Barely a Lady (15 page)

He nuzzled at her neck, that little hollow at its base, where his touch had always sent a waterfall of chills down her body, where it did now, settling deep in her belly, down where the heat in her had died so long ago, where the woman in her waited for resurrection.

She felt his shaft, astonishingly hard against her thigh, and rubbed herself against it. She knew that part of him even more intimately than any other, and her body craved it like air.

He had once filled her. He had taken away her loneliness and replaced it with wonder. She could still feel the burn of him as he drove into her, the slick friction of his thrusts, deep and sure, all the way to her now-empty womb, which was suddenly hollow with need. She could feel the slick slide of skin against skin, the moist secrets of mouths meeting. She could remember companionship and communion and love.

She felt his hand sweep down her arm, down her leg, like lightning, like daybreak, and she arched closer to his touch. She wanted to keen and wail and sob for the lost beauty of their lovemaking, for the hard, hungry matings and the soul-shattering hours when they challenged themselves on to higher, more exquisite pleasure. The early mornings met in friendship and the late nights in surprise.

She missed him. Sweet God, she missed him, and she hadn’t allowed herself to admit that for years. She shouldn’t allow it now, because it would make it so much harder later when he left again. But it was as if her body had been waiting for his hands to waken it. For his mouth to bless it. For his body to meet it.

She stretched into his hands, his touch setting her skin afire. She sent her hands searching over him, hand and hip and the corded thighs of a horseman. She closed her ears to everything but the thunder of their hearts. She closed her eyes to everything but the terrible beauty of his body, his eyes, the unbearably soft pillow of his mouth. For immeasurable minutes, she gave herself up to the whirlpool of sensation, her mind a thousand miles from despair.

It was Jack, finally, who broke the kiss. She hovered, uncertain, his hands on her shoulders, his breath caught against her throat. She looked down and was shocked to see his eyes closed. He pushed her away as if she were contaminated.

“That was a terrible idea,” he muttered, shaking his head.

Olivia’s stomach clenched with shame. Her heart battered at her ribs. It had been so good. It had been revisiting what she had lost, and it hurt so deeply she couldn’t even reach it.

Looking down at Jack’s upturned face, she saw that he’d felt the same sweet communion and was appalled by it.

She brushed off her skirts with shaking hands. “Thrasher will bring your meal,” she said, not able to look at him. “I’m sure it will be better if I don’t return.”

And again she walked out on him.

Chapter 12

W
hat had he done? God, he knew better. He had no right to make love to Livvie. Not now. Not before he knew for certain what he had lost in the chasm of his memory.

Closing his eyes, he listened as Thrasher clattered about setting up the tray of food he suddenly didn’t want. He could still smell Olivia’s scent, the faint breath of apples and spring, as if she’d been wandering barefoot through an orchard on a summer’s day. He could still hear the surprise in her sighs, as if lovemaking were something unfamiliar.

She had looked so hesitant when she’d opened that door, as if poised for flight. She’d looked just as she had when they had first faced their passion, those times she’d accepted him on nothing but love and trust in the days before their marriage. Before he’d proven to her that he always kept his promises.

It had never been enough to merely worship her body like an acolyte. He’d promised to protect and honor her, no matter what his family said. He’d sworn that every time they came together, it would be a sacred thing.

Suddenly she didn’t believe him. He could tell by her expression, by the strain in her voice. By the very fact that she insisted on wearing those horrible high-necked rags.

She knew him so well. She knew that even though he loved her entire body, every hidden freckle and each strand of sun-streaked hair, there was just something special about her throat. About that notch just above its base. The sight of it alone could make him hard. Even in his dreams he could feel it against his tongue, that seductive little dip, that perfect repository for a single tear, for a drop of perspiration. It was there he could taste her salt on a summer’s day, sip her tears like dew on a dawn rose.

And yet now when she saw him, she stood as if she’d never felt his mouth on her. As if her body didn’t know his hands better than her own. And she dressed to hide that sweet little hollow.

He shouldn’t have begged her for that kiss. He shouldn’t have compelled her when he knew she was unsure. He knew, sitting there in the prison of his room, that there was something terrible between them. Something she couldn’t quite get past.

He had to find out what it was. He simply couldn’t go on, seeing the pain in her eyes when she looked at him. He needed to understand what Mimi meant to him and how he could ever have thought to replace Livvie with her.

“Y’r lordness?” Thrasher hesitantly said.

Jack opened his eyes to see a plate of roast beef and mushrooms before him, along with a large frothing pint of porter. He should have been ecstatic. He nodded and picked up a fork. If nothing else, he needed his strength.

“Thrasher,” he said, taking a bite. “What year is it?”

Thrasher walked over to the dresser and picked up a vase. “Can’t tell you that. Lady Kate said so.”

