Much Ado About Jack

by Christy English

  She stared into the fire, extending her kid-gloved hands toward the warmth that could not seem to make its way into the marrow of her bones, where she needed it. Perhaps Prinny thought to stab at her as a gift to Anthony. Or perhaps the Prince Regent toyed with her in front of the Carlton House set for no other reason than that it amused him. The prince always wanted to be amused.

  “Your old lover, the married one, wants you back.” James Montgomery said this as if it were fact, as if by saying it out loud, he might make it true.

  “He does not want me. Trust me when I tell you this.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “No doubt I am, about many things. But not about this.”

  Angelique turned to the sideboard and poured herself a glass of punch. She knew she should offer the first glass to Montgomery, as he now ostensibly had become her guest. He clearly had no more knowledge of the Prince Regent or his cohorts than she had when she had first come to London eleven years before. When she had been a new widow, alone in the city, Anthony had taken her under his wing and into his bed. She had never regretted that alliance, until now.

  She sipped at the punch and found it too sweet, so she set it by. She turned to James to ask if he would fancy a drink himself, but he waved her off. He stood staring at her, as if she had somehow deceived him.

  A deep color of puce rose from the high points of his collar and his well-tied cravat to suffuse his face. If Angelique had not known better, she would have sworn the man was jealous.

  “I’ve never had a rival for a woman before, but I know one when I see him.”

  Angelique smiled then, enjoying the fact that James Montgomery took nothing else away from their time under the prince’s knife than some imagined obsession between her and Anthony.

  “I was unaware that you were vying to come to my bed, but I am sure you cannot want a catalogue of my lovers. It would be tedious for both of us and would overtax my memory.”

  Angelique moved toward the door. Though Prinny himself had sent them into that room, she was done with this farce. She had her fill of the Carlton House set and the Prince Regent’s whims.

  She needed to be up in only three hours to pack for her journey to Shropshire, for she would leave for Aeronwynn’s Gate after the Duke of Hawthorne’s funeral. Angelique would not endure another moment as the Prince Regent’s pawn.

  She thought for a moment that James would simply allow her to leave without another word. But his silence did not signal his indifference. Before she had taken another step, his hand was on her arm, drawing her close until the buttons of his coat were pressed hard into the soft silk of her indigo gown.

  Angelique could not remember the last time a man had made a habit of handling her so casually, without her permission. She felt her anger begin to rise, her temper flaring like a fire when coals are cast onto it. Angelique found this anger directed not at the man who held her but at herself, for she hungered for him as much as she had ever hungered for Anthony.

  The edge of her hard-won control began to slip as she took in a deep breath of the perfume of his skin. He wore no scent, but smelled only of the salt of the sea and of the cedar his clothes had been pressed in. His warm breath on her cheek took her mind from where she was, and who she was. She fought hard to bring her good sense back again.

  Angelique tried to step away, but his grip on her tightened, and his other arm rose around her, pinning her against him as in a vise. She felt the last of her breath escape between her teeth, and her hunger for his body rose even as she fought it down. She had come too far, and lived too long as her own master, to be bested by a man like him.

  “You should not taunt me with your other lovers,” James Montgomery said. “It is not wise.”

  “Go to the Devil,” she said. “And take Prinny with you.”

  James laughed then, but there was a hard edge to his laughter. He kept her close, running his hands over her body almost as if to mock her. She trembled as he slid one hand down to cup her backside, drawing her flush against him so that she could feel for herself how much he still wanted her. His other hand rose into the softness of her hair.

  As always, she had left it uncovered, and her midnight black curls fell in an artful disarray from the diamond combs at the crown of her head. He drew those combs out, one by one, tossing them onto a side table as if they were made of paste. Angelique struggled to get away from him; she had paid good money for those combs only a month before. But then his lips came down on hers, and she forgot her combs completely.

  Until he touched her, she did not realize how much she needed to forget.

  His lips were gentle, though his hands were not. His tongue coaxed hers out to play even as his hands ran over her body, from her scalp down her throat, then over her breasts to caress her thighs beneath the silk of her gown. All the while, his hands moved over her restlessly, as if they would devour her, and his mouth tasted her, teased her, drawing her in deeper and deeper until thoughts of all else melted away and she could taste and feel nothing but him.

  Angelique never allowed herself the luxury of forgetting.

  He must have felt her surrender, for his hands began to gentle as they moved over her body, drawing her down onto the sofa before the fire. The tall back of the sofa hid them from view had anyone else stepped into the room from the corridor beyond.

  Angelique knew, however, in the small portion of her thinking mind that was still working, that Carlton House, and the Blue Velvet Room itself, had many hidden doors. She would have no way of knowing from which direction someone might come upon them, or how quietly.

  Though she had made it her life’s work to always be in control, to use caution anytime she dealt with the palace or anyone in the ton, she lay back on soft cushions while the man she had met only the day before knelt over her, caressing her thighs as he raised the skirt of her gown.

