Jane inhaled deeply. “And I am most determined to live my life as I please. I am no green debutante to be led about by my nose. My family does not control my actions. I’m a free woman to come and go as I please. To _do _ as I please.”

“Indeed,” he drawled, sliding to stop directly before her. Her head fell back to lock with his molten eyes. “And do you?” His voice glided through her like a shot of spiced rum, settling in her belly in a burst of heat. “Do as you please?”

For a moment, the sensation of his hard maleness driving into her washed through her, rippling over her skin and transporting her to a moonlit garden where he breathed Aurora against her ear.

Throat dry, she could only nod.

“Is that so?” he asked, his voice soft and taunting as he encroached closer, forcing her against a tapestry-lined wall. The tapestry felt scratchy at her back.

Even without looking, she knew the scene well, had studied Zeus’s ravishment of Leda in secret, rapt fascination. In her mind she could see the swan alighting down from the sky upon Leda, the woman’s lovely face an odd mixture of horror and rapture.

A deep tug pulled on her belly as Seth hands closed on either side of her head. Trapped between his body and the tapestry-covered wall, she stared into his stark gaze, trying to read his thoughts, feeling somewhat like the prey Leda must have felt.

Faintly, the contralto’s voice grew, winding its way into the room, vibrating through the heavy silence of the chamber.

Jane succumbed to temptation and brought her hands up to play with the cravat at his neck.

“I’m no schoolroom miss anymore,” she murmured, enjoying the words the moment she said them, enjoying _herself _ the moment she decided a little bit of wickedness wouldn’t hurt. “I do a good many things I shouldn’t do…”

“You?” he queried.

“You don’t believe me?” she asked in offended tones, imagining his reaction if he knew she was the woman he made savage love to against a tree at Vauxhall.

“No,” he asserted. “You’re much too proper.”

Moistening her lips in determination, she commanded, “Close your eyes.”

His eyes glowed down at her, wide and unblinking, mouth curving in mockery.

“Close your eyes,” she repeated, determined to wipe the mockery from his face.

After a moment’s hesitation, he complied.

She closed her fingers around his wrist, removing his hand from the wall near her head. Intent on showing him she could—and did—do as she pleased, she brought that hand to her lips.

Lightly, teasingly, she brushed her mouth over his palm. His skin quivered beneath her lips and she smiled. Opening her mouth, she lavished him with a kiss, trailing her tongue over warm, slightly salty skin.

Pulling back, she blew on the moist flesh. Watching his closed eyes, she sucked a single finger deep into her mouth, running her tongue over his fingertip and nipping the callused pad with her teeth.

With a hissing release of air, his eyes flew open, the centers sparks of light that seared her to the spot. Deep satisfaction gripped her as she slid his finger slowly from her mouth like a sweetmeat long savored.

She smiled saucily. “See.”

Dropping his wrist, she attempted to step around him, but his arms came up around her again, bands of steel on either side of her.

“You play a dangerous game,” he growled, shoving his face so close she could see herself in the gleaming titian centers of his eyes.

A muscle flexed in his jaw. “Now it’s my turn. Close your eyes.”

On this beast she freed from its cage? Not a chance. She shook her head.

“Time to play fair,” he chided.

Reluctantly, her eyes drifted shut. Blackness engulfed her, every sensation intensified as she waited for his next move.

She did not have long to wait.

Cool air caressed her legs as he lifted her skirts. With a gasp, her hands dove for his, seizing his wrists and forcing them still.

“Let go,” he ordered, his voice no less commanding for its quietness.

For whatever reason, she complied, fingers slipping from his wrists. She had permitted this man to do much more than lift her skirts after all. Even if it had been under the guise of Aurora.

His hands caressed their way up her legs, past her stockings and garters to her bare thighs. Her flesh trembled beneath his touch, but she did not move, did not open her eyes. In her mind, she saw Leda, lips a crimson slash in her pale face as her swan lover swooped down upon her.

His fingers slipped within her drawers, sifting through the soft curls with infinite gentleness.

Without hesitating, he went directly to the aching spot between her legs. She gasped at the first touch of his thumb there.

“That’s it,” he whispered, the sound of his voice directly in her ear. “Does _this _ please you?” He pushed his thumb against the small nub, exerting enough pressure to make her gasp sharpen and veer into a cry.

Without thinking, she widened her stance.

He added his forefinger and squeezed, rolling the nub in quick, savage circles.

She cried out again, hands clawing the tapestry at her sides as moisture rushed between her legs and sweet release washed over.

Seth’s ragged breathing filled her ear. His fingers delved into her wet heat. Parting her folds, he impaled her with one finger. She lurched off the wall, fingers digging into his shoulder as she sobbed her pleasure.

“God, I wager you taste sweet, too.”

I wager you taste sweet, too.

Her eyes flew open just as he slipped his hand from between her legs and lowered himself, no doubt intending to find out.

The wretch! The libertine!

Was every woman the same to him? To be bedded and discarded?

To be fed the same whispered words of passion?

A dark fury seized her. A strangled cry on her lips, she shoved down her skirts and pushed at his shoulder.

Seth staggered to his feet, eyes burning with a desire she now knew to be cheap and common, something he likely dispensed on women with disgusting regularity.

