cause of that lay at the door of their previous acquaintance, probably guilt or embarrassment, which he’d mistaken for innocence in his pathetic need to see and know his fictional Jane again. But even if he could never have his fictional Jane, it was still satisfying to know he could have her. He could take her for one night and finally free his blood of the poison her desertion had injected into his veins years before.
Oh yes, he would enjoy seeing her face in the morning when he was the one to say it has been nice, but goodbye. Was he heartless enough to want vengeance? Hell, yes! Too right, I am. He would dine on it for weeks. He could make the woman a laughing stock, if he chose, her husband but weeks dead, and yet, perhaps he was not cruel enough to go that far. He surprised himself. He had thought not an ounce of conscience left in his beleaguered honour.
“Very well, then.” His words were blunt, but he smiled, speculating on the pleasure for them both. Bending to her ear, he whispered, “To your house, or mine, sweetheart?” Touching her elbow as he spoke, to add pressure and steer her from the room, he felt her jump and saw pink flood her cheeks.
“I am staying with Lady Rimes … ” she faltered, her voice implying an intention to offer an excuse.
He was not about to let her articulate it. He’d set his mind on this now. He was not going to let her balk.
“Then it is mine. We’ll take my carriage.” He refused to let her deny him.
She shook her head. “I must tell Violet. She will wonder—”
“Leave a message with a footman. He’ll pass it on.”
He let go of her elbow and splayed his hand on the small of her back, applying an encouraging pressure to move her forward. She shifted and pulled away from his touch, walking a little ahead and separating them in the crowd.
He assumed she did it to conceal their joint exit, which meant she was ashamed to be seen with him. The thought made him irritable again.
Reaching the hall, he drew closer, his wicked and vengeful demons wanting to disconcert her – the part of him that was still hurt and angry at the way she had discarded him so easily years before. He settled his fingers on the curve of her waist in a possessive fashion. Her muscles jumped. Ignoring it, he walked on with his arm about her.
They passed four women returning from the retiring room. She kept her gaze fixed towards the door.
“The Dowager Duchess of Sutton’s cloak.” His voice echoed in the space about them. One footman disappeared. “And send for my carriage. Oh, and once we have left, please tell Lady Rimes the Duchess has gone.” Robert smiled, telling the man their reason for leaving.
When the footman returned, he held up her cloak, but Robert claimed it and put it on for her, stealing the opportunity to brush the skin at her nape and across her neckline from the back of her gown over her shoulders.
She shivered, and he saw her fingers tremble as she tied it.
It was pleasing to know he could discompose her. In fact, the thought sent his blood thrumming in his veins and a weight into his groin.
How would it feel if she shivered from his touch and his kiss when they lay naked?
The muffled sound of his carriage drawing up outside penetrated the door and his thoughts. A footman opened it and stepped back. Robert splayed his hand across her back again and felt her muscles tighten further. Her head was high and her back straight, apparently ignoring the footman’s speculation.
James, Robert’s groom, stood before them, holding the carriage door open. The step was already lowered.
Robert nodded up at his driver, Parkin, before taking Jane’s hand and helping her ascend. Once she was inside, Robert turned and whispered instructions to James, then followed her in, climbing the step and ducking inside.
He neither lit the internal lamp nor drew the blinds. Instead, he let the gas lamps in the street give them a little light, but there were not many, and the carriage was frequently thrown from light into shadow as it rolled forward.
She’d taken a seat in the opposite corner, her back still stiff, her fingers clasped on her lap, and her eyes turning to the view from the far window.
He did not break the silence, but leaned against the window beside him, propping his shoulder against the pane of glass, his elbow resting on the narrow sill and his chin on his fist. He lifted one foot to the seat on the far side, leaving his knee bent. But he did not look out the window; he looked at Jane.
Lord, she was beautiful. At times, he’d thought her beauty embroidered from his patchy memories, as much of a fiction as her personality had been. Yet she was sitting before him now – it had never been a fabrication.
He’d spent his entire life since Jane honouring the beauty of women, learning to appreciate their every form, and Jane was the pattern card he judged them all by. But when he’d appreciated a woman’s body and compared it to Jane’s, it had only ever been an imagined view. He’d never seen her naked, never touched her beyond a superficial fondle. She’d been innocent, so had he, and he’d treasured it then, and treasured her.
Now, though? Now, they were experienced, mature players of the game. Now, he would know if she was all he’d dreamt.
The thought was disarming. In a way, he almost did not wish to know. He did not want his blissful illusion shattered. No, he’d loved a fictional Jane, and perhaps he had idolised a fictional Jane all through these empty years, too. Did he really want to know the truth?
She neither moved nor spoke, her eyes on the street, but he was certain she was not looking at anything in particular, just away from him.
He remained silent, too. He was in no mood to be conciliatory or ease her path.
If she’d been his intended companion, Lady Baxter, he would have had the woman pressed down upon the seat by now and his hands up her skirt.
A smile pulled at his lips. Sometimes he did not even get a woman as far as Bloomsbury Square before he had taken what he wished and set her down.
But with Jane, he required more than that. He intended to savour each moment, to learn every inch of her body and consign it to memory. It would take hours of slow appreciation to satisfy the thirst which had been in his blood for years.
His mind began crafting images, the ideas, the method of her seduction, and the achievement of their completion. Oh yes, he intended to enjoy this, and he intended to enjoy it in the comfort of a bed, unrestrained by time or space. The weight in his groin grew denser merely at the thought of touching her.
His impatience beginning to build, he reached up and tapped the carriage roof twice, ordering Parkin to stir up the horses.
The carriage lurched forward a moment after he’d tapped the roof.
Jane grasped the strap.
He watched her with such brooding intensity, she felt as though she’d leapt from the frying pan into the fire. Of course, she’d realised abruptly when he began leading her from the ballroom, he was not the man she’d known before. Yet since they’d sat in the carriage, numerous memories of him sulking as a youth had spun through her head.
In childhood, his temper had always shown in this moody disengagement, when he’d not gotten what he wished, or hadn’t won, or been unable to have the final say.
But surely, he was getting his way now, wasn’t he? Or did he expect her to do more? How on earth would Violet behave in this situation? Should Jane speak? Should she move closer? She had no idea what to do or say. She had never been party to anything more than the light flirtation they’d shared before.
The silence stretched between them. She looked out the window and listened to the low rumble of the iron-wrapped carriage wheels striking