Sinful (11 page)

“By God, I will make you suffer,” his father thundered. “I will reduce you to one of those begging disgraces that litter the East End. I will make it so none of the fine ladies you’re so fond of pricking will even look at you. One day, you’ll find that the only one willing to raise her skirts for you will be the saddest, poxy whore that walks the length of Petticoat Lane. Even then you will not likely be able to pay for her diseased sex.”

“Perhaps you should take one of those common streetwalkers to your bed, Your Grace. Perhaps it would do something to improve your disposition.”

His father’s expression grew livid. “
Half.
You have now had your income sliced in two. You may bid adieu to your fine boots from Henshaws, and your tailoring from Westons. No
more scandalous parties, or trips to the East. No damn art gallery.”

“I shall move back to the estate then,” he said, knowing he held the ace that would end this conversation. “Imagine waking up every morning to find me at the breakfast table dining amongst your charming family. Imagine the influence I could be to my precious sisters.”

His father reeled back on the heels of his boots and his eyes began to bulge with rage. “You bloody bastard, you leave my family out of this.”

“You leave my income intact and I will leave you in peace with your wife and your chits.”

“I will find your Achilles’ heel,” his father growled as he stomped to the door of the chamber. “I vow, I will find your one weakness and when I do, God help you.”

“God?” Mathew said on a chuckle. “Christ, the devil himself threw me out of hell because I was too much competition for him. Do you really believe God will help me?”

“No, sirrah,” his father muttered, his gaze sweeping over Matthew’s tousled hair and indolent pose. “No, he will not save you. You are simply not worth the effort.”

Matthew watched his father leave, then turned his attention to the commode that stood next to his bed. On it was his sketchbook. He took it, flipping through the erotic sketches of a lovely female form that burned in his mind. He saw it every night, nearly every waking hour of the day. As he flipped through each sketch, he was haunted by the beauty of her, by the increasingly painful ache in his heart. He had drawn her in every kind of pose he could think of, and every position he wanted her in. Her hair was always a different shade. Her face—blank. With a growl, he threw the book on the bed, and impetuously knocked the empty absinthe bottle to the floor where it smashed into a thousand shards. Christ, his life
was falling apart, and all he could think about was Jane. Where was she? Who was she with? And did she think of him anymore? Were her dreams clouded with thoughts of him?

Jesus, what was he going to do?

Fisting his hands through his hair, he pressed his eyes shut, willing himself to think of anything other than Jane. It wasn’t as if he had nothing else to do with his time but sit around and lament the loss of her.

He’d bought the little run-down shop in Bloomsbury for his gallery with the proceeds from the auction nearly a sennight past. Workers were even now beginning to fit the place according to the designs he’d drawn.

He could go there. Escape to his make-believe world of art and leave the haunting memories of Jane behind. He could take a hammer and bring down walls, with powerful vicious strokes, exorcising Jane from his blood with each thrust.

Destruction…. He could vent his pent-up rage there until he was utterly exhausted, his brain too worn out to think of Jane and all the things he wanted to do to her tempting body.

Jane…. He opened his eyes, focusing on the sunlight that streamed through his window. It always came back to her. When would it stop? he wondered, fearing that it might not.

“My lord, I’ve run the bath and your trunk is packed.”

Matthew glared at his valet. “Packed for what?”

“Your trip to Bewdley, milord. The wedding,” he clarified when Matthew gave him a blank look. “You are still Lord Raeburn’s best man, are you not?”

Damn it. He had forgotten all about the wedding. In his post-Jane delirium, he had forgotten many things.

“Right,” he grumbled, “I’ll be along in a second. Marlborough,” he called, stopping his valet at the door. “Has the post arrived?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Is there…was there anything of a…personal nature?” he asked, feeling his cheeks crest with embarrassment. But his valet, professional as always, barely blinked.

“No, my lord.”

Matthew nodded and fisted his hand in the sheet. It was time to forget her. Forget everything about her. Most especially the way she had seemed to awaken him from his decades of slumber.

“Is there anything else, my lord?”

