Jack’s behavior was unconscionable, fitting only for the lowest classes. Strand had always assumed Jack’s quality. He’d never seen him treat anyone, man or woman, villein or peer, like this. He might as well have marked Anne with a brand of ownership.
Damn him, married or not, he’d no right to exhibit his appetite in such a bold and vulgar fashion. Lady Dibbs’s mouth looked fit to trap flies, and the others were trading scandalized looks.
He had to stop this.
“Colonel,” he said. “I have an interesting bit of news regarding that horse you were interested in finding. That racer from Atwood?”
“Oh?” Jack murmured indifferently, his attention obviously elsewhere. He continued stroking Anne’s throat. And Anne? Anne’s chest rose and fell in a deepening cadence as Jack’s gaze bent on her. Far from being blank now, his eyes blazed with ardor.
“I wouldn’t want to offend the ladies with indelicate details so”—Strand ground out meaningfully and took a step toward the hall, extending his hand—“if you would be so kind?”
Jack looked up. “I’m afraid I’m not much interested in horses right now, Strand, old chap,” he said calmly. “Really, man, your timing is ill-planned. I’ll have you remember I’m newly wed and all afire to enjoy my wife … my wife’s company, that is.” He bowed his head near the back of her neck. His lips hovered a few inches above the creamy flesh.
Strand, a stranger to embarrassment for nearly two decades, felt his face grow hot. “Jack—”
With a sigh of exasperation, Jack straightened. “No, Lord Strand. I’m not in the market for horses. You couldn’t get me out of this house to buy the crown jewels for a ha’penny or Plato’s handwritten letters for a song.” He weighted each word with subtle yet deliberate emphasis, and Strand realized the message Jack was giving him.
Jack had quit his mission. He no longer concerned himself with the missing letter, the jeweled case, or, by extension, Wrexhall’s Wraith.
Suddenly Anne reached up and slipped her hand into Jack’s. She trembled slightly, from passion or some other, less obvious emotion, Strand could not say. And then she laid her cheek against the back of Jack’s hand. Her eyelids shut. Her thick, dark lashes delicately swept the brown skin of Jack’s hand. The emotion springing starkly in Jack’s eyes hurt Strand to witness.
This time Lady Dibbs’s gasp didn’t feign shock. “I think we have overstayed our welcome.”
“Indeed!” Pons-Burton said. “Come along, Treacle-buns.”
“Treacle-buns” giggled as he hauled her to her feet. Pons-Burton’s face clenched into a tight fist of outrage as he shepherded his wife ahead of him and out the door. They did not pause to take their leave.
Lady Dibbs nodded in their general direction and hurried after them.
“I, er—” North’s gaze darted between Jack and Anne. His sudden grin was lechery itself. “I wish you happy, Anne,” he said. He bowed sharply and hastened after the others.
Sophia alone of the group did not look pleasurably scandalized. She looked nearly sick with jealousy. Strand doubted anyone else would have suspected it from the bland expression on her beautiful face, but then, he had the advantage of being in the throes of the same emotion.
Poor girl. They would have to find succor where they could.
Anne rose too, but she did not move away from Jack’s touch. Indeed, her eyes barely broke away from her husband’s visage. She looked besotted.
Julia, looking flustered and unhappy, came to Anne’s side. “All the best, Anne,” she said softly, and then, bobbing her head in Jack’s direction, hastened out of the room. Sophia took her place at Anne’s side.
“Good-bye, Anne,” she said, leaning over and tapping her cheek briefly against Anne’s.
“I wish you every happiness, Sophia,” Anne said sincerely. Her dark gaze moved from Sophia to briefly touch Strand. “And you, Lord Strand,” she said softly, and with a sad little smile.
“Yes. All the best,” Jack said, his arm curving around Anne’s willowy waist. She canted back into his embrace. Not really moving at all, almost as if her spirit surged to meet him.
“How kind of you.” Sophia turned and looked at Strand.
