Fever Dreams

by Nicole Jordan

  He would never be able to let Eve go now. Never be able to control this fierce want, this yearning to bury himself so deeply he could never pull free.

  Somehow, some way, he would make Eve feel the same unquenchable yearning for him.

  Chapter

  Ten

  He brought her home shortly before dawn. After slipping upstairs to her bedchamber, Eve undressed and climbed into bed. For a long while she lay there dreamily as remembered images of her night with Ryder swirled in her mind: The tenderness and the heat. How she had trembled in his arms. The way his hands had drifted over her skin as though she were something lovely and precious. The stunning way he had branded her with the fervor of his body and the fire of his mouth.

  He was an expert at making her come alive in ways she’d never known were possible in her entire six years of marriage. Ryder had given her experiences, made her feel sensations—desire, passion, fulfillment—more vivid, more overwhelming than she could ever have imagined. He had seen things in her she had never seen in herself.

  Eve closed her eyes, hugging the splendid memories to herself. The marvel of the wonderful night made her throat ache. And when she finally slept, her dreams of Ryder were touched by a wild enchantment.

  She woke an hour later, feeling a twinging ache between her thighs from her unaccustomed carnal exertions. As she rose and rang for a bath, Eve smiled a shy, secretive smile. Her discomfort now was nothing like the painful rawness she’d felt every time after her husband was done with her, but merely a pleasurable reminder of Ryder’s incredible lovemaking.

  Several times last night, he had offered to stop in order to give her body a respite, but she hadn’t wanted to waste a moment of their interlude. She had been so wanton, so needy, she felt positively wicked.

  Yet she also felt free and intensely alive.

  She’d never felt alive as a woman before, Eve realized. Never like now. The sense of power Ryder had given her was liberating.

  It had been the most intense experience of her life. For a brief moment Ryder had turned her world upside down. She hadn’t expected to wake up with this happiness unfurling inside her, though. She felt giddy and foolish and tingly all over.

  Until disappointment suddenly washed over her. Now that their night was over, Eve reminded herself, she had to return to reality. Ryder had fulfilled his pledge to help her overcome her fear, so there was no reason for any further physical intimacy between them…even if she caught herself yearning for it.

  There was not even the issue of her sister to come between them, since Ryder had confessed he had no real desire to marry Claire, but had only used the threat as leverage to convince Eve to let him show her passion.

  Eve had been lying beneath him, gasping for breath after their final bout of lovemaking, when Ryder raised his fingertips to stroke her flushed cheek.

  “You can’t seriously think I feel any romantic inclinations toward your sister,” he murmured, gazing solemnly down at her. “Claire is lovely and sweet, but a mere girl—like a younger sister to me. I can’t begin to picture her as my bride. Nor does she have the slightest intention of wedding me. She only made the suggestion in passing because she feels comfortable with me and would rather be spared the ordeal of finding herself a husband.”

  Eve couldn’t be upset at Ryder for coercing her to do what she had wanted all along. And if she were wise, she would admit it was just as well that their illicit liaison would be so short-lived.

  She couldn’t risk the scandal of being discovered with Ryder. But more important, she was afraid of creating any deeper intimacy between them. Ryder stirred her emotions as well as her blood, and she didn’t dare become any more involved with him. Especially when he was set on taking another woman for his wife. It would leave her much too vulnerable.

  No, Eve resolved as her abigail helped her to finish dressing, she would have to be content with their one magical night together.

  When she came downstairs, however, she discovered that Ryder was already ensconced in the morning room along with her siblings and the aunts. Eve’s heart began to hammer when she saw him sitting near the bay window, immaculately dressed in a well-tailored blue coat and buff pantaloons.

  She tried to look away, afraid that her family would guess what scandalous acts she had been engaged in with Ryder. But he caught and held her gaze, as if wanting her to remember who had held her and caressed her and driven her wild for much of the night.

  Instantly Eve was flooded with the delicious memory of their joining. He had been inside of her, a part of her, melding in the most intimate way conceivable.

