by Mia Gabriel
“Because it’s not the same here,” I said. Deliberately I folded my arms over my chest, too. “When we were at Wrenton, we could pretend the world began and ended with us. Nothing else mattered besides the Game. But here in London, there are … distractions.”
His jaw tightened. “You mean my son. He’ll be gone soon as I can arrange it, no later than tonight.”
“He needn’t go, Savage, and certainly not on my account,” I said. “He has more right to be here than I do. This is his home, and there’s no more important place to a child.”
“Stop saying that,” Savage barked. “It’s not an excuse. Lawton must be responsible for his actions.”
“I wish you would stop saying that,” I said. “How old is he, anyway? Seven, eight, nine? How can a child that age be held responsible for anything?”
“Because he must,” Savage said, his eyes glowing with determination. “He was sent down from school this week. Dismissed. Did he happen to tell you why?”
“No,” I said. “I didn’t think it was my affair to inquire.”
“It’s not,” Savage said, “but you meddled so much that I’ll tell you regardless. He was sent down for fighting, for thrashing another boy badly enough that he was taken to hospital, and the parents were clamoring for the police. Yet today you encouraged his violence.”
I shook my head, refusing to see it that way.
“I agree that he should not be fighting at school,” I said. “But surely there must have been other circumstances.”
“No wonder he likes you,” Savage said, goading me by turning what should have been a compliment into an insult. “You make excuses for him.”
I refused to lose my temper. At least one of us should. “There’s always another side to any story,” I insisted. “Have you asked your son what happened?”
“I don’t have to know the circumstances to understand what happened,” said Savage grimly. “I see it in his face every time I look at him. He is volatile, unpredictable, exactly as his mother was. He has her madness.”
I stared at Savage, incredulous. “Do you know what I see when I look at Lawton? I see you, Savage. I see your eyes, your hair, your mouth, your chin. But most of all I see your passion, and now, it seems, your temper, too.”
“You know none of this, Evelyn,” he said. “You don’t understand the history.”
“I understand enough,” I said. “He may be his mother’s child, but he’s also your son, Savage. Yours, through and through. Why is what he did to this other schoolboy any different from what you did—or attempted to do—to poor Mr. Henery at Wrenton last week?”
Savage drew back as if I’d been the one to strike him. “That has absolutely nothing to do with my son.”
“Yes, it does,” I insisted. “It has everything to do with it. If you’d bothered to ask him why he beat this other boy, I’d guarantee that he did it to protect another child, or perhaps a helpless animal that couldn’t defend itself. He scarcely knows me, yet he came to my rescue this afternoon—a boy a quarter the size of those men! He could have hurt himself, or even been killed for my sake. Did he tell you that? Did you bother to ask?”
He frowned, taken aback, and I saw the first flickers of doubt in his eyes. “Lawton was in danger as well?”
“He was,” I said firmly. “Perhaps more than I was, because of his size. They shoved him aside to get to me. Most children would have sat there crying on the pavement, but he jumped up and came to my defense as best he could, without a thought for his own welfare.”
Savage’s frown deepened, this time with remorse. His arms uncrossed and fell to his sides, and his shoulders lost their belligerence.
“I should have been there to protect you both,” he said. “It’s my fault. If only I’d returned sooner, then none of this—”
“Hush,” I said, coming to stand before him. “I don’t want to hear any of that, either. You’re not my watchdog, and I can’t live my life trapped in your house as if it were some castle with a gate and a moat to keep the world at bay. My father did that to me when I was young, and I vowed never to let it happen again.”
Savage’s hands settled familiarly at my waist. “I promised I’d keep you safe. Lawton, too.”
“And so you have,” I said, resting my palms on his chest. “But you can’t do it alone, nor should you. Call the police. I’ll tell them what happened, and swear to a complaint against Blackledge. If he’s hiring thugs like those I saw today, then the police must be informed.”
“No police,” Savage said with a brusque, dismissive sweep of his hand. “That will accomplish nothing.”
“Are you certain?” I asked anxiously. “Perhaps only a short conversation, to alert them about what happened?”
