Tutoring Lady Jane Read online

  "A luncheon in the open air." Prakash grinned. "Will wonders never cease?"

  Glaring at his friend's retreating back, Gavin continued soaping his body, not wanting to think of the madness that had prompted him to be so impulsive. It was all for the purpose of instruction, he reminded himself--for Jane's edification, nothing more.

  * * * *

  "Tell me about your parents."

  Jane watched as Gavin stiffened and slid his gaze to the blue horizon. "I do not talk about my family," he said at last. "It's something I do not care to share."

  "It's not as though I haven't heard the story," she said, meeting his gaze. When his face turned hard and unreadable, she reached for his hand, stroking his knuckles with her finger. "I'd like to hear it from you. I've always thought it the most romantic tale I've ever heard."

  Gavin reached for a pear inside the basket and bit off a large chunk, watching her thoughtfully. "You find the story of my concubine mother and the fool who risked certain death to rescue her romantic? I call it foolish and not worthy of the time it would take to tell it."

  "Are you ashamed then? Is that why you refuse to discuss it?"

  "I am not."

  "Then why won't you tell me?"

  "I thought you different, Jane. But I see you're like all the others, you only want to hear the scandalous details of their illicit love affair."

  "No." Jane placed her hand on his arm and forced him to look at her. "I ask because I find your culture exotic and romantic. It is so different from English culture and I cannot help but be entranced by the idea of being in the keeping of a very dark and powerful man."

  He raised a brow and stared at her. "The tale my mother told of her servitude to the Sultan was neither romantic nor passionate. She was sold, Jane, by her own mother at a bazaar. Mother was sixteen then, and the bastard daughter of an English peer. Her mother's father was an influential Bombay businessman, and when he found out she was carrying a babe without benefit of marriage, he tossed her out into the street. My mother never knew her father, and my grandmother struggled through many hardships to raise her. When she arrived at the Harem, she became the Sultan's favorite and served him as his whim decreed. When my father arrived he was a guest of the English ambassador to India. My father told me that when he first saw my mother, her wrist was chained to the Sultan's chair. She was wearing a red sari, and her face was partially veiled with gold silk. Father said her green eyes followed him wherever he went, and he was so taken with her that he fell immediately in love with her."

  "Do you share the same color eyes with your mother?"

  He looked away from her and bit fiercely into the pear. "A trait, bestowed by my English grandfather. Whenever I look in the mirror I am reminded of my tainted, bastard blood. My father had blue eyes. I used to pray when I was a little boy that my eyes would somehow change and be more like his. My prayers were never answered, Jane."

  "I've seen the blue in them," she whispered, unable to stop herself from brushing back the hair from his face. "I imagine that the Indian Ocean is turquoise like your eyes."

  His gaze flickered to hers and she saw the slow change in his eyes. Yes, there was most definitely blue in his eyes. His lids lowered and he looked away from her, up at the sky where some birds were circling overhead.

  "My parents became lovers while my mother was under the protection of the Sultan," he said quietly. "Under dangerous conditions, my father secured her passage to the outside and together they ran away, into the Bengali region where they lived until I was six."

  "That is when your father inherited the title."

  "Yes. He never expected to. When his brother died childless, the title fell to him. He packed up my mother and me, and we sailed for England. We were not greeted with open arms, Jane. Indeed, we were despised, my mother most of all. But she suffered through the humiliation and the insults for my father, and for me. My parents were devoted to each other, and my mother still mourns him after all these years."

  "And you still feel like that lost little boy, do you not?"

  He tossed the pear to the ground and refused to look at her. His shoulders were tense and a muscle in his jaw worked furiously. "I have a title and a fortune and women constantly falling at my feet. What more can a man ask for, Jane?" His gaze swung back to her and she startled at the barely concealed anger she saw in his eyes. "Now then, it is my turn to ask you a question."

  "If you'd like."

  "Tell me, Jane, do you know how to flirt?"

