by Gaelen Foley
“Jack?” Trahern pounded the door again.
“I’m coming! Only not in the sense that I’d hoped,” he added under his breath, adjusting his hardness with a pained wince. “Look what you do to me.”
Eden arched a brow in the direction of his groin, shot him a pitying smile, and then closed her chamber door.
Jack couldn’t say he cared for Trahern’s timing, but he soon learned the reason for his urgency. The intrepid lieutenant had taken it upon himself to do some discreet snooping around the Spanish embassy, and had discovered that the man newly assigned as attaché to the ambassador was none other than Manuel de Ruiz, head of the deadly team of assassins who had pursued Bolivar to Jack’s very doorstep on Jamaica a few short years ago.
“We should have killed them when we had the chance.” Trahern poured himself a drink from the liquor cabinet.
“Easier said than done,” Jack murmured, declining the whisky as he rested his hands on his waist and stared at the floor, mulling over the news.
Ruiz was a man to be reckoned with, and now it appeared he had moved up the ranks despite having let the Liberator slip through his fingers. Even if Ruiz never found proof that Jack was the Venezuelans’ agent in London, the former assassin would be keeping an eye on him, Jack could be sure of that.
Well, he did not expect that he could keep his presence hidden from Ruiz, nor did he care to try, for he did not hide from any man. All he could do was to cling to his pretense for being in London, remain vigilant, and in his dealings with his recruits, continue to emphasize the need for secrecy.
Trahern remained for an hour discussing various concerns pertaining to the mission. When he left, Jack checked in on Eden, but she was fast asleep.
Damn. He let her rest rather than push his luck, and closed her door with a regretful smile.
The next day, he attended to more business, visiting the Exchange with Peter Stockwell to meet with a few of his investors. He was very pleased to see his stock prices climb by twelve percent as word spread about the acquisition of Abraham Gold’s company by Knight Enterprises. He accepted bids for the rare tropical hardwoods he had brought from the torrid zone, and gave a nod of approval on the price for the sugar, indigo, rum, and other goods from the West Indies.
Later that night, returning to the hotel a considerably richer man, he took his wife out to the theater.
Robert maintained one of the best-situated boxes in the house, and with Strathmore and Lizzie having bowed out on account of their newborn at home, the theater box held all twelve of them quite comfortably.
As luck would have it, Shakespeare topped the bill of fare and the Dramatis Personae inevitably listed the villain as “Edmund the Bastard.”
Jack let out a disgruntled sigh to read it, shifted in his seat, and tried to comprehend why anyone would want to watch a tragedy, anyway, life being tragic enough as it was. Then again, the performance on stage was hardly the point of a Society night out at the theater. The point, of course, was to see and be seen.
The Knight ladies were up to the task, of course. All looked ravishing. Alec declared that, seated as they were along the railing, they looked like a row of posies planted in a flower box.
“Very droll,” Damien’s wife, Miranda, had teased him, while their sister gave him a small kick with a slippered toe and told him to behave.
During the silly pantomime on stage, meant to warm up the audience before the main play, everyone was marveling at how easily Eden had learned to tell the twins apart.
“It took me forever,” Bel declared. “How did you do it?”
“Simple,” Eden said with a grin. “Damien marches; Lucien glides.”
Both twins had laughed aloud at that.
Before long, the pantomime players scurried off stage and it was time for King Lear.
The audience quieted down somewhat, but there was still muffled noise and plenty of motion throughout the theater as the ladies waved their fans and the men talked about the day’s horse races in what they considered muffled tones.
Down in the pit with the lower orders, orange girls hawked their wares, so that, every now and then, a piece of orange peel went flying through the air to hit some unsuspecting playgoer in the head, much to the hilarity of the one who had thrown it.
Higher up where the rich kept their boxes, Jack noted the winking lenses of countless opera glasses trained on the Knight family’s box. Oh, yes, they were being watched.