He knew he was being weighed against Jack Seward and that he did not bear the comparison well. He smiled at her. “Come along, Sophia.” Strand tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and led her out of the room. He would not look behind him. Not now. Not ever again.
In the hall, he silently wrapped Sophia’s cape around her shoulders. With inbred courtesy, he escorted her down the steps to where Julia and his future father-in-law waited. North’s brows wagged suggestively. Dutifully Strand handed first Julia and then Sophia into his waiting carriage before ushering the older man in and following him.
Inside, Strand took pains to tuck the Kashmir lap robe around Sophia’s and Julia’s legs, offering the other to his future father-in-law. Then he settled down on the seat opposite them and rapped on the carriage roof with his cane. It lurched forward. For long minutes no one spoke.
“Do not look so put out, my dear,” he said finally, silently congratulating himself. There was not a hint of the bitterness he felt in his voice. “I have no doubt we are even better suited than Seward and his bride.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The door swung shut behind them and Anne looked up at Jack from within the circle of his arm. Her face was so close he could see little violet flecks in her irises, arranged like a corona around the pure black of her pupils. Her brows were sable and sleek and as emphatic as her nature.
“Thank you,” she said, confounding him. At the least he’d expected her to react to his public pawing with disgust, certainly with hostility.
He withdrew his arm from around her waist. She did not step away, and for a second he felt an undeniable rush of pleasure. But then cold suspicion blackened his enjoyment.
He studied her face, searching for some clue as to her honesty or perfidy. She suffered his intense inspection bravely. But then, why would she concern herself over his ability to read her? He’d never yet been able to see anything in her but what he wanted: courage, gallantry, and wisdom.
Anne knew full well how susceptible he was to her. Did she hope to distract him from his investigation?
The little fool, it would only get her killed. He would not allow that, not while he drew breath. He did not trust her, yet he would willingly die for her. Because he loved her.
He broke his gaze away from her and stepped back. “My pleasure, ma’am,” he said. “Might I ask how I earned your gratitude?”
“All that nonsense about horses and jewels and letters; clearly you were telling someone in that room that you considered me under your protection.”
Ah. But he shouldn’t have been surprised. As thief or widow, he’d never doubted her intelligence.
“I thank you,” she said once more, her eyes lowered in a lovely aspect of shyness. God, if he could only believe in it.
He’d spent the day collecting rumor and intelligence. He had planned on retiring to the library to devise a strategy to keep Anne alive. But he didn’t have all the necessary information yet.
He’d had no word from Knowles and Burke had seemingly disappeared. Now, looking at Anne, he could not think of any reason why he shouldn’t stay with her. God knew how long he’d be able to do so.
“Have you eaten?”
She raised her head, smiling into his eyes. “No.”
“I’ll have Cook prepare something. May I … may I join you?”
“Certainly.”
He relaxed, unaware until then that he’d feared she’d refuse his company. He glanced down at his attire. He must look windblown and shoddy.
“Excuse me while I make reparations. I shall tell Cook to serve us in the sitting room in—” He raised his brows, looking to her for an acceptable time.
Her smile widened, lighting her entire face with vitality and warmth. He’d never seen her smile so unguardedly before. He shoo
k off the mesmerizing effect it had on him. He couldn’t stand here like a besotted boot boy ogling the dairymaid.
“Half an hour?” she suggested.
“Half an hour, then. In the sitting room?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll dine.”
Her smile flickered across her mouth like a prism, its quality changing, lightening and deepening with subtlety and beauty. “Yes.”
“Well, then …” He bowed as she’d moved past him into the sitting room, and when he went up to his room he took the stairs two at a time.
Anne set her spoon down beside the pot de crème. It was not very good pot de crème. In fact, the entire meal, from watery consommé, to soggy vegetables to overcooked mutton, had been mediocre. The company, however, had been fine.
They’d dined under the banner of an unspoken truce. Neither of them mentioned the letter, Wrexhall’s Wraith, or last night. But every time Anne looked at Jack she remembered their lovemaking. Lovemaking. The word was infinitely beautiful and gorgeously evocative.
