by Louise Allen
‘The duke?’
‘Yes. Charles. He is never going to marry. Possibly one day Sebastian will succeed him—he is ten years the younger, after all. But if you have a son together, the boy most certainly will.’
‘The duke is unwell? Disabled in some way? Er…disturbed?’
‘The duke does not find women attractive. Not sexually attractive. Do you understand me?’
‘Oh. Yes.’ One came across it, of course, although Louis had had to explain it to her. ‘But is that not illegal?’
‘Yes. You see how I trust you.’
‘But in the case I knew of, the man married to get an heir.’
‘Charles has lived, secluded on his Northumberland estate, for eight years, very happily with his lover who, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, is his steward.’
‘Ah.’ Eva thought about it. ‘That makes no difference to me, the thought of the title.’
‘Good.’ Bel beamed back. ‘But it might to Sebastian, don’t you think? Only he would never mention it, because he is so loyal to Charles.’
‘So you think I should just find him and…propose?’ It sounded the most frightening thing she had ever done. She could not imagine what it would feel like if he said yes.
‘I think that I will inveigle him into escorting me to Lady Letheringsett’s masked ball the day after tomorrow, and if you cannot find an excuse to carry him off and do the deed, then I wash my hands of the pair of you.’
‘But I am not invited…’ Bel with a plan was proving every bit as hard to resist as her brother.
‘Then come and let me present her to you. She’ll have arrived by now, I have no doubt. She’ll invite you, never fear.’
‘But if Jack finds out, he won’t come.’
‘Trust me.’ Bel grinned. ‘I will tell him at length how disappointed I am that the fascinating Grand Duchess Eva has declined! He will feel quite safe. Now, let’s see if we can fix your feathers.’
‘Don’t you have to dress up?’ Freddie enquired, obviously disappointed. He was perched on the edge of Eva’s bed, watching while Fettersham dressed her hair to accommodate the half-mask she was to wear.
‘No, just masks. It isn’t a masquerade with fancy dress, but there will be a grand unmasking at midnight.’
The mask was pretty, she decided, holding it up so the dresser could thread the ribbons back into her coiffure to hold it securely. It was covered in tiny golden brown feathers, making her eyes seem a richer, deeper brown in its shadows.
Her gown was amber gauze over bronze silk, the neckline swooping low to expose the swell of her breasts and a generous décolletage. Eva was dressing for Jack tonight. Since that first night he had never seen her in anything but practical clothes. This was going to be a revelation.
‘Jewellery, ma’am?’ Fettersham proffered the selection the jewellers had sent. Diamonds, of course, or citrines or amber to match the dress. Eva hesitated, then chose diamonds set in gold with a diamond aigrette for her hair. She glowed, as she intended to, an offering to a man whose scruples must be overcome. She had seduced him once, on his own turf, now, on hers, the world of ballrooms and etiquette, she felt her confidence building. He would say yes, she had to believe it.
‘Mr Ryder will like that gown,’ Freddie said confidently. ‘I think you look very pretty.’
‘Why, thank you.’ Eva stared at her son as his words penetrated. ‘Why do you think Mr Ryder will be there to see it?’
Freddie sucked his cheeks in and managed to look like a cheeky angel. ‘You are all fluttery, Mama.’
‘Impudent child,’ she scolded. ‘Off to bed with you!’
Fluttery, indeed! The little wretch could read her like a book, even if he did not know the first thing about the relationships between men and women. Just like his papa, she thought. Louis had always been able to read her mind—except when he chose not to for his own ends, like that dreadful day in the vaults. She sincerely hoped her innocent son had not the slightest inkling of the sort of things that flitted through her mind when she thought of Jack.
‘What a fabulous gown!’ Lady Bel pounced on Eva as soon as she had entered the ballroom. ‘And such a lovely mask—I wouldn’t have known it was you if I hadn’t been looking out very carefully. It is so nice to be out of mourning, although I shall be in such trouble if Mama finds out. I have four more weeks to go, really.’ She swept Eva down one side of the crowded ballroom, ignoring the chattering throng, the men with their quizzing glasses scrutinising every masked lady, the towering floral displays and the glittering lights.
