The Proud Viscount (16 page)

An instant wariness gripped her. There was something about the way he stood, something about the look in his eyes. This was not a stringless summons. He intended to add a more sensual element to their relationship. She could tell. It was probably, she assured herself, because he’d just come from that Fulton woman. Yes, that was it. She could read the heightened interest in his eyes, sense the tension in his body, for all its seeming casualness. She would not go to him.

And yet, his desire drew her. She was not unfamiliar with a man’s desire. With Richard it had taken only that special light in his eyes to make her own body begin to ache. That couldn’t possibly happen with Rossmere. She hardly knew him. It was true that she admired his manly stance and the way he rode Ascot, but that had nothing to do with more intimate matters, nor with the state of her heart, which was irrevocably Richard’s.

She found her hand in his and had no idea how it had gotten there. His fingers were warm, reassuring, holding her in a firm grip as he looked into her eyes. Jane couldn’t meet his gaze for more than a moment. Her lashes fluttered, her eyes skittered away from him.

“Look at me, Jane.”

It took a tremendous effort to do it. And she could feel her hand begin to tremble, her chest tighten, her core swell with anticipation. There was a demand in his eyes, and a promise.

“I’m going to kiss you,” he said. “There’s no need to be frightened. It will only be a kiss. I think I must remind you that I’m not merely a dependent of your aunt’s, or the owner of Ascot, or the person who can help you rescue your sister. I’m a man offering you marriage, with all that entails. For both of us.”

He drew her to him and encircled her with his arms. His mouth descended slowly, coming to rest warmly against hers. She could feel the pull from him, like a tide, drawing on the sensitive parts of her, tugging her toward him. The strength of his attraction was frightening, but she made no attempt to break away from him. It was only a kiss, after all. She was not a fluffy-headed fifteen-year-old to have her head turned by a kiss. By the time he released her, gently setting her a pace back from him, she could barely catch her breath.

“Please consider it, Jane. It’s really the only solution.” Before she could think of an answer, he had turned and left the room.

Chapter 13

Jane spent the better part of the next day trying to avoid Rossmere. It was not that she didn’t wish to see him. Indeed, something in her very much longed to see him, if only to ascertain if he would have the same effect on her that he had had the night before. Unlikely, surely. It had been the late hour, the urgency of the situation, the content of his proposal. Marriage! How could she think of marrying him?

How could she not? Her sister’s very life might be at stake. Jane knew she would do anything to protect Nancy, but was this drastic measure really necessary? There could be no walking away from a marriage, once made.

And what kind of husband would Rossmere make? He hated the thought of marrying for money, and he would have done it. He obviously found a very different kind of woman appealing. He didn’t seem concerned that his own family name and title be carried on to the next generation. In short, he had no reason to marry her at all, except that he needed money.

The only way she could be truly helpful to him financially would be to sell Graywood. Most of the other money she would bring to the marriage would be settled on the next generation, as had been the case with both of her sisters. Not all of it, but a significant portion. And Jane wasn’t willing to sell Graywood. It had been Richard’s family home and was bound irrevocably in her mind with him, with her sense of his love for her. He had trusted her to maintain the place, to keep it in the family.

And to live with Rossmere there... Impossible! She would feel like a traitor to her love. It didn’t matter that Richard, who had been an eminently practical man, would have taken one look at the situation and said, “Well, of course you must live there with him.” She simply could not do it.

Yet there was a tiny part of her mind, behind all of these considerations, that contemplated it. Not with her permission. And not because it might prove absolutely necessary. Just because of his impact on her. Because she remembered now that her hand had tightened around his waist, that she had wanted to run her fingers through the rough black hair, that the feel of his lips on hers had somehow changed her. She was not, after all, the person who had gone up to her room last night, settled in the knowledge that she would never love anyone other than Richard. A part of her knew better, and whether she agreed to acknowledge that part or not, it was there.

