There was perhaps a single moment when he could have prevented what was about to happen, when he could have pulled back and made another joke.A single moment.Although perhaps not, as he admitted later when he had time to think it all over.He would have had to be superhuman to resist the temptation of the moment. He was alone with the woman he had grown to love and in the near-privacy of a room with an unmanageable door. Quite without premeditation he was very close to her. And the space between them was a powerful magnet that was not to be resisted.
He closed the gap between their mouths and kissed her. But the invisible magnet was far too powerful to be satisfied by that single action. His right arm went about her, his left hand along her jaw. And his mouth opened over hers, instantly demanding, instantly hungry for more than a mere outer touch. And she responded as instantly and as eagerly. Her shoulder dipped beneath his and her arm came around him. Her other hand reached for his shoulder. And her mouth opened beneath his without any coquetry, any coaxing. She gasped when his tongue plunged into her mouth, exciting him beyond thought.
His hand was at her breast, a beautifully firm, small breast. He wanted the warm smoothness of it in his hand. He pushedungentlyat the low neckline of her gown and she shrugged the fabric away from her shoulder and down her arm until he could lay his palm against her hard nipple and caress the warm softness around it.
He had her on her feet suddenly, pulled hard againsthim,one hand cupped against the back of her head while he covered her face with kisses and lowered his mouth to her throat and her breasts, both now free of her bodice. And back to her mouth again to ravish itwith his own. His hands went behind her waist and moved lower, hard and straining, pulling her to him, wanting her, aching and throbbing for her.
Jane.His beautiful Jane.His love."Jane. Jane." He could hear himself whispering her name against her hair. He looked down at her, at her eyes dreamy with passion, her mouth already swollen from his kisses, her long, creamy throat,herlovely firm breasts. "Jane." He looked back into her eyes. And knew suddenly with jolting clarity what was happening.
His hands came up to clasp herbruisinglyby the arms and put her from him. He half-staggered across the room until he leaned against the harpsichord. His fingers closed around it; his eyes and teeth were tightly clenched as he tried to drag his mind back to sanity, to force his body to obey his will.
When he turned back to her, his head felt cold, as if all the bloodHadbeen drained from it. Foolishly he tried to smile. "Jane, I am sorry," he said. "Oh, my dear, I am so sorry." She had covered herself already, part of his mind noticed.
She stared back at him, her eyes wide and bewildered, her hands crossed above thedecolletageof her gown. Then she turned and fled, fumbling in panic at the door. It refused to open, and she rattled and tugged at the knob, one sob escaping her. Fairfax was halfway across the room to her before the door suddenly crashed back against her and she made her escape.
Fairfax closed the door behind her as far as it would go without resistance. He laid his forehead against the carved wood paneling. He loathed himself. He had been in the process of seducing a guest in his house, the woman he had come to love more than he had ever thought possible, the betrothed of the friend he thought of as a brother.A woman so innocent that she had not even known how to resist his advances.He closed his eyes. Jane. She was like a sharp pain cutting through his body. How could he say he loved her and yet dishonor her so and disgrace his claim to the name of gentleman?
He strode restlessly up and down the room, trying to impose some sort of calm on his mind, trying to compose the impossible speech of apology.
Outside the room Honor decided after all not to knock or push on the door, which was slightly ajar. She looked thoughtfully up the stairs, where she had watched Jane flee a few moments before. She could hear no music coming from beyond the door, yet Lord Fairfax was not coming out, either. She shrugged eventually and turned back to the drawing room and the tea tray, bright with the announcement that Lord Fairfax and Jane were too absorbed in their music to come for tea just yet.
Chapter Twelve
" AuntJane, look at us!"
"Aunt Jane, please will you read us a story?"
Jane smiled, weary as she was feeling. Joy, busy with letter writing in the morning room, had asked her if she would be a dear and look in at the nursery to make sure that the children had not driven their governess to distraction or murdered one another.
Gregory, the ten-year-old, was down on all fours giving Claire horseback rides. She was clinging to his fair curls and shrieking with helpless laughter. Amanda, the middle child, was trying, amid all the noise, to read a story to her five-year-old brother. Amy, not surprisingly, was on her own, working at her painting. The nurse and the governess were working their way through a small pile of mending and having a comfortablecozeat the same time.
"Look at me, Aunt Jane," Gregory called again. "I am a horse."
"With a bruising rider on your back, I see," she said with a smile.
"Gee-up,horsey," Claire shrieked, pulling at his hair.
"Please, Aunt Jane," Amanda pleaded, holding out the book. "I have told Gregory to be quiet and he won't. And Miss George will not tell him to be quiet either. I cannot read when there is noise."
Jane sat down between Joseph's nephew and niece and opened the book on her lap. She put an arm around the young boy, who snuggled against her, and proceeded to read. She had not meant to stay, but how could one deny one's attention to children?
The story read,she crossed the room quietly to Amy, who was still intently at work. "May I see, sweetheart?" she asked. "Or is it a secret?"
The child looked up with an eager face. "I have been trying to finish before you left, Aunt Jane," she said. "It is for you."
"For me?"Jane said, moving around to Amy's side of the table.
Amy was putting the final touch to the painting—yellow rays coming from the inevitable sun in the top corner.
"Oh, Amy," she said, "how lovely it is. It is you wearing your daisy chain, except that this girl is not quite as handsome as you are. And look at all the daisies left in the grass. I shall be able to make a chain for myself out of those."
Amy giggled, the first time Jane had heard her laugh. "Silly!" she said. "They are paint. You cannot pick them."
"Ah, but I can imagine picking them," Jane said. "And that is far better because I can imagine picking them over and over again, even during the winter. Would you like to tell me the story of the picture and I shall write it down for you?"
The child's eyes lit up again. "I know how to write my name," she said. "I can write my name at the end of it."
Jane tugged gently on one glossy ringlet and went in search of paper and charcoal.
