His Wicked Kiss Part 33

He had never meant to hurt her in his desire to protect himself, but he still dreaded the thought of taking her to London. If they shamed him in front of her, if they swayed her to view him as a pariah, or, above all, if they dared reject her because of him, by G.o.d, he'd take a barrel of black powder and blow their precious Almack's to high heaven.

But on the other hand, Arthur was right. She was no ordinary woman, his little orchid lady. Indeed, there was an equal chance the ton might fall in love with her as he had. And how happy that would make her.

Jack pivoted, threw down his cheroot, and strode toward his horse.

"Where are you going?" Trahern called in surprise as Jack leaped up into the saddle, taking up the reins before he changed his mind.

"To get my wife," he clipped out. "I'll be back anon. We'll sail with the tide." He urged the animal into motion, and Fleet Apollo was off like a shot. Jack rode low over his neck, praying he wouldn't regret this.

Chapter.

Fourteen.

Jack had apologized-and he was sorry-Eden could tell that he wasn't just saying the words.

He had come back for her.

He had brought her to London.

He had taken the finest suite in the grand Pulteney Hotel for their lodgings, the same opulent rooms where the Czar of Russia had stayed.

But although Eden had accepted his apology, her trust in him had been shaken, and her demeanor toward him had cooled.

Every day since their arrival, he had lavished her with extravagant gifts as though she were a princess. First her clothes. The gowns Martin and she had sewn on the s.h.i.+p were good enough for the countryside, he said, but nowhere near fine enough for Town. Jack had dispatched his valet to discover the city's best modiste, and then gave the woman an enormous bribe and had charmed her into agreeing to put aside her usual clientele to sew a complete Town wardrobe for his young bride. Work on this ma.s.sive undertaking was begun post-haste.

Jack then procured a small army of ladies' maids to wait on her and some st.u.r.dy footmen, too. A few days after that, he sent a servant up to tell her to look out the window down at the street.

When Eden had stepped out onto the wrought-iron balcony, clad in her first finished dress, a floaty thing of airy emerald silk, her husband tipped his hat to her from the driver's seat of an extravagant cream-colored barouche, which he had just bought for her at Tattersall's.

It had pink satin squabs, and surely a daintier lady's carriage had never been made: Elegant enameled flowers were painted in a garland all around the sides, while the wheel spokes were done in colors to match, gold and blue and pink. The barouche was drawn by a team of four white horses with pink plumes on their heads.

Eden had stared at it, not knowing what to say.

She did not mind the gifts, but the hurt could not be instantly forgotten.

She did not know anymore where she really stood with the man. She felt like a fool for having opened herself to him so completely, holding nothing back; she had thought he had been doing the same, but to her shock, it had turned out that he had been deceiving her.

Now she couldn't help wondering what else he wasn't telling her.

She knew that he cared about her, otherwise he wouldn't have married her, but he was a rich and powerful man of the world, and she had finally figured out that he really didn't take her all that seriously.

He didn't really respect her. Eden feared that that was her fault, for giving in to him too easily on board The Winds of Fortune. Now she learned the price of her weakness for him, her too willing surrender: He did not see her as an equal, the way she had believed he did, but more like a possession, an a.s.set, a thing-like some porcelain doll he could bedeck in finery and place safely on a shelf until he had time to play with her again. It made her sick to realize that this might be the extent of her role in his life, when, for her part, she loved the blasted terror of the seas to distraction.

Brooding on it, and stewing in the hurt, left her bruised and unsettled inside. But, truly, he had never offered a logical explanation of why he had wanted to leave her in Ireland.

He had claimed on the awful morning of their fight that it had all been a question of the danger to her, but Eden still saw no evidence that she was remotely in peril. So, she was left not knowing the real reason Jack hadn't wanted to bring her to England with him. All manners of doubts and fears crept in. Maybe he was ashamed of her jungle oddball ways and feared she would embarra.s.s him in front of his family. Maybe all these fancy trappings were being bestowed on her to try to disguise how... unique she was, she thought unhappily. For that matter, was it really love or simply guilt that had made him come back for her in the end?

As the days pa.s.sed, they did their best to get along, pretending everything was normal. He took her around and showed her the sights: the Panorama, Astley's, the British Museum, the art galleries, and the parks-even to famous Gunther's for ice cream. But somehow, now that she was actually here, the glow of all her golden London fantasies had dimmed.

He said she was acting distant, but she was feeling lost and a little depressed. She didn't mean to pull back from him this way; she couldn't help it. She was afraid to let herself become open to him as she had in Ireland for fear that once again she would get hurt.

