“Christ, Janey!” he said, removing her hand himself. “Don’t do that! It’s dangerous to a man’s behavior.”

She sat very still in the bed, as if she were considering all this. “I know what that is. So you do want to kiss me. And you want to put that inside me.”

Bloody hell. “Lass, you can’t imagine the things I want to do to you. I want to take you to bed and not let you out for days. I want to take you every way I can, so hard that neither of us can walk. I want you in my bed and in my life, for the rest of my life, and if you don’t want to believe it you can check your hand.”

“My hand?” she echoed, confused. She looked down, and saw the huge, winking diamond on it. “When did you do that?”

“Just now, love. You’re mine, Miss Jane Pagett, and you know it, too. I was just trying to be polite about it.”

She appeared to consider this for a moment. Her cheeks were tear-stained, and he hated to think he’d caused her pain. He held still, but her hand was still on his John Thomas, and she was absently stroking it.

“Prove it.”

“Prove what?” he said, confused, doubtless as much by what her hand was doing as by what she said.

“Prove that you really want me.” She moved her hand then, and he wanted to beg her to put it back. Instead she pushed down the covers, and she was lying there in nothing but her shift. “If you want me, ruin me. And then we won’t have any other choice.”

He hadn’t had a better offer in his entire life, but he still hesitated. “I don’t know as I’d call it ruined, lass….”

She reached up, grabbed his shirt in two fists and pulled him down to her. “Please,” she said.

“Now how can I refuse you when you ask so politely?” he said, covering her body with his, letting her see what she was getting into. She didn’t flinch, and he caught her mouth and kissed her, as slow and as hard and as deep as he had that night so long ago.

He went slowly, giving her time to get used to things. When he put his hands on her breasts she was shy, but he was so lavish in his praise and his touch that she became braver, letting him strip the chemise over her head so that she lay there in her lacy drawers and nothing else.

The drawers were a little harder to talk her out of, but she knew they had to go, and he managed to slip them off while he was kissing her breasts, so that she didn’t even notice until they were gone.

But then she made him take off his clothes, and he was certain he’d frighten the wits out of her, but she’d taken one long, assessing look at him and then held out her arms, and he was helpless to resist.

He made it as easy for her as he could. He kissed her and stroked her and gave her ripples of pleasure with his clever hands, he used his mouth on her to make certain she was slick enough to make it easy, and he went slowly, but he knew that sooner or later he was going to have to hurt her, and when he did, finally thrusting in deep, breaking through her maidenhead and giving her all of him, he held her, waiting for her tears and anger.

“Is that all there is?” she whispered.

“Now, lass, I’m considered fairly well-sized …”

“No, I mean is that all the pain?”

He looked down into her lovely, thoughtful face. The face that foolish girl didn’t think was beautiful. “I expect so.”

“Oh,” she said, and a small smile curved her lips. “That wasn’t bad at all. Go ahead and do your worst.”

“My worst?”

“That’s what you warned me, Jacob,” she said, looking up at him lovingly, using his name for the very first time.

He kissed her, hard. “I’ll give you my very best, lass.”

And he did.

Miranda would have hoped she’d sleep during those endless hours back to Pawlfrey House, but her body betrayed her. Despite the wine she’d drunk she was wide-awake, alert, and in a torment of anger, confusion, relief and hope. She kept her mind a deliberate blank, concentrating on the gentle rocking of the carriage, the sounds of the night birds, the smell of the air, the strong sure sense of the man sitting across from her in the dark. As she’d first met him, unseeable in a darkened carriage, spinning his webs of intrigue and revenge. He was no scorpion; he was a spider, with a slow web and no instantaneous sting. And she was caught, struggling, fighting, refusing to give in.

It was just before dawn when they finally arrived back at Pawlfrey House, and the huge old building looked cold and deserted. Lucien stepped down from the carriage, then held up a hand to assist her, a hand she blatantly ignored as she climbed down on her own, doing her best to hide the weakness in her legs. The front door had opened, and one of the new footmen stood there, sleepy-eyed and surprised, ready to assist his lord and lady.

“I’ll leave you here, madam,” Lucien said formally, not making the mistake of trying to touch her again. “I’m going for a ride.”

