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Jane observed Hugh’s appalled reaction to her stumbling confession without surprise. Which didn’t stop a great tattered rift splitting open across her heart. It was the nature of love to hope, even when nothing justified that hope. But she couldn’t mistake his horror at hearing of her feelings for him.

Because he’d loathe hurting her, he swiftly masked his immediate rejection. Compassion softened his handsome features, and he stepped forward and reached out for her. “Jane, I’m so sorry.”

She stumbled away, bumping into the wall behind her. “No, don’t touch me.”

He flinched, but at least he lowered his hands to his sides. “I said when I married you that…love wasn’t on the table.”

Her stomach clenched to hear the way he could barely pronounce the word “love” in her presence.

“Yes, you did.” It was an effort to keep her voice steady. Her eyes were dry enough to sting. She felt as desiccated and lifeless as desert sand.

He made a bewildered gesture. “Are you sure?”

“Don’t insult me,” she said sharply.

“It’s just…”

“It would be so much easier if I didn’t love you, I know.” She swallowed to relax a throat tight enough to hurt. “I’ve spent weeks telling myself the same thing. But it’s no use.”

He paused before he spoke, and she saw he started to connect the clues to how she’d changed. “This is why you’ve been…distant.”

During these last weeks, they’d come together over and over, but he was right. Now she had something precious and fragile to protect, caution smothered all generosity and openness. And without generosity and openness, the joy they’d found in one another had swiftly shriveled away. “Yes.”

“What can I do? I hate to think of you being unhappy.”

She dredged up the courage to speak the truth. “You could love me back.”

In all this vile, agonizing morning, the vilest, most agonizing moment was this, when his face inexorably closed against her. “That’s not possible.”

She spread her hands and spoke urgently, knowing she wasted the effort. “We could be so happy together, Hugh, if you let go of your hopeless longing. We get on well. We want one another. We have a similar view on the world. Together we can build a fulfilled life, a family, a future where we grow old together in deepening affection and respect.”

“Nothing stops us from having those things, Jane.” Hugh looked dreadful, stricken and broken, but she gave him credit for trying. “You know how fond I am of you.”

She bit back a whimper. “Fond” was a brutal punch to her solar plexus. “We can’t have those things if I love you, and you love someone else.”

His hands bunched at his sides. “You’re asking too much.”

“No, I’m not.” Her voice hardened. “My fault is that I didn’t ask for enough in the beginning.”

Anger darkened his features. “Are you saying I cheated you?”

He had. He still did. But she saw he’d never understand. “I was wrong to believe that I could live without love.”

His face contorted. “Why?” he asked savagely. “If I can bear it, why can’t you?”

His bitterness made her want to sink into the floor. “Hugh…”

But what could she say? They were trapped in mutual misery, both stuck with inconvenient, immovable loves that would sour the rest of their days.

Breathing unsteadily, he swung away to flatten his hands on the desk. He hunched his shoulders and hung his ruffled dark head. It broke her heart to see him looking so defeated. Unthinking she stepped forward to offer comfort, but stopped before she touched him.

“Jane, I’m sorry this has happened.” His voice was so deep, it vibrated in her bones.

“So am I.” She wished to heaven she could change. There was no point wishing Hugh would. This fraught interview demonstrated that he was as bewitched as ever.

A weighty silence crashed down. Eventually he raised his head and turned to face her. “We must go on.”

She shook her head. After seeing Fenella, she’d reached some painful decisions. Confessing her feelings to Hugh was only the beginning, and she suspected far from the hardest part. “I can’t live like this.”

He jerked back as if she’d hit him, and she saw him finally turn his mind to what these weeks had been like for her. “I’m sorry.”

“You keep saying that.”

“What else can I say?”

I love you, Jane. She shoved aside the futile wish. “I’ve put you in an impossible position.”

“I’ll do my best not to hurt you.”

“That will hurt me more than carelessness,” she said sharply. “We can’t spend every minute guarding our words and actions.”

