“Come here,” he said, reaching out a hand to touch her.
She curled up against him, and he lowered her nightgown, drew up the bedclothes, wrapped his arms about her, pillowed his cheek against the top of her head, and fell asleep.
He had frequently spent nights at the house and staggered home at dawn to sleep. He had neverslepta night at the house. When he had come this time, he had intended a few hours of vigorous sport just to remind both Jane and himself of the basic nature of their liaison.
He awoke when daylight was pouring into the room. Jane, tousled and flushed and delicious, was still asleep in his arms.
He drew free of her and swung himself out of bed, waking her in the process. She smiled sleepily at him.
“My apologies,” he said stiffly as he pulled on his evening clothes. “I daresay according to that infernal contract I have no right intruding on your privacy when I am not actually asserting my rights. I will be gone in a moment.”
“Jocelyn,” she said with soft reproach, and then she had the unmitigated gall to laugh.
With glee.
At him.
“I amuse you?” He scowled at her.
“I do believe,” she said, “you areembarrassedthat you slept instead of spending the night demonstrating your renowned prowess as a lover. You seem always to have to prove your superior manhood.”
The fact that she was perfectly right did not improve his mood.
“I am delighted to have amused you at least,” he said, throwing his cloak about him with a vicious swing of his arm and buttoning it at his throat. “I shall do myself the honor of calling upon you some other time when I have need of you. Good morning.”
“Jocelyn,” she said softly again when he already had the door of the bedchamber open. He looked back at her with haughtily raised eyebrows. “It was a wonderful night. You are lovely to sleep with.”
He did not wait to discover if she mocked him or not. He stepped through the door and closed it none too quietly behind him.
Devil take it, he thought, noticing the clock in the hallway as he descended the stairs and noticing too with a grimace that Jacobs was waiting there to let him out, it was seven o’clock. He had been here for seven hours. He had been in her bed for seven hours, and he had had intercourse with her once.Once!
He bade the butler a curt good morning and strode off down the street, noticing with some satisfaction that the twinge of stiffness in his right leg was becoming less pronounced each day.
You are lovely to sleep with.
Jocelyn chuckled despite himself. She was right, goddammit. It had been a lovely night, and he felt more refreshed by his sleep than he had in a long while.
He would go home to bathe and change, he decided, and then go shopping—for a small pianoforte and for sketching and painting supplies. Perhaps the best thing to do about this whole extraordinary situation was to go along with it, let it happen, let it proceed in its own way and at its own pace to its inevitable conclusion. Sooner or later he would grow weary of Jane Ingleby. He had of every woman he had ever known or bedded. He would of her too—perhaps in a month, perhaps in two, perhaps in a year.
In the meantime, why not just enjoy the novel feeling of being—ah, yes, the fateful words that hovered in the background of his thoughts and threatened to verbalize themselves.
Why not?
Why not enjoy the feeling of being in love?
Why not revel in the ultimate foolishness for once in his life?
WORKING IN THE GARDENlater that same morning, enjoying the exercise, loving the brightness and heat of the sun on her back, Jane came to a decision.
She was in love with him, of course. Worse than that, she thought she was also growing tolovehim. There was no point in trying to deny her feelings and no use whatsoever in trying to fight them.
She loved him.
But it would not do, of course. She was not foolish enough to imagine that he would ever love her in return, though she knew that he was in the grip of a serious obsession with her. Besides, even if he ever did love her, there could be no happily-ever-after to expect. She was his mistress. And she was who she was.
But she could not live forever as a fugitive. She should never have given in to the cowardly impulse that had sent her scurrying into hiding in the first place. It had been so unlike her normal self. She was going to have to come out of hiding and do what she ought to have done as soon as she discovered that Lady Webb was not in London to help her.
She was going to find the Earl of Durbury if he was still in town. If he was not, she was going to find out where the Bow Street Runners had their headquarters and go there. She was going to write to Charles. She was going to tell her story to anyone who would listen. She was going to embrace her fate. Perhaps she would be arrested and tried and convicted of murder. Perhaps that would mean a hanging or at the very least transportation or lifelong imprisonment. But she would not give in meekly. She would fight like the very devil to the last moment—but not by running away and hiding.
