Dark Fires (19 page)

35

Jane was ecstatic. She had been ecstatic all evening, since first peeking out at the audience for the night’s performance. It was packed. The house was full. And knowing this, she had played to them with all the passion in her soul. Now, the final curtain lowered, Jane curtsied to the sound of the house’s applause.

Yet it was no standing ovation. Also, it was curiously lacking in thunder, in resonance, in enthusiasm. There was something restrained about it, something polite. Jane sensed a great gap between herself and her audience, one she could not understand, yet as she bowed again, she did not let the smile slip from her face. With the house so full, why was this ovation so routine, so lacking in passion? A rose fell at her feet. Automatically, gracefully, she retrieved it, waving and blowing a kiss to the front rows. A man in the aisle below center stage called her nickname fervently, “Angel, Angel!”

Jane turned to go, spirits starting to sink. And then she heard a clear shout: “Where is the Angel’s Lord of Darkness?” This from a woman heckler.

She froze briefly, half turned away from the audience, then continued from the stage, slipping behind the curtains. And there she stood stock still, hearing the chant of “Angel, Angel,” but she also thought she heard his name—Darkness, Dragmore, Darkness, Dragmore …

Oh, God!

She clutched herself, suddenly terribly afraid.

“Jane, you were fantastic,” Gordon cried, taking her hands.

Jane’s soul was numb, although her mind was functioning. Someone, or some persons, had been shouting his name—her husband’s name. Hadn’t they? She hadn’t imagined it, had she? No! Impossible! She was a professional actress, and such ribaldery would not occur here. She was imagining things.

The press were waiting for her in the corridor in front of her dressing room, and her heart leapt in anticipation. She knew them all now, and managed a big smile, still shocked, but her gaze was anxious, searching from one to the other. She saw avid, leering interest—at least, she thought she did.

“Jane!” cried the man from the
Star.
“You were great tonight! So marriage suits you?”

A woman shoved past. “How did you two meet? Was it love at first sight? Aren’t you afraid of him?” And she shuddered theatrically.

Jane recoiled.

The
Star
reporter pressed forward. “Why the secret marriage? When did he propose? When did you two decide to get married? Did he kill his wife?”

“Enough!” Jane cried, suddenly aghast and sickened. She used Gordon as a buffer to hurl through them and into the sanctuary of her dressing room.

But the woman’s voice carried. “Did he kill his wife? Aren’t you afraid he’ll tire of you and kill you too?”

Gordon slammed the door in her face.

Jane stood frozen, shaking. She was as pale as death. “Oh, God!”

“Forget it,” Gordon said decisively. “It’s not a big affair. It’s just not every day that a famous actress marries a notorious lord.”

Jane was clutching her throat. “They’re bloodthirsty barbarians,” she whispered. “And the audience—did you hear them? They shouted his name tonight.”

“Curiosity—” Gordon began.

“Curiosity!” Jane screeched, hysterical. “They came tonight because of curiosity! Am I a circus now?” Tears filled her eyes. “I’ve worked so hard, so damn hard, I’ve paid my dues, more than paid, and they come to see the Lord of Darkness’s new wife! Not to see me, Jane Barclay!”

“You’re exaggerating,” Gordon said. “Calm down, Jane.”

“Attendance has been dropping steadily. Yesterday we got married, this morning it was plastered all over the papers! ‘London’s Angel Weds the Lord of Darkness!’” She cried bitterly. “They only came to stare at a freak show tonight! I knew something was wrong when I heard the applause!”

Gordon rubbed her shoulder. “You are exaggerating, Jane. Maybe a few of them came to gawk, but most came for the performance.” Yet his voice held a note of doubt.

Jane swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand, pulling away. “I hate him,” she whispered. “He’s ruining me!”

Gordon said nothing.

Trembling, angry, distraught, Jane sat and began abruptly removing her makeup. She ignored the sherry Robert handed her. “How will I overcome this?”

“It will die down in a few days,” Gordon told her. “You’ll see.”

Jane stared at her pale reflection in the mirror. This, at last, made sense, and offered hope. She rubbed her temples. They throbbed.

“You’ll feel better once you get home,” Gordon told her. “After a good night’s rest.”

Jane laughed. “The last place I want to go is home! The last person I want to see …” She clenched her fists. She was so mad, so upset, and she was still shaking.

