by Gayle Eden
He crushed the cheroot. “I’m not leaving you out here alone.” He held out a hand. “I’ll escort you inside.”
“I’m not touching you.”
“Why not?” He asked that with lazy amusement.
It infuriated Jo all the more. She stepped forward but shoved his hand down. “I’m going in. You’re—going away.”
He caught up in two strides. “Why don’t you slap me? So we can move on to the nice bits?”
She stopped. “I’m tempted to show you that a slap was mild compared to what I can do.” Turning to stare at him, a glare more like, when he had stopped too, Jo gritted through her teeth, “For us, there are no good bits. Whatever that was you started before, I’ve no interest in now.”
No smile broke the intensity of his stare now. “We’d be good as lovers. Passionate and uninhibited…”
She sucked in her breath but glared coldly before she turned and hurried inside. She knew he was somewhere near, but made it to the box and took her seat stiffly.
The lights were down, the play in full swing, but her eyes were sightless, her emotions—in complete turmoil.
Jo did not make it to the second act. She pleaded a headache and took the coach home, sending it back for her father.
Later, lying across her bed, she loathed that cowardly choice. She should have stayed, flirted with a dozen men, carried on as if she did not care!
Nevertheless, in the wee night hours, she could not stop his image and words from invading. The hell of it was, he was correct, they would be passionate lovers. Oh, she hated him. She really did. He could not do this to her again. She simply would not succumb.
Chapter Four
“Your lover? You want me to be your lover?” Aric blinked at Jo.
“Yes.” Jo snapped impatiently. They were in the front parlor. Aric and his cousin had stopped by to see her father. Jo had latched onto the idea as soon as Megan told her they were there. Megan, at present was by the window, biting her nails.
Aric’s gray eyes were too amused, although what he said was, “I’m flattered. Honestly. But you are family now. Like a sister to me.”
“I’ll be your lover,” Roth drawled, leaning against the mantle, wearing his usual velvets and ruffles and a lazy grin.
When Aric glared at him, Roth shrugged drolly, “She’s not my sister.”
“Thank you, Roth.”
“That’s not the point.” Aric growled over Jo’s agreement. “You will not enter an affair with her.”
Stroking his goatee, Roth’s handsome face showed he was amused too, by the whole thing. “Well, she’s going to pick someone. It may as well be someone who can appreciate her.”
“All right. This has bloody gone too far.” Megan came over and glared at Roth, then at Jo. “Neither of these men are going to be your lover.”
Jo had a sudden, very vivid thought of that summer before last, when Megan had seemed taken with Aric. Lack of time, the situation then, many things had prevented anything from coming of it. Aric certainly had not seen Megan…until perhaps recently. Oh, bloody hell.
She should have thought of that.
Jo sighed and threw up her hands. “Very well.” She marched to the window, folding her arms.
“This has to do with Auttenburg,” Aric guessed, coming to stand beside her.
“Don’t sound amused or I’ll…I’ll… think of something painful to do to you.” Jo laughed on a groan.
He did sound amused still, but murmured, “You’re not indifferent, so why pretend otherwise?”
“It’s not pretense. I don’t want to be,” Jo muttered and turned, plopping down on the window seat. “Sit down; I’m not craning my neck to converse with you.”
He perched on the edge, his eyes on Megan and Roth, who were in conversation.
Jo muttered, “I’m not your blood kin.”
He looked at her dryly. “I know that. But Auttenburg wants you, and you want him, so…”
“Jolly good support you are offering, kinsman.” She snorted.
He countered smoothly, “You’re like lightening, Jo. Whilst a challenge is one thing, no man with sense puts himself in a losing equation.” His arm went round her and for a second he gave her a sympathetic of one arm hug. “I admire you, but a woman like you, don’t settle.”
Jo rested her head on that impossibly round and hard shoulder. “You’re up to any challenge, Van Wyc.”
“It is not a matter of that. So would Roth be. But you’re running hot because of Sascha.”