Jack had set out to make her comfortable. And since he was easily the most gracious and attentive man she’d ever met, and since he endeavored not only to please but charm her, by the time the pot de crème arrived she had been thoroughly beguiled. She’d forgotten, in the light of their recent passionate encounters, that for the space of a few short weeks, they’d been friends and that they’d enjoyed each other’s company.
He’d provoked her smile with his subtle and surprisingly gentle irony and invited confidences with his attentiveness. And while in his easy company she’d found a remnant of that vivacious girl who a decade earlier had charmed society with her candor and cheek.
Until she remembered that he distrusted her and thought the worst of her.
“You look pensive.”
She glanced up. She hadn’t realized he’d been watching her. But then, Jack had been some sort of secret information gatherer. He’d made a career out of discovering the weaknesses of his enemies. She didn’t want to be his enemy.
Was this entire evening—the genial conversation, the focused interest, the charm—simply a way of ferreting out the information he wanted from her? If it was, she commended him. He was damned good at this. In its own way this seduction was nearly as powerful as last night’s.
The memory caused fire to smolder in her throat and cheeks. The dark fingers toying with the stem of his wineglass had toyed with her most intimate parts. The lips that curved now in such a guileless smile had fed with concentrated lust on her body—
“Anne?”
She started, blowing a little gust of air out between her lips, reining in her wayward thoughts. What had he asked?
“Excuse me. I was wool-gathering.”
His slow smile called her liar. “I said you looked pensive.”
“Did I? I was thinking of”—she threw out the first thing that came to mind—“I was thinking of the past.”
His smile fled. His expression grew subtly distressed. “Your marriage?”
“No.” For some reason it was very important that he not be allowed to think Matthew had been there, either last night or during their dinner. “My family.”
“Tell me about them.”
She relaxed. “My father was as common as gorse on the moor, though I should probably say ‘common as a beggar at St. Paul’s.’ He came from the docks.”
Jack nodded thoughtfully.
“You know he was a thief. Well, he gave up the game and retired to Sussex. He met my mother and they fell in love. Times being what they were, her father, my grandfather, didn’t object too strongly when Dad asked for the privilege of my mother’s hand … and paying my grandfather’s debts.”
Jack laughed. The corners of his eyes crinkled in deep lines and a long dimple creased his cheek. She leaned over the table, drawn to the magnetism of his smile like a sunflower to the sun’s first rays.
It felt good, telling someone about her father. Not Sir Tribble, the upstart London thief who’d married above himself, but her father, the retired cracksman who’d wit enough to quit the game before he was caught.
“Then what?” Jack asked.
“My mother died of the influenza,” she said, sobering. “A few years later I came to London and made my bow. I met Matthew and we married.” How simple it all sounded.
“Pleasing your father very much, I’ll wager.” Jack reached across the table and poured her a glass of sherry.
“Oh, yes. I suppose.” She frowned in concentration. “I didn’t see my father much after Matthew and I married.”
Her father had watched her proudly as she stood at the altar. After the wedding breakfast, he’d embraced her and then gone. Disappeared from her life, it seemed.
“Why is that?” Jack prompted softly.
She looked at him, her face troubled. “There never seemed to be a good time for him to come to us or for us to visit him. You know how it is. Matthew would promise us elsewhere in the fall, or he didn’t want to impose on Father with our entourage. Then the season would begin and there was a staff to hire, carriages to order, and clothes to fit. In the winter, Matthew loved taking people sailing around Italy …” She trailed off. “And then, soon after he was knighted, my father died.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yes,” she said softly. “I know you are. Thank you.”
She had the uncanny notion that Jack braced himself. “Tell me about Matthew.”
She sighed. “Most people thought he was a saint.”
“Impossible,” Jack said firmly.
“Oh, no,” she insisted tiredly. “He was generous and considerate and honest.”