“They won’t take you seriously, Evelyn,” he said. “You can’t identify the men or the hackney, and everything else depends on what Blackledge said to you alone, without witnesses. Although you and I know otherwise, there’s no tangible way that today’s attempt can be linked to Blackledge to satisfy a court of law.”
“Then promise me you’ll do nothing rash, Savage,” I said. “Do not go after him yourself. These are dangerous men, and I do not want to lose you.”
“I cannot promise that,” he said, “any more than my son can, evidently. But I will be careful in whatever I arrange. Will that be enough?”
I nodded, running my palms up the broad planes of his chest to his shoulders. I knew I couldn’t really expect him to promise more than that. As much as I might wish it, that need to protect was too much a part of him to be put aside like a change of clothes. All I could hope for was caution.
“Enough for me,” I said lightly. “But I’d also ask that you not be so harsh towards Lawton. He’s not mad that I could see, not at all.”
“If you’d known his mother—”
“But I didn’t, which means I’m not looking for madness where there’s none,” I said. “Recall that he’s your son, too. He never forgets it. He idolizes you.”
“Hah,” Savage said grudgingly. “If he does, then he’s an even greater young fool than I’d thought.”
“Don’t send him away tonight, either,” I said. “Wherever it was that you were going to send him.”
“To his aunt’s house in Berkshire,” Savage said. “I wasn’t having him transported to Australia.”
“Let him stay here, then,” I said. “He shouldn’t be turned out from his home.”
Savage sighed. “He’ll be here for another three weeks, then, until the new term begins. That was the best I could arrange today with that sly bastard of a headmaster. It cost me a sizable contribution to the building fund, too.”
“I’m glad of it,” I said softly, rubbing my fingers along the nape of his neck. “This house is large enough for him to be perfectly unaware of how the adults are amusing themselves.”
He grunted, his hands sliding up the sides of my waist to the undersides of my breasts. “I already had Barry take down the swing. I didn’t want to have to explain that it was an item meant only for adults.”
“I should think that was why locks were invented for doors.”
“Don’t be smart, Eve,” he said. “I’m serious.”
“I am serious, too,” I said, brushing my lips against his. “There will be other ways to entertain one another. You’ve always been inventive, Master.”
“Because you have been receptive, Eve,” he said. Our mouths clung, tasted, parted. He paused and pulled back, watching me through wary, heavy-lidded eyes. “Does this mean you will not be leaving?”
“Not this afternoon, no,” I said slowly, surprising myself. I’d been so determined, but that determination had disintegrated and scattered as we’d talked. If he could pledge to change—or at least to make an attempt—then so could I. “No. I’ll stay.”
He gathered me into his arms, holding me so tightly that I scarcely noticed when he lifted me from my feet and carried me to the nearby bed. We sank down on the coverlet, our bodies already tan
gled together.
“What would I have done if I’d lost you?” he whispered hoarsely against my hair, desperation and relief oddly, endearingly, mingled. “What would I have done?”
“But you didn’t,” I said. I didn’t care whether he meant that I hadn’t been stolen away or that I hadn’t left on my own, and I didn’t care, either, that I was crying again. I was here, and so was he. “You didn’t lose me at all.”
* * *
The next morning, Savage suggested we take his open carriage and ride through Hyde Park. I was happy that he included Lawton in the invitation. I hadn’t seen the boy since we’d parted in the afternoon; he’d been put into Barry’s ever-capable care, an arrangement that apparently all parties found agreeable. I couldn’t quite imagine the taciturn Barry reining in the high-spirited Lawton, but Savage assured me that Barry had “had a way” with Lawton ever since he’d been a baby and the two got on famously.
The two of them were in the front hall precisely at eleven when Savage and I came downstairs, and the carriage—an elegant barouche—was already at the curb. Savage was devastatingly handsome in a pale-gray morning coat with a tall silk top hat and pale-yellow gloves, all a welcome departure from his customary black that I was sure would draw the attention of every lady in the park.
