She was conscious and full-witted now, that was what was wrong. “Smooth out your mouth,” he said as he nipped at that dimple in her left cheek.
“What does that mean?”
“It means your mouth looks like an ill-sewn seam.”
She drew back in his arms and laughed. “Oh, Gray, show me what to do.”
It wasn’t a good idea. She was so giving and soft and pliant. He could haul her over to the sofa and take her down, right this very minute. She was just an envelope of black silk away.
He set her away from him. “I’ll show you everything you want to know on Friday. No, after our wedding—not Friday morning over kippers.”
“I’ll be too scared to eat kippers on Friday morning.”
“I’ll probably be too scared as well. Go to bed, Jack, alone. I won’t come to tuck you in. I wish to spare myself any more suffering.”
He saw that she didn’t understand. Well, she would come to understand as soon as he had the bishop’s blessing on his head to indulge himself in marital bliss until he was exhausted or couldn’t stand upright, whichever came first. He took a step back.
His good sense was cracking like an old mirror that had seen too much. He picked up Eleanor, who gave him a lazy look, stretched her head forward, and lightly bit his neck. He looked over at Jack, who was still standing there, undecided. “On Friday night, I want you to bite my neck, just like Eleanor did. All right?”
She nodded slowly. She took a step forward. “Actually, I could bite your neck right now, Gray. Surely no one could consider that debauchery.”
His eyes nearly crossed. “Yes, they could. If you did bite my neck and anyone saw you do it then we’d have to get married right now, tomorrow at the latest. Trust me on this. Go to bed, Jack.”
“Don’t you think it appropriate that you give me just a bit of preparation for my new job?”
A dark blond eyebrow went upward. “New job?”
“I’m going to be a wife. I know nothing about it. At least I know nothing at all about the fleshly side of it. My mother did train me how to deal with servants, from a flirtatious laundry maid to a tearful tweeny to a puff-chested butler. I know how to mend a sheet. I can do beautiful embroidery. I can even cook a bit. But, Gray, I don’t know a thing about my duties in the bedchamber.”
“Jack, I swear to you that you will learn very quickly, since I am an excellent instructor and you will have as many lessons as I can manage before I fall over in a heap. You don’t need to know anything. It’s best for your peace of mind that you come into this ignorant as a ball of clay.” Ball of clay? He was losing what little he had left of his brain. “Well, hell, all right. Come here.”
But it was he who walked quickly to her, grabbed her against him, and trailed his fingertip over her eyebrows, her nose, her jaw. He dipped his head down to kiss where his fingers had touched her.
Then he yowled.
Eleanor swatted him again.
“I forgot,” he said and peeled Eleanor off his shoulder. “Sorry,” he said, to both Jack and Eleanor, watching her as she strolled away from them, her tail twitching high in the air. Then he turned back to Jack, who just stood there, looking at his mouth. She looked interested, very interested. She also looked just a bit on the scared side. Well, this whole business wasn’t for the fainthearted.
He lightly stroked his knuckles over her jaw. “You and I will deal well together, Jack. Now, don’t close your eyes. Look at me straight on.” Very slowly he cupped her breasts in his hands. She jerked.
“No, just hold still. Look at me. Tell me how that makes you feel.”
She swallowed. Then, very slowly, she let her head fall back. He watched her eyes drift shut, her eyelashes sweep down. He looked at that white neck of hers.
He wanted that white neck, but he had to begin somewhere and he’d already begun with her breasts. He stroked her easily, ever so easily. He felt only soft black feathers and a single layer of silk between his hands and her breasts. He’d washed her breasts, drawn the damp cloth over her breasts when she’d been roasting with the fever. He’d stared at those breasts of hers and nearly swallowed his tongue. He cleared his throat, trying to tell his brain that speech was the best thing for him in this situation. Still his fingers didn’t move from her breasts. He cleared his throat again. “Jack, what do you feel when I caress your breasts?”
“I can’t see.”
“That’s because your eyes are closed. Bring your head back up and look at me.”
