Anne had been right. Vedder was a libertine. He was also a swine. Sophia stared angrily at her image in the beveled-glass mirror, daring tears to fall from her too-brilliant eyes. Well, she applauded Anne’s acuity. May it bring her joy.
She picked up Vedder’s note without glancing again at the boldly penned lines. She crumpled it in her fist and hurled it into the fire. It exploded into a ball of flame.
So, Lord Vedder had
never
loved her. But when she’d met him early those mornings in the park and followed him to that secret bower and he’d done all those things to her and taught her delicious secrets a woman could do to a man, he’d said he did. Thank God she’d never parroted that asinine sentiment. At least she could congratulate herself on that score.
She lifted her chin, staring defiantly at her image. Is this what a jade looked like? Then a jade looked fine to her. She ripped the delicate lace edge from the bodice of her new, expensive gown and threw it into the fire after the note. She supposed she might even thank Lord Vedder for his instruction, superficial though it undoubtedly had been.
There’d been much more pleasing Vedder than pleasing Sophia in their lovemaking. In fact, the “pleasures of the flesh” had been little more than pleasant. Rather like being offered milk when you expected cream.
But if even a selfish, tepid man like Lord Vedder could please, think how much better a man like Jack Seward would be. Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. Vedder’s note had made it clear he expected her to pine for him, shed tears for him, and make herself miserable for him. Vedder be damned. If, as he said, she was ruined, then she might as well enjoy it.
She smiled at her reflection. It was time she found out where they kept the cream. Tonight, at Lord Strand’s musicale, she intended to find out.
The Norths arrived at the ball long before the fashionable guests arrived. But Malcolm had been determined he would not miss one hand of cards and Sophia was equally determined she would not miss one opportunity to dance.
“Hope that Seward chap don’t come sniffing about Sophie again,” Malcolm said from his position on the ottoman next to Anne. “Bastard, you know. Not very nice.”
Anne could think of no reply. “Nice” and Jack Seward had no relation to each other. “Chivalrous,” “grave,” “polished,” yes. But Jack Seward was, in no one’s sense of the word, “nice.”
“He’s a smoky sort of fellow,” Malcolm went on. “Don’t see him anywhere, suddenly see him everywhere. Discourage him if you can, Annie. But do it discreetly. Fellow’s got the regent’s ear.”
“I will try,” Anne agreed, and prayed she would not see him and prayed she would.
Two days ago Jack had stood behind her and touched her hair and made her uncomfortably aware of his size and strength and masculinity. He played havoc with her emotions. She knew he’d trailed her to the Home, hoping to catch her in some criminal assignation, just as she knew his attention to her stemmed from suspicion. He was simply doing his job, and yet when he’d gathered her hair and looked into her eyes, she’d thought she’d seen something elemental there. Something akin to the fire she’d felt in Lady Cotton’s bedchamber.
What was she thinking? She had seduced him from his purpose that night; he would certainly have done the same, using her attraction to him to his benefit. He could hardly fail to note it, she thought, or how susceptible she was to him.
She wanted what he promised. She wanted to be gathered in his arms and lose herself in his passion
“Oh, bloody hell,” Malcolm suddenly exclaimed. “Clean forgot to tell you. Came upon Julia Knapp the other day. She sends her love.”
Anne went utterly still. Julia Knapp had been Matthew’s first lovehis true love. As far as Anne knew, Julia had never married, remaining faithful to the man who’d abandoned her. Not that she’d ever faulted Matthew ... or Anne.
She’d sent Anne a letter upon reading the announcement of her engagement. The heart, Julia Knapp had written, could not be ruled. If Matthew loved her, Anne could not be anything short of wonderful, and Julia wished them every joy.
Her subsequent spinsterhood had been like daggers in Anne’s heart. But perhaps, if Julia had come to town now, she’d decided to reenter the marriage mart, Anne thought hopefully. If Julia had decided to pursue her own happiness, might not she do the same? A little surge of hope sped through Anne.
