by Louise Allen
‘Men look ridiculous in nightshirts. Hairy legs sticking out of the bottom.’ Did I just say that? She blinked at the wineglass. It appeared to be half-full now. How many had she drunk?
‘Well, in my case you won’t be looking, so if you can just steer your imagination away from the aesthetic horror of it, we will be all right.’
He isn’t pleased I commented on his hairy legs. I suppose he has got hairy legs, all men do, don’t they? He has a hairy chest. Not very hairy, though, just nicely hairy. Some remnant of restraint, surfacing through the effects of four glasses of wine on a nearly empty stomach stopped her complimenting Jack on the niceness of his chest. A creeping feeling of unease that perhaps this conversation was not all it should be began to steal over her.
‘I think I am going to go to bed. Into bed. Under the covers.’
Jack stood up. ‘Can I be of any assistance? The door is over there.’
‘I know that,’ she said with dignity, gathering her skirts around her and paying particular regard to her deportment. ‘Good night, Mr Ryder.’
The effect of this exit was somewhat marred by a very audible hiccup.
Chapter Eight
Eva woke, far too hot and with a thunderous headache. She hadn’t recalled the bedclothes being quite this thick—but then her memories of the previous evening were somewhat uncertain. She had drunk far too much, that was indisputable. She had discussed lust and beds and nightshirts with Jack in a most outrageous manner. Eva screwed her eyes tighter shut and prayed that she hadn’t actually said anything about hairy legs. Had she? Or worse, chests. Please, God.
She shifted restlessly under the weight of the blankets and found that it was not layers of woollens weighing her down, but one long masculine arm thrown over her ribcage that was pinning her to the bed. At the risk of a cricked neck, she turned her head and found herself almost nose to nose with Jack.
‘Good morning. Do you have a headache?’
‘What are you doing!’ It was a shriek that almost split her head as she uttered it. Eva closed her eyes again with a groan. Warm breath feathered her face.
‘I must have turned over in the night. No inadvertent touching, though,’ he pointed out with intolerable self-righteousness.
‘Will you please remove your arm?’
The weight shifted. Eva opened her eyes cautiously and found that his arm might have moved, but Jack had not. They were still close enough for her to have counted his eyelashes, should she have had the inclination to do so. They were unfairly long, very dark and framed his eyes dramatically. She was also in an excellent position to note that his eyes might be grey, but there were black flecks in them. The pupils were somewhat dilated and his regard intense. She found herself unable to stop staring back, directly into them.
‘One of us has got to blink,’ Jack observed, ‘or we may mesmerise each other and never get up.’
It seemed to Eva that someone had certainly been exerting powers of animal magnetism upon her, although she thought she had read somewhere that the effect required immersion of the subject in magnetised water. Or was it just her headache making her feel like this?
‘Yes, and it will have to be you because I am completely pinned down with you lying on these covers,’ she pointed out crisply. Thank goodness she still seemed able to speak with clarity and authority; she had been half-afraid she would open her mouth and mumble inanities.
‘Very well.’ Jack rolled away and stood up, stretching as he walked to throw open the shutters. He was dressed in a crumpled shirt and breeches, his feet bare on the boards.
‘You said you were going to wear a nightshirt.’ Eva sat up in bed, pushing her hair back off her face with both hands. She hadn’t even plaited it last night.
‘And you expressed horror at the suggestion. I believe an aversion to hairy legs came into it.’ Jack turned back from the window and stood regarding her, hands on hips, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
‘I didn’t say that, did I? Oh, Lord.’ Eva buried her face in her hands. If she didn’t look, then he wasn’t really there, she didn’t have to face the hideous embarrassment of knowing she’d been completely tipsy—no, drunk—and totally indiscreet. What must he think of her? She knew what she thought of herself.
‘Eva.’ The bed dipped beside her and a hand settled on her shoulder, large, warm, comforting.
‘Stop it. Don’t touch me,’ she snapped. It lifted again. ‘I’m sorry, I am finding this very difficult.’ Silence. ‘I’m not used to this intimacy with someone. I’m not used to someone being so close, so involved with what I’m doing, what I am thinking.’
