by Gaelen Foley
Eden needed him, too. Her confession last night haunted him. When she had told him that she had been holding back from loving him ever since they’d left Ireland not just because of their falling out, but also because she knew he had to leave, her words had resonated with him in a troubling way, reminding him of the man he used to be and the way he had lived before she had come swinging into his world on that silly vine.
Always sailing from port to port, he had kept the world at arm’s length, never allowing anyone close to him, deliberately keeping a careful detachment from others in order to protect himself. He knew how much it hurt to exist that way, and now he was about to inflict the same way of life on Eden.
Maybe I shouldn’t go. Maybe I really should leave it to Trahern. But putting such a vital mission in the hands of a man barely twenty-six years old seemed insane. Thousands of people could die if he failed, their only chance at freedom crushed. Jack’s wife and babe might need him, but how could he ever be selfish enough to put his private life before what he deemed right?
He found himself wondering what Uncle Arthur would have advised. Where was the old devil, anyway? Perhaps the repairs on the Valiant had been more involved than his uncle had expected.
At any rate, their arrival in the ballroom created a bit of a stir.
People he had never seen before greeted him with cordial nods and smiles as he and Eden sauntered past with steps perfectly fitted to each other’s. Whether it was Eden or their well-matched couplehood, his wife generated an air of approval about her that he knew he could never have obtained alone.
Having been starved for human company for so long, she was genuinely pleased to see everyone, and as a result, nobody could resist her. He sensed the usual whispers behind fluttering fans, but with Eden beside him, he didn’t care. Society’s tireless busybodies required a constant diet of new gossip to keep their empty heads abuzz. It did not signify.
“What have you done to these people, darling?” he murmured to her at length. “Have you cast a spell on them? Put some of that what’s-it leaf into the punch bowl?”
“Why do you say that?”
“They’re smiling at me.”
“Well, that’s easy enough to explain. I haven’t been merely amusing myself in all my gadding about, I’ll have you know.” She sent him a discreet smile askance. “I’ve been campaigning for you everywhere I go, as well, making a point of telling the world how wonderful you are.”
“Wonderful?” he echoed. “Trying to ruin my reputation, are you?”
“As the terror of the West Indies? I’m afraid so,” she replied, then greeted a pair of turbaned and jewel-covered matrons from the Garden Club who fluttered to her with an apparently earth-shattering announcement.
“Oh! Dear child, we have the most wonderful news!”
“What is it?” she asked, beaming at them very like a ray of tropical sunshine.
“We spoke to Lady Jersey and Countess Lieven on your behalf, and guess what? They’ve agreed!” said the first.
The second chimed in. “You are to be summoned to one of their homes to receive a voucher to Almack’s! Yes, it’s true—for the two of you!”
“They’re letting me into Almack’s?” Jack drawled.
“Oh, yes, my lord. It was no mean feat convincing the Patronesses—”
“But I don’t wa—” he started, then shut his mouth as Eden’s fingers clamped down on his arm in warning. He obeyed and merely smiled. “Thank you,” he responded to their frail champions. “I’m sure you’re very kind.”
The garden ladies warned them to secrecy. “But you can’t know yet! You’ll have to act surprised.”
“We will,” Eden promised. “Won’t we, Jack?”
“Hmm.”
“My dear ladies, you are so good to speak to them on my behalf! I had no idea you had taken up for me.”
“Tut, tut, gel. We need more women of sense at these things.”
“Amen to that,” Jack muttered.
“Besides, your tips for helping to get rid of our aphids were absolutely brilliant. My prize roses owe you their lives!”
“Oh, it’s just a little trick of Papa’s,” she said modestly.
“Ah, what’s this?” The lady in white glanced in the direction of the dance floor, where the master of ceremonies had made the long-awaited announcement. “They are starting the dancing.”
“You two will make such a lovely pair,” the other one said, favoring them with a wreath of smiles. “Go on, then. You newlyweds run along and have a dance.”
Eden turned to Jack with an eager smile. “Shall we?”