  She picked at the fringe of the wool blanket and searched the tops of the trees. "I'm afraid I have never learned the art."

  He reached for her hand and stroked her palm with his fingertip. In the sun, his hands looked so much darker than her pale ones. Jane studied the way his fingers, elegant and long--like an artist's, stroked her skin. Suddenly he replaced her hand on her lap and looked away, plucking a blade of grass and twirling it between his fingers.

  "Don't ever try to learn, Jane. It's something a man detests."

  He was different today. Aloof, almost cold. When she had greeted him that morning over breakfast he had bowed formally and said very little. She wondered at the change in him and surmised that she had failed miserably in her first lesson of pleasing a man. How could she have pleased him? She'd fallen asleep after indulging her own pleasure. She had most certainly been selfish last night.

  "A man despises the coy art that women employ, Jane. They blanket their motives under the guise of flirtation, but it is much more complex than that."

  She wondered at the conversation and his obvious lack of desire to continue where they had left off in the conservatory. But instead of guiding the conversation to what he was attempting to avoid, Jane placated him. "Then why is it women are encouraged to flirt?" she asked, surprised and confused. Every woman of her acquaintance knew how to use her eyes and fan as a weapon in the art of flirtation. She had been a miserable failure, of course, never learning the subtleties, but that had not prevented her from watching the experts in the ton.

  Watching flirtations in the ballroom had always fascinated her. Men succumbed to the wiles of the women who could wield their eyes and their bodies with ruthless determination. It was utterly impossible to believe that the viscount wished her to think that men did not fall in with the practice of flirtation.

  "It has always amazed me," he sighed, tossing the blade of grass from his fingers, "to see what lengths seemingly intelligent women will go to in order to seduce a man through vanity. Behind their wavering fans and painted eyes lay evil machinations. I for one have never been taken in by their coquetries."

  "Are you speaking for all men, then?" she laughed, trying to cajole him from his blackening mood. "For this is the purpose behind your lessons, is it not? To make me understand the mystery behind the male mind."

  Tearing his eyes from the horizon, he levelled her with his glare. "You laugh, and that disappoints me, Jane. Somehow I thought you were above batting your eyes and pouting your lips. However, if that is the sort of fool you wish to attract then all by means, Jane, wave your fan and have your maid squeeze your breasts together into a corset that makes you unable to breathe. You'll no doubt have an easy time of it. There are any number of idiots in the ton that would fall for the meaningless wiles of a woman such as that."

  "But you're not one of them, I assume?"

  His face paled and his eyes narrowed as he continued to glare at her. "I hope that is not your feeble attempt at flirtation, Jane. For I fear if it is, you do indeed lack the talent. I have had experience resisting the flirtations of women who are much more skilled in the art than you, Jane. It will take more than a feminine laugh and the heaving of bosoms to make me blind to a lady's motives. You needn't think that I told you about my parents because you smiled and looked shyly up from your lashes, Jane. No, I told you because you asked me forthrightly and you spoke with honesty of your curiosity. Had you simpered, I would have ignored you and finished my pear. But because you looked me in the
eye and asked me, I told you. Never confuse honesty with artful flirtation, Jane--flirtation will get you nowhere."

  He was extremely intelligent, Jane realized. He was seasoned and knew everything about women and their desires and their machinations. She would have to tread carefully where the viscount was concerned. One misstep and he would cast her out of his life. Her precarious situation was even now in jeopardy. She sensed she held his attention by the thinnest thread, and she knew she would have to be just as intelligent and evasive as he if she was to arouse his interest to more than that of the jaded tutor of the sexual arts. She hadn't the looks to capture him, but she did have intellect, and from what she had learned today, intelligence in a woman was something the viscount admired.

  "And what have I said that amuses you so?" he asked, his voice deep and laced with a hint of danger.

  "I thought it diverting that you sought to warn me about flirting with you," she said, hoping to detract him from discovering her designs on him. "I have made it quite clear, my lord that you are but tutoring me to lure some other unsuspecting member of your sex. You're supplying me with the lessons to keep my future lover enthralled with only me."

