A Moment of Passion (The Ladies Book of Pleasures) Read online

  A lady in the ballroom…a lover in the bedroom.

  The Ladies Book of Pleasures, Book 2

  When Lady Jacinda unwraps a scandalous birthday gift, she’s sure the anonymous giver is playing a cruel joke. The Ladies Book of Pleasures may be responsible for one gossiped-about marriage, but for a lady ruined by a rogue and shunned by society, Jacinda is doomed to a lonely, loveless future.

  Worse, as she pages through the volume of passionate promises, she is observed by the wicked and dangerous Duke of Carnthorn—and now he is stalking her as a possible willing victim of his shocking preferences.

  Jason, Earl of Northfield, is having none of it. Jacinda, keeper of his most painful secret, is a friend he will not abandon to a wolf like Carnthorn. As they embark on a pretend courtship—for her own protection, of course—their proper decorum in public melts into wicked passion in the bedroom.

  But even as real feelings begin to develop between them, Carnthorn is watching. He is not convinced. And he is determined to possess Jacinda, no matter whom he has to destroy…

  Warning: This book contains friends turning to lovers, a highly erotic secret affair and a wicked villain who will destroy what he cannot have.

  A Moment of Passion

  Jess Michaels

  Dedication

  Thanks to all my author friends, especially Vicki Lewis Thompson and Kate Smith, for being a kind ear, sounding board and support system. I hope I’m a bit of the same for you. Also, as always, for Michael because he gets to listen to me 24-7. Sorry and you’re welcome.

  Prologue

  “Whispered words can change the course of a life. Assuming they are the right ones.”—The Ladies Book of Pleasures

  1805

  Jacinda Downing knew she shouldn’t be out of bed at midnight, roaming her father’s estate, but she had little choice in the matter. She had been trying to sleep for over an hour and simply couldn’t, no matter what techniques she employed to force herself.

  Tomorrow was to be her debut into Society and the anxiety over that fact gripped her like a fist around her heart.

  Her younger sister, who would come out just the next year and could scarcely wait, said Jacinda was an idiot to be afraid. Of course, Lisbeth seemed to believe Jacinda was an idiot in every way.

  Still, no matter how she tried to calm herself, the idea of having to flirt with men, having to “catch the family fortune”, as her father put it, was so much pressure.

  Jacinda slipped through the Blue Room, a favorite of her late mother’s, and opened the door to the terrace outside. She’d always liked this particular view of the gardens below and she could only hope the night breeze would help her clear her mind so she could sleep. If she showed up to breakfast with circles beneath her eyes, there would be hell to pay.

  She stepped outside, and for a moment her sight would not adjust to the dark. She squeezed her eyes shut and counted to a slow ten before opening again to find the world in dusky darkness. With a smile, she tightened her wrap around herself and stepped to the stone wall to stare up at the glittering stars above.

  “And just what are you doing here?”

  She jumped at the slurred sound of a voice coming from further down the veranda. She spun on the direction it had come from and peered through the dark to see a male figure standing not ten feet to her left. She squinted but could not make him out. She didn’t think he was her brother—the voice was wrong for Charles.

  “I could ask you the same, sir,” she said, hoping she sounded braver than she felt. “I should scream for help.”

  “You would be foolish if you did,” the man said, easing toward her, his weight heavy on the wall in a way that indicated he was deep in his cups. “For I am a welcomed guest of your brother, Jacinda.”

  She gasped as the little sliver of moon in the sky cast a light on the stranger’s face and revealed him not as a stranger at all. It was Jason, the Earl of Northfield, and one of her brother’s oldest friends, though they had seemed to be drifting apart in more recent years.

  “Jason,” she breathed, then shook her head with a blush as she corrected herself. “I mean, Lord Northfield. You did give me a fright. What are you doing here?”

  He stared at her for a moment. A very long moment indeed, before he motioned to a nearly empty bottle he held in his right hand. “Can you not tell, my dear? I am drinking myself into oblivion.”

