The Diabolical Baron (28 page)

She looked down at her hands, and her voice came
haltingly. “When I met you at that hunting party, my father was grooming me for a Season under the aus
pices of an aunt. I knew you were what I wanted—I
had never felt so alive, or so close to anyone. I was sure
you felt the same.

“When you offered for me that day, I
was so eager to hear that you loved me. I didn’t know about your family or fortune, nor did I care. I just
wanted to hear you say that you loved me and wanted
to be with me always.” Her voice was almost a whis
per. “I wouldn’t even have cared about marriage, re
ally. I just wanted your love.”

Jason winced. “Instead I said you were
the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, that I would be
proud to have you as my wife. That you would be a
credit to my position, that I could provide you with all
of the comforts and some of the elegancies of life. And
I said no word of love.”

He put his other arm around her and pulled her
against his broad chest, raising her chin with one hand
so her green gaze met his dark eyes. “Let me make up
for that now. Jessica, I love you. I have never loved
anyone else. As angry and bewildered and hurt as I
was, I never stopped loving you, and I never could. You are maddening and independent and can ride as
well as I can, and I love you the more because of that.”

He touched his lips to hers in a gentle, passionless
kiss that was a pledge to all he said. Drawing back, he
continued, “I too was raised in a home where love was
a valueless currency. I was a younger son, of no great
significance except as a
...
a spare heir should my
brother be untimely plucked. In a world that values
fortune and position, I had only a small share of both. I
hardly dared believe that you loved me for myself, so I
offered what I thought you would value. I never
dreamed that what you wanted I had in endless sup
ply. I was very young then.”

He bent his head to give her another delicate kiss. “It would have been well-nigh impossible to say clearly what I felt, how much I desired and needed you.”

She laughed a little, deep sadness in her voice. “I un
derstood that later. I was so crushed with disappointment that my beastly temper took over and I said all
those terrible things. After I left you, I rode for hours,
trying to understand what had happened. When I fi
nally came to believe that my heart could not have
been wrong about how you felt, I rode to the house
where you were staying. But it was too late.”

He looked at her in surprise. “You went to Long
ford’s house? I never knew that. I had left a bare two
hours after you rejected my suit—I knew I couldn’t en
dure being near you. I suppose you would not have
known where to write to me.”

She shook her head. “I knew so little about you—not
even where you lived. I didn’t dare make inquiries—
the butler who told me you had left made it very clear
what he thought about brazen hussies who called on
gentlemen without so much as a groom for escort. I
was sure my foolish anger had given you a lasting dis
gust of me, and I hated myself for throwing away
what I wanted more than anything in life.

“There seemed no help for it, so I went off to London as my father wished. I knew I couldn’t fall in love
like that again, but the social rounds helped distract me. Papa received a great many offers for my hand,
but he didn’t mind refusing those he considered un
worthy of me.”

She smiled with a trace of mischief. “He never knew
the heir to a dukedom was so ill-bred as to propose to
me directly. Papa would have expired on the spot if he
knew I had turned down such an offer. And I got offers
of quite another sort from no fewer than two royal dukes.”

“Dare I speculate which two?”

“A lady never boasts of her conquests,” she said
primly. More seriously she said, “During that spring I
came to know John Sterling better. He was a captain then. He came from Wiltshire near the Hanscombes’
and had known me from when I was a child. As the
Season came to an end, he told me he had always
loved me but had been waiting for me to grow up and see something of the world. Even when I said I loved someone else, he wanted to marry me.”

She stopped again, then said haltingly, “I needed
very much to be loved. My father objected, but I had a
stronger will than he, and swore I would elope if he
didn’t give his permission. He knew I would, so he
threw up his hands in despair and let me go. We were married quietly and left the country soon after.”

She smiled nostalgically. “I learned so much about love from John. He was all that was generous, always
giving, never asking for more than I was willing to
give in return. And soon I loved him too, though not
the same way I loved you. One never loves two men in
the same way, I suppose.”

She started to rise, saying, “And that is how I came
to be here. I am grateful for the chance to explain myself, and to beg your pardon for the wrong I did you.”

Jason grabbed her hand and pulled her down again. “Do you think you can just leave now, as if you had
finished a morning call? Do you think I will let you
walk out of my life again?”

She looked at him steadily. “I might be willing to be
your mistress under other conditions, but not when
Caro is your wife.”

“To hell with Caroline! It’s you that I want to marry.
Can you deny you love me?” There was an unfamiliar
note of pleading in his voice; he daren’t even consider
losing her again.

She reached out her hand and traced the lines of his
beloved face—the thick frowning brows that intimi
dated Caroline, the dark weathered skin, the unex
pectedly warm lips. She said gently, “You are
promised to her.”

“I know that only women are supposed to break en
gagements, and I’ve always thought it was just so
much fustian. Do you think I care what the gossips
think of me? Does it matter to you?” He turned his face to press a burning kiss into her palm.

