Fever Dreams

by Nicole Jordan

  “Please stop, you two,” Eve said, feeling a blush rise to her cheeks. “I am hardly the paragon you are describing.”

  Claire replied with a sigh, “I wish I had even a tiny bit of your ease and polish, Eve.”

  “You will. It simply takes practice. I have had years to hone my drawing-room skills. Now enough about me. We are here to discuss finding Ryder a bride.” Eve glanced down at her lists. “I should also like to review your qualifications as a prospective husband so I can be certain to present you in the best possible light when I introduce you to marital candidates.”

  Ryder’s eyebrow shot up. “You can hardly expect me to boast about my laurels. How ungentlemanly that would be.”

  Cecil gave a snort of laughter while his twin hid a smile. “I think Sir Alex has admirable qualifications,” Claire said firmly. “He is very handsome and manly, for one thing.”

  Eve sent Claire a curious glance, surprised that her demure young sister would have the nerve to comment on a man’s physical endowments.

  “You can add courageous,” Cecil broke in. “He’s a genuine hero. And filthy rich. He’s the possessor of an immense fortune.”

  “And kind,” Claire added softly, favoring Ryder with a sweet smile.

  Eve paused in her writing, her expression bemused. She had not included kindness on her initial list, but it was indeed one of Ryder’s best qualities. His warm friendship with the twins was clear evidence of his genuine kindness. He spoke to Cecil as an equal, with none of the condescension that would have mortified a young man of nineteen. And Ryder drew Claire out of her shell so that she lost her shyness—which no male except her brother seemed able to do.

  “Ah, yes, I am a virtual saint to children and animals,” Ryder admitted, his voice smooth and amused.

  “And bold,” Cecil added. With a swift glance across the room, he lowered his voice in a stage whisper. “How many chaps do you know who would go up against Aunt Drucilla?”

  At that, Drucilla’s head came up, and she shot the boy a regal glare, but Cecil only flashed an innocent grin.

  Boldness was indeed a cornerstone of Ryder’s character, Eve acknowledged, contemplating him thoughtfully.

  “What?” he asked, interrupting her reflections. “I have to temper my boldness as well as my intensity?”

  Eve hesitated. She herself admired Ryder’s boldness, but then she’d been reared in the less sheltered society of Cyrene and had known him since she was a girl.

  “You should attempt it,” she said seriously, “since boldness can be intimidating to young ladies fresh out of the schoolroom. There is an art to courting, Sir Alex,” Eve added more lightly. “The most appealing suitor is a model of devotion and charm, dancing attendance upon the ladies as if they were the sole reason for his existence. And you will have to learn to conduct a polished flirtation in the accepted style of London drawing rooms.”

  Ryder feigned a shudder. “My soul shrivels at the prospect.”

  A smile curved her lips. “But you promised to heed my advice,” she reminded him.

  “So I did.”

  Still smiling, Eve gathered her lists and rose to her feet. “Well, I think that is enough for one morning. I should be able to make up a list of suitable candidates to review with you. Now, why don’t you and the twins go on your outing?”

  Cecil jumped up with alacrity, already having grown restless with the lack of activity. Eve knew how eager he was to escape the household of females, and more keenly, to appear a man about town.

  She hoped he behaved himself, and that he would remain close to his sister to ensure propriety. Since Ryder was to be their sole chaperone for the day, she had arranged to have her own abigail, Janet, attend Claire for the afternoon, but she wanted the chance to tactfully phrase her concerns to Ryder.

  When Claire went to fetch her bonnet and pelisse and Cecil his hat and gloves, Eve accompanied him to the front door.

  “It is kind of you,” she murmured then, “to pay Cecil and Claire such attention and take them sightseeing when you must have more important matters to occupy your time.”

  Ryder shook his head. “Kindness has little to do with it. I am glad for their company. I have few acquaintances in London whom I really enjoy, as I do the twins. Are you certain you won’t come with us?”