Jack watched Eden watching the stage, sweetly unaware that at this very moment, the whole ton was watching her, passing judgment on her—and trying to figure out what to make of him, as well.
He put the watchers out of his mind and instead savored the pleasure of looking at his wife. A true beauty. She looked wonderful in dark blue silk with the double string of pink pearls around her neck that he had brought her just today. He was glad she was feeling better this evening, and wondered when the hell she was going to sleep with him again, but just then, the soliloquizing fellow on stage—the villain, of course—spoke a line that grabbed his attention.
“‘Why bastard?’” poor Edmund demanded from center stage. “‘Wherefore base, when my dimensions are as well compact, my mind as generous, and my shape as true as honest madam’s issue?’”
Jack and his brothers exchanged a wry glance.
A few of their ladies looked at them and suppressed giggles, but Eden looked shocked.
“‘Why brand they us with base? With baseness? Bastardy? Base?’” Edmund cried as if he could not comprehend it. “‘Base?’”
Jack knew exactly how he felt. Alec put his head down, laughing into his hand. His pregnant wife, Becky, elbowed him.
“‘Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, takes more composition, and fierce quality, than doth within a dull, stale, tired bed go to th’ creating a whole tribe of fops, got ’tween asleep and awake?’”
“Man’s got a point,” Damien drawled in a low tone.
“‘Fine word, legitimate!’” Edmund the Bastard kept at it, crossing toward the limelight, so close that Eden with her fine aim could have hit him in the head with an orange peel if she’d had one.
She looked as if she might like to.
“‘Edmund the base shall top th’ legitimate,’” the villain declared. “‘I grow, I prosper: Now, gods, stand up for bastards!’”
“Bravo, my lad!” Jack stood up and bellowed in a voice made to carry orders out across the waves.
Immediately, his brothers echoed the sentiment, cheering with applause and a piercing whistle of approval.
The whole theater broke into laughter, having been in on the joke for years. After all, the whole town knew who they were; their scandalous history had always been an open secret in London.
The Knight women glanced at their husbands with equal parts doting and exasperation.
Jack looked the audience over for a moment with a wry stare.
“Welcome back, Lord Jack!” somebody yelled from down in the pit, but there was no point in overdoing it.
He sat down with a look of tranquil cynicism, tugging his waistcoat into place. Lucien was still laughing and clapped him on the back.
“Perfect timing, old boy.”
“Somebody had to say something,” he muttered, then took a swig from his flask.
Eden shook her head at him and smiled.
In the days that followed, Jack was amused to find the invitations pouring in.
It seemed his open acknowledgment of the family scandal had quite disarmed the ton, and now Jack, the prodigal son, was being given the chance to show he wasn’t such a bastard, after all.
Funny how fortune and power could make a man’s sins seem mere foibles, eccentricities. At any rate, the society that had once shunned him was now offering him the olive branch.
There was a time when he would have snatched it out of their hands, snapped it in two, and thrown it on the ground, but he was not so angry anymore.
Not so full of obstinate pride.
Besides, his darling Eden wanted to belong to their world, and recalling Lord Arthur’s advice, Jack deemed it an honor to make her wish come true.
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
“You said you wanted to put down roots,” Jack murmured as she stared in shock two days later at the house he was proposing to buy.
Eden could not even answer, bedazzled by the dramatic Baroque ceiling mural in the entrance hall: blue sky and great, silvered clouds with Apollo the sun god driving his chariot across the ceiling. She had a direct view of his mighty steeds’ underbellies from where she stood; one could almost hear them snorting.
The mural had a sense of vivid motion, which, when added to the rest of the entrance hall’s opulent details, created an almost dizzying sense of grandeur: gilded bannisters, huge splendid door casements, decorated white pilasters, roundels with the bas-relief busts of Greek philosophers peering out like nosy onlookers, painted cherubs everywhere, expanses of gleaming Italian marble, and chandeliers above like sparkling crowns.