Noting her subdued response with grim resolve, her husband redoubled his efforts. Next he resorted to buying her jewels.

Eden marveled at the diamonds, but when she met his guarded stare as he waited for her verdict, the glitter could not help but make her feel suspicious.

Did he really think he could buy back her trust?

What the h.e.l.l else am I supposed to do? Jack thought. If diamonds didn't work, there was little left to try. He knew he was wrong, and had strived to make amends, so why was she holding a grudge?

d.a.m.n it, he could not afford this distraction right now.

His wife's displeasure with him preoccupied his thoughts when he most needed to focus. He was on edge with his craving for things to go back to normal between them, but that was beginning to seem downright unlikely.

Once, when he had been foolish enough to let a word of complaint about her distant manner slip past his lips, she had snapped at him.

"Shall I be cheerful just to please you, my lord?"

No, Jack didn't want that. He wanted Eden back, his saucy redhead, his smiling companion. He wanted his little orchid oddball back, not this perfectly coiffed, silk-clad stranger who was trying so hard to be a ton elegante.

But for all that, he knew he only had himself to blame. Eden felt the way she felt, and that was his fault. He was the one who had damaged their love, and by G.o.d, he was disgusted with himself for it, but he was doing his best to make up for it. He couldn't seem to win.

He felt alone.

She was pleasant, distant, calm. Jack feared he'd lose his mind.

What scared him most were those long, excruciating silences when neither of them could think of a single word to say to the other. They just sat there, hollow. Surely they could get back the magic they had tasted together in Ireland, but Jack didn't know how.

He thought lovemaking could have helped to heal the breach, but she wouldn't let him touch her. He could tell she wasn't denying him just to punish him-this was no game. She genuinely did not want his hands on her. It seemed the bruise he had dealt to her trust had inhibited her ability to respond to him.

When he had tried in a more determined way to coax her into pa.s.sion, she had lain there, unresponsive. He had gotten up and walked away.

He was aware of other women giving him come-hither looks everywhere he went, but he was completely uninterested.

It was ironic, really. He had been so worried about the ton rejecting him in front of Eden, but maybe he should've been worried about Eden rejecting him in front of the ton.

It was now April and the Season was getting underway.

Maybe she was pregnant, he thought, for he had never known her to be moody. Maybe a child could help them save their love before it was too late. Oh, but that was a fine thing to do to a newborn babe, he realized cynically. Place the full burden on its tiny shoulders of saving its parents' marriage.

Jack struggled on from day to day as best he could. The spring had come, but it felt like weeks since he had seen the sun.

A peculiar side effect of his falling-out with his lady was the strange influence it had on the way he handled business. He had made his presence known to the rival company whose conquest he had plotted from across the sea.

But when he got there and saw the frail old Jewish man who had founded the firm and had spent his life building it up, Jack didn't have the heart to bring down the hammer. Instead, he caught himself musing on any possible unforeseen consequences of decisions made through his old way of thinking.

Black-Jack Knight, terror of the seas, began giving humanity quarter.

He barely knew that ruthless fellow anymore, in fact, and was no longer sure it was who he wanted to be.

Begrudgingly, and much to his own thorough bemus.e.m.e.nt, instead of crus.h.i.+ng his compet.i.tor, he had taken a seat across from the old man and let himself be drawn into negotiation for a more peaceable solution.

Later that night, he brought Eden some flowers and then went off to meet with the London contingent that he intended to recruit for the mission. These were not soldiers but a large gang of river rats. Smugglers. He knew them from his gun-running days.

He took Trahern with him, glad for sane male company.

The meeting went well-which was to say they did not get their throats cut-and that was a promising start.

"I'm not sure Bolivar meant for us to send him the flotsam and jetsam of the world to man his army, Jack," Trahern remarked under his breath as they stepped out of the East End tavern where Jack had just made the same overall speech that Jack had given the veterans in Ireland and the ex-smugglers in Cornwall.

"Probably not," he conceded in a murmur, "but you'll generally find that the dregs of the earth are d.a.m.ned tough, and make excellent fighters."

"Tell me again how you know those people?"

"Former business a.s.sociates," he replied, a cigarillo dangling from his lips. He decided to splurge and lit it.

Like the Irish and Cornish, he knew these lads were desperate. The Bow Street Runners, skilled detectives, collected bounties for every thief they caught, and with the war over, the Home Office had begun beefing up the ranks of the Metropolitan Police and Thames River Police to deal with them, as well.

