She would have been extremely angry if the gesture wasn’t so disarmingly sweet.
So much of Lord Blakely’s cold manner was awkwardness, real uncertainty about how to talk to people as if they were…well, people. Some, of course—a goodly portion—was real arrogance. She couldn’t begin to guess which predominated in this gift. Both? Neither?
Jenny let the men in, unease pricking the hairs on the backs of her arms.
The carpenter—for carpenter that sour-smelling man was—fitted the bed together, setting the precise wooden joins into place. He was careful not to look Jenny in the eyes. Not to look anywhere, for that matter, but on his work. Scarcely half a day since she’d ruined herself again, and this, apparently, was the attitude she would experience for the rest of her life: an honest man’s contempt. She’d already experienced a dishonest man’s connivance.
But the disdain the carpenter showed as he slowly hammered the final slats into place was not what curdled her stomach. It was the thought that mere days ago, she too had turned up her nose at mistresses. At those unfortunate women who had no choice but to sell their bodies, and to bow to a man’s whim in order to maintain their livelihood. A mistress was all dependence without any of the benefits of respect. She’d tasted it once, then run as far as she could from the profession.
Had she become one without intending it?
The men carted away the old, rickety frame and her tick. Which really wasn’t all that lumpy. Not if you knew where to sleep. Minutes later, another cart rumbled by—this time with a mattress, the covering so thick and fine, and the fibers so tightly woven, Jenny had never seen its equal.
Of course, it was not lumpy anywhere.
Thick swansdown blankets and fine cotton sheets followed.
The bed was substantially larger than her previous furniture. In fact, it was almost too large, intruding into the small space she had in that back room.
Much as Lord Blakely had intruded in her life. He’d marched into her rooms with his pencil and notebook and turned her life upside down. He’d looked at her with that silent sneer. There’d been no room for his judgmental morality in her life. And yet here she was—stripped of income, stripped of clients, and now stripped of access to her bank balance.
She’d be damned if she let him take her independence. She wouldn’t be turned into a pitiful creature, unable to act for fear of losing a protector.
She kicked the trunk she was unsuccessfully trying to shove into the last corner remaining after the new bed had been put in. “Idiotic Lord Blakely,” she groused.
“And how many times have I said it?” said a voice. “It’s ‘idiotic Gareth’ to you.”
Jenny whirled around. He didn’t look one bit tired, which was extremely unfair. And he looked well put together—pressed trousers and jacket, and a cravat tied with his usual careless air. His eyes flashed almost golden in the evening sun.
“Gareth!” She shook her head. “About that bed. I don’t want your gifts. It makes me think—”
He examined his fingernails. “That,” he said, “was not a gift.”
“And I surely don’t want to accept payments. If you feel—”
“It is a scientific experiment.”
Jenny sat heavily on the edge of the new bed. It didn’t so much as creak under her weight. “Pardon?”
“It occurred to me there were two possibilities. Perhaps I enjoyed last night because of your presence. Or perhaps it was the lumpy mattress. Scientifically speaking, if I am to distinguish between these two hypotheses, I must experience one without the other.”
That dismissive toss of his chin dared Jenny to disagree. Dared her to suggest an alternate explanation for his behavior.
“Oh,” said Jenny. “Now I understand. You took my old bedframe to your own home, and you’ll sleep on that mattress alone tonight.”
He was visibly taken aback.
“Scientifically speaking,” Jenny said, “it would help you distinguish between the two.” She gave him her most saccharine smile.
Wonder of wonders, he returned the expression. That ridiculously stuffed posture left him. No more Lord Blakely, freezing lesser mortals with his rationality. Instead, he was just Gareth.
“Five,” said Jenny automatically.
He shook his head. “You’ve earned at least nine or ten points by now. I’ve been smiling all day. At odd intervals. My staff finds it exceedingly disruptive. I shall have to explain that I am engaged in a…a scientific exercise.”
He walked toward her, his feet as sure as a leopard’s stalking its prey.
Jenny raised an eyebrow. “I should have thought that science and questions of the bedchamber were far removed from each other.”
“That,” said Gareth, holding out a hand to her, “is where you’re wrong. Very, very wrong. Shall I show you?”
“That depends,” Jenny said. “Will you need pen and paper? I had always imagined a man’s skill had more to do with practiced technique and less to do with theory.”
He took her hand. Instead of pulling her toward him, though, he knelt before her where she sat on the bed. “Never underestimate the power of theory. A certain amount of practice is, of course required. But a woman is not a boat race on a millpond, where repeated application of the proper techniques in the proper order assures victory. She is a science, and thus victory depends upon observation and induction.”
Jenny swung her legs back and forth. “Induction?”
“Repeated testing. Scientific evidence is nothing more than proof by induction—by inductive reasoning, rather.”
He captured her foot midswing. “Like this.” He cupped the ball of her foot in one warm hand. The other he ran up her calf, his blunt nail tracing a sinuous line.
Jenny sucked in air as her skin prickled in response. “That’s proof?”
“That’s theory.” His voice was as husky as her own. “I theorize that this part of your foot—” he caressed her arch near the ball of her foot “—is quite sensitive. And so I repeat the experiment.”