She did, her eyes shining and excited. Even though he was harder than the pink-veined Carrara marble mantelpiece, he kept his hands steady.
He leaned down and kissed the pulse in her throat.
He pulled the peignoir open.
“You’re looking at me.”
“Yes, your northerly female parts are really quite exquisite.”
“Will I find your male parts equally exquisite?”
“Of course,” he said, praying desperately that she would. He kissed the tops of her breasts. Then he pulled the black silk back together.
“You will now go to bed, alone. Tomorrow is Thursday, Jack. Think of me kissing your breasts until Friday. Will you try?”
“I’ll try, Gray.”
When she was gone, he turned to Eleanor, who was staring at him from unblinking green eyes.
“So, what’s the matter with you?”
She slowly sat up and began washing herself. He looked at her more closely. “Your belly isn’t at all lean, Eleanor. Are you pregnant? Do you have future racing cats inside you?”
Eleanor kept licking.
Gray laughed. He wondered as he walked up the dark stairs toward his bedchamber just how all this had come about. Surely it wasn’t an expected thing that a man’s wife suddenly appear as a valet who would steal his horse.
He had to visit Jenny tomorrow. He realized that all he would truly miss was her delicious apple tarts, with Devonshire cream.
14
“A VALET? This girl devised a plot to trap you into marriage by actually playing a valet and stealing Durban when she knew you’d be coming home and knowing you’d see her?”
Gray tried not to laugh, but it was impossible. “Oh, Jenny, she had no notion she would end up being married to me when she stole Durban. No, she had no plans for me to see her. Actually, I strangled her, knocked her in the ribs, hit her jaw, and slammed her to the straw.
“Come now, I just tried to give you an idea of how this has all came about. Jack is a good sort. She will suit me very well, you’ll see.”
“Have you slept with her?”
An impertinent question, but he let it go. “No, Jenny, nor will I until we’re married.”
He watched his mistress pace up and down, up and down the full length of her drawing room. She was wearing a quite lovely green muslin gown that would have shown the lovely curve of her breasts if she hadn’t had an apron tied around her neck. There were gravy stains on that apron. It was nearly time for luncheon. He sniffed. Roast lamb was only two rooms away, he was certain of it.
“Very well,” Jenny said at last, and then she sniffed, as well, nodded, her mind obviously in her kitchen. “You will marry her. I knew you would have to marry to have an heir. It is expected. However, I believe that two weeks should be quite enough. Then you’ll be bored with her and come back to me. I shall go to Bath for two weeks and recuperate in the healing Roman waters. Now, I will feed you, my lord. Roast lamb with my special mint sauce.”
As he ate Jenny’s delicious roast lamb with her special mint sauce, he realized he hadn’t even thought about keeping a mistress and a wife at the same time. Most men did, but now, when he was facing the decision, he knew he wouldn’t do it. It wasn’t right. A man gave his word and kept it. It was that simple. His father, not surprisingly, had enjoyed a score of mistresses during his time with Gray’s mother, and it had been no secret, not to his wife, not to his son.
He was still thinking about the business of wives and mistresses a
s he walked from Jenny’s charming apartments on Candlewick Street back home to Portman Square, a full mile to the east. The sky was overcast, but it wasn’t raining, not like it had the night before, when Eleanor had burrowed so close to him he’d nearly crushed her when he executed a roll onto his back.
He thought of his mother and felt the familiar pain block his throat. He saw her face suddenly in his mind’s eye, her face as it had been when he’d not been more than eight years old and he saw her staring down into the entrance hall at her husband kissing a woman and rubbing her breasts, all in front of whoever wanted to watch, which had probably been the entire household. He saw the tears streaming down her cheeks, the deadening pain in her beautiful eyes. He shook his head. He hated those memories because there was simply no way to control them. They popped up, spread instant devastation, then simply disappeared again back into the past, hovering there until the next time.
No, he would never do that to Jack. Once he was married, he would keep to his vows. However, it was surely odd that he hadn’t felt even a flicker of desire when he’d been with Jenny. He’d lusted after the roasted lamb, though.
