“Oh God—” She pushed lightly against his shoulders and scrambled back to the opposite bench. “I—” She lifted a shaking hand to her dazed face. “You. I… We. Oh Lord.”
Jack smiled at her reassuringly, even though his body was still strung tight with need. “Regan, it will be all right. You did nothing to regret.”
At least, he bloody hoped not.
She nodded curtly as she brushed her hands over her hair.
Bloody hell, but he could still feel her thigh warm on his hand.
The folds of her skirts whooshed as she smoothed them.
“Do you need ’elp?” Hell, he needed help. He was as hard as his rifle barrel and no sign of release in sight.
“Y—your accent?” Her lips curled in a smile and her red hair bounced against her cheeks as she yanked at her bodice.
“Sometimes… Rarely… I accidentally speak how I was born to.” He hated it when he slipped. The last thing he wanted Regan to think was that he was low.
Jack grabbed her bonnet from the small shelf above her seat. “Here. If you keep the veil down for the first minutes at the house, no one will know you’ve been sporting in the carriage.”
Her cheeks darkened but she nodded. The veil swung with the motion of the carriage as she put it on her head. With the veil, her features were vague shadows.
“Jack, I like your accent,” she whispered.
She liked it? Jack swallowed. No one had ever told him that. That they liked something about him, just the way he truly was. But before he could answer, the carriage rolled to a stop. Footsteps crunched on the gravel. The carriage door swung open.
Jack jumped down out of the carriage, needing to check for himself that all was clear. He looked right to left, spotting only the footman and several servants on the stairs, candelabras weighing down their hands.
Reaching back into the carriage, he offered Regan his hand. She stared at him for a moment, then she took his hand and, with a swish of black skirts, she stepped down out of the carriage.
Jack let her go and dropped his eyelids half closed as he took in a slow breath. He was about to enter one of the most conservative Whig houses in all of Britain. He would need control. Otherwise he might eviscerate one of the duke’s closest friends, Lord Wells.
The gravel crunched as he stepped towards the massive stone steps that led to the mansion. Five hundred years of affluence and wealth through tyranny stared back at him in the towering façade of Wellhurst House. But Jack—Well, he had a façade of his own.
Chapter Nineteen
“My dear Lady Regan, I’ve decided to place you in the east wing.” Lady Wells glanced back over her shoulder as she led them down the wide tapestried corridor of the second floor. Her pale green eyes glittered and her thin-lipped mouth spread in a sly smile. “I was unsure as to where to put Captain Hazard. He is a very important man, being your guard and all.”
Surely it had been long enough for any sign that he had kissed her so wildly to disappear. Forcing a smile to her lips, Regan lifted her veil. Swallowing, Regan stopped herself from glancing back at Jack. He was mere steps behind her, his energy filling the hallway.
The fact that Lady Wells was personally escorting them to their rooms was not good. She was a vicious gossip and clearly saw them as a juicy tidbit. “What exactly did you have in mind, Lady Wells?”
The light from her candelabra flickered around them and sparkled off the tall, night-darkened windows to their right. The light danced over the mint green of Lady Wells’ evening frock and the large tapestries that lauded ancestral exploits draping the walls.
Lady Wells glanced at Jack as she walked. Her eyes slid over his face, then down to his chest. Then lower. Her eyes flared. Her lips tilted up in a wicked smile.
Regan’s hands tightened into fists. How dare she look at Jack like he was prime flesh to be bought and sampled at market? The urge to grab Lady Wells’ head and jerk it in some other direction was very appealing.
“Lady Regan, your room is there.” Lady Wells stopped and gestured to a closed oak door with her slender hand. “Now, I had reserved a place for Captain Hazard in the servant’s quarters, but somehow that did not seem fitting.” Her voice practically purred, “He is, after all, a very powerful man.”
The servant’s quarters, indeed. Regan stepped to the side so she could look at Jack. A smile, cold and knowing, tilted his lips. Something was happening, an undercurrent in the conversation, that she was missing.
