by Gayle Eden
According to letters also, Val intended to travel when Archard did, and learn as much as she could in order to be a partner with him. It delighted Archard, and the babe—that simply made his world complete. Val deserved happiness. It was time blessings came her way, Jo thought.
In leisure hours, they talked of society, Alexander giving Megan the self-assurance to navigate it competently. He even went through dance steps, the waltz, and a reel with her, and enjoyed every moment of it, as did Jo.
One evening near the time they would depart, because of ordering wardrobes and such, they would need to go early; Jo sat in the back gardens with Alexander whilst Megan was doing some letter writing in the upstairs parlor.
“Do you still write to Sonja?”
“When I’m here, yes.” He lit a cheroot and looked out at the landscape.
“As a friend.”
“As all she will allow me.” He shrugged.
“And you called upon her in London?”
“I called at Alex and Edmunds. If she was there—”
“I thought she purchased an estate?”
“She did. Edmund says it is very nice indeed, fine and quaint. However, Alex and she are close, and as Alex was carrying, Sonja was a great help. Edmund sees no need in her paying for a London house when he has that obscenely large mansion.”
“True.” Jo’s emerald eyes went over his striking profile. “She gives you no encouragement?”
“You know the reasons we have not progressed.” Alexander sighed and stood, pacing a bit, slowly pulling on the cheroot.
“Yes. But I wish…”
He paused and looked at her. “I may wish for things to change quickly also, but if I have learned anything about women, it is to assume nothing, and hope for everything, in the end.”
Jo grinned slightly. “Don’t worry. I quite like Sonja, and I would never do anything to put distance in our friendship either. She’s been a confident and more a friend than you know…”
His brow rose.
She shook her head. “Just one of my foolish impulses.”
“You are correct. I do not wish to know.” He smiled dryly.
“In any case, I wish I had her sophistication and strength. I get too bloody angry, and eventually, following the rules suffocates me.”
“I know that too.”
Jo stood and peered up at a darkening sky. “I have learned a few things, however. And as you say, age, maturity, it teaches us something…”
He considered her silently, and then offered, “You are a grown woman, Jo. One thing I am proud of you for, is that you do not pretend to be what you are not, and you do not apologize for honest emotions. In a world of faux friendships and pretensions, of ulterior motives, that makes you unique.”
She grinned dryly before going in. “Yes. It also makes me one of the most talked about women in society. Which—if I were not prepared for it, used to it, I would not be doing the season at all. But as you say, I can see to myself.”
“But I am here for you.”
“I know.” She hugged him. “I always know that.”
* * * *
The arrival in London went well. Already a crowded city, it bustled and rang with shouts, and familiar calls of the street patters. On the fashionable streets, the well-to-do were out and about also. The pre-season arrival and shopping excursions were as much about seeing who was up to what, as the balls and gatherings to come were.
They settled in the Marquis’s townhouse, and soon afterwards paid a short visit to Alex and the babe—catching them in the middle of packing to escape to their rustic retreat for a month. It was due to that crowding and noise, the influx of people before the season, that Edmund felt he and Alex needed time with the babe before callers started leaving cards. Sonja was absent; she had gone off to the lending library with a maid.
Thus, Jo got to kiss the sweetest little face of the heir, and look into those tawny eyes—so like Alex. However, had little time for anything but hugs all around before they left.
Her handsome brother in law did tease her a bit about the upcoming season, but offered a bit of advice as he helped her on with her pelisse.
Edmund offered, “Don’t show them a moment’s weakness. If any old scandal is brought up, smile that enigmatic smile of yours and let them assume as they will.”
Jo laughed. “Very well.”
He winked. “I shall have your sister back in a month, unless she needs more rest.”
“Take care of them, and my nephew is precious. It is wonderful that you and Alex have your family now.”
He agreed. “I wake up some mornings unable to believe my good fortune. I love her more every day.”
Jo kissed his cheek. “She loves you too.”