At sight of her face, his brow furrowed. “Jane? What—”

Indignation scalding a bilious trail up her throat, she sent her palm cracking against his face.

He fingered his cheek, the white imprint of her hand quickly appearing on his swarthy flesh.

“Forgive me,” he said, the fire in his gaze suddenly dead, buried, banked beneath cool brown again. “I misread the situation. I believed my advances welcome.”

“You were mistaken,” she lied, heat crawling up her neck and face to think that she had almost been seduced by a man who evidently thought women were as interchangeable as neckcloths.

“It won’t happen again,” he promised, taking several steps back, putting a respectable distance between them.

No, it would not.

Because she would never be foolish enough to be caught alone with him again.

“I think the performance has ended. I don’t hear singing anymore,” she murmured, sweeping past him.

“Nor do I,” he drawled, so quiet she barely heard him.

She stopped. “You better wait here for a short while. It won’t do for us to be seen returning together.”

He gave a stiff nod. “Or course.”

With a stiff nod of her own, she turned and left, determined not to look back at the man she was only beginning to see for his true self. Seth was not the loving boy of her youth. The sooner she accepted that, the safer her heart.

Seth watched Jane go, unsure what had just transpired, only knowing that he had gone too far with the proper lady.

He throbbed painfully, his erection pressing at his breeches, aching for her. His cheek ached, too.

Only from the sting of her slap.

“Bloody hell.”

Shaking his head, he traced the burning imprint of her hand on his face. He should have known better. What was he doing tossing her skirts as if she were some common strumpet? Of course Jane would not be agreeable to such coarse treatment.

His thoughts drifted to Aurora. Jane was not so impulsive, not a creature ruled by passion. For a moment, he had forgotten, feeling only as he had at Vauxhall, determined to have, to possess the woman for which his blood burned.

He couldn’t understand it. Two women. Two desperate hungers. It had been years since he felt this way for one woman. What was he doing feeling this way for two?

Dropping his hand from his face, he vowed that he would leave Jane alone. He would concentrate his efforts on securing his bride… and attend every masquerade ball he could in hopes of finding Aurora again—a woman upon whom he could freely unleash his baser passions.

Chapter 16

Jane opened her eyes to bare slits. Morning sunlight stabbed her sensitive eyes and she flung the backs of her hands over her face, blocking the rude intrusion.

Too late. Darkness did nothing to help, did not offer the safe haven she sought. Nausea washed over her in violent waves, forcing her to move. Vaulting from her bed, she lunged for the washbasin. Gripping the sides with her hands, she emptied the contents of her stomach.

Shuddering from head to toe, she retched in misery, tears streaming from the corners of her eyes.

Her stomach had been unsettled for days. Since the morning after Lucy’s musicale.

“Third morning you woke up puking your guts,” Berthe, the maid Desmond had assigned her, spoke from her side, her voice a grating scrape on the morning air.

Jane jerked, startled. She had not heard the maid enter the room. But it had always been that way with Berthe. Ever since Jane had first come into the Guthrie household, the maid had been there, always near, glaring, watching, smirking, letting Jane know that she _knew _ Marcus. And even worse, that Marcus _knew _ her.

Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, Jane frowned at the woman Desmond had forced on her, wanting to shout at her to leave the room, the house, her life, once and for all. She had attempted to dismiss her while Marcus lived, but he had put a stop to that, declaring that Berthe served his needs. In ways Jane did not.

“Leave me,” she commanded in a shaky voice, giving no thought to courtesy when addressing the woman who had sneered at her for so long. “I can dress myself.”

“Very well.” Berthe nodded and turned for the door. Hand on the latch, she stopped. “You’re certain you don’t want me to send for the physician?”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“Perhaps Cook then?” Berthe’s eyes glinted with dark humor. “She’s a marvel at home remedies… especially for what’s ailing you.”

An icy finger trailed Jane’s spine as she shoved away from the basin. “And what might that be, Berthe?”

Blinking in mock innocence, Berthe replied, “Why you’re breeding.”

Her stomach pitched again, dropping to her bare feet before heaving back up. Pressing a hand to her belly in an attempt to still the violent reaction, she ground out, “That’s not possible. You’re mistaken.”

Berthe cocked her head sideways. “Not about this, I’m not. I was one of thirteen children. I can tell when a woman’s breeding.” Her dark eyes raked Jane. “I suspected as much, so I questioned the laundress. You’re well overdue for your courses.”

That Berthe should be the one to reveal something so intimate, something Jane should have realized herself—made her cheeks catch fire. “You’re mistaken,” she repeated, denial surging to life within her. Her mind worked, feverishly counting the days, grasping that the impossible was suddenly… possible.

Berthe shrugged. “Time will tell soon enough.”

Head swirling, stomach churning, Jane dove for the basin again as Berthe left the room. Only nothing remained in her stomach. After some moments, she lifted her head, panting, stomach and throat aching from the strain. Unsteady on her feet, she sank to the floor, her nightgown pooling around her like a milky puddle. Wrapping her arms around her knees, she huddled into a small ball, rocking slightly, shaking like a brittle branch in winter’s peak.