“Then what do you suggest?” Impatience lengthened his mouth. “You seem to forget that we’re tied together for life.”

Her turn to wince. He made that sound like a death sentence—which she supposed it was. It was certainly death to anything that felt like gladness or hope. “I don’t forget,” she said flatly. “I suggest…a separation.”

He swore on a deep growl. “By God almighty, you won’t leave me.”

She’d known he wouldn’t like her idea. If only because once again, he’d be caught up in a scandal. London’s most famous rejected suitor suffered another rejection, this time from his wife. Any man’s pride would revolt at the prospect.

“We can arrange it so we avoid gossip.” She paused. Since arriving in London, she’d come to know this world he inhabited better than that. “Or mostly.”

A muscle jerked in his cheek. “Good Lord, girl, I don’t give a rat’s arse about talk. Let the rattlepates wag their tongues into the next century. I only care that you don’t want to stay with me.”

She didn’t believe him, but she appreciated his attempt to save her pride, if not his own. “I’ll retire to the country. That’s nothing noteworthy. Plenty of men come to London without their wives.”

“Do they indeed?” His voice struck her like a whip. “And what the devil do you do when I go home to Beardsley? Hare back to London like we’re playing some stupid children’s game?”

She bore up under his anger. After all, from his point of view, she’d spoiled everything. He must want to strangle her. Worse, the news of her love struck him completely unprepared, while she’d had time to winnow their limited choices.

“I won’t be at Beardsley Hall.” The thought of living somewhere redolent of Hugh’s presence, even when he wasn’t there, made her stomach heave.

“So where are you going? To Susan? To Felix?”

“After our quarrel, I’m not sure Susan would have me. And the last thing Felix wants is his cousin moving back to the estate she once ran.”

“You seem to be out of options, don’t you?” He so rarely used sarcasm, that this cut to the quick. “You’ll have to stay with me, much as you despise the idea.”

“Hugh, you’ll be better off if I leave you.” She struggled to steady her voice. “Think about it. Life’s been bad enough these last weeks. It will only get worse. Already, what’s happening between us is breaking my heart and driving you to distraction.”

Tears edged Jane’s shaky inhalation. Last night when she’d rehearsed this scene in her mind, everything had proceeded much more smoothly. She’d laid out her position, and Hugh had responded like the reasonable man he was. If he said he couldn’t love her, they’d calmly and sensibly discuss a divided future.

She’d never imagined she’d have to deal with a wounded lion. She knew that Hugh didn’t love her before she asked the question. As expected, he’d made his rebuff more than clear, but that didn’t stop him snarling at her for wanting to leave and all but roaring his pain aloud.

“Being without you will drive me to distraction,” he said, his beautiful voice harsh.

If only she could believe that. “I don’t expect you to stay faithful.”

Saying the words nearly killed her. While for all the good they did toward placating him, she might as well have saved herself the trouble.

His anger, barely suppressed, flared again. “Well, that’s bloody marvelous, isn’t it? I have my wife’s permission to become an adulterer. What a treasure I unearthed when I married you, Jane.”

When he’d said that before, he sounded like he meant it. Hearing this distorted version shrunk her heart to a tiny pebble. She extended a shaking hand to clutch at the back of the sofa. She needed something solid to hold so she didn’t crumple into a heap. “Stop it,” she said through stiff lips. “You’re not helping.”

“And you’d really like me to be helpful,” he jeered, folding his arms. “Tell me the rest of this brilliant plan. I’m all ears.”

She struggled for composure. “If I still receive my pin money, I can revive my original plan and find cheap lodgings somewhere.”

Her suggestion, well meant as it was, made him angrier. It seemed everything she said only made him angrier. “Tea and good works, and tucked up in bed by nine every night? After taking London by storm, you expect to be happy with that?”

Jane’s lips tightened against the urge to cry. Her instincts screamed that if she betrayed any weakness, she’d never escape him. “I don’t expect to be happy.”

