A child. She carried a child. _Seth’s _ child. Horror and delight battled within her, churning her stomach into a queasy froth. A child. Someone to love. Someone who could love her back.
For years she had longed for a baby, had thought herself barren. She squeezed herself tighter, elation bubbling inside her chest. Then she remembered herself. She was no well-married lady in a position to bring a child into the world. Once word leaked, she would be ruined. Then what kind of life would her child have?
Berthe knew. As did the laundress. No doubt the servants were whispering about her below stairs even now. Soon Desmond and Chloris would know.
The desperate thoughts brought to her feet. She dressed herself, barely taking the time to pull her hair into a knot at the base of her head. She must act quickly.
Foolish as it seemed, one face emerged. Seth should not be the visage her heart leapt upon, yet there he was nonetheless. In her mind. In her heart. Shaking her head, she called herself ten kinds of fool.
She had only one destination in mind. Hopefully, a solution would reveal itself with the consul of her friends.
A chill blew through her heart when she imagined telling Seth the truth. That she was Aurora.
That she carried his child. Burning moisture filled her eyes. Impossible. She could never bring herself to do such a thing.
“You know you must tell him.”
Jane stared grimly into Lucy’s blue-gray eyes. Beside her, Astrid nodded, the motion slight, reluctant, but in agreement nonetheless.
“No,” Jane said, her voice trembling on the air. The idea of confronting Seth sent a jolt directly to her heart. She rose from the sofa she had collapsed upon not so long ago and began pacing.
“Why must I?” she asked, her steps quick.
“Because he’s the father,” Astrid responded with her usual equanimity as she added another biscuit from the service to her already overcrowded plate. “It’s his responsibility, Jane. You cannot go this alone.”
“Is it?” she snapped, her voice brittle as glass. “Is it his responsibility when he has no clue it was me that he—he—” she stopped abruptly and stalked to the window. Wrapping her arms tightly about herself, she stared out at the street. Dusk settled over the square. Desmond would know by now. And Chloris. Berthe would have seen to that. If she returned home, it would be to face them. The prospect held little more appeal than facing Seth.
Moistening her lips, she struggled for a steady tone. “Is it his responsibility,” she asked again,
“when I deliberately set out to seduce him? When 7 knew he would have nothing to do with me had he known it was me?” She shook her head fiercely. “It’s not fair to him.”
“And denying your child a father is fair?” Lucy asked. “Denying your child both parents? A life of privilege free of scorn?”
Jane drew a ragged breath, squeezing her eyes shut as if physically struck. Count on Lucy to consider the child. A mother to the core.
“You cannot rely on Desmond or your parents,” Astrid’s voice, cool and calm as ever behind her, infused her with spirit. “You needn’t feel _wrong _ taking the only option left to you.”
Jane opened her eyes to observe a nanny pushing a pram across the square in the fading light.
The lace fringing the pram’s awning fluttered in the breeze. She closed her eyes tightly, the pain in her chest suddenly too much.
Lucy sighed quietly behind her and Jane realized she had moved close. Her hand landed on her shoulder, soft as a butterfly setting down. “Astrid and I will support you in whatever you decide.”
Turning, Jane smiled thinly at her friends, the bend of her lips almost painful. “I know. I’m lucky to have you both.”
Anna arrived then, bearing a tray of cucumber sandwiches. “Thought you might need replenishing.” With a knowing look at Astrid, Anna added three tiny sandwiches to her plate before setting the tray down on the service.
“You’re welcome to stay with me,” Astrid volunteered, rearranging the food on her plate with strategic care.
Jane smiled, recognizing the true generosity of that offer. Since her husband fled the country over a nasty forgery charge, Astrid barely possessed the means to feed and outfit herself and few remaining servants.
Jane inhaled deeply, letting the breath fill her lungs and fortify her as she strove for some of Astrid’s mettle.
“Naturally you can stay with me, too,” Lucy added, “If that is your wish.” However, her gaze conveyed that she did not think Jane _should _ make that decision.
Want. Jane _wanted _ to turn back the clock.
Bittersweet memory flashed through her mind. A garden at midnight, a lover’s hot hands, burning lips, him, Seth, inside her, his hard flesh dragging against hers…
Did she really wish that night never happened? Would she take it all back if she could?
Rubbing her temples, Jane willed her head to cease spinning, willed herself to make a decision.
She looked at the three women staring so expectantly at her, waiting for her to say something, to do something. She had never anticipated that a single tryst could result in a child. Not after years of believing herself barren. A painful knot formed in her throat. “You know Marcus quit my bed after one year of marriage, claiming it wasn’t worth the effort. That I was barren.”
“Bloody ass,” Anna growled.
“More likely the difficulty rested with him,” Astrid muttered.
Jane shook her head. “His first wife conceived on their honeymoon.”
“I knew his first wife.” Astrid snorted as she lifted a sandwich to her lips. “Her _fruitfulness _ may have had more to do with a certain officer that left for India.” Her dark eyes glinted meaningfully as she took a sizable bite.
Lucy nodded sagely.
Jane gazed at Astrid and Lucy. It was the first time she had heard such an allegation. It would certainly explain the lack of further offspring in Marcus’s first marriage.