“Is she in town for the season?” Anne asked.
“Say, what? Julia Knapp you mean?” Malcolm said, scrunching up his face. “Couldn’t say. Didn’t ask. Can’t think why she would be. Something of an ape-leader by now, I’d say.”
“Oh, Malcolm. She’s only a few years older than me.”
“Exactly,” said Malcolm, “and you’re five years a widow.”
No wonder Sophia had such a charitable nature, Anne thought sardonically. She came by it honestly.
Malcolm upended a glass of port into his mouth, placed the glass on the floor, and set his hands on his knees. With a grunt he heaved himself upward and peered around the salon until he spied one of his cronies. “I really should make the rounds, Anne. Remember to dissuade this Seward chap from bothering Sophie. Where is the chit, anyway?” And with that, he left Anne alone on the purple ottoman.
She stayed a few minutes longer but, as always, reminders of the past had sent little worms of tension crawling along beneath her skin. She wished she could quit this place, find a refuge from Julia Knapp and from Jack Seward. But in the five years since her widowhood she’d found only one place where guilt did not follow, and Jack Seward had seen that that refuge was taken from her.
She didn’t dare go out on the roofs. He was having her watched too closely. She rose to her feet. Where had Sophia gone? Three quarters of an hour had passed since she’d wandered off on Lord Strand’s arm.
She trusted Sophia’s good sense less than that of her uncle’s spanielwho was presently in season. She quit the salon, heading down a corridor for the more remote and private rooms.
“Mrs. Wilder?”
His voice caressed her ear like silken sandpaper. Not until she recognized her relief did she realize how much she’d feared Sophia had been with him.
She turned and found him standing close beside her. His harsh, scarred face needed no mask. Who could read anything behind such unassailable politeness?
She tried to untangle her emotions. Apprehension, relief, and gladness all swirled together, confusing what should be a clear, single note of fear. But fear, she’d lately realized, had its own savage seduction.
Jack angled his head, trying to gauge Anne’s expression. He’d been speaking with Lady Dibbs when he’d seen her disappear into this unfrequented passage. He’d told himself to ignore her, to stay and attend the rapacious Lady Dibbs.
But Anne had looked worried. He’d held to his resolve for five minutes before yielding to the impulse that had sent him after her.
“Colonel Seward,” she greeted him.
Possibly he might believe in the relief conveyed by the smoothing of her brow, but the fleeting welcome that softened her voluptuary’s mouthcertainly
that
must be a trick of light and imagination.
“I was just admiring Lord Liverpool’s art collection,” she said.
“May I escort you?”
She would preen now, he thought, like any handsome woman would upon suspecting a gentleman had abandoned another woman to pursue her. It was not vanity that caused him to entertain the idea. He knew his charms and understood that the greater part of them could be attributed to his being accessible and yet still taboo.
She did not preen.
She hesitated, as if unsure of what manners demanded. He could have told her. She should accept his offer. He was her superior, in gender, age, and rank, and she was no one, suffered here only by virtue of a dead man’s wedding ring. But the thought of her accepting his company to appease etiquette pricked and this, in turn, confused him.
He waited, not helping her, memorizing the severe beauty and exotic angles of her face, knowing he would judge all future women against its watermark.
“I would not want to keep you from more agreeable company and I do not mind my own,” she finally murmured.
“Is there more agreeable company?” he replied. “Perhaps
as
agreeable, but then as I have learned never to measure one pleasure against another, I couldn’t say.”
She smiled but it was just a social expression. “Prettily said, sir. I thank you and accept.”
He held out his arm and she rested her hand on his forearm, so lightly he could barely feel her touch. He understood his mistake. Manners might have led her to accept his company, but they were not so good she could mask her aversion to physical contact with him.
Well, what could he expect after having taken extraordinary familiarity with her person just a few days before? That welcome smilehow right he’d been to call it imagination, he thought, and calmly drew her forth.