  She wished she could accompany them, since it was sure to be pleasurable. “I cannot, I’m afraid, since I am already pledged to make several calls with the aunts. But I hope you will keep a close eye on Cecil. He is always ripe for trouble.”

  “I promise I will watch over them like a mother hen,” Ryder said.

  Eve hesitated. “And I trust you will have a care for Claire’s reputation. It will not do for her to be seen alone about town with you.”

  A wry smile flickered at the corner of Ryder’s mouth. “How well I know.”

  Just then the twins joined them with Janet in tow.

  “Eve is more protective than any mama hen,” Cecil apologized to Ryder, evidently having overheard her warning.

  “Perhaps so,” Eve retorted lightly, “but I am acting in place of your mother. Mama conferred the duty on me when she sent you here.”

  “I am old enough to take care of myself,” Cecil complained.

  Reaching up affectionately, Eve smoothed an errant lock of her brother’s blond hair back into place. “Then pray devote your efforts to looking after your sister.”

  “I know,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Claire is exactly my age, but she’s a girl.”

  “ ‘A lady’s reputation is a fragile thing,’ ” Claire quoted their mother in an arch tone before wrinkling her nose. “Mama does not wholly approve of my friendship with Sir Alex, either, but I would not shun a friend simply to accommodate society’s stuffy opinions—any more than Eve would.”

  Ryder shot Eve an amused glance. “It seems your radical notions have rubbed off on your sister,” he remarked.

  At the devils dancing in his eyes, Eve felt her breath falter, while her heart did another deplorable little somersault. She took a reflexive step back, unable to manage a reply other than to wish them a good outing.

  She watched as Ryder, after giving her a brief bow, whisked the twins and maid out of the house to his waiting town carriage. Then Eve returned to the morning room.

  She was glad he was gone, for she felt absurdly unnerved by his intense masculinity, even when he was behaving with perfect propriety.

  “At last he is gone,” Drucilla echoed when Eve entered the room. “I cannot believe you entertained that man longer than the correct fifteen minutes, Eve.”

  “He seems quite well spoken, at least,” Beatrice observed. “His manners are most amiable.”

  Drucilla shot her sister a sharp look. “Surely you have not allowed yourself to be taken in by that sly devil.”

  Pressing her lips together stubbornly, Beatrice clipped a thread with her sister’s new gold scissors. “I suppose I have at that. I may be getting old and dotty, Drucilla, but I can still appreciate a fine figure of a man. And you must admit Sir Alex is that. He is a striking fellow—in a dark, rakish sort of way.”

  “I will admit nothing of the kind,” Drucilla said, stiffening. “But I can see there is to be no reasoning with you. Either of you.”

  With a disdainful glance at Eve, Drucilla rose and swept from the room.

  Muttering mutinously under her breath, Beatrice made a face at her sister’s retreating back, then caught herself and sent Eve a sheepish look. “After this morning, Eve, I am no longer certain you are making such a grave mistake with Sir Alex, as Drucilla believes. But of course my opinion matters little. You had best determine a way to win her over, for we will have no peace in this house otherwise.”

  “I know, Beatrice,” Eve said solemnly, though finding it hard not to smile.

  Her rebellion short-lived, Beatrice gathered up her embroidery, including Ryder’s gifts, and stood.

  When Beatrice had followed her sister from the room, Eve couldn’t help l
aughing softly to herself as she resumed her place at her writing desk. Ryder had made a conquest, she was certain. Even the elderly Lady Beatrice was not immune to his masculine appeal—any more than she was.

  Drucilla, on the other hand, was a force to be reckoned with, for once she had made up her mind, it was difficult to change. She was just as opinionated as her only nephew had been, perhaps more so.

  Eve’s smile suddenly faded at the thought of her late husband. Richard, for all his vaunted rank and power, had been a cold, unfeeling man, focused only on his own desires. He’d purchased her as a broodmare and hostess and expected her to be nothing more than an ornament for his arm, pretty but entirely useless.