Jane was relatively successful in avoiding the viscount for the day. She could read the amusement in his eyes as she hurriedly passed him in corridors or slipped out of the house to reduce their chances of meeting. She even rode over to Graywood, ostensibly to make sure her tenants were leaving the place in good condition. She made no effort to see the house, but confined herself to an inspection of the grounds after dropping off a cheese for the Browns.

Her tenants had had gardeners to care for the wild woodland glades and great herbaceous borders. The glass houses weren’t in use, but the rock garden adjoining the lake had been weeded with care. Jane remembered the rhododendron dell in the spring. She had walked there with Richard, surrounded by the lush pink blossoms. He had stuck one in her hair and laughed at how sticky his fingers got from handling it. He had kissed her in the great walled garden with its pergolas, out of sight of any prying eye.

Oh, Richard. Her throat ached with missing him. The sadness descended on her as usual... and yet not quite as usual. There was a distance she hadn’t experienced before. As though all of those hours and days spent together were long ago, truly in the past. Stubbornly she protested against the change: it was only a year! She could still remember walking beside him, their arms about each other’s waists, laughing, treasuring the good days.

For the first time she realized that Richard’s illness had given them more privilege than she had thought. They hadn’t had to face the same kind of reality as other people. There had been that one positive aspect. Without the responsibility of marrying and raising a family, they had been able to thumb their noses at society, to abandon the usual conventions, to love each other and share with each other in a way almost unknown to other couples. That freedom could never be duplicated with another man.

It had been a small-enough compensation for all the pain they were forced to endure, her mind insisted. There was no doubt that she’d been spoiled for any other situation, though. Look at Rossmere. The very picture of a cool, self-contained gentleman. What use would he have for a wife, other than as mother of his children, provider of a dowry to get him out of his financial bind? Jane could no more envision him cozily domesticated than she could see Ascot tamed.

Rossmere was not precisely reckless, except perhaps on the horse. But he did have a rather cavalier attitude toward women, if Jane was not mistaken. Oh, sexually he could be tempted by even such an elderly spinster as herself (after a visit to a former mistress), but he would never regard her in the light of beloved companion as Richard had. She and Richard had read books together and discussed ideas; they had had private jokes; they had been able to look honestly at the people and situations around them.

Rossmere wouldn’t understand that kind of relationship. In all truth, few men would. Perhaps only a man who was mentally unbalanced, Jane thought bitterly. Oh, if only there were some other way she could protect her sister!

Jane did manage to avoid private conversation with Rossmere for the entire day. She suspected that he was allowing her the time to consider his offer and that he wouldn’t be as easy to evade on the following day. When he joined her and Mabel at the breakfast table, a great deal earlier than he usually did, she felt sure he would insist on an interview. Mabel, the soul of determination, rose shortly after he arrived.

“I have a thousand things to do, my dear,” she told Jane. “Lord Rossmere, you must certainly try the potted beef and the muffins. A man needs to keep up his strength with a good breakfast, I always say.”

When she had hastened from the room, Rossmere regarded Jane with a rueful smile. “She’s a very subtle woman, my godmother.”

“Isn’t she?” Jane sat back in her chair, attempting to look calm. “I’m not in charity with her just now, because she refuses to understand Nancy’s danger.”

“I daresay that’s not the only reason.”

True. Another bone of contention was that Aunt Mabel continued to urge Jane to marry Rossmere, but Jane wasn’t going to discuss that aspect of the problem. “I have a number of errands to do myself this morning. I’m sure you’ll understand if I don’t stay with you while you dine.”

“No, I really wouldn’t understand that,” Rossmere insisted as he helped himself to a muffin from the silver basket on the sideboard. “We really need to talk, you and I. You’ve had a day to consider my proposal. Even if you haven’t come to any firm decision, I’d appreciate your giving me some idea of what your thoughts are on the subject.”

Jane met his bold blue eyes uneasily. “My thoughts are quite chaotic, Lord Rossmere.”

“If you don’t start calling me Stephen, I shall assume the very worst.”

“Perhaps that would be best.”