  He frowned, looking ferocious and hard. "Glad to be of assistance, Lady Westbury. I was certain that I was going to prove of some use to someone."

  "I seem to have hit a nerve, my lord. I did not mean--"

  "You have hit nothing, I assure you. I'm quite beyond your reach, madam."

  "Quite," she said, looking away and hiding her grin. The viscount might be extremely intelligent, but so too was she. Perhaps she was plain and unassuming, but she more than made up for her appearance with her acute mind. And her intelligence told her that the viscount was being unnecessarily haughty because she had touched him. In what way, she did not fully understand, but something told her that he did not let anyone see his temper. He chose to hide that particular emotion with his rakish behavior, but she had seen beneath the veneer and discovered something new about the viscount.

  "We have wasted the afternoon, Jane. We should have started our lessons an hour ago."

  "And what is lesson number two?" she asked, wishing he would let her into his heart--even if it were only for a brief minute. How was she, unskilled and plump, ever going to tempt the man who could have whatever woman he wanted?

  "The art of patience," he murmured, gazing down at her breasts that edged above her bodice. "A woman must make a man yearn. She must strive to haunt his every thought and consume him with burning need."

  "And how is that done, my lord?"

  His finger lightly traced the freckle that marked the top of her left breast. "Evasiveness, Jane," he whispered as he lowered his mouth to her breast. "A woman must only give a man a tantalizing taste. It is the chase, you see, that fuels hunger and need." His lips kissed her freckle before he began to nuzzle the valley between her breasts. His warm palm that rested on her belly slowly slid up her bodice to capture her breast.

  She understood what he was saying. A woman needed to draw out the tension, bringing the man to his knees before giving in and letting him between her thighs. Had she tantalized him last night? Was he even now burning for her?

  Was he hinting that she should leave so that he could think of her and want her? She could be evasive, and God willing, she would have him burning with need by the next time they met for her lessons.

  "Show me your breasts, Jane," he said against her skin. "You've tantalized me long enough with glimpses of your décolletage. I want to see your pale skin in the sunlight. I want to see your pink nipples harden in the afternoon breeze."

  "I do so hope we might continue this discussion another day, my lord," she said, removing his hand and shimmying her body away from his searching mouth. "I'm afraid I must be getting back to Town," she said, trying to hide the tremor in her voice as she stood and shook out her skirts. "I had not planned to dally long in Richmond, you see, and unfortunately I have made plans for this evening."

  His face pinched and tightened. Anger, immediate and dark, filled his eyes. "Where are you going, Jane? Surely you are not relieving me of my post after only one lesson?"

  "Of course not, but I cannot spend all my days on lessons. One must have some recreation outside the school room, is that not right?"

  His looked of stunned stupefaction made her smile. As she made her way to her mare, Jane had the sudden thought that she might do very well in her dealings with the viscount. Already she was discovering just what triggers to press to make the prickly viscount lower his mask of mystery.

  She would use these next few days to make him burn, she thought as she allowed him to help her onto her side-saddle. With any luck, their next meeting would involve the viscount learning a new lesson.

  Chapter Six

  Saddle leather creaked as Gavin repositioned himself atop his stallion. The black's ear flickered before he snorted and stomped in frustration. With pressure from his thighs and a firm grasp on the reins, Gavin subdued the beast's irritation, but the action did nothing to abate his own.

  The beast tossed his head and snorted insolently once again. Leaning forward, he ran his gloved hand through the horse's mane. "I know it has been too long, Rama, but I'm afraid I cannot leave."

  Secreted amongst the trees, Gavin focused his attention on the cozy scene before him. He'd been there for an inordinately long time, just staring and watching, waiting to feel his irritation subside. But with each passing moment he felt his irritation turn to something far more unsettling.