With a shrug, she sighed. In any case, it failed to matter now.
For a moment, she considered accepting her friends’ offers and residing with one of them. But only for a moment. She could not be that selfish.
Astrid could barely feed and support her household. And Lucy. Well, Jane couldn’t bring scandal upon her. She stood as a pillar among the matrons of the ton. Jane would not sully her spotless reputation.
They watched her, waiting. She could well imagine what they saw. A bloodless face. Haunted eyes staring into space. Eyes that desperately searched for an answer. Anything that would save her from doing, in her heart, what she knew she must do.
Seth looked up from the papers littering his desk at the knock on his office door and bade entrance.
Leaning back in his chair, he schooled his features to hide his surprise at the sight of his butler leading Jane into the room. He had not thought to see her again. Not after the Dowager Duchess of Shillington’s musicale and his imprudent advances had been so ruthlessly rebuffed.
With a quick nod for the butler, they were soon alone, staring silently at one another. Alarm hammered inside his heart at the sight of her. An alarm fed by his realization that he was _glad _ to see her. Despite his avowal to leave her be, to forget her.
Why, he suddenly wondered, had Madeline stolen his heart when it had been Jane with whom he spent all his time? They had ridden together, swum, fished, explored the countryside. Yet he had chosen Madeline. He had allowed her beauty and bold gaze to weave a toxic spell around him.
Callowness of youth, he supposed.
He took his speculation further, wondering what would have happened if he had fallen in love with Jane. Would she have betrayed him for a man of wealth and influence?
He closed his eyes in a long blink, eliminating such senseless thinking from his mind. One could not undo the past.
“Lady Jane,” he greeted, rising to his feet. With a wave of his hand, he indicated she take the seat across from his desk. “This is a surprise.”
She settled herself in the chair’s depths, a black crow against the blue damask.
“I believe my sister is in the garden with Rebecca,” he went on, assuming that would be the only reason she had come.
“Actually I’ve come to see you.” Her voice rushed forth as she tucked her hands within the voluminous folds of her skirts.
“Me?” He lifted a brow. After the musicale, he had thought she would never speak to him again—much less request a private audience. “What is it I can do for you?”
Moistening her lips, her gaze darted about the room, assessing, looking everywhere but at him.
He found himself admiring the elegant slope of her nose, wanting to stroke its length with his finger before moving on to test the softness of her luminous cheek.
The impulse jarred him and he gave his head a hard shake. He had done more than enough _touching _ of her person.
“I have been less than honest with you,” she hedged, voice gossamer soft, as if whispering the words would somehow lessen the impact.
“Have you now?” An icy finger landed at his nape and began a slow descent down his spine.
“Yes.” Dipping her gaze, she nodded, staring at her skirts as if transfixed, spellbound by the sinister-dark fabric.
“Jane?” he prompted after a long moment had passed.
“God,” she choked, the single word turning and twisting into a ragged sob. “I can’t do this.”
Surging to her feet, she stumbled for the door in a graceless lurch.
In a flash, he was on his feet and moving. His hands seized her shoulders and forced her around before she was halfway across the room.
Her stricken gaze flitted over his face and he felt transported to an afternoon years ago. A fence with the top rail splintered to shards. Grasses tall and lush around them as they crouched over his sister’s still body. Jane’s look of horror had echoed deeply inside of him… as it did now.
“What is it?” he demanded, panicked in a way he had not felt in years. In a way he had not thought to feel again.
Moisture swelled in her eyes, brimming in the hazel depths. She shook her head fiercely. A lock of nut brown hair fell loose, straggling over her eye, making her look suddenly young and achingly sweet. Tempting as hell.
His hands tightened, flexing on her yielding flesh. He pulled her closer.
A strange little sound escaped her lips. Not quite a cry. More like a moan.
“Sssh,” he soothed, dropping his forehead to hers, inhaling her scent, letting it surround him.
Apples. Orchard fresh. Autumn on the wind. The scent of home. The scent of Jane. The scent of…
He pulled back, his heart jerking violently in his chest as he scanned her face.
Two women that smelled exactly alike. That stirred him in ways long forgotten. That filled him with a desire he had never known. What were the odds?
She watched him, dread crowding the fear that already gleamed in her eyes.
“Aurora,” he whispered, uncertain of the wild notion seizing him until her eyes flared wide, dousing him with a cold wave of comprehension. And he knew he was not wrong.
Color drained from her face.
He dropped his hands as if stung, nausea churning his gut.
She staggered backward, colliding into a side table. A vase fell, shattering, matching the noise roaring through his ears.
His hands curled at his sides, the urge to wreck something, to destroy, to shatter another vase overwhelming. Realization washed through him, acrid as gun smoke. The woman he couldn’t get out of his mind, the one he had searched for among the crowd at Vauxhall with a desperate fervor, who haunted his dreams… she had been under his nose all along. She had been the proper, starchy widow he had agonized over wanting—the _lady _ he fought to resist because she was not that _sort _ of woman. He shook his head as if he could shake free from the reality, the unwanted truth.
“You must have had a good laugh,” he ground out.
“No.” She shook her head fiercely, her knuckles whitening where she clutched the table, water running over its surface and dripping to the carpet. “It wasn’t like that—”