Pulling away, she glared at him. The smile on his lips, kind as it was, irritated her. “You make me sound…”
“Defiant, spirited, tempestuous.” He filled in. then a bit more seriously, he held her gaze. “You don’t want me or Roth in that manner.”
Jo arched her neck, growled and rasped, “I don’t want him either.”
“Keep telling yourself that.” He laughed and dropped his arm. Standing, Aric added, “You’re too tempting for Roth. I’m taking him off for a bit of boxing.”
Jo got to her feet, relieved that neither took up her offer. Honestly, she was going mad these days—completely daft. Panicked? Most certainly.
She had the mind, when they were all standing together, to enquire of Aric, “Could you escort Megan to the Kensington’s soirée on Friday?”
“I’d be honored.” Aric nodded to Megan who smiled short and then scowled at Jo.
After they settled the time, the men left, Megan asked grumpily, “Whatever did you do that for?”
“You need an escort.”
“Your father—”
“—will be preoccupied with the duchess.”
“But…you don’t have one.”
“I’m not new to society, you are. And they expect me to be unconventional.”
They were going up to change and dress for a trip to the lending library.
“Aric felt put on the spot.”
“He didn’t, unless.” Jo paused and considered Megan. “That business with Leland…that he was the one to…well, that doesn’t bother you, does it?”
“Don’t be daft.” Megan actually snapped. “I’d have shot Leland myself, given the circumstance.”
“Society does talk. Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked him.”
“He can bloody well see to himself in society,” Megan muttered. “I just don’t want the bleeding’ man to think himself forced to squire me about…is all.”
Peering at those blue eyes and flushed face, Jo had her answer. She knew that Megan liked Aric. She also knew that Aric, for all he could relax, be amusing, was not some green lad with romantic fancies.
She promised, “I’ve no intention of making things awkward for you. I knew you wouldn’t ask him, and you really will be better off with an escort…”
“Very well.” Megan walked with her up the stairs. At the doorway of her chambers, before Jo passed, she said, “I… like him, you know. Odd as it sounds, I feel as if I….know him.”
“I know.” Jo smiled softly at her.
“He’s—more than he looks. And… I think he is more conscious of what he did, had to do, than he lets on.”
“You’re very wise to realize that.”
Megan shrugged. “I have brothers, big strong, strapping ones. They are rowdy at times, but family, they take very seriously. Aric, I think, does so. I heard that he had some falling out with them before he came here. It cannot be easy. His new beginning in this country and within a month he shot Leland.”
“No. I think he was ready to hand himself over to the magistrate. Did actually, before father stepped in and all the witnesses brought things to light. I think Leland’s deeds weighed on that family over the years, and perhaps there was some guilt. Needless, but guilt just the same, for what he had done. I realize that Aric and Archard are close, the closest in the family.”
“Yes.” Megan sighed. “I may be a fool, but I sensed that he was regarding me in a certain way at Hawksmoor, but that, all the dreadful things, were on hi
s mind. Now, he seems quite startled by the transformation I’ve done here in London.”
“You look amazing,” Jo, grinned.
“Yes. However. I sense too, that he is determined to treat me like some genteel Lady now. I do not know if I have confused him or what. I may have made things worse.”
“Not at all. You’ve intrigued him, and that is a good thing.”
“I hope so.”
Jo winked. “It is. You have a lot to offer, cousin. And, you are lovely besides.” She went into her rooms. Once there, she fell back across the bed. “I’m so spirited and ravishing and tempting, I can’t even get men to have an affair with me….”
Her mind mocked, one would…One man would.
* * * *
“What a crush.”
The opening ball was a crush indeed. Jo and her father, the Duchess of Summerton, were in one coach, Aric and Megan in another, following. The street leading to the mansion was in utter disorder. Coaches, buggies, people doing their greetings in the middle of the streets, and further holding up traffic. It would take a half hour at the least, to even reach the entry.
“It’s nearly midnight.” The Marquis checked his watch.