  Granted, he took pride in her social skills and found great pleasure in showing her off to his peers. For the Earl and Countess of Hayden, London had been an endless glittering round of balls and dinners and fetes, a milieu in which Eve excelled, since she had been raised from birth to be a nobleman’s wife. At the Hayden family seat in Hertfordshire, she was allowed to play lady of the manor, delivering jellies and dispensing small boons to the tenant farmers.

  From all outward appearances, her life of grandeur and gaiety had seemed perfect. But it was a facade, an empty existence that had no heart, no soul, no meaning.

  Since Richard’s death, Eve had tried to make up in small measure for all those wasted years, striving to make a contribution that would benefit people other than herself.

  Richard had never understood or condoned her longing to achieve something of more value than planning the next party. To him, her worth had been measured solely by the social consequence she had brought him. That, and her ability to carry on his bloodline by giving him a son and heir—which sorrowfully had never happened.

  It was a failure that Richard had never let her forget. She’d endured his haranguing in silence, but her biggest regret was that she had never conceived.

  Remembering how her hopes had ultimately shriveled and died, Eve stared blindly down at the notes in her hand. She had always wanted children, but she was likely barren. Thus there was no sound reason for her ever to reenter the prison of matrimony.

  She had resigned herself to reality—that the best years of her life were over, devoted to a marriage of convenience that had been infinitely more convenient for her husband than for her.

  Stop it! Eve commanded herself silently. You cannot spend the rest of your life dwelling on the past.

  She had vowed that she wouldn’t look back or punish herself for making the only choice possible at the time, even if sometimes she ached for what she had given up.

  Eve suddenly shook herself out of her morose thoughts. The sudden quiet of the house had left her feeling a bit blue-deviled, that was all.

  She was perfectly content with her life now. She had Richard’s aunts and the twins to keep her company. She had no reason to feel lonely, even if the twins were a little too young and the aunts a little too old to be kindred spirits. She had numerous acquaintances, many of whom she called true friends. And she could keep herself occupied with an estimable ambition, giving her sister the life she herself had missed: the opportunity to make a match based on mutual respect and caring.

  Now she also had to inventory prospective brides for Ryder. The task might actually be enjoyable if she could manage to quell her unwonted attraction for him.

  From now on, though, she would maintain a proper reserve between them while she focused solely on fulfilling her pledge.

  Fortunately there was no reason for her to become more intimately involved with Ryder than she already was. She had defended him to the aunts this morning, even when he hadn’t needed defending, but he’d proven he was perfectly capable of fighting his own battles.

  It remained only for her to identify suitable marital candidates and introduce him. Then she could step out of the way and let him pursue a courtship on his own…no matter the hollow, unsettling pang of discontent that prospect gave her.

  Until then, she intended to keep her guard up with Ryder, so there would be no repetitions of these ridiculous feminine yearnings he stirred in her.

  “I think you have made a good beginning with Eve,” Claire murmured softly as she stood with Ryder at a parapet wall of the Tower of London.

  Thus far, Cecil had failed to properly chaperone his twin sister as he’d promised, having raced off numerous times to investigate sights that caught his interest. At the moment the lad was pointing out the River Thames below to the awed maidservant, Janet, leaving Claire alone with Ryder. Yet they were surrounded by a crowd of sightseers, so there was no real impropriety.

  “Good enough, I suppose,” Ryder agreed, smiling without humor. All during his interview with Eve this morning, he’d felt himself chafing at the game he was being forced to play with her. “It goes against the grain, though, to enact such a deception on your sister.”

  “But it is for a good cause,” Claire replied. “You will never win her otherwise.”

  His humor improving, he glanced down at Claire. “You are very wise for a girl of your age, aren’t you, my lady?”

  She dimpled prettily. “I think I might be, at least in this instance. But I know you will make Eve happy in the long run, unlike her first husband, who saw her only as a prize possession. You want Eve to be happy, isn’t that so, Sir Alex?”

  “Yes, of course I want her to be happy.”

  “Well then, you must try to be patient and let things take their course.”

  With those quiet words, Claire moved away to join Cecil and Janet, leaving Ryder rooted to the spot. Emotion came to him in an uncomfortable flood as he stood mired in his own reflections.

