Destitute On His Doorstep (24 page)

He turned at the sound of her voice and looked at her. For the past half an hour as he had waited for her to arrive he had been struggling with his feelings as he told himself that Jane had been hurt and humiliated, and that when his summons came she would undoubtedly demonstrate her rebellion against him by doing something to defy and provoke him. He reminded himself that no matter what she said or did, he would be patient and understanding. But when he looked at her, at her chin held defiantly high, it was all he could do to bridle his temper.

‘I'm glad you could spare the time to come and see me,' he remarked curtly. ‘I thought you might refuse.'

Jane lifted her head, her anger draining slowly away. Although a trace of defiance still shone from her glorious dark eyes, they were sparkling with suppressed tears, shining with the pain of their imminent parting. The translucent skin beneath them were smudged with shadows, and her normally glowing complexion was drained of colour.

‘I couldn't do that. I wanted to see you to apologise for my anger earlier. It was uncalled for and I'm sorry.'

Francis shrugged himself away from the fence, stretching languidly, and Jane watched the way his muscles seemed to ripple beneath his shirt. He stopped in front of her, looking down at her solemnly. She looked beautiful and proud and aloof, all part of the contradictions that made up this lovely young woman.

‘You are a difficult woman to win over, Jane Lucas. I would be sorry to see you leave—separated by a chasm of misunderstandings and anger. Does the thought of being my wife bring you such misery?'

Jane was shocked by his unexpected gentleness and completely at a loss as to how to answer. She wanted to appear haughty and remote, cold—anything but weak and helpless. It was on the tip of her tongue to retort that the last thing she wanted was to be his wife, and yet, on the other hand, she owed it to him to be truthful.

‘No, the idea doesn't make me miserable.'

‘Then I think we should discuss why you decided to reject my proposal. Perhaps then we may be able to
resolve the issue. I have been speaking to Hester and she's made me see things more clearly.'

With anger stirring afresh, Jane stared at him, sarcasm quirking the corner of her mouth. ‘She has? And you are so certain that we have things to sort out between us?'

‘I am. I see your pain. I want to take it away, to see you happy. Jane, did you really believe that you were so undesirable to me that I would take you for my wife merely to repay a debt?'

She stared at him. ‘Hester told you that?' He nodded. ‘Then, yes, I do think that. I did not think you wanted me for the woman that I am.'

‘And you held that against me?' He smiled faintly when she nodded. ‘Then you do not know me, Jane. Will it change how you feel if I tell you that I did not know you were Tom until after I asked you to be my wife? I did not see or speak to Alice until the day they came and took you away.'

Jane stared at him, beginning to realise that her fears were all of her own making. What Francis had just revealed was humbling. She was mortified when she remembered how she had misjudged him, even though she'd had every reason to suspect his motives. ‘Is—is this true?'

He nodded. ‘It is.'

Suddenly she found she was speaking past a lump in her throat. ‘Why didn't you tell me? Why did you let me go on thinking those—those awful things? You have no idea how I have tortured myself over this.'

Reaching out, he traced his forefinger along the curve of her cheek, relieved when she didn't draw back. ‘How was I to know what thoughts were in your head?
I wanted you to come to know for yourself the kind of man I am and to trust in me. But I had doubts of my own, Jane. There was Bilborough, you see. I thought that was what you wanted.'

‘Yes—I—I did—more than anything.'

‘Careful, Jane,' he said warningly. ‘You are sounding to me like a woman who would use me to leap to the top of the tree. Whereas I would have taken you in love.' When she turned her eyes on him and searched his face, he nodded, his expression sombre. ‘Aye, Jane. I do love you. I think I've loved you from the moment I first saw you standing so poised and brave on the day you returned to Bilborough. I thought that you were the loveliest, most enchanting creature God ever created. I love you enough to trust that together we can solve whatever life offers us. I desire you and were I the meanest beggar I would still want you. It would make no difference. But what of you?' he queried. ‘Must I doubt you? How could I ever be sure it was me you wanted—or your precious Bilborough? Is it me you want?'

