by Jane Feather
“Oh, yes, fit as a flea,” the earl said, waving his riding crop in evidence. “Been to see my lady?” Nothing in his expression indicated that he knew what might have transpired under his roof.
“Yes,” Jack said simply. “I found Lady Worth well.” He remembered the Worth progeny and asked after them. Not a question he would have asked of Lilly. Her maternal inclinations were sporadic at the best of times.
But the earl, on the other hand, was a very devoted parent and never hid the pleasure he took in his children. Worth’s expression softened. “Oh, they’re all well, Fortescu. Rosy as apples and bouncy as puppies. Thankee for asking. Young Georgie is driving his governess to distraction . . . full of beans, he is.”
“Delighted to hear it,” Jack said. He made a move to take his farewell but the earl had not finished.
“I hear you’ve brought a wife to Town,” he said, beaming. “My congratulations, dear fellow. Dunston’s sister, is it?”
“Lady Arabella, yes,” Jack said. He could detect nothing but good humor behind the earl’s warmth. The man was nowhere near as clever as his wife, but surely he had made some connection between Dunston’s suicide and his half sister’s marriage to the man who had played him to his death.
“Yes . . . yes, I was forgetting the name. I remember meeting her when she came to Town for her Season . . . nice girl. Sure, you’ve done well for yourself, Fortescu.” Still beaming, the earl swept him a bow and turned to his own front door.
Jack walked off, swinging his cane. It occurred to him that the earl’s bonhomie could have something to do with the idea that if his wife’s lover had a wife, then maybe he would be less of a lover. Hardly an unreasonable idea. And perhaps not without good grounds.
To his surprise, he realized that he had reached his house on Cavendish Square. He’d been so deep in thought, he hadn’t noticed which way his steps were taking him. He thought he had intended to spend the evening at Brooke’s, but it seemed he was mistaken.
With a slightly self-mocking head-shake, he mounted the steps to his front door, which opened as he reached it. “Is her grace in the conservatory, Tidmouth?” he asked as he divested himself of cane, hat, and gloves.
“No, your grace. She spent two hours in there seeing to her flowers and then her grace took the dogs for a walk,” the steward informed him, managing to convey disapproval despite his lack of expression.
Jack frowned. “Where did she go?”
“I believe her grace said something about Hyde Park.” Tidmouth reverently laid the duke’s leather gloves on a silver tray on the console table.
“Who accompanied her?”
“I believe her grace went alone . . . except for the dogs, of course.” The note of disapproval was even more pronounced.
“I see. Pass me my gloves and hat again, will you?”
“Yes, your grace.” With the utmost gravity Tidmouth handed the articles back to his employer.
“What time did her grace leave?” Jack drew on his gloves.
“About an hour ago, your grace.” Tidmouth went to open the front door again and bowed the duke back onto the street.
Jack walked around the square, wondering which route his wife would have taken to the park. It was almost full dark by now and the watchmen were beginning to patrol the streets with their torches. The park was a dangerous place at night—indeed, even in daylight in certain of the more wooded corners—and Jack was unsure how reliable Oscar and Boris were as protectors. They looked fierce enough and could put on a convincing growl when aroused but he had the sneaking suspicion that they were as soft as butter underneath.
It wasn’t just the park that was dangerous at night either, he reflected with anxiety-fueled annoyance. The streets could be lethal for a lone and obviously wealthy woman. What could she have been thinking of, to treat London as if it was no different from her native village? His step quickened, his annoyance turning to real anger as he turned from the square onto Henrietta Place, and then he saw her in the gloom—or rather, the dogs saw him. They came bounding towards him, barking excitedly, feathery tails flying.
“Down,” he instructed sharply as they leaped against him. “Arabella, what do you think you’re doing?”
Arabella stopped as she reached him, slightly out of breath with the effort of keeping up with the dogs’ headlong rush. Her cheeks were pinkened by the now cold air, her hair tossed by the wind, Monsieur Christophe’s creation a mere memory. “Walking,” she said. “The dogs have to have their run twice a day here since they can’t be let out on their own. We went to the park.”