Gray remembered seeing an advertisement for a new stove, supposedly so modern that it did everything except actually baste the meat. He would buy that stove for Jenny. He would also look for another protector for her, if she wished it, a gentleman who would enjoy her cooking as much as Gray did.
He was whistling, swinging his cane, when he walked up the steps to his town house. The door flew open and Quincy, with both aunts hovering behind him, shouted, “My lord, Miss Jack is gone!”
Jack couldn’t breathe. There was some sort of foul-smelling sack over her head. When she tried to raise her hand to rip it off, she realized her arms were tied behind her back. She couldn’t breathe and she couldn’t save herself. She choked and struggled.
“Shut up,” someone said. “Just shut up.”
She continued to struggle, wheezing, knowing she was going to die.
She heard the man curse. The sack was jerked from her head. She sucked in air, concentrating on the fresh, pure air coming into her body. She fell back and lay there, just breathing. Finally, she opened her eyes. She saw a burlap sack on the carriage seat beside her.
She was indeed in a carriage and it was moving fast, rocking hard from side to side. Odd that she hadn’t realized that before.
“Well, dear Winifrede, you’re back again. I forgot that you couldn’t stand closed-in places. No, don’t move or I’ll hurt you. I might even put that burlap sack over your head again and listen to you choke.”
She stared at Arthur Kelburn, Lord Rye’s eldest son. She hadn’t seen him for a good three months. She wished she didn’t have to see him for another thirty years.
“Why?” she said, nothing more, staring at his very fine white cravat and buff riding jacket.
He gave her his special brooding, dark-eyed scowl that sent most of the local girls into swoons of delight. His hair was as black as Eleanor’s stomach, long and curling slightly over his neck, a thick lock hanging romantically over his forehead. He was the same age as Gray. There was no further likeness between the two men. Arthur was the antithesis of his noble name. He would very likely prove to be a greater wastrel than his father in the years to come, if he lived that long.
“Why?”
He was sitting on the opposite carriage seat, facing her. His hands were clasped between his knees. His dark, brooding look intensified. He probably practiced that look in a mirror.
“When I was young,” he said finally, “I thought you the skinniest, ugliest little girl I’d ever seen. My father would just smile and say, ‘Wait, my boy, just wait.’ I waited, Winifrede. Now you’re eighteen—nearly nineteen, my father told me—a woman grown, and I must say that my father was right. You’ve turned out quite charmingly.
“I’m a man grown, and I’m ready to marry. My father and I had determined that it would be he who married you. It was all settled. We knew that those witless old ladies had taken you to London. We even knew where you were. Sir Henry would fetch you back. I told my father that you would prefer me to him and that once you knew I would be your groom, you would cease your complaints. It is, naturally, quite true, and so my father agreed to it.
“Then Sir Henry came rushing down to Folkstone to tell us that you were going to marry a bloody baron tomorrow morning.”
He sat forward, his knees touching hers, and his brooding look became turbulent, more laced with violence.
“You’re not going to marry any bloody baron, Winifrede. You’re going to marry me. We’re on our way to the border. It will take us at least five days to get there and get married. By that time, it’s more than likely that you’ll be pregnant with my child.”
“Did your father truly believe I would prefer you to him?”
“Ah, yes, ladies do enjoy having many men fighting over them. It pleases their vanity. Well, my father decided that having you in his bed just wasn’t worth all the aggravation, so he gave you over to me. He told me you were willful and obstinate and had too much guile for a woman. He said you weren’t to be trusted. He assured me that wooing you would be a waste of time. He reminded me what had happened when your stepfather left you alone in your bedchamber, assuming that you were broken, assuming that he’d won and you would do what he told you to do. He told me to master you, it was the only way.
“My father’s an old man—not that he’d appreciate hearing me say that, but it’s true. He’s forgotten what it’s like to take a young innocent like you and teach her what she’s supposed to be, what she’s supposed to do.”