  Eve shook herself sternly as she advanced into the room. When she breathlessly apologized for sleeping so late, however, Beatrice asked in all innocence, “Are you sickening for something, my dear? You look a trifle flushed.”

  Ryder responded with barely a hint of a smile, but Eve did her best to ignore him. Then he leaned back in his chair, stretching his long legs and crossing them at the ankles while clasping his hands casually over his stomach.

  Suddenly all Eve could think about was the incredible tenderness of his hands, hands that were loving and gentle and relentless as they drove her to a peak of passion she had never before experienced and might never feel again.

  “No, I am well, Beatrice,” Eve prevaricated, scolding herself. “I have merely had too many late nights at balls and parties, I expect.”

  Deliberately Eve crossed the room and settled at her writing desk to attend to her correspondence, feeling more comfortable with her back to Ryder.

  Yet Cecil wouldn’t allow her to remain excluded from the conversation for long. They had been discussing the upcoming house party at Hayden Park, Eve learned shortly. When Cecil asked her how the plans were going, she explained that she had sent out two dozen cards of invitation and received acceptances from most.

  “You forgot to send Sir Alex a card,” Cecil prodded, “although no doubt it was merely an oversight, since he doesn’t need a formal invitation.”

  Eve shot her brother a quelling glance, knowing he was deliberately stirring up trouble. “Sir Alex was not sent an invitation because I don’t think it appropriate that he attend.”

  “Oh,” Ryder said. “Why not?”

  Swiveling in her chair, she forced herself to look him squarely in the eye. “Because everyone will think you are courting Claire, and the notoriety will do her reputation no good. You have become such a favorite with the gossip rags that even your smallest action is commented upon. Moreover, it will hurt Claire’s standing with her other suitors if they believe you are competing for her hand.”

  “I can go merely as a friend of the family.”

  “I think it best if you don’t come,” Eve insisted.

  When Ryder simply studied her intently, she felt her cheeks grow warm. She didn’t want to explain why she was so reluctant to have him attend the house party.

  The truth was, she was unnerved by the reckless, rebellious emotions Ryder made her feel…the passion, the wanton desire, the secret yearning. Her explosive reaction to his slightest touch made it dangerous to be in such close proximity of him for a full sennight. Much too dangerous.

  She wasn’t being cowardly, Eve told herself firmly. She was simply removing herself from temptation. She hoped that an entire week apart from Ryder would allow her to bring her errant feelings for him back under control.

  “I don’t like the idea of you being away for so long without protection,” Ryder observed when she didn’t answer.

  “Mr. Macklin has agreed to come. His protection should be enough.”

  She was pleased at how easily Beau Macklin had slipped into their routine during the last few days, as if he had always been a part of the household. Macky normally adhered quite properly to his role of footman, but when he was “on duty” with just the family present, he regaled them with tales of his days in the theater, which frequently had them shaking with laughter. Even Drucilla relaxed her imperious attitude when subjected
to Macky’s infectious wit.

  Eve wasn’t surprised by his success. He appeared younger than Ryder by several years, yet she suspected Macky’s roguish charm, combined with his curling chestnut hair and handsome visage, made him a great favorite with females of any age.

  “Nevertheless, I will be attending,” Ryder said with the cool assurance of a man who inevitably got his own way.

  Eve pressed her lips together, deciding this was not the best time to argue the issue. Feeling a little helpless, however, she couldn’t stop wondering how her life had suddenly spun so far out of control.

  Since the recent attempt to kill her, she was still peering nervously at shadows, despite the precautions Ryder had put in place. She couldn’t even switch rooms in her own house without a footman accompanying her and watching over her every step.

  The routine Ryder had instituted included his meeting with his men each day to review Eve’s social plans, which he changed frequently without warning, so she wouldn’t seem too predictable. Additionally, Ryder insisted that Eve alter all her regular habits and keep her calls and outings to a minimum, and most critically, that he be present whenever guests were permitted in the house.

