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  He had her on her feet suddenly, pulled hard against him, one hand cupped against the back of her head while he covered her face with kisses and lowered his mouth to her throat and her breasts, both now free of her bodice. And back to her mouth again to ravish it with his own. His hands went behind her waist and moved lower, hard and straining, pulling her to him, wanting her, aching and throbbing for her.

  Jane. His beautiful Jane. His love. “Jane. Jane.” He could hear himself whispering her name against her hair. He looked down at her, at her eyes dreamy with passion, her mouth already swollen from his kisses, her long, creamy throat, her lovely firm breasts. “Jane.” He looked back into her eyes. And knew suddenly with jolting clarity what was happening.

  His hands came up to clasp her bruisingly by the arms and put her from him. He half-staggered across the room until he leaned against the harpsichord. His fingers closed around it; his eyes and teeth were tightly clenched as he tried to drag his mind back to sanity, to force his body to obey his will.

  When he turned back to her, his head felt cold, as if all the blood had been drained from it. Foolishly he tried to smile. “Jane, I am sorry,” he said. “Oh, my dear, I am so sorry.” She had covered herself already, part of his mind noticed.

  She stared back at him, her eyes wide and bewildered, her hands crossed above the decolletage of her gown. Then she turned and fled, fumbling in panic at the door. It refused to open, and she rattled and tugged at the knob, one sob escaping her. Fairfax was halfway across the room to her before the door suddenly crashed back against her and she made her escape.

  Fairfax closed the door behind her as far as it would go without resistance. He laid his forehead against the carved wood paneling. He loathed himself. He had been in the process of seducing a guest in his house, the woman he had come to love more than he had ever thought possible, the betrothed of the friend he thought of as a brother. A woman so innocent that she had not even known how to resist his advances. He closed his eyes. Jane. She was like a sharp pain cutting through his body. How could he say he loved her and yet dishonor her so and disgrace his claim to the name of gentleman?

  He strode restlessly up and down the room, trying to impose some sort of calm on his mind, trying to compose the impossible speech of apology.

  Outside the room Honor decided after all not to knock or push on the door, which was slightly ajar. She looked thoughtfully up the stairs, where she had watched Jane flee a few moments before. She could hear no music coming from beyond the door, yet Lord Fairfax was not coming out, either. She shrugged eventually and turned back to the drawing room and the tea tray, bright with the announcement that Lord Fairfax and Jane were too absorbed in their music to come for tea just yet.

  Chapter 12

  “AUNT Jane, look at us!”

  “Aunt Jane, please will you read us a story?”

  Jane smiled, weary as she was feeling. Joy, busy with letter writing in the morning room, had asked her if she would be a dear and look in at the nursery to make sure that the children had not driven their governess to distraction or murdered one another.

  Gregory, the ten-year-old, was down on all fours giving Claire horseback rides. She was clinging to his fair curls and shrieking with helpless laughter. Amanda, the middle child, was trying, amid all the noise, to read a story to her five-year-old brother. Amy, not surprisingly, was on her own, working at her painting. The nurse and the governess were working their way through a small pile of mending and having a comfortable coze at the same time.

  “Look at me, Aunt Jane,” Gregory called again. “I am a horse.”

  “With a bruising rider on your back, I see,” she said with a smile.

  “Gee-up, horsey,” Claire shrieked, pulling at his hair.

  “Please, Aunt Jane,” Amanda pleaded, holding out the book. “I have told Gregory to be quiet and he won’t. And Miss George will not tell him to be quiet either. I cannot read when there is noise.”

  Jane sat down between Joseph’s nephew and niece and opened the book on her lap. She put an arm around the young boy, who snuggled against her, and proceeded to read. She had not meant to stay, but how could one deny one’s attention to children?

  The story read, she crossed the room quietly to Amy, who was still intently at work. “May I see, sweetheart?” she asked. “Or is it a secret?”

  The child looked up with an eager face. “I have been trying to finish before you left, Aunt Jane,” she said. “It is for you.”

  “For me?” Jane said, moving around to Amy’s side of the table.

  Amy was putting the final touch to the painting—yellow rays coming from the inevitable sun in the top corner.

  “Oh, Amy,” she said, “how lovely it is. It is you wearing your daisy chain, except that this girl is not quite as handsome as you are. And look at all the daisies left in the grass. I shall be able to make a chain for myself out of those.”

  Amy giggled, the first time Jane had heard her laugh. “Silly!” she said. “They are paint. You cannot pick them.”

  “Ah, but I can imagine picking them,” Jane said. “And that is far better because I can imagine picking them over and over again, even during the winter. Would you like to tell me the story of the picture and I shall write it down for you?”

  The child’s eyes lit up again. “I know how to write my name,” she said. “I can write my name at the end of it.”

  Jane tugged gently on one glossy ringlet and went in search of paper and charcoal.

  She was on her way downstairs half an hour later, having taken the picture and the story to her room, feeling considerably more cheerful than she had when she went up. Though there was no reason to, she thought gloomily. She still had all her problems to sort out and deal with. Sedgeworth rounded the bottom of the stairs and began to run up them two at a time. He did not see her until he was halfway up.