Jack inclined his head. “How kind of you to think of my comfort and Lady Regan’s safety.”
“Hmm. Yes.” Lady Wells dragged her eyes from Jack to Regan. “Indeed, that is my foremost concern. I thought a room next to Lady Regan would suit your… comfort best.”
Regan’s cheeks burned. Now she understood. The woman thought that she and Jack were lovers! Regan blanched. Lady Wells was not that far off in her assertions. Sylvia’s words rang in her head. Even scandal comes to good, little nuns.
“As you are her guard, it would hardly be practical for you to sleep far away from our lovely Lady Regan. Would it?”
“How wise you are.” Jack’s deep silky voice slid through the air like a caress. Lady Wells laughed. A full, throaty sound meant to entice and tease.
Regan’s own throat tightened. What in heaven’s name was he doing? Jack was making it sound as if they were having an affair. Oh dear Lord. Did he think they were going to? Considering she’d let him put his hand under her skirts. It would be a logical conclusion.
Jack’s lover. The hall suddenly seemed overly warm. Regan swallowed. If he slept in the room beside hers at a country house party, everyone could possibly assume that they were sharing a bed. Something Geoffrey had warned against.
But she was not Jack’s lover. The ton could think what they liked. But as long as no one saw anything, they would say nothing.
“The servants will unpack your belongings. A late supper will be served in an hour.” Lady Wells raked Jack with her gaze once more, then turned away. She stopped. “Oh, and Lady Regan? I was so sorry to hear your aunt was too ill to travel with you two. I understand Lord Stanhope collected her late this afternoon from Whiting and she will arrive sometime this eve.”
“Thank you.” Regan’s voice sounded flat to her own ears. Sylvia’s well-meaning machinations were going to get them all in very serious trouble.
Lady Wells’ footsteps faded down the hall. Regan turned on her heel and hurried into her room. A fire crackled in the fireplace on the far wall, lighting the large cream-colored room in gold tones.
The jade-colored bed hangings glimmered. Regan walked towards the bed, suddenly wishing to bang her head against a wall. How had things become so complicated?
“Regan, let me check your room.”
Regan whirled around, her heart thudding in her chest. It would not be wise to be irrational with a man like Jack, but he needed to understand that she could not allow anything to hurt her reputation and as a result, her father’s work.
“You cannot be in here with me alone,” she hissed.
Jack stepped through the door and shut it halfway. “I’m your guard.”
Regan blew out a sharp breath. “A guard who just let Lady Wells think we were lovers.”
He crooked an eyebrow, his sensual lips pressing into a line. “Did I? I apologize for that.”
Regan stared at him. If only he were a different sort of man. One that her father would have approved of. Everything would have been so different.
No. It would not.
A tight vise of pain squeezed her chest. As much as his dark eyes tempted her, she could not involve herself with him. It would ruin her cause and everything that she and her father had worked for.
“I am not your lover,” she whispered, fearing someone might walk through the hall.
He stepped closer to her, his black eyes resting on her lips. “No. Not yet.”
Regan’s mouth dried and she grabbed hold of the bedpost. “Not yet?”
&nbs
p; He took a step further into the room, his footstep softened by the thick red and blue Oriental rug. “Yes.”
“Absolutely not.”
He stopped for a moment, his eyes roving over her face. “Why?”
The fire crackled and popped, filling the silence between them. “Because we are too different.” Regan took a deep breath. “Because I have things that I must do. And you are not a part of those plans.”
The warmth in his black eyes faded. “Except as a guard?”
She nodded. “Except as my guard. I cannot allow anyone to damage my work. Not even myself.” How could she explain to him how much she loved and missed her father? His work was the one thing that made his death bearable.
The black of his eyes hardened into obsidian. “Ah. And I would damage it, wouldn’t I?” His voice cut across the room. Curt understanding glimmered in his eyes. He cocked his head to the side and his lips curled into a sly smile.
“We could be discreet.” His eyes fixed on her face as he slowly crossed the room.
