The Passionate Love of a Rake. Jane Lark

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СКАЧАТЬ the funeral and played sorrowful widow at his wake, while neither Joshua nor his wife had made any effort to attend.

      Joshua had severed all ties with his father the day the old Duke had married Jane. Since then, her stepson had taken the greatest pleasure in victimising her, including making several indecent propositions.

      Yet when Hector was alive, Joshua had never entered their home.

      Her eyes faced her reflection, Jane Grey, the Dowager Duchess of Sutton. A dowager at the ripe old age of six and twenty. It was ludicrous. It had always been ludicrous marrying a man more than four times her age with a son over twenty years her senior. But her parents had thought only of the title and their financial security. They hadn’t given a fig for her happiness. She had been bartered off for profit.

      Finally, happiness was in reach. But Joshua was snatching it from her grasp once more. She was in equal measure angry and afraid.

      He had the estates. They would make another fortune in time and plenty to live on. Why could he not leave her alone?

      Oh, she wished her parents were alive. She would have run to them and let them share the hell they’d crafted.

      Pressing her fingers to her forehead, she caught her sharp emerald gaze reflected in the mirror. Her almond-shaped eyes shone. She frowned in self-deprecation. Despite her current worn and sickly look, she was still beautiful. She did not feel in the least vain to recognise it. To her, it had been a simple and sorrowful fact for years, no blessing. Her unusual colouring, her jet-black, spiralling hair, her honeyed skin tone and, most of all, her vivid green eyes, were all at fault.

      As Sutton’s wife, her beauty had drawn constant attention. It was a gift from her ancestors – so her mother had once told Jane, glowing with pride. She came from a distant line of Spanish nobility.

      Jane saw little to be proud of today. Beauty was a curse. It attracted men like Hector. Men who wanted to acquire it.

      He’d sought eternal youth through an innocent, young woman in her sixteenth year and he’d drained Jane’s life from her. She was an empty shell now. That blind, ignorant girl died the night her seventeenth year commenced. The woman who faced her now was born when she’d stood before an altar and promised herself to a man four times her age.

      But it was useless thinking of the past; she could not change it. The only thing she was certain of was her future would not be under her stepson’s rule.

      Jane turned and paced back across the rug. She thought of Lady Rimes, Violet. The woman Jane had lovingly named the wicked widow. Last winter in Bath, when Hector had visited the spa to take the waters, Jane had snatched moments to escape and formed an unlikely and rare friendship with Violet. Violet was everything Jane was not, and the reason Jane had come to Bath. She’d hoped Violet would be here. It had taken one look in the register book at the pump room to realise her hopes were naïve.

      This was not winter. The month of May meant the ton, England’s elite society, were in London; of course Violet was there.

      But Jane knew Violet would help her. They’d sought each other out numerous times last winter. Violet had made Jane laugh for the first time in years, and when Jane had left Bath, her friend had begged Jane to visit whenever she wished.

      Then this is my answer.

      If she lived with Violet, surely Joshua would not dare barge into the house. Every insult he’d thrown had been out of the earshot of society. He picked his moments carefully. Violet’s presence would hold him at bay until Jane could find a pathway forward.

      Impatient suddenly, she strode to the door, the black muslin skirt of her high-waist gown with its fashionable empire line, slashing against her legs, restricting her hurried and determined steps. When she reached the door, she looked out into the hall.

      Garnett stood beside the front door. “Garnett, would you have Meg fetch my pelisse and bonnet? I am going out, and while I am out, please hire a post-chaise and team to transport me to London, and have Meg pack. I will be leaving tomorrow.”

      The Pump Room’s director would know Violet’s address.

      The butler bowed stiffly.

       Chapter Two

      Jane’s gaze swept the spectacle of the Duchess of Weldon’s spring Ball. The room was flooded with shimmering, spinning colours as she watched the dancers, the debutantes in white muslins, and their mamas and chaperones wearing every shade of the rainbow and beyond. Gentlemen punctuated the spectacle in formal black, crisply starched white cravats and silk stockings; their only show of frivolity, the glinting embroidery on their waistcoats.

      It was a beautiful sight, and all the glamour was reflected in shards of light, spinning and flickering from the crystal prisms of glass dangling from the chandeliers above, and from mirrors which lined the ballroom above head height. The orchestra played a merry country tune, and the dancers bounced and stepped in time, skirts swaying. Laughter, chatter, and the sound of their footsteps filled the stifling air.

      Jane had never been to a ball in London until recently. Access to the splendour of this society ritual should have been hers by right as a duchess, but Hector had preferred small, crude affairs for entertainment. He had not held balls, nor attended them, and so, nor had she.

      It all appeared surreal to her now, a place of dreams. Yet she’d existed in this world of illusion for over two weeks. It was Violet’s everyday life. Jane was still overawed by it. She wished for her friend’s air of confidence.

      For the past two weeks, Jane had studied Violet’s every movement, longing to gain both town polish and society’s approval. To date, they had eluded her. Of course, wearing black did not help. She should not even be on the social round. She ought to be at home, tucked up in bed and reading a book, acting out the role of deepest mourning. But if she obeyed that unwritten law, then she would be at the mercy of Joshua.

      Besides, Violet, the model on whom Jane was moulding her own image, did not give a whit for society’s conventions, and no one seemed to pay any attention to Violet’s blatant misdemeanours. Violet’s favourite saying was, “Society’s rules are only there to be broken.” She put no store at all by them and persistently urged Jane to just put off her blacks and face the indignation, weighting her argument by pointing out Jane was now a wealthy widow and she need not pander to the ton’s condescension. Violet also said it was only the women who’d care. The men would not give a damn. They would be too busy being intrigued by another merry widow entering the fray.

      Jane was not that brave. Yet she did not doubt Violet’s perception. Everywhere they went, men glanced sideways, implying their interest.

      Jane had not come to town to become embroiled with another man though. She had come to town to escape one. At least that, to date, had been successful.

      “Jane, dear, I know you do not wish to dance while in mourning; would you care for cards?”

      Violet’s words stirred Jane from her reverie. She turned to her friend and smiled. “Truly, Violet, I do not mind at all if you wish to dance. I am quite happy to sit it out alone.”

      Violet’s sole purpose in life was bringing men to her heel; she kept them on an invisible leash. She’d had numerous affairs, and made no secret СКАЧАТЬ