For Desire Alone (11 page)

As he took two drinks from the tray of a passing footman and held one out to her, she smiled.

“Just what I needed,” she said with a laugh. “But then, you do seem to always know what that is.”

He also smiled, but the expression was muted, as if heavier thoughts plagued his mind.

“Did you ever watch before?” he asked her as he restlessly ran a thumb back and forth over the edge of his glass.

She blinked. She hadn’t expected him to wish to return to the topic of what they’d just done. She was no innocent, to be certain, but normally one didn’t analyze or discuss those sorts of things. At least, not in the middle of a ballroom, even Vivien’s.

“Watch like we did tonight?” she asked. When he nodded, she pressed further. “Owen has only been gone for a few weeks, I haven’t had the time, to be honest.”

He frowned at her obvious avoidance of the topic. “I meant when you were with Owen.”

She couldn’t help but draw back in surprise. John
never
asked her about her relationship with Owen. Not when Owen was alive, and certainly not since his death. In fact, John had made it perfectly clear that he didn’t
want
to know what she and his friend had shared in their bed or anywhere else.

And yet now he pressed her on those very delicate topics. She flinched at the memory of Owen and his desires. But the pain at his loss was beginning to become muted partly due to his actions toward her…and partly because of John’s.

“Yes,” she admitted softly. “I’m sure you must know that Owen always liked to watch.”

John arched a brow. “It seemed tonight that you enjoyed that equally.”

She shrugged but felt anything but dismissive on the topic. John was probing a very personal and painful arena of her life. One she did not wish to reveal. Nonchalance was her only weapon.

“I did. I do. It is most stimulating, especially when there is such abandon as there was tonight.”

She shivered just thinking about it, and John shifted as if he too was thinking of what they’d seen and done.

“And yet when I first suggested the back room, you hesitated in going,” he pressed. “I felt high emotion in you, and not of the pleasant variety. Is there a reason?”

Mariah closed her eyes and drew a calming breath. John was a bulldog on topics he perused. Now that he had gotten hold of this one, she could see he wouldn’t release it until he had the answers he demanded.

“John,” she said softly. “You are the one who did not wish to be my protector, who wanted to keep our affair so rigidly free of connection. Why the shift now?”

He stared at her in plain disbelief.

“Mariah,” he whispered. “I am not so cold as you accuse. The fact is I am not asking you these questions as a protector or a lover. I ask you because I am your friend. I’m still that, aren’t I?”

Once he had told her they’d never been friends because of his lust for her, but she’d always known that was a statement meant to make a point, not truth.

“You are my friend,” she replied, her voice so soft that he had to lean closer to hear her.

He smiled and the expression was genuine with relief and affection. “Then tell me, why did the beginning of tonight make you so uncomfortable. I don’t want to repeat that if I can avoid it.”

Mariah took a deep breath. Damn him for seducing not her body, but her emotions. For making her trust him, when she knew she shouldn’t, friendship and passion be damned.

“I—” she began, trying to keep her mind from wandering to unpleasant memories. It was an impossible task. “Owen
did
love to watch, as did I. Our shared desire for such a thing brought us closer at first. But after a while he told me that watching was not enough to satisfy him. He wanted us to…participate.”

John’s eyes went wide and he nearly dropped the drink in his hand.

“Participate?” he repeated as if he didn’t understand.

She knew the feeling. When Owen had suggested it, she had barely understood herself.

“He…said that we had been together a long while, two years the first time he brought up the subject,” she continued with difficulty. “And that our passion was growing
stale
.”

She spit the last word out with difficulty, for hearing it had hurt her so deeply. Owen had been kind in the exchange, but no amount of kindness could ease the pain of his meaning.

John tensed but said nothing, so she continued.

“He asked me to come with him to the center of the back room, to give myself over to whatever the others wished, and he would do the same. I refused. I could not picture myself in the middle of that room, watching my lover pleasure and be pleasured by others. I wasn’t ready for such a shift in our relationship. I knew it would open a Pandora’s box.”

“And what did Owen say when you refused him?” John pressed in a thin, tight voice that betrayed unexpected anger at the subject.

She blushed. “He did not force me, but he made it very clear that he was disappointed to his core. Disappointed in me and my ‘missish refusal to tend to his desires’.”

John cursed beneath his breath. “I assume the subject did not drop, either.”

She shook her head. “No. Soon after he began suggesting we recruit a friend or two of his to join us in the privacy of our rooms, rather than begin with such a public act. He even suggested you.”

John backed up another step. The anger that had been mild in his tone now flashed dark and deep in his eyes.

“Me?” he repeated, his voice gruff and low.

She blinked. “You sound surprised.”

He laughed, but there was no humor to the sound. “I am.”

She shook her head. “I—I thought you knew! That he had talked to you about the subject and had your permission to bring up the topic with me.”

“No,” he barked and several heads pivoted at the harsh sound. “No. I’m sorry, Mariah. I must leave.”

She opened her mouth to respond, to question, but he gave her no opportunity. He turned on his heel and marched from the ballroom, leaving her alone, confused and hurt in a way she had not felt in weeks.

John paced one of Vivien’s chambers, fisting and unfisting his hands as wild thoughts raced through his mind. Of Mariah in the middle of that back room, writhing on the floor while faceless others pleasured her. Of Owen putting her in that place. Of Owen sharing her with other men…with
him
.

The images were as troubling as they were titillating and he could not seem to control his anger and frustration as they bubbled up again and again, each time stronger.

