Closing his eyes, he imagined he could smell her—apples and country air. His feelings for Jane ran more complicated than like or dislike.
“Julianne,” he began carefully, knowing the answer to his question before he even asked. “You care for Jane?”
“Of course,” she replied.
Shaking his head, he released a deep sigh and rubbed a hand over his face. “I suppose that will have to be enough,” he muttered.
Jane claimed she carried his child. He could not risk doubting her. Would _not _ risk his child being raised without him. A child of his own. The prospect meant more than he had ever realized. The chance to be a father—the kind he never had—to do something right filled his chest with an odd tightness…stronger than the rage he felt when he considered the feckless female who had duped him.
“How would you feel,” he paused to swallow, knowing the moment the words were out there would be no going back, “if I married Jane?”
“Jane?” Julianne exclaimed, bouncing to the edge of the sofa, a radiant light crawling over her cheeks, reminding him of how she had looked before the accident. Happy, carefree. A girl with the world before her. “You want to marry Jane?”
Want. He let the word roll around his head. _Wanting _ Jane had nothing to do with it. Obligation drove him, that infernal sense of guilt and responsibility that never ceased to gnaw at his insides, that compelled him to set matters to right.
Not a day passed when he did not feel the straining mass of a horse moving beneath him, launching over the fence. Nor would he forget the feel of Julianne’s arms slipping from his waist as she fell to the hard earth.
He could not live with more regrets. “Have you proposed? Did she accept?” Julianne scooted forward again, looking dangerously close to falling off the sofa.
Staring into his sister’s animated face, the invisible band about his chest loosened, knowing this marriage would at least please her. “Not yet.”
“But you intend to propose?”
He dragged a hand over his jaw. “Yes.”
He would simply have to accept the notion of marrying a woman who affected him in ways that he had vowed his wife never would. So she drove him to distraction with lust. He could resist.
He could slake his lust on other women. Women who did not present a threat to the barriers he had erected around his heart.
Chapter 18
By the time Jane returned home, dusk had fallen. She entered through the servants’ stairs and hurried to her room. The silence felt loud, oppressive, pressing in as thickly as fog. The servants were scarce, the house still as a tomb. Preternaturally still. The quiet before the storm, she couldn’t help thinking as she ducked into her room, relieved for the shelter it offered… until her gaze landed on the room’s other occupants. Dahlia, Iris, and Bryony.
Bryony sat at Jane’s desk, rifling through an open drawer, reading old correspondence. She glanced up as Jane entered the room. “Who’s Julianne?” she asked mildly, holding out one of Julianne’s many letters.
Jane strode across the room and snatched it from Bryony’s fingers. “I’ll take that.” Stuffing it back into the drawer, she glared at the girls.
“Where have you been all day? You forgot about our lessons.” Dahlia propped her hands on her skinny hips, her glare hot with accusation.
“Father is furious,” Iris taunted from where she lay sprawled on the bed, her child’s voice deceptively sweet as she swirled her slippered feet in the air.
Jane studied the girls closely, assessing, gauging to see if they knew _why _ their father was angry with her.
“Is he?” Jane asked with a mildness she did not feel.
“Indeed. You must have done something awful. Mother has been crying. They’ve neglected us all day.”
“What else is new?” Iris chimed, shoving to her feet in a mess of powder-pink ruffles. “They’re in the drawing room.” Her eyes glinted with mischief. “I know they’ll be pleased to hear you’re home.”
Jane watched her scamper from the room with a heavy heart, knowing she could not stop her, knowing also she could not pack and flee before Iris alerted them to her arrival.
While every instinct urged her to escape, to hide, she forced herself to trail after Iris, shoulders back and hands clasped before her.
She stepped into the drawing room moments after Iris, feeling like a prisoner approaching the hangman’s noose. A chill evening breeze blew in from the open terrace doors, cooling her flushed face.
Her eyes felt hot and itchy, and she blinked rapidly, horrified to realize that tears burned at the backs of her eyes. Tears. And not because she had to face Desmond. No, her burning eyes had more to do with the look on Seth’s face today. She had seen that look before, long ago, when half a dozen footmen escorted him from her home, Madeline watching on with a frosty, self-satisfied smile.
Tell him, Maddie. Tell him you’re going to marry me!
His hoarse cry was still burned into her soul. Jane had said nothing, merely watched in aching silence. She had never wanted to see him hurt. Not then. Not now. As much as she had wanted him for herself, she had wanted him happy—even if that meant marrying Madeline. His expression the moment her sister’s betrayal sank in remained fixed in her mind. It haunted her, and she had seen it again. Today. Only this time she had been the reason.
She couldn’t bear knowing that he believed the worst of her, believed that she had schemed to trap him, that she was as manipulative and socially ambitious as her sister.
“See! She’s here,” Iris cried, motioning to Jane as if she had personally scoured the city to find her.
Desmond’s head swung in her direction. “Leave us, Iris.”
“But Fath—”
“Now!” he thundered.
Jane jumped where she stood, her hands tightening their hold on each other. Bryony turned and fled the room with a noisy sob.
Desmond’s lips curled back against his uneven teeth as he spat, “So the little whore returns.”