“But there speaks a fond and loving heart—”
“No!” she snapped sharply. Astonishment flickered over Jack’s face. She forced herself to speak calmly. “No. Ask anyone who knew him. Matthew was exceptional.”
“He treated you well.”
“He treated me like a queen. My every wish was granted.” Her voice sounded flat. “I had only to admire a painting and within hours it would be mine. If I praised a book, Matthew would read it so that we could discuss it. If he saw me laughing with a new acquaintance, he would invite them to dine.”
With the recitation of each loving deed, Anne could hear her voice grow more artificial and strained, but she could not help it. The words, so long kept inside, tumbled out.
“Why, if I expressed an opinion, he would adopt it as his own so that no one would doubt he supported me. He did all these things because he loved me. He told me over and over again how much he loved me. He told me over and over again how all these things proved that he loved me more than any man had ever loved before.”
And he’d also told her how her reception of these wondrous gifts proved that she hadn’t loved him. She had tried. She’d labored for years to give him the love he so desperately craved. She’d done everything in her power to prove to both him and herself that she did love him, but ultimately his doubt had proven stronger than her effort.
She’d been incapable of returning one tenth of that horrifying, choking emotion. And the disappointment had killed Matthew. How could she tell Jack that?
She looked at her wineglass. The ruby liquid shivered in her hand.
Jack regarded her closely. “He would have made a doting father. I’m surprised you didn’t have a houseful of children.”
How she would have adored having children.
Immediately Jack reached across the table and took her hand. “Forgive me. How unconscionably rude.”
She stared down at the linen. It had been the only thing Matthew had categorically refused her. And now she thought she knew why. He’d always claimed he could not bear to share her with anyone else for too long. She’d thought he’d been joking. But what if he’d been telling her the truth?
Images from their past, images she’d spent five years trying to bury, struggled to be remembered: Matthew crying bitterly because she’d forgotten to tell him she’d loved him
that day; Matthew on his knees at a crowded ball, laughing and declaring he would do anything for her and she, embarrassed and disturbed by his show; Matthew in despair because she’d gone to the public library without him; Matthew coming to her bed like a supplicant in the temple, touching her with numbing reverence; Matthew savagely declaring her base blood made her incapable of his higher form of love.
A year ago she had believed Matthew, that she wasn’t capable of real love. He had, after all, spent three years telling her so. Now she wasn’t so sure.
Jack’s fingers curled around her wrist. He rubbed his thumb comfortingly across her skin, pulling the words from her. “I … I wanted children but Matthew thought I should be older first.”
Jack’s expression was grave, concentrated.
If she could see the thoughts roiling about that clever mind, she’d no doubt they would weave a dark and tangled skein. She was not sure she wanted to know the verdict all that careful deliberation must necessarily entail because what had begun in passion last night had ended somewhere else. She’d never felt quite so vulnerable in her life.
She was not sure any longer if Matthew had been right about her, but she wasn’t willing to let Jack judge. She couldn’t survive it if he found her wanting.
She cast about for a safe subject of conversation. “Turnabout is fair play, Colonel.”
His head snapped sharply up at the sound of his title.
His predator’s eyes abruptly went blank. But she knew him now, recognized the protective shield he threw up whenever she came too close to something he didn’t want revealed. She did not look away from that forbidding blankness. “Tell me about yourself.”
Tell me about yourself. She didn’t ask easily. She knew what she asked and she asked all the same; and she was willing to wait for her answer.
Jack gazed down at the delicate wrist he clasped. Carefully he turned her hand over and studied the healing gashes on her palm. Somewhere in those bloody scrapes lay the answer. If he only knew how to read them.
Loving parents and idyllic childhood, a spectacular London season as an acknowledged toast, a brilliant match, a fairy-tale marriage, and then tragedy. And Anne Wilder starts risking her life for a few thousand pounds’ worth of other women’s jewels. But was that the correct sequence? Something in the manner in which she’d described her former husband’s adoration had hinted at monstrosity. Matthew’s love had sounded devouring rather than adoring.
All Through the Night Page 24