He did. Jenny exhaled.
“Ah, see? I also theorize you’ll enjoy being touched right here—right on the ankle bone.” His forefinger seared against her skin.
Jenny shut her eyes. “How can you tell if you’re right?”
“Little things. Your nostrils flare. Your hands contract. And your breathing becomes ragged.” His hand walked up her calf, fingers tapping. “You see? Just like that.”
His hands were warm and close; his words cold and distant. But when she let her lids flutter open, she could see the truth. For all that he’d spoken of observation and induction, what she saw in the intense press of his lips was simple.
Need.
And he was obscuring it behind scientific jargon—implying, somehow, that the desire and want were all hers, that her response was drawn from her as mechanically as a compass pointing north. All her lonely childhood, she’d poured her heart into companions who never returned her affection. Jenny’s hands contracted—this time, not in lust. “You may not be aware of this,” Jenny said quietly, “but you are allowed to take an interest in me outside of science.”
His hand contracted around the muscle of her calf. He swallowed hard. “Proof…” The word came out on a choking sigh.
Jenny stood up. “Proof can go hang. As can logic.” They were all pallid excuses, and Jenny had enough of those to paper a drawing room. “If you want something from me, you’d better start admitting it. Stop hiding.”
He stared at her from his stooped position on the floor, his mouth open.
Jenny reached behind her and undid the simple laces of her dress. They’d knotted hard in the rain, but a few good tugs loosened the strings. She let the material fall to the floor in a quiet rustle.
Gareth had not moved. His eyes were transfixed on the column of her throat—no. Lower. Her breasts peaked under his gaze.
“Let us not misunderstand one another,” she said. Her stays followed her dress, and then she shrugged
out of her chemise. The air was cool against her bare skin.
He watched her, openmouthed.
“There. You can have anything—everything—you want. But you have to ask for it first. And you have to want it for yourself. Not for science. Not for proof. For yourself.”
Slowly he stood. He did not touch her. Instead, his gaze swept from the dark triangle between her legs up the line of her navel, past her breasts. Finally he met her eyes. “You. I want you.” He licked his lips.
“If you want me, then take me, you fool.”
Gareth was no fool. He pulled her into his arms, his crisp linen meeting her naked flesh, and then compressing as he pulled her against the hard muscle of his chest. His mouth bruised hers; his lips stole her breath. And by some magic, he doffed his own clothing while kissing her. It seemed mere seconds until his skin was warm and naked against hers.
“I want you to call me Gareth,” he growled, his hands cupping her backside. “Gareth, and nothing else.”
His erection brushed against her belly. That firm ridge leapt at the contact. He sat on the bed and pulled her so she covered his body with hers. The mattress sighed smoothly under their combined weight. The rough pads of his fingers were on her, sighing down her skin. He pulled her closer still.
“God,” he breathed in her ear. “I want you to ride me.”
Jenny stilled in confusion.
He looked up; her bafflement must have been written on her face.
His hands grasped her hips and he showed her his meaning. He angled her body with his hands and gently brought her to his hot, thick member. His hands took hers, and he pulled her down. She stretched around him as he guided her down the rounded head of his penis, down further, filling her with heat.
“Jenny. Say my name.”
“Gareth.” She squeezed him, deep inside her, as she spoke.
His hands moved again to her hips and he exhaled, his eyes fluttering shut.
And then he showed her his meaning again, guiding her up and down. His hands on her hips set the rhythm. They found a beat together. Warmth coalesced where their bodies joined, and then slick heat.
He surged into her, his hips slapping against her thighs. When she came apart in a flood of light, he groaned. Then he, too, shouted, thrusting into her.
When she finally slumped against his chest, Jenny ran her hand through his sweaty hair. Her body glowed like some kind of incandescent star. She pulled herself off him; his hand caught hers, and brought it to his mouth. He placed the gentlest of kisses against the blue veins of her wrist.
“You see, Gareth? No science necessary.”
“Science.” He turned to face her. “Observation is good for one thing. Really, Jenny. I thought you were ruined.”
“What ever do you mean by that? I was. I am.”
He snorted. “Then how is it you’ve never ridden a man before?”
She shook her head in confusion.
“And how, exactly,” he asked, “did you become Madame Esmerelda?”
GARETH FELT JENNY’S HAND stiffen where it had been stroking his chest.
“Why do you want to know?” Her words crept out, wary and low.
Why? He wanted to uncover every unknown thing about her. Every secret of hers pulled at him like hidden string.
He shrugged. “I am naturally inquisitive.”
“The story doesn’t paint me in the best light.”
“Jenny, I met you when you’d garbed and painted yourself as a fortuneteller. You couldn’t say anything that would worsen my opinion of you.”
She blew out her breath, and Gareth winced as he realized what he’d said.
“I mean—”
She put her hand over his lips. “I know what you meant.” There was a current of amusement in her voice. The light was fading fast. Her hips cast lengthy shadows down the bed.
“When I was eighteen,” she said, “the older brother of one of my schoolmates fell in love with me. Or so he claimed.”
“A lord?”
