by Mia Gabriel
“We’d be clawing at one another like wild beasts, wouldn’t we?” he continued, building the scene for us both. “Yet even then we’d have to be mindful of your dress, taking care not to tear it, so you could slip back unnoticed among the others. I’d turn you around and bend your over a garden bench. You were expecting this to happen. When I shove your skirts up over your hips, I discover that you’ve left off your drawers, and your beautiful ass and cunny are bare to the moonlight, and to me. You’d like to do that, wouldn’t you, Eve?”
“Yes, Master,” I whispered. “Oh, yes, I would.”
He nodded, approving, yet still continued, for by now he was as caught up in describing the fantasy as I was in hearing it. His pale eyes had darkened, the way they did when he was aroused, and I could sense the growing tension in his body.
“I’d take you quickly, hard, and you’d push back against my thrusts, for you’d want it as much as I did. You’d have to press your hand to your mouth to stifle your cries, one to match each time my cock buried as deep as it could in your quim, smothering it all in the palm of your white kid glove. When at last we both came, I wouldn’t be able to keep silent. I’d roar with it, overcome with how good it was—how good it is to fuck you.”
I made a little purr of excitement, rubbing like a cat against his palm and twisting my thighs together in the chair as I sought relief.
“Would you like that sense of danger, Eve?” he asked, his voice rough. “Would you relish the chance that the proper Mrs. Arthur Hart of New York and Newport might be caught in a most compromising situation with me?”
“You know that I would, Master,” I said, my voice husky with longing. “I would do whatever you asked, wherever you asked it of me.”
He released my jaw and looked down at my bared breast.
“Your nipple is as hard as a ruby,” he said, “and I haven’t so much as breathed upon it.”
“You do that to me, Master,” I said. I closed the pillow book with the shunga and set it on the table beside the chair; it had done its work most admirably.
I twisted sinuously in the chair to face him. “Your words, your smile, your eyes,” I said. “Everything about you can seduce me. You must realize that by now.”
He smiled, his eyes heavy lidded. “Then I’d wager a hundred pounds that you’re wet for me now.”
Shamelessly I swept the robe aside and parted my legs for him to see for himself. I was wet, exactly as he predicted, and I didn’t have to look to feel the moisture that had already spread from my quim to my inner thighs.
His gaze flicked downward, unable not to, and I remembered how he’d said I was irresistible to him.
“Touch yourself,” he ordered. “Show me how wet you are.”
I didn’t hesitate. I slid two fingers between the swollen lips of my quim and dipped deep into my passage. I shuddered at even that small intrusion, and when I withdrew my fingers they glistened with my honey-sweet juices.
That might have been enough to satisfy him, but I went further. I raised my fingers to his lips, where my scent would be unavoidable to him. He caught my wrist and inhaled deeply. Then he pressed my fingers into his mouth, sucking on them hard to taste my essence as his tongue lapped wetly around the tips.
“We needn’t wait, Master,” I said swiftly, hooking one leg over the padded arm of the chair in even more blatant invitation. “This room can be our garden, and if we leave this window open, there’s a chance someone will see us from the house across the way, and—”
“No,” he said, straightening and standing apart from the chair and from me. His expression changed, too, his eyes shuttering and looking not at my face but slightly to the left of it. “You tempt me, but it’s not possible now.”
“Why not?” I asked, disappointment at his sudden withdrawal crushing my desire.
“Because you’ve no place here this afternoon,” he said absently, turning to look out the window at my side. The late-afternoon sun fell across his face, more shadows than light.
I shoved the robe back over my legs and pulled it to cover my breast and rose from the chair. It wasn’t just that I found his sudden shifts of mood and humor frustrating. They wounded me, wounded me sharply, and left me feeling abandoned and filled with doubts. I told myself that it was his fault, not mine, and that I shouldn’t blame myself, yet still I found it hard to stay beside him after what he’d just said.
