by Gaelen Foley
Ah, well. She did her best to ignore it. Nobody flirted with her, thank heavens. Nobody, that was, who knew the name of her husband.
More and more people arrived as the high Season got well underway. Her life had become a true Society whirl: She knew she had arrived when she and Jack were first mentioned in the Society page of the Morning Post. Like her husband, she had been pronounced an “Original.”
There were horse races at Ascot next week that everyone said would be smashing, but the event Eden simply craved above all was the grand ball this Saturday night.
Her first real London ball.
She counted the hours and practiced her dancing. The gown she had ordered for the affair was sure to bedazzle all of her new friends, and her husband, too, but there was nearly a full week of pleasure to enjoy until that magical night came.
Monday had been their visit to Derbyshire and then the card party. Tuesday, she attended a lavish afternoon garden party, or “fête champetre,” at Lady Madison’s jewel-box villa on the Thames. Wednesday night, it was an after-theater party where London’s most celebrated actors put in brief appearances, spreading their stardust as they mingled with their rich admirers, the arts’ most generous patrons.
On Thursday afternoon, Jack escorted her to a polo match, after which they had to rush back and scramble to change clothes in time for the chamber music concert that evening at Holland House.
Calamity struck on Friday evening, however, when Eden realized her cunning French lady’s maid, Lisette, was nowhere to be found. They had already sent in their R.S.V.P. promising to attend Lady Draxinger’s at-home: They had to go.
Of course, Eden had no idea what an at-home was, but she was game to find out. All she knew at the moment was that it was time to start getting dressed, and without her maid to beautify her—horrors!
Her silk dressing gown billowing behind her, she went striding through their suite to the sitting room. “Jack!”
“Hm?” He was already dressed in his black and white finery, sprawled on the chaise, and boredly reading the paper. He glanced over with a yawn.
“Have you seen Lisette? She’s gone!”
He paused. “Ah, yes. Lisette.”
“I cannot find her anywhere!”
“Right. Er, yes, about Lisette, dear. I’m sorry, I forgot to tell you.” He sat up, lowering his feet to the floor. “She’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“Yes. I gave her the sack this afternoon.”
“What? Why?”
He set his paper aside. “She was stealing from us.”
Eden gasped.
“I caught her trying to make off with your pearls,” he said.
She furrowed her brow in pure bafflement. “You caught Lisette stealing my pearls?”
“Mm.”
“Oh! How horrid of her!”
“I know.”
“Well, what am I to do? We have to be at the Draxingers’ in an hour!”
“Darling, one of your other maids can help you with your gown, I’m sure.”
“But who’s going to fix my hair?” she cried.
He stared at her until Eden realized how silly she actually sounded. “Oh, you.”
She walked over to him and caressed his head lightly, then bent and kissed his cheek. “What would I do without you?”
“I wonder,” he murmured. “Perhaps forget who you are?”
She lowered her gaze, chastened. “It’s all just been so exciting. I suppose sometimes…I get a bit carried away.”
He took her hand, giving her an earnest look. “Let’s stay home tonight,” he whispered. “I just want us to be with each other.”
Eden felt a jolt of longing for him. Oh, she knew that smoldering look, and the pure adoration in his gaze pierced her very heart. How lucky she was to be loved so much. The realization reminded her of how much she missed his loving. After all these days of denial, she knew she wanted him again.
“Could we just put in an appearance?” she murmured as she petted his hair. “We already said we’d go, and it would be much too rude not to show without any explanation.”
“Oh, all right. You know I can’t say no to you.”
She smiled. “Besides, I’m dying to find out what an ‘at-home’ is.”
“It’s boring,” he called as she hurried back into her chamber, and rang the bell sharply for her other maids.
Jack heaved a sigh and picked up the paper again. God knew there was no bloody reason to tell his wife the real reason he had fired her sultry French maid.
Earlier today, when Eden had gone to her Ladies’ Garden Club, Jack had been working at his desk in the sitting room, reviewing correspondence, and had not heard Lisette saunter up behind him, but he had frozen at the light female touch on his shoulder. He had assumed it was Eden reaching for him at last, and he had responded at once, turning only to find it was her attendant.
“My lady has gone out,” Lisette murmured, sidling closer. “I wondered if there’s anything my lord might need.”
She had begun rubbing his tense shoulders before he could reply, coming up behind his chair and leaning her big breasts forward to cradle his head. “These hands can do more than make pretty coiffures,” she had whispered.
Jack had sat there, motionless.
With Eden starving him for sex, he had admittedly looked at the woman—once. Unfortunately, Lisette was French and once was all it took. She knew.
But hell, Jack thought, he was married, not dead. Before Eden, Lisette was precisely the kind of shrewd, knowing female he’d have chosen to amuse himself with in some far-flung port. She was all woman, ample curves and deep, beckoning eyes, a creature of smoldering sensuality.
He knew he shouldn’t have hired her.
But she had come highly recommended, having worked for several ladies of the ton, and he had been thinking of Eden, who knew nothing of Society. His wife was going to need all the help that she could get, and Lisette had the air of a woman who knew her way around the world.