“My betrothed will kill you.”
Arthur laughed. “He might wish to, but he won’t attempt it. He’s a useless dandy, that one. I would shoot him down very easily. He knows it. I have a reputation for my shooting and fencing skills.
“No, your baron will bleat and gnash his teeth because he’s lost your sixty thousand pounds, but he’s not stupid. He won’t do anything, Winifrede, he simply won’t. He has no spine and he realizes it.”
She was silent, working the knotted rope at her wrists. Her fingers were getting numb. It wasn’t a good sign.
Arthur looked out the window when she remained silent. He was pleased that she was holding her tongue. He stared at the passing green hills and the interminable yew bushes that lined the road as far as the eye could see. He saw an occasional herd of cows, an occasional flock of sheep. The carriage was well sprung. His father liked his luxuries. He didn’t want his son to be uncomfortable in this venture.
He turned to look at her again. He stretched out his legs, one on either side of her, clasping her legs between his. “That scares you, doesn’t it, Winifrede? Well, after tonight, you’ll like having me all over you. I trust you’re still a virgin?”
She continued silent. If she’d had her way last night, just maybe she wouldn’t be a virgin this morning. But Gray was a man of honor, curse him. She kept working the knot.
“Yes, I suppose you are. Since you were the aunts’ valet, they would have protected you.” He pressed his legs more tightly inward, trapping hers. She didn’t move, didn’t breathe, just kept twisting and pulling on the knot.
“You know, I began to believe you pretty after your sixteenth birthday. You’ve turned out well. You’re not as pretty as your mother was—at least that’s what my father says—but I shan’t repine. Your hair is thick and quite lovely, many interesting shades of blond.” He leaned forward and removed the clasp that held her hair at the nape of her neck. He fanned his fingers through her hair, arranging it about her shoulders, bringing over some of it to cover her breasts.
He sat back again, crossing his arms over his chest.
To his surprise, she smiled at him. “I would like you to return me to London now, Arthur. Gray won’t kill you if you turn the carriage around right now and go back.”
“I already told you that he won’t try to kill me, no matter what I do to you. Are you stupid?”
> “Very well. Then I will tell you this: I refuse to marry you. You can’t force me to.”
“I will simply take you until you have no other choice. I will keep you with me until you’re with child. I’m a potent man. I have three bastards at least to prove it.”
“I don’t care if you rape me. I still won’t marry you.”
His brooding look now bordered on the petulant; he looked for all the world like a small boy who’d been thwarted and hadn’t expected it. “That’s ridiculous. You’re a girl. You know nothing about anything. You won’t have a choice. I’m a man. I’m handsome and charming. I will please you in bed as I’ve pleased more girls than I can count. You will admire me. You will be pleased that I’m your husband. You will obey me, but I will never trust you.”
She continued to smile at him even as she turned her face against the squabs and closed her eyes.
“Damn you.” He was on her then, jerking her chin back, his hands wrapping themselves around her hair. He was kissing her, thrusting his tongue into her mouth. He pulled her over on top of him, holding her legs still between his.
• • •
Gray said to his horse, “She stole you. You never even had a chance to bite her for what she did. If you find her for me, I’ll let you nibble on her to your heart’s content.”
Durban snorted, flicked his tail, and lengthened his stride. They passed a farmer in a cart piled high with hay.
Gray was on the North road. She’d been gone for only an hour. She was probably in a carriage. If the bastard who took her was thinking about a quick wedding, then he’d be dragging her to Scotland.
Five days to Scotland.
He didn’t think he’d want to try to hold Jack prisoner for five days. Not when she didn’t want it. It would be five very long days. Who had taken her? Her stepfather? In that case, Gray was wrong to his boot heels, for Sir Henry would be hauling her back to Folkstone. Then Douglas would get him. Perhaps it was Lord Rye, the lecherous old fool. Would he try to take her to Scotland? Or perhaps to Bath, where he’d hide her in one of the many houses for rent in the area? If so, then Ryder would find them.
Mad Jack Page 12