The Passionate Love of a Rake (14 page)

“From my jaded perspective, Jane, it is a waste of time and effort. Who would build something to make it look as though it has fallen down?”

“How can you say that?” She turned back to him, her fingers remaining on the stone, and faced that beguiling smile. Her insides became aspic. He looked very handsome in the orange hues of the setting sun. She turned back to the ruins and began weaving in and out of the columns which formed an arched colonnade, her fingers skimming over the stones. “Violet is right. You have not one romantic bone in your body.
This
is romantic.”

He laughed, still standing a few paces from the ruin. “
This
is a pile of old stones. Do not tell me Sutton built you one of these things. Follies are named as such for good reason. ”

She stopped and leaned her back against the stone, her hands against the cold granite. “Hector would have agreed with you, and he certainly never did anything just to please me.”

Her words seemed to surprise him, and his expression turned from humorous disinterest to one of question.

She never spoke of her marriage to anyone. She didn’t know why she’d said it. She pushed away from the column and started walking through the row of arches again. She’d always been too embarrassed to let anyone know what had happened. She’d thought people would think less of her “However,
I
admire follies. I think they are even more beautiful because beauty is their only intent. If I ever had an estate of my own, I would build a folly. I expect this is stunning when lit up after dark.” Her voice sounded whimsical.

“Jane.” Robert caught her elbow, making her jump, then turned her to him, hiding them behind one of the broad columns so they would not be visible from the distant avenue. Her gaze met his. His brown eyes were intensely dark, his pupils distended. She couldn’t breathe. “I don’t understand you. Do you mourn Sutton or not? You send so many alternate signals. What am I to think? I cannot judge.”

She looked from his eyes to his lips. She wanted him, just as much as he obviously wanted her.
Friends?
She could not be just friends with this man any more than they had been just friends years ago.

“Jane.” His voice was husky and full of restrained emotion as his head bent. Then his lips touched hers. Her arms reached about his neck, and she kissed him back, her gloves dropping to the ground. His hair was soft and thick, and he cupped her bottom through her gown. Her body arched against him, and she felt the evidence of his arousal.

“Oh God, Jane, don’t,” he spoke into her mouth then stole one more brief kiss before pulling away.

“Don’t what?” she whispered, resting her temple against his cheek and fighting to catch her breath and her sanity.

“Arch your body to mine like that. You drive me mad with want. If you still expect me to play your friend, I cannot do it, Jane.”

She looked up. He had such beautiful eyes. “You make me feel happy,” she answered, knowing her answer did not provide the response he sought. Her hands clasped his upper arms and pushed him back a little, setting a distance between them. Why was she so drawn to him? “But
this
is truly folly.”

“Folly?” he repeated, his eyes baring a depth she assumed was unreleased desire.

“We should get back.” She stepped aside, moving into the view of those promenading along the main avenue. For a moment he just stood there, watching her, half in shadow. “Robert?”

“Jane.” His voice was back to a mocking note. “All hot and cold again, are we not?” He bent to collect her gloves from the ground. When he left the colonnade, he passed them to her.

She took them, but could not meet his gaze. “I’m sorry, I—”

“Never mind it.” His voice was abrupt, as though he did not wish to hear her words. “So, tell me.” His tone changed completely. “Did Sutton treat you well?”

Jane deemed to answer solely because she wished to set their embrace aside, as it seemed he did, and slipping her gloves back on, very aware he watched her intently, she said, “If you really wish to know, which I am sure you do not, Hector paid me very little attention. My husband’s passions were for gloating and encouragement of envy. I was his showpiece.”

Jane gripped Robert’s arm once more, and together, they turned to stroll back towards the promenade. “He brought you to London, but did not bring you here then?”

She’d no idea where this was going, but with her heart still racing and her blood as thick as honey in her veins, she was in no state to think her way out of the conversation. “No. I mean, no, he never brought me to London, let alone to a place he would have considered purely licentious like Vauxhall. This is the first time I have visited the capital.”

“But surely he attended Parliament?” Robert’s voice was high-pitched with astonishment.