  “Jane!” he said, reaching for her hands and smiling broadly. “You were in the nursery, were you? I have searched everywhere else. That was going to be my last port of call. Joy said she sent you there an hour ago but that you could not possibly still be there. Splendid news, dear.”

  Jane felt a lump in her throat as she looked into his happy face. She squeezed his hands unconsciously.

  “The Duke of Wellington won a glorious victory in Belgium five days ago,” he said. “Boney was completely routed and the allied army is chasing the French toward Paris. I think that will be the end of him this time, dear. England and indeed the whole of Europe are safe again.”

  “Oh,” Jane said, “I am so glad. Were there many casualties?”

  His expression became more sober. “Wallace’s letter mentioned heavy losses on both sides,” he said. “I fear it was a dearly won victory, Jane.”

  “Poor men,” she said. “And poor wives and children and mothers left behind.”

  His expression softened and he lifted one of her hands to his lips and kissed the palm. “Dear Jane,” he said. “How typical of you to think more of the suffering than of the victory. Would you like to come for a drive to the village? That is why I was looking for you. Your cousin has declared that she cannot live through another day without a length of yellow ribbon, and Joy has agreed that she would welcome the sight of a different human face for a change. Fairfax is shut up in the library with his bailiff, and Wallace is still busy writing letters. That leaves me for an escort.” He grinned.

  Jane smiled. “Will you mind if I do not come, Joseph?” she asked. “I did not sleep well last night and have been looking forward to spending the rest of the morning quietly outside.”

  “Of course I will not mind, dear,” he said. “You are not ill?”

  She shook her head.

  “I must go then,” he said. “Ten minutes ago your cousin declared to all the world that she would not wait five minutes longer.”

  Jane watched him run down the stairs as fast as he had come up them. What a very dear man he was. Why, oh why, could a person not choose whom she would love? Why c
ould she only like him dearly and not love him at all? She sighed and continued her more sedate descent of the staircase. The sky was overcast today. It looked chilly outside. But she would not delay by going back upstairs for a shawl. She continued on her way down to the ground floor and out onto the cobbled terrace.

  She wanted to go to the lake. She would be out of sight there. But she was afraid somehow that he would go there after he had finished with his bailiff. She walked along the graveled paths of the formal gardens, hardly aware of the beauty around her or of the heavy scents of the flowers. She made her way to the lowest level, where she knew there was a wrought-iron seat beneath a willow tree, out of sight of the house.

  She knew exactly what she must do. But unfortunately it was so much easier to know what one should do than to do it. She was going to have to put an end to her betrothal to Joseph and leave Templeton Hall as soon as possible. She was going to have to return to Yorkshire and spend the rest of her life in seclusion and in single state. A very bright prospect indeed, she thought with a bitter little laugh.

  She could not marry Joseph. She did like him a great deal, and they could have a good marriage. Could. But they would not. She could never be happy feeling as she did about his friend. And if she was unhappy, then ultimately he would be so too. She could best show her affection for him by breaking the engagement now before it was too late.

  Besides, Jane thought, even if she could so school her mind as to forget her love for Michael Templeton, she could not marry Joseph. She had been unfaithful to him the night before. It was true she still had her chastity. But virginity was a relative state. Last night she had given her heart to Michael. She would have given herself if the setting had been more private or even right there in the music room if he had not stopped when he had. She had been beyond rational thought. She had allowed him to unclothe her to the waist. Indeed, she had assisted him, as eager as he to feel his hands on her naked breasts. She would have allowed him inside her body if he had chosen to take her. There was no point in trying to convince herself that she would have put an end to the embrace before that could have happened. She did not believe she would have.

  So she had been unfaithful to Joseph in almost every way that mattered. And he had been in the same house at the time. Indeed, he might at any moment have walked back into the music room. She had offered herself wantonly to his friend anyway. She could not continue to behave publicly as if nothing had happened. That would not be fair to him. Even if he never knew that his betrothed and his friend had enjoyed a very unchaste embrace, it would not be fair to him to continue the engagement.

  So she must tell him that she would not marry him after all. She really did love him in a very unromantic way, and she would hate never to meet him again, never to see his kindly face, or listen to his conversation. When the alternative to marrying him was to live a spinster life in the wilds of Yorkshire, it was very tempting to tell herself that she would marry him and spend the rest of her life making up to him for the dishonor she had brought him the night before. But she had to think of him first. He deserved a better wife than she could ever be. She was not worthy of him.

  Of course, it was not going to be easy. Their betrothal had been publicly announced in the London papers. His sister and brother-in-law and his nephews and niece already treated her as one of the family. And he was fond of her, she believed. He would be hurt. And she would not be able to give him the real reason for breaking off the engagement. He would be left believing that somehow he fell short of her expectations. She desperately wanted to avoid giving that impression, but she had still not thought of the words she would say. Perhaps that was why she had not found the opportunity to talk to him that morning as she should.

  And she must leave Templeton Hall. She should be packing her bags at that very moment instead of sitting idle in the garden like this. She should leave that very day. But oh, dear God, she would never see him or his children or this place ever again once she had left. She must be granted one more day during which to store conscious memories to last through the lifetime ahead.