  She stared at him. Jason had long been a favorite of hers amongst her brother’s crew of friends. He was the only one who ever smiled at her, who ever took notice of her at all. He was always light and jovial and filled with jokes and teasing.

  Except now, when that mask he wore was removed by copious amounts of alcohol. It revealed a pain so deep in his bright blue eyes that she almost wished to run from its rawness. But she didn’t.

  “Is there something I can do?” she asked, moving closer even though she knew full well that it was very inappropriate for a young woman to be out in the middle of a night in her nightgown with a young man. Especially a young man of Jason’s reputation.

  He stared at her. “You mean that, don’t you?” he asked, almost more to himself than to her. “You would help me if you could.”

  She nodded without hesitation. “Of course.”

  He gave a wobbly smile. “That’s why I’ve always liked you, Jacinda. You are truly kind, not this falsity women sometimes use to get what they want or to get into a man’s bed.”

  She flinched at the very improper words, but chose to ignore them. He clearly had no idea what he was saying to her.

  “But you haven’t answered my question,” she said instead. “Is there something I can do for you?”

  “Can you make me forget how much I hate my father?” he asked, swaying slightly. “Dead in the ground for years and I still think of him nightly, Jacinda. Can you imagine? I still dream of what he did to me.”

  She straightened up at that. “What he did?” she repeated, thinking of Jason’s late father. The earl had always presented himself as a decent, upstanding man with a strong relationship with his only child.

  Now the pain in Jason’s eyes said otherwise.

  “Oh yes,” he growled. “Here he was, pretending to be everything he wasn’t, while at home his punishments rained down. And for nothing, Jacinda. He would beat me for a wrong look, a mark on my school reports, a hair out of place. He would beat me for being my mother’s son, for not being tall enough.”

  She gasped, her hand coming up to her lips as empathy wracked her. “Oh, Jason,” she whispered.

  The sound of his name seemed to draw him from a fog of memories and he looked at her. “You won’t tell,” he whispered, his voice cracking.

  She shook her head. “No, no, I won’t,” she promised. And she meant it.

  He must have sensed that, for he suddenly caught her hand with the one that didn’t hold his bottle and continued, as if he had been wanting to say these secrets to someone for a long time.

  “I hated him, Jacinda. I continue to hate him with a fire so bright I fear it will consume me. But I have a plan.”

  She shook her head, uncertain if she should be afraid or not when Jason’s eyes lit up, so bright and powerful. “A plan?”

  “I am going to destroy his legacy. I will destroy his properties, ruin his good name and I’ll never marry. I will never have heirs, so his line will die with me.”

  She sucked in a breath. He said those words so fervently that she had to believe he meant them, drunk or not. She squeezed the hand that held hers.

  “But Jason,” she said softly. “What of those people who depend upon your father’s lands to live? If you
destroy all that, spend the entail into oblivion, won’t you hurt them?”

  That stopped him. He staggered a little, let her go and set the bottle on the edge of the veranda.

  “Don’t listen to me,” he said with a shake of his head, his voice a little clearer. “I’m only raging on. I should go to bed, Jacinda. I should go to bed.”

  She cocked her head, uncertain of how to proceed. “You should stay here. I’m sure one of the guest rooms—”

  He nodded. “Your brother already offered me the same, and I will take it. Thank you for listening, I’m sorry I jabbered on like a fool.”

  She shook her head. “God knows we all need a friend, Jason,” she said softly. “Now go to bed.”

  He stared at her for what seemed like an eternity, then he nodded and staggered past her into the house. She stood on the veranda for half an hour more after he’d gone, thinking of the terrible secret he had whispered to her. Certainly she could not be the only person who knew what he had suffered at the hands of his father. After all, he had come here to speak to her brother, so Charles must know.

  But she still couldn’t shake the feeling that something very important had just happened to her. And long into the night, she couldn’t sleep as she thought of it.