  Before hearing Claire’s confidences yesterday, he had never really considered how Eve had fared in her marriage—whether or not she was happy. He’d been too virulently jealous to allow himself to contemplate her life with another man. It galled him to think that the bastard who’d purchased her had treated her as some prize possession.

  And yet haven’t I done the same? Ryder reflected, his chest constricting with unfamiliar guilt.

  For nearly half his lifetime, he’d been driven by a primitive need to possess Eve. Admittedly, he’d always thought of her as a golden princess in an ivory tower, an object to be won. Not a mortal flesh-and-blood woman with hopes and desires and dreams of her own. Dreams that had been shattered when she was compelled to marry to save her family. As bitter as he’d been at the time, Ryder acknowledged, he’d had to respect her for making such a sacrifice.

  But had he ever really considered her happiness? What she wanted?

  His fingers gripped the parapet as he realized how badly he wanted for Eve to be happy. And for the first time ever, he was feeling qualms about his own selfish motives for winning her hand in marriage. He’d been determined to prove his social legitimacy, and more keenly, to satisfy his physical desire for Eve. Both reasons made him no better than her bloody late husband.

  A soft oath escaped Ryder’s lips at the guilt knifing him. He didn’t want to push Eve into another marriage of convenience. He wanted her to wed him of her own free will. Yet his task would be far harder than he’d ever imagined, given the substantial defenses Eve had erected around herself.

  Just then Claire glanced over her shoulder, her searching gaze meeting his. Ryder sent her a faint smile of reassurance before his jaw knotted.

  Despite his reservations about the deception, he knew how critical it was to camouflage his pursuit of Eve and was indeed glad that he’d agree to a clandestine strategy of courting her.

  One thing was certain, though. If he hoped to win Eve for his own, he would have to begin by showing her that he wasn’t like her bastard husband or any of the other covetous men who were avidly pursuing her now that she was widowed. But for damned sure, he had to start figuring out how he could achieve Eve’s happiness rather than simply trying to realize his own.

  Chapter

  Four

  The dream was different this time. Eve’s pleasur
e was his only purpose.

  Laying her down on the sun-warmed grass, he used his hands and mouth until she was gasping for breath, pleading with him to take her. He felt a tantalizing gentleness wrap around his heart when she responded so ardently. Eve was panting for him, clutching fiercely at his shoulders, throwing her head back in wild abandon, sobbing with joy as he plunged inside her. Moments later she cried out, a high, keening pleasure sound. Desire surged through him, as intense as any he’d ever felt—

  Ryder woke suddenly, his heart racing, his body pulsing, his erection throbbing. When he recognized his new bedchamber in the gray light of dawn, he grimaced and let his head fall back against the pillows.

  His body still ached with hunger for Eve. A fire still smoldered low in his belly, swelling his groin, while beneath the sheets, his manhood strained in hot, unrelieved arousal.

  With resignation, Ryder wrapped his fingers around his heavy shaft and stroked in hard, quick rhythm, at the same time recalling his dream: how he had made Eve sob with ecstasy, how he had given her happiness.

  The fantasy took him by storm, and in only a moment he was shuddering with physical release, his hot seed spurting violently into his hand as he spent himself in scalding bursts.

  Yet the relief was only temporary, Ryder knew, gritting his teeth to contain his ragged breaths. The explosion powerful but not fulfilling. His desire for Eve was undiminished.

  Because nothing would ever satisfy him except having her for his own.

  When he was admitted to Eve’s house across the square three hours later, Ryder was surprised to be shown not to the cheerful morning parlor but to the formal drawing room, which bespoke elegance and wealth from the gilded plasterwork to the excellent paintings to the brocade and gilt furniture.

  It was because Eve already had a caller, Ryder deduced, feeling his hackles rise. A tall, beefy, fair-haired gentleman sat on the settee next to her, attempting to hold her hand, even in view of her entire family.

  She rose immediately when Ryder entered and came forward with a smile that was tinged with relief.