The Passionate Love of a Rake Read Online Free PDF Page A

her breath away. She sought to speak, but no sound came out. In his shadow, she was gauche.
    “You had something to say to me, I presume?”
    “Yes, I … ” Words erupted and then dried up. She shut her mouth and drew herself together. What had she come to say to him? She had just seen him turn away and knew she could not let him go without speaking.
Say something
. “I – I … ” She stopped again, then suddenly grasped control of her stray wits. “Could we go somewhere to talk?”
    “Because you do have something to say to me?” His languid voice, his falling smile, and the suddenly intent look in his eyes implied she could have nothing to say he wished to hear.
    She would not apologise to him. What had happened had not been her choice. She’d longed for him to save her even as she had said the words that turned him away.
He
had not come to her defence, and she’d hoped beyond reason he would come back, right up to the moment when she’d stood before the altar in Sutton’s small church, feeling bewildered and betrayed, and said, "I will."
    Common sense returning, she dropped a slight curtsy in parting. “No, of course not. I was wrong to think we have anything to speak of. Forgive me for interrupting you, my Lord.” She turned away.
    He caught her elbow and stopped her, his grip gentle. “You confound me, Jane. There
was
something you wished to say.”
    The truth struck her. It was in his expectant tone. He knew of the magnetic tug which had drawn her across the room. “No, I’m sorry. There is nothing we can have to say.” She stepped back as he let go of her arm, and then saw Joshua across Robert’s shoulder, observing everything.
    “
Nothing?
” Robert prompted in a deep burr.
    If she left Robert now, she would face Joshua’s recrimination. The threat was written on Joshua’s face. She needed to get out of the ballroom, out of the house, and away from the reach of her stepson. Her eyes met Robert’s dark-brown intense gaze, the central onyx pools glinted in the candlelight and offered more than conversation. Spiralling warmth stirred in Jane’s stomach. “But perhaps we could find somewhere private.” There, the hint was laid down, and in her mind, Jane thought of Violet at her most flirtatious and tried to act the same. She lowered her eyelids a little, veiling her eyes.
    God, that coquettish look heated his blood. Well, the mystery of her intervening years was answered; she knew how to play the game, and she played it fast. Yet there was still a question in his thoughts, a nagging doubt about her. She’d seemed almost as shy as a virgin, at first. But he supposed the cause of that lay at the door of their previous acquaintance, probably guilt or embarrassment, which he’d mistaken for innocence in his pathetic need to see and know his fictional Jane again. But even if he could never have his fictional Jane, it was still satisfying to know he could have
her
. He could take her for one night and finally free his blood of the poison her desertion had injected into his veins years before.
    Oh yes, he would enjoy seeing her face in the morning when he was the one to say it has been nice, but goodbye. Was he heartless enough to want vengeance?
Hell, yes!
Too right, I am
. He would dine on it for weeks. He could make the woman a laughing stock, if he chose, her husband but weeks dead, and yet, perhaps he was not cruel enough to go that far. He surprised himself. He had thought not an ounce of conscience left in his beleaguered honour.
    “Very well, then.” His words were blunt, but he smiled, speculating on the pleasure for them both. Bending to her ear, he whispered, “To your house, or mine, sweetheart?” Touching her elbow as he spoke, to add pressure and steer her from the room, he felt her jump and saw pink flood her cheeks.
    “I am staying with Lady Rimes … ” she faltered, her voice implying an intention to offer an excuse.
    He was not about to let her articulate it. He’d