One Night With You (The Derrings #3)(40)

"Ironic, isn't it? Once upon a time I wasn't good enough to marry a Spencer." Molded so tightly together, she was unsure where either one of them began or ended. He cupped the side of her face, and the warmth of that large hand, the rasp of his calluses on her skin sparked a response deep within her. She had to stop herself from leaning into his palm like a purring cat.

"Why?" His strained voice sounded almost suffering to her ears—something her conscience could not bear. She had never set out to hurt him. Had only thought to have something for herself at long last. "Just tell me that."

She struggled to swallow past the lump in her throat. "I—I wanted us to be together. Because of what I once felt for you." There. She had said it. Perhaps not the full truth, but close enough.

"If you felt something for me, you have a strange way of showing it." His grip on her face tightened. "Likely all you saw was a plump pigeon, ripe for the plucking. A convenient escape from Billings and the sort of half-life he would have you lead. You'd do anything to be free. Even shackle yourself to me." He set her from him forcefully.

She staggered away, touching her face, still feeling the burning imprint of his hand. His rebuff stung. It had cost her much to say those words, to admit that she had gone to Vauxhall out of the love she once felt for him, mirage that it had been.

A bitter taste filled her mouth. She hadn't changed much over the years. At seventeen, she knew nothing of love. A woman grown, she knew even less.

Gathering the scraps of her pride, she turned for the door. "Think what you like." She would not suffer another moment convincing him that her foolish heart, and not a cunning scheme, drove her into his arms at Vauxhall.

"Where are you going?"

"Home," she replied, hastening from the room as if the devil himself were after her. And perhaps he was.

"You march in here, announce you're carrying my child and think to leave," Seth's harsh tones followed her into the foyer, as did the stomping of his boots.

"I owed you the truth," she tossed over her shoulder, releasing a shaky, grateful breath when no butler or footman lurked near. This was difficult enough without an audience.

"Look me in the face and tell me you don't expect me to drop down on bended knee?" Slowly, Jane faced him, a strange calm settling over her.

She scanned his face, memorizing every stone-carved line, resting briefly on the deep scar slashing his hard mouth. Stark. Bleak. Like blood on new fallen snow. She envisioned him dropping on one knee to the cold marble floor and asking for her hand in marriage. The vision blurred at the edges, impossible to see distinctly. Even Marcus had not extended the courtesy. Her father had negotiated her marriage in his study, minus her presence. It had been a coldly calculated union from the start. Marriage to Seth, she realized, would be little better. Born of necessity, it would be just as cold. Grow just as empty. She saw that now. Her calm threatened to snap then, and she knew she had to flee before her composure crumbled and she fell to pieces at his feet. Later, alone, free of him, the fog would lift and her mind would clear. And in the clear she would see things perfectly—would see a solution with which she could live.

"I expect nothing from you, Seth. Nothing at all." Expectations were for other people. Fresh young girls with their innocence and souls fully intact. It had been years since she had been such a girl. She should not have come. Should not have attempted to rob him of the chance to find such a girl.

But then it had been years since he had been such a boy.

Before she could convince herself that they perhaps deserved each other after all, she marched out the front door, her entire body trembling in fear that he would stop her…and in agony when he did not.

Seth stared after her, watching the rigid line of her spine as she ascended her carriage, the black swish of skirts at her ankles a taunting flash.

What game did she play? Surely she did not mean to depart as if matters between them were settled.

His hands curled and uncurled at his sides, his right index finger twitching with the impulse to jump down the steps and yank her into his arms. Whether to hug her or shake her, he did not know. But he resisted. The woman affected him too much, threatened his control. The very control he had sworn to never again surrender.

Standing still as stone, legs braced as though aboard ship, he watched the carriage clatter down the street.

"Seth?" Julianne approached from behind.

Instinctively he turned, shielding her from the brisk afternoon air. Taking her elbow he shut the door and guided her back to his study.

"I thought I heard Jane's voice."

His gut tightened at the hopeful ring in her voice.

Julianne liked Jane. There was no getting around that. "Yes, she was here. She left." Her face fell. "Oh. I see." Julianne sank onto the sofa, her hand sliding along the heavily padded arm as if searching for a handhold, for reassurance. "She did not wish to see me, then."

"We had matters to discuss."

Her brow creased. "What could you have to discuss? I did not think you much liked her." The memory of Jane's yielding heat surrounding him, binding him like silken chords, tormented him. As it had for nights. Knowing her identity changed nothing.

For weeks, his hunger for two different women had confounded him. He had ached to possess both of them. Discovering they were the same woman made sense in an odd sort of way. Closing his eyes, he imagined he could smell her—apples and country air. His feelings for Jane ran more complicated than like or dislike.