“I believe so, but I think he avoided entertainment other than his club.”

“Then if he liked to gloat, why on earth would he not bring his wife?”

After a few moments’ silence, she looked up at his perplexed expression. She had never understood why her husband had kept her virtually imprisoned. “I hardly know.” Her voice sounded a little choked. She did not wish Robert, of all people, to see her insecurity. She forced her lips into a smile and shrugged.

“I could make a guess,” he quipped in return, smiling too.

“Do tell.” She waited, pretending not to care. She did. She desperately wished to understand Hector’s cruelty, if you could call isolation cruelty. It had felt like it to a seventeen-year-old girl.

“A diamond like you, Jane, it’s obvious. He didn’t want to let you out in front of London’s bucks. He probably feared you’d stray.”

She’d stopped walking without even realising it.

He turned to face her, his brown eyes full of concern. “Is something wrong?”

“No.” She closed her eyes and shook her head, wondering if Robert had guessed right to some degree.

Hector had liked control, and he’d allowed his friends to taunt her, but that was under his watchful supervision. If she’d met someone else beyond his power, maybe he thought she could have slipped his leash.

She swallowed back against the lump lodged in her throat and set a smile back on her lips. “I should think it was more because he liked to come across as holier than thou. I would have spoiled his town image. In the House of Lords, he liked to be envied for his politics and power, not his wife. Come along.” With that, she walked on, dismissing the subject, and turned her eyes back to the avenue ahead.

“If you have not been to London before, have you already visited the sights with Violet?”

She laughed. “Violet? You are joking. You do not know her well, I note. Violet would consider such outings an absolute bore.”

“Then you would not refuse if I offered to escort you.”

She smiled at him. “I would not refuse, Robert. I would appreciate it very much. Thank you.”

Robert felt something hard grip in his chest. This woman could melt him. Yet she blew so hot and cold. He had no idea where he stood with her from moment to moment. And at this moment, she was tepid. Lukewarm, that was his ladylove.

But,
by the saints
, a moment ago, she’d been heated lava in his arms. She hid it well, but the woman was not impartial to him. Still, for some reason, she refused to yield to it. Unfortunately, he was no martyr. He wanted this, had wanted it for years. She felt right on his arm. He was warm and human again with her. This was beyond sex. This was about Jane. A light flared in his heart – that familiar torch he’d always carried for her. He could never face parting from her again, and if that was so, there was only one conclusion to this.

His heart pounding a tattoo against his ribs, he felt his breath catch in his lungs and forced it out. “
Jane
.”

He longed to make her stop, face him, and urge her to accept his words and answer, yes, but he held back. He dare not pin his heart so firmly on his sleeve for her to ridicule and wound. He’d done that once before. Instead, he was prudent and phrased his proposition casually. “For me,
this
,
us rather
, I do not see it as something temporary. If you were, I mean, in the future, once you are ready, if you felt that it was right … ” He hesitated, having reached the crux of the matter, and knew he was making a hash of it, but all he could do was lay his cards on the table. “What I mean to say is, I would not be against the option of revisiting my previous proposal.”

He felt the gentle tug of her fingers on his arm as she stopped walking. He stopped, too.

“Did you just propose to me?”

Astonishment or outrage? He was not sure. Just in case, either way, he put up his guard. The same armour he’d been using for years. The very same defences he’d learned at her hands years ago. Lord, he was a glutton for punishment.

His mask of indifference was set firmly in place as he faced her.

Her fingers slipped from his arm.

He felt her rip his heart right out.

“Robert, what on earth are you thinking?”

Was that not just the point? He was smitten and
not
thinking. That was the issue in a nutshell. He was quite obviously
not thinking
. Or at least, nothing of any sense if he was fool enough to make such an offer to a woman who clearly did not have the measure of his worth. Who, in fact, thought him worthless –
else why did she take Sutton over me?

There it was again, that damn question.

The question that had disturbed his sleep for years, to the point he’d had to bury it behind sex.
Why not me? Why Sutton?

He’d answered himself a thousand times, too. Money. Power. Status.

