Beware of Virtuous Women (18 page)

"Eleanor and I had already figured out that he could go either way—ask me to pool our resources, or decide I was superfluous to his enterprise. He chose a strange way to eliminate possible competition, though, didn't he? I keep coming back to that, wondering about that. And trading secrets is exactly what I'm going to do, Cluny, the fire didn't change that. This house could have burned down around both our heads—it's time Eleanor and I were completely honest with each other, if we've any hope of finishing what we've started. What someone has started."

"Fair enough, boyo, it's your neck, and I've never thought I'd enjoy an old age anyway," Cluny said, making his way to the drinks table. "You go do what you feel the need to do, and I'll stay here and dedicate myself to this lovely bottle here. Because, after tonight, it's definitely the water wagon for me until we get all this sorted out."

Jack smiled at his friend. "You've never ridden the water wagon for more than a week at a time."

Cluny hefted the bottle. "Exactly. Go to it, boyo, because that's all you've got."

Leaving Cluny with the bottle, Jack climbed the servant stairs, stopping outside the closed double doors to Eleanor's bedchamber. Someone had rolled up a dampened cloth and placed it at the bottom of the door to contain the smell, which Jack considered a very good idea. He was careful to close the doors behind him when he entered the chamber, his nose quickly assaulted by the lingering smell of burned velvet.

Treacle was in the room, actually holding a raw plank across the broken window as a footman nailed the thing into the woodwork above three others that were already in place. The remaining pair of large windows that looked out over the mews had been opened to the night breeze.

"Treacle?" Jack asked when he didn't see what he'd come to see. "There was a brick, just here... ?"

The plank now in place, the butler hurried over to Jack, stripping off his now badly soiled white cotton gloves. "Yes, sir, I removed it before questions could be raised. Shall I fetch it to you, sir?"

Jack shook his head. "No, there's no need. It's not as if our perpetrator scratched his name in the blasted thing before tossing it up here. How extensive is the damage?"

"Well, sir, we've already removed all of Mrs. Eastwood's wardrobe, to give it a good airing tomorrow, hoping to salvage most everything." He looked at the maids, who had hesitated in their work, then said, "A word with you, outside, if you please, sir?"

"Certainly." Jack preceded the butler into the hallway, then waited as the man checked to be sure the damp roll of cloth was once more shoved firmly against the bottom of the door, informing Jack that a similar roll of cloth had been placed at the bottom of the connecting door to his bedchamber. "Thank you, Treacle. I suppose you have a few questions? Possibly more than a few questions?"

"No, sir, it's not my place to ask questions," the butler said, and Jack detected more in Treacle than he'd previously seen. More than just a servant; this man had seen action somewhere.

"Well, I thank you for that, Treacle, because I seem to be damn short of answers at the moment."

"Yes, sir. I should tell you, sir, that Mrs. Ryan, although she wouldn't wish you to know, has a liking for a pipe each night once her duties are completed in the kitchens."

Jack bit back a smile. "Does she now. Good for her."

"Yes, sir, very fond of her pipe, sir. She takes it out in the mews, away from the house. But tonight, sir, she saw a man all dressed in black coming down the alleyway, all skulking-like, sir, and she stepped back into the shadows, thinking she was about to be stumbled over by some housebreaker. But then the man stopped, looked up at the windows, and the next thing Mrs. Ryan knew, there was this flash of fire, and it was heading straight toward one of those windows."

"She saw it all?"

"She dropped her pipe and ran fast as she could, sir, straight into the kitchens. It was me ringing the fire bell, and all of us there so quickly, because of Mrs. Ryan and her pipe. Poor woman. When she went back for it, it was to see it smashed on the stones. We're supposing one of the staff must had trod on it whilst they were gathering up the draperies."

"That, Treacle, or someone was warning her to silence, not that we'd want to point out that possibility to Mrs. Ryan before she tells us everything she knows. Did she get a good look at the man? Would she know him?"