“No, nothing.” There was simply nothing else, he thought morosely as he made his way to his dressing room.

She was gone, disappeared amongst the coal smoke and fog. He had no chance of finding her now. London was the place to hide when you didn’t want to be found. And it was obvious now that Jane didn’t want him discovering her in her secret hideaway.

Parting the velvet curtains of the carriage, Jane revealed more of the rolling countryside that lay outside the window of their traveling coach. It was early May and the mountainous county of Worcestershire was awakening from a long hard winter.

The trees were in full leaf, and the fields were now a sloping array of light greens and dark emeralds. In the distance, outlined by the horizon, loomed the rugged heath-covered Malvern Hills. The county, a varied mix of mountains intertwined with fields of crops and orchards, was dotted with quaint little market towns that had been virtually unchanged in centuries. Industrialized progress had not ravished the countryside as it had in many of the other northern counties of England. There were no giant stacks belching out clouds of thick black smoke. No farmland destroyed to make way for huge factories or railway tracks. Perhaps if the inhabitants of
Worcester were fortunate, they would avoid the poisonous tentacles of industrialization for a few more years, preserving, in Jane’s opinion, the most spectacular scenery in all of England.

Outside the window, tulips and daffodils were growing wild beneath the trees. Tall pussy willows and wild grasses that grew rampant in the ditches at the side of the road swayed and rustled in the warm breeze. It was an ideal spring day, being neither too cool nor too hot. The breeze was just right and the sun was shining brightly, with nary a cloud to be found in the powder-blue sky.
A perfect spring day.

She had always enjoyed this ride up to see Lady Blackwood’s nieces. As a child her world had been London’s dirty and gritty East End. She could never imagine that the world, let alone England, could look this beautiful. Every year she and Lady Blackwood made this journey, and every year, Jane still marveled at the countryside. She should have been resting back against the plump squabs enjoying the breathtaking scenery and the tranquil peace. However, she could not stop her mind from continuously belaboring the events of the past weeks, nor could she stem the restlessness that had seemed to grip her for the past two days since leaving London.

There was a strange mixture of fear and apprehension in her that she did not understand. She only knew that as they came closer to Bewdley—a sleepy little Georgian village in the north of Worcestershire—the trepidation grew stronger until she could no longer stem the tide of uneasiness rising in her belly.

It was all because of him, of course. Wallingford. She had tried hard these past weeks, to forget him. She had worked herself into exhaustion, trying to erase him from her mind. Sometimes she thought she had succeeded. It was only in the darkest hours of night when she dreamed of him, and his
hands touching her body, that she realized she’d failed. She doubted she could ever forget him, or the kind of pleasure he had awakened in her.

She was loath to see him again, but knew it was inevitable. He was friends with Anais, and her fiancé. He would attend the wedding. And Jane would be forced to see him. Except the last time they had seen each other, he had treated her like rubbish, and she had possessed a cockney accent.

Lord, what was she to do? One thing was for certain, she could not allow him to discover that it had been her who had cared for him in the hospital.

“My favorite niece marrying, and a future marquis at that,” Lady Blackwood said with a self-satisfied grin as she gazed out the window.

Jane smiled and nodded, determined to forget Wallingford for the time being. “I am happy for Anais. She deserves her prince.”

“Indeed she does. She has loved Lord Raeburn for a heap of years. I have prayed so often that God might have it in his plan to marry them to one another. After the events of last winter, I despaired of it ever happening.”

“True love has a way of always coming out the victor, don’t you think?”

“What would the two of us know about true love?” Lady Blackwood said with a chuckle.

“Indeed,” Jane muttered as she once again focused on the countryside that was whirling past her window.

“I am very pleased that you agreed to act as Anais’s maid of honor,” Lady Blackwood continued, heedless of Jane’s inner melancholy. “I do not understand why you hesitated in the first place. You’ve been friends for years. Who else should it have been?”

A lady of similar background. The daughter of a marquis.
Most certainly not some guttersnipe who was her aunt’s companion. But as always, Lady Blackwood chose to ignore and forget that her companion was not of her world, or that of her niece’s.

