by The Rogue
“No.”
At first that breathless pained word made no sense to her. Then, as he moved away from her slowly, as if every movement caused him physical pain, she drew in a disbelieving breath.
“No?”
“No.” He rose from the bed and stood with one arm braced on the bedpost as he visibly fought for breath and control. His naked back gleamed. His snugly fitted black breeches outlined his body, a body made to love hers. Jane simply couldn’t understand.
“But . . . I . . . I need you so, Ethan,” she gasped, too breathless and deprived to speak. “P-please, come back.”
He whirled to glare down on her then. Jane drew back in shock. The dark blaze in his eyes was something she’d never seen before. He looked wild, furious, and deathly, blackly amused.
“She begs.” He wiped one arm across his brow. “I begged, too, I think. Little good it did me.”
A bleak chill began to creep through Jane. She turned her head, unable to meet that gaze. Her vision blurred behind a hot wash of tears. She pulled against her bonds. “Free me,” she demanded, her voice thick. “Free me at once.”
“Free yourself, Lady Jane,” he said flatly. “You’re only trapped in a bit of twist. A child could figure it out.”
Jane realized that he was quite correct. A mere swiveling of her wrist untwisted the loop of cord enough for her to slip each hand free. She hadn’t truly been bound at all.
She slid from the other side of the great bed, towing one of the cream silk sheets to cover herself. She fumbled with her underthings and drew her gown over her head, but could not manage the buttons. Her hands were shaking from arousal and fear that she had done something that Ethan would never be able to forgive.
Somehow, she had struck him to the core—a deadly blow, by the look in his hot, dark eyes.
When she was as decent and armored by her clothing as she could be, she took a breath and turned back to him.
He was standing with his back to her, still half-naked, at the window staring out into the night. One hand was braced on the embrasure, the other held a nearly empty glass of brandy. As she watched, he tossed the last swallow back angrily, then tossed the glass carelessly to the cushion beneath the window. It bounced from the stiff horsehair and fell to the floor with a shrill crack. The noise made Jane’s raw nerves jump.
“Oh, look,” Ethan said without a shred of concern in his voice. “I broke it.”
Jane couldn’t breathe. She felt as if an iron band were wrapped about her ribs, constraining them like barrel staves. She swallowed. “Ethan—” she began.
He turned his head, putting his expressionless profile against the night. “Why would you think we could marry?”
“I thought—I hoped—I thought if I overcame your objections, that . . .” She trailed off.
“That what? That I would miraculously transform into the gentleman that I am not and drop to one knee?”
Jane stepped forward. “No! No, it was nothing like that! Ethan, please don’t think—”
He turned then. Never had she seen such blank fury in his eyes. “Then what was it, Jane? What did you hope to accomplish here tonight?”
“I hoped . . . I hoped you would . . .” She shrugged helplessly. “I hoped you would allow me in.”
He laughed darkly, shaking his head. “There is no ‘in,’ Jane. Even if there was, there would be nothing of value to you there. You persist in fooling yourself.”
“Don’t say that, Ethan! I love you! I know that you care for me, that you love—”
“Dear God, Jane—leave me be!” His tormented howl echoed in the silent house. Jane recoiled.
His breath came harshly as he visibly forced himself to calm. He ran a frustrated hand through his hair, then raised his head to gaze at her levelly. “Lady Jane, I don’t know how to be more clear.”
Jane backed away a step. “Ethan, don’t—”
He straightened completely, his expression calm and his gaze even. “I don’t love you, Jane. I never will. Not now. Not ever.”
Jane felt her soul curling and dying around the edges. His gaze, his manner—he was absolutely convincing. Could it be that he truly didn’t love her?
The pain took her breath away. She wanted to turn and run from the room, from the house, from his blank, vaguely pitying gaze. Yet she could not stop fighting.
“You’re lying, Ethan.” She fought to sound as sure as she desperately needed to be.
He shook his head slowly, his gaze never leaving hers. “I have never lied to you. I never led you to believe that I would play a part in the saga of Lady Jane.”
