Savage Nights (The Savage Trilogy #2) (11 page)

“I’ll come,” Savage said curtly. He turned back to me, his mouth taut and his expression stormy. “Eve, dress yourself for dinner as we discussed. I’ll return as soon as I can. Be here for me when I do.”

Before I could answer he’d stormed from the room. Barry nodded to me and silently closed the door.

Slowly I sat on the bed beside the silk shift Savage had chosen for me. I’d wear it, of course, because he wanted me to but also because I’d nothing else to do.

I was left alone with my questions, and they were not good company.

6.

As Savage had asked (or had he ordered?), I shed my heavy riding habit and all the other layers of lace, linen, and silk beneath. I felt instantly lightened and grateful to be free of the confines of my clothing. I’d always enjoyed dressing fashionably and indulging in every new Parisian style, but from Savage I’d learned to appreciate my body as it was, without tight lacing to alter it to Society’s view of beauty.

There was a small but luxurious bathroom connected to the bedroom, and I washed myself before I slipped into the silk shift that had been left for me. The silk slid lightly over my naked body like a whisper, exactly the way my Innocent’s costume had done at Wrenton. I looped the necklace back around my neck, and the pearls settled familiarly across my breasts, brushing across my nipples just enough to make them tingle and stiffen.

I moved quickly, not knowing how long Savage would be away, and I didn’t want him to find me not ready when he returned. I could only guess as to what I needed to be ready
for
—with Savage I never knew—but ready I would be.

I took one last look at myself in the tall dressing mirror, imagining how he would see me. The shift was short, barely reaching to the middle of my thighs. The silk was so sheer that it was clear I wore nothing beneath it. My nipples were ruddy and pointed through it, and the dark curls low on my belly were a shadowy triangle.

When I’d first worn a similar costume last week (was it really such a short time ago?), I’d been ashamed to be so brazen, and unable to confront my own reflection. Now I boldly tossed my hair back over my shoulders, proud of my body and the pleasure to be discovered in it. Savage had given me that gift as my lover, and I would never be able to thank him enough for it.

I glanced at the clock, wondering yet again when he would return. He’d been gone forty-five minutes, and the time that had raced as I’d undressed now seemed to drag. Dusk was settling, and when I stepped to the window and pushed back the curtain I could see that the streetlights that ringed St. James’s Square were already lit.

But there was more to see, too. A hackney cab was waiting at the curb before the house. As I watched, a man hurried from the house and climbed into the cab. The driver cracked his whip over the horse’s back, and they quickly sped away. From the angle of the window, I could not see the man’s face, hidden by the brim of his hat, but he had been well dressed, like a gentleman. His haste had given him an air of purpose, as if he was rushing off on a specific errand rather than leaving after a social call.

I frowned, thinking. It was clear that the gentleman must have met with Savage and likely was the “messenger” Barry had mentioned when he’d interrupted us. But what could have been the reason for such a meeting? Savage had left me as quickly as this man had in turn left the house, hinting at some great urgency between them. In fact, Savage had clearly appeared to expect the interruption.

But it made no sense. My father had always maintained that no important business affairs occurred after the noonday meal. The morning was the time for male business, and besides, I had a difficult time imagining Savage, with his loathing for all things modern, being the same slave to the stock markets and bankers as my father and husband had been.

Nor did Savage need to be. He was unquestionably wealthy, with none of the telltale small signs of an aristocrat foundering on the edge of debt. Although he was a peer with a seat in the House of Lords, he had never mentioned an interest in politics or the workings of government.

Yet Savage had no personal reasons that I could guess for his abrupt behavior, either. His parents and his wife were dead, he had no siblings, and his only son was safely away at school.

There was, of course, the animosity he showed towards Lord Blackledge, but I doubted Savage would plot against the baron with another man. At least I hoped he wouldn’t, considering that I’d be the cause of it. But what reasons could Savage have had, then, for this meeting, this urgency?

Still thinking, I let the curtain drop back in place. The bedroom was growing dim, too, and without thinking I went to turn on the light, groping about along the wall near the door where a switch would ordinarily be.