Narrowing his eyes, he stepped closer and held out his hands to her. His tone softened, and his expression turned pleading instead of belligerent. “Then, don’t go, Jane. I won’t have my wife rotting away in genteel poverty, just because I didn’t have the sense to keep her. I can’t bear to think of you eking out your days all alone in some mean little room.”

Oh, this was worse than his rage. “Hugh, I can’t stay,” she said huskily, praying she could resist him. “You must see that.”

He prowled near enough to catch her hands. His touch always had such power. Now it shuddered through her like an earthquake. Soon this touch that had brought her alive would only be a memory. Without it, she feared she’d die of longing.

“You’ve fretted yourself into a state,” he said, his rage gone as if it had never been. This was the voice of the man who had given her pleasure night after night. “I know you’re upset and confused. But we’ve only been married a few weeks. Don’t throw away everything we have, for the sake of a chimera. Let me show you that what we’ve built can be the foundation for a lifetime of happiness.”

Devil take him, he was so persuasive. The alluring voice. The firm grip on her hands. The affection warming his expression. For an instant, she wondered if she was being a fool. Perhaps she should settle for what he offered. A share in Hugh’s life might be better than nothing at all.

Hugh’s head lowered and drawn like iron filings to a magnet, she leaned toward him. Anticipation rippled through her, softened her hard-won resistance. He was about to kiss her.

He loved Morwenna.

Heaven help her, if she didn’t break free now, she’d never find the will to leave. Suffering would eat her away, the way maggots ate at rotten meat. The last few weeks, she’d nearly gone mad, thirsting after what she could never have. As she’d told him, she had no expectation of happiness, but if she didn’t have to see him every day, perhaps one day in the distant future she might find a measure of peace.

“No…” she sighed, before she went rigid and wrenched free. Her voice sharpened. “No. I can’t live with you, knowing you’re in love with someone else.”

His jaw firmed. “I can’t change my heart.”

“I can’t either.” She stiffened her shoulders and met his eyes, as she gathered the dogged determination that had carried her this far. “I’m leaving today, Hugh.”

“Today?” Shock tightened the skin on his face and turned his features ashen, giving her a hint of how he’d look as an old man. “You’ve already gone behind my back and chosen your hideaway? Damn you, that was quick work. So nothing I can say will change your mind about going?”

He was back to sounding angry. But she’d reached a pitch of anguish where she just wanted this over with. “No,” she said miserably.

“Damn you, Jane, that was shabby.”

It had been, but she didn’t see that she’d had any choice. “I need somewhere to go.”

“Where?” One large hand made a sweeping gesture, as if he brushed away the whole blasted mess. “You know I’ll be worried sick about you. However upset and fed up you are, that would be cruel. And you’re never cruel.”

Determined not to cry in front of him, Jane bit her lip until she tasted blood. The urge to relent hovered so close to the surface. While she was convinced that leaving Hugh offered her only hope, a large part of her wanted to say she'd take any crumbs he deigned to give her. Even though she knew she’d starve to death on such short rations.

“Fenella and Anthony are letting me use the dower house at the Beeches, while I decide what I do next,” she said in a faint voice.

“The devil they are.” His anger reached another level, the new quietness of his tone indicating just how furious he was. “You’ve told them about us?”

She knew he’d feel betrayed. “I needed help, and I couldn’t think of anyone else to turn to.”

“You could have turned to me, Jane,” he said, and the infinity of pain in his words sliced at her like razors.

She struggled to continue. “Fenella won’t gossip, you know that. She’s told Anthony I need a short rest from the social whirl.”

“He’ll think you’re bloody pregnant,” Hugh said sourly.

Which brought up another delicate, but essential matter. She’d rather discuss this when her husband was his even-tempered self. But she couldn’t think when that would be. After today, there was no hope of resurrecting the easy friendship that she’d cherished.

What a trail of destruction their marriage had wreaked. How she wished she’d said no when Hugh proposed. She almost had. She’d feared she ventured into a world of pitfalls beyond her imagining.