His eyes narrowed. “I’m sure it wouldn’t. Look, Jane, I don’t like to see you squirm. There really is no other solution. The sooner you accept that, the better it will be for all of us, your sister included. I know the idea doesn’t sit well with you, and I’m sorry for that.”

“It can’t sit well with you, either.”

He offered a wide, infectious smile. “The idea is growing on me. In fact, it has taken firm root. I’ve been stubborn and called it natural pride. A man would be frivolous indeed not to consider marriage to you a most felicitous accomplishment.”

“Save your pretty phrases for... Ascot,” she retorted. “We’ve been discussing a marriage of convenience. I don’t want you to pretend that it pleases you any more than it pleases me.”

“And I take it that is not at all?”

Jane couldn’t tell if this truly disturbed him. The line of his jaw seemed to harden. She deemed it safest not to answer his question. “I’ve tried to come to some decision. At times I even doubt my own perceptions. What if I’ve blown the whole situation out of proportion? What if Nancy somehow isn’t in danger?”

“Do you really believe that?”

‘‘No."

“Then you must believe that she is. And if she is, the best way to help her is to fall in with my proposal.” He watched with a degree of impatience as she shook her head slowly, more in annoyance than in dispute of his words. “You’ve thought about it, Jane. What other solution is there?”

She could have advanced the old arguments, but it seemed a waste of time. A great rebellion rose in her, however, and she pushed her chair back from the table. “I don’t wish to discuss the matter now.”

“Ah, well, I can understand that. There are, as you will recall, any number of topics I am unwilling to discuss.”

If he was trying to lighten the moment for her, he was totally unsuccessful. Jane frowned at him where he stood holding his filled plate. How could she possibly marry this forceful stranger? It was grossly unfair of fate to deal her another wretched hand of cards.

“I simply cannot answer you now,” she declared. “Perhaps tomorrow.” And this time she took the opportunity of leaving before he could manage some self-evident and irritating statement of his own.

* * * *

Jane was informed an hour later by Winters that “Lord Rossmere will not be back until a rather advanced hour.”

“But where has he gone?”

Winters cleared his throat. “His lordship did not see fit to advise me of his destination, my lady. Barnes, however, hinted that Ascot would be in grave danger in anyone else’s hands in London.”

“London! Rossmere has ridden Ascot into London?”

“I believe so, my lady.”

Really, it was too bad of him to take off for the city without offering her a word of explanation. Not that she would have stopped him. But if he was going to return that very day, he might have invited her to accompany him. It was always a treat to spend a few hours in London, and Tilly would have provided a perfectly adequate chaperone for the two of them. Jane could have looked at the gowns and hats displayed in the most fashionable shops, or browsed through a museum. She wouldn’t have expected Rossmere’s company. The trip would have provided a welcome change of pace.

Of course, even if he’d invited her, she could not possibly have gone. For the time being, at least, she must stay at Willow End in case there was any word from Nancy. Or better, she realized suddenly, if she simply removed herself to Parnham Hall. John Parnham could hardly send her packing home, and if she was there, she could be a greater protection for her sister. Why hadn’t she thought of this before?

Because it was a temporary, desperate solution, her more rational mind prompted. No more than an attempt to avoid answering Rossmere. Running away, in essence. She could do very little good at Parnham Hall.

Enough to make it worthwhile, she countered as she hurried up the oak staircase. Tilly was in her room, brushing lint from a pelisse Jane had worn the previous day. Jane set her to packing.

“For an extended stay,” she said, her tone defiant. Poor Tilly had no idea why, but it didn’t matter. Jane had seldom felt such a miserable combination of fear, frustration, and excitement. It would do her good to match her wits against Parnham’s. They’d all treated the villain in far too civilized a manner!

When there was a tap at her door, Tilly took the note from Winters and handed it to her. How fortuitous that it should be from Nancy. Jane ripped it open and quickly scanned the sheet. Her heart thudded painfully in her chest. She hastened into the corridor and called after the retreating Winters.

“Is my father in the house?”

“I believe so, Lady Jane. He was in the study not more than half an hour ago.”