good cheer had been a little difficult to bear. Her own marriage would be nothing like her cousin’s. The prospect of that union hung over Rosamund’s head like the dreaded Damoclean sword.
“There they go!” Luke cried, clapping his hands in his excitement.
“At last!” said Cecily.
Rosamund dipped her gaze to the front of the house. She saw not only the traveling carriage with baggage piled high on its roof, but Constantine astride his big white stallion. Jane was draped romantically across the saddle bow before him, her head nestled against his shoulder.
“They’re not going to ride all the way to the border!” said Cecily.
“Heavens, no,” said Rosamund. “I expect they’ll continue in the carriage after the first stage.”
The stallion pranced and shook his head as Constantine wheeled him around. Constantine tossed a laughing remark to Jane and they both looked up to where Rosamund, Cecily, and Luke now stood.
“Good-bye!” Luke yelled, though there was no chance of them hearing.
Cecily waved madly. Rosamund, blinking back mawkish tears, raised a hand.
Her face bright as a burst of sunshine, Jane waved back. With a military-style salute and a flashing grin, Constantine turned his horse and spurred him into action. The stallion leaped forward, and they galloped off down the drive. The horse’s w
hite tail streamed like a banner in their wake.
Moving away from the window, Cecily took Rosamund’s elbow companionably. “Well, it’s just us again, old thing. Shall we take Luke back to London with us directly, or stay here for a bit?”
“Back to London, I think,” said Rosamund. At least Philip Lauderdale would be there.
“Oh, no!” said Luke from the window.
Rosamund raised her brows. “What is it, my dear? Don’t you wish to go back to Town?”
“No, that’s not it.” He turned back to them, his face filled with scorn. “They’ve stopped and they’re kissing again. In the middle of the drive! They’ll never get to Scotland at this rate!”
Read on for an excerpt from Christina Brooke’s next book
Mad About the Earl
Coming soon from St. Martin’s Press
Beastly man!
Rosamund’s first sight of Griffin deVere would have caused a maiden with a less valiant heart to quail. Shirtless, dirty, sodden, and glaring, he presented a spectacle to strike terror into any gently bred lady’s soul.
His massive body gleamed wetly in the sunshine: acres of hairy muscled chest, miles of long, strong legs. Hands as big as plates shoved a shock of black hair from his eyes, plastering it back over his skull. The movement made the muscles in his biceps bulge with latent power.
Her fascinated gaze snagged on the tufts of dark hair beneath each armpit. Oddly, the sight was the opposite of repulsive. A hot shiver burned down her spine.
But it was the brooding, angry look in his eyes that made her insides melt and slide and sizzle, like butter in a sauté pan.
Rot the man! Why did he have to be even larger, more intensely alive, more masculine than her wildest imaginings had painted him? He was colossal, and not only in stature. The powerful life force within him seemed to blaze from that lightning gaze.
She ought to be disgusted by the state she found him in, particularly in the circumstances. The least he could do was make himself presentable on this, of all days!
Ah, how she wished she were disgusted. Her fury fired anew that he should have such a cataclysmic effect on her. He was rough and dirty and in a shocking state of undress, so far from the gallant prince of her imaginings it would have been laughable had she not been consumed by disappointment.
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