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Chapter Eleven
Between them, the two ladies and Mark, with the connivance of Dr Trench, persuaded Jane that she ought to stay where she was for another week at least. Jane herself was convinced of the need for it when she attempted to leave her bed unaided and fell to the floor. Mark was passing in the corridor and heard her sharp cry. He rushed in and helped her up, trying not to notice that she wore only a flimsy nightgown that did nothing to hide her curves, nor the soft swelling of her breasts rising and falling with her breathing. He stood, holding her against him, savouring the feel of her in his arms, her body fitting so neatly into his and his hunger for her became almost unbearable.
True, he had held her before, once on the village green when Drew had been with him. ‘If I did not know you better, I would think you were a little too fond of your future sister-in-law,’ his friend had said, which was perceptive of him, considering he had not realised it himself at the time. Then when she twisted her ankle on the broken stair, and latterly when she came off her horse in his drive, but she had always been fully dressed. Even when she had been so ill and he lay watching her hour after hour, she had been well covered, Janet had seen to that.
He turned her in his arms and tipped her chin up so that he could look into her face. ‘It seems I am destined to be always picking you up off the floor,’ he said, attempting humour. And then he kissed her.
It was only meant to be a gentle kiss, a fond kiss to let her know he was on her side, to try to convey he knew not what, but it deepened into something much more and she stood cradled in his arms and let it happen. There was no cry of protest as his lips found hers, no pushing him away in outraged fury. She melted into him and he knew, he knew then, that he could never marry anyone else, no matter what.
‘Jane?’ he murmured, leaving off kissing her, but continuing to hold her, knowing she would crumple if he did not. Besides, he wanted to. ‘Oh, Jane, what are we going to do? I cannot let you go.’
‘No, for I should fall down again.’
‘I didn’t mean that.’
‘Neither did I.’
‘I love you.’
‘It cannot be,’ she said, as a tear slipped down her cheek. Telling her that when it was all too late was the greatest torment of all.
‘It is a fact.’ He kissed the tear away.
‘Mark, don’t, please don’t.’
‘Why? Are you going to tell me you do not love me?’
‘I...’ She stopped in confusion.
‘Be honest with me, Jane.’
‘I am always honest with you.’
‘Well then?’
‘Whatever my feelings may be, it still cannot be,’ she murmured. ‘There’s Isabel and...and Lord Bolsover.’ She shivered.
‘Damn Bolsover.’ He picked her up, kissed her again and put her back on the bed, pulled the covers over her and sat down on the edge, holding her hand. ‘We could run away and marry secretly.’
‘Mark, you are joking, you must be. Think of the scandal, think of your mother, your friends and the villagers, who look up to you and respect you. Would you forfeit that? And there’s Isabel. Would you break her heart?’
He was tempted to say ‘Damn Isabel’, but refrained. Instead he said, ‘I do not think it would break her heart, Jane. She broke the engagement off once, she might do so again.’
‘Not with Papa’s bankruptcy hovering over us and Lord Bolsover laying down the law. We must do what is right for everyone.’
‘Why can’t we do what is right for us?’
She gave him a wan smile. ‘Mark, I do not feel strong enough to argue with you, please say no more. What happened here this afternoon is our secret, never to be divulged to a soul, though I shall always remember it and think of it in years to come as a time when I knew that I was once loved.’ She attempted a smile.
It was all too much. He fled the room before she could see his unmanly tears.
* * *
Jane knew she had done the right thing, but, oh, how hard it had been to send him away. He must have realised the rightness of it, too, because he did not come to see her every morning as he had been doing, popping in for a few minutes to see how she was and asking if she needed anything. She missed his cheery smile and the feeling he gave her that she was important. Well, she would just have to live without that. Her head ached and she felt weak as a newborn kitten, but unless she wanted to spend the rest of her life in bed she would have to do something about it. It was time to make a move.