‘Is this not a brilliant idea of mine?’ Bel congratulated herself as they arrived in a slightly quieter semi-alcove. ‘Because of the masks, no one is announced, so he will not have the slightest suspicion.’
‘Where is he?’ Eva craned to see. It appeared hopeless, then the crowd moved and there, leaning one shoulder against the pillar opposite, was a tall, dark-haired man in severe evening black, his mask a plain black slash across his face, his white linen the only relief from the starkness. She would have known him anywhere, and known, too, that, despite the relaxed half-smile on his lips, the casual attitude, he did not want to be here, that this evening was a penance undertaken to give his sister pleasure.
‘I left him there and made him swear to wait for me,’ Bel explained. ‘There is a retiring room right behind that curtain, and the key is in the lock.’
‘Do you know the location of every retiring room in London?’ Eva asked, amused despite her tension. ‘You make me suspect you have numerous outrageous flirtations.’
Bel coloured. ‘I am boringly chaste—and unchased,’ she said lightly. ‘Go on, he is all yours. And good luck!’
Eva skirted round to approach Jack from behind. She paused, studying him. His hair had been cut since he got back; she could glimpse the whiter skin at his nape, and the memory of how that skin had felt under her fingers, against her mouth, took her breath.
There was so much noise with voices raised in conversation and the orchestra just trying its first few chords that she knew he could not have heard the soft tap of her slippers on the parquet floor, but as she reached the point where she could have stretched out and touched him, he pushed himself away from the wall and turned.
‘You.’ He kept his voice low, but it reached her none the less. His whole body was poised to move, the tension she had sensed on the quayside in Lyon was vibrating through him. He had hardly had to look at her and he knew her.
‘Jack…’ Eva held out her hand, but he did not take it. ‘I need to talk with you.’
‘This is Bel’s doing, I take it?’ His mouth was a hard line and Eva realised he was furiously angry.
‘Your sister told me you would be here. Jack—’ No, he wasn’t Jack Ryder here. This, in the glamour of the ballroom, in his exquisite tailoring, his signet glowing dark on his hand, this was the other man, the one she had never met. ‘Lord Sebastian. Please, there is a retiring room just here, I believe.’
‘Very well.’ Punctiliously he held the curtain back, opened the door for her and waited while she slipped inside.
‘Will you turn the key? I do not wish to be interrupted.’ She glanced around. A chaise against the wall, two chairs, a pretty little marble fireplace set across the corner, that was all.
‘Jack…Sebastian. What do I call you?’
‘Nothing,’ he said harshly.
‘You left without saying goodbye.’ Eva meant it as a prelude; he took it as an accusation.
‘It was better that way. I had hoped not to have this conversation.’
‘What conversation? How do you know what I want to talk about?’
‘I assumed you have changed your mind about wanting our affaire to end.’ Jack’s eyes were bleak, although his tone was neutral. ‘I do not want it to end, either,’ he added. ‘But I know it is the wise thing. The only thing for two people circumstanced as we are.’
‘No. That is not what I meant to say. I agree with you: an affaire i
s impossible here.’ That, she was pleased to see, took him aback. ‘But like you, I wish it were not.’
‘Then why are we here?’ Jack asked. The black mask made him seem different somehow, more aloof, more dangerous. ‘In a locked room? Just one more time, perhaps?’ Eva moved in a flutter of silk and gauze, needing to be closer, needing to see his eyes more clearly. She saw his control snap, suddenly without warning, like lightning from a clear sky. She was in his arms, crushed against his chest, his eyes were blazing into hers and his mouth came crushing down to silence her gasp of protest.
Damn it, did she think he was made of iron? She had taken him by surprise, with his guard down, and she came in silks and feathers and a cloud of subtle perfume that enhanced the scent of her and spoke of sin and sweetness and soft, soft skin. He was aching for her, had been aching with the bone-deep agony of something broken ever since that chaste night in Brussels.