She sighed and withdrew her hand. “I wouldn’t care for myself, though perhaps I would for my daughter’s
sake.”

“There would be some embarrassment for Caroline,
but I doubt she would really mind,” he agreed. “I
think her father was selling her, much as your father
sold her mother.”

“There is some truth to that,” she admitted. “Sir Al
fred needed the settlement or she would never have
consented.”

“She was willing to wed the ogre for money?” he
asked sarcastically.

“She cares less for money than anyone I ever met. But she loves her sister Gina, and she was told Gina
would not be allowed to wed her Gideon unless she
agreed to marry you.”

“So she was the virgin sacrifice for her sister’s happiness. You are certainly bent on destroying my self-
esteem! Why can’t I let Sir Alfred keep the damned
settlement in return for the blow to his daughter’s
spirits?”

“You know that isn’t possible.”

“Why not? It’s my money, and I can do with it as I
like. Or would I then be unable to afford your bride
price?”

She refused to take it as a jest. “If it were only
money, and a minor scandal, I would marry you to
morrow. But it has gone beyond that. Have you looked at Caroline closely?”

He nodded reluctantly. “She is looking very well.
The country agrees with her.”

“It is more than that,” Jessica said earnestly. “I have
known her all her life, and I have never seen her glow
as she has these last two weeks. She is a very private
person and hasn’t confided in me about her feelings.
Indeed, I doubt if she herself knew. But did you ob
serve her three nights ago?”

He frowned. “Yes, she looked distracted and moody.
She was hardly there at all. She has been quiet ever
since.”

“I know. I was worried and went to her room later
that night to see if she wished to talk. I heard her
singing when she was unaware of my presence. If ever
I have heard love, it was in her voice.”

Jessica swallowed, then continued painfully, “I think she
had only realized it herself. That is why she seems withdrawn. Being in love is shattering, particularly
when it is for the first time. Seeing you here in your home, coming to know you better
...
of course she
came to love you. Who would not?”

There were tears in her eyes as she finished. “Do you
see now why it is impossible? I could never buy my
happiness at the price of hers. Soon you will love
her too. She is a far better woman that I will ever be. And she is ten years younger, just beginning to blossom into her full beauty. What you and I had and lost belongs to the past. She is your future.”

He grabbed her shoulders and shook her in desper
ation, seeing her slipping away from him. “Do you
think I care about your age or her saintly disposition? I
have never been truly happy but in those hours I spent
with you. Would you buy your peace of mind at the
price of mine?”

He moved his fingers into the tangled silk of her
hair, pulling her close in a violent embrace. With every
fiber of passion in him he tried to bind her with hands
and mouth and body, to persuade her in ways beyond words.

She yielded for long moments, then shoved him
away with startling strength. He fell back against the
log as she scrambled across the clearing, untethering
her horse and mounting in a blur of movement. The
reins in hand, she looked down at him in anguish. “I
will love you always,” she said in a small clear voice.

Then she was gone. He stood slowly and crossed to
Caesar, leaning his forehead against the horse’s sweaty
neck. He was grateful for the paralysis that gripped
him. It held in check the pain he knew would devas
tate him when it was released—when he let himself
know that she had ridden out of his life for the last
time.

* * * *

Caroline sighed and pushed a tawny curl off her face as she looked at the music score on the desk before her. Usually she composed directly on the pi
anoforte, relying on her near-perfect musical memory
to hold the sounds in her mind until she could record
them. Three nights ago it had been different—she
worked in a blaze of creative energy, the notes pouring
from her pen onto the paper as the composition
pounded in her blood, demanding to be set free. When
the music finally released her to her bed, she did not
truly understand what she had written.

She had not looked at the sonata till this morning, unable to confront the intense emotions that had generated it. Now, as it lay on the desk before her in the
late-morning sun, she wondered how she could have
been so blind. The composition was a declaration of
her love for Richard—all her inchoate feelings trans
muted into pure melody. She didn’t need to play it
aloud to know it was the best thing she had ever done.
It should be; every note had been drawn out of her
blood and being.

Letting the music speak her heart had given a curi
ous sense of peace after the confusion of the last
weeks. She could see now how innocent she had been,
living in her own dreamy world. Unlike most young
girls, she had seldom thought of love and marriage; that was why both had caught her unaware. Her vio
lent initial reaction to Jason had been caused as much
by shock at the idea of marriage as by his alarmingly forceful personality. She had never fancied herself in
love, not even the schoolgirl infatuations her sisters
had suffered. Now the reality of loving had changed
her whole world. Her emotions were hitting highs and lows she had never dreamed of, while her body stirred
with barely comprehended yearnings.

She had never loved before, and she knew with
aching certainty she would never love again. It was
equally certain there could be no possible future with
Richard. The engagement to Jason had taken on an un
stoppable life of its own; her family’s needs were not
changed by the fact that she had lost her heart to the
wrong man. To a slightly damaged former soldier, in
fact. Her lips curved involuntarily to a smile as she
thought of him.