The Passionate Love of a Rake (20 page)

She was charmed, utterly. Something clenched low in her stomach, a tight, sudden spasm which disappeared just as fast as it came.

“Do you wish to see them? They’ve decamped to the shade of a plane tree on the other side of the haw-haw. Mrs. Barclay has indeed risen to the occasion and prepared lemonade. It will be served there or here, wherever you wish.”

“There, I think. I would love to see the children.” Jane unfurled her parasol and rested the shaft on her shoulder.

“Well then, there we shall go,” Robert stated, offering her his arm. “Ellen has little Robbie up, too. He was too restless to sleep in this heat.”

Jane flicked open her fan and began wafting it. “I do not know how you can stand to wear a coat.”

“I admit, it is a bit warm.”

“Then take it off.”

“You are barely here an hour, Jane, and are already undressing me!” he stated with a satirical laugh.

“I am giving you permission not to stand on ceremony. You said my visit was to be informal. If I am family, treat me as such.” Her words were reproachful, but she touched her voice with humour to match his.

“Very well.” He raised his arm higher. “Help me with the damn thing then. The day is like a boiling pot.”

She snapped shut her fan, let it hang from her wrist, balanced her open parasol on her shoulder, then helped him take off his coat.

When they walked on, it lay over one arm, while her bare fingers gripped his other, embracing firm muscle beneath the thin cotton of his shirt. They did not hurry, but discussed her journey, Geoff and Violet’s growing romance, his staff, and the changes he’d made at Farnborough, while their footsteps crunched on the gravel paths.

It was at least half an hour later when they reached the sunken wall which formed the haw-haw. Robert took her hand to help her down the slope to the gate which led through the steeply sided ditch into the fallow grassland. Usually, livestock were grazing there, but there were none today, and Jane looked to the sound of laughter and saw the edge of a rug behind a tree.

She let go his grip, very aware of the intimacy of holding his warm hand. Its heat seemed to reach inside her, and memories of his touch on the first night they’d met in town came to mind. She could picture him without clothes easily in this heat, in this field, doing intimate things. An exhilarating tremor ran through her innards. She glanced at Robert, certain she was blushing, but he was looking towards the tree.

“Your Grace! Uncle Robert!” It was John who saw them first. The boy looked pleased to see her, or perhaps he was just pleased to see his uncle.

She wondered then if they had been deliberately dismissed to a place beyond the formal garden so the house would be quiet on her arrival. She’d seen no one but Robert before this.

The boy ran towards them, stripped to his shirt, too, his sleeves rolled up and a ball gripped in his hand.

“Papa and I are playing piggy-in-the-middle with Mary. Will you play, Uncle?”

She sensed Robert smile without even needing to look. “Poor little minnow, how does she stand a chance?”

“The whole game is thrown. You know it is. She always wins. Will you play?”

“Not at the minute, John. Give Jane a chance to get settled. And where are your manners? You have not even said a proper welcome.”

Instantly, the poor boy looked mortified, as if hurt by Robert’s chastisement. Blushing and holding the ball to his chest, John bent into a deep bow. “Your Grace, my apologies. Of course, we are glad of your company.”

He spoke with the perfect pitch of a future duke. She smiled and waved his words away. “Just Jane, please. Both your father and uncle think of me as a sister.”

“Aunt Jane then,” John replied, rising up, his voice slipping easily back to that of a rambunctious boy.

“John,” Robert challenged as if to deter.

But Jane gripped Robert’s arm. “Aunt Jane is perfect. I’m happy with it. There is no need for formality, is there?” Robert’s eyes met hers, and they were warm with affection and rimmed by dark lashes. It was a look he’d have given her when he was only a little older than John.

She smiled at John. “Come on then, John, lead me to the lemonade.” With that, she let down her parasol then clutched at her skirt, lifting her hem a little so she could keep up with John as they progressed through the uneven grass.

Robert followed, watching Jane listen to John’s eager chatter. It felt so good to have her here. She looked different already. She’d lost half a dozen years. She was no longer the Duchess, just Jane.
His Jane.

