His hands clutched her hips, and he flipped them around, reversing their positions, his body now atop hers. His eyes drifted shut as the thrust of his hips, the slide of his cock built, faster, harder toward—
His body tensed, his shout echoed through the room, and release caught him in its unrelenting teeth. At the very last moment, he pulled out of her and spent his seed onto the bed before collapsing beside her, the ragged in and out of uneven breath the only sound in the room.
Through the haze of enervation and satiety came the thought that she’d been a fool in coming here. She hadn’t extinguished the flame between them.
She’d only stoked it higher.
~ ~ ~
“Ahem,” Jake heard as if from a great distance.
His eyes creaked open to the sight of a woman’s unclad back. Olivia’s unclad back.
“If you will please secure my fastenings, I shall be on my way.”
He rolled onto his side and pushed himself up into a seated position, his hazy languor giving way to a feeling resembling alarm. He had no idea what to expect from her, but a presented back and a business-like tone wasn’t it.
Silently, he reached out and fastened her dress, resisting the impulse to feather his fingertips down her vulnerable spine, resisting the compulsion to influence her to lose that business-like tone. Recent dealings had shown him how.
Task complete, his rational mind asserted itself. “Why was it you came to my rooms?”
She emitted a short laugh. “For this.”
“For this?”
“Yes, for this.”
His mouth clamped shut in exasperated silence. The woman would explain herself sooner or later.
“I was hoping to speak to you today about arranging . . . this.” She stood and moved to the other side of the room where a small rock garden lay unaffected by their little drama. “To have this tension out from between us. To purge our systems of one another. Simple and uncomplicated.”
“And has it worked?” There was no help for the testy note in his voice. “Is the tension gone? Are our systems purged?” The words came out more demanding than he had a right to be, given the circumstances of their . . . tête-à-tête.
At last, she faced him. She looked vulnerable, spent, and at complete odds with herself. “Isn’t that the way of a fleeting affair?”
“Olivia,” he began, “this is no way to cope—”
“And you’re the expert on coping?” She glared at his bruised chest. “Is this how you’re coping with being a viscount? By allowing yourself to be beaten black and blue?”
“No, these”—He spread his arms wide—“have nothing to do being a viscount. As far as that goes, I find myself settling into the role.” He surprised himself with that last bit. It was true.
“Then why?” she whispered.
“You don’t know?”
“Perhaps.”
That single word confirmed it for him. He’d allowed himself to be pummeled black and blue for the same reason she’d splattered his face across her studio walls: it was his release . . . from her.
And they both knew it.
“Is it working?”
“No.” He paused. “Did this?”
“We shall see.”
He didn’t believe her. She didn’t believe her, either. Further, she was scared it hadn’t worked. He saw the fear in her eyes.
“Olivia, it doesn’t have to be like this.”
“You may want to resume calling me Lady Olivia. Decorum matters in our little world.”
“Lady Olivia, have you ever experienced a fleeting affair?” Silence stretched out between them as he slid off the bed and tied the lacings of his trousers. “What we just shared was simple and uncomplicated?” Disbelief sounded in his voice, and he wanted her to hear it. “And our systems are purged of one another?”
“You are, of course, not obligated to me in any way,” she stated, undeterred. “You are free to pursue a proper wife, and I am free to remain a scandalous divorcée. In fact”—She began sliding the fingers of one hand into gray kid gloves, one by one, methodically, determinedly—“we could keep doing this until—”
Alarmed, he sat forward. “That won’t work.”
Her gaze, cool, unaffected, met his. He could see her striving to place distance between them. “You’re a man of the world. Surely, as a sailor, you had a paramour in every port.”
“For us, Olivia,” he cut in before she could speak another word. “That won’t work for us.”
Her gaze refused to meet his as she began tugging a glove onto her other hand. In the space her silence created, he was afforded the distance to think and allow reason to assert itself. He must find a wife. To continue with Olivia in this manner wasn’t only unthinkable, it was ungentlemanly. He would arrange an outing with Miss Fox and wouldn’t beg off this time.
At the edge of his vision, he saw that Olivia . . . Lady Olivia had gone still. She stood in a posture both aloof and expectant, poised on the verge of flight. “I shall be on my way to fetch Lucy from school now.”
Without another word, she strode out of his bedroom, out of his mansion, and out of his life for all he knew, leaving him more alone than perhaps he’d ever been in his life.
A series of questions ran rapid-fire through his mind. What had he done? With Lady Olivia . . . Olivia? Had he just ruined his chance of finding the thief? Of finding a wife? Of securing Mina’s future?
He shot off the bed, his feet beating a resolute tattoo toward his dressing room. Another bout in Gentleman Jackson’s ring was in his very near future.
Within a thing of beauty could, indeed, lie the seeds of one’s undoing. In fact, that was where they would most likely lie.
~ ~ ~
Olivia sat perched on the carriage seat, her eyes squeezed shut, her thoughts running faster than she could catch them.
That won’t work for us.
For a moment, she hadn’t been able to breathe. Us. Two separate entities, combined, one.