“Don’t you know better than to go unescorted?” he demanded, his anger sharpened by relief.
“I have the dogs,” she said, puzzled by his obvious irritation. “They wouldn’t let anyone come near me.”
“It doesn’t occur to you that a man with a knife could dispatch the pair of them with no difficulty?” he inquired with unconcealed sarcasm.
Arabella frowned. “I thought you were going to Brooke’s this evening?”
“Don’t change the subject,” he snapped. “Quite apart from the danger of walking in the park unescorted, it’s not done. Women in your position do not wander the streets of London like gypsies.”
“Oh, Jack, even if I were willing to subscribe to such nonsense, no one would recognize me. Nobody knows me here.” She laughed up at him. “Come now, it’s not like you to be such a stickler. You’re the man who insisted on sharing the roof of an unmarried and unprotected woman, if you recall.”
It was Jack’s turn to frown at this inconvenient reminder. It was not something he wanted spread abroad for either of their sakes, and for some reason he could no longer treat his own past carelessness with the lighthearted amusement that Arabella was evincing. She was right, he was becoming a regular stickler for the proprieties.
“That’s not the point here,” he said, trying to hang on to the high road even as he sensed it slipping from him. “The situation is changed, you must see that.”
Arabella slipped her hand through his arm. “Very well,” she said pacifically, urging him to turn back towards home. “I’ll promise that once I’ve burst upon the fashionable world in all my Directoire finery and Greek coiffures, I will be the soul of propriety. But for as long as I’m incognito, I shall walk where I please with only myself and the dogs for company.”
“You’ll not walk anywhere unescorted after dusk,” he stated. “Understand that, madam.”
“Yes, your grace. No, your grace,” she said with a chuckle. He seemed despite this assumption of annoyance to have returned to his old self. His eyes were warm and inhabited again. “Why aren’t you gambling away your fortune this evening?”
Jack recognized with resignation that he’d been given all the compliance he was going to get. “I changed my mind,” he said. “I thought I would dine with my wife, who I expected to find planting orchids, not roaming the nighttime streets of the city. How are they, by the way? Will they survive?”
She was suddenly all gravity. “I can’t be sure,” she said, a worried frown drawing her unruly eyebrows together. “They could go into shock anytime in the next two days, so I’ll have to watch them carefully.”
“Of course,” he agreed with equal gravity. “We must hope for a happy outcome.”
“Yes, indeed we must,” she said, blithely unaware that his solicitude for her beloved orchids could be anything less than utterly genuine. “Why did you change your mind?” she asked, reverting to the original subject.
Jack wasn’t sure himself. “We had some unfinished business, as I recall,” he said casually.
“Ah, yes, so we did,” Arabella agreed.
Chapter 12
Good evening, your grace.” Tidmouth held the door open, bowing as she went past him into the hall. He straightened and addressed himself to the duke. “Will your grace be dining in, after all, sir?”
“Yes, thank you, Tidmouth.” Jack, a gleam in his eye, glanced at Arabella, who was studiously ex
amining a portrait of a previous Fortescu, a sixteenth-century cavalier of somewhat severe mien. “I believe we’ll dine abovestairs, in her grace’s boudoir. Her grace is somewhat fatigued after the long journey yesterday.”
Arabella opened her mouth to protest this calumny, but then she caught the wicked gleam in Jack’s gray eyes and said demurely, “Yes, indeed, I do find myself somewhat weary. You’re so considerate, sir. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go to my chamber and rest awhile before dinner, sir.” Her smile was all sweet innocence as she asked, “What time do you care to dine?”
Jack bowed. “You must say, my dear.”
“We could dine in one hour, perhaps,” she said thoughtfully. “But, of course, should your grace wish to see me before then, I shall be entirely at your grace’s disposal.” The tawny eyes were all sensual mischief as she cast him a sidelong glance.
“We will dine in one hour, then, ma’am.” He put the faintest emphasis on dine.