Out in the coach, they progressed to the shopping districts. Jo did her own whilst the Marquis assisted Megan. In between picking out her essentials, Jo observed her father choose white satins, light pink lace, for gowns that would enhance Megan’s neat figure. He picked out the designs for ball gowns, opera dresses and capes, and a smart sapphire riding habit for the park. Seeing Megan’s amazement made her laugh, but Jo could have told her that her father had good taste. She went on to the perfumeries and met up with them at lunch, and then it was off to do more shopping.
When they were not about that, Jo helped Megan arrange her hair in styles suitable, smoothed back with pearl combs, diamonds for a ball and curled elegantly with the smart hats and crownlets. She darkened her lashes, showed her how to apply subtle cosmetics, and by the time the chemises, stockings, gloves, parasols, and first gowns arrived, Megan hardly resembled the woman who had arrived in serviceable cotton blouse and wool skirt.
The first outfit she wore was a day dress with a low square bodice in a warm cream hue, the wispiest overskirt drawn back at the hips to give it a swaged appearance. Gloves and high heeled matching shoes, her hair half up, a fat curl down her back; Megan regarded herself with a bit of wonder.
“It’s lovely.”
“It’s you.” The Marquis chuckled and kissed her brow.
Meg smiled crookedly at Jo. “I am not as ugly as I thought.”
Jo snorted, laughed, as Meg intended her to. “Father is going to escort you out for ices this evening. I have a few more things to order. It will be a sort of first outing—where those in society will see you, and take your measure.”
Meg grimaced.
“Don’t fret. With father, you’ll breeze through famously.”
Megan nodded and went to find her silk wrap. Joe noticed she walked more feminine, a merest swing of her hips, and Megan obviously felt more feminine. She was lovely, fresh. That lilt in her speech would make her even more charming. Megan would be fine.
Seeing to herself, Jo had deliberately dressed plain and hid as much of herself as possible on her shopping trips. When she had the coach set her out, she and one of the maids spent hours however, with the best dressmakers.
This season Jo would dress with his usual flair and love of jewel tones, but she embraced the sensual fabrics and had her lace fingerless gloves made to match, a bit of teasing net on her pert hats and gowns, emerald, black, ruby, sparkling with faux diamonds, gleaming with pearls. Whatever the hue and shade, she had gowns made for her body, to enhance her breasts and hips, with more of a tease and hint, than her openly shocking gowns beforehand.
Velvet and satin capes, silk and lace wraps, high-heeled shoes with faux diamond heels. Her stockings were equally as sensual, garters too. Perfume alluring, chemises and camisoles, only of lace and silk.
In her rooms, at night, she studied her ivory skin, darkish lips and emerald eyes, gathering her spiraled curly Bordeaux hair up from her slender neck. Yes, she could be sophisticated and sensual at the same time. After all, she was a woman. She enjoyed being one. She certainly did not mind the fashion of lower cut bodices, damp petticoats and the like.
Her gowns would hug her figure, enhance her rosy skin. She had the absolute perfect rich sun-yellow silk, strapless
, fitting just under her arms, sheath, to wear at the first ball—a pair of matching silk pumps with faux diamond bows—with her deep burgundy hair, it would certainly draw attention. The simple bodice would be set off by the way the gown caressed her hips and limbs. The next night it would be black velvet and emerald, for the opera, brocade in rich wine, black embroider, all lush and rich.
Releasing her hair, she let it fall in a riot over her shoulders and to her shoulder blades. It was time to stop playing games and decide what she wanted in life. She had wasted much too much time on what she could not have.
She had learned one thing in her year away—a time of maturing and examining. She did want a lover. A real lover. If she found no man she would want to wed, she would still seek out one who would perhaps offer her the next best thing. Some men stayed with their lovers more than their wives. Some cared more for them. Moreover, an independent woman was what Jo wanted to be. It was really the best of both worlds.