Jane gave a damp, angry laugh. “No, you’ve never lied to me. You have only lied to yourself!”
“Meaning?”
She looked away, drew a broken breath, then met his eyes once more. “You tell yourself that you don’t want more. You tell yourself that the life you have carved out for yourself is all you want—or perhaps that it is all you deserve, or are allowed—”
He reacted, finally, drawing back in denial. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Jane wiped a hand across her face, flinging her tears away angrily. “I know you, Ethan Damont. I know that within you is trapped a man who wants so much more from this world that he is fair to dying from it!”
He paled then, the darkness in his eyes nearly frightening. She saw one emotion chase another through that darkness. Hope and aching need fled before killing self-loathing and denial.
Her heart broke into tiny china chips when she saw denial take the fore.
“You simply refuse to see it, don’t you, Lady Jane? You cannot force this. You cannot wave your elegant, aristocratic hand and command this into being. All the stubborn will in the world will not overcome the fact that I don’t love you.”
The cruelty of it struck her like a lash, but she would not fail him now, now when he needed her the most. The man within could not—would not even try to—prevail unless she convinced him that nothing could drive her away. The only way to do that was to match his every bitter blow with love.
She met his gaze with level and relentless compassion. “Perhaps you don’t love me.” She lifted her chin and squared off against the enemy. “But I am not going anywhere. I am staying right here. So you’re just going to have to go on pretending that it’s me you do not love.”
His eyes flared. “Very well. I will.” He approached her, his step slow and implacable. Hot hard hands gripped her shoulders and he drew her to him. It was like leaning into a furnace of pain and contradiction. His body wanted her again, she could feel it. His soul cried out for her, she could see it behind the demon in his eyes. But his face—his beautiful dark angel face—was ravaged by anger and disbelief. He had a formidable will, her Ethan. Her love was more so.
Now Jane would finally grasp that he was not the man she thought him. He was not good. He was not honorable. He was not worthy.
When he crushed her to him and drove his mouth down on hers, she did not fight him or struggle against the discomfort he was causing her. She only very slowly, very gently ran her hands up his straining arms and across his shoulders, until she cupped his jaw softly in her palms. When he would let her, she kissed him back. When he would not, she suffered his bruising kiss unresisting. The fire began to build within her even so, astonishing her with its heat. It could not be that she enjoyed such treatment!
Yet there was no denying the effect his touch had on her, even such angry caresses. Perhaps it was because she could feel the need behind his bruising grip on her bottom, she could feel the ache within him as he rubbed his groin crudely against her.
“Do what you will,” Jane said, gasping as his hands wrapped over her aching breasts. She covered his hot hands softly with her own. “I will always be here.”
He flinched, the first crack in the wall he’d built so well about himself. Softly she put her hands on his cheeks and turned his gaze back to meet hers. The crazed shell of his certainty was shifting, breaking, lik
e a frozen river in spring. Soon he would flow freely into her arms. She could not give up now.
She gazed into his eyes with all the force she could muster against her own hurt and trembling desire. “I will always be here,” she repeated slowly. “Always.”
He almost gave in. She could see the awe and faith flare behind his eyes, like a new spark.
Thudding footsteps sounded in the hall. They both turned in astonishment as, a fraction of a second later, the door crashed in under the force of several burly men.
Ethan thrust Jane behind him, crouching in a fighting stance though he had no chance against so many.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Ethan stood bound and bloodied, held by two of Lord Maywell’s least injured flunkies. Jane was held in the grasp of another who bore battle scars of his own. They’d been forcibly dressed as well.
Serena, it seemed, had reassured her mother, who in turn had reassured her fretting husband.
Maywell paced before them. “You dared to touch a lady—ruin a lady, at that. You’ve always reached too high, Damont. This time you lost your footing and fell.”
Ethan gazed narrowly at Maywell. “So all your fine talk of equality was nonsense. I should be surprised—but I’m not. You like your privileges just fine, don’t you?”