He blinked. “Uh, Eden.”
The ladies bowed to them and moved on to mingle elsewhere.
Damn. He had forgotten about this dancing business. He turned to his wife in a state of extreme discomfort. “Darling, perhaps you really shouldn’t, in your condition.”
“Don’t be silly,” she whispered. “It’s just a bit of dancing. It’s not as if I’m going to run a marathon.”
No, a marathon would have been far preferable, at least for him.
Every man had his limits, and Jack Knight didn’t dance.
He had come to this silly ball, had he not? And the routs and the at-homes and the card parties and everything else? Surely he had done his duty. He hated to disappoint her, especially now, but he had made no promises about participating in this fool’s art. Having come this far to gain the ton’s respect, he was not about to go out there and make a horse’s arse of himself.
Not even for Eden.
He could not, would not dance, never had, never would, and in point of fact would rather gouge his own eye out with a fish fork than stand up with all the other prancing idiots and march around in their daft little patterns. Dancing was a silly practice too far beneath him for words, and he was sure that most of his brothers would have backed him up on this.
Except for Alec, ever a ruling prince of Society. He spotted his youngest brother sauntering by, and was inspired to foist Eden off on him. Alec’s wife, Becky, was too pregnant to dance, after all. He could see her sitting by the wall.
“Jack?” Eden persisted.
“Well, the thing of it is, dear—”
“You don’t dance, do you?” she cried.
Thankfully, she looked more amused than vexed—at first.
“I can’t,” he said, praying she would be his angel and understand.
“Oh, you big grumpy lion. You’re just being shy.” She gave his face a caress. “Come on, don’t be a killjoy.”
“Alec!” he called as his brother drifted by.
The golden-haired youngest of the Knight brothers came bounding over with a sunny grin. “Good evening people! Don’t you look beautiful, my dear lady! Fantastic gown! Let me see you.” He grabbed Eden’s hand and twirled her around, letting her show off her gown. “Sister, I hereby declare you a diamond of the first water.”
She curtsied low to him, laughing. “Thank you, Lord Alec. Now would you please tell your great lug of a brother to dance with me? He’s trying to wriggle out of it.”
“What’s this? Cur? Knave? Not dancing? What cruelty is this? It’s her first ball.”
“Yes, I know, but—” His voice broke off. Can’t was not a word that often reared its ugly head in Jack’s vocabulary.
Alec scowled at him, but picked up on his pleading look and took charge, tucking Eden’s hand into the crook of his arm. “My dear, new sister, you must come and dance with me. Stand in for me in Becky’s stead, won’t you? You and I shall never be wallflowers.”
Eden gave Jack a sulky look, but she was obviously grateful not to be left out of the dancing. “Are you sure Becky won’t mind?”
“Quite the opposite. She’d wring my neck if I let you stand here frowning next to him. She quite adores you, you know.”
“Likewise.” She waved to her big-bellied sister-in-law, who was sitting by the wall.
Becky waved back, and Alec blew his wife a kiss.
&n
bsp; “Don’t worry,” Alec added, patting Eden’s hand. “When Jack sees how he’s missing out on all the fun, he’ll change his mind.”
Don’t hold your breath, Jack thought, but he nodded his encouragement for them to go on without him. “Enjoy.”
“Humph,” Eden said.
“Have a drink, old boy,” his roguish brother added as he led Eden away. “It’ll dull your inhibitions.”
“I like my inhibitions, thank you very much.”
Alec turned back to him one more time, and pointed to another quarter of the ballroom. “Damien’s trying to get your attention.”
Jack looked over in the direction Alec had indicated and saw the stern elder twin staring at him. Damien summoned Jack with a flick of his white-gloved fingers. Jack sent him a nod, glad for the reprieve.
As the dancing got underway, Jack struck out to go around the crowd to join the no-nonsense colonel.
Quite the opposite of Alec, with Damien, there was no such thing as small talk.
