by Gaelen Foley
She obeyed at once, hastening away from the dance floor.
She remembered how Jack and she had admired the conservatory on the way in to the ball while waiting in the line of carriages; they had spoken of looking at it together. She decided to wait there—Jack would soon figure out where to find her.
Before anyone else could snare her in conversation, she ducked out of the ballroom and found her way through the maze of the enormous manor to the spacious conservatory.
Immediately upon stepping into the tree-filled, glassed-in world, all the trouble in her soul seemed to quiet.
Glass and lacy white ironwork were whipped upward in a froth, culminating in a beautiful center rotunda that gave the exotic trees plenty of room to grow.
There were palms and giant bamboos in huge pots and planters; their pinnate fronds reached up into the central dome. There were a few fragrant orange and lemon trees, a grapefruit tree, and several spiky pineapples, as well.
A profusion of flowers surrounded the towering Doric column at the edge of the rotunda, crowned with a graceful statue of the goddess Flora.
Fairy lights strung here and there lent an air of magic to the hothouse jungle, heated by furnaces and carefully concealed piping, a perfect, humid environment for their host’s collection of tropical plants, shrubs, and trees.
With the night so dark beyond the glass, the tiny colored lanterns threw fantastic leaf-shaped shadows everywhere and etched the grids of the countless window mullions across the floor. The music from the ballroom was muffled here; louder came the rain’s steady symphony drumming the glass panes of the great, arched windows.
There was a stone fountain in the middle of it all, with a wide rim that formed a circular bench; here, Eden sat down. Wistfully, she watched the large, ornamental fish swimming in the fountain. The miniature, indoor jungle reminded her so sharply of her old life. Everything was different now. How she missed Papa. Would he never come?
Taking off her right glove, she set it down beside her and leaned down to dangle her fingers in the water, reminiscing as she waited for Jack on her days in the Orinoco Delta…her chance meetings with the occasional pink dolphin.
That life now seemed a world away.
The rain still drummed the glass and despite the occasional flash of lightning, the setting was altogether pleasant. As she sat musing, playing with the fish, she felt a faint, instinctual prickle of warning tingling on her nape, drawing her out of her memories.
She lifted her head and glanced around warily, not sure why she suddenly seemed to sense someone staring at her.
She was the only person in the conservatory.
Lightning flashed, illuminating the glass house in purple and blinding silver, flickering over the statue of Flora: In that split second, as Eden scanned the trees crowding the artificial jungle, she saw him.
Connor.
He was standing outside the conservatory, watching her through the glass, as the rain plastered his blond hair to his forehead.
She gasped, but the lightning vanished and the world beyond the glass turned black again.
She pulled back, her heart pounding. She pressed her gloveless hand to her heart for a second. No.
It couldn’t be.
Surely she must have imagined it. How could Connor be standing outside in the storm?
A few minutes later, another flash of lightning revealed the same spot where she thought she had seen him, and no one was there. Catching her breath again, she laughed at herself.
Her guilty conscience must have been to blame—guilty because as much as she longed to see her beloved papa, she hadn’t missed Connor once since she had left the jungle. He had problems, she knew, but he had always done his best to be good to her. She hadn’t been able to fall in love with him, but that didn’t mean another woman could not. He was smart, handsome.
Now that she’d left and had married someone else, he’d soon forget all about her.
Footfalls echoed just then across the flagstones of the conservatory. “Somehow I suspected that I might find you here.”
Expecting Jack, Eden looked over, but was jarred to find that instead of her husband, it was the dashing man in the red waistcoat who had danced with her briefly in the ballroom.
The flash of his white teeth gleamed in the twilight as he strolled toward her, his hands in his pockets. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “I saw you slip away. My dear lady, a true beauty can no sooner abscond from a ballroom unnoticed than the sun can slip behind the clouds without turning the whole world below it a dull, dull gray. I thought perhaps we could talk for a moment—oh, dear, but you seem distressed. May I be of use?”
“No. Thank you.” She straightened up and flicked the water off her fingers. “Forgive me, have we met?”
“Formally, no. But we are connected.”
“We are?”
“Yes.”
She lifted her chin to meet his gaze as he joined her—uninvited, but too confident to care.
He propped his foot on the fountain’s stone bench and posed with an elbow resting on his knee. “Just now in the ballroom, I heard someone say that you are the famed Dr. Farraday’s daughter.”
“Yes, I am.”
He smiled broadly. “My grandfather was your father’s patron for ages.”
“Old Lord Pembrooke?” she exclaimed.
He laughed. “Yes! I am his heir.”
“You’re the new Lord Pembrooke—the rakehell earl?” she blurted out, then bit her lip and blushed.
Her foreknowledge of his nickname seemed to fill him with vain pleasure. “Ah, you know, I have simply no idea why they call me that. Do you?”
She smiled wryly. “Lord Pembrooke, would you believe that you are actually the reason that I am in London?”
“What’s this?” he asked, apparently fascinated by the statement. He lowered himself slowly to sit beside her. He leaned nearer; Eden pulled back.