I crossed the room to stand before the fireplace. I held the sides of my robe tightly closed together across my chest and stared blankly at the mirror over the mantel. Savage had tucked the picture he’d drawn of me earlier into the mirror’s frame, a haphazard display. I’d admired it there this morning, but now its presence also stung, another reminder of how I’d believed things were between us and now apparently no longer were.
And how much I wanted it to be otherwise.
“I do not wish to trouble you, Savage,” I said curtly. I did not want to let him see the pain he caused me. Fortunately, I was every bit as good at hiding as he was. “If you want me gone, then I’ll go.”
In the mirror before me I saw his head jerk up and turn towards me. “I never said that.”
“I rather think you did,” I said, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice. “If you could please send for one of your maids to help me dress, I shall be gone in half an hour.”
“The hell you will, Evelyn,” he said sharply. “If you want to leave, then that is your affair, but you will not do so and blame it on me.”
I saw him reflected in the mirror before me, growing larger and larger as he came towards me, so I was prepared when he seized me by the shoulders and spun me around.
Or so I thought. I tried to slip away, but he held me fast, his fingers digging into my wrists.
“Let me go, Savage,” I said, fighting to free myself. “You’re hurting me.”
“You’re hurting yourself,” he said with infuriating calm. “Stop fighting against me.”
I didn’t. Instead I twisted and plunged, trying to break away. I hated him for being so much stronger than I was, and I hated him for using that strength to keep me still by force.
“One minute you wish me gone,” I declared hotly, “and the next you want me to stay, and I … I won’t oblige you, Savage. I won’t. Now let me go.”
“I never wanted you gone,” he said, still holding me tight. “Listen to me. I said you’ve no place here, in this house, this afternoon. That is not the same thing.”
“Then what else could it be?” I demanded, bitterness in my voice. “What other meaning could you possibly have had?”
“I meant that I had kept you here alone with me long enough,” he said, his self-control only serving to make my own unravel further. “I meant that I didn’t want you to think you were my prisoner in this room, in this house.”
“Which is exactly how I feel at this moment!”
“Listen to me, Evelyn,” he said deliberately. “I meant that I wanted to take you out to dine with me tonight, as my guest, so that the rest of London could see your beauty, and my good fortune.”
I stopped struggling and stared at him, incredulous. “Why should I believe that?”
“Because, as I told you before, it is the truth,” he said, watching me closely. “We have a table at Gaspari’s at eight. If you do not find that agreeable, you may choose a different restaurant or hotel to your liking, and I will have it arranged.”
I swallowed hard and didn’t answer. For a man whose temper was usually so notoriously short, he was being restrained, even mild mannered. I was the one who’d lost control, the one who’d given in to my fears and passions. I was the dangerous one, not him. It all made me feel curiously off-balance, as if he truly did know some rare truth, some secret, that I didn’t.
Nor did it help that he’d begun to stroke the insides of my wrists with his thumbs, directly over the pulse where he could feel my heartbeat, and know how distraught I’d become. He did it to calm my unhappiness but also to distract me, te
asing me with a tiny light caress like that.
He knew me that well.
Exactly as I thought I’d known him.
“I want only to please you, Eve,” he said, subtly shifting away from our everyday names and lives. “You have pleased me, and now it is my turn to do the same for you. You are not my prisoner, and never have been. Or haven’t you realized by now that it’s the other way around, and I am entirely yours?”
Perhaps he was telling the truth. Perhaps I had misinterpreted. Perhaps he never had intended to hurt me.
Perhaps he really believed that I wasn’t his prisoner or that I’d willingly given him my liberty along with my heart and my soul.
I sighed, a deep, shuddering sigh that made the last of my frustration flutter from my chest.
“I cannot possibly dine at Gaspari’s,” I said in a small voice, wishing I didn’t sound quite so petulant. “All I have to wear is my riding habit.”
He smiled slowly, more relieved than I’d expected. Could he have feared that I was leaving, much as I’d feared he wanted me to do so?