  Before she gave herself up to pleasure, Angelique made a vow: after this night, she would never let James Montgomery touch her again. She could not afford to develop the habit of losing control. But she was here, and so was he. What harm could one indulgence do?

  Her vow made, she relaxed beneath him, savoring the feel of his hands and lips on her body. He seemed to sense the change in her, for he raised his lips from hers to search her face.

  “Angelique.”

  He spoke her name almost as a question, as if only now it occurred to him to ask her permission to touch her.

  She drew him down to her, her hand on the back of his head. His auburn hair came loose from the brown ribbon that bound it, falling around them both like a curtain that shut out the rest of the world. She had never known a man to keep his hair so long. It was against the fashion. No man of her acquaintance, not even Anthony, would ever do such a thing. But this man did not seem to care about fashion or anything else but his own pleasure. That thought made her desire flare higher, and she ran her hand down his chest to the waistband of his trousers, seeking another part of him that might give her pleasure.

  James Montgomery laughed a little under his breath as he drew back from her lips and caught her hand in his. His palm was so large that her hand disappeared into it. Angelique savored the warmth of his touch even there, though she wanted to direct his attention elsewhere.

  “No,” he said. “Not here.”

  Angelique felt another rise in her temper, blotting out her pleasure. How dare he think to dictate the terms of their encounter? Did this man have no idea who she was? Before she could form this thought into a coherent sentence, before she could push him away and rise from the blue velvet sofa unencumbered, he kissed her again.

  His mouth wrought havoc with her senses, and she debated with herself whether to hold on to her ire. It had been months since she had taken a lover, an oversight this man was offering to amend.

  She felt her anger slide away as on an outgoing tide, even as a wave of pleasure
began to rise in its place. His insistent hands moved down to her thighs, drawing her gown up past her garters, sliding beyond the slippery silk to find the core of heat beneath. His fingers played her as if she were a stringed instrument, one tightly tuned to the nuance of every move he made.

  She felt herself rising toward fulfillment so quickly that she lost her bearings. She clutched the silk-edged pillow beneath her head, and the grain of the cloth gave her succor, grounding her in the here and now. Then she was over the edge, spiraling higher and higher until she lost her breath altogether. When she finally gathered enough air to gasp, she found herself saying his name.

  He smiled at her, as smug as a cat in the cream. At the sight of that gloating smile, her pleasure left her, fading away as quickly as it had come.

  “Get off me.”

  “No,” he answered.

  It took all of her control not to hit him.

  “Let me up, now.”

  He smiled down at her, running one thumb over her bottom lip. He licked the fingers that had just been inside her, lapping at them as a cat might.

  “Why would I do that?”

  She kicked him.

  Her control was good, so she missed his groin and struck at his inner thigh instead. Still, her aim was just as good, for he doubled over, instinctively covering himself to protect his most valued assets from her. When he did that, she wriggled out from beneath him and stood.

  “Save your smugness for your whores,” she said. “If you forget all else about me, Captain, remember this. As I told you before, I am no man’s plaything.”

  Angelique straightened her skirt, knowing that her gown was wrinkled beyond repair. Even Lisette with her damp cloths and heated iron would have difficulty getting such wrinkles out. As she collected her hair combs from the side table’s lacquered top, she knew that she would never wear it again.

  She had no mirror close by with which to rearrange her hair, so she simply tossed her dark curls over one shoulder, slipping her combs into her reticule. She straightened her gloves and moved to the door. The prince’s staff would have her cloak waiting below, along with her coach. It was past time for her to leave.

  James Montgomery was on his feet.

  Angelique tensed, ready to run, ready to cry out if he moved toward her. But he did not. He straightened slowly, rearranging his wounded loins, wincing as he did so.

  “I need you to teach my sisters how to do that,” he said. His dark brown coat was askew, as was his cravat. His hair still fell around his shoulders in auburn waves, his ribbon lost between the sofa cushions on which he had possessed her.

  No doubt he had others.

  “You’re leaving me,” he said.

  He sounded almost as if he wanted her to stay.

  She had never kneed a man in the groin before, and as effective as it had been, she hoped to never do it again. Her anger was gone, and she felt tired, spun out.

  “I am leaving Carlton House. There is not enough between us to leave anything behind.”

  She left the house then, walking slowly down the grand staircase to the entrance hall below.

  Above her, she could hear the raucous laughter of Prinny’s guests. She wondered if James Montgomery would rejoin the party once he had straightened his clothes. Though she listened for his feet on the marble stairs, he did not follow her.

  She pushed him out of her mind as she stepped into the cool air on the prince’s doorstep. This early in the morning, even in London, the air was almost clean.

  She felt a moment’s pang that James Montgomery had turned out to be a smug bastard. She was not sure why she had expected any different.

  The sun would rise in an hour, and she needed to get some sleep. She had no time for errant sea captains or for men who thought they could take her at her own game. She had built her life carefully and walled it round for good reason.

  There was no room in her world for a man like him.

