by Julie Kenner
“Naw. Got my quilties on.” She looked to Jack. “He was with East Inja Comp’ny, ye know. That’s how come we got them fancy rugs all over.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” Jack said, glancing at Mariah as if to say it was her fault he was having to listen to this.
“Brung ’em back from Inja,” Mercy continued. “Them an’ all kinds o’ swords and shields and trunks of feathers an’ oils. Alwus had ’is nose in a book. ’Til Miz Mariah come. Then—” she grinned “—he didn’t have no time fer books. Couldn’t take ’is eyes off her.”
“Really, Mercy,” Mariah said, betraying a touch of anxiety, which she quickly banished. “I’m sure Mr. St. Lawrence isn’t interested.”
“Oh, but I am,” Jack protested. “What sort of man was the squire?”
“A right handsome bloke in ’is day.” Mercy ignored Mariah’s annoyance. “Tall, but not spare. Silver hair. Had standards, he did. And ‘habits.’ Cook said he alwus liked his brandy before an’ his—”
“Mercy!” Mariah snapped, drawing a look of astonishment from the old woman. “You mustn’t bore Mr. St. Lawrence with servants’ prattle.”
“Don’t underestimate my tolerance for gossip, Mrs. Eller. I am enthralled.” He gave Mercy a smile that set her preening. “Go on.”
“He were a bach’lor fer years.” Mercy chuckled. “Said, why pick one flower when there wus a whole garden to enjoy?”
“A common enough sentiment,” Jack said. “What changed his mind?”
Mariah groaned silently. Mercy was past all caution, and the last thing she needed was Jack poking around in her marriage.
“The mistress, o’course. Went off to Lincoln one day, like always, and come home days later with a bride. Said it were like he wus hit by lightning. Struck by her beauty, he was.”
Beauty indeed. Mariah reddened. She didn’t like where this was headed: a mythologized tale of their meeting that her husband had concocted to tease her and satisfy the servants’ curiosity.
“Her pa had just died, an’ Lord knew, th’ squire was needin’ a wife. Wasted no time, old Mason. Like a kid with Christmas peppermints. Married her the next day.” Mercy cast a mischievous grin at her. “Little bitty slip o’ a thing, Miz Mariah. Hardly said a word for days.”
“Doesn’t sound like her,” he said with a glance Mariah’s way.
The old woman chuckled, ignoring her mistress’s “tsk” of warning.
“Gentle-raised, she was. Squire had to teach her everthin’.” “Everything?” Jack propped both hands on the head of his walking stick, looking Mariah over. “A patient man, indeed.”
“Everthin’ about—”
“Mercy, it will be several hours before we reach Lincoln,” Mariah inserted firmly. “You should rest while you have the chance.”
Reading in her mistress’s glare that her moment was over, Mercy nestled back in her corner, sighed with resignation and closed her eyes. Soon she was snoring softly and Mariah was able to breathe easier. Despite the draft from the open window, she began feeling warmer and tucked her lap blanket around the old servant.
When she looked up, Jack was studying her.
“How old was he—your husband?” he asked.
Curse Mercy for stirring up his curiosity.
“Older.”
“How much older?” His gaze intensified.
“I hardly think that is relevant here.” She pulled a small writing pad and pencil out of her purse. “Tell me, what is the prince’s favorite color?”
“You married him after a day? A precipitously short courtship.”
“That seems to be my fate.” She concentrated on her pad and tried to change the subject. “I thought perhaps I should include some of the prince’s favorites in my wardrobe. Is he more of a satin or a damask man?”
“Your father had died, so who arranged the marriage?” He leaned forward.
“A magistrate who decided I needed a husband.”
“Needed?” His brows rose.
“I had nowhere else to go,” she said flatly. “The magistrate introduced us and the squire> made me an offer of marriage then and there.”
“How old were you?”
“Old enough.”
He thought on that, drawing heaven knew what kind of conclusions. She hated the feeling of being weighed and palpated like a holiday goose.
“And you were married for how long?” he continued.