“I spoke with Wellington,” Damien murmured in his ear when Jack joined him with a look of question. “His hands are tied as far as helping you recruit, but he said if you run into trouble with Whitehall, he’ll do what he can to help you get out of it.”
“That is encouraging. Well done, brother.”
They spoke for a few minutes in greater detail about Damien’s call on the Iron Duke, then Damien mentioned that everything was ready for Eden’s visit. The guest apartment in the Winterleys’ Town residence was waiting to receive her.
Jack was bursting to tell Damien the news about the child, but he and Eden had wanted to wait until everyone was together to announce it to the whole family at once.
Keeping the secret of his mission was easy compared to his eagerness to shout this sweeter news from the rooftops. He searched for another topic to stop himself.
He folded his arms across his chest and looked at Damien in curiosity. “What’s he like, anyway?”
“Wellington?”
He nodded, curious about the mortal man behind the growing legend of England’s foremost hero.
Speaking about his idol was one of the few subjects other than his twin sons, Andrew and Edward, that could inspire Damien to wax poetical. Listening to him describe the Iron Duke’s unflappable nerve, dry wit, and unswerving loyalty, Jack watched his wife dancing.
He had lost sight of her in the milling throng, but when he spotted her red hair again, he was surprised that she was no longer safely paired with Alec. Instead, she was gliding through a graceful turn across from some pudgy little bald chap.
Jack frowned until he realized that the stately country dance in progress was one with a shifting pattern of figures where the participants were constantly changing partners with every new verse.
It was just a dance, but somehow this was not the sort of thing a man wanted to see when he was about to leave town for six months.
As he looked on, the weaving patterns of the dance whooshed Eden along to discard the pudgy man, and brought her around to face her next partner, a tall, lean, not unhandsome fellow with a loud red waistcoat and the sly smile of a hardened Town dandy.
Bit of a fop, this one, Jack thought, watching as a dark undercurrent of jealousy slid through his veins.
He brightened, however, when Eden’s searching gaze sought him through the crowd and located him over there by Damien.
She sent him a dazzling grin, enjoying herself so much that it nearly coaxed him out to try.
Ruefully, he smiled back at her.
All but ignoring her partner, she tossed her head and gave a little twitch of her skirts in Jack’s direction, as if to lure him out onto the dance floor. Ah, she was tempting.
But no, he thought, shaking his head at her.
He was rather fond of his dignity.
“My God, who is that glorious redhead?” someone murmured nearby.
Jack had almost missed the words, barely overhearing as a pair of hard-eyed London rakes strolled past him, oblivious to their peril, for they were wholly absorbed in evaluating the varied charms of all the women present in the ballroom.
They continued on, already sauntering away, though Jack could still hear their low-toned remarks.
“Damn me, never seen her before.”
“Think she’s married?”
“Since when does it matter?”
They snickered, unaware of Jack coming after them with a black look on his face, but a firm hand on his shoulder suddenly stopped him.
“Jack. A word, please.”
He turned to find Lucien staring at him with cool intent in his silvery eyes. The younger twin was usually so laid back that Jack instantly knew from his uneasy look that there was trouble.
He let his flash of jealousy go, but still bristling, he vowed if he heard another word in that vein, he was throwing someone through a window. “What’s the matter, Luce?”
“Ah, just a minor bit of, er, unpleasantness, but I thought you should know. Shall we?”
He did not know why the younger twin saw fit to shepherd him over to the wall to tell him what was afoot, but he soon realized it was merely because Lucien knew the size of Jack’s temper, and could guess that his news was the sort of thing that could truly set him off.
“What’s going on?” Jack waited, his arms akimbo.
“You, ah, fired a maid yesterday?” Lucien asked diplomatically.
“Yes. What of it?” Jack furrowed his brow. “Wait, how did you know about that?” He hadn’t seen his brothers yesterday even to have mentioned it.
“I’m not the only one who knows, I’m afraid.”
“Huh?”
“This woman, Lisette, I imagine she came to you well recommended.”