"That she did, sir, and that she does." Treacle looked down the hallway, making sure it was empty of listening ears. "It was Beatrice's young man, sir. Mrs. Ryan saw his face clearly when he lit up that brick like a torch. His sleeve caught fire as he hefted the brick for the throw, Mrs. Ryan says, and he cursed a fair treat as he beat out the flames, some very unlovely words, then ran off. Poor Beatrice. She'll be horrified, sir, to know that her young man did this."

"Beatrice has enough to worry about with her burns. She doesn't have to know anything else, Treacle, if we don't tell her. Can we trust Mrs. Ryan's discretion?"

Treacle smiled conspiratorially. "Her discretion and a new pipe, sir?"

"Done. Now, if that's all? I'd ask if there might be something you'd like, but I don't wish to insult a soldier for doing his duty as he saw it."

"Yes, sir! If I may, one thing more. Beatrice asked for me to tell Mrs. Eastwood that she's very sorry but she thinks she's all done with initiative."

Jack was still smiling as he rapped lightly on the door, then entered his own bedchamber, to see only a single bedside candle burning in the darkness. He approached the bed, and there was Eleanor, smack in the middle of the large mattress, half-propped up against a multitude of pillows.

And soundly asleep. In his bed just as he'd imagined her. He simply hadn't imagined her asleep. He definitely hadn't imagined her lying there alone.

He didn't know how long he stood beside the bed watching her sleep, and he didn't care if he stood there all night. She was safe. That was all that mattered to him.

Fortunes to be made. Deadly competition. Smugglers. Secrets on every side. None of this mattered, a realization that stunned Jack, as he was feeling something he'd never felt before, hadn't really known existed.

He cared more for this one small, confounding woman than he did anything else in this world. How in
hell
had that happened? How had he
allowed
that to happen? How could he have avoided it, since he certainly hadn't seen it—whatever
it
was—coming at him. He was suddenly here, in a place he didn't understand, feeling emotions he hadn't known possible.

Eleanor muttered something under her breath, then turned away from him, and in the small light thrown by the candle he suddenly noticed her hair, or the lack of it. Someone had been at it with a scissors, or possibly a very dull knife, as the shoulder-length locks were decidedly uneven. Free of most of its weight, her hair seemed to be attempting to curl, although Jack wasn't sure if that could be called an improvement.

Poor little thing, shorn like a sheep, except that sheep were better treated.

Not taking time to think about what he was doing— why waste time considering options he wasn't going to take—Jack half knelt on the mattress and leaned over to touch a hand to her hair. Her damp, slightly warmed hair.

A few stray tendrils had fallen onto her cheek, and he carefully smoothed them back away from her face.

Slowly, so as to not disturb her—after all, she might send him away if she woke—he levered himself onto the bed and stretched out beside her, his head propped on one bent arm, his left hand free to stroke her hair, watch her profile as she slept on, unaware of his presence.

So this was what was meant by "a full heart." His heart did feel full, even the pain of longing only a pleasant ache, a fullness that actually made him smile.

And then Eleanor opened her eyes and turned, looked up at him. "I...I thought I was dreaming."

Again. Thank God I didn't add that. Again. Dreaming of Jack. Again.

"I came to check on you," Jack told her, knowing he'd told a more convincing lie at age five, when his mother had caught him attempting to sneak out of the kitchens with an entire apple tart and he'd said he had planned to share it with his cousin Richard. "Someone's cut your hair."

Eleanor pushed herself up against the pillows, still not quite sure she wasn't dreaming. "There was no alternative, unfortunately. And it smelled terribly. Mrs. Hendersen tells me her cousin is a hairdresser, and she'll summon him tomorrow, to snip at it some more."

"Her cousin? Does he know what he's doing, do you think?"

"Does it matter? I doubt I could look much worse," Eleanor said, wincing. "It's already starting to curl, which I hate. My sister Cassandra looks very sweet in her curls, and quite young. Curls are for children, don't you think?"

Jack reached out to touch her hair once more, allowing one sleek dark curl to twine itself around his finger. "I don't find your curls to be at all...childish," he told her honestly. "In fact, I find them very intriguing. More intriguing by the moment, actually."

"Oh," Eleanor said in a very small voice. Then she realized that the square neckline of Beatrice's night rail had somehow slipped sideways, falling down over her right shoulder. She attempted to pull the material back up and over her shoulder, only to have the neckline gape just at the center, so that she all but slammed her hand against her chest.

