His Wicked Kiss (58 page)

“Yes, Maura, life’s been very good to me—recently, in particular. For, you see, a few months ago, it sent this angel into my path.”

Maura
? Good Lord! His first love. Now that she knew, Eden felt much better, indeed, as Jack drew her closer, including her in the conversation.

“I just got married, and this is my bride. Isn’t she gorgeous?” he added in a wicked tone.

Eden eyed him warily askance as he put his arm around her. She knew that silky, evil note in his voice; she hadn’t heard it in a while, but it always meant he was up to something.

Maura bore the news of their marriage looking like somebody had punched her in the stomach; however, she managed a haughty nod. “Felicitations to you both.”

“This is that person I told you about,” Jack murmured in her ear, deliberately speaking just loud enough so that Maura, too, could hear his words.

Eden smiled uncomfortably at the marchioness, determined to maintain at least some semblance of tact in this exchange.

But tact was the last thing Jack wanted.

He smiled, handsome as sin, and full of treachery. “Darling, allow me to present Lord and Lady Avonworth.”

Oh, dear, she thought as she bowed her head respectfully. His hand molding her waist, Jack was holding her too close for her to make a proper curtsy to the high-ranking aristocrats. In fact, if he did not release her in a moment, that voucher to Almack’s might never materialize. The ton could not approve of such displays of marital affection.

He showed no intention of unhanding her. If anything, his clench tightened, turning more sensuous.

Maura’s face was taut. Her hands sparkled with an array of jeweled rings as she clasped her fingers before her, looking down her nose at Eden. “Charming.”

Eden began turning crimson at the lady’s haughty scrutiny, but Jack seemed very glad to let Maura look her fill.

His impudent stare seemed to say:
She’s younger than you, more beautiful than you, smarter than you, and she’s carrying my child
. “I found her in the tropics,” he told his old flame, giving Eden a smoky glance as though he could hardly wait to get his hands on her even now.

Her blush deepened. That pirate glint she had glimpsed in his turquoise eyes when he had tossed Lord Pembrooke into the fountain was back—and it had intensified.

“It was a most… pleasurable voyage, wasn’t it, pet?”

Eden thought she might step on his foot if he didn’t knock it off.

Maura couldn’t seem to resist. “She’s a little young, isn’t she?”

“You think?” he answered in a husky tone, pulling Eden closer. “Come here, sweet.”

Eden’s eyes widened, but it was too late to flee as he captured her face in one hand and cupped the other around her nape, smoothly capturing her in a sensuous, inescapable hold.

He lowered his head and claimed her mouth before everyone present, in a deep, slow, shocking kiss. Eden heard the collective gasp from all around them, but she was paralyzed.

I
am going to kill him
.

Her attraction to Jack along with his expertise as a lover never failed in their drugging effect on her senses, weakening her, but her logical mind was appalled at the certain scandal.

Which her pagan of a husband knew perfectly well would be the result. A scandalous display of red-hot lust.

Rallying her wits, she pressed her hands against his chest, trying to stop him, but it only made him clench her harder.

Oh, he was the very devil
! she thought furiously.

It was the exact same thing he had done that first day in the jungle, when he had kissed her for all he was worth just to enrage Papa. Connor had wanted to kill him that day.

Eden was tempted to now.

But God, he tasted good.

Her emotions careened. The man bewildered her. She knew exactly why he was doing this: his fit of jealousy.

If he disgraced her in Society, then he didn’t have to worry about her
dancing
while he was away.

He didn’t have to leave her all the way in Ireland to make sure she would be isolated.
Cruel, cruel
…

As he stroked her hair and delved his tongue into her mouth in a way that would have driven her wild if they were in private, she suddenly seized on a plan.

She had come too far to let him get her tossed out of Society on her ear. He could act like a pagan pirate if he chose, but she was not about to let him drag her down with him.

“Well!” Maura uttered in a strangled tone that strove for lightness as Jack finally ended the defiant, and admittedly delicious, kiss.

Her single syllable dropped like a penny in the excruciating silence.

With smoldering eyes and flushed skin, Jack licked his lips and looked at Eden as though he’d like to devour her on the spot.

She was glad she had been to the theater, for no words could have saved her at a time like this; she didn’t even try to speak, resorting to the most melodramatic gesture a lady could call forth.

Lifting her hand to her brow, she rolled her eyes up into her head and let out a dizzy sigh of distress, then went limp, pretending to faint.