“I’d anticipated you might say that,” he said, “and therefore I’ve sent for your own maid to bring you the proper clothes from the Savoy, and to dress you here.”
“You sent for Hamlin?” I asked, surprised.
“If that is your maid’s name, then yes,” he said carefully, as if wanting to not say the wrong thing. “I trust she can bring you a choice of dresses.”
“Of course she can,” I murmured. It wasn’t Hamlin’s choices that concerned me. As my lady’s maid she knew my tastes, and she’d know what was appropriate for Gaspari’s. I didn’t doubt that she’d bring me not only the perfect gown but also the necessary shoes, stockings, undergarments, and jewels.
But I found the fact that Savage had sent for Hamlin to be thoughtful and generous in ways that touched me deeply. He could have just as easily expected me to be assisted by one of his own servants, yet instead he’d chosen the course that would please me the most, rather than what was easiest for him.
Far more important, it proved that he really had intended to dine with me all along, rather than send me away. He hadn’t tired of me.
I was the one who’d misunderstood, and the realization humbled me.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly, simply. “I was wrong, and now I’m sorry.”
He smiled wryly. “I’ll bet you don’t say that very often.”
“I don’t,” I admitted. “Or rather, Mrs. Hart doesn’t.”
“Ah, well, neither does His Lordship,” he said lightly.
I smiled, too. “I’ll bet you don’t.”
“No,” he said. “Though perhaps I should.”
His smile faded, his gaze so intense that he was nearly frowning.
“I’d never want you to leave, Evelyn,” he said. “But there are things that I cannot explain at present—things that are better for you not to know—that may have led me to use the wrong words earlier.”
I nodded, accepting, but he shook his head, refusing my acceptance until he’d finished.
“You and I are two of a kind, aren’t we?” he said. “We say things, do things, in the heat of passion that later become regrettable.”
“That’s why I understand,” I said. I’d often thought myself that we’d much in common, but to hear him call us two of a kind was almost sweet.
“Understanding does not excuse me,” he said firmly. “Please, Evelyn, forgive me if I said the wrong things.”
“Forgiven,” I said softly. “Completely.”
He was still holding me by my wrists, and slowly I bent my head to kiss his hands. His grip relaxed, and I slipped free and into his embrace. He folded his arms across my back as I pressed my face against his shoulder. The soft wool of his jersey pressed against my cheek, and beneath it I could hear the steady, reassuring beat of his heart.
My wrists stung as the blood raced back into my hands, but I didn’t care, just as I told myself I didn’t care about those mysterious things he didn’t wish me to know. If I was meant to know them, I was sure he would share them in time. I’d trust him. We were two of a kind, weren’t we?
For now, this was where I was wanted, where I was safe, and where I’d stay. For now, this was where I belonged.
With this man.
* * *
I heard Hamlin arrive long before I saw her, briskly berating the hapless footmen who were bringing my things upstairs to the rooms across the hall from Savage’s. She was not herself a large woman, but she’d a sizable presence among other servants, a useful gift for a lady’s maid.
“Listen to that,” Savage marveled. Despite his earlier refusal, we’d ended up again here in bed together, relishing each other’s company. He was reading the evening paper with one arm draped over my waist, while I had been dozing against him with my head pillowed against his arm. We were naked, of course, and while we had agreed that it was most likely time to rise and dress for dinner, that agreement was as far as we’d gotten. It was cozy and companionable, and I was loathe to leave either Savage or his bed.
“I’m assuming that is your maid,” he continued when I didn’t reply. “Should you go supervise?”
“In time.” I rolled over on my back and sighed, listening to Hamlin launch into another tirade about the cost of carelessness to Mrs. Hart’s things. That two rooms and several closed doors separated me from her seemed not to matter; I could still make out every word of her tart Boston accent.
“I wouldn’t have invited her here if I’d known she was such a tartar,” Savage said. “My staff may never recover.”