“It’s a bit late to be examining my credentials, is it not?”
“Ten years? A dozen?” he prodded.
“Over seven.” Long, eventful years that she had successfully locked away…feathers, oils and all. Until a week ago.
“During which time he taught you things.” He sat forward, looking her over with those unusual amber-colored eyes. Clearly, he did not intend to be diverted. Curse him. There was nothing more tenacious than a man on the trail of a woman’s vulnerability.
“My husband was a man of many facets.” Her face warmed as she clung to hard-won composure. “As, I am sure, is the prince. His Highness is fond of music, obviously. What else is he fond of?”
Jack smiled in a way that made her want to retract the question.
“Women,” he said without altering his intense regard. “Was your husband fond of them, too?”
His aggressive posture and the speculation in his face pushed her discomfort to its limits. But the cracks in her own composure suddenly allowed her to see the weaknesses in his. He was a man who liked to be in control…of a situation, of himself. Why else would he be the only one sober at the end of an evening’s revelry with the prince?
“Quite so, Mr. St. Lawrence.” Control. She knew all about men who had to be in control. She slid into the bold, unflappable part of her being that had allowed her to handle Mason’s demands without quailing. She leaned forward to call Jack’s arrogance and raise him a bit of self-assurance.
“In fact, my husband was something of a connoisseur of women. He had lived in the Orient, you see, where pleasures of the flesh are considered normal and even desirable.”
Jack sensed something had changed and he froze, mid-coach, eye to eye with her.
There was that word again. Pleasures. She was leaning toward him now, meeting his gaze dead-on, the stormy blue of her eyes like whirlpools ready to drag the unwary male under the surface of duty and respectability and into oblivion. But what a demise it would be…giving in to the erotic urges that had seized him that night at the inn…drowning in his own juices…yielding to his own reckless, consuming…
“Colors?” she reminded him, smiling coolly.
“I have no earthly idea.” Every muscle in his body tensed as he sat back and wished the seat were in a different coach and headed in the opposite direction from wherever she was going.
“Surely you’ve seen him express some preference.”
“Not really.”
“Then the choice of his own clothes may provide a clue.”
“Plaid,” he said shortly. “Royal tartan. Gray, tan and black.”
The blasted woman was going about this like a damned business: studying her new protector, devising god-knew-what snares and temptations for the unsuspecting wretch, making no bones about her purely pecuniary interest in his attentions. Worse: dragging him into her plotting.
“Then perhaps fragrances. What scents does he favor?”
“Soap. He always smells of soap. And cigars.”
“Hmmm. I doubt I’ll find eau de cigar in a perfumer’s shop.” She tapped her lips, drawing his attention to that plump, rosy flesh…fashioned into extravagant bow-shaped curves… “Flowers?”
“I have no bloody idea what—gardens, he likes gardens,” he said curtly, crossing his arms and glancing out the window. “Goes on and on about the fine gardens at this or that house.” He gave a grimace of a smile. “Perhaps you could smear a little garden dirt behind each ear.”
“Dirt behind the ears,” she muttered dutifully as she wrote on her pad. He dragged his walking stick ac
ross his knees and gripped the ends of it like a fighting staff, knowing it was useless in this sort of battle.
“What do you think—is he more visual or tactile?” When he scowled, she clarified, “Is he a looker or a toucher?” Holding her pencil poised, she appeared thoughtful. “He seemed to like having his hands in my hair.”
“It’s not for me to say,” he bit out, filled with images and indignation.
“I only ask because you are my sole source of information, and it has a direct impact on what sort of garments I buy. Some men like to see a woman’s bounty grandly and brazenly displayed. Others prefer to have to peel away layers of frilly armor to reveal a woman’s intimate secrets.”
A woman’s bounty…frilly armor…intimate secrets… Every word was an incantation conjuring salacious images in his head.
“This entire line of questioning is beyond the pale,” he said, outrage compressed into every syllable. “This is my future king. Speaking of him in such a manner is…is indecent.”