Maywell glared. “Ideology is one thing. Presumption is something else altogether.” He gestured to his men to bring Ethan along. “You want so badly to live like a gentleman, Damont. I’m going to give you the chance to die like one. A duel at sunrise in Hyde Park. How is that for an aristocratic end?”
“No!” Jane struggled wildly in the hands of her captors. Ethan wanted to tell her not to bother but she wasn’t looking at him. She was staring at her uncle, incredulity written all over her face. “Why? You care naught for me. Why should you give a damn if I take a lover?”
Maywell hooked his walking stick over his elbow and tugged his cravat straight, a baffling glint of panic in his eyes. “A lady would have suffered in Bedlam until the day she died, rather than be unchaste,” he said sadly. He cast Jane a look of pity. “The inheritance is a sham, isn’t it? There was no more in that account than my daughters could go through in one day’s shopping. Do you think anyone will take you now, an impoverished, ruined lady? Good God, girl! Don’t be so naïve. Do you think this cit gives a damn about you?”
Jane didn’t so much as glance Ethan’s way. “He loves me. Don’t bother trying to convince me otherwise. If he couldn’t, you’ve not a chance in hell.”
Maywell tsked. “Such language. Oh, well. I suppose it isn’t your fault. I’m told that the mad have no control over their tongues. You’ve been slipping away from us for a while now, haven’t you, dear? This penchant for unchaste behavior. Then, running away from your home and loved ones?”
Jane flinched. “You threw us together, remember?”
Maywell shook his head. “A true lady would not have given up her virtue in less than a week! You really are a brazen little thing, aren’t you?” He gestured his men to bind her hands behind her back. “So it’s back to Bedlam for you, Jane. I’ve put them on notice that they’re not to permit another escape. They’ve informed me that they have the means to chain their more recalcitrant inmates. Of course, you have Damont here to thank for Bedlam—that was his idea.”
Jane blinked. The flush of anger on her face paled so abruptly that it hurt Ethan to see it. She looked at him, finally, staring at him as if he were a stranger—as if he’d been moved from her side to face her across that endless gulf once again.
He closed his eyes. “Maywell, you’re a vicious bastard.”
Maywell sighed. “Just like you, Damont. Two of a kind, remember?”
Ethan tilted his head, giving Maywell a baleful look. “You might want to remember that, my lord.”
Maywell stiffened, then gestured sharply. The henchmen pushed them out of the bedchamber and out of the empty house.
Hyde Park was perfectly quiet but for the condensing fog dripping from the trees. The carriage wheels crunched over the gravel and the horses’ tack jingled loudly in the silence. There was no one about, forcing Jane to give up on her half-formed plan of shouting for help.
She remained quietly in her corner of the carriage, doing her best not to attract attention to the fact that she was twisting her wrists carefully behind her. Her uncle’s flunkies, perhaps intimidated by her rank, had not bound her as tightly as they might have.
The rope that had burned her skin had finally turned it numb. Jane put the numbness to good use, pulling until she felt the coarse rope dampen with her own blood. She kept quiet and simply went on twisting.
The carriage pulled to a halt sharply, sending her off balance and nearly into Ethan’s lap across from her. She jerked back from touching him and pushed herself farther away with her feet.
“Jane, I—” His murmur was cut off when Maywell’s men pulled him from the carriage to fall on the ground at their feet. Jane felt the thud of his body as if she had taken the fall herself, but she could allow nothing to interfere with her concentration now. Her wrists slipped this way and that within her bindings. Soon . . .
On the ground, Ethan gazed up at Maywell. “I can hardly manage a duel like this. No one is going to believe that I died in a fair fight with my hands bound.”
Maywell nodded. “No one is going to believe you died in a fair fight no matter what. You’re a shopkeeper’s son—”
“Clothmaker, actually,” muttered Ethan.
“People will be more aghast that you actually had the nerve to participate in a duel of honor than they will be that you died of it. That’s only what one would expect.”