She dropped her hands and looked at him, desperate to communicate how she felt. ‘I do not know how to be with you, because this relationship we have is outside anything I’ve known before.’ Jack’s face, intent, listening, gave her no clue as to his feelings—except that he did not appear to be inclined to laugh at her.
‘We are forced into this closeness and it is as if I am adrift without any chart to guide me. You are not a servant, you are not one of the family, you are not a professional man I have hired, like a doctor or a lawyer. What are you?’
She did not expect an answer, far less the one he gave her. ‘A friend.’
‘A friend?’ Why did that word hurt so much? It was as though he had shone a light on the great empty loneliness at the heart of her life and forced her to confront it. ‘I do not have any friends.’
‘You have now.’ Jack picked up her right hand as it lay lax on the counterpane. ‘Eva, you have shared a dark secret fear with me, you have told me how you feel about your son, how you felt about your husband. You have got tipsy with me and you have confided your prejudices about nightshirts. We are jointly engaged on a dangerous adventure. Today we will go shopping together. These are all things you do with friends.’
Her hand seemed small, lost within his big brown one, the long fingers cupping it protectively, not gripping, just cradling it. Eva found herself studying his nails. Clean, neatly clipped with a black line of bruising along the base of three of them, a rough patch on the index fingernail as though it had been abraded against a rough stone. That damage had been done as he had climbed down the castle wall to her room. Absently she rubbed the ball of her thumb over it, welcoming the distraction of the rasping sensation.
‘Do you make friends of all your clients?’ She did her best to sound like the Grand Duchess and not Eva de Maubourg, not disorientated, half-afraid, confused.
‘You are not a client, his Majesty’s Government is my client. But, yes, I do make friends with some. Not all. Some I do not like, many are in too much trouble to want to do anything but see the back of me when it is all sorted out. When we are in England I will introduce you to Max Dysart, the Earl of Penrith, and his wife; you will like them, I think.
‘But why have you no friends? Girls from your come-out in England? The Regent, the ladies of the court…’
‘Philippe is twenty-five years my senior, he is like an uncle. Antoine, I have never trusted. The ladies of the court, as you put it—no. Louis did not encourage me to make friends here, or to retain them from before, and that became established. I do not think there are any kindred spirits amongst them in any case.’ She assayed a confident smile, knowing it was a poor effort. ‘Certainly there is no one I could get drunk with, or have an adventure with, or risk telling a weakness to.’
‘Then I am the first.’
I am the first. The words Louis had used as he had undressed her on their wedding night, his green eyes heavy with desire. It had been very important to him that she was a virgin. Now, no longer an innocent, she knew it had titillated the jaded palate of a man she was to learn was one of the most energetic, and promiscuous, lovers in Europe. Theirs had not been a love match, but she could not complain that Louis had ever left her physically unsatisfied. Just emotionally empty, and yearning for affection. She had learned to be a good grand duchess, and to do without love.
‘What is it?�
� Jack’s hand closed shut around hers. ‘Another nightmare?’
‘No. Just a memory. Thank you, I would like to be your friend.’ She looked up, relaxing, expecting to see something uncomplicated in his expression. He was smiling, but in his eyes there was something else, something she knew he was trying to mask. Heat, intensity, need. She recognised them because she felt them, too. The ordinary words she had intended to say caught in her throat. Somehow she not could pretend to herself that she did not see, or that she did not feel.
But I want…No, I cannot say it. I cannot say I want you, because if I do the world changes for ever.
Jack lifted her hand and pressed a kiss on her fingertips that were all that could be seen within his grasp. ‘You were right, ma’am, from now on we need a considerably bigger bed and then I can sleep under the covers and safely wear a nightshirt.’
‘Oh!’ Eva was startled into a gasp of amusement. ‘How can you make a joke about it?’
