“What happened? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”

 A ghost? She supposed she had.

“We have to go. Now.” A shudder racked her body as she glanced over her shoulder, half expecting Seth to materialize behind her, intent on picking up where they left off. The prospect thrilled her as much as it terrified her.

 He kissed me. Seth kissed me. And I kissed him back.

Amazing. After all these years, she had finally gotten her dearest wish. Well, at least partly. She had wanted more than a kiss. She had wanted love, marriage, children. She had wanted to wipe her sister from Seth’s mind and heart forever.

“My poor dear, you’re shaking.” Lucy chafed her hand with her warm ones. “Of course we will leave.”

Jane sighed with relief. “Thank you.”

“They’re about to bring out dessert,” Astrid grumbled.

“You can gorge yourself when we get home,” Lucy muttered. “Cook made blackberry tarts this afternoon. You may even take some home.”

“Very well,” Astrid consented. She held up both hands in mock surrender. “I am all yours. Take me home and feed me until I burst.” As they headed for the door, her dark gaze narrowed on Jane. “Perhaps then you can share all the juicy details of where you’ve been… and with whom. I don’t think Desmond put that pretty shade of pink into your cheeks.”

Following her friends through the crowd, she debated whether to tell them. Somehow her encounter with Seth felt too personal to share, even with her two closest friends.

At the edge of the ballroom, she stopped. Her scalp tingled as a wave of heat crawled over her.

She knew with a certainty that _he _ was watching her.

Slowly, she turned, her gaze immediately finding Seth amid the crowd of revelers, a source of heat that drew her like a moth to flame.

He stared at her boldly, without apology, his dark eyes scouring her in a predatory way that made her feel hunted.

“Who is that menacing-looking fellow?” Lucy asked beside her.

Trapped within Seth’s gaze, Jane shook her head slightly. “Someone,” she paused, moistening her lips, “someone I once knew.”

“Indeed,” Lucy replied in a bemused voice. “Well, from the looks of him, he wants to become reacquainted.”

“No,” Jane murmured, finally breaking free of his gaze and hastily turning away. “He does not.”

With his hot gaze burning into the back of her dress, she hastened from the room…from him, telling herself that she spoke the truth.

She had to get away. Quickly.

For Seth Rutledge, the new Earl of St. Claire, would never want anything to do with Jane.

Chapter 7

Seth stared out his bedchamber window at the dark garden below, his thoughts on the woman he had held in his arms an hour before, imagining that he could still smell the scent of her—apples on the air. The treetops rustled in the breeze, the only sound save the quiet of his breath.

“Lieutenant,” Knightly voiced behind him. “I didn’t expect you home this early.”

Seth smiled grimly. Nor had he thought to return home this early, his body still unsatisfied. He had left Fleur, with little explanation. He had none to give. To her or himself. None that made sense, in any case.

What could he have said? That mere moments alone with a woman whose name and face he did not know had ruined him for anyone else? That she had sparked something deep inside him that he thought forgotten, dead?

“Anything amiss?” Knightly inquired.

He swallowed the lump rising in his throat. Without turning to face his former midshipman, he asked, “Do you ever miss it?”

Knightly understood at once. “No, sir. I never wanted in, but at seventeen it was my only option.

I’m simply glad to get out alive.”

Seth thought of his father, of the commission purchased for him without his wish or inclination.

It had simply been done. At twenty, he had been cast out, the useless son shipped off with no hope of survival, no expectation of returning. And he had deserved no less for what he had done to Julianne.

“For me it was… convenient,” Seth murmured, nodding. And it had been convenient.

Uncomplicated. Safe in an odd sort of way. The navy had been a place to hide, to avoid choices, to forget anything save rigid hierarchy. And war. And blood.

Despite everything, Seth missed it. Strangely, he preferred that existence to this one. Here, he was faced with choices again, with the freedom to make decisions and act on his wishes. The last time he had possessed such freedom he had erred grievously.

He would not err again. Would not risk wanting anything, or anyone, ever again.

Jane paused in the threshold of the dining room. She had hoped at such an early hour she would have the dining room to herself. Chloris, however, sat at the table, the subtle light of morning doing nothing to soften her sister-in-law’s harsh features. Blunt-nosed with wide flat cheeks and a brow that tended to wrinkle into folds, her face unfortunately resembled one of the Queen’s many pugs.

Jane had spent the few hours left of the night gazing into the dark, the thoughts in her head loud and unrelenting in the oppressive silence as she brushed her fingers over lips that still tingled from Seth’s kisses.

When dawn arrived, filling the room with its smoky, unearthly haze, she had finally confronted the ugly truth: she had been a fool to deny herself the chance to experience passion in Seth’s arms.

One night could have sustained her through the lonely years ahead. One night would have been more than anything she’d ever had before.

Chloris glanced up, her blue eyes bright beneath tightly drawn brows. “You look pale, Jane. Are you ill?”

Jane did not miss the thread of worry in Chloris’s voice and well knew the reason. If she were unwell, then Chloris would have to manage her daughters herself. That or one of the maids would have to oversee them—a chore that would certainly send the maid packing.