So torn about her emotions was Jane that tears sprung to her eyes. For a moment she held herself stiff, then when he opened his arms she moved into them, feeling them close about her. It was like coming home. ‘You,' she said. ‘Without you nothing matters. Not Bilborough—nothing.' He held her tight and the ice and the pain in her heart melted in a rush of desire. ‘It is you I want. Please believe me, Francis. It is you I love—for your honour and your courage—and your persistence, for I did not make it easy for you.'

His voice came soft, husky, almost a whisper. ‘You have my heart, and I can only pray you will trust me
with your own, to keep and cherish it for ever. But must I ever court you, Jane, destroying the barrier you have built around yourself stone by stone, tearing down your resistance until you yield to me—that tears at the roots of my very sanity?'

Standing back in his arms, beneath his gaze, Jane quaked, and when he drew his fingers gently along the bare flesh of her jaw, they seared the ends of her nerves until she ached to be drawn to him once more. The steady eyes, the resolute, firm mouth had not been so close for a long time. She remained still, drawn into those eyes. Her lips were parted, her breathing rapid in anticipation of his kiss. But it did not come. Instead he chuckled deeply in his chest and, seeing the bemusement in her face, stepped back from her.

Sorely offended at the thought that he was playing with her, irately, she said, ‘You are a beast, Francis Russell.'

There was more than a trace of laughter in his tone when he said, ‘Aye, Jane, I agree with you, and no doubt of the most irksome sort.'

Jane stared at him, and, sensing the lightness of his mood, a delicious smile broke upon her lips. ‘And it is an accepted fact that I am a witch.'

‘It is,' he agreed. His smile broadened.

‘Then are you not afraid that some day I might take your heart and rip it to pieces?'

‘That, my love, you have already done. What about the rich man you told me you are to marry? The rich man who will give you everything your heart desires?'

Jane looked puzzled for a moment and then laughed out loud. ‘Oh, you idiot, Francis Russell,' she exclaimed.
‘You poor deluded idiot. I told you that in a rage, when you were so certain I would marry you, and I thought you only asked me to repay the debt. I was angry. I wanted to hurt you back.'

‘Then if it's a rich man you want, I have money—so you will want for nothing. Everything your heart desires shall be granted. Although as my wife you must be prepared to be answerable to me for all things—but I promise not to beat you,' he murmured, a playful, teasing gleam dancing in his eyes.

Jane looked at him in exasperated, mischievous amazement. ‘And
that's
your definition of a good husband, is it?'

Frowning, in jest he said, ‘What else might you want?'

‘What else?' Jane was so taken aback she stared at him a moment before saying, ‘Well, if your definition of a good husband is one with wealth and position—who does not beat his wife—what does that make you?'

He shrugged, sitting down on the grass beneath a spreading oak and pulling her down beside him. ‘Never having been a husband I cannot answer that, so I cannot say if I will be good or bad. If you become my wife, you will have to decide. Already you have called me a brute—a conceited jackanapes, a buffoon and a few other things along the way, which I won't repeat for the sake of decency. But I would promise to do my best.'

A little smile curved her lips and she looked at him from between narrowed eyes. ‘And you wouldn't beat me?'

‘No, never that. But it's not uncommon for a man to beat his wife—with a stick, mind, not his fists—if
she's done wrong, that is. It's often necessary and his affair.'

‘With a stick?'

‘A stick—or his belt.'

‘And you would condone that, would you?'

A look of disgust crossed his face, but there was a distinct glint in his eye. ‘I'll have you know that I am the very soul of good nature. It's not something I would do.' He grinned when she raised an eyebrow, plainly not convinced. ‘I've never laid a finger on a woman in my life and I don't intend to start. But you can't ignore the fact that a man's wife is legally his property.'

‘And that gives him the right to beat her?'

‘If she has no notion of what constitutes wifely obedience. But then one never knows what goes on in a marriage—some women might be pleased for their husbands to beat them.'

‘Pleased?' Jane gaped at him in astonishment, almost choking on her laughter. ‘How can you think that any woman would ever be pleased to submit to such an indignity?'