Not
his
Jane. He couldn’t say that. He’d promised her space and a place to think. He was determined to let her have it. If afterwards, she chose to continue her affair with Sutton, at least Robert would know he’d tried to help her. At least he would not have to live with guilt over the son. He’d been enduring it for days over the father. The thought pierced Robert’s chest even now.

It was his fault, all of it. Now he had to make amends.

Jane knelt on the edge of the rug, greeting Ellen, and bent to little Robbie while Ellen introduced her youngest child and John poured Jane’s lemonade.

The baby was lying on his back, watching the leaves rustling on the warm breeze above him, his legs and arms in constant movement as he squealed with ridiculous pleasure at the sight. Jane touched the child’s bare toes, and her expression slipped to melting appreciation.

“He is beautiful,” she said in a whisper.

“Isn’t he?” Edward shouted from a distance away. Robert looked to see Edward walking towards her. He was in his shirtsleeves, too, tossing the ball John had thrown him from one hand to the other. He was bragging indecently, but it amused Robert to see his brother’s pride. Edward’s smile admitted how atrocious his vanity sounded anyway.

“Edward is biased, ignore him,” Ellen interjected.

“Edward is a proud father,” Jane answered, her eyes not lifting from the little boy as she took his tiny hand and his fingers clutched her thumb. “You
are
gorgeous,” she said at his babyish giggle.

“Your lemonade, Aunt.” She took it from John’s hand and smiled a thank you.

“Did you want some, Uncle?”

“Yes. Please,” Robert answered as Mary-Rose’s possessive grip captured his leg. He picked the little scamp up and swung her high. She squealed.

“Uncle Robert, horsey.”

“Not at this particular moment, sweetheart.” He sat her at his waist.

Her arms circled his neck. “I like to play horsey!”

“But I do not like to have grass stains on my knees before Aunt Jane,” he whispered to her ear. “Play ball with your papa, and we shall have a game of tag later. Will that do?”

She gave him a determined nod and stretched her legs in the familiar gesture which said,
let me down
.

Watching Mary-Rose run to Edward, Robert caught Jane watching him. She smiled, but there was a glint in her emerald eyes which suggested she was close to tears. She looked away and sipped her lemonade.

Did she want children? She’d had none with the old Duke. She could not have them as his son’s mistress. Had she birthed children and been forced to give them up?

Robert moved to kneel beside her on the rug and accepted a glass from John.

“This is cool and very welcome,” Jane said in comment of the lemonade, looking at Robert again, with eyes that no longer bore tears.

“Yes,” he answered, but as he said it, he tried to tell her in a look that he understood. She smiled and looked away. Heavens, she’d been here little more than an hour, and he felt as though he was fast unravelling at the seams.

“You’ll not play?” Edward called as John returned to their game. Robert turned and found his brother’s gaze observing far too much.

He’d told Ellen and Edward little more than the servants. If Jane wished to tell them anything more, it was up to her. Ellen had not challenged him. He assumed she’d guessed there was more to it, but her sensitivity meant she surmised it was best not to delve. Edward, however, lacked his wife’s diplomacy. He’d asked numerous times.
Why had they fallen out? How had they made up?
But he’d not registered that Robert and Jane had once shared feelings far deeper than brother and sister. Until now.

Robert watched the knowledge dawn on Edward’s face. Even if Jane’s current affections were for Sutton, there was still that something between them, and the summer air had felt thicker and heavier since her arrival. He had a feeling it was the same for her, and, evidently, the attraction was not invisible to others.

Edward’s smile lifted awkwardly, and he answered himself. “I take it not then.”

Robert drank his lemonade. What Edward thought was his concern. It was what Jane thought that mattered.

And so Robert told his brother later when they were left alone to drink their port.

“You are a sly bastard,” Edward answered in response. “So, when did this little affair of yours begin? You have kept it all cloak and dagger.”

“I have not kept it anything. Nothing is happening. It is no affair, and for God’s sake, do not let Jane know you believe it is. You will have her running a mile to get away from me. ”

Edward’s face puckered. “Then why is she here, Robert? What
is
going on?”

Leaning back in the chair, looking at Edward, Robert wondered whether to speak or not. He’d never shared the story.

Edward waited.