"Here. I think this solves the problem," Jack said, pulling up the silk sheet he'd commandeered from one load of cargo from France. 'There," he said, once Eleanor had grabbed at the sheet and tugged it up to just under her chin, "more comfortable now?"

"Not really, no," Eleanor admitted honestly. "I... I've never had a man in my bed, you understand."

"You're in
my
bed, if we want to be precise about the thing," Jack told her, then dared to finish, "just where I've imagined you these past few interminable nights."

Eleanor shut her eyes, allowed the shiver to wash over her, then looked at Jack. "You shouldn't be saying that. And I shouldn't be listening."

He moved closer. "There are a lot of things, a multitude of things, we shouldn't be doing, Eleanor. Many more we shouldn't have done, either of us. Strangely, at least for the moment, this moment, I don't care. Do you?"

Eleanor raised her eyes to the underside of the canopy over the bed, took two quick, shallow breaths as she pictured herself as she lay there, in Jack's bed. In Beatrice's ridiculously overlarge night rail of simple white cotton. Her horribly butchered hair tumbled around her head. Both her hands maintaining a death grip on the sheet she held tucked straight up under her chin. Honestly, the man certainly did pick his times, didn't he?

"You..." She let go of the sheet she'd been using as a shield. "You are the most annoying man..."

Jack smiled, surprised at his amusement in the midst of the tension that was his building passion. "And you are the most exasperating woman. So controlled, so very
deep,
as in all still waters, I suppose. Can you blame me for wanting to know what lies beneath that serene surface?"

"I'm hardly
deep",
Eleanor protested feebly, thinking she might want to swallow now, except she seemed to have forgotten how one managed that particular feat. She was having enough difficulty trying to control her impatient breathing. "Really."

Jack slowly closed his hand around a fistful of silk sheet and began sliding it down, down. Out of the way, just as he longed for her night rail to be out of the way, his own clothing to be out of the way. Everything that lay between them, both here in this bed and everywhere else gone, out of the way. Unnecessary. Forgotten.

"And I say there's passion there, Eleanor. Hiding deep in those still waters. Hiding there, waiting for someone to bring it to the surface. Shall we see who's right?"

"Please don't ask me," Eleanor whispered. "If you ask me, I'll have to say no."

"Then I won't ask...." Jack breathed against her as he lowered his head to hers, captured her mouth even as she opened it to say something else neither of them wanted to hear.

Her mouth tasted like the sweet tea Mrs. Hendersen had probably fetched for her, sweet and faintly milky, and for some reason he'd never understand, highly sensual. He couldn't get enough of her mouth, would never have enough of it.

He cupped his hands on either side of her head, her curls tangling around his fingers, entrapping him, enslaving him, and with his gratitude.

He kissed her closed eyelids, he suckled on the velvety softness of her earlobes, licked at the sensitive skin behind her ears...always returning to her mouth, that wonderful mouth, that soft, warm, welcoming mouth.

She'd been driving him quietly insane, even as he'd denied the tug, the urge, the demand he felt whenever in her presence. From the moment she'd looked at him in the traveling coach and damned him by saying she was flattered that he remembered her at all.

She'd pointed out his blindness when it had come to her, to the oldest daughter of the family, and he'd been kicking himself ever since for having spent two years running tame in the Becket household without once noticing the most intriguing, infuriating, intelligent, exasperating,
exciting
member of the family.

He'd been able to think of little else ever since, even as he tried to rid himself of the woman who could turn his comfortable world upside down, have him questioning his every move, his every motive.

What a fool he'd been! What a gift he held tonight.

He moved now, but not in a calculated way, only reacting to the signals Eleanor sent to him, whether she realized what she was doing or not.

Her soft moan against his mouth prompted him to slide a hand across her shoulder, down the length of her arm, twine his fingers with hers, use the pad of his thumb to draw small circles in her palm. Leaving the next move up to her...

Eleanor had never felt this way before, was having trouble absorbing all of her various feelings, all of the sensations warring for her attention. Her breasts seemed to long to be touched. How could that be?