“No more indecent than being sent to procure a woman for him, surely,” she said with an edge so fine that it drew blood without him noticing at first. “And yet, you seemed to have no difficulty with that.”
“That is an en-entirely different matter,” he sputtered, his face on fire.
“Because it was a mere woman’s decency being presumed upon? I can see why you make such distinctions. You must surely see why I cannot.”
Arrogant female, equating her honor to their future king’s! Yet, even as he thought it, his pricked conscience winced at the comparison. This was not the middle ages, where le droit de seigneur was the universal right of lords. He shook himself. For God’s sake, it was the Prince of Wales, heir to their nation’s throne and empire. Surely she could see that his needs—
That word brought him up short. Needs? It was more a matter of privilege, he had to concede. Heaven knew the prince had no needs that hadn’t long ago been filled to surfeit. The prince’s desires, then—it should be an honor to serve them. And it wasn’t as though she wouldn’t be recompensed.
“Very well.” She broke the silence and made a note on her pad. “You refuse to discuss the prince’s preferences, so I shall just have to be guided by your own.”
“Mine?” His grip on his walking stick and his jaw both loosened.
“As a representative. Most certainly. You hunt together, attend the same functions and admire the same fashionable ladies, do you not? Then what appeals to you must, by all logic, appeal to him.”
He was speechless with disbelief and experiencing an alarming rush of anticipation. She was going to use him as a stand-in for Bertie! And in so doing, she was going to punish him for the sin of denying her the kiss she had expected on that first night…for keeping his mouth shut when he should have spoken the truth…for handing her over to the prince…and for coercing her into a liaison she claimed not to want. In short, she was going to make him pay for every scorched inch of her flaming pride.
Jack dropped his walking stick, jammed his shoulders into the corner of the coach, and stretched his legs out across the seat beside him. Jaw set, he tilted his hat down over his face and crossed his arms to close off further discussion.
She wasn’t so easily dismissed.
“So, Jack St. Lawrence—” her voice lowered and lapped around his tensed body in warm, suggestive waves “—in intimate situations, do you prefer to see a woman arrayed in permissive silk lingerie or cinched into stern-boned corsets and twenty-button gloves?”
His teeth ground together. He squeezed his eyes tighter and his whole body tensed. Provocative flashes of nipples veiled by translucent silk and breasts bulging above black satin boning flared in his mind. Punishment indeed. The silk in his vision slid…the corset loosened…blue eyes burned and wine-sweetened lips beckoned…tempting and accusing him. Hypocrite. Denying himself in the name of duty. Denying her in the name of his own damnable—
With a growl he sat upright, slammed his hat on the seat, and in one swift move was across the coach and grabbing her by the shoulders. He pulled her to him and smothered her shocked “What—oh—” with a blistering kiss that softened into an exploration as it went on and on…warming, absorbing, caressing…until her resistance melted and his sanity and self-possession were unrecognizable lumps simmering in a stew of desire.
Somewhere in the throes of it, he sank onto one knee in the foot well and leaned into her, trapping her legs between the seat and his body. Her mouth fitted itself to his, drawing him closer and deeper into the kiss. Sweet—her lips were faintly sweet, just as he had recalled—and moist and warm. Her silky tongue was tentative at first in its movements, then more assured, as if she were remembering how to cast that particular spell.
Her shoulders were firmer under his hands than he would have expected, and that thought fired his curiosity about the rest of her. Shapely and strong; the combination surprised and intrigued him. Suddenly everything in the images he’d conjured—bare skin and taut nipples and reddened lips—belonged to her. And there she was at his fingertips, warming to him, willing to—
A snuffling snort and some movement on the seat beside them punched through the steam in his senses. He drew back the same instant she did and in a heartbeat was braced against the opposite seat, breathing hard, his skin too tight and his muscles twitching in protest.
The snoring Mercy smacked her lips dryly in her sleep and shifted so that her cheek lodged against the wall of the coach. He could barely swallow as he watched the old girl settle back into sleep. Relieved, he yanked down his vest and made himself meet Mariah’s questioning look.