“Perhaps Ann will suddenly be well by tomorrow.”

“Red measles linger, Jane. I doubt Ann will be in any shape to walk down the aisle with Anais. Besides, red spots are most unbecoming in a lady.”

Jane halfheartedly smiled and let the curtain drop back into place. “It shouldn’t be me. I’m not family.”

“Jane, dear, you really must not dwell on your past. I have told you that your humble beginnings and your pedigree do not interest me. Moreover, Anais feels the same way as I.”

“I am not fit to act as Anais’s maid of honor, your ladyship, and you know it. In fact, I am fortunate to even act as a companion. By rights I should still be living in the parishes or struggling to obtain a post as a chambermaid.”

“Nonsense,” Lady Blackwood said with a scowl. “You are far too intelligent for such menial tasks. You are a lady of considerable breeding. It is not just a matter of it being in the blood, you know.”

Unable to win the argument, Jane let the topic drop. In her employer’s eyes, she was simply a young woman who had once fallen on bad times. A woman she had taken under her wing and tutored. When Lady Blackwood had found her, Jane had been a parentless, homeless waif in need of food, shelter and protection.

“Jane, you’ve not been yourself these past weeks. I can’t understand it. What’s happened?”

“Nothing has happened.”

“Jane, you can tell me.”

What, that I was duped into believing that I meant something to Matthew? That my silly, idealistic fantasy brought me nothing but hu
miliation and hurt?
By God, her pride still stung, and her heart continued to weep blood every time she thought of him.

Good Lord, she should be done pining for him and what she had thought he was. He was the Earl of Wallingford. Not Matthew. He was a womanizing blackheart, not worthy of her notice or her favors.

“Dr. Inglebright is worried about you.”

Jane met Lady B.’s rheumy gaze. “He worries about a great many things, I am only one of them. He needs a break away from the hospital.”

“He is getting that. He told me he has been invited to stay in the country with the Duke of Torrington.”

Jane arched her brow. It wasn’t like Richard to be courted by the aristocracy. She couldn’t imagine it was his doing. More like his father’s, she suspected. Even though he was a doctor, Richard still had obligations to his family, and this was one of those occasions where he had to bow to his overbearing father’s wishes.

She had heard of the duke, but had never met him, or knew anything about him. Lady Blackwood’s reputation did not allow for her or Jane to go to any tonnish events, but that did not stop them from reading, and enjoying, the gossip in the newspapers.

“By the by,” Lady Blackwood murmured, “I had an opportunity to question my niece about the guest list for this weekend. I fear that there is a guest who might prove a bit upsetting to you.”

“Oh?” Worse than Wallingford? She couldn’t imagine it.

“Thurston will be there. It seems the old earl is a bosom bow of the groom’s father. I understand he has confirmed that he will be staying the entire weekend.”

All thoughts of Matthew flew out of her mind, replaced with the horror of the past. Sweat prickled Jane’s scalp beneath
her bonnet. She did not want to see the earl. She wanted nothing to do with the lecherous beast. The last time she had crossed paths with the earl, he had decided to beat the daylights out of her with his brass-embossed walking stick.

That had been fourteen years ago.

Thurston had been an acquaintance of her mother’s. No, not an acquaintance, Jane thought sourly, but a customer. After her mother had died from drinking herself to death, her mother’s
protector
had sold Jane to the earl to pay her mother’s debts. She’d been but a child at the time.

At first Jane had gone willingly, assuming that she would be put to work in the kitchens, but when it was made clear the earl had purchased her virginity, Jane had flown into a fury. A fury that had been matched by the ruthless Thurston who had beaten her, then attempted to rape her. Her struggles and screams had only ignited Thurston’s lust, and Jane had barely escaped his clutches with her virginity and life intact.

“We will endeavor not to cross paths with Thurston,” Lady Blackwood muttered as her shoulders swayed in time to the carriage movement. “You will certainly not be expected to speak to him. I shall cut him as I always do. If he decides to stiffen his spine and approach me, I shall have Raeburn rescue us. Anais has already spoken to her intended about Thurston. My niece informs me that Raeburn will be watching.”