For a moment, a face from her past invaded. Lime green eyes so iridescent and intense in a handsome and tanned visage, sensual lips, and a thick oak mane. Her body heated. She tasted the almost savage kisses Sascha was won’t give her—utterly confusing her by ignoring her, then delivering those kisses out of nowhere. Before she knew of his entanglement with that bitch of a duchess, he was maddeningly, utterly, undoing her, time and again.
Even then, even when she wanted to scream at him, he made her burn. Everything in the way he touched her, kissed her, set fire to her bones.
Jo had flashes of herself at that Masque ball, the one where he had apparently witnessed her flirting with others and enjoying herself. He had been in a black cape, and swooped in on her out the noisy and crowded courtyard, dragging her back behind a stone wall--kissing her senseless. His ungloved hands had gone over her body and that skillful tongue had hotly ravished her mouth, plundered it.
Breathless when he lifted his head, she had panted half in frustrated arousal, half in real anger, “Stop bloody doing this to me, Sascha! If you cannot follow through, then you will bloody well stop teasing me.”
With some savage hunger burning in his eyes, he had rasped, “Teasing? Is this bloody teasing?” before he had pushed off his hood and tore off that silk cape, his tall sinewy form coming against her. He was dressed in all black. He had grabbed her low on the hips, pulling and pressing her against the obvious outline of his sex whilst kissing her wildly again.
He had rubbed enough between them for her to ache for it, and his dewed skin, her own, their hungry hands and mouths. It felt like a storm, an electric storm, before he had pulled his mouth away, dragged it back to her ear and husked, “I want you. God in heaven, how I want you. If circumstance were different, I would—
She had shoved him away then having heard that excuse, known of his entanglement with the duchess all along. She had taken off at a run with Sascha calling her name amid the fading noise.
It had not been the last time, the last touch or look. Ignoring him was not easy, not when his lime eyes followed her, and not when she could smell the heat of desire on him, as much as it consumed herself.
There was a ball at which after a dance he had discreetly kissed her ear, his hot breath bathing it. A time at her father’s house when he had been on the way out and she entering, he’d ran his hand down her ribs and over her hip, those eyes devouring her. He had murmured, “I’m jealous that other men get to admire this body.”
She had said something to the effect of “bugger off,” but that quickly, he had set her blood humming.
That mussed mane of oak hair, just wavy enough to make her want to run her fingers through it. Those sensual lips and that arrogant, arrogant nose. He was tall, over six feet, and a sporting man with broad shoulders and long limbs. His brawn was taut on his frame, and his manner of dress something between rakish and sensual.
He pricked her temper. He lured her like heady wine. He made her burn, beyond sanity. He drove her bloody mad. , yes, she provoked him in turn.
“Stop it.” Jo rasped and set her elbows on the vanity, rubbing her face with her palms before resting that way, forehead on the heels of her hands. “You bastard,” she whispered. “Why did you do that? You knew you would leave. You had to take me apart, did you not? Before you did so.”
She raised her face, meeting her eyes in the mirror. “I wish I’d never met you.”
Of course, no one answered. No one had since Auttenburg sailed away on Archard’s ship to find his bloody destiny in Switzerland. Since that time, he had been no more than the fire she could not quench, the ghost she could not shake, and the demon that drove her to mistake after mistake.
Nearly two years—a shocking span of time, even to her, now realizing that she still remembered too much and not enough of him.
Jo sighed and sat back, a palm to her stomach as she breathed in slow and released. She would take a lover, older perhaps, certainly a man of the world, who would not expect emotional attachment, someone amusing, distracting—and hopefully, the exact opposite of a man thousands of miles away.
Jo glanced over at a scratch on her door. “Enter.”
One of the maids poked her head in, having a note in her hand. “This just came, milady, from the Duchess of Summerton.”
Jo got up and took it. “Thank you.”
She opened it and frowned, reading; “Sorry I missed your visit. If you can, will you come by this evening? I have news that you may or may not wish to hear in the presence of your cousin and father.”