Her self-assured touch had told him that she also knew her way around a man’s body. He had flinched at her caress.
“It is a crime that a man like you should ever be neglected,” she breathed in his ear, massaging his shoulders. “She doesn’t deserve you.”
He had pulled away, refusing even to contemplate adultery. “Leave me. And do not speak ill of your mistress ever again.”
“You love her, I know, even though she will not share your bed. But my lord, there’s nothing to feel guilty for. It doesn’t count, you know, if it’s only your cock in my mouth.”
He had stood up and lengthened the distance between them.
“You are dismissed. I don’t want you anywhere near my wife. Go.”
“What?”
“Get your things and go.”
She had glared at him.
“We will write you a reference. Just get out of my sight.”
She had hissed at him on her way out.
When she had made her haughty exit, Jack had tried to get back to work, but after a few minutes, he threw down his pen in defeat. Fairly twitching with sexual need, he had left his desk and walked out onto the balcony, struggling to rein in his ravenous lust.
He had made up his mind then that tonight was the night.
After the stupid at-home at Lord Draxinger’s, he would exercise his husbandly prerogatives. It was humiliating enough that the servants were starting to notice that his wife refused to let him into her bed. He had vowed to wait a week before he took her, but five days was all that he could last.
When Eden finally figured out what to do with her hair, they went to the at-home and found it ridiculously crowded.
Hundreds of guests were packed into the grand town-house on Hanover Square, so that it was nearly impossible to move.
The ton had many silly rituals, but Jack had always thought this business of the at-home was the biggest waste of time. It entailed a long and tedious procession through the entrance hall, up the
jam-packed staircase, until it was finally their turn to pay their respects to their host and hostess. This done, the guests simply turned around and filed right back out again.
Some nights, there might be as many as three or four popular at-homes to visit at once. As far as Jack could gather, the point of it was to converse with other guests while everyone waited in line, but in his view, it was sheer torture.
This particular at-home, however, managed to hold his attention, for as crowded as it was, it meant having Eden’s lithe body squashed up again him for a good half hour.
The surging motion of the crowd pressed him against her in a heated wave. It was the most contact with her that he had enjoyed in what felt like forever, and at last, he could sense her awareness of him coming to life.
As her husband, he had every right to place his hand on her waist to steady her as they inched up the overcrowded staircase.
They were thrust beside the wall, so no one but Eden noticed that his hold on her was more of a caress. She glanced at him over her shoulder, her lips parted playfully. Not enough for anyone to notice, she arched her back just a bit, with a subtle thrust of her backside into his groin.
Jack bit back a groan and slipped his fingertip into the little gap at the top of her elbow-length gloves. His heart was pounding. “Let’s get out of here.”
She turned her head as though to kiss him, but she knew as well as he did that two people couldn’t kiss in the middle of one of these events. Not without causing a full-fledged scandal.
They were panting for each other, and the crowd was oblivious. What fun. Having an affair with his own wife.
“How can we?” she whispered.
That wasn’t a no, praise God.
He looked down the stairs and cursed under his breath to see they were pinned in. There was nothing to do but to go through with the maddening ritual until they could finally escape. And then…
He trailed his gloved fingers up her spine, rousing a shiver. “Pretty dress,” he whispered. It was off the shoulder. He liked the low curve in the back. His lips grazed her earlobe. “I can’t wait to rip it off you.”
She drew in her breath at his naughty whisper, but her girlish shiver spurred him on. They were only words, after all, just loud enough for his sweet pet to hear. “I’m going to lay you down and lick you from your head to your toes, every inch of your creamy skin. I’ll give you so much pleasure that you’ll think you’ve lost your mind, and then I’m going to do it all over again. And again…and again.”
She jerked.
Jack had a few more choice ideas that he whispered to her as they made their way slowly up the stairs, but his heart was pounding, and it was all he could do to will down his growing erection.
That would be something to show to the Draxingers.
“Are you wet for me?” he wanted to know.
“Stop it,” she giggled. “It’s nearly our turn.”
“There’s got to be an extra room somewhere in this place where you and I can—”
“Shh!”
“What?” he drawled. “Drax is a friend of Alec’s, so I very much doubt he’s a pillar of virtue. He knows what goes on.”
“And so will everyone else. Just wait until we get home.”
“You promise?”
“As long as you’re good.”
“In that case—” He breathed the words wickedly into her ear. “I will be a perfect angel.”
When they finally reached their hosts, their visit was extraordinarily brief. Eden curtsied, Jack bowed, and then they raced out, fighting the incoming tide of humanity. If she wasn’t mistaken, Jack shoved a few people out of the way and flashed a smile as though it were an accident.
They hurried back to their hotel to make love, but despite the fact that he already had her wildly aroused even before they got out of the carriage—indeed, she wanted nothing but to let the delicious man do to her every sinful thing he’d promised—in the rational part of her mind, Eden was still just a tiny bit uncertain.
They made it as far as the big mahogany table in the darkened dining room, where they proceeded to have each other for dessert. His hand was up her skirts, pleasuring her, while Eden kissed his beautiful bare chest where she’d ripped his shirt open, and stroked his powerful arms, his strong back through the thin white lawn.