She shook her head against his shoulder. “You do me too much credit. A mill owner’s younger son. He said he could never marry me, but that his love would never die. Et cetera et cetera and so forth.” Her hand trailed the et ceteras down Gareth’s abdomen. “So I ran away with him.”
“You loved him?”
“No. But I wanted to be loved, you see. I should have known better. You said it once. Everyone lies. Even then, I knew that. Immortal love? Of course he was lying.”
“Then why run off?”
“My future had been much on my mind. I felt trapped. I knew I’d need to make my own living. I could have tried for a position as a governess, but my references were not precisely stellar.” A sniff, to indicate the statement drastically understated the truth. “And I had no family. So the best positions—even the middling ones—would have been closed to me. As for the worst ones…Well, if I had to sell my body, I didn’t want to care for children alongside everything.”
“You could have married. Most women do.”
She snorted incredulously. “You recall I have no family to speak of. No dowry.”
“Farmers. Clerks. Surely there are men willing to overlook a few defects of your birth in exchange for a good wife.”
“A good wife? Me? To a farmer or a clerk or the like?”
Gareth considered this. On the one hand, he couldn’t imagine Jenny marrying a straightforward fellow like White. She’d have tied him in knots within seconds. On the other hand, in Gareth’s experience, Jenny’s knots had proved to be…fun. “Well, aside from your recalcitrance. And a few other, um, minor character defects.”
She rolled her eyes. “Gareth, you really have no notion what this world is like. The school I attended was in the business of turning out ladies. I learned how to curtsy properly. I learned the correct way to pour tea. I was drilled in my accent and taught just enough conversational French to start a good argument, but not so much that I would be able to do anything so gauche as to win it. I learned watercolors and a few rudimentary piano pieces. I did not learn how to milk a cow, or how best to promote laying among broody hens. What use would I have been to a farmer?”
There was the use Gareth had just made of her. There was the sense of playfulness that made him want to tug her close and hold her tight. There was her sharp intellect and her unflinching insistence that Gareth treat her with respect.
“I lacked the birth to match my education and the skills to match my birth. No, marriage was not an option for me. I ran away with the man because he seemed a pleasant enough fellow. And besides, he swore his undying love. I’d never experienced love of even the short-lived variety before. It seemed a rare treat.”
Gareth knew how this story was going to end. It would end with Gareth wanting to punch the man. Even though he knew—not in his gut, but in one uncomfortable corner of his rational mind—that one day, he too would have to leave her.
“He brought me to London and set me up in a dull, unfashionable part of town. And two months later, he cheerfully handed me a silver bracelet and wished me well. I was…furious. You see, I knew his love would die. I just expected that its life span would be closer to that of a dog than a—a—”
“A dung beetle?” Gareth suggested.
She smiled at him and, thank God, snuggled closer.
“What did you do?”
She shrugged. “I had no desire to continue along the path he’d set me. Being a mistress is quite boring—there’s no challenge, nothing new to discover. And at that point, any position I could obtain as a governess given my preceding conduct would have been unsavory indeed. I figured—everyone lies. Why shouldn’t I?”
“You could have—” Gareth paused. What could she really have done? As a man with a solid education, she could have become a clerk. As a woman, though…“You could have made hats?”
“I’d have ruined my eyesight in short order, while starving myself on too little coin. Lodgings and food are dear in London. I had nobody to vouch f
or my character. And besides, I wanted more than that. I wanted independence. I wanted people to look at me with honor, as they’d never done—” Her voice trembled. “Do not lecture me for trying to have a tiny portion of what you’ve always known.”
Gareth shut his eyes. He’d thought more knowledge would reduce her power over him. But it wasn’t working that way. What he felt…
He didn’t have a word for the images she’d conjured up in his head. Some unnameable emotion accompanied them. The thought of Jenny, betrayed at eighteen and deciding to show them all up, made him ache down to his bones. Whatever this nameless feeling was, it seeped into his soul like dirty black water, biting as the Thames in winter.
She hadn’t curled up like a pill-bug, or hidden herself away like some fragile creature. She’d rejected the usual options and found a choice that afforded her everything she wanted.
“The best part of being Madame Esmerelda,” she said, “was that I had to learn everything—gossip, of course, but finance, industry, even science. It’s much easier to foretell the future if you’re aware of the present. Before then, nobody had ever expected me to know anything.”
He’d expected familiarity to breed, if not contempt, at least indifference. It didn’t. It bred respect.
“Tell me,” he whispered against her shoulder. “You told me you learned everyone lied when you were nine. How did that come to pass?”
Twilight had passed. He could feel her breath in the expansion of her chest against the palms of his hands, hear it soft and sighing in his ears. But the visible line of her shoulders had faded to an indistinct silhouette, rising and falling with each exhalation.
“When I was very young,” she said, her voice quiet as the sound of still water running, “I was brought to school. I was distraught and confused as only a four-year-old child can be. The instructor tasked with my care told me if I stopped sniveling and was good, my mother would come for me soon.”
Maybe it was because his hands over her shoulders gave the illusion of closeness. Maybe it was because he hadn’t expected a revelation of that magnitude from her. But he shook with the cruelty of telling a small child a lie of that nature. His hands tightened.
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