“You cut my father’s funding,” she informed him, but she had no intention of explaining all the details of her original plan—how she had set out on The Winds of Fortune to bring samples of her father’s work to London to show the rakehell earl, so that he might be persuaded to reinstate Papa’s grant.
That had been ages ago.
“Cut your father’s funding…?” He was feigning innocence of his misdeed. “I did? No, surely. Why should I do that?”
“You were building a new country house, I believe, and upon your inheritance instructed your solicitor to tell all the artists and scholars your grandfather commissioned to—I think your exact words were—go hang.”
“Ahh, yes. Now it’s coming back to me.” He quit lying as he realized she was smarter than she looked. There was an awkward moment as he tapped his lip. Then he gave her a smile of mild contrition and stood once more, facing her. “Perhaps we can do something to rectify this sad state of affairs, for I assure you, if I had known the naturalist’s daughter was such a rare flower herself, I should have been persuaded instantly to extend Dr. Farraday’s grant.”
“My father doesn’t throw himself on any man’s mercy, my lord, and though I’m heartened to hear you’d reconsider for my sake, it won’t be necessary.”
“Are you sure about that?” he murmured, his rakish smile widening suggestively.
“Oh, yes, I’m sure. My husband, you see, is richer than Croesus. He’ll fund Papa’s research henceforth.”
“Oh, really?” he asked with a haughty snort. “Anyone I know?”
“I’m not sure,” Eden said sweetly, “but I can introduce you if you like. He’s standing right behind you.”
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
The Spanish ambassador had merely prodded him with insulting questions, but in the space of time it had taken Jack to get rid of the man and find Eden, a horrifying realization had dawned on him regarding this stupid rumor.
If Society thought that Jack wasn’t bedding his luscious young wife, and his wife, in turn, was pregnant—and Jack, me
anwhile, was gone away for months to South America—then the next question the ton would start asking was obvious: Who had fathered the baby?
The mere thought of this question ever being asked about his legitimate child—this baby he already loved without ever having yet laid eyes on it—made Jack utterly sick to his stomach.
The burden of bastardy had always been a sore spot for him, but to think that it would befall his innocent unborn child, too, had him shaken up, raw with emotion. He knew firsthand the suffering, loneliness, and humiliation already in store for his son or daughter if he did not find a way to repair this situation immediately.
Though the babe had barely just been conceived, it already seemed fated, through no fault of its own, to come into the world under the same dark cloud of suspicion and doubt that Jack had been cursed with himself.
Labeled a bastard. Made an outcast.
Just like him.
The injustice of it fired his sense of outrage.
It would not stand.
Better if he had locked Eden away in the highest tower of his Irish castle than allow her actions to harm their child before it was even born.
Aye, in one sense this could be viewed as her fault.
If Eden had not held a grudge for so long and denied him her bed, then Lisette would not have made a move on him; Jack wouldn’t have had to dismiss the maid, and the rumor would never have started.
Bloody women and their selfish ways, he thought, too angry to care if he was being irrational.
His mother. Maura.
Now this.
It hurt to think that Eden might possess a trace of their same frailty.
His face had drained of color as he had stalked through the ballroom in search of his wife. The music had become a raucous dissonance and Jack had felt as though everyone he passed was staring at him, whispering about him.
Unwanted.
It did not help matters that his last glimpse of his wife before the ambassador had stopped him had been of Eden surrounded by smooth-talking rogues and scheming bachelors.
Did she not know she was nothing to them but fresh meat?
Where the hell had she gone?
Jack could feel himself ready to go on a rampage.
Then he had stepped into the conservatory and saw her talking alone with another man—and something inside of him snapped.
“Wonderful” Jack who had been so tame these past weeks, keeping his hands off, escorting her to all her stupid parties, was suddenly swept aside as though by a massive wave at sea.
Swept overboard.
In his place stood Black-Jack Knight in all his cutthroat pride and angry glory, and it was this side of him that the luckless Lord Pembrooke turned around to meet.
On eye level with Jack’s chin, the rakehell earl gulped and looked up slowly.
Jack narrowed his eyes.
“Er, pardon,” Pembrooke said in a slightly strangled tone. “I m-meant no offense, sir. Perhaps I should be going—”
The little weasel darted past him, trying to flee. Jack’s hand shot out, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck.
Seizing hold of the back of the fop’s coat collar and of his trouser waistband, Jack lifted him off the ground and sent him sailing into the fountain with a huge splash.
Then he dusted his hands off lightly. “None taken.” Jack looked at his wife, who had leaped to her feet and stood staring at him in openmouthed shock. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward the doorway.
“Jack!”
Behind them, Lord Pembrooke was climbing out of the fountain, sputtering and cursing, soaked.
“What are you doing?” Eden cried. “Have you lost your mind?”
He didn’t look back at her, striding ahead with single-minded purpose. “Forget him. We’re leaving. You and I are going to have a little talk.”
“What on earth—? Wait, my other glove—”
“Leave it. We’re going home.”
“Jack, y-you threw him in the fountain!”
“Yes,” he said. It had felt good. At least it had made him a little less livid.