Unable to look away from his commanding gaze, Regan tried to shove the sensation of excitement out of body. But she could not. It was flowing through her, drugging her muscles and heating her belly.
He stepped closer until the mere inches separating them heated. And even though he was not touching her, her skin felt alive. As it had when he’d touched her in the carriage.
Regan backed into the bedpost. She needed to be free of whatever mindless thing made her want him. Without rational thought. “I have never done anything discreetly in my life. I will not start now.”
A dry bark of laughter rumbled from Jack’s throat. “Oh, but you are discreet, my lady. You hide yourself from the world.”
The muscles in Regan’s back tensed as anger rippled through her. “You don’t know me at all to say such a thing.”
Jack closed the distance between, leaving only a finger’s distance between their bodies. The fabric of his coat brushed against her breasts, hardening her nipples. His warm breath blew softly against her face. “I know you better than you I think do.”
Damn him for being so tall. She tilted her head up and her bonnet hit the bedpost. “Captain Hazard, in this particular circumstance, you have overstepped your mark. I do not hide from the world.”
He leaned down, his hair falling at his temples. Then he grabbed a handful of her veil, trailing from the back of her bonnet. He yanked the tail of it around, holding it between them. “Then what the hell do you call this?”
The black lace veil stared up at her. She missed her father so much. He’d been torn from her. No chance to say goodbye. She’d been abruptly left alone. Regan lifted her eyes from the veil, refusing to let the pain of it take hold. She couldn’t. If she did, the fragile exterior image that she had so carefully crafted would fall completely apart.
“I am in mourning for my father.”
“It has been over a year since your father’s death.” His voice softened. “Regan, you hide behind these black clothes and veil and do nothing but work. And you use your father’s wishes to separate yourself from the world. Would he have wanted this life for you?”
Regan sucked in a breath and it stuck in her chest. How had the conversation changed to this? They had been talking about being lovers and now—Pain stung her eyes and tears pooled just behind her lids.
The muscles in her throat worked, tensing with pain. She looked away from the veil and up at Jack.
“Don’t hide anymore, Regan. You’re a strong woman worthy of a vibrant life.” The gentleness of his voice shook her to her core.
A hot tear slipped down her cheek and her chest expanded as she sucked in a huge breath. It was coming. She could feel the pain tearing loose inside her. “Leave. Please. Leave.”
“Rega—”
“I don’t want you here,” the words rushed from her mouth. She needed to say them while she still could, before she threw herself against his broad chest and cried.
He nodded and let her veil slip from his grasp. “Regan. I…”
She looked up at him, wanting him to say something that would make the pain go away, but pain warred in his own eyes. Pain from a lifetime of hurt. How could he make her pain go away when his still tore at him from inside?
Jack turned and strode from the room, shutting the door with a hard swing. The crash of wood on wood bounced off the walls. She stared at the door for a moment then closed her eyes. Her lungs tightened and an aching sob ripped itself from her chest.
Tiredness filled her limbs, the tiredness she’d forced herself to ignore for the last year, and she slid down the length of the bedpost. Her bottom hit the soft rug. Regan reached up and untied the velvet strings of her bonnet. She pulled the thing from her head and brought it in front of her.
Tears streamed down her face, tracing her skin with salty water. Jack was right. So right. Her father hated black. He’d loved life so much. Lived it with every ounce of passion he had. And she—She was hiding from it.
Regan flung the bonnet across the room and buried her face in her hands. Jack knew her. He knew her in a way no one else ever had. And it terrified her. Because she wanted to know him, too.
*
Jack slammed his hands against the walnut wood desk at the far end of his room. Pain stabbed his flesh and he embraced it.
What the hell was he doing?
He was being a bloody nob.
Anger at himself rushed through his veins. He’d pushed too hard. Acted too soon. He’d made her cry.
Hell, he’d done that to men before. He knew how to maneuver people. To leave them twisted and in pain. But Regan? A growl ripped out of his throat and he shoved himself away from the desk.