She didn’t signify that she heard him, or that his words made the slightest bit of difference as she sailed past him, into the house. With luck he’d fall and break his bloody neck, or simply never return. She could be quite happy alone in this house, as long as she could get rid of Mrs. Humber.

There was even a remote chance that she might be carrying his child. Some women conceived the moment a man looked at them, others waited years with nothing but empty wombs. She wasn’t sure which she wanted, and she wasn’t going to waste her time thinking about it. All she wanted was to get this poisonous gown off her and find her own bed.

Bridget must have been warned of their abrupt return, for she was waiting in the room, fully dressed. She took one look at Miranda’s outfit when she stripped off the black domino and then immediately closed her mouth.

“Get this off me,” Miranda said in a tight voice, already yanking at the golden ties that threaded around her waist.

Bridget immediately began to work at it, but her hands weren’t deft enough or swift enough, and Miranda’s unnatural calm finally broke. “Get it off me,” she said again, her voice rising into hysteria as she tore at it, desperate, making the knots even worse. “I can’t stand it. I don’t care what you do, cut it, tear it …”

Bridget did just that, slicing through the gold leather cord that bound it so that it pooled on the floor around her, and Miranda began to cry, deep, ugly sobs that racked her body as Bridget pulled her into her strong arms and comforted her as if she were a young child.

“There, there, my lady. Don’t weep so. He brought you back, didn’t he? I knew he couldn’t go through with it. Mrs. Humber said you wouldn’t even be returning, but I knew different, and I kept up here, waiting for you, and now here you are.” She held Miranda’s shivering, naked form against her comfortable bosom. “The master’s no so bad as he says he is, and if you ask me he cares for you, whether he likes it or not.”

“I didn’t ask you,” Miranda said in a small, miserable voice as Bridget pulled a fresh white chemise over her head. “I don’t care what he likes or doesn’t like, I don’t care about anything.”

“Of course you don’t, mistress,” Bridget said in her soothing voice. “Let me get a nightgown for you and you can get some sleep …”

Miranda shook her head. “This is fine for now,” she said in a watery voice. “I just want to sleep.”

“Yes, mistress.” Bridget helped her between the snowy-white sheets. Everything was clean and white and safe. The hands that had touched her might as well have never existed, and Lucien had run away. She would survive.

The cool linen covered her, and she lay back, closing her eyes. Closing out everything but the sleep that finally, mercifully claimed her.

27

Lucien rode hard and fast in the early morning light, pushing himself and his horse beyond reason. He’d gone mad, stark, staring mad, and he ought to be hauled off to Bedlam with the other lunatics. What the hell had he done? The perfect revenge had been just within his grasp, and all he’d had to do was turn and walk away.

Instead he’d scooped her up like some bloody romantic hero, carried her back here and abandoned her.

And all he’d had to do was see Christopher St. John standing at the edge of the crowd, watching them, to know just how far along the road to disaster he’d come.

If he thought he could make it he’d head straight for London. He even started in that direction, when the ugly truth hit, and hit him hard.

He’d fallen in love with her. He, who didn’t believe in love, had been seduced by a slip of a girl, his wings clipped, his locks shorn, his entire life now centered on a woman. Bloody hell.

Clearly he’d been a fool to underestimate her. But now that the illness was diagnosed, the cure was simple. He’d get rid of her. Send her back to London, or off to the continent. Maybe even to his estates in Jamaica, where he could forget all about her existence. He certainly couldn’t continue on like this. He’d marry her first, just to ensure she was taken care of, and then he’d do his best never to see her again. She’d like that.

He wheeled around, heading back toward Pawlfrey House. He was a lot of things, a lot of terrible things, but he wasn’t a coward. By the time he reached home the sun was bright overhead, glinting off the lake like the diamonds Jacob had stolen. If he didn’t get rid of her there’d be no more of that, he thought morosely, handing the reins to the groom and charging him to give his hard-used roan an extra measure of grain. No more skulking around in the darkness, no more Heavenly Host, thank God. They’d always been tedious, though he’d enjoyed the sex. But all the determined depravity had begun to pall, and their little rituals were ridiculous.

Right now he wanted sex with no one but Miranda, and he had the depressing feeling that it was always going to be the case. Sending her across the ocean was the only cure.

He took the steps two at a time, determined to find her before he could think better of it, heading straight for her rooms on the third floor. To his astonishment the door was actually locked.