Robert lifted his glass of port to his lips and looked at Davis, silently sending the servants out.

“Nothing,” he said once they’d gone, before leaning forward and resting one arm on the table. “It is as I told you. She had an accident. She needs some time and somewhere to get over it. I owe her the opportunity. But if you must know, my relationship with Jane was not fraternal while I was at Oxford.”

“What!” Edward’s mouth dropped open, and his eyes widened.

“See, you do not know all you think you do. We had feelings for each other then. We used to meet in secret.”

“Bloody hell! And I thought you more distant then because you had outgrown our company.”

Robert smiled. He’d
let
Edward draw false conclusions. “I offered for her, but she was already promised to Sutton.” Robert looked up at the ceiling, angry with himself again for his ill-judged behaviour. He took a breath to fight back the agony of guilt and looked back at his brother. “Anyway, the short of it is, she told me she was already engaged. I charged off in a rage, thinking it was her doing and she’d played me for a fool. She’d been forced into it though … ” Robert’s voice cracked, lost in the pool of emotions roiling inside him.

Edward’s expression was disbelief, then concern. There had been a measure of understanding this afternoon, but now, Robert saw it was all slotting into place in his brother’s head. “
She
is why you dropped out of Oxford and left for the continent.”

Robert nodded. He did not like to admit it. He’d never told anyone. Yet now it was out it seemed better just to tell the whole. “Father sent me abroad. He loathed my behaviour in London. I did not wish to tell him how much I hurt inside. I did not wish to mar the high opinion he had of Jane. I did his bidding. I still thought her the villain then.”

“Good God,” was all Edward said.

“See, little brother, for all these years, you’ve hated me for deserting father. It was father who banished me.”

“But why not return when he died?” This had been Edward’s bone of contention for years. Robert knew it. Edward had taken on the responsibility of their father’s estate at barely eighteen. He’d never forgiven Robert for not coming back to take it over himself.

“Because, by that point, I could not stand to even be in the same country as her.”

Edward shook his head in astonishment. “Then why not tell me when you came home.”

“Because it was none of your business. I am only telling you now because you have guessed half of it, and I do not want you to run off with the wrong idea in your head.” Fixing a hard stare on his brother, Robert said, “She told me she was forced to accept Sutton when I was in London before we left. That is why I have asked her here. Sutton treated her badly. I’m giving her time and a place to recover. She told me if I’d asked, she would have run away with me before she’d married him. I did not ask. I turned my back, let her down and blamed
her
. I owe her this. It is nothing more. Do not make it so, or you’ll make her uncomfortable. Heavens, even Ellen has backed off, because she’s realised the girl has suffered enough.”

“Ellen knows?”

“Ellen’s guessed, I think.”

Edward drank from his glass of port then said, “Jane and you. God, you are a dark horse. How? I never noticed. We must have all been blind?”

Robert smiled and shrugged.

“And now? What do you feel for her, now?”

Robert did not answer.

“You love her,” Edward answered for him. “What does she feel for you?”

Robert shrugged again. “Who knows? I think she feels something, but she has made it clear, on several occasions in London, she does not want me.” He did not say there was someone else, although, suddenly, he longed to share it. He longed to share at least a little of his pain with someone. He’d carried her loss for so many years.

“Is that why you fell out? She said it was her fault.”

The memory of that moment at Vauxhall was suddenly vivid in Robert’s mind. “Yes,” he breathed then added, “but I did not know the truth then.”

Edward drained his glass, set it down, then rose and walked about the table to lay a hand on Robert’s shoulder. It was the most conciliatory gesture they’d shared since Robert’s return from abroad. For the last couple of years, Edward had tolerated Robert, but not liked him. “You can charm her. Make the girl fall back in love with you. After all, is that not your greatest skill?”

Robert laughed and set his hand over Edward’s briefly. “Sadly, it does not seem to work on Jane. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

Edward laughed and tapped Robert’s shoulder. “Well, now you have Ellen on your side. Jane had better watch out. She has no idea the power my wife can wield.”

Robert rose. “It is only thanks to Ellen she’s here at all. Your wife had to hint to me that there was more to Jane’s marriage before it occurred to me to ask.”