He had expected it to get better; it got worse. He had thought it was purely lust and had tried to assuage it in the obvious manner. But he found his feet would not carry him over the threshold of the discreet house of pleasure that had enjoyed his custom so many times before.
If it were lust, then no other woman than this one, the one he could not have, could slake it. But it was not lust. He had admitted it to himself already—now he had to live with the reality of it. Love. He had found the strength to do the right thing and now she flung all that hard-won self-control back in his face, as though it did not matter, as though he would rather have slashed his own wrist open rather than walk away from that house without a farewell.
He had gone to the War Office and made them very happy with the rocket notes and then he made the effort to put Jack Ryder behind himself until this madness at least became a manageable agony. He had his hair ruthlessly barbered into the newest crop. He filled the white nights when he could not sleep with gaming, and won an embarrassing amount of money. He visited his tailor and ordered lavishly. Nothing helped, and, to add insult to injury, the highly fashionable, clinging knitted black silk of his evening knee breeches could not have been better designed to demonstrate the violently carnal effect Eva was having on him.
Then she had moved, bringing her warmth, her scent, to lash his senses, and he lost control.
Anger or lust or sheer desperation? Jack had no idea, and with Eva’s body crushed against his, with her mouth warm and moist and soft under his, he stopped thinking. Her gown, already low over those milk-white breasts, slid away under the pressure of his hands and she spilled into his palms, the perfect weight so familiar, so arousing. He stooped and took one nipple in his mouth, nipping it, fretting it with his tongue mercilessly so that she cried out, gripping his hair, not in pain, but to urge him closer.
Closer? If she wanted closer, then she would have closer. There were buttons under his fingers, then they were free, the gown slipping down, over the curve of her hips, the perfect roundness of her buttocks. Under it she wore only the finest of petticoats, the simplest of corsets. They were no obstacle, it was moments and then she was naked except for her silk stockings and her mask, the effect wildly, indecently erotic. Behind the mask her eyes were wide and soft and fevered in its feathery shadows.
Almost roughly he pushed her down on to the chaise and began to tear off his own clothing. He was so hard for her, so aroused, the clinging silk almost refused to be removed. Impatient, he tugged and heard her gasp as she saw him. Had she forgotten his body so soon, or was this simply the result of the days of abstinence from her?
But Eva showed no fear, not of his anger, not of his size. She reached for him, drew him down to her, wrapped her long, slim, strong horsewoman’s legs around him and pulled him hard to the core of her. She was wet for him, quivering, the scent of arousal fuelling his own state to the point where he thought he would lose all control before he even entered her.
There was no finesse, neither of them sought that, only possession, only oblivion. She cried out as he entered her without any preliminary caress, but the cry was feral, triumphant, demanding and he answered her by driving hard into the centre of her, again and again as she writhed and gasped and called his name, over and over until he felt her convulse around him and he somehow found the strength to wrench himself away before the tremors of her ecstasy sent him over into his.
Chapter Twenty-One
Eva came to herself to find Jack’s weight still crushing down on her, the chaise’s hard bolster digging into the small of her back in the most uncomfortable fashion. They were hot, they were sweaty, she could hardly breathe and she had never felt physical pleasure like it. From outside the volume of noise from the music and the guests beat against the door; inside, the only sound was their panting breaths.
Slowly Jack raised his head so he could look down into her eyes. The black mask made him seem almost sinister, but the harsh lines of his mouth were softened, and the shadow of a smile lurked at the corner. With a sigh he dropped his forehead to rest against hers. She closed her eyes as his lashes brushed against her own lids and his breath stirred warm on her mouth.
‘We are not very good at this abstinence thing, are we?’ he enquired.
‘No. It seems not. Jack…I cannot breathe very well.’
He levered himself up and sat at her feet, arms along the carved rail of the chaise, head thrown back. Naked except for the mask, he looked magnificent in the candlelight, his muscles long and smooth and powerful. She looked at the hand lying relaxed on the carved wood and felt the heat flood through her at the memory of what those elegant, clever, wicked fingers had been doing.
