The Passionate Love of a Rake. Jane Lark

Yet the thought of him with another woman made Jane’s skin crawl. She hated Lady Baxter for no good reason at all. Well, that, Jane had best get used to. If his reputation was true, there were hundreds of other women, and there would be hundreds more. Perhaps coming to London had been a mistake.

      “Forgive me for intruding, Your Grace, but you are being a little obvious.” Lord Sparks’s whispered baritone made her jump, and her hand dropped to her lap, the weight of the glasses resting on her thigh. His eyes were laughing. “If you will permit me?” He pointed towards the course. “The horses are in that direction. But, of course, if you are weighing up the potential of another type of stallion … ”

      Again, Jane blushed. She had done nothing but blush today, and she was unable to offer any response. Her eyes involuntarily lifted to the box across the green, from which she heard a burst of raucous laughter as the Earl of Barrington climbed up.

      Blushing more strongly, she turned her eyes to the race and sought to hide behind the rim of her bonnet. Another laugh rang out. She could not help it, she turned back. She could see enough without the glasses to know Robert was looking in her direction, along with half the men in his group.

      A slight, deep laugh erupted beside her. Lord Sparks had followed the direction of her gaze once more. She felt his gloved hand cover hers, which over-tightly gripped the glasses in her lap.

      “Barrington is not the sort to kiss and tell, if that is what you are worrying over.”

      Her gaze spun to Lord Sparks. She surely could not be any redder. “You know?” Her whisper was half question, half accusation, at the thought that Robert had told him.

      He let go of her hand. “I was with Violet when you returned.”

      Jane was mortified, if only the ground would swallow her whole. To think Violet had been – while Jane had refused. “We did not—”

      “It is none of my business, if you did. Really, Your Grace, I do not care. I only meant to reassure.”

      “I have warned her,” Violet piped up, leaning across Lord Sparks. “I told you Barrington is an out and out bounder, Jane. He is playing you off against that woman.”

      “He is not so bad, Vi. If the Dowager Duchess likes him—”

      Violet visibly bristled. “I know he is your friend, and I know your sister’s silly theory about his broken heart, but that man has no heart.”

      “As you may tell,” Lord Sparks laughed, glancing back at Jane, “Violet is very opinionated on the subject of Lord Barrington. She disapproves of our friendship.”

      “You may have whom you like as your friend. It is what he does to mine I care about. He is callous. Anyway, Jane, you have done what you have done, and that will be an end to it in any case.”

      A shot rang out, setting the horses underway, and any thought of their conversation was lost as the crowd began to yell for the various horses. Jane lifted her glasses to her eyes and saw the black mare. The jockey was in the colours of the Barrington’s livery, maroon and cream, and his short whip tapped regularly at the animal’s rump, driving the mare on.

      The horse was a dream. She flew through the rest of the field, her head down and focused as though she enjoyed the sheer thrill of the race. When she stretched over the finishing line, Jane could not help but cheer, and turned to see pandemonium break out in Robert’s box. Robert was gifting Lady Baxter with a very thorough kiss.

      Jane’s gaze spun back to the course. Violet was right. It was silly to think of yesterdays. What Jane had longed for in the past could not come true now. She pressed her fingers to her right temple and felt a pounding pain commence in her head.

      ~

      “Enough. Why not go and look over the animals for the next race with Lord Franklin? I am sure he would escort you.” Robert slipped Lady Baxter’s arms from about his neck and set the woman away gently, ignoring her pout.

      Lord Franklin heard his name and glanced over with a knowing smile, then offered the lady his arm.

      She conceded and went off with Robert’s friend with a flounce and a lifted chin, sidling close to Franklin in an obvious ploy to make Robert jealous.

      It was pointless. He’d had his fill of her. He never bent to feminine games unless it suited his own aims. He was not, in general, a man led by his emotions. His desire for women was a mental game. The pumping organ in his chest was a cold and empty thing. Women, in general, did not affect it. He crossed his arms over his chest and watched Lady Baxter walk away.

      Yesterday, he would have welcomed her fawning as a mark of his success, but today, it was cloying.

      She had not accepted his desertion last night gracefully though. She’d been angry this morning, but despite that, the woman was not to be set off lightly. She was blatantly throwing herself at him now because she’d divined his interest was fading. More fool her. She’d clearly learned nothing about him. It would only put him off. It also convinced him that her previous disinclination had been a foil. She’d taken two weeks to woo, but now, he suspected, she’d never been disinclined, only hoping to snare him for longer than a brief affair. A game he was learning to be wary of.

      He did not deliberately avoid long-term relationships. On the continent he’d had several.

      A smile pulled at his lips when he remembered the opera singer in Rome. Then there was his widow in Venice. They’d taught him much of women. He’d learned many skills in his dissipated years abroad. It had changed him from a naïve and greedy youth, hungry for everything and anything that filled and fuelled his violently empty soul, to a connoisseur who liked to savour stimulation. Gluttony was no longer to his taste. He enjoyed relishing every morsel. Sadly, he just hadn’t found a woman who held his interest in a while. His eyes strayed towards Sparks’s box. And no woman had ever truly filled the void. Not since Jane. That damn woman had tainted everything beyond her, and now he’d seen and savoured an appetizer of the original woman he judged all others by, he’d lost his hunger for anything else again. He wanted her.

      His stare reached to where she sat and caught her gaze. Instantly, she looked away in an obvious attempt to pretend she had not been watching. Her face now hidden behind the broad rim of her black bonnet, he turned fully in her direction and rested his gloved hands on the rail, making no secret of his contemplation.

      Her slender, black-clad figure was tense. She was, perhaps, nervous. She probably knew he was still looking. Well, she deserved a little discomfort. He smiled.

      When she’d suggested their assignation, he’d assumed she was fast, and she’d be eager, but in his chamber, she’d seemed hesitant. Yet her responses had been beautiful, real, honest, and open in a way he was unused to.

      She’d let her defences fall last night. It had been all he’d anticipated.

      He leaned forward onto his elbows and tipped the brim of his hat a little lower, hiding his gaze.

      She was peeved because his attentions had been planned for Lady Baxter, yes, but from the way she’d looked at him just a moment ago, he would make a fair guess she was jealous, too. Well, jealousy was a useful tool.

      She’d changed. But then, so had he. What to make of it? That was the question. All he knew at this moment was she piqued his interest, and he was unwilling to simply let her shrug him off. When he’d first seen her last night, the anger, which had driven his desire for self-destruction in the early years of his life after Jane, had fired up again within his gut. But equally, there had been a deep-seated need for her.

      She had been everything to him once. He couldn’t say if it made him glad to have her so close, or if he wished to see her suffer by his hand in exchange for the harm she’d done him. Tangled emotions had disturbed his sleep and still tormented him, conflicting tumultuous and dissipated desires.

      Jane was the only woman who could make his heart pump harder, and the one thing he knew was she could hurt him. He could not dispel her from his mind now any more easily