Mad Jack

by Catherine Coulter

  “That daughter of his, Helen, what a splendid specimen of womanhood. She stands so many inches from the floor, yet it inspires a man to worship, not to fear. I must meet her. Is it true that she owns an inn?”

  “Yes, indeed,” Jack said. “It’s called King Edward’s Lamp.”

  “You wonder where that name springs from, Mr. Genner?” Helen said, resplendent in pale green silk, her magnificent hair piled atop her head.

  “Yes, Miss Mayberry, I was wondering exactly that.”

  Lord Prith, taller by a half a head than his lofty daughter, boomed out from behind her, “The story goes that King Edward brought a very special lamp with him back from his crusade in the Holy Land. It’s said to be encrusted with precious stones—diamonds, sapphires, rubies, and such. It has mysteries surrounding it; it supposedly has magical sorts of powers. Tales hint at supernatural sorts of things, like making men disappear, striking down enemies with a single thought, changing light into darkness, things like that.

  “My girl here fancies finding it. She’d rather have the lamp than a husband. The good Lord knows, I’ve presented her with dozens of suitors over the years, but she just looks them up and down—usually down since it’s the short gentlemen who normally swarm about her—and turns them out.”

  Douglas Sherbrooke, who had met Lord Prith when he was twenty years old and newly unleashed on London society, shook the older man’s hand. “And Helen,” he said, turning to the woman who stood exactly at eye level with him. “I read somewhere about King Edward’s lamp. I’m sorry to say that the author believed the lamp to be a fabrication, a fanciful myth that just happened to survive into our time.”

  “Douglas,” Helen said. “It’s a relief to see that you’ve not grown shorter in your advancing years.” Then she punched him lightly in the arm saying to Jack as she did it, “I was once desperately in love with Douglas. He was just turned twenty, and I was all of fourteen or fifteen. He would have patted me on the head like a bothersome little sister if I hadn’t been the same height as he.”

  Douglas laughed. “You’re right, Helen. I was hard-pressed to know what to do with this beautiful young girl who stared me square in the eye. Now, we must spend our time with Gray and Jack, then let’s adjourn to the dining room and stuff food down our gullets. When Gray and Jack won’t wish to be bothered by any of us later, we can have a long talk.”

  “Where’s the champagne?” Lord Prith bellowed.

  “Of course we’ll want you to bother us,” Jack said. “You’re our guests.”

  “No, Jack,” Aunt Mathilda said.

  “What Mathilda would say if she’d wanted to enlarge upon her words is—”

  “It’s all right, Aunt Maude,” Gray said. “I fancy most everyone understands the underlying wit at work here.”

  Actually, every gentleman in the circle was simply staring at Jack as if she were an idiot.

  Helen just laughed and patted her hand. “We will see, Jack. We will see.”

  Just ten minutes before the newly married Lord and Lady Cliffe left the St. Cyre town house, Ryder Sherbrooke, clothes askew, hair windblown, strode into the entrance hall, saw that he’d missed the wedding, howled one mournful note, then kissed Jack and said, “Gray, you will give me just a moment.”

  Gray didn’t have a chance to thank Ryder for all his trouble. Ryder immediately said, “Remember I told you I would have just one piece of advice for you?”

  Gray blinked, then said, “Yes, I remember. You rode like a demon to get here in time to give me this advice?”

  “It’s important, Gray. Now, listen.”

  17

  THE ST. Cyre carriage was well sprung, the carriage rugs soft and warm. A light gray rain tapped gently on the roof. The sway of the carriage was mesmerizing.

  “I feel quite stupid,” Jack said, leaning her head back against Gray’s shoulder and closing her eyes. “I wish you would tell me what I didn’t understand.”

  Gray, whose headache had finally subsided to a dull throb, was thinking about what Ryder had told him. “You married me. That wasn’t stupid.”

  “No, what I said to Helen, telling her we wished to stay with our guests.”

  “Oh, yes, surrounded by our friends well into our wedding night. Everyone was amused. Even Douglas gave me this pat on the shoulder, grinning like a dog.”