“How about some supper then?” he suggested gently.

Jane wasn’t hungry, but she was too upset to go home and face him and his house. She turned to Gordon with relief. “Thank you, Robert. That is a wonderful idea.”

Gordon took her to one of their favorite restaurants on Hay Market. It was dimly lit and cozy, the chef and owner Parisian, the food uncommonly good, and popular with theater-goers and late-night revelers. The maitre d’ knew them and took them promptly to a table in a back corner. Jane was used to receiving looks in public places, and had never been quite sure if it was because she was beautiful (as everyone claimed) or because she was recognized to be the stage actress. Yet here, at Chez Oz, where she dined at least once a week after performing, she had become an accepted patron, and most of the clientele paid her little attention. Yet tonight was different.

Heads craned her way. Voices hushed. Silence formed a wake behind her, only to spume gossipy whispers. Jane heard
his
name, damn him, and hers, and felt heat suffuse her face. She kept her head high, avoiding all eye contact. Gordon seated her, flustered.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized.

She only looked at him, although her seat faced out upon the restaurant. “As you said”—she shrugged with feigned indifference—“it will die down.”

“You are a trooper, Jane,” Gordon said, smiling. “Like your mother.”

Tonight Jane was not in the mood to be compared, once again, and by her best friend, to her mother. She turned her head away, glancing casually around. With her fingers she toyed with her water glass. And then she saw him, and she froze.

She had not thought the evening could get worse.

Sitting a few tables away, in the very midst of the dining room, was her husband.
With Amelia.

Jane stared at them, stunned. He was magnificent in black tails and tie, and Amelia was ravishing in emerald taffeta and diamonds. They made a gorgeous couple. She realized her heart was beating painfully; worse, he was staring back at her. Jane felt the heat return to her face, and, damn him, the need to cry came hotly behind her lids.

“I don’t believe it,” Gordon cried, outraged.

Jane turned away, seemingly calm and poised, and placed a hand on his arm. Her smile was sick. “Please, Robert, do not interfere. It makes no difference to me whom he sees, as long as he stays away from me.” Her voice was suspiciously shaky.

“He is a son of a bitch,” Gordon said, low and furious.

“Absolutely.” Jane would not look at him, at them. She knew she was still beet red, and now she understood the lurid interest her entrance had aroused. She wondered who she hated more, the earl or Amelia.

“We’ll go,” Gordon said, starting to rise.

Jane restrained him. “We will not.” Somehow she smiled. “I am in the mood for a Montrachet and some Dover sole.” She leaned close, and her eyes flashed. “He shall not chase me away!”

Gordon signaled to the maitre d’, then grimaced. “They’re leaving,” he told Jane, who would not look in their direction again. “Prepare yourself, they’re coming this way.”

Jane hated him. Her heart pounded painfully, yet her will was iron. Casually, gracefully, she turned to watch their approach, with elegance and seeming disinterest.

The earl paused beside her, Amelia behind him. His face was expressionless. “Hello, Jane,” he said, gazing at her. There was such power in his smoldering regard that Jane could not look away. He took her hand and kissed it, making lingering contact with her flesh, as if savoring the touch. “How was the show?”

So he would play polite games even as he made a fool of her publicly! “Don’t pretend you care!” she spat, blue eyes blazing. He hadn’t released her hand, and a brief tug failed to dislodge it. She knew they were making a scene, and she did not want to appear aroused, so she refrained from further attempts at freeing herself.

He stiffened, released her palm, and pulled Amelia forward. He nodded at Gordon. “We were just taking our leave,” he said, his face a mask.

Amelia was smiling with unfettered glee. “Why, hullo, Jane! This is a surprise! Imagine, you and your friend running into me and mine! What a small world! Nick insists we should leave, but we haven’t even eaten yet, perhaps we should all dine together?”

Jane knew she would never survive a supper with the earl and his flaming floozy. Color was rising high upon her cheekbones again. Then the earl gripped Amelia’s elbow and rudely yanked it, causing her to screech like a crow. He never took his gaze from Jane, and the burning intensity there confused her. “Good night,” he said. “I will see you shortly at home.”

“Will you?” Jane said snidely. “I doubt it.” She sniffed.

He gave her a look and then turned away, dragging a gleeful Amelia with him.

“So much for discretion,” Jane said, a sob catching in her voice.

