Free The Desperate Love of a Lord by Jane Lark

it. To her, it had been a simple and sorrowful fact for years, no blessing. Her unusual colouring, her jet-black, spiralling hair, her honeyed skin tone and, most of all, her vivid green eyes, were all at fault.
    As Sutton’s wife, her beauty had drawn constant attention. It was a gift from her ancestors – so her mother had once told Jane, glowing with pride. She came from a distant line of Spanish nobility.
    Jane saw little to be proud of today. Beauty was a curse. It attracted men like Hector. Men who wanted to acquire it.
    He’d sought eternal youth through an innocent, young woman in her sixteenth year and he’d drained Jane’s life from her. She was an empty shell now. That blind, ignorant girl died the night her seventeenth year commenced. The woman who faced her now was born when she’d stood before an altar and promised herself to a man four times her age.
    But it was useless thinking of the past; she could not change it. The only thing she was certain of was her future would not be under her stepson’s rule.
    Jane turned and paced back across the rug. She thought of Lady Rimes, Violet. The woman Jane had lovingly named the wicked widow. Last winter in Bath, when Hector had visited the spa to take the waters, Jane had snatched moments to escape and formed an unlikely and rare friendship with Violet. Violet was everything Jane was not, and the reason Jane had come to Bath. She’d hoped Violet would be here. It had taken one look in the register book at the pump room to realise her hopes were naïve.

    This was not winter. The month of May meant the ton , England’s elite society, were in London; of course Violet was there.
    But Jane knew Violet would help her. They’d sought each other out numerous times last winter. Violet had made Jane laugh for the first time in years, and when Jane had left Bath, her friend had begged Jane to visit whenever she wished.
    Then this is my answer .
    If she lived with Violet, surely Joshua would not dare barge into the house. Every insult he’d thrown had been out of the earshot of society. He picked his moments carefully. Violet’s presence would hold him at bay until Jane could find a pathway forward.
    Impatient suddenly, she strode to the door, the black muslin skirt of her high-waist gown with its fashionable empire line, slashing against her legs, restricting her hurried and determined steps. When she reached the door, she looked out into the hall.
    Garnett stood beside the front door. “Garnett, would you have Meg fetch my pelisse and bonnet? I am going out, and while I am out, please hire a post-chaise and team to transport me to London, and have Meg pack. I will be leaving tomorrow.”
    The Pump Room’s director would know Violet’s address.
    The butler bowed stiffly.

Chapter Two
    Jane’s gaze swept the spectacle of the Duchess of Weldon’s spring Ball. The room was flooded with shimmering, spinning colours as she watched the dancers, the debutantes in white muslins, and their mamas and chaperones wearing every shade of the rainbow and beyond. Gentlemen punctuated the spectacle in formal black, crisply starched white cravats and silk stockings; their only show of frivolity, the glinting embroidery on their waistcoats.
    It was a beautiful sight, and all the glamour was reflected in shards of light, spinning and flickering from the crystal prisms of glass dangling from the chandeliers above, and from mirrors which lined the ballroom above head height. The orchestra played a merry country tune, and the dancers bounced and stepped in time, skirts swaying. Laughter, chatter, and the sound of their footsteps filled the stifling air.
    Jane had never been to a ball in London until recently. Access to the splendour of this society ritual should have been hers by right as a duchess, but Hector had preferred small, crude affairs for entertainment. He had not held balls, nor attended them, and so, nor had she.
    It all appeared surreal to her now, a place of dreams. Yet