Jack almost smiled at the sound of absolute devotion in the boy’s voice. He needed to gain that kind of loyalty. He needed to find someone who wouldn’t hesitate to help him find out what he’d forgotten. And what those damning red cuffs had meant.

Just the thought swamped him with guilt. Shame. Fury. Fear. The emotions felt familiar, as if this wasn’t the first time he’d felt them. As if, in fact, they were old friends.

It was maddening. He had no memory of what he’d done before he’d woken, but he was beset by emotions that had to reflect
something
. It was as if his memory had been amputated, like a leg, leaving behind only the phantom pain. Which, he thought ruefully, meant he had phantom guilt. Phantom despair.

It certainly felt real enough. Which made him wonder why he was in such a blazing hurry to get the memories back. No memory that came seasoned with that kind of grief could be good.

Even so, he had to find out what it all meant. And he had to do it before he made an unpardonable mistake around Livvie. God help him, he couldn’t keep his hands off of her. He couldn’t seem to think when she was gone, but he couldn’t think of anything but her when she was with him.

He might be a danger to her, and she wouldn’t know. He might have done something so terrible that he would have no choice but to break any contact with her, if only for her sake. And he would never be able to do that if he didn’t do it soon.

“Thrasher,” he said, passing a slice of bread over to the too-skinny lad. “Did I hear you’re good at finding out things?”

“ ’S right,” the boy said, pacing again, as if he had too much energy for the room. “I c’n find out anyfing.”

“Even here in Brussels? They don’t even speak English here.”

“Aw, sure. ’Nough do. ’Specially with all the army ’ere.”

Jack nodded absently as he mechanically put food in his mouth and washed it down with the bitter drink. “How would you like to earn a bit of coin?”

The boy stopped by the bed and bent to check something by the pillow. “Suit me to a cow’s thumb.”

Jack nodded to himself, struggling to recall even one fact he could send the boy off on. It was so frustrating. He hated the weakness, the uncertainty, the terrible suspicion that whatever lay beyond that opaque veil would hurt him.

Did he even have the right to send this boy out for him?

“What’s this?” Thrasher asked. “Private stash?”

He pulled something out from beneath Jack’s pillow. Jack looked back to see that he held something silver. A flask. “I have no idea. Put it back.”

Thrasher shrugged and obeyed.

“Can you find out something for me?” Jack asked.

Reaching over to cadge a piece of beef, the boy huffed. “Wouldn’t say it if I couldn’t.”

“Can you help me find out how I got to Belgium?”

The boy looked up at him and frowned. “Prob’ly.”

“Will you keep it between us?” Jack asked, looking down at those too-wise brown eyes. “I don’t want to worry Lady Kate.”

The boy seemed to consider Jack’s offer. “I won’t lie.”

And Jack couldn’t ask it of him. “I just want to protect the women. Something bad might have happened.”

That seemed to settle the matter. “Well, can’t argue with you there. ’Eard some coves is lookin’ for ya, and I don’t think they wanna shake ’ands.”

Jack stopped cold. “What do you mean?”

Thrasher shrugged his skinny shoulders. “ ’Aven’t ’eard much. Whispers, like. Ifn y’re really the Earl o’ Gracechurch, ’eard a coupla coves sayin’ ya did somethin’ bad. Seein’ as ’ow they’s bad themselves, wasn’t so sure I b’lieved ’em.”

Something bad. Like fight for the French army? He felt nauseous with the possibility.

“Have you warned the duchess about this? Surely those men know I’m here.”

Thrasher shook his head. “Nope. Y’re a secret. ’Til you know y’rself what happened, they’re not lettin’ anybody else near you what might give it away.”

Jack was taken aback. Did that make sense? Why would Livvie keep him from his friends, if any were near? What did she fear?

“Can you find out who’s looking for me without putting yourself in any danger?”

At that the boy laughed as if Jack were the funniest thing on earth. “Lord luv ya, Y’r Majesty, I grew up in the Rookeries. Ain’t nobody in all o’ bleedin’ Belgium worse ’n that!”

“I wouldn’t be so cocksure if I were you,” he said, and suddenly a memory flashed.

An alley. Noisome, wet, the cobbles oily in the distant lamplight. The fetid stink of a slum and the lap of a nearby river. Panic. Exhilaration.

A knife, curved perfectly for his palm, cool against hot fingers. The round, thick silhouette of a man. Was he facing him? He couldn’t tell. But he saw the glint of another knife as it raised in the dim light, and he struck.

He felt it then, as if the memory lived in his hand. The slick ease of a thrust, the scrape of bone. He heard the gasp. The gurgle. He felt the drag of that heavy body on his hands.

“Guvn’r?”

He startled, blinked. Lifted his hand to his suddenly aching head to realize he was shaking.

