Page 90 of The Seduction of an English Scoundrel

He gave her a long sultry look. “Morning or midnight. I am obsessed with you, Jane.” He closed the door behind him. “It is my pleasure to give you jewels.”

How was a woman supposed to rally a defense when a man made remarks like that? How was she expected to think when he locked his arms around her waist and pulled her down with him into the chair? Her heart was aching as he sank his fingers in her hair and silenced her protests with the most tender of kisses. She had shared his bed and did not regret it.

“Jane,” he whispered. “Thank you for last night.”

She closed her eyes, envisioning his face when he found her letter, cringing at the very thought of how disgusted, how angry he would be. He was so unforgiving of Chloe’s rebellions, so convinced of the male duty to dominate a woman’s life. He would never understand what she had done.

“Is something wrong, Jane?” he asked gently. “Those aren’t tears in your eyes, are they?”

“Promise me something, Grayson.”

“Anything,” he said, brushing her cheek with his knuckle.

“Promise me you won’t hurt Nigel.”

He went still. “It really is intolerable that you mention his name to me while you are in my arms.”

“Will you promise me that?”

His blue eyes bored into her. “People deserve to be punished when they hurt others. Don’t you agree?”

“I’m not sure.” His gaze pinned her unmercifully with its piercing intensity. As much as she loved him, there were moments when she could have cheerfully hit him into oblivion. “There are times to forgive.”

“Not in my book. Shall we discuss something else?”

“Please, Grayson. I ask only this one thing of you.”

“What will you give me in return?”

She might have agreed to give him whatever his wicked heart wanted had heavy footsteps not come echoing up the stairs, pounding down the hall to their room.

“Grayson!” an irreverent male voice shouted outside the door. “Where the deuce are you hiding? I just left Helene in London, and the woman is cursing you to the heavens. Are you in there?”

“God almighty,” Grayson muttered, throwing an irate look at the door. “It’s Drake. Stay here while I get rid of him.”

She eased herself out from his arms. “Promise me you will not do anything to Nigel.”

His face reflective, he rose to his feet and straightened the long tails of his coat. “I shall have to think about this, Jane. Remember that Nigel and his parents have depended on the largesse of my family for years. His behavior is an insult to both me and you.”

The male voices outside the door gradually faded away. Jane undressed and lowered herself into the copper-lined bath, contemplating her future as a fallen woman. As soon as she had completed her toilette, she would compose two letters. One to Grayson, another to her family, although after the way her father had practically thrown her to the lion, she did not hold hope that he would forgive her for the shame she had caused the family.

She sighed, thinking of her sisters, of the pleasant life she had taken for granted, of the way Papa had bullied and protected her, of the marriage he’d arranged because he believed that Nigel would be good to her.

She sank deeper into the scented water, her brow furrowed in troubled concentration.

Papa’s behavior seemed so irrational. And had her mother actually supported his moral about-face, this shove of their socially disgraced daughter into her sybaritic lifestyle? It was so out of character for her parents. After all, their reasons for selecting Nigel had been his good-natured gentleness, his puppylike loyalty, his apparent lack of interest in rakish pursuits.

In short, they had chosen Nigel because he was the exact opposite of Grayson. Which only made their betrayal all the more mysterious. Unless—

She dropped her sponge into the water.

Unless they knew. Unless one of her sisters had blurted out her secret about her pact with Nigel. Making Jane in their eyes to be the betrayer, not the betrayed.

And if her entire family knew her secret, chances were that Grayson knew, and this whole humiliating situation smacked of Boscastle arrogance through and through.

He knew everything.

Their session at the modiste’s. The change that had come over him. The heartless gleam in his eye. His sudden desire to bring her to Brighton.