Lord Garson’s Bride (Dashing Widows 7)

Instead he felt dirty, as though he’d desecrated something holy.

He made himself stand upright and tug down her skirts, hiding those delicious pink folds between her legs that glistened with his seed. He stepped back. Clumsy hands fastened his breeches and straightened his shirt. He felt cheap and mean. His wife deserved better of him.

“Jane, you can stand up now,” he said tonelessly. “It’s over.”

Slowly she lifted away from the chair, so slowly that he worried if in his savagery, he might have hurt her. “Are you all right?”

When she turned, her face was flushed and her eyes were dazed. “Yes.”

One trembling hand rose to her chest. The pretty dress was creased, although he took his hat off to her maid. Jane’s hair remained mostly in place, apart from a few garnet tendrils clinging to the damp skin of her neck.

“Good,” he said shortly.

He left her and returned to the room she’d assigned to him, where he stood in the center of the floor until he stopped shaking. Despite that massive orgasm, he felt sick and unhappy and discontented. Their encounter had been like diving into the sun, but it only proved that he wanted his wife back where she belonged. With him.

*

Garson didn’t expect to see Jane before his departure. After all, they’d done what he came for, and she’d made it humiliatingly clear that beyond that, she had no use for him. But when he led his saddled horse out of the stable, she waited in the yard.

She’d changed into one of her old gray dresses. If she thought that might quash his desire, she was mistaken. The dress reminded him of those radiant days and nights in Salisbury, when he’d dared to believe that this marriage might lend his life purpose and joy.

For a month, regret had haunted him. Now it rose so strongly, it tasted rusty on his tongue. He regretted hurting this lovely, ardent creature, until all she offered him was this afternoon’s bitter passion. He regretted that despite everything he knew of honor and goodness, his body basked in a glorious afterglow. He regretted most of all that he couldn’t give his wife what she wanted, so that she trusted him to make her happy.

Garson brought Lysander to a stop. “What is it, Jane?”

He was too weary and heart-sore to be angry. He hoped like hell that she conceived soon. Too many meetings like this would finish him.

He hoped that she never conceived, because this was all she’d give him, and he couldn’t bear the thought of never touching her again.

Jane looked equally wrung out. Her brief animation after her climax had faded to more of that watchful composure. “I wanted to say goodbye.”

He didn’t take much encouragement from that.

“Goodbye,” he said curtly. But he d

idn’t get on his horse and ride away. Not yet. “You’ll write.”

“Yes. Another visit may not be necessary.”

“No.”

She didn’t move. “Has all the talk been horrid?”

What was this? A sign of some interest in his life? The brief impulse to sarcasm didn’t last. He’d been here long enough to see that she was at least as unhappy with their current dilemma as he was. “The gossips have had a field day.”

“That must be beastly.”

“I’ve been through it before.”

She frowned. “That makes it worse.”

He shrugged, his casualness unfeigned. It was odd. When Morwenna threw him over, the public nature of his rejection had been an excruciating ordeal. When Jane left him, he hardly cared what people thought. All he cared about was how much he wanted her back and how he’d let her down so badly.

“I haven’t been in London to hear most of it. I just got back from Beardsley Hall four days ago.” He’d hoped returning to his estates would heal the endless ache in his soul. But without his wife by his side, the house where he’d hoped to install her as mistress had felt empty. “Susan came to see me yesterday. She wanted to know where you are.”

“Did you tell her?”

“No. I assumed if you wanted to see her, you’d invite her to visit.”