“Jane, let’s go. Staying here is masochistic.”

“No,” Jane said grimly. “No, no. The last place I am going tonight is home.”

36

“You’re not going to come in?” Amelia gasped.

“Not tonight,” the earl said calmly as they stood on the doorstep of her brick town house. His carriage awaited him in the gas-lit, cobbled street beyond the small front garden and wrought-iron fence.

“Darling, really,” Amelia said, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her lush body against his. “Don’t be so moody.”

He unwrapped her, removing her from him. “Good night, Amelia.”

She grasped his hand, halting him as he turned to leave. “Are you going to be faithful to her?” she cried, her face white and angry in the lamplight. There was no question that she was referring to Jane.

A cruel look crossed his features, and he gripped her chin hard. “My wife has nothing to do with this.”

“No? Somehow, I doubt it! I think you have a tendre for her!”

The earl laughed, white teeth gleaming. “Don’t think to provoke me into your bed, Amelia.”

“Let me provoke you,” she said huskily, reaching to touch his flaccid penis through his trousers, rubbing it gently.

He removed her hand, ungently. “Do you ever have anything other than sex on your mind?”

“You didn’t come in last night either!”

“I’m sure that strapping twenty-year-old groom you make eyes at can accommodate you, Amelia,” the earl purred.

“Ooh!” She gasped, recoiling, yet shock and fear of discovery flared in her eyes.

He grinned. “Don’t ever underestimate me, my dear,” he said, low. “And never play me for the fool.” He turned his back on her and strode down the walk.

“You bastard!” she hissed. “How dare you insinuate such a thing!”

His laughter, soft, mocking, assured, drifted to her as he climbed into the carriage with the Drag-more crests. “Home, Eddie,” he called, not glancing back once at his furious mistress.

Tension reared itself in the earl. He sat stiffly, staring straight ahead at the opposite seat with its plush black leather upholstery, yet he saw only Jane. Jane pale, shocked, hurt. Impossibly beautiful, as fragile as an angel, as innocent. Something that felt like a knife twisted in his guts.

He did not want to hurt her.

Ever.

But she had hurt him. Had lied, deceived him, cheated him of his daughter. She had left him too, after he had offered marriage—after he had realized he loved her. She had never loved him, he realized now. She had merely harbored an adolescent crush upon him, one that had passed readily enough. Again there was the stabbing of an old, old pain.

And there was jealousy.

She only appeared innocent, and he reminded himself of this fact vigorously.

He did not like her relationship with Gordon. Gordon was only fifty, a trim, elegant man, and maybe, once upon a time, he had been like a father to Jane. The earl did not believe in fairy tales. Jane was now a ravishing woman, and any man with one eye could see that, and no man could be immune to her intriguing combination of innocence and sensuality. Including Gordon.

Was he one of her lovers?

And what about Lindley? Had Lindley lied? He and Jane were awfully close, weren’t they?

The earl knew he was torturing himself, but he couldn’t help it. When he had offered Jane marriage after discovering Nicole’s existence, he had never even dreamed it would be upon the terms she insisted on. To the contrary—he had envisioned her in his bed, naked and wet and writhing beneath him while he slaked his endless lust for her. He had envisioned giving her more children, beautiful blond, blue-eyed dolls. Yet instead, he was keeping company with his oversexed mistress while Jane kept company with her own paramours.

His fist crashed down on the seat beside him. He was rigid now, seething, agonized. Damn her —he hated her!

He wanted to go back to Amelia and fuck her. Prove his manhood, prove his own disinterest in his wife. But he knew he would not,
could not
, knew he was only fooling himself if he told himself he did not want Jane. Oh, he wanted her, all right.

But never would he prostrate himself to her.

Never would he beg for her favors.

Never.

He lunged out of the coach when they arrived at the house on Tavistock Square. Thomas had dutifully waited up for him. “Is my wife here?” the earl asked abruptly.

“No, sir,” Thomas said.

Nick cursed and paced into his study. It was only half-past one. She was still at the restaurant, undoubtedly. He should either go to sleep or go out again. But he did neither.

He threw his jacket and tie on the sofa, where they slipped to the floor, and unbuttoned his shirt. He paced restlessly, like a caged lion who scents the kill but is not freed to hunt it. Tonight half a glass of whiskey sufficed, he could not contemplate more. He put out three cigars, barely touched. It was hot and humid this night, and his skin was damp and sticky. He removed his shirt with a growl, a lion pricked by a thorn, and balled it, threw it aside. And his flesh, his flesh was pulsing with anger and jealousy and unfulfilled need.