Chagrined, I remembered Savage’s insistence on candles and noted how many candlesticks there were in the room. As a child I remembered some of my elderly relatives had had gaslight, but no one in New York lived by candles and I’d no idea how to light them myself. After I’d tied the satin robe over my shift, I rang for a servant.

A maid swiftly appeared, anticipating my request by shielding a lit taper in her hand. I watched her go about the room, lighting each candlestick. I thought that Savage, with his love of beauty, would have employed a charming young maid, but this woman was older, with ginger hair and pitted cheeks, and had clearly been hired for her brusque and near-silent efficiency, as she finished with the candles and drew the curtains, pointedly taking no notice of my state of undress.

She answered all the overtures I made to her with single-syllable replies, perfectly polite but volunteering nothing. I would have prized her if she’d been in one of my own households, but because I wished to learn more of her master (and mine) I now found her taciturn qualities maddening.

“Will that be all, ma’am?” she asked finally when her tasks were finished.

Enough discretion,
I decided. I would ask her outright.

“Do you know where His Lordship might be at present?”

“His Lordship is at home, ma’am,” she replied succinctly, rubbing her palms on the front of her apron.

I sighed, sensing my questions would accomplish nothing. “I know His Lordship is at home, meaning here beneath this roof. I wish to know where he is within this house.”

“I do not know, ma’am,” she said uneasily, her gaze darting everywhere but at me. “His Lordship don’t tell me of his doings.”

I didn’t believe she was being stubborn but, rather, acutely literate.

“Very well,” I said, determined to try another tack. “When did you last see His Lordship?”

“In the front hall, ma’am, when he arrived with you.” She sniffed. “Will that be all, ma’am?”

“You may go.” I had no choice, really. I didn’t doubt that she was telling the truth. It was clear that Savage, who treasured his privacy as much as any man I’d ever known, expected his staff to do the same.

But there would be one servant who would know, and that would be Barry. I waited another moment or two after the maid had left me, tightened the sash of my robe, and then opened the door to my bedroom. Savage had said his rooms were directly across from mine, and resolutely I crossed the hallway, my bare feet sinking into the thick Persian carpet.

There were no footmen standing beside the bedroom doors to open them, as was often the case in grand houses, and I was glad of it, and not having to explain my intentions. In fact, the door that I guessed must lead to Savage’s rooms was even ajar, as if he himself would be returning at any moment. For all I knew, he might already be within.

I knocked on the half-opened door, the sound echoing through the empty rooms. All I heard was the muffled sound of a carriage in the street and the ticking of a distant clock.

“Savage?” I called tentatively, pushing the door open farther. The candles had been lit for evening in here, too. Savage might think of them as casting a soft and romantic light, but alone as I was in the unfamiliar house, I was finding their flicker and the shadows they cast a little unsettling.

“Savage?” I called again, a little louder. “Mr. Barry? Are you there?”

Still, no one answered. Slowly I pushed the door open farther and entered the room, a spacious sitting room for a gentleman. A small table was set for our dinner, with two place settings of fine silver, crystal, and china and a large porcelain bowl of white roses. I smiled with anticipation and appreciation, too. It was hard to reconcile the gentleman who would arrange this with the man who’d nearly lost his temper and struck another in a stable yard earlier today. But that contradiction
was
Savage, the most complicated—yet fascinating—man I’d ever known.

There were many other things here that I associated with his varied interests and tastes, too: mahogany furnishings in the style of over a hundred years ago, a pair of cavalry swords crossed on the wall, books strewn everywhere, a small Roman bronze statue of a satyr ravishing a willing nymph, and a life-size painting of an opulently nude Venus over the mantel. Another door, half-open, must surely lead to his bedroom.

But what caught my eye and held it was a smaller painting hung between the two windows, a portrait of a young woman. Unlike everything else in the room, it was modern, and the sitter was stylishly dressed in a burgundy-colored velvet evening gown of a decade ago, not a century.