The door behind him opened and he pivoted, thinking he would find Mariah there, come to look for him after his abrupt departure. Instead, Vivien stood in the doorway, arms folded, staring at him.

“Not now,” he growled, but she entered anyway and shut the door behind her.

“Out with it,” Vivien said, her voice low as she sank into the nearest settee and stared at him. “What is going on with you?”

John drew a few deep breaths. He knew what she meant by her open question. This behavior was not like him. He didn’t show emotion. He didn’t inspire people to inquire after his wellbeing. He shook his head.

“Nothing,” he managed to grind out through clenched teeth that belied his statement entirely.

Vivien pursed her lips. “I see. Nothing. Is that your answer to
me
?”

He paced away from her and stared at the fire. “It is my answer to everyone because it is the truth.”

Vivien folded her arms. “I have known you a long time, John. I’ve never seen you like this.”

He turned to face Vivien, a woman he had counted as a friend for a handful of years. Probably the only woman he could truly call that name. Even Mariah inspired far more complex attachments than mere friendship.

“Did you know Owen wished to share Mariah? In the back room? With his friends? With
me
?” he snapped out.

Vivien hesitated, then nodded. “Yes. Mariah told me.”

He slammed a hand on the mantel. “How could he do that? If he loved her, how could he do that?”

Vivien pushed to her feet and tilted her head to stare at him. “Because he did
not
love her. You were his closest friend—surely that can come to no surprise to you. He told her he did, he treated her well enough. But love her? I doubt it.”

John squeezed his eyes shut. When Vivien put it so succinctly, it was true. Owen never talked about Mariah when she was not in the room. It was always John who had brought her up as a topic of conversation. Owen’s eye had never stopped roaming. And in the last days of his life, he had even begun to talk about marrying to produce his heirs. When John asked him about Mariah, Owen made it obvious he had never considered her in the decision. He would only say it would work out…somehow.

“But she loved him,” he said softly.

Vivien wrinkled her brow. “Mariah is not built for this lifestyle. She had one lover before Owen and then stayed with your friend for three years. She never took any offers for protectors higher up the chain of influence. Was that because she has some deep, abiding love for Owen? Or that in order to allow herself to perform the acts expected of a mistress, she must tell herself she is in love?”

John shook his head without hesitation. “No. I refuse to believe her to be dishonest with her heart. She did care for him, I know that to be true. She mourns him.”

“Oh, do not misunderstand me. I don’t claim her to be dishonest with her heart. She convinces herself, more than anyone else, that her feelings are real,” Vivien agreed. “She does mourn Owen. The accident that took his life was hideous. And she cared for him. But I do not think she was as satisfied during their time together as she has told herself, and others, that she was.”

John pursed his lips. “And do you think that is true about her experience with me, as well? Is all her connection to me merely an act to induce her to take to my bed?”

Vivien’s expression was unreadable at his question. “I’m amazed you would care. You don’t want her beyond a few nights, a few weeks at best.”

He sucked in a breath. Everyone kept saying that, including himself, but it didn’t ring true. He shook the thought away.

“No one likes being lied to,” he snapped.

Vivien was silent for a moment. “Then allow me to ease your ruffled feelings. I do think things are different between you. There is no need for her to force something between you. She wants you quite passionately. More to the point, she has a true regard and respect for you, and clearly you two satisfy each other greatly.”

Vivien moved toward him. “John, she is my best friend. Probably the only true friend I have in this world. And I think the idea that you are presenting her with an affair that is only for her pleasure is a great one, indeed. She deserves that. But…”

John tilted his head. “But?”

“This conversation, along with my own observations, makes me wonder…what
are
your true feelings for her?”

John tensed. True feelings? He could have no true feelings for her. For anyone.

When he was silent, Vivien continued, “Because you know as well as I do that she has suffered a great pain, believing she was loved and learning that was far from true. She dismisses it as if it does not affect her, but she is pained and humiliated. I would not want her to be lured in by your kindness and your affection, only to have you withdraw it. I think with you…with you it would do more damage.”

John swallowed. How that could be true, he did not know. But he refused to think about it, to face it.

“That shall not happen,” he said, his voice cracking. “Because I have no feelings toward Mariah beyond a friendship we have shared for three years and a desire to have her.”

Vivien was silent for a moment, but then she nodded. “If that is true, or if that is the truth you choose to repeat, then be certain she knows it now. Otherwise you will end up doing more harm than good later. And Mariah deserves better.”

John nodded. “That is one thing we can agree on, Vivien. Mariah deserves far better. Than Owen could give her. Or that I can.”

Vivien’s lips parted, but she did not stop him when he left the room, left her home, passed his waiting carriage and walked off into the dark night. To look for trouble. To look for a way to forget.

Chapter Nine

Mariah shifted as her carriage rounded another corner, but her discomfort had nothing to do with her current mode of transportation. Her destination was what made her stomach flutter and her heart race.

She was heading to John’s home.

Normally that fact would not cause her such anxiety. After all, she had been to his home many times in the past without the thought of it making her weak. Everything was different now. It had been three days since his abrupt departure from Vivien’s masquerade. Three days since they made love or talked. He had sent her no word during that time, offered her no explanation for his avoidance.

If he was ending this affair, she deserved to hear it from his lips. She refused to sit around, moping as she waited. She had done that very thing with Owen for years and had learned her lesson.

With John, if she wanted something, she was going to follow Vivien’s advice and take it.