“Jon,” Rathe said quietly, yet there was authority in his tone, “let’s leave them alone.”
“You knew he was coming,” Lindley hurled. “Yet you didn’t tell us!”
“He is my brother—and the father of Nicole.”
“I am not moving,” Lindley stated. “Jane, we don’t have to stay here and take this abuse. Let’s go back to the hotel.”
Jane bit her lip, tears coming to her eyes, and she nodded. But she only took a step before the earl grabbed her, hauling her to him. “You lied to me! You told me you were going to the house on Gloucester Street! Instead you left me!” His voice broke, agonized. “Damn you, Jane, how could you?”
“How could I not?” Her voice quavered. “How could I not? You expected me to remain with you as your mistress and send you home to Patricia every night? This I could not, and cannot, do!”
He stared, then he shook her. “Did I ask you to be my mistress?” he shouted. “Did I?”
“You said there was an obvious solution!” she cried back. “You said you would take care of me! Did you or did you not?”
He released her, incredulous. “You fool! Do you know me so little? Jane, I—” He stopped, unable to continue. He wrenched away and wiped the sweat from his brow. And Jane stared at his back, hope so plainly etched on her face that Lindley allowed Rathe to lead him from the salon, closing the doors on them both and leaving them alone.
Jane waited, unmoving.
He turned to face her. There was a suspicious film on his eyes. “I didn’t just come here to bring Chad to his grandparents,” he said, low.
She swallowed. She gulped down tears.
“I cannot let you go from my life, Jane. I cannot.”
“I will not be your mistress,” she said, and then her face collapsed and she moaned. “Oh, damn you, Nicholas! Why couldn’t you let me go? Why?”
She sank onto the couch. “Leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but staying with you will surely kill me, a little bit every day.” She stared at him out of glazed eyes. “But you know what?” Her voice quavered. “I would rather die a little bit every day with you than live without you in a world that would be frozen and barren and lifeless.”
She closed her eyes, his widened. “All right,” she said heavily, her voice breaking. “You win. I love you too much, you see. I will return with you, I will be your mistress. For as long as you want me, I will be yours.”
He cried out and dropped down beside her, wrapping her in his arms. She began to cry. So did he. “Jane, you fool! I am getting a divorce! How could you think anything otherwise?”
“What?” She pushed a bit away, blinking, cheeks tearstained and nose as red as a cherry.
“It will be final very shortly. Patricia already knows. How could you not have understood what I meant when I said there was an obvious solution?”
“A divorce?” She gasped.
“Jane—did I hear you right?” He brushed hair from her cheek. His hand trembled. His own cheeks were as damp as hers. “Did you say you love me?”
“I’ve always loved you, Nicholas,” she said simply. “From that first moment when we met in the parlor with Aunt Matilda.”
He crushed her to him, hard, his power raw and agonized and so immense, Jane knew, in that moment, that he loved her too, with an intensity she had never dreamed of.
“Will you marry me?” he whispered humbly. “Jane, please, will you be my wife?”
“Yes, Nicholas, oh, yes.” She wept, clinging.
They rocked each other for a long time, his lips pressing against her cheek and temple and hair again and again, until she turned her mouth up to his, and blindly, their lips met in mad desperation. It was a long, hot, hard kiss filled with the power of love.
“I love you,” he finally said. “Jane. Jane, God, I love you.”
She understood what it cost him to say it, she could hear it in his low, barely audible, strained tone. He cupped her face to look at her. “Jane, I’ve never said it before, not to Patricia, not to anyone.”
“I know,” she said, attempting to stall the tears.
He fought himself too. “I—I never felt this for her, it wasn’t like this. What I feel for you—I can’t live without you,” he managed, raw.