‘Because laughter chases away fear and it also puts many things in perspective. Are you hungry? Because I am starving and I don’t know where they are with the hot water.’ Jack tugged at the bell pull and retreated behind the screen.
‘I am ravenous.’ And suddenly she was. And strangely happy as though a weight had been lifted. Perhaps it was simply the cathartic effect of telling Jack how she felt. Except, of course, the fact that that she desired him. He feels the same way. The memory of the heat in his gaze as it had rested on her made her feel warm and fluttery inside and ridiculously girlish. Even though they had not acknowledged what that exchange of glances meant, the fact that an attractive, intelligent man found her desirable was the most wonderful boost to her confidence. Perhaps I’m not so old and past it after all.
There was a knock on the door and she hopped out of bed to open it, remembering at the last minute to ask who it was before she unlocked the door. Feeling wonderful was no excuse for laying them open to attack.
The chambermaid staggered in with two steaming ewers, set them both down beside the screen and went out, sped on her way by Eva’s insistence on a large breakfast as soon as possible.
‘Are we really going shopping?’ She climbed back into bed and sat up, her arms round her knees, listening to the sounds of splashing. She had never listened to a man’s morning rituals. Louis had always retreated to his own suite after visiting hers. He had never, after their wedding night, slept with her until morning.
‘Of course. You need a travelling wardrobe.’ There was a pause and a sound she guessed was a razor being stropped. ‘They won’t be the sort of shops you are used to,’ he warned.
‘I do not care.’ Eva flopped back against the pillows. ‘I don’t get to see many shops, everything comes to me. It is so boring—I love window shopping and looking for bargains.’ The noises from behind the screen were muffled. ‘Do you hate shopping, or are you shaving?’
‘Shaving.’ He sounded as though he had a mouthful of foam. She waited a few minutes, then, more clearly, ‘I have very little experience of shopping with women.’
‘Oh. No—what is the phrase—no barques of frailty you wish to indulge?’
‘What do you know of your weaker sisters, your Serene Highness?’
‘Nothing at all, except that my husband kept a great many of them, if you add them all up over the years.’
Silence. Had she shocked him? ‘I am about to emerge, ma’am, if you would be so good as to close your eyes or otherwise avert your gaze.’ Eva obediently closed her eyes and pressed her hands across them, as well, for good measure. Something was bubbling inside her, some ridiculously youthful feeling. There was the pad of bare feet on the boards. ‘Did you mind the other women?’ Jack asked from somewhere on the other side of the room. ‘My back is turned, if you want to get dressed.’
‘Mind? Not really. I was ridiculously shocked at first, but then, I was ridiculously young to have married a man like that.’ She slid out of bed and risked a glance in Jack’s direction. He was standing in front of the open window, his back to her, pulling on his shirt. The sunlight shone through, throwing the silhouette of his body against the fine fabric as he stretched his arms above his head. Eva bit back a sigh, dropped her eyes, found she was staring at the admirable tautness of his buttocks and the elegant line of his legs in the tight breeches and hastened to get behind the screen before her imagination got the better of her. Friends, she reminded herself fiercely. My friend—don’t spoil it.
‘You surprise me.’ She followed Jack’s movements about the room by ear as she washed. ‘I would have expected that to have upset you greatly.’
‘He never pretended to love me,’ Eva explained, shaking out the remnants of her clean linen and making mental shopping lists while she talked. ‘And I was too young to have formed a real attachment. It was my pride that was hurt more than anything, once I had got over my shock. Then, by the time I realised that he was not the sort of man to devote himself to one woman, I had Freddie and I was beginning to carry out my duties. It wasn’t so bad, and there were some benefits to being married to one of the most accomplished lovers in Europe.’
In the crashing silence that followed this remark, Eva thought she could have heard a pin drop. The handful of underwear fell back into the trunk from her lax grip. How tactless was it possible to be? She had just intimated to a man who had kissed her—with such skill and feeling that her knees still felt weak when she thought of it—that she would have been mentally comparing his technique with the legendary erotic skills of her late husband.
