The Secret Marriage Pact

He stroked his smooth chin with one large hand. ‘And yet you are, aren’t you?’

‘If we married, I wouldn’t be, now would I?’

His eyes flashed the same way they had when she’d turned around to greet him yesterday. ‘No, I don’t suppose you would be.’

‘It’d be quite an honour for you.’ She lowered her head and peered up through her lashes at him, imitating the young ladies she usually scoffed at during parties. She felt like a fool doing it, but she was willing to try anything to persuade him, even the promise of something more carnal.

‘That’s one way to put it,’ he choked out through a laugh.

‘Then why are you objecting?’ She dropped the dewy-eyed pose, having expected him to respond with something other than humour. She was losing him as much now as when he’d set sail and she couldn’t. She was tired of being a failure and she wouldn’t fail at this. ‘You need me and you know it.’

‘Yes. I always have.’ A loss greater than their mere time together, one she’d experienced the day her mother had died, and in the many years since, filled his words. Whatever had happened in Savannah, it’d scarred him like her parents’ passing had damaged her. He did need her the way she needed him and for more than just a club.

‘Then why are you refusing me?’ she asked in a softer tone. It made no sense.

* * *

Voices from downstairs filtered up through the floorboards. He should insist she return to her brother, but he hesitated. She was offering him the building, her help in establishing a legitimate venture, and something his fifteen-year-old self would have sold his soul to acquire. But a wife? He was struggling to keep everyone out of his affairs, not searching for ways to draw someone deeper into them. Except this was Jane. If anyone could help him make a go of his club it was her, but he couldn’t ask her to share his secret and to deceive her family the way he was deceiving his. Nor could he risk her realising the terrible man he’d become in Savannah, not when she viewed him as an old friend still worthy of her affection.

The time ticked by on the ornate dolphin clock perched on the excessively gilded bedside table while he racked his brain for a delicate path out of this indelicate situation. He needed a reason why he was refusing her, one she wouldn’t try to logic her way around or hate him for saying.

‘Be honest with me, the way you used to be,’ she demanded.

I can’t be, with you or anyone. Nor could he wilfully hurt her. She’d taken a risk by approaching him and he admired her too much to treat her as poorly as his brother had. Despite his not having written to her while he was gone, she’d still believed in him and their mutual past enough to ask him for his future. If he told her even one of the real reasons behind his refusal, it would put her off him and this idea, and he wasn’t ready to pull himself down in her eyes.

There was a more subtle and less hurtful way to make her abandon this notion of marriage.

He stepped closer, affecting the smile he used to employ with agitated gamblers in Savannah, smooth, charming and convincing. ‘Because I’m not sure you could handle the level of honesty I’m prepared to offer you.’

‘What do you mean?’ She didn’t step back and he inhaled her flowery scent. It was lighter and more alluring than the cloying mixture she’d fancied at thirteen, the one which used to remind him of her whenever he inhaled it on a passing woman in Georgia. He might not have written to her after he’d sailed away, but she’d never really been far from his thoughts.

‘Your brother wouldn’t approve of the match.’

‘I’m past the age of needing his permission to marry.’ She waved her hand in dismissal, her fingertips grazing his chest before she pulled them back. Her faint touch raked him like a pitchfork. She must have felt it, too, because she clasped one hand in the other and nervousness softened the crease of irritation between her eyes.

‘You shouldn’t approve of me either.’ He pressed his palm against the wall behind her, all the while ignoring the curves indicating her maturity. He must convince her to forget him by giving her a reason to run from him, no matter how much he wanted to slip his arm around her waist and pull her closer. ‘You see, I don’t want to marry. I want to enter into a less formal arrangement.’

Her gaze slid along the firmness of his bicep beside her ear, then traced the line of it to his face. She frowned at him. ‘You want me for a mistress?’

Jasper swallowed hard to keep from laughing. Jane was nothing if not blunt and practical. She always had been, as well as headstrong and impetuous. It was a delightful combination of traits he still enjoyed and hated to drive away. ‘You could say that.’

He allowed the suggestion to linger between them as if it had been hers and not his. Jane’s lips parted in uncertainty, her full breasts hugged by the fitted yellow spencer rising as she drew in a long breath. He pressed his fingertip tighter into the wall, glad he hadn’t removed his breeches for fear he might embarrass himself as he imagined her agreeing to his idea. It’d be a disappointment to them both if she did. He’d done a lot of dishonourable things, but he would never ruin Jane by following through on his suggestion. However, the temptation in her blue eyes, the faint brush of her breath across his naked chest almost made him relent. He could lean down and claim her lips and at last learn what they tasted like, after considering it so many times when they’d both been young, curious, and for the first time aware of one another as more than friends. He moved his head a touch lower, wondering if the old curiosity, as opposed to a desire for a business, had really brought her here. Whatever her motives, it was time for her to leave before someone discovered she was up here.

