He began a gentle, determined offensive on her lips.Her mouth opened in answer, and his tongue flicked in.Jane unconsciously responded, kissing him back tentatively.He tasted ...enticing.She felt the crisp starched linen of his cravat under one hand while the fingers of her other hand entwined in his soft, wavy hair.
“You excite me,” he said.
Dalton broke away from her questing mouth.He glanced around the room before he stooped to gather her in his arms.He strode to the desk and kicked out the chair from beneath it and sat down with her in his lap, then resumed his seduction of her lips.His hand played across her neck and slipped lower to briefly cup her breast before settling to caressing her waist and hip in slow, hypnotic swirls.Time was suspended, her mind in a haze.
He murmured against her mouth as he kissed her.
Jane barely heard him and made no answer.
“What do you say?”he said.
“Pardon?”was Jane’s muffled response as she kissed his jaw.
He stopped kissing her.
Jane opened her eyes to find his searching gaze on her, his head tilted back, his eyes watching her face.“Marry me, Jane.”
She held herself quite still as her befuddled brain tried to catch up with his words.
Silent, he awaited an answer.
Slowly his meaning became clear to her.Jane felt a rush of surprise and happiness.She was breathless and blushing.He wants to marry me!
How wonderful!How awful!
Jane froze with surprise and fear.She heard her mother’s moans and her breathless voice—saw her pain-filled face as she labored to birth her twelfth baby.She remembered the frail woman her mother had become, wasting away, leaving Jane to raise her beloved siblings.
She couldn’t marry him.And she didn’t love him.She couldn’t.
Bewilderment and dismay washed through her.
She stared unseeingly at him.“No, Lord Dalton.I can’t marry you.It’s absolutely against my principles.”
He looked thunderstruck.“Your principles, Jane?”
She slid from his lap to stand before him, stumbling to her feet.Her mouth compressed into a firm line to stop it trembling.“Yes.Marriage for me is impossible!You need heirs, and I willneverhave children.”She paused and sucked in a breath.“I thank you for the offer, but I must decline.”Her chest ached with unshed tears.
He was outraged, she could tell.She was refusing an offer from a peer.She was refusing wealth and privilege and a comfortable life with a family—for her principles.Anger appeared to grow within him as she watched.
He offered his hand.“If you won’t marry me because of your principles, then be my lover.”His voice was cold.
Her soul chilled.She recoiled from him.“No!That would be worse than being your wife.I would hold even less hope for esteem in society if I took that path.The outcome would be just the same!Children to raise and no freedom, but with none of the benefits of status and wealth that would go with marriage.”
His anger seemed to simmer on.“You have the option to choose.”
“I don’t want either!I thank you for the honor of your marriage proposal, and I thank you for consideration of me as a mistress, however, I must decline both!”She could not meet his eyes.She caught her breath, tried to return to her usual calm tone.“It would be better if we did not meet again in the near future.”
Jane crossed the office and opened the door, indicating that he was to depart.Numb, she watched him stand, bow stiffly, and leave.He wasn’t only departing the room, but the Home and her life.
***
DAZED, JONATHAN EXITEDthe room.His anger drained away as he strode down the hall.He passed through the front door of the Home with a preoccupied nod to Joe.
“Drive on!”he commanded as he entered his carriage.He would send it back for her later.
He collapsed onto the seat, trying to make sense of the last few minutes.He felt the joy of having her in his arms again.He saw her heaving chest and flushed cheeks.He couldn’t be mistaken about her feelings.She had responded to him fully and passionately.
He had offered her marriage, shown her the passion that could exist between them and still she wouldn’t have him.