“Wouldn’t do to be too early,” Jo snorted. “I’m sure they’re expecting me to make some scandalous entry.” She smoothed the skirts of her gold gown.
Alexander said drolly, “The crowds will be so thick, they’ll miss all opportunity to observe the Rakehell Marquis and his brazen daughter arrive.”
In a rare bit of humor, the duchess supplied dry; “Then there is me, the scandalous Duchess of Summerton. Don’t forget what they think of me showing up at their balls.”
Everyone laughed.
Jo was looking out the window to judge their progress, when she heard her father murmur, “Women envy your freedom, duchess. They could not break nor cower you when you first came to London, and your poise and grace rubs, because it showed them you don’t give a damn for their opinions.”
“I’m a better actress than I thought then, I’ve had my moments.” Sonja laughed tightly.
“All the more reason you have my admiration.”
“You’re too kind.”
Mentally Jo was smiling, thinking that her father and Sonja most certainly practiced that polite/boundary by-play to perfection. Underneath that however, she could sense something entirely different being said.
She sat back, passing a glance at her father.
He winked and then looked out the window, his hands balanced on the cane head between his feet.
Rakehell. She mentally laughed. Yes. He must have been irresistible to all of their mothers when young.
Once they were finally let out, Aric and Megan caught up. As predicted, the ballroom and entry was chaotic madness. Given the flustered look of the hostess and inattentiveness of the receivers, Jo gathered some sort of crisis was going on behind the scenes. She and the party were able to slip in amid the crush quite unawares.
The glitter from candles, jewels, lush fabric of gowns, and high volume talk, merged and meshed with voluble sweeping music. Aric, being the tallest, found them a spot and got them noticed by a servant with champagne. Scents from perfumes, heat, the glow of chandeliers, Jo thought, along with bouquet of thousands of hothouse flowers, certainly set this assembly apart from lower circles.
The ballroom’s sleek white walls had gold leaf near the ceilings, cherubs holding urns overflowing in every corner. The windows, enormous, were swagged with deep blue velvet. There was opulence everywhere, and a good 400 bodies filling the space, not counting servants and servers.
“Somehow, I am not sorry to have missed these things during my debut years.” Megan leaned forward and whispered in her ear. “I can’t even see a dance floor.”
“There is one, but there are likely a hundred or so dancers crammed in it.”
Fanning herself, Jo was jostled. She was also stared at when the well-dressed passed by. Quizzing glasses were raised over their little group, and one or two turbaned matrons sniffed, blinked at both her and Megan’s reddish hair, and turned their back on then.
Hearing Megan chuckle, “Did she say we were opera dancers?” Jo was equally amused. More so as more males arrived, a few of them stopping dead in front of her.
Some kissed her gloved hand, kissing Megan’s hand too, but their gazes held that question/knowing look, that Jo had seen much too often.
She smiled and supplied, “Lady Johanna Ramsey. The Rakehell Hawksmoor’s daughter. The brazen one.”
Which got her a few smiles, but mostly an up and down glare, that she could feel behind her, caused her father to glare icily. He was not amused.
Aric, was apparently not amused either, and soon took Megan off to dance.
Her father took the duchess to find air and get distance from the crowds. Possibly, he said, they would find the card room. Jo rather thought it was to distract himself from wanting to strangle or call out, most of the men there.
Well, she mused, this is what they wanted her here for, to satisfy their curiosity.
Never one to play coy, Jo slid her arm through a gentleman’s who offered it, a rather handsome, blond, fellow, who begged her to dance. “Delighted, Lord Northwit?”
“North, will do.” He yelled in her ear over the noise. “Lord North.”
She smiled and nodded, thinking to herself that the earl—or was it Marquis? She really did not hear that part. He would do nicely, as a diversion.