Worse. This was a man who she was quite certain wanted her. Eva grimaced, wondering what she could possibly say to make things better. Nothing, probably, unless she wanted to dig the hole even deeper. To say anything acknowledged the attraction between them.
‘Do you have grounds for comparison?’ Jack asked coolly into the aching silence.
‘Only Louis’s own assessment,’ she replied, then came to a decision. She could not leave this. ‘Personally I have had no basis for comparison—only one kiss. On the basis of that Louis need not have been so confident.’
‘Nothing? In all that time?’ Jack sounded as though he was just the other side of the screen. She should step out, have this exchange face to face, but somehow Eva guessed it would be more truthful like this. ‘No one?’
‘No one,’ she affirmed. ‘No one while he was alive, no one since.’
From that, she supposed, he could conclude she was a love-starved widow, ready to turn to any personable man once she was away from the close scrutiny of the Grand Ducal court, or that she was cold and had not felt the lack of love and of loving.
‘The man was a fool,’ Jack said abruptly. It wasn’t until she heard the snick of the latch that she realised he had walked out and left her. Eva stood for a moment, filtering the few words through her mind, listening to the emotion behind the curt statement. Her friend was angry on her behalf. Her eyes filled; no one had ever understood what it must have been like being married to Louis, and yet a man she had just tactlessly insulted grasped it immediately with warmth and empathy.
‘Thank you, Jack,’ she whispered to the empty room.
Shopping with a woman was a new experience. At the age of twenty-nine one did not have many of those, and certainly few that were so entertaining. If his sister, Bel, had asked him to accompany her through the fashionable lounges and shops of London, he would have pretended an attack of mumps sooner than oblige her, but Eva’s delight at being let loose in the bourgeois shops of Grenoble was infectious.
In her travel-worn gown and cloak she darted from shop window to shop window, ruthlessly dragging Jack with her. ‘I must have a hat,’ she declared. ‘I feel positively indecent without one. Which do you think? The amber straw with the ruffle or the chip straw with the satin ribbons?’
‘Have both,’ he suggested, ignoring the inner warning that a carriage stuffed with hatboxes was not the efficient vehicle for clandestine travel he had designed it to be.
‘Reall
y? May I?’ He was still looking into the window as she glanced up at him. Something about the reflected image of himself standing there with this lovely woman on his arm, her head tilted to look up at him with delight in her eyes, hit him over the solar plexus like a blow from a fist. They looked right together, and the sight gave him an entirely unfamiliar sensation of possessiveness. Jack tried to analyse it, but Eva was still talking.
‘Only I haven’t bought a gown yet, and I ought to buy that first and match the hat.’
‘Really? Is that how it is done?’
‘I think so—when I have new ensembles made they all come together with a selection of hats and shoes and so forth. I’m not used to shopping like this.’ Her nose wrinkled in doubt and Jack grinned. That was an expression far from the grand duchess he was used to.
‘Come on, let’s break the rules.’ He pushed open the door and held it for her as the little bell tinkled, summoning the milliner. ‘And you will need something in case we have to ride.’
‘If we do, that will be an emergency? Yes?’ Eva stopped inside the door and lowered her voice.
‘Yes. We’ll be picking up saddle horses a bit further north as a precaution.’
‘Then I need breeches.’ Jack felt his brows shoot up. ‘I will explain later, but I can ride astride.’ Eva turned to the shopkeeper, who was bobbing a curtsy. ‘There are two hats in your window I would like to try, if you please.’
Ride astride? How in Hades had she learned that? It was certainly useful—if they had to take to horseback then it would be because they had to abandon the carriage and move both fast and unobserved. His mind strayed to wondering how one bought riding breeches for a woman off the peg in Grenoble. Eva was tall and slender, but definitely rounded in a way that no man or youth was.
‘Jacques.’ He pulled himself away from a frankly improper contemplation of the curves hinted at by the fall of her gown and found himself confronted by a nightmare he had heard other men gibbering about. He was expected to make a judgement between two articles of clothing worn by a woman. ‘Which do you think?’