  It was her lack of control that unsettled Eve even more than the threat to her safety. In the year since Richard’s death, she had been able to manage her life much to her satisfaction—and those of her relatives as well. But Ryder had changed all that. From the moment he’d moved in across the square, she had continually been caught off guard.

  He had insinuated himself into her life, running completely tame in her house. And the prospect of enduring the further enforced intimacy of a house party with him was a little dismaying.

  Given Ryder’s persistence, though, Eve acknowledged, it was possible she would lose that battle, just as she had lost the one over her fear of passion.

  If she was forced to invite him, she would have to make certain that they returned to a professional footing by including some of the ladies on his bride list. She might even go so far as to include Phoebe Ferris-Jones, Eve thought a trifle morosely. The flame-haired widow could be counted on to keep Ryder occupied with her pursuit of him. Or perhaps she should invite her friend Lydia, Lady Keeling. Lydia was still keenly interested in becoming Lady Ryder.

  As for the other younger debutantes on his list, Eve decided it would not be wise to include them, since she had no desire to provide competition for Claire.

  Just then, the Hayden butler brought in the morning post on a silver salver and presented it to Eve at her desk. Thanking him with a smile, she sorted through the letters and invitations.

  “Are any of those for me, my dear?” Beatrice asked, rising from the settee to come peer over Eve’s shoulder.

  “Yes, there are two for you and several for Drucilla. And one for Claire.”

  As Eve stood to deliver the missives to the other ladies, she saw Beatrice adjust her spectacles, the better to read. But the day had turned gray again, so there was no sunlight streaming through the tall windows. Muttering under her breath about her failing eyesight, Beatrice struck a flint and lit the lamp on the desktop just as Eve was returning to her chair.

  Suddenly, right before Eve’s shocked eyes, the lamp’s glass casing exploded, scattering drops of flaming oil over everything in a three-foot radius, including the elderly aunt. As the right sleeve and skirt of her muslin morning gown caught fire, Beatrice screamed in terror and spun in a frantic circle, trying to evade the flames.

  Before Eve could even think what to do, Ryder had leaped across the room and pushed the shrieking old lady to the carpet. His reflexes swifter than thought, he grabbed a woolen throw rug from a nearby armchair and flung it over Beatrice’s prostrate form, trying to smother the flames.

  At almost the same instant, Macky came racing into the room and began beating out the small fires ignited wherever else the flaming oil had landed.

  Both men succeeded in accomplishing their tasks, stamping out the final smoldering sparks, but Beatrice was still whimpering hysterically. Jolted out of her paralysis, Eve rushed to her side and knelt beside the terrified woman, the stench of burning muslin acrid in her nostrils.

  Struggling to control her own fear, she gathered Beatrice carefully in her arms, crooning soft assurances over and over again as she smoothed back the aunt’s silver hair. “It’s over, my dear. We’re here. Nothing more will harm you.”

  Her quiet murmurings had only the slightest calming effect. Covering her face with her hands, Beatrice burst into tears and lay there, huddled in a fetal ball in Eve’s arms, rocking back and forth, making pitiful little mewling sounds.

  Looking up, Eve met Ryder’s concerned gaze over the elderly lady’s trembling form. A coldness seized Eve when she realized how near to disaster they had come. The danger was over now, but Beatrice could have been burned alive if not for Ryder’s swift action.

  Eve closed her eyes, nearly sick with relief.

  “We should get Lady Beatrice upstairs to bed,” Ryder said quietly when her whimpers finally died down, “so that her burns can be examined.”

  “Yes,” Drucilla rasped hoarsely, hovering over her sister. Her usual elegant features were white. And Claire and Cecil stood back a few steps, looking as helpless as Eve felt.

  Unburdened by the same helplessness, Macky stepped forward with alacrity. Bending, he picked Beatrice up in his arms as if she weighed no more than goosedown.