She planted her feet, refusing to budge. “What is going on?”
He turned and glared at her. “I’ll tell you what’s going on, love. Your dancing days are over.”
“What, are you jealous?”
“Oh, I don’t know. The last I saw you, you were in the ballroom surrounded by leering admirers, then you disappeared, now I find you in here having a nice, cozy tête-à-tête with another man. I think I have a right to be a little peeved, dear.”
“It wasn’t a tête-à-tête! I was waiting for you. It wasn’t as though I invited him here—he followed me. You told me that if I ever saw you with the Spaniard, I should stay away! I was following your orders!”
“He had no right to speak to you without asking my permission.”
She heaved a sigh, rolled her eyes, and seemed to strive for patience. “Do you even know who that was? He had a reason to speak to me. Remember my father’s patron—”
“I don’t care,” he cut her off. “I’m going to tell you something. And I want you to listen well.”
Her green eyes scanned his face, her expression turning slightly intimidated as he fixed her with a brooding stare. “What?”
“If any man touches you while I’m away, he’s dead when I get back. Do you understand me?”
She gazed at him with a look of hurt at the mere suggestion that she would ever be unfaithful.
Aye, she might feel that way now, but six months was plenty of time for a beautiful young woman to begin to feel neglected and look elsewhere for company.
“Furthermore, I don’t want you dancing,” he ordered. I will not have another man’s hands all over my wife.”
Her jaw clenched, her hurt expression hardened to one of angry defiance. “Fine, master. I’ll never dance again.”
“Good,” he said through gritted teeth. “Now, let’s go home.”
He turned away and continued pulling her along behind him by her hand like a wayward child. Some might argue that’s all women really were. They reached the ballroom and forged on through the crowd.
“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” she demanded.
“We’ll talk in the carriage.”
“My first ball, and I can’t believe the night’s already ruined.”
“You’ll live. Besides,” he added, ignoring her indignant huff, “it’s our last night together before I go. I’ve no desire to spend it with these fools. Do you?”
Eden didn’t answer, too cross at him for ruining the night.
Perhaps when they were alone and he’d had a few puffs on one of his favorite cigars to help him calm down, as he sometimes did when he was in a mood, the man would listen to reason.
Never had she suspected that her husband would prove to be such a jealous man. He was as bad as Connor! After last night, how could he think she could ever have the slightest interest in anyone but him? But whatever the reason, Jack had worked himself into such a state that she knew it was pointless to argue.
As he dragged her by her gloveless hand back through the ballroom toward the exit, she noticed him watching everyone, giving the evil eye to ladies who seemed to be engaged in gossip, and shooting downright dirty looks at the men.
If she didn’t know better, she would have pronounced him thoroughly paranoid. What on earth had gotten into him?
She had to lift up the hem of her skirts to keep from tripping as he pulled her along briskly toward the exit. The milling crowd parted ahead of them; Jack’s fierce stare chased the other guests out of his path. Eden pasted on a hapless smile, trying to pretend everything was fine, but her husband’s black scowl no doubt told the world that something was seriously amiss.
If only she knew what it was!
She got the feeling there was more to this than his ire about silly Lord Pembrooke.
They were almost to the exit when a mismatched couple stepped into their path—Eden instantly thou
ght that the pair were father and daughter.
The little white-haired man was frail and elderly, with a cane; shepherding him along with ill-concealed impatience was a glamorous dark-eyed brunette who glittered in diamonds.
Jack stopped in his tracks so abruptly that Eden bumped her nose on his arm. “Ow.”
She shot him an irritated glance at the lack of warning, only to notice the shock of recognition that flashed across his face.
Before them, the glittering lady’s reaction was the same. Her rouged lips had parted in surprise; now the diamonds on her tiara twinkled as she angled her head down, looking Jack over in a slow perusal from his head to his feet, and then back up again.
“Why, mercy me!” she exclaimed in a breathy tone. “If it isn’t Jack Knight!”
Well! I never, Eden thought in offense. Perhaps it was her turn to be jealous. She frowned at the woman’s flare of interest in her stallion of a husband.
Jack was clearly put off, too. He bristled and kept his distance. “Indeed. It’s been a long time. Lord Avonworth.” He gave the ancient fellow a slight bow. “I hope you are in good health.”
Avonworth? Eden tried to place the title.
The woman patted her doddering father’s arm. “I do my best to take care of him.”
“What?” the old fellow yelled, cupping his ear. “Who are you, young man?”
Jack just looked at him, as though biting his tongue to stop the reply he would have liked to have given.
Eden waited, her brow furrowed, as the woman once again trailed a decidedly lusting gaze over her husband.
“I heard you were back,” she purred. “You look good, John. Life must be treating you well. I hear that you’re very successful.”
John? Eden looked at him, raising an eyebrow.
He glanced drily at her, as though guessing her thoughts.
“Yes, Maura, life’s been very good to me—recently, in particular. For, you see, a few months ago, it sent this angel into my path.”
Maura? Good Lord! His first love. Now that she knew, Eden felt much better, indeed, as Jack drew her closer, including her in the conversation.