“I’m well,” she assured her sister-in-law, not entirely convinced that she wasn’t ill.

The memory of last night burned in her mind churning her stomach into knots. The sight of Seth as she had last seen him, staring across a crowded room as if he wanted nothing more than to devour her whole, made her heart thud faster.

Shaking her head, she banished the image from her head. She had to forget him. Forget that kiss.

A morning of conjugating French verbs with the girl would serve well in that endeavor.

Chloris’s harsh features softened, the folds of her forehead relaxing. “Splendid. I had planned on shopping today. I saw a bonnet in the window at…” her voice droned on as Jane busied herself lathering her favorite apple jam on her toast, the heavy scent of apples filling her nostrils, reminding her of autumn at home. Which reminded her of Seth. Blast! Is there no way to put him from my mind?

Scowling, she took a bite of crisp toast and chewed.

“... and I promised the girls you would take them to the park today.”

As this comment registered, her toast turned to dust on her tongue. Jane glanced at her sister-in-law. “You promised _I _ would?”... “They’ve been pestering me to take them—”

“Then perhaps _you _ should take them,” Jane suggested. “It would be much more special to them if you were to accompany them.”

That much was true. A morning spent with their mother would go a long way in pacifying the unruly girls. Especially as Jane suspected their poor behavior was an attempt to gain the attention of the parents who were always too busy for them.

“Me?” Chloris blinked. “Sadly, no. I’ve other plans. But you must oblige me on this, Jane. I promised and the girls will be so disappointed.”

“Indeed,” she murmured. Chloris always had _other _ plans. Her daughters never came first. And it fell to Jane to ease the sting of those disappointments.

“Would you not enjoy a ride in the park?” Chloris needled.

A ride in the park. A pleasure she had been denied since Marcus’s death and Chloris well knew it. Jane inhaled deeply through her nostrils, striving for patience. As much as a ride in the park tempted to her, enduring Dahlia, Bryony, and Iris—who had yet to learn how to conduct themselves in public—produced a shudder. Yet she had little choice. If the girls had been promised the park, they would give her no peace until they got their way.

“Very well,” she relented.

A scratching sound filled the air as Chloris scribbled on a sheet of parchment at her right. Jane resumed eating. After several moments, Chloris lifted her head. “I’ve given some thought to your request to come out of mourning.”

Jane paused mid-chew, her teeth grinding. The request had been more a statement of fact and it had been made to Desmond.

“Indeed?” she asked, watching as her sister-in-law perused the sheet of paper in her hand, no doubt the evening’s menu.

Chloris had claimed that task for herself shortly after moving in—one of the only household duties to hold her interest. Watching her, Jane loathed that she should sit so haughty and contented in what had once been her chair, performing a duty that had once been hers.

“Perhaps a drive in the park today will aid in”—Chloris angled her head to the side as if searching for the word—”easing you back into Society. Nothing too gauche, that. A drive with your nieces would not be unseemly.”

Moistening her lips, Jane pushed further. “And later this week I’ll take tea with the Duchess of Shillington.” She raised her brows, holding her breath hopefully, thinking how nice it would be to not have to sneak next door.

“Tea?” Chloris blinked. “Oh, I think that is perhaps too ambitious of you. It would not do to appear too eager to end your period of mourning.”

“Fifteen months is a seemly amount of time for any widow—”

Chloris held up a hand. “We must heed Desmond’s desires in this.” Her eyes met Jane’s with a solemnity that rankled. “You cannot think he would guide you ill, do you? Desmond is very wise, my dear. And men are so much better equipped to decide these things.”

For a brief moment, Jane wished she could shock Chloris by confessing the actions of her saintly husband the night before. But then that would reveal her own activities. Self-preservation held her in check. Until her stepson came of age and sent Desmond packing, she had to bite her tongue.

Forcing a smile that felt brittle as glass, Jane replied, “Very well.” Setting her napkin aside, she rose to her feet. “I’ll ready the girls and change my clothes.”

“Change?” Chloris echoed, her wide eyes skimming over Jane’s black bombazine. “Whatever for? What you’re wearing is perfectly acceptable.”

“I thought to change into something else. Perhaps gray? If I’m to begin easing out of mourning, gray is an suitable color to—”

“A drive in the park should be treat enough for you,” Chloris declared, her blue eyes sharp.

“Don’t tell me you intend to be one of _those _ widows who gives the barest due to the passing of a husband.” Turning her attention to her plate, she chased a kipper about her plate with her fork. “I would think you owe more to Marcus. After all, you brought nothing to your marriage save a paltry dowry. Your father is a baronet of no repute. If not for your sister’s marriage to the Duke of Eldermont, Marcus would never have considered you. And don’t forget you didn’t even bless the union with offspring.”

Mortifying heat swept up her neck. Her barrenness had been only one of the problems riddling her marriage, but it was the one for which she had felt acutely responsible. Having already conceived a child with his first wife, the fault clearly did not rest with Marcus. It didn’t take long after their vows for the looks and whispers implying her infertility to begin.

“A woman who cannot provide her husband with children is not a true woman.” Chloris puffed out her considerable bosom, seeming to swell with self-importance at her own ability to breed.