His Wicked Kiss Part 43

So, these were Town Corinthians in coats from Savile Row, Eden mused. The das.h.i.+ng gentlemen she had dreamed about, far away in the jungle.

There was something in their eyes she didn't trust; their smooth, c.o.c.ksure 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.

She obeyed at once, hastening away from the dance floor.

She remembered how Jack and she had admired the conservatory on the way in to the ball while waiting in the line of carriages; they had spoken of looking at it together. She decided to wait there-Jack would soon figure out where to find her.

Before anyone else could snare her in conversation, she ducked out of the ballroom and found her way through the maze of the enormous manor to the s.p.a.cious conservatory.

Immediately upon stepping into the tree-filled, gla.s.sed-in world, all the trouble in her soul seemed to quiet.

Gla.s.s and lacy white ironwork were whipped upward in a froth, culminating in a beautiful center rotunda that gave the exotic trees plenty of room to grow.

There were palms and giant bamboos in huge pots and planters; their pinnate fronds reached up into the central dome. There were a few fragrant orange and lemon trees, a grapefruit tree, and several spiky pineapples, as well.

A profusion of flowers surrounded the towering Doric column at the edge of the rotunda, crowned with a graceful statue of the G.o.ddess Flora.

Fairy lights strung here and there lent an air of magic to the hothouse jungle, heated by furnaces and carefully concealed piping, a perfect, humid environment for their host's collection of tropical plants, shrubs, and trees.

With the night so dark beyond the gla.s.s, the tiny colored lanterns threw fantastic leaf-shaped shadows everywhere and etched the grids of the countless window mullions across the floor. The music from the ballroom was m.u.f.fled here; louder came the rain's steady symphony drumming the gla.s.s panes of the great, arched windows.

There was a stone fountain in the middle of it all, with a wide rim that formed a circular bench; here, Eden sat down. Wistfully, she watched the large, ornamental fish swimming in the fountain. The miniature, indoor jungle reminded her so sharply of her old life. Everything was different now. How she missed Papa. Would he never come?

Taking off her right glove, she set it down beside her and leaned down to dangle her fingers in the water, reminiscing as she waited for Jack on her days in the Orinoco Delta... her chance meetings with the occasional pink dolphin.

That life now seemed a world away.

The rain still drummed the gla.s.s and despite the occasional flash of lightning, the setting was altogether pleasant. As she sat musing, playing with the fish, she felt a faint, instinctual p.r.i.c.kle of warning tingling on her nape, drawing her out of her memories.

She lifted her head and glanced around warily, not sure why she suddenly seemed to sense someone staring at her.

She was the only person in the conservatory.

Lightning flashed, illuminating the gla.s.s house in purple and blinding silver, flickering over the statue of Flora: In that split second, as Eden scanned the trees crowding the artificial jungle, she saw him.

Connor.

He was standing outside the conservatory, watching her through the gla.s.s, as the rain plastered his blond hair to his forehead.

She gasped, but the lightning vanished and the world beyond the gla.s.s turned black again.

She pulled back, her heart pounding. She pressed her gloveless hand to her heart for a second. No.

It couldn't be.

Surely she must have imagined it. How could Connor be standing outside in the storm?

A few minutes later, another flash of lightning revealed the same spot where she thought she had seen him, and no one was there. Catching her breath again, she laughed at herself.

Her guilty conscience must have been to blame-guilty because as much as she longed to see her beloved papa, she hadn't missed Connor once since she had left the jungle. He had problems, she knew, but he had always done his best to be good to her. She hadn't been able to fall in love with him, but that didn't mean another woman could not. He was smart, handsome.

Now that she'd left and had married someone else, he'd soon forget all about her.

Footfalls echoed just then across the flagstones of the conservatory. "Somehow I suspected that I might find you here."

Expecting Jack, Eden looked over, but was jarred to find that instead of her husband, it was the das.h.i.+ng man in the red waistcoat who had danced with her briefly in the ballroom.

The flash of his white teeth gleamed in the twilight as he strolled toward her, his hands in his pockets. "Don't be alarmed," he said. "I saw you slip away. My dear lady, a true beauty can no sooner abscond from a ballroom unnoticed than the sun can slip behind the clouds without turning the whole world below it a dull, dull gray. I thought perhaps we could talk for a moment-oh, dear, but you seem distressed. May I be of use?"

"No. Thank you." She straightened up and flicked the water off her fingers. "Forgive me, have we met?"

"Formally, no. But we are connected."

"We are?"

"Yes."

She lifted her chin to meet his gaze as he joined her-uninvited, but too confident to care.

He propped his foot on the fountain's stone bench and posed with an elbow resting on his knee. "Just now in the ballroom, I heard someone say that you are the famed Dr. Farraday's daughter."

"Yes, I am."

He smiled broadly. "My grandfather was your father's patron for ages."

"Old Lord Pembrooke?" she exclaimed.

He laughed. "Yes! I am his heir."

"You're the new Lord Pembrooke-the rakeh.e.l.l earl?" she blurted out, then bit her lip and blushed.

Her foreknowledge of his nickname seemed to fill him with vain pleasure. "Ah, you know, I have simply no idea why they call me that. Do you?"

She smiled wryly. "Lord Pembrooke, would you believe that you are actually the reason that I am in London?"