She’d gone lightheaded. From lack of breath, surely, not from that word, the warm, seductive invitation of it. That word didn’t have to change anything. This tryst was a purely physical occurrence. She was the same person. She still had the same goals. What had been lurking between her and Lord St. Alban—Jake—was out in the open now. They could be free.
But, oh, this feeling knotting her insides didn’t feel like freedom. It wanted more. It wanted to become bound to a budding addiction. She could easily envision a future of enslaved dependence on that man, on what his body could provide hers. The thought caused the tender flesh of her sex to swell and ready itself for him again.
She bit back a groan borne of frustration and want. This must end here. She must envision a different future, the one she’d spent years cultivating, one of self-reliance. Never again would she open herself to the uncertainty and unpredictability of dependence on another for her happiness. The inevitable pain of disappointment and abandonment ran too deep. It wasn’t worth the pleasure.
Her racing pulse spoke a different truth. She would ignore it.
Eyes clenched tight, she fought for clarity. Her mind evoked the image of her white marble column. As she attempted to relax into it, she couldn’t. Something was amiss with her column. Usually, it stood tall and proud, unassailable. Today, it skewed ever so subtly to one side. Not enough to topple over, but . . . off. Try as she might, she couldn’t make it stand straight.
The carriage slowed to a full stop, and her eyes flew open. She’d arrived at Lucy’s school. Before she could compose herself, Lucy bounced into the carriage, her usual ebullient self.
“Hello, Mum.” Lucy leaned across the carriage floor for her customary kiss on the cheek. “Whoa, you smell like . . . like . . . like what?”
“Cloves?”
“Oh, yes, that’s it. How is that?”
“I’ve been out and about.”
Lucy accepted this and began recounting her day. Just as Olivia relaxed into the excitable rhythms of her daughter’s girlish voice, Lucy said, “Mum?”
“Yes?”
“You know who else smells like that?”
Olivia braced herself, her heartbeat doubling its rate, and shook her head.
“Miss Scace.”
Her breath released.
“You must bathe immediately when we arrive home. Immediately.”
Olivia looked through the carriage window at passing London streets. It had begun to drizzle. “I intend to, Lulu. I’ll wash off every last trace.”
Even as she spoke the words, she knew they were a lie, that a trace of him would always remain.
Had she truly rid her system of Lord St. Alban . . . Jake? Or had she set herself up for a lifetime of knowing just what she would be missing?
Chapter 16
Next day
“I must confess,” Miss Fox spoke in the particular haughty tone that characterized her voice. Mayhap the sound would grate less on Jake’s ears over time. “I was rather surprised to have received your note yesterday.”
“Oh?” He wouldn’t confess that he was rather surprised to have sent it.
They encountered yet another mud puddle in the path, this one too wide for a lady to cross without assistance. He leaped the shallow distance and held out his hand for her. She placed her fingers in his and met him on the other side with a dainty, little hop. She strolled ahead while he assisted her chaperone, Miss Markley, who accepted his hand with a giggle and a blush.
Once again, they progressed forward, Jake and Miss Fox arm in arm, Miss Markley falling discreetly behind. “The trails aren’t as well groomed here in the Green Park as they are in the more fashionable environs of Hyde Park.”
“My apologies, if I was mistaken in suggesting this park for our outing.” The lady wasn’t afraid to speak her mind. He should find it refreshing, but he couldn’t quite. Every word she spoke, and the way she spoke it, contained a sharp edge.
“No need to apologize, my lord. I understand perfectly why you would suggest this park.”
He cut her a sideways glance. Her features were composed and placid, but he could see that she did understand perfectly. He’d chosen this unfashionable park at this unfashionable hour—ten in the morning, no less—for the simple reason that he didn’t want the curious eyes of Society watching him court Miss Fox. If what he was doing could be called courting.
Of course, it was courting. He was an eligible bachelor, she a single young lady, and they were strolling a path together, her chaperone trailing them at a discreet distance. This was courting.
Although he hadn’t sufficiently considered all the steps it would take to secure a Society marriage, he could see that he’d officially entered the path toward finding a stepmother for Mina.
All the goals he’d set for himself were beginning to fall into place. He’d even made an appointment with a Bow Street runner later today to find Jiro. A Japanese artist living in Limehouse couldn’t be too difficult to find. He should’ve handled the situation this way from the beginning. It was the most civilized and proper approach, he could see that now.
Rather, he’d engaged with a divorcée who Society deemed scandalous for her insistence on conducting her life according to her own principles. And yet, yesterday, he’d done more than engage with her in his bedroom . . . And there had been nothing civilized about it.
“My lord, are you quite all right?”
His jaw unclenched long enough to say, “Of course, why shouldn’t I be?”
“Well, you were glaring at that poor squirrel”—She pointed out the animal, tail twitching in the mid-distance—“as if you would incinerate it with the intensity of your gaze.”
“My apologies if I alarmed you. I can assure you that I harbor no such animus toward that squirrel.”