  Eleven

  James Montgomery did not follow Angelique out of the Blue Velvet Room. His cock was so hard that he could barely move, much less walk. He simply stood and looked at the empty doorway where moments before Angelique Beauchamp had stopped to mock him.

  He shifted, rubbing the place where she had kneed his thigh. No doubt he would have a bruise in the morning, if not before.

  The spoils of war.

  James did not know why he had not taken her. He might have, there on the corrupt prince’s velvet chaise. But he had not. Something about that place put him on edge. As much as he wanted her, as certain as he was that he would have her, and soon, it would not be there.

  Two silent footmen came to flank the door in her wake. Neither looked at him, and James remembered what his brief moments among the ton had always felt like when he was in Town after Trafalgar: a cold winter that never saw sunlight.

  He would rather face a crew of Spanish pirates on a stolen schooner than a ballroom full of the London elite. Strange company she kept. Perhaps he could persuade her to improve it.

  He left Carlton House without a word to anyone. He had taken a hackney coach to the prince’s doorstep, but as the sun began to rise beyond the trees of St. James Park, he did not call for another. He moved toward his hotel, nestled only a mile from Regent’s Square.

  He strode the sidewalks of London, his high brown boots striking the concrete, making a sharp sound in the early morning quiet. James searched for his anger as he walked in the cool morning air, but he could not find it. He went over the events of the last two evenings in his mind to see if that might refresh his ire.

  He had drawn her out of the Duchess of Claremore’s ballroom and had caressed her in the garden, only to be left flat. And tonight he had hunted her down, braving even the Prince Regent’s lair to get to her, defying her powerful ex-lover to take her in hand. He had pleasured her, and instead of gratitude, she had tried for his groin.

  He laughed then. His sisters needed to learn her finesse at defending herself. He had not felt Angelique move until her knee was buried in his thigh. If she had wanted to, she could have hurt him badly.

  James would have to assume then that she wished him well.

  He had never pursued a woman who had given him so much trouble. Sweet and willing in his arms, she just as soon changed into an adder, sliding away from him or burying her fangs in his flesh when she no longer wanted him.

  It was intoxicating.

  He knew he was arrogant. His mother had always said that no one would ever guess he was a younger son. His years on the sea had not tempered his self-regard, but had increased it.

  There was nothing like knowing that left on a desert island with only a blade, he could save himself and whoever might be marooned with him. Life on the sea taught a man to face what was, both in himself and in others.

  He had been forced, time and again, to test himself against his opponents and the elements both, even against the men under his command. He had lived to the ripe age of thirty and risen to the rank of captain on his own merits. He did not hesitate to do whatever needed to be done. He knew he would not hesitate now.

  He would go to Angelique and talk to her, without games, without pretensions. He might even apologize for whatever it was she thought he had done.

  She had melted beneath him that night, just as she had melted against him in the garden the night before. He had thought to take her back to her home, to make love to her again in her bed.

  But she had done what no other woman had ever done. She had walked away from him for a third time.

  He ached for her, and not just because of the bruise on his thigh. Very few men had the nerve to stand and face him as an equal, to defy him without hesitation. Coming from her, he found that he liked it.

  If he had any sense, he would go to a whore to take the edge off his desire. But the thought of a brothel bored him. Soft and willing those w
omen might be, but none of them had flashing sapphire eyes and adder’s teeth. He wanted to bury himself in Angelique’s sweet body and worry about the fangs in his flesh after.

  Angelique was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and he had made love with women in ports all over the world. It was not just her beauty that drew him in, nor her beauty that held him. There was an inner fire that lived in her soul, a flame that shone out of her eyes.

  James was certain she had made it her life’s work to hide that glimpse of who she truly was. He wondered if her other lovers had seen that inner fire. If they had, how had they let her go?

  He climbed the stairs to his room and realized that she must have been offended by something he had said, or by something he had failed to say. He would just have to bring her flowers, and apologize, and play each move after that as it came. With Angelique Beauchamp, he had a feeling that anything could happen. Just one more reason she intrigued him.

  James went into his rented room and bathed his face in the tepid water the hotel had left for him. He did not call the room’s valet to help him undress. The day he needed a man to tend him was the day he put a bullet in his brain.

  Once he had taken off his coat, waistcoat, and cravat, James lay down on the softness of the hotel’s feather bed. He leaned back against the bolster, trying to forget the contours of Angelique’s face. He measured his breathing, waiting until the sight of the sapphire blue of her eyes might fade from his mind. Though he lay there for an hour, Angelique’s image stayed with him, a woman who would not be conquered, a woman who would not let him sleep.

  With a sigh, he rose once more from his rented bed and rang for hot water. He would face the new day with no sleep at all, and over a woman. It would be comical if it weren’t so annoying.

  Once he was dressed in fresh linen, shaved, and pumiced, James retraced his steps to Angelique’s house on Regent’s Square, the address Ravensbrook had given him. He would speak to her if she would receive him. And if she would not, he would push past her household staff and make her listen to him.