When that single tear fell down her cheek, it had felt like a knife blade in his chest. He’d caused her pain. And she already had enough of that.
He saw it every day in the way she always smiled, even when it didn’t touch her eyes. The way she never mentioned the pain her father’s death caused her. The way she never complained about anything in her life.
The way she had no life save her work.
It had hit him, because that was his life. A life spent running. From pain.
He’d embraced his pain and was locked in battle with it. One day, he’d defeat it, but not before he destroyed others.
Jack grabbed the lapels of his great coat and yanked it off. He tossed it onto the dark leather chair positioned by the fire. Why did he ruddy have to say not yet? He should have bloody kept his mouth shut.
He snorted and lowered himself onto the bed, his tight muscles shifting. He’d said it because he’d had a taste of her in the carriage. Jack thrust his hand through his hair.
Hell, he wanted her like an addict wanted his opium.
Damn Lady Wells and her insinuations. They’d put Regan on guard.
Jack turned to the fire, the glowing embers fading before his eyes. He paused.
She hadn’t said she did not want to be his lover. She had only said why she could not be.
Chapter Twenty
The dining room glittered with wealth. Every penny made on the backs of his kind. Jack followed Regan further into the den of gilded cutthroats. He spared a quick glance at Brent who was lingering to the back of the room, a look of disgust barely masked on his hard face.
Jack looked back to the graceful arch of Regan’s neck and the soft, red curls caressing her skin. He wanted to ask if she was well. But instead, he focused on the table and the lords and ladies.
Gold glimmered on the shining cherry wood table. Disgust coated Jack’s tongue. Slavery. One of Lord Wells’ primary sources of income came from the trade in human misery.
“Captain Hazard?” Regan asked.
Jack snapped towards her. Somehow, she’d hidden any evidence that she’d been crying. The bruise on her cheek had long faded and her pale skin looked bloody goddess-like in the faint lighting. “Yes?”
She tilted her chin up, her eyes searching his face. “Will you take me in?
”
He smiled tightly. “I hardly think that would be acceptable or pleasing to your host and hostess.”
Regan blinked at him then looked over at Lady Wells preening over one of the king’s distant relations. “Possibly, but do I look as if I care what’s pleasing to that old cat?”
Jack choked back a laugh and coughed. “No. No, you don’t.”
“Then?”
“Well, if you’re willing to face their fury, I am.”
“Glad to hear it. We shall enter as a united front.”
Jack hesitated. If only she understood that they could never be united, that he was, in fact, her enemy. An enemy who wished her no harm, but would destroy her nonetheless.
Jack offered her his arm and leaned into her.
“I should not have said those things to you this afternoon,” he whispered.
Glancing up at him, her eyes wide, she let her fingers hesitate just above the fabric of his coat before sliding over the smooth wool. He flexed the muscles beneath her hand and she stiffened. A small smile tilted the corner of her lips. “What you said was true. I appreciate your concern.”
Confusion swirled inside him. She wasn’t furious with him? “I was an ass,” he murmured down to her.
A laugh rippled from her throat, bubbling through the air. “Only a bit of one.”
Jack’s breath caught in his chest. She was so damned beautiful when she laughed. He wanted her to always laugh. To see her eyes crinkle and cheeks glow. To never know pain. “Shall we?”
She nodded and they followed the couple ahead of them. A general silence surrounded them as they strode forward, but no one moved to stop him from leading Regan towards her place. It took Jack a moment to realize they were seated in a complete contradiction to precedence, for they were sitting at the far end of the table. Lord Wells’ end.
Jack ground his teeth together. It was one thing to spend the night in the same monstrous house with the bloody prick, but to dine within two feet of him? Hell, he’d be lucky if he could swallow soup.
Jack took his seat opposite Regan and glanced down the table. Seated on Regan’s right was Lord Lumley. The man’s blond hair sparkled in the candlelight, like the damned effeminate snob he was. A man who had more money than the monarch and, if possible, had less brain.
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