He wasn’t sure which was worse, that he had not been quick enough to remove Mary’s clinging arms and lips from his person, that Octavia had witnessed the entire wretched incident, or that she had subsequently believed the worst of him. Her angry words echoed in his mind.
You are London’s greatest scoundrel.
Well, and if that was what she thinks of me, to the devil with her, said his mind. Too bad the rest of him wouldn’t listen. He still wanted her more than ever. Longed for her desperately. Now that she was his, the stupid lust that fogged his mind whenever he was in her presence—or outside it for that matter—had not lessened. If anything, it had grown stronger. More consuming.
There had been hurt in her eyes. He had caused it. And he had never intended to bring her even a moment of distress.
She believed he had forced her into marrying him. Did she think him a complete villain? A monster? A man capable of bedding his wife one night and then tupping a moll in his office the very next afternoon?
He hated that she believed he was such a callous bastard.
He hated that he wanted to be a better man for her.
Not a man who had failed to realize his daughters could not read or write. But a man his wife looked at with love in her eyes.
Christ, what a stupid arsehole he was.
“Jasper?”
Rafe’s voice tore Jasper from his thoughts.
He turned his attention away from the smoldering ruins and back to his brother. “What is it?”
“I asked you what we’re going to do to the goddamn Bradleys to make them pay,” Rafe snarled.
He was getting soft.
Two days as a married man, and he was already as yielding as pudding.
“I’m going to bloody well baste old Tim Bradley,” he growled, forcing away the lingering lust that coiled in his belly and burned in his blood. His cock had been throbbing ever since he’d left Olivia’s bed the night before, but he had forced himself to the floor and to maintain his usual routine because he would not be led about by his prick. But also, he had no wish to make too many demands of her.
Octavia had been a virgin, and he was not a small man. Likely, she would be sore today. There had been no sign of that, of course, when she had stormed into his office as he’d been shocked by Mary’s ardor. Some of which would have been aided by blue ruin. He had tasted gin in her kiss, and she wore the jaded look of a strumpet who had made her bed with far too many coves.
The cold rains continued to lash at him, but nothing seemed capable of soothing the heavy, aching need for Octavia.
“I’ll be ‘elping you,” Rafe said, his accent slipping as Jasper’s did, under the pressure of emotion.
And of course he would accompany Jasper on this necessary mission. Rafe was a rakehell, but he was also unafraid to use his muscle and fearlessness whenever necessary. He was equally skilled with knives, pistols, and fists. A good man to have on one’s side in a fight.
“We will take Hart as well,” Jasper decided, forcing himself to return to the carefully practiced speech that attempted to copy the upper classes with whom their elbows regularly brushed.
It was an effort he made each day. Recently—ever since Octavia had come into his life—maintaining the façade had grown more difficult. He had not slipped this many times in as long as he could recall. That he had done so because of her was cause for worry. In the rookeries, a man could not afford to be weak. Nor could he lose himself in any vice, whether drink, gambling, or cunny.
He took one last look at the smoking husk of the building that was to have meant the broadening of their empire. The rain kept pouring down, lashing him mercilessly. Jasper took a deep breath, bringing in the soot, the charred hopes, the burnt wood and plaster and upholstery.
An old voice, sneering and low, returned to him from the dim recesses of the past he had done his damnedest to forget.
Do not forget where you came from, boy. You came from ‘ell, and one day soon, ‘tis there you’ll return.
Perhaps his father had not been wrong about that.
Jasper turned back to Rafe. “Time to pay a call to the Bradleys.”
Chapter 9
Octavia turned the page in the book she was attempting to read, words swimming before her but failing to find purchase in her heavily burdened mind.
The hour was late, but she was too distraught to sleep.
She had dined with Anne and Elizabeth in the nursery earlier and had given them their bath herself. Then, she had settled them in bed with another story and a seemingly endless round of hugs. They were sweet children, eager to please, and much in need of both attention and love.
If only she could say the same of their father.
On a sigh, she turned another page, cognizant she had failed to read any of the words strung together on the previous one. She had not seen Jasper for the remainder of the day. Nor had he visited her this evening as she had supposed he might.
It was just as well. She had no wish to see him. Perhaps he was spending the night with Mary. He had claimed she was not his mistress. However, that did not mean he was not sharing his bed with her. The bitterness invading her was unfamiliar, but there was no help for it. She had not expected for her marriage to change so abruptly.
Suddenly, a flurry of commotion in the hall beyond her room reached her. Thumps. Voices. Loud, low male voices. Although she was a newcomer to The Sinner’s Palace, she was reasonably certain none of the sounds emerging were ordinary. Or good.
Concern replacing the fury curdling her stomach, she snapped the book closed and leapt to her feet. She scarcely knew what the next moment would bring beneath this roof. Crossing the carpets in her bare feet, she opened the door to her chamber a crack, peering into the hall.
What she saw tore a gasp from her throat.
Jasper was splattered with blood.