  “But I still don’t understand why—”

  “I have a favor to beg of you, Jack.”

  He felt her cheek against his shoulder, felt her turn her face into his shoulder and kiss him.

  “Um, the favor is that I don’t wish to speak of this until tomorrow morning.”

  She gave him one more kiss, then leaned back. “Why?”

  “Because between now and tomorrow morning, you are going to become a very well-educated woman. You will come to fully understand concepts that before were mere cloudy ideas swirling about in the ether. You will see with unusual clarity why no one would have expected the two of us to remain with them for more than one single champagne toast.”

  “Now,” Jack said, very firmly. “I want you to educate me now.”

  Even the dull throbbing in his head was miraculously gone. He felt strong, powerful, so manly that his chest expanded. As for his body, he was quite ready to consummate his marriage in the next ten seconds.

  “We’re in a carriage. A man doesn’t do educating in a moving carriage, at least not the very first day he’s married. It wouldn’t be well done of him.”

  She straightened up and kissed his neck. “I like the way the carriage is rocking back and forth.” She lightly touched her fingertips to his chin, slowly bringing his face around to hers. “Why not? I think anything you do would be well done. My father always believed that education was an important endeavor.”

  He grabbed her hand and brought it down to his lap. No, that was far too close to the center of his attention. No sense in terrifying her. He quickly set her hand on his leg, near his knee.

  “Jack,” he said, looking at those tender little ears of hers, wondering what it would be like to nibble on them, just a bit, “you’re a virgin. You don’t know about things yet. When I’m ready to teach you, we will do it right. In a nice soft bed. In the very best bedchamber at the Swan’s Neck.”

  “Why?” She turned her hand palm down onto his thigh. He looked at her gloved hand, surely too far up his leg, inching upward more, her fingers now curving inward, not six inches from his groin. He pictured the glove off that hand of hers and the hand, all white and soft, lightly touching his flesh, since his clothes were miraculously gone, caressing him, and he nearly flung her onto her back on the carriage seat.

  “No,” he said chanting a litany. “No. I’m a man, not a randy boy so filled with lust that I’ll stutter myself off a cliff if I can’t gently lift you onto that other seat, gently pull up your gown, and gently come over you, all with a froth of petticoats. Yes, naturally I want to do it right now, right this minute, but as I said earlier, I’m a man, a controlled man who knows what he’s about.” He fell into brooding silence. He desperately wanted to make love to her right now. He couldn’t think of a single thing more important than making love to her right now. Who cared about a soft bed? What did it matter in the scheme of things?

  Odd how a man’s brain worked, he thought, trying to get something in his head except lust. He lifted her onto his lap. “I’ve decided halfway measures won’t be all that bad. Lie back against my arm. I want to look at you.”

  She stretched back against his arm, all boneless, trusting, innocent—his wife. He felt immense guilt for perhaps a single second.

  He unfastened the bow beneath her chin and lifted off her bonnet. He saw the innocence and wickedness in her eyes and laughed. “You’ve got me in a bad way here, Jack. What am I to do?”

  “You’re to get out of that bad way, Gray.”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about. Be still. Ah, damnation.” He leaned down and kissed her mouth, warm and soft, that mouth of hers.
He felt her hand stroke his cheek. He reached up and unbuttoned the glove and pulled it off. He sighed deeply at the touch of her naked fingers against his flesh.

  “Open your mouth, Jack. Yes, that’s it. Not quite so wide or I’ll fall in. Yes, just tease me.” It was too good. He wanted more. Actually he wanted everything and he wanted it all at once. He raised his head and chanted again, “I’m a man. I’m a man who isn’t a clod. My heart’s pounding louder than a drum in the middle of a battle.” He was amazed at how she was making him feel. He pressed his forehead against hers. “How can you, just a little slip of a girl, make me feel like I’m going to explode if I don’t dive my hands under your petticoats right this minute?”

  “Your hands can dive,” she said. “Aunt Maude told me I was to be obedient to your wishes as soon as we were married.”

  His laugh was on the painful side, but he didn’t really heed it because he was kissing her again.