Her eyes were wide and her lips were swollen from his kiss. Without a single hair out of place, she managed to look tousled and ready for more. This—this desire, this turmoil—was what it would have been like if he had kissed her that night.
“Now you know,” he managed, struggling to justify his impulse.
If the avowed motivation for his action shocked her, she hid it well.
“So I do. It seems the prince is quite a kisser.” She responded after a moment with a tight little smile and coolly raised her pad and began to make notes. As she concentrated, the tip of her tongue emerged to stroke her kiss-reddened lips—the very territory his had covered moments earlier. Sweet Jesus. He slammed his eyes shut against the sight.
She was making notes on his kiss.
6
MARIAH had time as the coach wound through the chilled countryside to recover her determination to ignore Jack St. Lawrence’s arrogance. And attractions. Which were sprawled with masculine aplomb in front of her.
He was so smug in his male autonomy. No one told him who to bed. How could he possibly understand how demeaning it was for a woman to be considered available for use by a man, even a prince?
As unappetizing as the thought of passion with the portly prince was, it was the marriage part that really stung. A part of her had begun to hope that a new love would walk into her inn and into her life…someone who could make her heart sing and body yearn…someone with whom she could share bed and board and the passing years. But the prince’s insistence that she marry for his convenience put that dream out of reach forever.
She thought of Thomas Bickering. How likely was he to be tall, clean-limbed and athletic looking, with thick, run-your-fingers-through-me hair and a simmering gaze that made her body hot and tingly? Not very.
If only she could go back to her simple life and her uncomplicated hopes.
But she knew better. The minute Jack’s touch reminded her she was a woman, that time of healing and illusion of simplicity was over.
This was the hand that Fortune had dealt her. She had to find a way to navigate its trials and temptations and make a new life for herself. And what if this mistress debacle was itself an instrument of Fate? What if she was meant to start again with one of the potential husbands she met on this journey? She pulled Jack’s list from her purse and stared at the names with an ache around her heart: men w
ho would marry a prince’s mistress for favor and financial gain. She took a deep breath.
Something told her she’d best prepare for the worst.
The coach slowed sometime later, and she leaned to the window. They had entered a stream of traffic approaching the city.
The change in motion awakened Jack; he stirred, sat up and stretched. His eyes had the heaviness of a man fresh from bed and his dark hair was mussed just enough to make him seem appealingly vulnerable. Accessible. Fortunately, Mercy awoke as well and complained that sleeping twisted like a corkscrew had set her joints aching.
“Whew!” The old woman wrinkled her nose. “What’s that smell?”
Apparently, it was Lincoln. Everything about the city, a medieval cathedral town and woolen center whose fortunes had risen and fallen through the centuries, was washed a smelly, sooty gray. Mariah winced as she imagined living in a place where the air had a color and carried a perpetual tang of iron and oil. Lincolnshire’s seat had come alive once more with the development of Britain’s industrial might, but at a price.
They stopped first at the White Hart Hotel in Bailgate, near the cathedral, to secure lodgings and learn where they might find the legal firm employing Thomas Bickering. The manager of the venerable brick inn directed them to a district where banks and solicitor firms were located.
Leaving Mercy at the hotel to settle her things into her room, Mariah set off with Jack to find Yarborough Street.
“I’ll go in first,” Jack said, rigid now and curt, “and tell him—”
“Nothing,” she countered, having to work to keep up with his long strides. “You’ll not say a word about why we are here. I need to see what sort of man he is apart from royal bribes.”
“I should think that would already be more than plain,” he bit out. “He’s the kind of man who seizes an opportunity when it presents itself.”
She halted on the pavement, sensing that he’d revealed something about himself. When he realized she had stopped, he turned to look at her.
“Like you?” Sharpening her gaze, she tried to slice through the male bluster of duty to crown and country to glimpse the man beneath. “I’ve been wondering, Jack, what do you get out of this? What opportunity does settling a royal mistress in the prince’s bed open for you?”