She’d been right.

Which was no consolation, when she stood here with her heart in jagged pieces. “I’m not pregnant.”

“I know.”

“Or at least I think I’m not.” She stiffened her spine, until she feared it must crack. “I’ll write and let you know.”

“Big of you.”

She ignored that. Right now she needed to concentrate on getting the words out, before she lost her nerve. “I promised you an heir.”

Impatience darkened his face. “Not very likely when we’re leading separate lives, is it?”

Stupidly she felt herself blush. “The Beeches isn’t far outside Winchester. It’s not an impossible distance from London.”

“You’re offering to let me keep my marital privileges?” His eyes flared, although she saw he remained suspicious of this sudden concession. “Damned sporting of you, Jane. In that case, stay here. That would make more sense.”

Jane shook her head. “No.” She straightened her shoulders and braced for more anger. “I mean…I mean that I’ll stay in Hampshire and lie with you once a month, until you plant a child in my womb.”

“I see.” The corrosive cynicism returned to his expression. “And if the baby’s a girl?”

What if it was always girls? What if there was no child at all? She shoved away her fears that this plan was bound to fail. “Then the arrangement continues until I have a son.”

He clearly also thought it was bound to fail. “This is madness.”

“Perhaps.” It was the best she could do, while keeping any chance of staying sane. She cheated Hugh of a wife. She couldn’t deprive him of the heir he desperately wanted, too.

His eyebrows arched in haughty disdain. “What about all that tomfoolery about loathing my company?”

She shuddered. This was the worst of it. She’d hoped she wouldn’t have to explain her intentions in so many words. “I’m not planning a…seduction, Hugh. Your visits will be purely utilitarian.”

Jane saw the precise moment he understood. His eyes went glassy and dead, and he wrenched back as if she disgusted him.

It might be better if she did, she thought bleakly.

“I…see.”

She knew he did. And he’d never forgive her.

Hugh went on with corrosive bitterness. “You’re back to offering me what you offered me on our wedding night. No pleasure, no real connection, just a quick swiving to get the job done.”

She hid a wince at his frankness. “Yes.”

“I didn’t accept this then. What the devil makes you think I’ll accept it now?”

“Because it’s the only offer I’m making,” she said flatly, desperately wishing this was over.

His lips curled in an unamused smile that made her shudder. “You’ve been busy working everything out. I’m impressed.”

She flinched under his biting tone. “I believe it’s for the best.”

“That’s apparent.” Although it was still morning, he strode to the sideboard and poured a large brandy. Only the faint clink of the decanter on the glass hinted that his hands trembled.

“I hope one day you’ll understand,” she said weakly.

His glare conveyed the contempt that sniveling remark deserved. He raised his glass in her direction. “To you, my dear wife, and to future understanding.”

Tears ranged so close to the surface that her eyes burned, although she saw far too clearly how profoundly she’d wounded him. She’d never imagined he cared this much.

Oh, Jane guessed that his pride would smart when she left him. But something about his desolation as he swallowed the brandy in one gulp and slammed the glass down on the mahogany hinted that his pain stabbed deeper than masculine ego. She ventured toward him, although what comfort could she offer, other than giving up her plan to escape this impossible situation? 

With a bow cold enough to make her shiver, he retreated out of reach. “I wish you a safe journey to Hampshire, madam, and I’ll hold myself at your disposal for when you require my services.”

She’d never thought kind, generous Hugh Rutherford could sound like that, as though he intended every word to pierce her skin. She swallowed an agonized whimper and backed toward the door.

It was time to go. She’d already done more than enough damage. For the first time, she let the aching depth of her love fill her voice. “Goodbye, Hugh. May heaven keep you.”

Jane didn’t wait for his reply. She couldn’t bear to witness his suffering. Nor could she any longer maintain her pretense of strength.

Blindly she turned and on trembling legs, stumbled from the library.