She smiled and flitted towards the stairs. The dogs made a move to go after her but Jack swiftly laid hold of their collars. “Tidmouth, take the dogs to the kitchens, make sure they have dinner, and keep them there for the remainder of the evening.”
“Yes, your grace,” the steward said woodenly. He beckoned to a liveried footman, hovering at the rear of the hall. “Gordon, take the dogs to the kitchens.”
“Yes, Mr. Tidmouth, sir.” Grinning, the footman took both collars. “Come along, boys, dinner.”
Galvanized by the magic word, they shot off towards the back regions, dragging the footman with them.
“Send Louis to my chamber with a decanter of sherry,” Jack said, striding to the stairs. “And her grace and I will dine alone in one hour. We can serve ourselves.”
Tidmouth merely bowed. If his master wished to carve Aylesbury ducklings for himself and pour his own wine, it was not a steward’s business to comment, any more than it was his business to hear the underlying message in his mistress’s speech.
Humming, Jack went up to his own vast bedchamber that looked out upon the street. He shrugged out of his coat, casting it carelessly over a chair, and unbuckled his rapier, laying it on the window seat.
Louis hurried in with the decanter and a glass on a silver tray, setting it down on the dresser. “We’re dining in are we, your grace?”
“We are,” Jack said, pouring himself sherry.
“A dressing gown, sir? Or will we dress for dinner as usual?” Louis had opened the armoire.
“We think you may lay out a dressing gown for later,” Jack responded, tossing back the contents of his glass before pulling the lace cravat from around his neck and throwing it to join the discarded coat. “But really, Louis, is this royal we strictly necessary?”
“No, your grace. I’ll try to remember.”
“Please do.” Jack’s smile was benign but Louis was not fooled. It didn’t do to annoy his grace of St. Jules.
Jack ran a hand over his chin, then announced as he removed his waistcoat, “I believe you may shave me, Louis.”
“Certainly, your grace.” Louis took up the already sharpened razor.
Next door in her own chamber Arabella lay drowsily in a hip bath before the fire, her hair piled in a knot on top of her head, out of the way of the water. Sprigs of dried lavender floated around her.
Becky bustled around from armoire to bed. “A sprig of rosemary on the pillow, my lady,” she said. “It freshens the linen beautifully. I found a bush in the square garden this afternoon. Didn’t expect to find something like that in the city . . . and will you wear the silk negligee? With the satin slippers and the lace cap?”
“No cap, no slippers,” Arabella said lazily. “You may lay out the gown, Becky, and then leave me.”
“Very well, ma’am.” Becky offered a conspiratorial smile that Arabella tried with dignity to ignore but failed utterly. She and Becky had been together too long for secrets, and the maid, for all her air of youthful innocence, was country bred and well aware of what went on in a conjugal bed.
Becky gave one final twitch to the coverlet, one final adjustment to the lace ruff on the peignoir that lay ready on the bed, checked that the candles were burning brightly and the fire well fed, then curtsied and withdrew.
Next door, Jack heard the sudden silence in his wife’s bedchamber and he knew she was now alone. Louis had finished shaving him and reverently laid out a turquoise silk banyan on the bed, fussing over the set of the lapels, the drape of the folds, the fringe of the sash.
“I can manage from now on, Louis,” the duke said, trying to hide his impatience with the valet’s exacting attention.
The valet bowed and backed out of the room, closing the corridor door behind him with exaggerated softness.
Jack, in his stockinged feet, strode to the door that led to the adjoining chamber and opened it. The scent of lavender and rosemary met him first, then came the sight of his wife in her bath, her skin rosy from the warm water, her hair a damp and tangled knot on top of her head. She turned her head indolently against the side of the bath and gazed at him. He wore only britches and shirt, the latter opened carelessly at the throat. His hair was as usual tied back with a black velvet ribbon and the skin of his throat and neck was sun-browned after their weeks of Indian summer in the country. She said slowly, appreciatively, “I give you good evening, your grace.”
Jack came over to the bath and stood looking down at her, his eyes hooded. “A most delightful sight,” he murmured. “All dewy, pink, and delicate, like a rosebud waiting to open . . . or be opened.” A lazy smile curved his fine mouth.
