The earl was determined to go out.
He eyed his reflection in the mirror as he adjusted his tie, black against the snowy whiteness of his shirt and the silver of his brocade vest. He slipped on a dinner jacket with tails. It was two days since the scandal had broken, three since he’d lain with his wife. They’d been avoiding each other with purposeful determination—he had only passed her in the corridors coming and going. She had not come down to breakfast since their fight.
He should be glad, but he wasn’t. He was angry, and maybe even depressed.
He had his own sources, so he knew the theater was packed every night since their marriage, just as he knew Jane was right—people were going now to see her, the Fallen Angel, to feast with their own eyes upon the Lord of Darkness’s wife, the mother of his bastard. Sometimes she was heckled by the audience, usually after the final curtain, but once in a while during an act. The press would still be hounding her if it wasn’t for him. He had assigned two manservants to Jane, to keep them away from her.
He wanted to help her, but he didn’t know how.
He eyed himself with distaste in the mirror. She’d had only to marry him to find the devil’s tail and descend with him into sheer hell. She was his wife and, being such, was brought down with him. Had he foreseen the consequences, he would have never married her, despite Nicole, because it was killing him to watch her suffer so staunchly. He could bear the unbearable burden of scandal and ostracism, but Jane was fragile, no matter how brave. And she was kind and good. She did not deserve what he had brought down upon her.
That he was the instrument of her ruination tortured him.
He sighed heavily and left the room. His strides slowed as he went down the hall, getting slower still when he heard Chad laughing. The sound came from her sitting room. Then he heard her voice, the words not yet distinct. Slowing even more, he finally hesitated, just beyond the partly open door.
“‘But what shall we do?’ Gretel cried. She was afraid of the witch.
“‘Don’t worry,’ Hansel replied. ‘I have a wonderful idea. We’ll take stones, Gretel, and drop them behind us to leave a trail so we can find our way!’” Jane read animatedly.
“He’s smart,” Chad cried excitedly. “It’s what I would do!”
“Is it?” Jane asked, affection in her tone.
The earl swallowed heavily. She was reading a fairy tale to his son. Unable to go on, he stepped closer, to peer into the room.
Jane continued reading. She was seated on the watered silk settee, her legs bent beneath her. Nicole was in the crook of one arm, sucking her thumb contentedly. Chad sat on the floor at her feet, leaning against the sofa, gazing up at her raptly. A blooded Labrador puppy that the earl had given him on his last birthday gamboled around his feet.
The earl could not breathe. He listened to Jane’s sweet, soft voice, his gaze fixed upon her. Her hair was loose, falling over her shoulders in glorious disarray. Nicole decided to suck on a hunk, but Jane didn’t seem to notice or even mind. She was so beautiful. She was such a wonderful mother.
He closed his eyes briefly. He was on his way to a party, with Amelia. Opening them, he knew such a lump of longing he could not swallow it. He did not want to go out. He wanted to go inside Jane’s room, sit on the end of the settee at her feet, and listen to her read to their children. He wanted it so badly it hurt.
Yet he was afraid. Nothing could make him enter that room. Nor could he force his feet to move to continue on his way.
And then she looked up, as Chad shrieked at something she’d read, and she saw him.
Her expression was wide-eyed, and she stared.
The earl didn’t move, he couldn’t.
“Papa!” Chad shouted, bouncing to his feet. He ran to the earl and hugged his thighs, then tugged on him. “Come, listen to the story about the witch!”
The earl stared at Jane, his heart pounding in his ears. She was motionless, like a small, mesmerized bird. She did not invite him in.
He felt the acute disappointment washing over him.
He found his ability to function, and he ruffled Chad’s hair. “Sorry, son, I have an appointment.”
Chad pouted briefly, then raced back to his spot on the floor at Jane’s feet. Color was suffusing her face, and she dropped her gaze to the book. “Have a nice evening,” she said, strained.
“Thank you,” he returned, equally strained. “You too.”
His limbs were wooden, but he managed to turn and leave. And as he went downstairs he listened intently to her voice until he could hear it no more.
Jane couldn’t shake the incident from her mind. Had the earl wanted to join them? Should she have invited him in? She felt guilty that she had not, guilty and cruel, yet he had told Chad he had an appointment. Appointment! Hah! With that damned tart Amelia, undoubtedly.
It hurt. It hurt too much to even think about, yet Jane could no more turn off her thoughts than she could stop a flood. She had never dreamed marriage to him would be so painful.
She was tired, exhausted in fact, from the stress of the past few days, both of living in high tension with the earl, even though they rarely saw each other, and of living with the scandal that London was still thriving on. There had been another packed house, although not quite full this time. The hecklers had been worse than ever tonight. Some drunken men in a front row had been taunting her with epithets throughout the final act. Jane had ignored them, but their cries for her to be their Fallen Angel had truly shaken her. She slumped on the sofa in her dressing room at the Criterion.