He had killed a man.

“I may have murdered someone.”

“Well, sure,” Thrasher said. “You was at Waterloo.”

But this hadn’t been Waterloo. Bile crowded Jack’s throat, and sweat broke out on his brow. For a moment, he couldn’t even see the skinny, jug-eared boy he’d just confessed to.

“Not in battle,” he said. “In an alley.”

“Wouldn’t be surprised,” the boy said with a hesitant pat to the shoulder. “Ya got that look. But you got the look of a righteous cove. Wouldn’t worry ’bout it none.”

Blinking, Jack pulled the boy’s complacent face into focus and almost laughed. Didn’t it just figure he’d confess to the one person in this house who would take it with such equanimity?

“I don’t know who it was,” he said, his voice shaking almost as badly as his hands. “I don’t know where. A city. A river.” Searching hard for more, he suffered another blinding flash of pain to his head. He pressed a fist against it. “I just wish I could remember.”

“Well, I ’ope ya does,” his conspirator agreed, grabbing a couple of mushrooms and popping them into his mouth. “I ’as this sneaky feelin’ we’re gonna be leavin’ soon, and it won’t be near as easy to do in Lun’on. Bigger place.”

Jack almost laughed again. How had Kate found this unbelievable urchin? “All right, then. I’ll make it worth your while if you can find out who it is who’s looking for me.”

Thrasher nodded. “Piece o’ cake.”

“No,” Jack disagreed, grabbing the boy’s hand so he’d listen. “It’s not a piece of cake. It’s dangerous. And if there was anybody else I could send out, I’d damn well do it.”

Finally the boy lost his grin. “I know, y’r worship. But I’ve lived through dangerous afore.”

Not this kind of dangerous, Jack thought, wondering how the hell he knew. Not this kind of dangerous at all.

When she left Jack’s room, Olivia stopped only long enough to retrieve her bonnet before she fled the house. She needed to walk, and she needed to do it alone. Suddenly the Parc seemed very inviting.

At first her thoughts matched her flight; she couldn’t settle on anything. Her body was still thrumming from Jack’s touch. Her hands curled in on themselves for want of something to touch—for want of
Jack
to touch. Her brain skittered around, seeking purchase, but there were too many memories suddenly let loose, and they all seemed to be about Jack.

His beautiful green eyes, his hands, his work-hardened body. The secret scent of him, the sound of his laughter early on a Sunday morning when the two of them lay buried beneath the covers. The wonder in his eyes when he’d laid his hand on her belly to feel the first whisper of their babe.

His passion.

Jack had taught her sensuality. He had woken her to the intense delight a body could experience at the hands of an ardent and considerate lover, and he had encouraged her to revel in it. He had been like flint to her tinder. He’d been impetuous and generous and imaginative, and he’d opened a world of shared delight to her. He’d taught her that trust was the greatest aphrodisiac of all.

She remembered a time when Jack had been out working with the field hands, building up a sweat and, evidently, a hunger. His clothes caked with mud and sticky with perspiration, he’d swaggered into Olivia’s private parlor like a pirate boarding a helpless merchantman.

“You smell like three-day-old fish,” she’d accused, laughing, knowing it didn’t matter. Her breasts had pebbled hard at the mere sight of him. Her belly had gone tight with need.

He laughed back, his eyes hot, and pulled her into his arms, not caring that her beautiful new muslin dress would be ruined.

“Surprise, Livvie,” he whispered in her ear, his voice full of laughter. “Look what I brought you.”

She felt it, felt
him,
hard against her belly, and her own body ignited in response. He backed her against the silk-papered wall and demanded she open her mouth to him. She did, gladly. Inhaling the pungent sweat scent off him like exotic perfume, she wrapped herself around him. She took his tongue deep into her mouth and met it with her own. Frantically fumbling with his muddy clothes, she managed to free his already stone-hard cock. She helped as he lifted her against the wall with his callused, grimy hands, trapping her high off the floor as he fisted her skirts and shoved them high, baring her legs to the air and sending lightning exploding through her.

And there, without smile or whisper or plea, he impaled her. She bit his neck as he slammed into her. She gloried in it, a hot, quick, hard consummation that left them both breathless and even hungrier for more.

And when it was done, when she hung limp against his shoulder, damp and sated, with him hardening again inside her, he hesitated. She saw it in his eyes, the fear that he had shown her disrespect. That he’d taken her, a sheltered gentlewoman, hard and fast against a wall like a Covent Garden whore. His concern had made her fall in love for at least the tenth time that day.

Laying her hand against his chest, where his heart still thundered, she’d leaned up to whisper into his ear. And because it was the only way she could convince him how delicious he had made the moment, she used a word that should have been anathema to a vicarage-raised girl.

“I love it,” she panted, “when you fuck me.”