“Aye, she had worked for other ladies in the ton.”
“Well, she’s been talking to them since you gave her the sack.”
“What?”
“Jack—don’t explode. She has started a rumor about you and Eden.”
“Oh, bloody hell—!”
Society never changed.
“I don’t know how far it’s gone yet,” Lucien said soothingly. “I just heard it on the other end of the ballroom. But I thought you should know. You can tell Eden as you see fit.”
“What does this rumor claim? I am dying to know,” he said in a jaundiced tone.
Lucien’s gaze slid to the floor. “She said that, uh, the two of you have a sham marriage, and that all the time she worked for your wife, you and Eden never shared a bed.”
Jack’s jaw dropped. He snapped it shut again, glowering. “I’ll wring her neck! Of all the spiteful, petty, conniving—”
He fumed a bit at the rumor’s implied slight to his manhood. What business was it of anyone if he had not been sleeping with his wife for a spell until last night? Then he realized Eden was bound to hear it soon. He had to protect her.
He looked over at her in concern. “Thanks, Luce. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go get my wife.” He would rather tell her himself than have her hear it from somebody else.
He saw that the first dance had ended and blinked to spy his wife now surrounded by a swarm of elegant Town Corinthians.
The image threw him off guard. What the—?
Had those sly chaps heard the rumor, too?
Good God.
Some of them must have heard it, he thought, which would explain why they were buzzing about her like so many bees to a rare, delicious flower. If they believed Eden was trapped in a loveless marriage with a husband who neglected her in bed, then they would naturally assume that meant she was available, in the way that so many Society wives were—in the way, indeed, that Jack’s feckless mother had been back in her day.
His anger deepened at the thought. But Eden was no sophisticated Georgiana Hawkscliffe, too innocent to know what was really in those scoundrels’ minds—namely, bedding her the minute his back was turned.
He was already in motion, ready to start throwing people through windows.
>
It was not lost on him that if he had danced with her, this would not have happened.
Why was she smiling at them?
He wasn’t sure what the devil to do about the rumor. Society wranglings were not his forte. He had to think. Perhaps Alec might have some ideas. Right now, he wanted out of here, and he was taking his wife with him. He didn’t care anymore if it was her first ball.
They were going home.
As he marched toward her, a swarthy, splendidly uniformed stranger stepped into his path.
Jack stopped.
“Pardon me, señor.” Beneath his thin, black mustache, a smile curved the man’s lips, but his dark eyes were like daggers. “Lord Jack Knight, I presume?”
Jack tensed, instantly on his guard. “Aye?”
The Spaniard clicked his heels and bowed to Jack with crisp, Continental panache. “I represent the court of His Majesty, King Ferdinand of Spain. I should like very much to have a word with you—if you don’t mind.”
Ruiz’s superior.
Jack gritted his teeth, biting back his impatience. So, there were six good-looking men flirting with his luscious, young wife, each with a blue-blood pedigree no doubt finer than his own. And at the moment, there was not a damned thing he could do about it.
Very well. Let her enjoy it, he thought with gritted teeth. He could endure it another two minutes. For now, the Spanish ambassador had his full attention. He was stuck with this mission, never mind that his beautiful—pregnant—young wife had half the House of Lords smiling at her, only biding their time.
Just waiting for him to leave for South America.
So, these were Town Corinthians in coats from Savile Row, Eden mused. The dashing gentlemen she had dreamed about, far away in the jungle.
There was something in their eyes she didn’t trust; their smooth, cocksure smiles made her uneasy. Hemmed in by them and answering their polite questions in a distracted manner, she wanted Jack, but she had no sooner succeeded in extricating herself from the knot of these too-friendly men when she saw Jack being hounded by the Spaniard.
At once, she remembered his warning that if she saw a black-haired Spanish man anywhere in her vicinity, she should retreat. Jack’s arms were folded across his chest as he spoke with the man; the studied way in which her husband refused even to glance in her direction served as a silent warning to Eden not to come near.