She flinched. Berthe had wasted little time in voicing her suspicions.
“Take a seat.” Desmond motioned to the sofa Chloris occupied. “We have much to discuss.”
Jane looked warily at the sofa, not keen at placing herself beside Chloris.
“Come, Jane. Don’t be skittish. Clearly you possess a more adventurous spirit.” His heated gaze raked her. “Had I only known,” he murmured.
Heat crept up Jane’s face at the unsubtle remark.
Chloris stiffened, the severe lines of her face pulling tight.
“Is it true?” Chloris demanded. “You’re with child?”
“I believe so. Yes.”
Desmond cursed and swung around, stalking out to the terrace.
“Well,” Chloris began, her voice eerily tranquil. “It’s of no surprise you’ve brought scandal on our heads yet again.”
” _I’ve _ never brought scandal on this family,” Jane denied, not about to let that remark pass.
Marcus had been the one to cavort with everything in skirts. A sour taste rilled her mouth. To the very end.
Chloris smiled nastily. “Yes, well, if you had been a suitable wife, Marcus would not have had to look elsewhere.”
Desmond stormed back inside. “Who?” he demanded, his voice scraping over her like a rusty blade.
Sighing, Chloris smoothed an imaginary wrinkle from her skirt. “Does it matter, Desmond? I think the question at hand is what are we going to do now.”
Desmond’s black stare engulfed Jane, and she strongly suspected he had not heard a word his wife said.
“Who?” he bit out, back to that again.
“I think we should send Jane to the country.” Chloris stared intently at her husband, her brow wrinkling into its many folds. “No one will think anything of it. She is in mourning after all.”
“And when the babe comes?” Desmond spoke at last, acknowledging his wife without looking at her. “What then?”
Jane looked back and forth at Desmond and Chloris, stunned that they would discuss her fate and that of her own unborn child as if she were not in the room, as if she had no voice, no opinion.
“We can send the babe to a home for foundlings. No one need ever know.”
Cold ice shot down her spine, making her shiver. Jane rose to her feet, clutching the arm of the sofa in a death grip. “No,” she pronounced. “I am not giving my child away.”
Fury radiated through her, chasing away the cold and filling her with revitalizing heat. There had been little time to ponder her feelings about the child she carried. She had only begun to grapple with the reality of it. Until now. Until the mention of _giving _ the baby away. This was her child.
Hers and Seth’s. No one would take this child from her. Not while there was breath in her body to stop them.
“No?” Chloris echoed, the blunt features of her face tightening with disbelief. She looked to her husband as if seeking confirmation of Jane’s refusal.
“Who is he?” Desmond shouted, his face varying shades of red and purple as he stalked to her.
“Who?” His hands clamped down on her arms. “I _will _ have his name.” He shook her as if he could rattle the truth from her.
“Desmond,” Chloris hissed in an exasperated voice, and something else. Something Desmond did not pay the least bit of mind to as he continued to manhandle her, a vein bulging in his forehead.
“Let me go,” she ground out.
His fingers dug deeper, hurting her. “I’ll have his name.”
The pain of his grip fed her, poured liquid fire into her parched soul and sent a shot of courage to her system. Noses almost touching, she hissed into his face, “Never.”
His pupils dilated, his black, soulless gaze drilling into her until she felt certain he wanted to strike her. Her throat thickened, but she forced her chin higher, finished with submitting.
“Unhand her.”
Jane’s gaze swung in the direction of the door, gasping at the sight of Seth framed in the threshold. Her heart leapt in her chest and the thickness in her throat intensified, choking her.
Larger than life, he loomed over the room, seeming to suck all energy into himself. Desmond released her, and she staggered back, dropping onto the sofa, her legs as steady as jam. Seth watched her, his square jaw clenched tight, his gaze unreadable, the scar down his cheek all the more vivid against his flushed face. Never had he looked more menacing. Or beautiful.
“If you’re so desperate to know,” Seth drawled, nonchalant as he tugged free his gloves and shoved them into his coat pocket, “I’ll be happy to tell you.”
Jane shook her head, her lips parting on a silent breath.
“The Earl of St. Claire,” Barclay chimed, suddenly arriving, looking frazzled and annoyed all at once as he tried to wedge past Seth. “Your pardon, Mr. Billings. He insisted on introducing himself.”
Desmond’s black gaze never left Seth as he addressed the butler. “Leave us.”
Barclay departed. The door clicked shut, the noise discordant in the sudden still of the room. No one uttered a sound.
Desmond and Seth stared in silence at one another. A muscle in Seth’s jaw jumped madly, just as madly as Jane’s heart thumping within her too-tight chest.
Words burned on the tip of her tongue.
What are you doing here?
Why did you come?
Only no sound emerged. She simply stared, watching, waiting, her pulse fluttering madly at her neck. Her hand flew there, pressing the warm flesh as if she could still the frantic tempo.
Chloris was the first to speak. Clearing her throat, she greeted with false cheer, “Lord St. Claire.
How lovely of you to call.”
Seth’s gaze shifted, landing on Jane with a burning intensity that trapped her breath in her chest, pinning her to the spot. “I’ve come to collect Jane.”