  Could she have been happy here? Could she have made him contented with her? Could she perhaps have made him love her just a little? She still could not understand his part in what had happened the night before. He did not seem the sort of man who would seduce a woman for the mere pleasure of doing so. And he appeared to value Joseph’s friendship. The only possible explanation seemed to be that he had lost his head as completely as she had. But why would that have happened to him? She was not physically beautiful or attractive. He did not love her. Why, then? What other reason could there be? Would the same thing have happened if Honor had been sitting at the pianoforte with him instead of her? He had kissed Honor at Vauxhall. Had he kissed her like that?

  Jane closed her eyes and lifted her face to the warmth of the sun, which was just now peeping out from behind the clouds. She had made a terrible mess of the last few weeks. She should have accepted Michael when she had the chance. She had thought then that having part of him would be worse than having nothing at all. She was not at all sure now that that was true. The future loomed ahead with terrifying emptiness. What matter that he had loved Susan and had only a leftover affection to offer a second wife? What matter that he would have married her only to care for his house and his children? She could have made that enough.

  She loved his children. She loved all children, but there was something very special about those two little girls. Probably because they were his. She could have made happiness out of giving Claire the mother’s arms that any two-year-old still craves. And she could have given Amy the loving attention the child needed to bring her out of her shell. She would have loved to see her gradually develop into a normal, happy four-year-old. Amy, who looked so much like her father. And she could have had children of her own perhaps. Hers and Michael’s. Now there never would be any children of her own womb. Only other people’s to love.

  But she was giving in to self-pity, Jane decided, lowering her eyes to the flowers at her feet. Other people were about to suffer because of her selfishness and folly. Honor too. She was going to be a problem. If Jane were to leave, Honor would be expected to do so as well. And Honor perhaps would wish to stay. Possibly she still had hopes of becoming the second Lady Fairfax. Even if she had definitely renounced her interest in Michael, part of her Season in London had been lost. And all because of Jane. Honor probably would not have received an invitation to Templeton Hall if it had not been for the betrothal of her cousin to Joseph Sedgeworth.

  Sometime today, Jane decided, she was going to have to talk to Joseph and Honor. And perhaps Michael too. If she were to leave his house, she must speak to him. She could not just leave. And how was she to leave? She and Honor had traveled down in Lord Dart’s carriage. The stage? Honor would never agree.

  Her eye was suddenly caught by the sight of Fairfax coming toward her along the gravel path. She jumped to her feet in a panic, with some half-formed idea of making her escape before he saw her. But she realized almost immediately that he knew very well she was there. She was his destination. She stood where she was.

  “Good morning,” he said with an attempt at a smile. He looked as pale as she felt.

  Jane said nothing.

  “I saw you from the library window,” he said. “I came as soon as I was free. I owe you an apology.”

  Jane shook her head. “No, please do not,” she said.

  “I must,” he said. He had stopped some distance from her. He stood now, his hands clasped behind his back. “My behavior last night was unpardonable. You are a guest in my house, Jane, and betrothed to my friend. You refused my hand when I offered it a few weeks ago. And yet I—”

  “Please,” she said. “Can we not forget it? I would rather not talk about it. I was as much to blame as you.”

  He shook his head. “No, don’t think that,” he said. “Do not blame yourself. I don’t ask your pardon, Jane. I do not believe what I did was forgivable. But I w
anted you to know that it will not happen again. I ...” He took a ragged breath. “I suppose I have been lonely. It is more than a year since my wife died. And there you were, close beside me, lovely and full of laughter from our duet. I am afraid my need got the better of decency and courtesy and common sense. I thought I had better control of my instincts. But it will not happen again, Jane. You have my word on it. You need not feel afraid of me.”

  She stared at him wide-eyed.

  “You are uncomfortable in my presence, I see,” he said with that same twisted smile she had seen the night before and when he first arrived. “Perhaps you are frightened despite my assurances. I cannot blame you. I shall leave you to your quiet enjoyment of the flowers again.” He bowed and turned to walk away from her back to the house.

  Jane did not see him out of sight. The flowers, the sky, his retreating back: everything blurred before her vision. It was as she had thought, then. Pure physical need had driven him the night before. She had not admitted even to herself until this moment the desperate hope that perhaps he loved her as she loved him. How ridiculous she was. How very stupid!

  “So now you will be able to travel to the Continent on your wedding trip after all,” Lord Dart said at the luncheon table.

  “It seems so,” Sedgeworth agreed, turning to smile at Jane. “It will be preferable to Scotland in the autumn anyway.”

  “You will be able to travel through Belgium to see where the battle took place,” Honor said rapturously. “Did you say it was close to Brussels, my lord?”

  “South of there,” Lord Dart said. “Close to a village called Waterloo. Apparently his grace has decreed that the battle shall be called after it.”

  “The Battle of Waterloo,” Honor said. “I do wish I could see the place.”

  Jane shuddered. “It is a mass graveyard, Honor,” she said. “Do not glamorize it.”