  “Gray,” she said into his mouth when his hand lightly caressed her breast. “Gray?”

  Just the sound of her saying his name was more than enough to make a sane man dive over the waterfall. He didn’t want to rip her gown, but the buttons fought him, making his fingers trip over them, and finally, he simply jerked the fabric apart. Then he saw her chemise, another barrier that was all lacy and soft, and he couldn’t bear it. He cursed, then ripped.

  When her breasts were bare, he saw that she was staring up at him, her face a bit on the pale side, set in petrified lines. “No,” he said. “Don’t be embarrassed or afraid of me, Jack. I’ve seen your breasts, don’t you remember? I saw them at great length, four days of great length. I saw them so much that I grew jaded. I remember turning away once to look at my dinner plate, at the mess of potatoes in the center of the plate.

  “It’s true that I looked at your breasts again as I was eating my potatoes, but I remember thinking food thoughts, like wondering if your breasts would taste as good as the potatoes. No, I don’t suppose it was necessary to tell you that at this point in time. Don’t panic on me, Jack.”

  “I won’t panic. I was sick then. You had no choice but to look at me.”

  “And now you’re my wife. I still have to look at you.”

  Then he touched her. Even as he closed his hand around her, he leaned down and began kissing her again. He said into her mouth, “Do you have any notion of how you feel to me?”

  She squirmed on his lap, and he knew it was all over for him. “No, don’t move. I’m very serious about this, Jack. That’s right, don’t even breathe. Now, let me look at you and touch you and you don’t do a single thing, particularly move.” She didn’t move, just lay there looking up at him. He managed to find a smile for her, but it hurt, really hurt just to make his mouth move like that. He wanted his mouth on her breast. But not yet. He couldn’t. If he did, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself. Why was she making him feel so utterly out of control?

  “A puzzle,” he said. “This is all a puzzle. Tell me, Jack, when I touch you, like this”—he lightly laid his hand over her right breast—“when I just stroke my fingers over you, what does it make you feel?”

  How to tell him that she wanted to rub herself against his palm? That she felt like someone had lit a fire in her belly and the warmth of that fire was spreading outward, making her tingle and ache and feel terribly urgent. She said, “I read a book. I saw several drawings. I want you to do those things to me right now. I don’t want a nice soft bed. I don’t understand how this will work, but you do. You’ve had nearly eight more years than I to practice and learn. Just do it, Gray. Please.”

  He shuddered like a palsied man. He cursed even as he lifted her up, facing him. He untangled her braids with his fingers, loosing her hair over her shoulders. He pulled the gown and chemise to her waist. Then he stopped. He took a very deep breath. “What book did you see? Don’t tell me you found this book in my library?”

  “No. Aunt Mathilda gave it to me. She said she’d found it at Hookham’s, back in a dark corner, where a clerk whispered prurient material was hidden. She said she wasn’t up to explaining marital concepts to me, so I was to acquaint myself with the basic sorts of things. It all sounded impossible. And those pictures, surely they simply couldn’t be right.”

  “Tell me about the pictures.”

  She was sitting on his lap, naked to the waist, his hands on her hips, and he was looking at her, just looking, nothing else, and waiting to hear about those pictures. “A man was leaning over a woman and he was licking her stomach, Gray—at least that’s what it looked like. Isn’t that silly?”

  God in heaven, he was going to expire. “Close to unimaginable.”

  “Then there was a naked man and a naked woman, really close together. Actually, she had her legs wrapped around his waist. His hands were holding her against him and he was dancing around the room.”

  “We’ll do that next Tuesday,” he said. “Jack, don’t you have the basic idea yet?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I have an excellent idea.” She pulled away from him to sit on the other seat. She leaned toward him, those breasts of hers right there for his mouth, his hands, and pulled off her other glove. Then, smiling at him, she lightly laid her hands on him.

  He jumped, then moaned. She pulled her hands back. “I’m sorry, Gray. Did that hurt you? I can’t imagine why it would. I didn’t pull or jerk you or anything.”