“Have you ever been here?” he asked after a long pause.
“Yes.” She glanced at him. “A long time ago. Soon after my marriage.”
“Surely it could not have been so very long ago. You are a young woman,” he said gently.
Darkness moved beneath her smooth, surface calm.
“As years, perhaps not so great a number. But as minutes, a vast record, indeed,” she murmured, and then, starting forward at a sedate pace, she said, “Forgive me for being tiresomely philosophic.”
He studied her in surprise. Her gaze remained on him, a touch rueful, much overburdened, and suddenly he wanted to relieve her of those burdens, to prompt her tender mouth into smiles.
The concept fascinated him even as he recognized it as farcical. Bewildered, it was he who broke away from the silent exchange. He lifted his head, scowling unseeingly at an alabaster vase balanced on a marble pedestal.
“It does not please you?” Though Anne’s query was polite, her gaze continued searching the halllooking for some excuse to escape his company, he thought soberly.
“No, it does,” he replied dully. “It’s one of a pair but one of them was broken in transit.”
“How sad!”
“Yes,” he murmured, watching her gaze fluttering about the empty corridor. “I told Thomas they were too fragile for transport.”
“You were with Lord Elgin?” she asked, her gaze finally settling on his face.
“Yes.” He did not elaborate by telling her he’d been in Greece arranging Napoleon’s ignominious defeat at Alexandria.
“I should like to visit Greece.” She said it unwillingly, as if manners forced her to trade conversation with him.
“You might have posed for one of their statues.”
Her laughter was sudden, rare, and delicious, a sound he wanted to hear again. “And which statue might that be, Colonel?”
Persephone. Wed to darkness, yearning for the light
. “Oh, any,” he said. “You have a classic countenance.”
Her eyes widened and she looked away.
“I should not have been so bold,” he said, his halt enforcing her own. “Forgive my manners.”
He cursed his clumsiness. Her cheeks wore a heated stain and she refused to turn back to him. She wanted free of him. It had been clear from the beginning. He could ignore her aversion no longer. Gently he disengaged her gloved hand from his sleevefar too easy a taskand bowed.
“Mrs. Wilder, forgive me. Clearly your tour was intended to be a solitary one and I have interfered. I bid you good night.”
Anne stared. She’d had to keep reminding herself to look for Sophia when all she wanted was to enjoy his company even though she could not find a way to reconcile her pleasure with her fear of him.
“You misunderstand my lack of composure, Colonel,” she said impulsively. “I trust you will keep my confidence, sir, when I tell you that I do not regret your company but rather the absence of another’s. Only because I fear the company
she
keeps. Sophia is gone an hour and I cannot find her.”
He studied her for a moment. “Perhaps I can assist you in discovering her whereabouts?”
“I would appreciate that, Colonel.”
Gravely he again offered her his arm, and now, his stride purposeful, he guided her through a dizzying array of corridors and halls, anterooms and chambers.
Though they searched rapidly, it took them another quarter hour before Anne heard Sophia’s laughter coming from behind a closed door. She steeled herself to whatever spectacle might meet her eye.
Colonel Seward smiled down at her. “It will come right. I promise,” he said softly, and she believed him. And in the midst of her anxiety she saw him clearly, understood his innate tact. He was a gentleman.
How odd to discover that Whitehall’s Hound, a man who did “terrible things,” had so much delicacy and comportment. Yet she did not doubt that he’d full well earned his sobriquet as Devil Jack.
For a moment, the sexual memory that needed only the smallest opportunity to reawaken was replaced by a feeling of kinship ... of something like friendship. She’d never had a masculine friend before.
And she didn’t have one now, she reminded herself sternly. She played at charades with this dangerous man. She could not afford to forget it.
Jack pushed the door open. Four menLord Vedder, Lord Strand, and two youngsters Anne did not know sat around a baize-clad table, Sophia at the head.