  Chapter One

  “We are taught to fear the unexpected, but why not embrace it?”—The Ladies Book of Pleasures

  1813

  Jacinda hated her dress. Truth be told, she hated her slippers as well. Her hair was also completely wretched. Of course, anyone who looked at her would see nothing amiss.

  The gown was a season or two out of fashion, but it was of high quality and the slippers had only been worn once before and had pretty stitching along their tops. As for her hair, it had been done with great care just an hour before by her maid. No, not a thing was out of place to the outsider looking in. Someone kind might even call her “handsome”, a funny word for not hideous, but not exactly pretty, which Jacinda despised.

  “A backhanded compliment if ever there was one,” she muttered into the carriage window, wishing with everything in her that she could open it up and fly into the night like a bird.

  “What did you say?”

  Jacinda jerked to attention and looked across the carriage at her companion. Aunt Cordelia had a sour look on her thin, pinched face. Of course, that was not exactly out of the ordinary. In the seven years she had lived with her aunt, she could count on her hand the number of times the woman had smiled. They were almost always at the misfortune of someone else.

  Jacinda shook her head. “I’m sorry, I was woolgathering.”

  Her aunt snorted. “Talking to oneself is the first sign of madness, you know. And you must fear it, for your great-grandmother on your father’s side had a touch of it in her old age.”

  Jacinda only barely suppressed a sigh. Cordelia was forever reminding her of the ailments of long-dead relatives and how their sufferings would no doubt catch up with Jacinda at any moment. At present, she would potentially die of at least three wasting diseases, an apoplexy, and her personal favorite, scarlet fever. Now she added madness to her tally of experiences she could expect in her future.

  “You needn’t look so dour,” her aunt said, huffing out her breath. “You were the one who wanted to go to this ridiculous gathering.”

  Jacinda could not argue with Cordelia on that point. Her aunt was perfectly correct that this journey was Jacinda’s choice. Normally she shied away from any public gathering and refused most of the few invitations she received, much to her father’s rage.

  But tonight was different. Tonight was special.

  Tonight she was going to a party to celebrate the recent marriage of one of her best friends. Isabel, the widow of the late Earl of Avenbury, had unexpectedly and totally fallen in love with the very handsome and highly sought after Marquis Lyndham not three months before, and they had been married now for just a handful of weeks. Although Isabel was happier than Jacinda could ever remember seeing her, it hadn’t been entirely easy. Because she was older and hadn’t produced heirs for her first husband, women had talked and whispered and hated Isabel for removing the marquis from the marriage mart.

  Whispers were something Jacinda understood very well. She knew how deeply unkind words could cut, how humiliating a rumor could be. So when she was invited by Isabel to come tonight and her friend’s eyes had been filled with such pleading, such desire to have true friends by her side...well, how could Jacinda refuse? Even if she desperately wanted to.

  Which was how she found herself bound into an oppressive ball gown, sitting in the stuffy carriage with her glaring aunt, going to a party across London.

  “Why should we celebrate such a girl?” Her aunt snorted. “I heard she and the marquis might have been engaging in some very untoward behavior before they wed. She trapped him, that’s for certain. Barren temptress.”

  Jacinda clenched her fist in her lap. “How exactly could she trap him if she is barren, Aunt? Does such a trap not usually include a pretended or real pregnancy?”

  “Do not say such vulgar words,” Cordelia scolded. “And who knows how women like that work?”

  Jacinda wanted to scream, but instead she gritted her teeth. “You are speaking about one of my best friends, Cordelia.”

  “I’m perfectly aware,” her aunt sniffed. “A friendship that should have been cut off years ago, since the woman could provide you with no advantage. Perhaps now that she is a marchioness she will be of more use to you.”

  “Is her marriage to the marquis not what you were condemning her for a moment ago? Now you think I can use it to my advantage?” Jacinda said with a shake of her head.