  As he watched Jane and her friends frolic and laugh on the blanket in the middle of Hyde Park, the Serpentine glistening in the sunlight behind them, he felt the first stirrings of jealousy. He had never before experienced the emotion--certainly not in relation to a woman with another man. He had never given a farthing about the women he had been with and whom they might also be sharing their favors with. But obviously it was not so for the woman in the pink striped gown and wide brimmed straw bonnet.

  It had been an hour at least since three gentlemen had joined them. An hour since he'd sat hidden amongst the trees, watching as Jane smiled and glowed under male perusal.

  Damn him for coming today. What sort of fool had he been to search her out? And why the bloody hell was he unable to signal his mount to move forward and announce his presence? Why couldn't he take his eyes off the fetching figure in pink and return to the riding path?

  The wind gusted, unravelling Jane's already wildly flapping bonnet strings. With a laugh that was carried on the breeze, he saw her smile as the wind lifted her bonnet from her head and carried it to the grass. He watched with growing unease as one of the gentlemen jumped up to retrieve it. He returned it to her with a flourish, bowing before her, presenting it proudly to her like a faithful spaniel would present a grouse to its master.

  His fingers tightened on the reins when the man insisted on helping her retie the bonnet strings and he swore viciously when he saw her lower her eyes and smile shyly. Bloody hell, the rogue was taking his time about securing the damned bonnet. He was probably leering down the front of her bodice. Damn it, but he hadn't ever noticed just how scandalously cut her gowns were. He looked to her friends and saw that they wore the same neckline, but their breasts were not anywhere near as lavishly displayed as Jane's.

  Rama snorted and pranced as the bit dug into his mouth. "Sorry, my friend," he muttered, loosening his hold. "You see, I am much like you when you sniff another male around Sita."

  The horse's black head turned, considering his master with his large brown eyes. Despite his foul mood, Gavin grinned, amused that the only word Rama understood from him was Sita--the name of his future breeding mate. He'd had to move Rama to a different stable owing to the fact the stallion was crashing down walls to get to the mare. Bloody hell, he scoffed, he was talking to his horse and drawing analogies between the two of them. What the devil was the matter with him?

  Giggling once again drew his attention to the happy party, and he shifted and tens
ed when he saw the gentleman grasp Jane's hand and raise her from the blanket. Who the bloody hell was this upstart with Jane? And why the devil was she allowing him to guide her to the water's edge? She shouldn't be leaving with the man. It wasn't a damn bit proper, and Lady Jane Westbury was the epitome of everything proper. Wasn't she?

  His mouth twisted in disgust as the young man he knew to be Lord Winterbourne raised her gloved hand to his mouth and lowered his lips to her knuckles. Bloody hell, what was this? Was he the reason she hadn't been able to meet with him to continue their lessons? Was he the 'obligation she must see to'?

  Grinding his teeth in order to prevent himself from savagely gripping the reins, Gavin watched the interlude with something akin to murderous rage. Damn her and her beguiling smiles. Damn her for awakening a part of him he never knew existed and didn't particularly care to have.

  It was all happening too fast; the butterfly was emerging from her chrysalis much too precipitously. He hadn't wanted it to be this way. He had wanted to draw it out, to spend more than a night with her. He wanted her emergence to be with him. He wanted to be the first to see her wings flutter out of her cocoon.

  What did it matter to him if he wasn't the one? It wasn't as though she owed him anything, nor did he owe her a thing. He wasn't going to marry her, wasn't going to give her children. What did it matter that she had set her sights on someone else, someone who would give her what she wanted? After all, she had made her desires perfectly clear. She wanted a lover who would be captivated by her. A lover who would turn into a husband and a father.

  He thought of Jane full and heavy with a babe as he watched her standing beside the Serpentine. He envisioned hands, large and dark, stroking her swollen belly. They were not the hands of the young lord smiling wistfully beside her. They were his hands. It was his fingers possessively sliding along her belly. His child in her womb. Bloody hell, he had gone daft. As sure as the sun was in the sky, he was bloody well mad.