“Due to the inborn superiority of the upper classes, you mean.” Ethan spat out dirt and grass and laughed openly. “Inbred, perhaps. You lot do insist on marrying your cousins.”
The first crack appeared in Maywell’s sorrowful armor. He raised his foot swiftly. The kick did away with Ethan’s ability to breathe for a moment. He wheezed harshly. “Lovely boots,” he gasped. “Who is your shoemaker?”
“Why do you care?” Maywell snarled. “You’ll never buy another pair.”
He cut a hand sharply at his men. “Get him up. I want this parasite dead before the sun rises.”
As he was pulled to his feet, Ethan cast one last look back into the carriage. Jane sat hunched in her corner, staring over his head at nothing at all.
No last look of longing, no words of farewell. He’d really done it this time. Even though he was fairly sure he was about to die, the one thing he wished was that she hadn’t learned that he had put her in Bedlam.
Everyone had a limit of forbearance. Even the forgiving Lady Jane Pennington. Of course, most girls would hold commitment into an insane asylum against a bloke. It was only to be expected.
Yet somehow he hadn’t. Somehow, he’d apparently expected that there was nothing that could turn his Janet against him. Somewhere deep inside him, at some point, he’d begun to believe that her love was real—that she would love him until the day they both died of it.
Since it appeared that day was today, he was a bit disappointed that she couldn’t have stretched her adoration out a few more hours at the very least.
You’re a lowborn rotter and you don’t deserve a bloody second of her love, so just shut up and get yourself and her out of this so you can try to win her back again.
A lovely plan. Unfortunately, he hadn’t a chance in hell of doing it. He was bound, unarmed, and surrounded by Maywell’s men in the middle of a deserted park.
Then his bonds were cut with the swipe of cold steel. Startling hope bloomed within him. “One down,” he whispered to himself.
He was marched to the center of the clearing. Apparently Maywell wasn’t willing to wait for dawn. Torches and lanterns lit the circle of thugs.
“Make it look right,” Maywell called as he climbed back into the carriage. “Pace it out.”
So Ethan was stood back to back with another man, then paced
out from the center. “One, two, three—”
“Fifteen, thirty-four, seven,” Ethan chanted with them. That earned him a smack to the head that sent his ears ringing, so he desisted. Still, he laughed in their faces when they had to start over.
“Ten!” the man next to Ethan said defiantly. “It was right that time, you bloomin’—”
“The pistol!” Maywell called.
To Ethan’s complete disbelief, a finely worked dueling pistol was put into his hand. Two down.
“Don’t get yer ’opes up,” the man beside him sneered. “It’s got nothin’ but black powder in it. It wouldn’t look real if you didn’t have powder burns on your hand.”
Ah. Back to one, then.
It occurred to Ethan that he was actually going to die. Here. Now. He found that his former disinterest in his future had evaporated.
He wanted to live. He wanted it most powerfully.
Above all, he didn’t want to die with his last words to Jane hanging over them both. What if she spent the rest of her life thinking he had meant what he’d said?
Ignoring his captors, Ethan threw back his head. “Jane!” he shouted.
She did not answer, but he did hear a pained cry come from the carriage. The vehicle was rocking madly. There must have been one hell of a fight going on in there. Ethan pulled at his captors’ grip, helpless to go to her.
“Jane!” he shouted at the carriage. “I lied! I lied, Jane, just like you said!”
The carriage bounced a last time and stopped with a final cry, cut off horribly short.
Ethan’s heart wanted to stop. “Jane! Jane, I love you!”
Sickened, he waited for a reply of some kind, but nothing came.
Maywell opened the carriage door and lowered his bulk to stand on the gravel. Ethan craned his neck, but could see nothing in the dark carriage behind the man. “Well?” Maywell cried to his minions. “What are you delaying for?”
Ethan’s “opponent” stepped up and raised his pistol obediently. Ethan raised his in response, hoping against some chance that there had been a mix-up with the pistols. All he wanted was to go to Jane in that horribly silent carriage . . .