“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Don’t forget to put the guard about the fire, then, when you leave, ma’am.”
“I won’t.” She smiled. “Thank you for reminding me. Good night.”
“Good night, ma’am,” he replied.
She would read until she was too tired to keep her eyes open, she decided. She seated herself beside the fire, in the chair Jocelyn had occupied during the afternoon, and picked up a book. Not the one from which he had read. She left that where it was. Perhaps he would wish to continue with chapter three next time he came. She opened her book to the page at which she had left off reading the night before and set it on her lap.
She gazed into the fire.
She should not have allowed him in here. She knew that she would no longer think of this room as hers. It was theirs. She could feel his presence here. She could see him as he had been earlier, sprawled comfortably but not inelegantly in this chair. She could hear his voice reading fromMansfield Parkas if he were as lost in the story as she had been. And she could see him standing at the window.…
It was unfair. She could have coped with her new life if their relationship had proceeded, as she had expected, along purely sexual lines. She knew enough to realize that sex was not love, especially sex between a rakish duke and his mistress. She did not know whatthiswas.
He had spent longer than two hours in this room with her this afternoon—with his mistress—without once touching her. He had not taken her to bed. After tea, during which they had discussed the war and political reform—she was a pacifist, he was not; she was unreservedly in favor of reform, he was far more cautiously so—he had got to his feet quite abruptly, made her a bow, bade her a good afternoon, and gone on his way.
He had left her feeling empty inside. Though that could not be strictly true or she would not also have felt all churned up—her body, her mind, her emotions.
For almost the whole time they had been here together in the den, he had not been the Duke of Tresham. He had been Jocelyn. But Jocelyn with far fewer reservations than she was accustomed to. Jocelyn without any mask. A person in need of being himself as he had never been before. A man in need of friendship and acceptance and—ah, yes.
Jane sighed aloud.
A man in need of love.
But she doubted he would ever accept that ultimate gift even if he acknowledged the need to himself.
She doubted even more that he was capable of returning the gift.
And who was she to offer? A fugitive. A murderess—no, not that. She was even beginning to believe it herself. She did not think the blow she had given Sidney would have killed him in itself.
She shuddered at the memories.
And then she set her head back against the chair and listened to the sounds of Mr. Jacobs or Phillip at the front door, locking up for the night. A moment later there was a tap on her door.
“Come in,” she called. It must be midnight or later. The servants should be in bed.
He looked powerful and satanic, covered from neck to ankles in a long black opera cloak. He stood in the doorway, one hand still on the knob, while her stomach performed a complete somersault and she knew that indeed the afternoon had been disastrous to her.
“Still up?” he asked. “I saw light beneath the door.”
“Do you have your own key?” she asked him.
“Of course,” he replied. “This is my house.”
She got to her feet and moved toward him. She had simply not expected him.
And then a strange thing happened. He took his hand from the doorknob as she approached and spread his arms to the sides, revealing the white silk lining of the cloak and the elegant black and white evening clothes he wore beneath. But Jane did not really notice the splendor of his appearance. She kept walking and was soon enveloped in the folds of his cloak while she lifted her face and he lowered his own both at the same time.
It was a long and deep and fierce embrace. But the strange thing was that it was not sexual—not entirely so anyway. Jane had little experience with embraces, but she knew instinctively that he was not just a man kissing his mistress prior to taking her to bed. He was Jocelyn. And he was kissing her, Jane.
By the time the embrace ended he was the Duke of Tresham again.
“I will be putting you to work tonight, Jane,” he said.
“Of course.” She stood back and smiled.
And then gasped with alarm when he caught her hard by the wrist and gazed down at her with hard, cold eyes.
“No!” he said fiercely. “You will not smile at me in that way, Jane, like a jaded coquette hiding her weary cynicism behind a cool smile of invitation. There is noof courseabout it. If you do not want me, then tell me to go to hell and I will go.”