  “Shall I take her to her bedchamber, my lady?” he asked Eve.

  “Yes, please.”

  Claire moved to Macky’s side and took the elderly lady’s limp hand. “I will come with you, Aunt Beatrice,” she said softly.

  When Ryder helped Eve to her feet, she started to follow Macky just as Drucilla and Claire were doing.

  But then Drucilla paused and turned back to Ryder, her voice still shaken. “You saved my sister’s life, Sir Alex. I don’t know how we can ever thank you.”

  Ryder shook his head gravely. “You needn’t thank me, Lady Wykfield. I regret we didn’t prevent it from happening in the first place.”

  Drucilla pressed her lips together and swallowed hard, as if choking back tears. But then she stiffened her spine regally and turned to march from the room in Macky’s wake.

  Managing a fleeting smile of gratitude for Ryder, Eve accompanied the others upstairs, where she rang for Beatrice’s abigail and the Hayden housekeeper, who had some skill with medicinal remedies. Macky was banned from the room while the ladies helped change the injured aunt’s gown and administer to her burns with cold compresses and various ointments to relieve the pain, as well as laudanum to help her sleep. The skin of her right arm and shoulder had been singed, but the damage could have been far, far worse.

  When Beatrice had finally dozed off, Eve left Drucilla and Claire there to keep her company while she returned to the morning room.

  The burnt stench greeted her when she entered, but she saw at once that the shattered glass had been removed and an effort made to clean up the worst of the damage. A swift glance told her that the charred carpet and her scorched cherrywood writing desk would have to be replaced, but the rest of the room remained untouched.

  As expected, the mood was grim when she joined the three men—Ryder, Macky, and Cecil—and answered their inquiries about Beatrice’s condition.

  “Her burns are not serious,” Eve said, “but she is frightened half to death.”

  “It is hardly any wonder,” Cecil responded. “She could have been killed.”

  Eve looked at Ryder. “What in God’s name happened, do you have any idea?”

  “I can guess. Someone spiked the lamp with a wax capsule of gunpowder so that heat would make it explode. When Lady Beatrice lit the lamp, the wax melted and the powder ignited. Ingenious, really.”

  Eve frowned, wondering how Ryder knew about such things—until she recalled that he was an expert in munitions.

  “The perpetrator had to be someone familiar with your habits,” he added. “Someone
who expected you to light that lamp.”

  Puzzled, Eve stared. “But one of our footmen usually attends the lamps and lights them in the evening.”

  “But you rarely use this room after dark. The lamp could have been rigged weeks ago, when you first came to London, stationed here prepared to explode if you struck a flame to the wick.”

  Her brother muttered an oath. “Good God, Eve, if you had been sitting at your desk, your face could have been hopelessly scarred. Or you could have even been blinded.”

  At Cecil’s gruesome conjecture, Eve felt her stomach clench, frightened by the notion that she could be so vulnerable in her own home. This second accident in London had been deliberate and had been meant for her. Yet she had been spared while her gentle, elderly aunt had suffered in her place.

  Eve suddenly felt fury surge through her, her dread supplanted by the fiercer instinct to protect her loved ones. It was one thing for an unknown assailant to threaten her life, but quite another when her family was endangered.

  Setting her jaw, Eve nourished the spark of defiance igniting in her breast. Perhaps her assailant truly wanted her dead, but she refused to surrender meekly. And she would die before she allowed her sister or her brother or the aunts to be hurt again. She would have to fight the threats somehow. But how?

  She wasn’t alone, Eve reminded herself, her gaze returning to Ryder. He was highly skilled at fighting unknown enemies. She was supremely grateful to have him on her side.

  “So how do we proceed from here?” she asked with growing determination.

  “We’ll interview your household staff immediately, trying to discover who might have entered here and fixed the lamp to explode—or who might have been seen in the morning room where he didn’t belong.”

  “Do you really believe it was one of the servants? But they have all been employed here or at Hayden Park since before my marriage.”