“Hamlin’s protective of me, that is all,” I said, finally sitting upright with my arms looped around my bent knees. “She has been with me since before I married, and I suppose I shall always be her ‘poor, motherless lass.’”
“I can be protective of you, too.” He tossed the paper from the bed to the floor and ran his hand slowly and appreciatively down my bare back. “Nor will I make as much of a racket about it.”
I arched my back, letting myself bask in his touch.
“We could dine here,” I suggested, which sounded like a much more appealing prospect. “Gaspari’s will go on without our presence.”
“No, we must go,” he said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He sighed and tossed me the blue robe. “Go dress. Don’t keep that fearsome maid of yours waiting any longer.”
I sighed, too, as I slipped the robe over my shoulders and headed for the doorway, silk billowing behind me.
“Wait.”
I’d barely turned before he was kissing me again, as hungrily as if we’d been apart days, not minutes. He shoved aside the robe and his hand found the curve of my waist, sliding impatiently around to cup and caress my buttock, his fingers tensing and relaxing into my flesh. He stepped into me and pulled me close against his lean, hard, naked body as my open robe fluttered around us.
“Just watching you walk is enough to drive me mad, Eve,” he said when we finally separated. “I don’t want to let you go even for the time it takes you to dress.”
“I don’t have to go,” I said breathlessly. “We needn’t go out.”
“No, we do,” he said, his reluctance inexplicably clear. “It’s better this way. Go dress, and return to me as soon as you can.”
He kissed my forehead, a tender little mark of endearment before I left him to Barry, who was doubtless hovering in wait in Savage’s dressing room just as Hamlin was doing for me.
Dutifully I tied the sash around the robe and headed across the hall. I couldn’t fathom why he remained so determined on this dinner at Gaspari’s. His reason earlier—that he wished to show me off—seemed forced and unnecessary. We could just as easily have gone on another night or perhaps ridden in the park again tomorrow and achieved the same thing.
I was still searching for an answer as I opened the door to the bedroom that was ostensibly mine. Hamlin was busily laying out clothes across the bed, and she turned swiftly
and ducked a curtsey as I entered.
“Good afternoon, ma’am,” she said, her flinty eyes narrowing a judgmental fraction as she took instant note of how, at that hour, I wore nothing more than a man’s robe. “I’ve brought you things, as was requested.”
She pointedly omitted who had done the requesting, and I realized that whatever misgivings I’d had about her being here in Savage’s house didn’t even come close to the disapproval she was now exuding. True, she was the lady’s maid and I was her mistress, but Hamlin had been with me so long that she’d earned—or, more rightly, claimed—a certain frankness with me that no other servants possessed. I’d told Savage that she was protective of me, but it went further than that. She often treated me like a spinster aunt with a favorite niece, and like that aunt she wasn’t afraid to scold me if she thought I needed it, too.
“Thank you, Hamlin,” I said briskly, striving not to give her an opening. “I have an hour before I’m to leave for dinner with His Lordship. Which dresses did you bring?”
“I’ve arranged them for your choosing on the bed, ma’am,” Hamlin said, stepping to one side. “Since you didn’t say which you wanted, I brought several suitable for dinner.”
She had indeed. There were at least a dozen dresses laid carefully across the bed, a froth of silk, ruffles, lace, and beading, with one of my traveling trunks yawning empty to one side. They were all from the finest houses—Worth, Poiret, Doucet—but they were also all more suited to what I’d worn at home in New York as a respectable widow rather than what I wished to wear now. The sea of pale colors, demure grays and mauves, and cream-colored lace was elegantly genteel but hardly the thing to tempt the eye of a gentleman like Savage at a stylish restaurant like Gaspari’s.
Which, I suspected, was exactly what Hamlin had had in mind when she’d made her selections.
Disconsolate, I halfheartedly sifted through the dresses. I’d have to choose one of them. The minutes were passing by, and I didn’t want to keep Savage waiting.