The house was being offered to Jack on extraordinary terms as part of the settlement finalizing matters between him and old Abraham Gold. For all its grandeur, it would need a bit of work. Jack had suggested that overseeing the improvements and refurbishing it might be an apt project for Eden while he was gone to Venezuela.
She turned rather dazedly, taking it all in, and was delighted anew by the view out the high, arched windows. The tall, spouting plume of the fountain danced in the center of the ornamental lake. The mile-long drive up to the house wound through two hundred acres of green, rolling landscape sculpted by Capability Brown.
Through the window, presently, she spotted Cousin Amelia strolling with Lieutenant Trahern, and smiled. They had fetched her cousin on the way out to Derbyshire, where the grand house was situated, a few hours from London.
The gallant young lieutenant and her shy cousin had charmed each other from the moment they had met. Now the pair had gone out to view the grounds while Jack and Eden toured the house. When they were done here, Amelia would accompany Eden back to Town for a few days—information that seemed to please Mr. Trahern as much as it pleased the girls.
Eden quite believed a bit of matchmaking was in order.
She had never anticipated becoming her cousin’s chaperone, but now that she was an old married lady, such was her privilege.
“My lord, my lady,” Mr. Gold’s land agent addressed them. “If you wish to come this way, I should be very pleased to show you the ballroom. It holds up to four hundred guests…”
Never in her wildest dreams did Eden ever contemplate owning a ballroom, let alone having four hundred friends to invite there. She looked at Jack, who was sauntering along languidly by her side.
“Can we really afford this?” she whispered.
“No worries,” he murmured as the agent marched ahead. “I’ll just sell off the castle in Ireland.”
She gasped. “Don’t you dare!”
He smiled. “I’m only teasing.” The wicked sparkle in his eyes informed her he had merely wanted to see her reaction, since the castle obviously meant a great deal to them as a couple. He gave her a wink and then glanced around at the house. “If you like this place, you shall have it.”
Reminded in spite of herself of those three blissful days, Eden took her husband’s arm in wary affection and steered him onward to see the ballroom. They were getting along better now than they had been since that gloomy day they had left Ireland. Admittedly, Jack’s cheeky outburst in the theater the other night had disarmed Eden as much as it had the ton.
The measure of amused favor that he had won from Society by his rowdy display seemed to go contrary to what Eden would have expected, but as Martin had later explained to her, true “originals” actually led fashion by breaking the rules.
Jack was an original, all right, she mused. When it came to rule-breaking, he was an expert. She surveyed the ballroom and tried to imagine the two of them hosting glittering gatherings like the ones they were now being invited to.
She glanced at her husband and found him watching her again with a soft trace of a smile on his lips and a glow in his turquoise eyes. She smiled back at him, happier than she had been in weeks; nevertheless, she still got the feeling he was up to something.
And so he was.
But his secret agenda was hardly nefarious. After his breakthrough with the ton, and more importantly, with his wife the other night at the theater, Jack vowed not to squander the opportunity he had gained. He was working his way back into his lady’s favor, and nothing on earth would deter him.
He had taken it into his head that perhaps she needed to be wooed and courted all over again, nice and slowly.
Rushing her would only make her run from him again. All sailors had to learn extraordinary patience, waiting on the tides, waiting on the wind. If she was the moon, then he was the sea, slave to her bidding, a thrall to her mysterious pull. He mightn’t like this, forced to live like a monk, but he was used to being at sea for long periods of time, foregoing the pleasures of Eros.
He always found that when he enjoyed the rites of sex again, the taste was all the sweeter, more intoxicating. And so, he had made up his mind to restrain his lust for one more week.
If she didn’t give it to him by then, he had promised himself he would summon up the pirate in him and simply take the wench. He didn’t want it to come to that, but damn it, he was her husband and he had his rights. He hoped instead that buying her this house might inspire her to a more amorous form of thanks.
They finished their tour a while later and left the premises with solemn assurances to the agent that, yes, they were interested and they would let him know their decision post-haste.