It was three-thirty before she returned.

Three-thirty.

The earl heard the long-awaited sounds of the coach, the horses, the hounds, and finally her sweet voice thanking a servant who let her in. Fists clenched, he loomed in the doorway of the library, backlit by the swelling lights from within. She jumped upon seeing him.

He stared at her rudely. Her hair, he saw, was still caught up in the chignon, not a hair out of place. Her face was pale, eyes wide and bright, lips unswollen. Her low-cut dress was immaculately in place, perfectly buttoned, perfectly adorned. He found his gaze lingering upon her breasts and he imagined them filling his hands. When he jerked his eyes back to hers, he saw that color had crept along her cheekbones.

“Where the hell have you been?” he demanded harshly.

She started, then her blue eyes flashed. “That, my lord, is none of your affair!” She sneered his title.

“Oh, it’s my affair all right,” he said softly, dangerously, stepping closer to her. She backed off a step. “Where in hell have you been!”

“Where have you been?” She lifted a pale eyebrow regally.

He grabbed her before she could dodge him, catching her small wrist, so she could not flee. “Answer me, Jane.” His tone was ominous.

“I was with Robert Gordon, as you well know!”

“Where?” he said with a snarl.

“It’s none of your concern!” She tried to free her hand and failed.

“As your husband, every goddamn breath you take is my concern.”

“We have an agreement,” she cried. “Or have you forgotten?”

“Forgotten?” he purred, pulling her closer. She gasped when he drew her so close their breaths mingled, her skirts touching his knees. “How could I ever forget?”

Just for an instant, Jane couldn’t reply. His face was so close. Dark, deadly, his eyes silver with fury and hot, glittering passion, his mouth so sensually curved, parted, and so near hers. She could even feel the heat of his slickly damp, bared torso. He wanted her, she knew it. He was going to kiss her. Her heart was thumping its way right out of her breast.

“I could never forget.”

His words scorched their way right to her heart. She tried to twist free, failing. “Obviously you haven’t forgotten,” she cried. “Obviously you are making good use of our ‘agreement.’” Images of Amelia rose to torment her further.

“Very good use,” the earl agreed.

“Let me go!”

“Is he good?” the earl asked cruelly. “Does he please you, Jane? Can an old man like that even give you orgasms?”

Jane gasped, recoiling.

He yanked her hard to him, wrapped one steel arm around her waist, crushed her breasts to his naked, wet chest, and kissed her brutally. Jane felt panic on the heels of her shock. He was all steel strength, and he was so dark and angry, that her struggle was futile unless he chose to release her. Yet even as her mind grappled with panic, the feel of his damp skin on her partly bared breasts caused her nipples to harden with agony, caused shafts of need deep within her. Then he pulled his mouth away from hers. “You would kiss him but not me, your husband?”

Jane was furious. She had had enough. And that he would think she and Robert lovers was unbelievable. Yet she had only to recall him and Amelia to know she would not deny it. “Let me go,” she said with forced calm.

“I don’t think so.”

As she stood imprisoned in his embrace, her body hot and pulsing in response to him, her control snapped. “Perchance,” she said too sweetly, “Amelia doesn’t satisfy you?”

He froze.

“If she did,” she cried, “you would not have so much energy left over to torment me with! Or is it just your style to leap from her bed to mine? Is this perhaps the new fashion? Is it the fashion nowadays to parade one’s mistress in public before one’s wife—within days of the wedding?”

In that instant his grip tightened, and she saw both pain and anger wrenching on his face. She stood very still, her heart slamming; and he released her abruptly.

Jane backed away, breathing hard. The earl slumped against the wall, a mocking smile distorting his beautiful mouth. “Go back to your lovers, Jane,” he said wearily. “I don’t want you.”

As if doused with water, the fires of her rage dimmed and died. As her pulse slowed from its mad gallop, her eyes never left him. With her heart, she wanted to tell him the truth; with her heart, she wanted to go to him, touch his brow, smooth the pain away, and somehow take away what had been said and start over. But she responded with her mind and with her pride. Tears welling, lips pursed, she backed away, found the stairs, and fled up them into the refuge of her room.