Jo spent two hours dancing, flirting, and gathering quite a crowd, even on the sidelines, of gentlemen, young, old, short, round, and in between. Flirting was effortless. It was like sports, and Jo enjoyed it to a degree. Namely because, she did flirt with males who were not the most attractive, or older gents, rather than have a dozen debs glaring at her as they vied for the younger, she always picked her targets from those men who expected it.
That did not mean she did not have to scold or slap a few hands of the bum pinchers and gropers. However, she was having quite a time—before a certain swarthy and tall Viscount appeared and boldly took her hand.
“Excuse us, gentlemen.” An elegantly dressed Auttenburg smiled thinly and nodded, before dragging Jo back in the crowds.
“What do you think you’re about?” Jo snapped, being jostled and poked.
A wave of longish hair having escaped its black-ribbon thong, Sascha was otherwise splendid in his white shirt and cravat, formal black coat and trousers, polished boots. His light eyes sweeping over her gown, he growled, “You look in need of air.”
“I can get air by myself.” She struggled to pull her hand free.
His hold was unforgiving, as was his pace that carved a path toward the French doors.
Bloody hell. No way to escape.
Not until they were out and standing on a patch of shadowy lawn did, he release her and say, “You play the flirt rather too well, Johanna. Whispers were circulating from the moment I arrived that some duel was about to occur over you.”
“What rubbish. There was nothing of the sort going on.”
“You underestimate men, and your appeal.” His gaze raked down her figure in the gold gown whilst he lit a cheroot, his jaw showing a ticking nerve. “You are the kind of woman men kill for.”
“That’s utterly brainless! And if such talk was circulating, it is hardly my fault.”
Releasing smoke, he muttered, “No. I suppose not. Flirting or no, you have a face and body that men cannot ignore.”
Jo folded her arms, glaring at him, though he simply smoked his cheroot and eyed her in that steady silent way. What the bloody hell did he think she could do about foolish men? She had been witness to that idiocy since her first season in London.
After a moment she managed stiffly, “What do you imagine I was invited for, if not to give the ton something to talk about?”
“Then why do it?”
She smiled without humor. “Why not? Because of my father, who he was, because of Val’s divorce, the incident last ye
ar—or that I am his bastard! There are any number of reasons they will talk anyway. As to flirting or ignoring their rules, they expect it of me.”
“Expect what?” Smoke curled from his lips.
She shrugged and threw up her hands. “I am the brazen one. It is a label I have earned. Do not get me wrong, I am not apologizing for it. But neither am I responsible for the stupidity of men who take flirting seriously.”
Sascha raised his free hand, capturing and fingering one of the spiral curls that lay at her bare shoulder. His lime gaze touching hers, he murmured, “I hardly blame them. You have a way of tempting and challenging a man to see what is underneath that flirtatious façade.”
His gloved knuckles gazing her skin, sent a shiver down her spine. To cover it, Jo rasped, “I didn’t know you were invited here, among this set.”
“I wasn’t.” His brow arched. “I was neither lofty nor rich before. Now as a man of trade…I will receive few invitations.” His smile was taut. “You know why I am here, Johanna.” That hand dropped from her. He took another pull, though his stare never wavered.
That half searching disturbed Jo in too many ways. She watched his lips released smoke, and then jerked her eyes back to his. The tension sizzled as always between them. His half-mast gaze did not hide it was there, any more than their useless conversation.
“Do you want me to explain why I left?” Sascha asked tensely and crushed the cheroot.
“No,” she snapped.
“I had nothing to offer you before.”
“I don’t recall it coming up, offers. However, I know about the duchess. I know about the debts, and I could assume you were without funds.”
He searched her face, his own looking harder in the gloom. “It was a bit more complicated than that. But, I should apologize for engaging your—attentions—when I was entangled in such a mess.”
She sucked in her breath. Attentions? Was that what those burning kisses were? Attentions.
“I am sorry.”
“Fine.” She nodded, teeth set and gaze pinned on his.
“I’m not apologizing, for the attraction.” He let his eyes drift go down her and back up slowly to meet her eyes. “We both enjoyed it.”