  Cordelia shrugged. “Being friends with the woman doesn’t mean you have to like her. Or approve of her. You cannot approve of that other friend of yours. The Duchess of Jameswood. Elevated title or not, that woman speaks her mind far too freely.”

  “Grace is very much a favorite person of mine,” Jacinda whispered.

  “Well, thank God you are nothing like her!” her aunt burst out. “Bold and independent.”

  She spit out the two words as if they were curses, but Jacinda wished she could catch them and wrap herself in them. Grace was exactly those things, and Jacinda envied her for all her certainty and confidence.

  Her aunt harrumphed and settled into what Jacinda could see would be a pout for the remainder of the ride. Although that was meant to punish her, Jacinda relished the quiet. She needed it to prepare herself for a night amongst people. Especially this night.

  There was one other reason she felt out of sorts today. It was her birthday. Twenty-five years old, well into her old maidenhood. Her aunt had not acknowledged the date, nor had anyone else in her family. This was not unexpected, since her father, brother and sister rarely acknowledged her at all, let alone celebrated her existence.

  Normally Isabel and Grace would have done something for her, but Isabel was the one who remembered such things and she had been so busy with her own affairs, it wasn’t surprising that the date had slipped her mind. Meanwhile, Grace hardly recalled her own birthday. It seemed Jacinda would glide into the second half of her twenties without so much as a whispered good wish.

  And she was satisfied with that. Perfectly content. Not a regret in the world.

  Or so she told herself. Loudly and often.

  The carriage slowed as it turned down the long drive into Isabel’s new London home, and Jacinda steeled herself. She would stay an hour or two, no more, just enough to support Isabel before she slipped away and back to the peace of her quiet little room at Cordelia’s house.

  The carriage stopped and the door was opened by a footman who helped first Cordelia and then Jacinda down. Cordelia had already started up the stairs to the entrance by the time Jacinda’s feet touched the ground. With a sigh, she trailed behind, watching as her aunt disappeared inside.

  She smiled at the servant who took her light wrap and followed her aunt’s retreating back through the
opulent hallways, toward the sound of music coming from the ballroom in the back of the house. When she reached it, she was surprised to find her aunt waiting for her, but as she reached her, she discovered why.

  “I do not know why I must wait to be announced,” Cordelia was sputtering at the butler who was taking charge of allowing guests entry.

  The man looked past her and smiled at Jacinda. Although Jacinda had only recently begun to visit Isabel at her new home, her friend’s new servants were already very friendly to her, welcoming her just as their master, the marquis, did, with open arms.

  “Good evening, Miss Downing,” the man now said. “We will announce you and your aunt now.”

  Her brow wrinkled as she followed Cordelia into the room. She hardly heard the servant say their names, but the reaction that announcement received was impossible to ignore.

  The entire room seemed to turn en masse and as her aunt stepped out of the way, everyone began to clap. Choruses of “Happy Birthday!” filled the air. Immediately heat flooded Jacinda’s cheeks as she stared at the friendly faces looking back at her.

  It was a small party, probably no more than thirty people, and all seemed to be those who were welcoming to her despite...well, despite her past. And yet she felt stifled and she wobbled slightly on her feet. It was only when Isabel and Grace scurried across the room together and their arms came around her to embrace her simultaneously did the world settle and her head stopped spinning.

  “Happy birthday, darling,” Isabel whispered.

  “You should have reminded me,” Cordelia snapped beside her. “Instead of making me look foolish by not saying a word that this party was for you.”

  “She didn’t know a thing,” Grace said, arching a cool brow at Cordelia. “This was a surprise, Mrs. Wentworth.”

  Before her aunt could reply, Isabel’s husband appeared seemingly from nowhere. Seth leaned forward to press a brief kiss to Jacinda’s cheek.

  “Many happy returns, Jacinda,” he said, his eyes warm and filled with true friendship toward her. Then he spun on her aunt, all charm and smiles. “Mrs. Wentworth, come with me and I will fetch you a refreshment. I would dearly love to hear about your garden—I hear it is the finest in London.”