Page 76 of Regency Whispers: Scandalous Matches

‘I am sorry for what you heard me say to Lady Mountjoy,’ he said quietly. ‘I was panicked and worried about the future.’

‘That is understandable,’ Jane said, her face impassive. ‘Thank you for the apology, but it really wasn’t necessary for you to race all this way to say you were sorry how things ended.’

She stood and turned to leave and for a moment Tom was stunned. Recovering as quickly as he could, he leaped from the bed and grasped hold of her by the arms.

‘That was not all I came to say.’

Jane looked down, swallowing as her eyes skimmed across his naked chest and arms.

‘Please put on a shirt,’ she said, her voice low, and he could see there was a flicker of desire in her eyes when she looked back up at him.

Tom complied, taking a moment to pull on the clean shirt he had hung up a few minutes earlier. When he turned back to Jane, she looked as though she wanted to flee.

‘I’ve been beyond foolish,’ he said, realising if she left now he might never get a chance to say what he needed to. ‘It took losing you to make me realise what we had, what we could have in the future.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Reaching down, he took both her hands in his own.

‘I love you, Jane.’

She looked up at him as if he had just declared he was off to live on the moon.

‘No, you don’t.’

He laughed, loving how certain she was about everything, even now.

‘I do. I didn’t realise it at first. I think I tried not to admit it to myself because it would mean confronting things I have tried to hide from for a long time.’

‘You love me?’

‘Yes. I love you. I love everything about you. When I pictured my life without you, it made me so miserable. It was a life without laughter and happiness and love.’

Shaking her head, she pulled away. ‘How have you gone from thinking our marriage would be a convenient arrangement, something done to preserve my reputation with the added benefit of providing a stable family for Edward, to this?’

‘I think I knew I loved you even then. I just couldn’t admit it.’

‘Because loving me is so shameful.’

‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘You are worth the love of a hundred men. It was my problems, my stubbornness, that stopped me from being able to accept what my heart was trying to tell me.’

Jane fell quiet, her head bowed and her eyes darting back and forth across the floor.

‘I need some time,’ she said abruptly, turning to leave.

‘Jane,’ he said, softly now. ‘All I am asking for is some time to explain.’ He was asking for a lot more than that—they both knew it—but first they needed to sit down and talk.

She nodded. ‘I’m not going to run again,’ she said with a half-smile. ‘But I just need a few minutes.’

‘Have you eaten?’

‘No.’

‘Shall I ask the maid to bring something up and we can talk over dinner?’

‘That sounds like a nice idea. Perhaps in half an hour.’

Without waiting for his answer, she left, walking away quickly so he couldn’t try to stop her. Normally he was good at reading people, at knowing what they were thinking or what they were going to do, but at this moment he had no idea what was going through Jane’s head.