He knelt beside the tub, rolling his shirtsleeves to his elbows, making of each turn a sensual, languid movement full of a promise that made her blood run swift and sent a jolt of anticipation through her loins.
In the same languid manner he took up a sprig of lavender and laid it in the center of her forehead, drawing an imaginary line down over her nose, her lips, into the dimple on her chin, and then down over her throat, lingering in the hollow, where the pulse now beat with erratic speed. Slowly he continued to draw the line down between her breasts that rose above the water, their dark crowns erect.
Butterflies of delight began dancing in her belly as he carefully planted the sprig of lavender in her navel and began to roll one nipple between finger and thumb, tipping her chin with his free hand as he kissed her—his lips at first hard, then soft, melting against her mouth, his tongue flirting with hers in a tantalizing game of catch as catch can. Slowly he raised his head, looking down into her flushed countenance, her lips full and red from his kiss, her eyes all golden fire.
Lilly’s image flashed across his mind’s eye, her porcelain skin lightly touched with pink, the china-blue eyes, the eager red mouth, but the perfection of her complexion, the warm redness of her mouth came from powder and rouge. Her eyebrows were plucked and drawn into perfect arches, Arabella’s dark eyebrows were uncompromisingly thick, strong, and straight. He licked his thumb and smoothed her brows with careful strokes, before bending to kiss the tip of her nose.
Arabella was aware of a slight shift of mood. Suddenly she wondered if he’d come straight to her from his mistress’s bed. She sat up in the tub, drawing her knees beneath her chin, and regarded him questioningly.
“What is it, love?” He smiled at her, but with some puzzlement.
“I felt suddenly that you weren’t looking at me but at somebody else,” she said obliquely. “It was an odd sensation . . . uncomfortable . . .”
He looked at her in silence for a long minute. And he saw the others who too often crowded in on his mind when he was with his wife. Charlotte, always, and so often Frederick. Their shadows lay over Arabella as they lay over him.
Arabella worried at her lower lip before saying, “I really don’t know you at all, Jack.”
No, he thought. Not at all. But she was an innocent among the shadows. Somehow he must learn to see her only for herself.
With sinking heart, Arabella recognized th
e closed look that always gave her the sense that he’d gone somewhere far away, a place into which she could not follow.
And then it vanished and his eyes were warm again, his mouth a soft sensual curve. He rested his hands on the edge of the tub and leaned into her, kissing her mouth. “I’m in no mood for distractions, my sweet,” he murmured against her lips, his tongue demanding entry.
She yielded, her lips parting, her tongue dancing with his. He moved a hand to press her gently back beneath the water and she straightened her knees, sliding down, resting her head on the side of the bath, her hair clustering damply on the nape of her neck.
All her senses were now centered on the part of her body that for the moment held all his attention. His hand played a light skillful tune over her sex, parting the swollen lips, gently rubbing and nipping until she could hold the conflagration at bay no longer. She heard her own soft cry. It seemed a long time before she came back to full awareness of her self in her skin. The warm water laved her acutely sensitized flesh and her eyes stayed closed as her breathing settled.
“Wake up, sleeping beauty,” Jack murmured, splashing water over her in a refreshing shower that cooled her heated skin. She opened her eyes slowly and then her gaze became fixed upon him as he rose to his feet and stripped off his shirt, britches, and stockings. Naked and powerfully aroused, he stood over her.
“Oh, I’m awake,” she whispered.
“Come, then.” He held up the towel that Becky had laid beside the tub. He reached for her, catching her under the arms and raising her out of the water. “My never inexhaustible patience is running thin.” He wrapped the towel around her and lifted her against him, tumbling her onto the bed, trapped in the folds of the towel.
He began to dry her, scrubbing at her skin until it glowed, twisting and turning her as the urge took him, lifting her feet and drying between her toes with great care. Her feet were ticklish and she struggled weakly as he ran his tongue over the insteps, then took each toe into his mouth in turn.