A tight smile pinched the corners of Miss Fox’s mouth. He’d never seen her smile any other way. Had she ever smiled unreservedly in her life? Had she ever looked at someone and poured her entire being into a smile only for him?
A face possessed of just such a smile appeared in his mind’s eye.
“You were missed at the Dowager Duchess of Dalrymple’s dinner party,” Miss Fox said. “She let it be known that she was most annoyed at having an odd number at table.”
“I’d committed to another engagement that posed a conflict.” It wouldn’t do to say which commitment came first.
“Two nights ago . . .” Miss Fox’s eyes narrowed. “That was the night of Lady Olivia Montfort’s monthly soirée, no?”
“It was,” he drawled, certain he was admitting guilt. Miss Fox possessed a specific shrewd quality that he wasn’t sure he liked. A possibility occurred to him. “Are you a lover of art? Perhaps you’ve attended one of Lady Olivia’s soirées?”
Miss Fox shook her head. “I’ve never been invited. Lady Olivia and I don’t figure prominently in each other’s social spheres.” Another descriptor for Miss Fox’s smile came to mind. Hard. “In fact, I’m not sure she’s fully aware of my existence, which is likely for the best.”
“And why is that?”
She laughed, a sound tinny and false, as if it had been forced out of her. “Lady Olivia has cultivated quite the scandalous reputation, and it wouldn’t do for an unmarried miss, such as myself, to be seen in her company.”
“Quite,” Jake bit out. Even as their feet progressed forward, he made himself go very, very still, fighting the urge to tell Miss Fox, politely and calmly, that three Miss Foxes wouldn’t amount to one Lady Olivia. But it wouldn’t do. Quite was the only word he trusted himself to say, politely and calmly, on the matter.
He unclenched hands that had curled into tight fists. It wasn’t Miss Fox’s view in particular that had him wound up, but Society’s view in general. Society deserved a good drubbing.
Perhaps Miss Fox sensed the storm brewing at her side for she asked, “Isn’t this a perfect spring day, my lord?”
“It is a lovely day,” he replied, even as a note of disappointment shot through him at this conversational turn, the weather. Possibly, it presaged his future with a proper wife. Proper marriage, proper wife, proper stepmother, proper dull.
“You wouldn’t believe the number of poems rhapsodizing about emergent spring that the publishing house gets this time of year.”
“The publishing house?” At last, something interesting.
Miss Fox tiptoed around another shallow puddle. “My father won a share in a small press a few years ago.”
“Won a share?”
“In a card game.”
“Your father is a baron, correct?”
She nodded. “A baron, yes, and a publisher.” A light blush pinked her cheeks. “My father has his fingers in any number of pies on any given day.”
“It was my understanding that gentlemen don’t enter into trade.”
“As a general rule, they don’t. But my father isn’t one to be hemmed in by Society’s rules, and they indulge him, because he’s, well, he’s a reliably entertaining dinner guest.”
Jake sensed a quiet conflict between father and daughter. In the interest of keeping clear of those murky waters, he asked, “Do you take an interest in the press?”
Her eyes, an opaque gray, darted up to meet his. She really had the most direct way of taking in a person. “Our secret?”
He nodded.
“I love it. At first, it was a bit of a lark, but one day I began sorting through a pile of submissions and didn’t look up for three hours. The written word interests me, not only for its ability to communicate ideas, but for its intersection of beauty and
power. Take poetry, for instance, the fewer the words—well chosen, of course—the more powerfully it communicates its message. Fascinating, no?”
This was the longest string of words he’d ever heard Miss Fox produce. Encouraging. “Might I read any publications the press produces?”
“Oh, I, um, I doubt it,” she stammered, her eloquence gone. “We don’t publish for the serious-minded, such as yourself. Ours is lighter fare.”
Her gaze, once clear and direct, now skittered away to study the path ahead of them. He wasn’t sure what brought about the sudden change. “You are a most unexpected young lady.”
“Young?” Her brow lifted toward the blue sky above. “Society would hardly characterize me as young. I turned five and twenty on my last name day.”
“Which makes you an aged crone?”
She gave a little shrug. “Perhaps not, but it does place me solidly on the shelf, and a decided spinster in the ton’s eyes.”
“Do you care how you’re seen by them?”
“Not in the least.”
His eyebrows creased together, and, of course, Miss Fox caught the movement.
“Does that shock you, my lord? If I cared, I would be a most unhappy person. Besides, everyone can’t be who they appear on the surface, or the world would be a very dull place.”
“I feel certain you are exactly who you purport to be.”
“Do you?” Another laugh escaped her. She knew how to make a laugh sound like a chore. “And who am I?”
“A Society miss with a speckless reputation and a keen, observant eye.”
“On the prowl for a husband?”
His brow lifted in surprise. “My apologies—”
“I tease you, my lord,” she interrupted. “Well, not entirely. To be on the prowl for a husband is the lot of an unmarried lady. There seems to be no way of getting around it.”
Tempted by the Viscount (A Shadows and Silk Novel) Page 17