One Night With You (The Derrings #3)(41)

"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.