"What's this?" he asked, apparently fascinated by the statement. He lowered himself slowly to sit beside her. He leaned nearer; Eden pulled back.

"You cut my father's funding," she informed him, but she had no intention of explaining all the details of her original plan-how she had set out on The Winds of Fortune to bring samples of her father's work to London to show the rakeh.e.l.l earl, so that he might be persuaded to reinstate Papa's grant.

That had been ages ago.

"Cut your father's funding... ?" He was feigning innocence of his misdeed. "I did? No, surely. Why should I do that?"

"You were building a new country house, I believe, and upon your inheritance instructed your solicitor to tell all the artists and scholars your grandfather commissioned to-I think your exact words were-go hang."

"Ahh, yes. Now it's coming back to me." He quit lying as he realized she was smarter than she looked. There was an awkward moment as he tapped his lip. Then he gave her a smile of mild contrition and stood once more, facing her. "Perhaps we can do something to rectify this sad state of affairs, for I a.s.sure you, if I had known the naturalist's daughter was such a rare flower herself, I should have been persuaded instantly to extend Dr. Farraday's grant."

"My father doesn't throw himself on any man's mercy, my lord, and though I'm heartened to hear you'd reconsider for my sake, it won't be necessary."

"Are you sure about that?" he murmured, his rakish smile widening suggestively.

"Oh, yes, I'm sure. My husband, you see, is richer than Croesus. He'll fund Papa's research henceforth."

"Oh, really?" he asked with a haughty snort. "Anyone I know?"

"I'm not sure," Eden said sweetly, "but I can introduce you if you like. He's standing right behind you."

Chapter.

Eighteen.

The Spanish amba.s.sador had merely prodded him with insulting questions, but in the s.p.a.ce of time it had taken Jack to get rid of the man and find Eden, a horrifying realization had dawned on him regarding this stupid rumor.

If Society thought that Jack wasn't bedding his luscious young wife, and his wife, in turn, was pregnant-and Jack, meanwhile, was gone away for months to South America-then the next question the ton would start asking was obvious: Who had fathered the baby?

The mere thought of this question ever being asked about his legitimate child-this baby he already loved without ever having yet laid eyes on it-made Jack utterly sick to his stomach.

The burden of b.a.s.t.a.r.dy had always been a sore spot for him, but to think that it would befall his innocent unborn child, too, had him shaken up, raw with emotion. He knew firsthand the suffering, loneliness, and humiliation already in store for his son or daughter if he did not find a way to repair this situation immediately.

Though the babe had barely just been conceived, it already seemed fated, through no fault of its own, to come into the world under the same dark cloud of suspicion and doubt that Jack had been cursed with himself.

Labeled a b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Made an outcast.

Just like him.

The injustice of it fired his sense of outrage.

It would not stand.

Better if he had locked Eden away in the highest tower of his Irish castle than allow her actions to harm their child before it was even born.

Aye, in one sense this could be viewed as her fault.

If Eden had not held a grudge for so long and denied him her bed, then Lisette would not have made a move on him; Jack wouldn't have had to dismiss the maid, and the rumor would never have started.

b.l.o.o.d.y women and their selfish ways, he thought, too angry to care if he was being irrational.

His mother. Maura.

Now this.

It hurt to think that Eden might possess a trace of their same frailty.

His face had drained of color as he had stalked through the ballroom in search of his wife. The music had become a raucous dissonance and Jack had felt as though everyone he pa.s.sed was staring at him, whispering about him.

Unwanted.

It did not help matters that his last glimpse of his wife before the amba.s.sador had stopped him had been of Eden surrounded by smooth-talking rogues and scheming bachelors.

Did she not know she was nothing to them but fresh meat?

Where the h.e.l.l had she gone?

Jack could feel himself ready to go on a rampage.

Then he had stepped into the conservatory and saw her talking alone with another man-and something inside of him snapped.

"Wonderful" Jack who had been so tame these past weeks, keeping his hands off, escorting her to all her stupid parties, was suddenly swept aside as though by a ma.s.sive wave at sea.

Swept overboard.

In his place stood Black-Jack Knight in all his cutthroat pride and angry glory, and it was this side of him that the luckless Lord Pembrooke turned around to meet.

On eye level with Jack's chin, the rakeh.e.l.l earl gulped and looked up slowly.

Jack narrowed his eyes.

"Er, pardon," Pembrooke said in a slightly strangled tone. "I m-meant no offense, sir. Perhaps I should be going-"

The little weasel darted past him, trying to flee. Jack's hand shot out, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck.

Seizing hold of the back of the fop's coat collar and of his trouser waistband, Jack lifted him off the ground and sent him sailing into the fountain with a huge splash.

Then he dusted his hands off lightly. "None taken." Jack looked at his wife, who had leaped to her feet and stood staring at him in openmouthed shock. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward the doorway.

"Jack!"

Behind them, Lord Pembrooke was climbing out of the fountain, sputtering and cursing, soaked.

"What are you doing?" Eden cried. "Have you lost your mind?"

He didn't look back at her, striding ahead with single-minded purpose. "Forget him. We're leaving. You and I are going to have a little talk."

"What on earth-? Wait, my other glove-"

"Leave it. We're going home."

"Jack, y-you threw him in the fountain!"