Free The Passionate Love of a Rake by Jane Lark

kiss.
    Jane’s gaze spun back to the course. Violet was right. It was silly to think of yesterdays. What Jane had longed for in the past could not come true now. She pressed her fingers to her right temple and felt a pounding pain commence in her head.
    ~
    “Enough. Why not go and look over the animals for the next race with Lord Franklin? I am sure he would escort you.” Robert slipped Lady Baxter’s arms from about his neck and set the woman away gently, ignoring her pout.
    Lord Franklin heard his name and glanced over with a knowing smile, then offered the lady his arm.
    She conceded and went off with Robert’s friend with a flounce and a lifted chin, sidling close to Franklin in an obvious ploy to make Robert jealous.
    It was pointless. He’d had his fill of her. He never bent to feminine games unless it suited his own aims. He was not, in general, a man led by his emotions. His desire for women was a mental game. The pumping organ in his chest was a cold and empty thing. Women, in general, did not affect it. He crossed his arms over his chest and watched Lady Baxter walk away.
    Yesterday, he would have welcomed her fawning as a mark of his success, but today, it was cloying.
    She had not accepted his desertion last night gracefully though. She’d been angry this morning, but despite that, the woman was not to be set off lightly. She was blatantly throwing herself at him now because she’d divined his interest was fading. More fool her. She’d clearly learned nothing about him. It would only put him off. It also convinced him that her previous disinclination had been a foil. She’d taken two weeks to woo, but now, he suspected, she’d never been disinclined, only hoping to snare him for longer than a brief affair. A game he was learning to be wary of.
    He did not deliberately avoid long-term relationships. On the continent he’d had several.
    A smile pulled at his lips when he remembered the opera singer in Rome. Then there was his widow in Venice. They’d taught him much of women. He’d learned many skills in his dissipated years abroad. It had changed him from a naïve and greedy youth, hungry for everything and anything that filled and fuelled his violently empty soul, to a connoisseur who liked to savour stimulation. Gluttony was no longer to his taste. He enjoyed relishing every morsel. Sadly, he just hadn’t found a woman who held his interest in a while. His eyes strayed towards Sparks’s box. And no woman had ever truly filled the void. Not since Jane. That damn woman had tainted everything beyond her, and now he’d seen and savoured an appetizer of the original woman he judged all others by, he’d lost his hunger for anything else again. He wanted her.
    His stare reached to where she sat and caught her gaze. Instantly, she looked away in an obvious attempt to pretend she had not been watching. Her face now hidden behind the broad rim of her black bonnet, he turned fully in her direction and rested his gloved hands on the rail, making no secret of his contemplation.
    Her slender, black-clad figure was tense. She was, perhaps, nervous. She probably knew he was still looking. Well, she deserved a little discomfort. He smiled.
    When she’d suggested their assignation, he’d assumed she was fast, and she’d be eager, but in his chamber, she’d seemed hesitant. Yet her responses had been beautiful, real, honest, and open in a way he was unused to.
    She’d let her defences fall last night. It had been all he’d anticipated.

    He leaned forward onto his elbows and tipped the brim of his hat a little lower, hiding his gaze.
    She was peeved because his attentions had been planned for Lady Baxter, yes, but from the way she’d looked at him just a moment ago, he would make a fair guess she
was
jealous, too. Well, jealousy was a useful tool.
    She’d changed. But then, so had he. What to make of it? That was the question. All he knew at this moment was she piqued his interest, and he was unwilling to