Without conscious thought, she found herself in the hall, taking in the appalling vignette before her. Her husband was not alone, but his accompaniment was not a woman, at least. It was his brothers, Hart and Rafe, who were equally besmirched, copper staining their white shirts, bruises marring their jaws, blood on their hands and knuckles. Jasper was leaning on Hugh when he spotted her.
“Well if it ain’t my lady wife.”
His words were more snarl than welcome.
The scent of smoke and damp clothing reached her. But this smoke was different—it was not tobacco. When she had been a girl, there had been a fire in the kitchens at Langford Hall, and the acrid scent tickling her nose now reminded her very much of that. A half moon darkened the skin below his eye, his hair was damp and ruffled, and the knuckles of his right hand were caked in blood.
The three men before her looked as if they had just returned from battle.
“What has happened?” she demanded, fear lending her voice a sharpness that made it ring through the otherwise quiet hall.
“Nothing for you to concern yourself with,” he said.
She took note of a new tone in his voice. Was he in his cups?
“I shall be the judge of that,” she countered, flicking an irritated glance to each of his brothers. “Which of you will tell me what has happened?”
Rafe grinned. “We gave the Bradleys a sound drubbing.”
His words, too, were slurred.
Heaven help her. The Suttons were far more trouble than even she had bargained for.
“Who are the Bradleys, and why are you all bloodied and smelling of smoke?” she demanded next to anyone who would answer.
“The bastards who burned our building today,” Hart offered helpfully.
“I’m sure Lady Octavia doesn’t give a goddamn about what happened,” Jasper said, scorn lacing his deep voice. “London’s greatest scoundrel, et cetera.”
Perhaps the harshness of her earlier words had indeed landed their barbs in his impenetrable hide. But what was she to think? She had walked in upon him kissing another woman. And not just any other woman, but a prostitute.
&n
bsp; “Obviously I am concerned, or I would not be standing here in the hall in my dressing gown at such a late hour,” she returned coolly, refusing to look at him. “Hugh, kindly tell me what has happened.”
Hugh gave her an apologetic shrug. “It’s as they said. The Bradleys set fire to the new Sinner’s Palace earlier today and burned it to the ground. Mr. Sutton and ‘is brothers went to the Bradleys for answers.”
“And blood,” Rafe said with pride.
“And broken noses,” Hart added.
“Go to bed, woman,” Jasper said, stumbling a bit as he attempted to seek out his chamber without the aid of Hugh. “I’ve no need of you tonight.”
His cutting words stung, and she would not lie. But neither would she allow him to know it. Her pride forced her to pretend as if his second dismissal of the day was of no greater import than the first had been.
“If you do not require me, then I shall go to bed,” she said. “Forgive me for the interruption.”
But just as she was about to return to the haven of her chamber, her husband’s voice gave her pause.
“Stop.”
She turned back to him to find him listing on his feet as if he were aboard a ship. The man was either thoroughly drunk, exhausted, or both. She wondered how hard he had been hit to cause the darkening bruise beneath his eye. And then she told herself she should not care.
“What is it, Mr. Sutton?” she asked.
“I’ve changed my mind,” he said. “I need to be bathed. You’ll do.”
She would do, would she? The daring of the man. She longed to give him a piece of her mind. But not before the wide-eyed audience of his brothers and guard. Their marriage was private, the concern of Octavia and Jasper alone.
So she summoned a smile that was far less calm than the turmoil roiling within her. “Of course.”
“Water’s in the tub,” Hugh told her. “We ‘ad it brought round earlier, before the drops of jackey started pouring.”
Gin.
She had not been wrong, then.
Her husband and his siblings had suffered a devastating loss today from the sounds of it. And then he and his brothers had engaged in an altercation with the men they believed responsible for the crime. How…bloodthirsty.
She had never been presented with such raw, vivid evidence of retribution.
Summoning her strength, she moved forward, toward Jasper. “I will see to my husband as he wishes this evening, Hugh,” she informed the guard. “If you would please see to my brothers-in-law?”
“I’d rather you see to me when you’re finished with Jasper,” Rafe told her with a rascal’s grin. “Hugh’s a Leather Lane concern by comparison.”
“Insult my wife again, and I’ll draw your cork,” Jasper growled at his brother.
“Only a rig,” Rafe grumbled. “I’d never touch what’s yours.”
Before any more threats could be traded, Octavia slid an arm around her husband’s waist. “Come now, if you please. The hour is appallingly late, and if you must have your bath, the sooner it is done, the better.”
She spoke to him in the firm tones she reserved for children. Because he was acting rather a bit like one. And because it was far easier to pretend he no longer affected her if she imagined him no different than any other charge. This evening, he was a duty.
Nothing else.
Never again anything else, she reminded herself fiercely. Jasper Sutton was not worthy of her trust. Or her body.
He slid an arm around her waist in return, leaning on her as they made their way into his chamber. Within, a brace of candles was lit and a generous bath had indeed been placed by the hearth where a hearty fire crackled in the grate. The day had been damp, and though not cold, there was a chill in the air. Even Jasper’s coat was sodden, the wetness seeping through her dressing gown and making her shiver.