‘Jane, are you in there?’ Mr Rathbone’s voice carried in from the hallway.

Jasper’s fingers stiffened against the wall. Too late.

‘How did Philip figure out I was in here?’ Jane ducked under his arm and began to pace in the centre of the room, revealing how much she did care about her brother’s opinion.

Jasper picked up his shirt and tugged it on. ‘The new maid must have seen you. The woman is a busybody.’

Jasper had been forced to slip past her to leave the house late at night numerous times. What she was doing up at those hours he’d never discovered, but he suspected it had something to do with his father’s brandy and if he could he would soon see the woman dismissed.

‘Jane. Are you in there?’ Mr Rathbone punctuated his question by pounding on the door.

‘I must hide.’ Jane rushed to the large wardrobe in the corner, then stopped. She glanced back and forth between Jasper and the door, the plotting narrowing of her eyes both familiar, and terrifying. ‘If Philip catches me in here, he might insist we wed.’

Jasper stopped tucking in his shirt. She didn’t know her brother very well if she thought he’d force her into a marriage, even after finding her in a compromising situation, but he couldn’t take the chance. He strode up to her, tugged the shirt over his head and flung it away. ‘I think not.’

He took her by the arm and pulled her against him. She let out a startled squeak as she hit his chest.

‘What are you doing?’ Her fingertips pressed into his flesh, jarring him as much as her.

‘Jane, open this door at once,’ Mr Rathbone demanded, and the brass knob began to turn.

‘Making sure he sees me as an unsuitable suitor.’ He pressed his lips to hers as the door swung open.

* * *

Jane barely heard her brother’s angry breaths or Justin Connor’s howl of laughter from the hallway. Jasper’s warm mouth on hers consumed her entire attention. It made her knees weak and she shivered as Jasper slid his tongue out to tease hers, his large hand against her back pressing her firmly into his bare chest. There could be an entire crowd watching them and she wouldn’t notice, all she wanted was for him to lay her on the bed, slide up her skirts and satisfy the ache making her almost moan. He didn’t so much as move a hand down to grasp her bottom, but broke from the kiss and leaned back. A shock as powerful as the one he’d sent hurtling through her coloured his own hazel eyes.

This was definitely not how she’d imagined this plan unfolding.

* * *

‘What the devil were you doing?’ Philip’s voice was so even it made Jane cringe. He hadn’t said a word to her during the entire carriage ride home. Not even Justin, who leaned against the French doors of Philip’s office watching them as if they were a theatrical performance, had dared to break the icy chill. Philip hadn’t spoken until they were settled in his office with Laura and all their past quarrels and disagreements beside him. Jane preferred the silence. It was less lethal.

‘I was trying to reach an agreement with Jasper about the building.’ She straightened the tortoiseshell comb in her hair, attempting to remain calm and level-headed, but with Jasper’s sandalwood scent still clinging to her spencer it was difficult. ‘He didn’t agree to my terms.’

‘It didn’t look like it when we stumbled in on you,’ Justin observed through a restrained laugh.

‘Don’t you have a wine shop to see to?’

‘This is much more fascinating.’

‘Justin, please.’ Philip rubbed his temples with his fingers, addressing Jane once again. ‘You decided to discuss the matter with Mr Charton alone, in his room, while he was undressed?’

‘It wasn’t my intention when I first went upstairs, at least not the portion where he was undressed.’

‘You shouldn’t have been up there at all.’ Philip dug his fingers harder into his temples while Laura and Justin exchanged amused looks. Not so Philip. He dropped his hands to the blotter and pinned her with a seriousness to still her heart. ‘You risked ruining your reputation and our relationship with the Chartons, and for what?’

My freedom, she wanted to cry, but she bit it back. He was right, again. With her ridiculous plan, she’d risked more than minor humiliation or the disapproving tsking of merchants and their wives. The Chartons were good enough friends to be discreet about the matter, but they weren’t a family renowned for keeping secrets. There were too many of them. It would only be a matter of time before someone heard of this and it would end whatever slim chance remained of her some day finding a husband.

‘Ever since Mrs Townsend married Dr Hale, you’ve been stubborn and wilful,’ Philip stated.

‘She hasn’t been so bad since my mother left,’ Laura said, trying to soothe him. Given Laura and Philip’s past, and the way she’d snared Philip by surprising him in his bath with a pistol when she and her mother had been on the verge of ruin nine years ago, she was the last to pass judgement on Jane’s behaviour.

‘No, she’s been worse than usual.’ Justin chortled.