But I would not be outdone. I wore one of my favorite carriage dresses, a closely tailored emerald-green ensemble with a boldly striped black-and-white skirt and an oversized black hat with a swooping brim and a white plume, trimmed with emerald ribbons. My parasol was black lace with green silk tassels that gave it a jaunty air. Around my throat, once again, was the pearl necklace that Savage had given me.
It was the kind of dress to be noticed, and this morning I hoped the entire fashionable world would take note of me. This was no ordinary outing, and Savage and I both knew its significance. It had been one thing to appear together late in the evening at Gaspari’s, when by tacit agreement most diners would turn a blind eye to who was dining with whom. Even riding together on horseback would not have elicited much gossip, because truly, how much mischief could be accomplished with both parties on separate horses?
But to appear in a gentleman’s carriage—even a barouche—was a bold statement indeed. I would be as much as admitting that the whispers about me taking the Earl of Savage as my lover were true. Having Lawton with us as our eight-year-old chaperone might mitigate my sins somewhat, but not enough to save my good name. I knew all this, and I’d considered it well.
And I did not care. Savage and I were both adults, both independent, both widowed and now freed from unhappy marriages. We were hurting no one else by our actions and pleasing each other very much. I had spent the first twenty-five years of my life being respectable, good, and dull, and I was ready—more than ready—to be publicly scandalous, bad, and happy.
Savage had neatly summed it all when I’d finished dressing. First he’d let his gaze roam over me from head to toe, lingering upon the more interesting parts in the middle that had been spectacularly corseted. Then he’d smiled and bowed to me, his hat in his hand.
“I congratulate you, Mrs. Hart,” he said, his smile sly. “You will make every lady in the park green with envy, and every gentleman sick with lust.”
I’d one more goal, too. I wanted Blackledge to know that he couldn’t intimidate me. I wanted him to see that I intended to go about my life as I pleased and that Savage and I together were prepared to stand up to him and his threats. I would not become part of his ridiculous Arabian Nights fantasy, where he could swoop in and carry me off simply because he wished it. I had every right to refuse him, and I would continue to do so until he finally understood and left me alone.
But when I stood on the step and looked at the barouche, I faltered. The carriage was entirely open, the brasses polished and the soft buff-colored leather seats sleek in the sun behind the matched pair of bays. There was a driver on the bench, of course, but no footmen, nor was there a place for any. We would be as exposed as if we were sitting on a bench in the park, and after the attack yesterday all I could think was how vulnerable I’d be.
“What is it, Evelyn?” Savage asked beside me. “Is the sun too bright?”
I shook my head, the brim of my hat bobbing before me. “It’s not the sun,” I said. “It’s just that … that the carriage seems very open.”
“It is,” he agreed. “That is why I’ve made sure we won’t be alone.”
He nodded towards the rear of the barouche. Belatedly I noticed two men on horseback, waiting about a length behind. They were dressed like any other gentlemen who went riding in the park, but there was a watchfulness to them that I remembered from the old days with my father’s Pinkerton men, and I was certain that there were pistols beneath those riding jackets.
“You see, I kept my promise to you,” Savage said, his voice low so that Lawton wouldn’t overhear. “I told you I wouldn’t try to protect you entirely by myself, and I won’t.”
Relief swept over me, and gratitude, too. He had listened to me after all. If Blackledge attempted something foolish, Savage wouldn’t feel he had to jump in and risk his own life defending mine.
No, most likely he would, I corrected mentally. He wouldn’t change that much. But at least if he did, he wouldn’t be alone.
“Thank you,” I said softly. “Both for those men and for understanding their necessity.”
“You are welcome,” he said gruffly, unexpectedly uncomfortable with being thanked. He might even have flushed.
He led me down the steps and handed me into the carriage. There was a brief moment of confusion when Lawton expected to sit beside me, but his father quickly directed him to the facing seat behind the driver while he and I sat side by side. I settled my skirts gracefully around my legs, tipped my parasol back over my shoulder, and at last we were off.
“Barry told me there were Punch-and-Judy shows in the park,” Lawton said eagerly. “May we please stop if there are, Father?”