"I know better than anyone your situation," he had told them, realizing that if these hard lads suspected a trick, he and Trahern might not leave the pub alive. "I have stood in your shoes. But look around you, my lads. The field is bare; the walls are closing in. With the war-time trade bans lifted, proper merchants have taken over once again and have ruined your livelihood. You've got the Home Office closing the net on you, cracking down. It doesn't have to be this way," he had said, looking around at them with a cool, probing stare. "All your lives you've been treated as outcasts. Believe me, boys, I know how it goes. I'm offering you and your mates an honorable way out of all this, a chance to be something more-to be a part of something larger than yourselves, and make a new start in a profession that won't have you ending your days dangling at the end of a rope."

"You were brilliant in there," Trahern admitted.

Jack snorted. "Nice to know I can do something right."

"n.o.body ever talks to such men about honor. I think you might have really gotten through to them."

"We'll see."

When he got back to the Pulteney Hotel, Eden was wrapped in a gauzy, white, translucent negligee that made Jack's mouth water the minute he stepped in the door and saw her.

"You look ravis.h.i.+ng," he murmured.

She avoided his stare with a vague "Hm." She pointed toward the console table by the door. Jack spotted a letter on the silver tray there.

He heaved a thwarted sigh and picked up the letter. "Who's it from?"

"Their Graces of Hawkscliffe," he said wryly.

"Oh! They must have got our note."

"They did." Eden and he had sent word to his family only yesterday informing them of their arrival in Town. They had waited, he guessed, in an effort to fix things between them before complicating matters with the family.

Oh, well.

"What do they say?" she asked nervously as he opened it.

"We are cordially invited to Knight House tomorrow night. Dinner with the family."

"Gracious," she whispered, wide-eyed. "I never thought I'd ever meet a duke."

"He's just a human being," Jack replied. "He couldn't tie his shoes 'til he was nearly seven."

"Really?"

"Aye. And once when he was twelve he fell off his horse and cried like a baby."

"You're lying," she accused him, fighting not to smile.

Jack grinned and planted his hand on the wall beside her, trying not to stare too much at her nipples, visible through the wispy zephyr silk. "If it's any consolation, Robert's wife, Belinda, was no higher born than you. Her father also was some sort of gentleman scholar."

"Really?"

"So says my sister. But you already know that," he added with an ever so gently teasing smile. "You read the letters."

She succ.u.mbed reluctantly to a very small but genuine half smile. He counted that as progress.

Encouraged, and aching for her, Jack lowered his head slowly and kissed her petal-soft cheek. He lingered there, seized with a shudder of pure longing.

She had been still as his lips grazed her cheek so hungrily, but when she sensed the hot wave of his need, she took a delicate backward step, her green eyes flas.h.i.+ng with her unspoken "no."

Jack just looked into her eyes and then lowered his gaze, flinching. "How much longer are you going to shut me out?" he rasped, but she had already vanished into her separate room.

He flexed his fist by his side, but managed not to punch the wall.

d.a.m.n it!

She was more wary of him now than when he had first found her as a stowaway.

The next evening, they set out for Knight House at the appointed time, riding in the s.h.i.+ny black town coach that Jack had bought for himself at Tattersall's the same day he had bought the white barouche for her.

Eden was extremely nervous, caught up in her anxiety about finding favor with his family, while Jack sat locked in stoic silence, staring out the carriage window while the elegant environs of St. James's pa.s.sed them by. After her rejection of the night before, the gulf between them seemed to have widened still more, but Eden couldn't think about that now. She was too busy privately fretting about her appearance.

She was a bit afraid to move in the glorious dinner gown that the modiste and her frantic crew of seamstresses had only finished sewing two hours ago. The fit was perfect: a half-dress evening costume of l.u.s.trous glace silk in a pale peach shade. As for Eden's hair, her new French lady's maid, Lisette, had designed a suitable coiffure, braiding her tresses and coiling them up into a topknot, which was held in place with a great many hairpins and adorned with a string of tiny pearls that Jack had brought her a few days ago.

He had seemed pleased with the results when she had emerged from her chamber, and certainly his appearance was beyond reproach.

Stealing a furtive glance at him from beneath her lashes, her heart fluttered foolishly at the sight of her husband, all opulent, lordly elegance this night. He was awe-inspiring in formal black superfine trousers, the matching tailcoat accenting the sweeping breadth of his shoulders and his trim, flat waist. How well she knew-and missed-that powerful body beneath his snowy waistcoat of impeccable white silk grosgrain, that sweet throat enwrapped in a starched muslin cravat, superbly fas.h.i.+oned.

Well done, Martin, she thought ruefully. But despite his cultured evening attire, he was still Jack, with his air of ruthless danger beneath the polished veneer.

Yet he seemed a million miles away as he stared out the window, looking like he wasn't really there-as if a part of him had already sailed off across the sea.