Drawn by the woman’s face, I crossed the room to study the picture more closely. She was undeniably a beauty, with a mass of dark hair piled high over her pale oval face and her slender figure twisting gracefully to display her narrow waist below the exaggerated full sleeves of her gown. Around her throat was a priceless necklace of rubies and diamonds, and in one hand she held a white ostrich plume, the angular brilliance of the precious stones accentuated by the fragile white plume.

Or perhaps it was the lady herself who was most fragile of all. Despite her beauty and her jewels, her eyes seemed a fraction too wide, her lips almost quivering, and her fingers holding the quill of the plume were pinched too tightly together. To me, she looked as terrified as a deer startled by hunters, as if at any moment she must bolt and run away to save her life. It was not the way most ladies would wish themselves to be painted, nor the way that most husbands would want to remember their wives.

For of course she must be Savage’s dead wife, Marianne, his doomed countess who had killed herself. She couldn’t be anyone else, and I took a step closer, lost in the tragic sadness of her face.

I suppose some women would have been jealous to see a wife’s portrait still hanging in a lover’s private rooms, but I was not. How could I be, when the madness and suffering she had so obviously endured had only ended with the peace of death?

I stared at the portrait, unable to look away. What could have frightened her so much that it showed so clearly?

There were questions surrounding the death of his wife that were never properly answered …

Against my will, I remembered how Laura had wanted to warn me about Savage, repeating the old gossip about Lady Savage’s death—all of which, of course, was preposterous lies. I trusted him. But the vulnerability that Lady Savage showed in this painting must have been a powerful attraction for Savage, given how much he liked to protect those he loved.

I smiled ruefully, realizing how I’d unconsciously included myself in that. He’d never once said anything of love, nor had I. It had never seemed to have its place between us. We’d agreed to be lovers without being in love. Having never been in love myself, I wasn’t even certain I would recognize the difference.

Yet there was no denying that we were drawn together by more than physical amusement. Earlier he’d called me irresistible, and I felt much the same about him. The sadness and loss that we’d both had in our lives drew us together, and I’d an almost eerie sense that he understood me better than anyone else ever had or perhaps could. I longed to know everything about him, which was why I was intrigued by what I’d found in this room. When we’d left Wrenton, I’d agreed to another week in his company, no more, and I was determined to make as much of that time as I could.

I pulled the robe’s sash a little more tightly about my waist, trying to sort through my thoughts about Savage, and myself. It was as if—

“Why are you here, Eve?”

Swiftly I turned around. Savage was standing in the doorway, his hand still on the doorknob.

I smiled with relief, glad he’d joined me. “I’m here to dine with you,” I said, holding my hand towards the set table. “As you promised.”

“I told you I would rejoin you in your room, not here,” he said curtly. “I told you to wait for me there.”

My smile faded. He wasn’t as happy to see me as I’d been with him. Far from it.

“I’m sorry,” I said contritely. “But I didn’t see the harm in—”

“In prying?” he asked. Displeasure flashed in his eyes. “Is it the custom for Americans to wander about their host’s home, inspecting his most private belongings for their own amusement?”

“I wasn’t prying!” I exclaimed. “I simply came to dine with you, by your invitation.”

Unconsciously my gaze flicked back to the portrait of his wife. It was only an instant—one guilty instant—but he noticed.

His brows drew together and he lowered his chin, never good signs with him. It wasn’t the same fury that he’d shown earlier with Blackledge. This was more a cold, biting disappointment, edged with bitterness.

For me it was worse, because I knew I was the cause. Without a word I realized, too, that we were once again playing the Game, with me as his Innocent.

And now I’d disappointed my Master.

“I do not believe you deserve dinner now, Eve, not after this.” He turned his head to call back through the open door. “Barry, here.”

Instantly his manservant appeared in the doorway.

“Barry, please send word to the kitchen for Mrs. Wilson to stop her preparations,” Savage said. “Mrs. Hart and I will not be dining at present, nor do we wish to be disturbed.”

Barry nodded and backed from the room. Savage himself closed the door, turned the key in the old-fashioned lock, and slipped it into the pocket of his trousers. As he did so he watched me, making sure I understood that I would not easily be able to escape, even if I wished to.