“You’re trembling,” Jasper said as she helped him to a nearby chair.
Somehow, even sotted, he remained observant. The knowledge nettled her.
“And you are soaked through,” she told him crisply, ignoring what may have been an edge of concern in his deep voice. “Have you spent the entire evening in the rain?”
“Some of it.” He sprawled in the chair, long, trouser-clad legs parted, looking every bit the dissolute scoundrel.
A lock of hair hung over his brow, and curse him, but he was despicably handsome, even with the purplish bruise forming under his eye. Sadly, his afternoon betrayal had done nothing to diminish his masculine attributes. Objectively, she still found him as gloriously masculine and sinfully delicious as ever.
Fortunately, she was made of sterner stuff than a mere weakness of the flesh. Her body may have already forgotten his traitorous actions, but her heart and her mind remained vividly aware of them.
“I suppose we should remove your coat first,” she said, taking stock of his large form.
“Eager to get me naked, darling?” he asked, raising his brow.
“Eager to get you into the bath so I may return to the tranquility of my own chamber,” she corrected, moving nearer and tugging on his left sleeve. “Off with this now, if you please.”
Wrangling a damp coat from a man without any aid from him was no easy feat.
She shot him a glare when her attempts to pull the coat from his arm met with stony opposition. “I thought you wanted a bath.”
“I do.”
“Then you must help me,” she pointed out, all too aware of his unsettling nearness and his hazel stare, fixed upon her.
Finally, he made an effort to assist, and she managed to peel the coat down his arm. She worked the garment from his shoulder, and he leaned forward, the action bringing their faces perilously close.
I do not want to kiss him.
I do not want to kiss him.
I do not want to kiss him.
She repeated the litany in her mind as she worked on the right sleeve of his coat. But she did want to kiss him, and that was very much becoming a problem. The scent of spirits mingled with smoke and the earthy tang of rain. He had just been involved in some manner of violence. There was blood speckling his white shirt and cravat. He had a bruised eye. Earlier that day, she had seen another woman kissing him.
And yet, none of that mattered.
“Octavia,” he said.
Why did she like her name on his lips so much?
His hand settled on her waist, possessive and firm. Not holding her in place so much as steadying her. If she wished, she could slip away. Put distance between them once more.
“What is it?” she asked, hating herself for the breathlessness in her voice.
“I did not kiss her.”
She stiffened, not wanting to relive that terrible moment when she had seen the golden-haired beauty with her arms wrapped around him. “It hardly signifies now.”
“It matters to me that you know the truth.” His gaze searched hers. “You’re the only woman I want.”
Just yesterday, his confession would have meant more than anything to her.
Now, she remained hesitant. Coming from him, it seemed a significant admission. He was not a man given to sentiment or flowery words. However, it was not an apology, and she remained uncertain whether or not she dared trust him.
“Your actions today suggested otherwise,” she said primly, removing the coat at last and draping it over the washstand.
Trying to compose herself, she took extra time and care, which was unnecessary given the garment was in need of a sound washing. She was acutely aware of his stare on her, watching every movement she made.
“I ain’t accustomed to having to explain myself.”
The low rasp had her turning back to him in surprise. It was not what she had expected him to say. Something charming, perhaps. Or a request to assist him in removing his boots, yes. An acknowledgment, no.
“I can imagine you are not,” she said, hardening her heart. “Your word here appears to be all it requires to make everyone scatter to obey your command
s.”
“Everyone but you.” His gaze was heavy-lidded.
It affected her. How could it not?
Against her better judgment, she crossed back to him. “Your bath water will be quite cold if you continue tarrying.”
Here, however, was another dilemma. Now that she had accompanied him to his chamber and they were alone, all the feelings she had been doing her utmost to banish had returned. The memory of his powerful body stripped of garments made heat pool in her belly and creep between her thighs.
But she was determined to remain impervious. He could be as handsome and as charming as he wished. And he could issue all the partial, growly apologies he liked. He had broken her trust today, and she would not soon forget that.
“You are still angry with me, minx?”
She worked on the knot of his cravat, not as easily removed thanks to the wet cloth. The copper spray there was prominent. A reminder this man was dangerous. Not just to her heart and body and mind. But to others as well.
“I am weary, is all,” she lied. “I would like to find my bed and rest. It has been a long day.”
“Christ yes.” For a moment, his eyes fluttered closed, and he rested his head against the chairback.
How young he looked in repose. She opened the knot and drew his cravat away. The removal of the blood from the starched white linen would be a matter for another. She did not think it could be saved.
“Will you tell me what happened?” she asked before she could stop herself.
Her fingers worked the simple line of three buttons on his shirt. As she did so, they grazed the bare flesh beneath. She could not deny her body’s reaction to him, against her will though it was.
His eyes opened once more, the hazel depths glittering with golden flecks. “The owners of a rival hell set fire to the building we intended to make into a second establishment. We paid them a call.”
“Raise your arms, if you please,” she said.
Sutton's Spinster: A Wicked Winters Spin-off Series (The Sinful Suttons Book 1) Page 11