Then the four of them stopped about halfway through the drive back to London for a meal at a quaint coaching inn.
Jack observed the mooning looks between young Trahern and Cousin Amelia in gentle amusement, now that he knew firsthand the tender misery of falling in love. He made a few remarks to help his young friend’s cause, giving Trahern openings to brag about his various feats of daring at sea.
“You should have seen him, Miss Northrop,” he told the girl while they sat at the rustic table eating roast beef sandwiches and drinking ale. “There were two feluccas full of Barbary corsairs trying to pin us in, but Lieutenant Trahern ordered the men to lower the oars and somehow managed to run the frigate right through the opening between them. Cleared it with little more than seven feet to spare on both sides.”
“Oh!” she said. Amelia Northrop was a sweet thing, a pale, demure blonde with a soft, melodious voice as sweet as wind chimes. She was as harmless, biddable, and gentle as her red-haired cousin was fiery and strong-willed.
“Aye, they were ready with the grappling hooks,” Trahern admitted, blushing modestly. “They were going to board us. Luckily Cap’n Jack was there. He fought while I sailed the ship.”
“Did you…kill some of them, Lord Jack?” Amelia inquired in a tremulous voice. “The Barbary corsairs, I mean?”
“Ohh, I don’t recall. Maybe one or two.”
Trahern let out a snort of a laugh, no doubt remembering the bloodshed of that day, but when Amelia turned to him with a wondering look, he seemed to catch on that bloody butchery was not the sort of thing one discussed in the presence of a genteel and sheltered young lady—and Amelia Northrop was possibly the most genteel and sheltered creature either man had ever met.
Unsettled by the savagery beneath their attempt to conceal the reality of that day, Amelia turned to her cousin. “Edie, when do you expect Uncle Victor to arrive?”
She and Jack exchanged a subtle glance, for Eden had not told Amelia or her aunt Cecily that in fact she had run away from Papa. She shrugged. “It’s difficult to say.”
“Miss Northrop, you see, we’re not entirely certain he’ll be able to come, but if does, he should be here any day now,” Jack murmured, reaching across the table to touch Eden’s hand in an offering of
quiet reassurance.
Eden summoned a smile and gave him a small nod of thanks. “I’m sure Jack’s right. Papa will be here soon.”
“And Lord Arthur, too,” Jack added. “I expect we’ll see my uncle any day now.” He hoped so. He needed the Valiant to carry materièl for his recruits alongside The Winds of Fortune on the return trip to South America.
Arthur had needed to stop at a shipyard to have a few repairs made on his vessel in preparation for the rigorous crossing back to South America.
By late afternoon, they all were back at the Pulteney Hotel.
Their sprawling six-room suite was a welcome haven, though Jack rather wished he would have insisted on one with fewer bedchambers. That way, Eden would have been forced to share a bed with him. Instead, it was much too convenient for her to keep a respectable distance, taking her own boudoir like a proper Society wife.
At any rate, Jack meant to drop the girls off, change clothes, and then go and visit the lads in the East End. He needed to verify how many of the smugglers’ gang intended to join the ranks of his recruits. He had no doubt that word of the enterprise would have spread throughout the secretive rookeries by now. There was no telling how many of the city’s tough street boys in need of an occupation might be interested in the adventuring life and the chance to earn the Venezuelans’ silver.
Anything had to be better than those crowded, gin-soaked, tenement blocks full of squalor and treachery. Aye, he wouldn’t be surprised if he scrounged up two hundred men in London alone—though, God knew, O’Shaunnessy, Graves, and his other Irish officer chums would have their hands full drilling such heathens and turning them into soldiers.
As it turned out, however, once he reached the hotel, developments occurred that altered his plans for the night’s work.
Eden, Amelia, and Trahern collapsed into the elegant couches in the main sitting room, worn out from the long drive. They ordered refreshments from the hotel kitchens, but when the knock came at the door, it was one of the house under-butlers, who came hurrying to bring Jack a note—apparently urgent.