He smiled drunkenly between kisses as he touched the nectar dampening her inner thighs. “My pretty wife,” he whispered. “I’m going to take you now.”
“Jack, wait.”
“Mm, no more waiting. Now.” He kissed her again, filling her mouth with the velvet stroke of his tongue on hers.
“Jack—I want to give myself to you,” she panted when he let her up for air. “But—”
“Oh, but what?” he teased, babying her with a doting frown.
“I-I need to know that this time, Jack, you’re going to be as honest—and open with me as I’ve been with you. I just want to know—oh!—that my feelings are returned.”
“Of course they are, sweetheart.”
It was so difficult to concentrate when he sucked on her neck like that, but somehow she rallied her wits. “Then—tell me the real reason you wanted to leave me in Ireland.”
He stopped. He lifted his head and looked at her in shock. “You have got to be joking.”
Her chest was heaving, but her stare was dead serious. When he started to lean down for another kiss with a charming, pooh-pooh sort of smile on his lips, she planted her hand on his shoulder to show she meant business.
“Oh, come on. You’re not going to start that again now?”
“Why didn’t you want me with you? Just tell me.”
He cast about for words. “Eden, it doesn’t matter anymore.”
“It matters to me.”
“What I feared hasn’t come to fruition, so could you please drop it?”
“What did you fear?”
“Leave it alone!” he exclaimed. “Darling, I know you were hurt but I realized my mistake and corrected it. Isn’t that enough?”
“I am your wife. I have a right to know what’s going on inside that head of yours.”
He rolled his eyes. “Did it ever occur to you that I have a right to my own private thoughts? I don’t want to talk about this! Especially not now. Kiss me, damn it.”
She tilted her face away, shooting him a sharp look askance. “Why won’t you tell me?”
He sat up. “I don’t believe this.”
She followed, lifting the little puff sleeve of her unbuttoned gown back up her arm. “What are you trying to hide?”
“Listen. I need you. Make love to me. Right now.” He reached out and played with the little notch between her collar bones, drawing a diamond around it with his fingertip. Then he lowered his hand to her thigh. “You keep brushing me off like this, you’re going to lose me,” he whispered.
She pulled back with a frightened look. “Jack!”
“I mean it. You’ve got to stop this, Eden.” He grasped her shoulder lightly and gazed into her eyes. “I feel like I’m losing you. I barely know you anymore and these days, I’m not sure you know yourself. I’m worried about you. You’re changing, and I liked you the way you were, my little jungle oddball, not like anybody else in the whole world,” he whispered softly. “Utterly unique.”
“I’m not changing.”
He caught her face between his hands. “Yes, you are,” he whispered urgently. “And I’m scared to death that I’m the one responsible.” He squeezed her shoulder again. “Come back to me.”
They stared at each other for a long moment.
Without a word, Eden reached for him. He pulled her near and hugged her. They held each other for a long moment in silence, and she thought about what he had said. She did not like the uneasy flare of guilt she felt inside. “Maybe I’m trying new things of late, but I…I’m happy.” I think.
“Happy?” He pulled back and it seemed her assertion had somehow angered him. “How can you be, when there is this gulf
between us? Happy? I’m not! But maybe you just don’t care about us the way I do.”
“Don’t say that, Jack! You know I do,” she insisted softly, cupping his nape. “You’re everything to me.”
“Then show me. Show me you love me. Lie with me, Eden. I love you so much it’s killing me.”
“But you don’t understand!” She withdrew her touch. “You nearly left me in the dust once—no, twice before, if you count Venezuela. How can I trust you and give myself to you when you won’t even answer one simple question?”
“How? I’ll tell you how. I saved your life, for starters. I give you everything your heart desires, I love you as I’ve never loved before—and now you want to put conditions on whether or not you’ll make love with me? I am your husband,” he said with a tremor of hurt fury gathering in his deep voice. “You cannot keep turning me away!”
“But, Jack—”
“But nothing. Stop punishing me! I told you, I admit it, I was wrong. But I have been doing everything in my power to make it up to you, so quit playing games! What more do you want?”
“The truth!” she cried. “If you’d talk to me, at least then I could understand! Why must you be so evasive? What’s so bad that you’ve got to hide, that you can’t even tell me your motives?”
“You know what? Forget it,” he said, sliding off the table. “This is rubbish. You let me know when you want to come back to my bed. I’m done begging for you.”
He picked up his work coat in disgust and walked out the door, shutting it with a slam.
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
Hurt and furious and feeling entirely rejected, Jack dove headlong into work, just as he always did. He went straight to the office at his company warehouse beside the river, where he found Trahern in charge and the job running smoothly. He walked in, greeted his dog, glad that at least somebody appreciated him, then asked Trahern for a report on the latest progress.
“Excellent news, Captain.” The higher level of responsibility seemed to sit well with the young lieutenant. He held himself straighter and possessed a new air of self-assurance. “You know those fellows your kinsman, Lord Rackford, sent me to see? Well, my visit with them produced another seventy recruits. That now makes a full three hundred from London. Provided everyone who signed on actually shows up, we’ll reach Bolivar with a full brigade, exactly as we promised.”