The glint grew brighter in Francis's eye. He was clearly enjoying himself. ‘Some do—and many men who do it wouldn't unless their wives bedevilled them into it with their sharp tongues and needling ways.' He smiled. Jane was giving him a hard look. It was impossible to imagine any man trying such a thing on this feisty young woman. If he did, he'd have the devil of a fight on his hands, as stubborn and wilful as she was. Should anyone raise their hand to Jane Lucas, she would fly like a banshee.

Still smiling a little, he got up and pulled her to her
feet, then took her wrists, which he lifted gently over her head and pinned against the trunk of the tree she had been sitting under so that she was obliged to lean back flat against it. ‘A husband would not beat his wife to hurt her, you understand, but to show her who is master.'

‘To humiliate and degrade her, more like—to own her.'

‘You I would like not only to possess but to own, Jane.'

‘And what is your definition of that?'

‘Exactly what I say.'

‘The man I take for my husband I, too, will own, but not in the way you mean.'

‘My meaning is not so very different, I know that very well. It will have nothing to do with money or position, but feelings and emotions.' There was still a gleam of humour in his eyes, but his voice was serious. ‘I want to make you mine, Jane. I will do anything I must to make that happen.'

She glanced at him askance, a little smile playing on her lips. ‘Including beating me on a regular basis?'

‘I will never hurt you—not intentionally,' he said, speaking softly. The corner of his mouth lifted slightly.

‘Good. Then I wouldn't feel obliged to poison you.'

‘And if you were so tempted, how would you go about doing it?'

‘I am knowledgeable about herbs and things, as well you know—especially about mushrooms—the common kind that are delicious to eat, and the lovely-to-look-at kind that work fast in killing a person when eaten.'

‘Then if you were so tempted to do such a thing, I
might reverse what I have just said. Given time before I finally expired,' he said with a low chuckle, bending his head and nuzzling his lips in the warm hollow of her neck where a pulse was beginning to beat erratically just below the surface of her flesh, ‘ I just might be tempted to take a stick to your very attractive backside—which, as I recall, is soft and round and very pretty. You will recall…when…'

Blood flared abruptly in her cheeks and she gasped. ‘When what? How do you know?'

Raising his head, he glanced at her, raised one eyebrow, then she, too, recalled the incident when she had nearly knocked him over on the landing at Bilborough when she had chased after Scamp.

He grinned, his eyes bright with mischief. ‘I see you haven't forgotten.'

‘No indeed,' she said, extremely embarrassed. She had succeeded in putting that very humiliating episode to the back of her mind, and did not appreciate having it recalled. Francis, on the other hand, was plainly enjoying the recollection. He eyed her in a manner she found absolutely insufferable.

‘Your nightdress didn't leave much to the imagination. Do you always go to bed like that?'

‘Like what?'

‘Scantily clad.'

‘I was not,' she flared, her face hot with indignation.

‘You were when you clung to me for support.'

Jane began to feel the throbbing of blood in her veins. ‘I had to hold on to something, otherwise I would have fallen. You happened to be the nearest thing.'

‘Oh, yes,' he said, and the grin widened. ‘So I was. It was your own fault, mind, that you bumped into me.'

‘My fault?'

He nodded. ‘Although I recall you blamed it on your dog at the time. Still, I didn't mind you falling into my arms the way you did. If you hadn't slipped, you'd never have got so close to me.'

‘Close? And you imagine I enjoy being that close to you, do you?'

His eyes gleamed. ‘Are you telling me you don't?'

‘It is conceited of you to assume I do.'

He caught the sudden pique in her voice. His eyes sharpened and fixed on her face. ‘You prevaricate, Jane.'

Jane pulled against his grip by sheer reflex, but the pressure of his hands on her wrists increased. She realised that pinned to the tree like this, defenceless and exposed, he could do anything he liked to her—and would. She squirmed against him, trying to escape the memory of how it had felt to be in his arms, but to no avail—and she knew she didn't want to escape it, but to experience it once more. His free hand caressed her cheek—it was no more than a featherlight touch, but that was all it took to make her realise that if he had a mind, he could touch her anywhere, in any way.