Taking the note to her vanity, Jo lay it aside and began to dress. She put on her white silk stockings, chemise, and a green gown that was light for summer. Gathering her hair back in a twist, a few curls crawling free, she laid out a silk hooded cape. She sat down and pulled on, then hooked her half boots.
The Marquis and Megan were out when she called for the hack a half hour later, and took a short ride to Edmund’s mansion.
The stately butler waved her in, with, “Her ladyship is in the study.”
“Thank you.” Jo put the hood back, undoing the latch and having the cape over her arm by the time she entered.
Sonja was half sitting on Edmund’s desk, her attractive face in a pensive muse, before she crossed and took Jo’s hands. “How are you?”
“Curious.” Jo laughed and after a moment set the cape aside. “I can’t begin to guess what is amiss. But I imagined a bit of everything dire.”
That lush raven hair intricately done up, and wearing a deep bronze silk gown, the duchess went to the desk and picked up a letter. “Edmund gave me leave to sort his correspondence whilst gone. I was doing so when I noticed this one—”
Jo had her hand on a chair back. She stared at the missive, the hairs on her nape prickling. “Auttenburg?”
“I’m afraid so. It appears he will be arriving in a few days. Since he has no way of knowing Edmund will not be here, I expect he will drop by, once he has settled in. Although I will send a note around, as soon as know the ship is in.”
Wetting her lips, her stomach cinching, Jo scanned that striking face, lingering on Sonja’s velvet brown eyes…eyes that were accessing her reaction too.
Lady Summerton murmured, “They are very good friends, have been for many years.”
“Yes.” Jo felt her body tensing. He would also be a friend of her father’s and Aric’s and… For a moment, her mind was in utter confusion. She finally asked, “Does it say he has returned—for good?”
“It’s a brief note. I can only assume he and Edmund correspond regularly and his return was something previously discussed.”
“It would have been bloody nice for Edmund to inform me of that,” Jo muttered sucking in a breath.
“My dear. You have been gone to Scotland, and no one knew for how long. You should have assumed…well, as bad as it ended for the two of you, Edmund would not have abandoned such a close friendship.”
At that soft rebuke, Jo flushed. “Yes of course.” She dropped her hand and headed for her bro
ther in laws sideboard. Pouring a finger of brandy, she drank it straight down and shuddered.
It was true, Sascha had been her brother in law’s friend long before she met him, and long before Edmund met her half-sister, Alex. He was also someone the Marquis, her father, liked and understood. Christ. Even Jo “Understood” why he left. That did not mean she had taken his passionate attentions to her, and abrupt leaving, as well as they had.
Johanna admitted part of her had been heartbroken. Oh, that stupid word. Part of her angry, because Sascha Auttenburg, Viscount Whitford, made her want him. Damn it all. She was rich enough in her own right, if he had needed funds, loved her, wed her….
Jo sucked in a mental breath. Would she have really wed the beast? Yes, likely back then, she would have. But what was the use of all this? He’d left and she’d felt devastated. Not one to fall into decline, she had done the exact opposite—and burned hot and furious. Now, nearly two years later, what would she do…?
Coming up to lay and hand on her shoulder, the duchess offered, “There’s every chance you can avoid each other.”
Jo grunted. “I have no such good fortune.” She set the glass down and put a hand to her forehead. “Bloody hell. Bloody, Bloody hell. How can he still affect me like this?”
Sonja sighed and with an arm across her shoulders, led her to the sofa, just across from the open French doors. Jo sat, and Sonja perched on the edge, slightly turned toward her.
“Did Archard or Val mention him?”
“No. well, other than to say he’d made his fortune back and cleared all debts, regained his estate. He was in the timber trade with Archard’s family and eventually took over the shipping, and he had gone to America and set up some sort of operation and mill there, with the family. They established a trade, and in turn shipped goods back to Switzerland. According to Archard, a man like that could get rich in a relatively short time, if he had good observation and a drive to work like a demon. Apparently Sascha did.”