‘Thank you.’ She scrambled up until she was curled against the head of the chaise, just far enough away not to feel the heat of him, just far enough not to yield to the temptation to bend closer and run her tongue tip down his arm. ‘Strange to say, I did not come here for this.’
‘No? Eva, please, put something on. The effect of that mask and the silk stockings is quite outrageously arousing.’
Eva glanced down at herself, then at Jack, whose body was all too obviously stirring into life again at the sight of her. She dragged on her underthings. ‘You’ll have to tie my laces. I cannot get into this gown unless I am laced tight.’
He got up and came to do as she asked. Eva could hear the catch in his breathing as he gathered up the strings. She put her hands at her waist, drew in a breath and nodded. Jack pulled. ‘More.’ He pulled again. ‘Enough. Tie them in a bow—although my dresser will know. Goodness knows what I am going to say to her.’
Jack stepped back as soon as the corset was done. ‘And the buttons on my gown, as well. I am sorry, I cannot reach.’ She stood as still as she could while he buttoned the amber silk. ‘Thank you. Now, I will take care of my hair while you dress.’ She found she could not look at him, she was nervous now.
The overmantel glass reflected back the entire room; Eva forced her eyes to focus only on her hair. This might be the last time she would ever see Jack naked, share the intimacy of getting dressed together. This might be the last time they ever kissed, caressed. The last time if she did not get this right.
‘Well? What is it, Eva?’ Jack stood at the foot of the chaise, his colour a little heightened, his neckcloth in a considerably simpler knot that he had arrived with, but apparently unruffled.
Eva sat down, certain her legs were not going to carry her, and gestured for him to sit likewise.
‘I want to ask you something. And to tell you something,’ she began. ‘I need you so much it hurts to be without you.’ It was out, far too abruptly, without any of the subtlety she had rehearsed. And the word she had sworn to herself she would use—love—would not pass her lips, not without some hint from him that he felt the same.
‘Eva—’
‘No, let me finish. I did not intend to feel like this. It is not just our lovemaking, although that is wonderful. When I asked you to be my lover, I was honest in my reasons, in what I told you. I said I was with a man I desired and trusted and liked. I
thought I wanted physical pleasure, physical comfort, a strong man to hold me. That is all true. And then I found I cannot live without you.’
‘Eva.’ His head was down; he was regarding his clasped hands as though they held the answer. ‘Eva, you honour me, and I—but that makes no difference to our problem. For you to take a lover, now you are back in the full glare of the public eye, is impossible if you wish to avoid scandal.’
‘Jack, please look at me.’ He looked up, met her eyes, his own still and watchful, and very dark. She sat quite still, her own hands, with a desperation to stop her from reaching for him, knotted in her lap. ‘You do not understand. I am asking you to marry me.’
He was so silent that she thought he had not heard her. Then he stood up with the violent grace she had seen him use when he was fighting. From the other side of the little room, as far as he could get from her, he said, ‘Are you insane?’
‘No! I mean it.’ His reaction shocked her. She had expected surprise, doubt, an argument. Not outright hostility.
‘Have you forgotten who—what—you are?’
‘I am the Dowager Grand Duchess. But I am not of the Blood Royal. My father was a French count, my mother the daughter of an English earl. You are the son of a duke. There is no disparity between our breeding.’ She had thought that out very carefully. If Louis could marry her, then she could marry Jack.
‘How very convenient that you discovered my bloodlines,’ Jack said coldly. ‘What would you have done if you had found I was plain Mr Ryder, simply an agent and an adventurer?’
‘I have no idea,’ Eva said flatly. ‘I learned to need plain Mr Ryder, but I did not know just how much being separated from you was going to hurt until I got here. How do I know what I would have thought, what I would want to do, if you were not Lord Sebastian?’
‘Not a convenient Maubourg title, then? That would have sorted out plain Mr Ryder. You might still want to come up with some sort of tinsel decoration, some sort of specially created title for me, or a senior rank in your army perhaps? Yes, that would do it. A handsome sash to wear on my new blue-and-silver uniform—or you could ask the Prince Regent to design something: he specialises in fantasy.’