“Stop bouncing about on your seat like a monkey, Lawton,” Savage said irritably. “Sit still.”
I glanced at Savage, not exactly warning so much as reminding, and he sighed dramatically.
“If Mrs. Hart wishes it, then we shall stop,” he said with put-upon resignation. “You must learn always to bow to a lady’s wishes, Lawton.”
“Not always, my lord,” I said, smiling. “Sometimes the lady prefers to submit to the gentleman’s desires.”
He raised his eyebrows and smiled in return. I’d clearly captured his interest.
“May we please stop for puppets, Mrs. Hart?” Lawton begged. “That is, if you like Punch and Judy, too.”
“To be honest, Lawton, I’ve never seen a Mr. Punch show,” I admitted. “You must be sure to point out the finer qualities of the production to me.”
“You don’t mind?” he asked, clearly surprised that any adult would ask for his opinion. “It’s not always easy to figure out what’s happening.”
“I should be most grateful if you would,” I said, smiling warmly to reassure him.
That was enough for the boy to launch into a detailed description of seemingly every puppet show he’d ever seen in his entire short life, so detailed that the only necessary replies were a few appreciative exclamations now and then.
I didn’t mind at all. I liked listening to him, the boyish mix of being painfully earnest one moment and supremely silly the next. Wistfully I realized that if I’d a son of my own I’d want him to be exactly like Lawton. It wasn’t just that I liked the boy. I liked his father, too, very much.
Beside me Savage had placed his hand over mine on the seat and kept it there. It seemed like a small gesture, doubly muted since we both wore gloves, but somehow the very subtlety of it both touched and excited me. It was quietly, confidently possessive, proving that I belonged to him and that he was willing to let all London see it.
And all London did see it. Because the day was warm and sunny the park was crowded with carriages and rider
s as well as others strolling along the paths beneath the trees. Every well-bred head turned to look at us as we passed; we were that easy to recognize and that impossible to ignore. Like it or not, we were figures mentioned in the papers and scandal sheets, the Earl of Savage and Mrs. Hart, the American millionaire’s widow.
Most we passed nodded graciously or raised their hats, as polite people did, although I could sense the eager curiosity behind their good manners. But there were a few others who pointedly looked away as if we did not exist, making their disapproval hard to ignore. When we stopped near the Serpentine because Lawton was clamoring for a flavored ice from one of the vendors, a photographer seemed to appear from nowhere and quickly took a picture of Savage and me walking arm in arm before he darted away.
“Ten guineas says that fellow will sell his work to the New York papers,” Savage said drily as Lawton bought his ice. “They’ll pay more for it there than in London.”
“Earls are a rarity in New York,” I said, striving to make light of it. “You’re a curiosity.”
“Oh, I doubt that,” he said. “I believe they’re more interested in the beauteous Mrs. Hart than the sort of raffish company she’s keeping abroad.”
“No one would think you’re raffish today,” I said. “You’re looking thoroughly noble and handsome.”
“And you, Mrs. Hart, are looking good enough to eat,” he said. There was a small gap of pale, bare skin on my forearm, between the hem of my sleeve and the top of my glove, and he found it now with his forefinger, lightly burrowing into the fabric to touch me. For such a tiny caress, it was intensely arousing, perhaps because it was so small and so furtive. “I know that dress is intended to provoke other women to fits of rage, but all I can think of is how quickly I could remove it from your delectable person.”
“My Lord Savage! Mrs. Hart! Good day to you both!”
Reluctantly I turned from Savage and watched as Laura, Viscountess Carleigh, waving enthusiastically as she climbed down from her carriage and hurried across the path towards us. I smiled with little enthusiasm of my own.
Laura was my friend, yes, and Savage’s as well, but at that particular moment I would rather she had stayed in her carriage and merely waved and continued on her way. I say that not because of any dislike of her—far from it—but because I knew she’d ask questions about Savage and me. I suppose it was only fair, since she’d been the one to introduce us, but things between us were at present so special and yet so undecided that to discuss them with anyone else would feel like a kind of betrayal.