Yet those answers never satisfied him, and certainly never stopped his subconscious asking and analysing the question a million times more.

God help him. He’d not even dared let any other woman close enough to risk them finding out his faults, for faults there must be, otherwise,
why?
But then, of course, none of them had ever measured up to Jane either. But, who the hell
was
Jane?

He could surely not love a woman who would toss his love aside like soiled linen? Twice.

Could he?

It was a bloody, sorry state for a man whose reputation declared him a heartless rake.

Aloud, he said, “It was no more than a suggestion, sweetheart. Take it or leave it. If you have an interest, you need only ask.”

She burst into laughter which echoed along the pathway.

It seemed he damned well could love a woman who saw no value in his affections. All he was worthy for was kisses. Those she liked. He knew that, if nothing else. At least his damned reputation remained intact then.

“Sorry, Robert,” she whispered when her laughter died.

He paid little mind to the insincere apology. Whether she was sorry or not, she still did not want him, and that was the rub, and God, but it hurt.

“I just did not expect it. You need not be gallant for my sake. I’ve survived one marriage. I do not intend to launch into another. So you may come off your guard.”

Speechless, Robert turned and walked on. Her gentle, slender fingers gripped his elbow. He felt them about his heart as she chattered on in her sweet, sing-song voice, merrily extolling all the novelties of the pleasure garden.

The setting sun sent the last shafts of pink and gold across the sky. In the distance, it was turning to a royal blue, a perfect romantic sunset, and on the third finger of her left hand, clutching his arm, her gold band caught the light, beneath the ostentatious emerald engagement ring.

He was a bloody fool. But when he turned to hear her words, he saw the golden light catch her beauty, gilding her cheekbones, her magnificent green eyes, and her full red lips. She stopped speaking. His feeling must be in his eyes. He’d never understood why she’d cast him off, but nor had he ever stopped loving her.
Jane
. He suddenly could not quite believe that, after all these years, she was here.

He may be a damned fool, but he could not walk away from her.

He covered her fingers with his own. “Come along then. Let us do some more exploring.”

~

Hours later, leaning one elbow on the table within their private supper box, tucking her fist beneath her chin, Jane took the opportunity of Violet’s and Geoff’s absence to steal a sideways glance in Robert’s direction.

The male tightrope walker, suspended over the heads of a hushed crowd, drew a sudden sigh of fear from his audience. Jane was not at all afraid. He was as comfortable on the rope as any other man was on the floor, and yet, his talent was indeed awe-inspiring. She looked back when the crowd let out a chorused gasp. The nimble fellow landed a somersault. His audience applauded.

Jane applauded, too, then transferred her gaze back to an even more enthralling sight, Robert in repose. He made no response.

He was everything she wished for this evening, attentive and considerate – wonderful – everything was wonderful. He’d paid for their expensive yet sparse supper and they’d danced half a dozen times, because none of the rules of society counted here. There were no matrons or patrons to judge them.

Even the hawkers and harlots who’d flooded the gardens after midnight and flaunted their wares, moral and immoral, did not tarnish Jane’s pleasure, and on the signal of the bell, Robert had taken her to see the cascade of water. It glittered in the lamplight. Then afterwards, he’d led her through the lit and unlit pathways, seeking temples and fountains. As they’d walked, they’d heard other couples in the darkness – whispers, laughter, and squeals carried on the balmy night air. This really was a pleasure garden. It stimulated every human sense. It willed you to abandon restraint and revel in vice. She was not immune.

The memory of their brief kiss had haunted her thoughts, and she ached between her thighs for him. Perhaps she’d had too much champagne, or was it the wonder of dancing with him that had seduced her? They’d laughed as they’d skipped through the zealous steps of a country dance to the sharp, jolly ring of a brass band, and her hands had clung to him when they waltzed. Or it could have been the way his fingers had protectively gripped her waist or her hand as they’d walked along the dark paths? But whatever was making her wish for another kiss and more, he’d made no attempt to repeat it, and she felt as though, despite his attentiveness, since they’d kissed, he’d somehow withdrawn from her.