  It was then that he realized he simply couldn’t wait for that very soft feather mattress at the Swan’s Neck that Douglas had told him about, that particular bed in the third-floor corner bedchamber that Douglas had said Alexandra had adored to the soles of her arched feet.

  “Dammit, it’s still our wedding day. It’s not even our wedding night yet. The sun’s still out. I’m going to die. I’m going to educate you right now, Jack, all right?”

  She nodded slowly, her eyes on his groin.

  He was on her immediately, jerking her gown up, tangling his hands in her petticoats, trying to ease her garters and stockings down, all at the same time. He stopped, pulling himself back. “No,” he said. “I can do this. I can even manage to do this with a modicum of self-control and finesse. I am not a pathetic excuse of a man who is so selfish he doesn’t care if the woman is awake or asleep or simply a piece of fruit.”

  “In all the pictures both the man and the woman were naked,” Jack said. Without another word, she began pulling up her gown.

  He looked until he couldn’t bear it. It was the stretch of stocking-covered leg that finally got to him. “No,” he said, pulling her hands away from her garter, “this isn’t the way it should be done. Jack, I want you to come back onto my lap and kiss me. Then we’ll see.”

  She sat on his legs, her own legs apart, facing him. “One of the drawings was like this,” she said. “Except the man and woman didn’t have any clothes on. I think I could come to like this.” She grabbed his face between her hands and leaned forward to kiss him.

  Laughter helped, but not much.

  He brought her tightly against him, kissing her ear, her jaw, his hands wild on her back, then beneath her gown, and he felt her hips. He froze.

  She moved and he simply couldn’t take it. He grabbed her leg and said against her neck, “Open your legs wider, Jack. Then push yourself against me as hard as you can.”

  He hadn’t imagined how that would feel if she did it. His hands came from her hips around to her belly. He felt her suck in her breath. “No, no,” he whispered. “It’s all right. I’ve seen all of you, your belly included. It’s a nice white belly. Just like your bottom is nice and white, and I’ve seen it too. Remember when you were leaning out the window at the inn? Well, I was behind you, enjoying the back of you. We’ll talk about your legs later, and your feet, remind me not to forget your feet. Nice feet as well, but that’s not what’s important right this moment. That’s right, Jack, just lay your face against my shoulder and let me feel you. No, ease back down and let me hold you on my hands. Ah, try to relax, but don’t go t
o sleep, all right?” His breath hitched. His fingers eased inward to touch her.

  She jumped, pulling back. “Gray? I’m feeling rather strange.” He was but a layer of wool away from her.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” he said. He unfastened his breeches, eased her open with his fingers, and came into her.

  She was staring down but couldn’t see him for the froth of her petticoats. But she felt him, oh, dear, did she feel him. “Oh, my goodness, can you really do that? I don’t know, Gray. No, stop.”

  He stopped and she froze. Still he came deeper because she was damp and her body wanted him deeper. He said against her mouth, “It’s all right, Jack. No, don’t move. Let’s just stay like this for a moment. My sex is inside you, just a little way inside you. Can you feel me? It isn’t so bad, is it?”

  She shook her head against his shoulder. “I don’t know. It’s the strangest thing I’ve ever felt in my life.” He pushed her just a bit further onto him. She moved. “No, don’t, Jack. When you do that it makes me explode. Trust me on this. I don’t want to explode just yet.”

  “We can’t dance,” she said against his chin.

  He laughed and pushed her forward just a bit more. “That’s for next Tuesday. Lie back against my hands.”

  She slowly leaned back, supported by his hands. Her hands fluttered around his arms. “You’re inside me,” she said. “I never imagined another person hooking up to me like this.”

  He stared at the mouth that had said those words and wondered how he could possibly survive much more of this. He eased her forward, bringing himself deeper, and felt her maidenhead.

  He closed his eyes. Naturally she had to have a maidenhead, all girls did. “Don’t move. Don’t do anything. I’m praying for fortitude. I’m a good man. I deserve fortitude so I will remain a good man. I don’t want to degenerate into a clod. A man who’s a clod doesn’t deserve much of anything. We’re going to go slowly here. Tell me I’m going slowly enough for you, Jack.”