Jack caught her as another gasp erupted from all the onlookers around them—but she was fairly sure they had bought it. All, of course, but her pirate husband, who laughed—and thus made himself appear even more of a villain for his shocking lack of concern.

Eden stubbornly pretended unconsciousness as Jack swept her up into his arms. She let her head fall against his left shoulder, while his right arm hooked beneath her knees.

Her heart pounding wildly, however, she spied on the whole scene through the veil of her lashes. It was difficult to tell if Maura’s shocked expression signified that she was appalled or envious of this sort of ravishment; indeed, a lot of the ladies were fanning themselves quite rapidly as they looked on, pretending to be horrified.

“Oh, that poor girl!” they whispered.

“Sweet young creature! What she must have to put up with!”

“That beast!”

“Wicked.”

The garden ladies stared hungrily at Jack as he carried Eden out.

“Will you excuse us, please?” he commanded drily. “It’s all right. Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of her,” he added with a sinister smile.

Then he went swaggering out of the ballroom with her in his arms like some dark pagan god making off with his virgin sacrifice—or Hades collecting Persephone to spend half the year with him, as promised, in his underworld kingdom of hell.

Well, at least now no one could claim that there was any lack of passion between them, Jack thought in brooding satisfaction as he carried his bride down the corridor that flanked the ballroom.

Worried servants waved him into a tranquil and dimly lit library at the end of the hallway, but he shook his head when they asked if he wished them to send for a doctor.

They hovered about as he carried Eden in through the double doors and laid her down gently on one of the brown leather couches.

“Brandy?” he queried.

“Here, my lord.” A footman quickly poured a draught for the fainted lady. “It should help to steady her nerves.”

She didn’t open her eyes, the little liar.

Jack took the small glass from the man and set it aside, then he chased the servants out, shutting the double doors behind them with a firm click.

There he paused, knowing he had just caused a scandal.

No, wait—two. There was also the earl in the fountain, news of which was sure to travel fast. Counting the maid’s rumor itself, that made three.

He was not eager to hear what Eden had to say about all this. It had been a bold move, giving her that scorching kiss in front of everyone, but it was the best that he could think of at the time. Proof positive that he had indeed known his wife in the biblical sense and was the father of the child whose existence the world would soon discover.

At least it was a start.

Combined with the lesson he had taught Lord Pembrooke in the conservatory, giving every man around a small idea of what he could expect if he came too near Jack Knight’s wife, he was confident that he had dealt a crippling blow to the rumors and helped to quell any talk that could harm his child’s standing in the world.

He felt a great deal better.

Kissing Eden usually had that effect on him. Truth be told, he had relished the chance to flout Society again, and to let Maura see firsthand what she was missing. He hoped she had known a pang of regret—but for his part, he felt none.

He had made himself look like a blackguard, true, but he didn’t care what these people thought about
him
. He only cared what Eden thought of him. And as he flicked the brass lock on the library doors, turned around slowly, and looked across the room at his playacting wife, he knew that this was the moment of truth.

“You can open your eyes now.”

“I don’t want to,” she said, “because if I see your face, I’m going to
scream.‘”

She sat up swiftly like a woman waking from the dead, and swung her slippered feet down to the carpet. “How could you do that? You barbarian!” She leaned forward on the couch, her lovely face etched with ire. “What were you thinking? You don’t
behave that
way!”

Jack blinked.

“Do you know what you’ve done? You’ve disgraced us! We’re never going to be invited anywhere ever again!”

He paused. “Would that be so bad?”

“Oh! I’ve never been so mortified in all my life!”

“Mortified?” he echoed in a low tone.

“You humiliated me in front of the whole world!”

Jack could not have been more stunned if she had pulled out a pistol and shot him.

She rocketed up out of her seat, grabbed the draught of brandy, tossed back a swallow, and promptly proceeded to cough, for she never drank spirits.

Jack, meanwhile, tried to comprehend.

Mortified? Humiliated? Now she was embarrassed of their love?

She hadn’t been embarrassed last night when he had made her scream with pleasure.

He lowered his head and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes in an effort to clear his head, because he could feel his emotions fraying like a rope in a wild Atlantic gale.

Think.

He was hanging by a thread.

Eden was angry about the kiss and he could understand that.

What he was unprepared for was this talk of humiliation—as though she was actually
ashamed
of him.

Just like his mother had been.

Just like Maura had been, opting for Lord Ancient-of-Days over all of his youthful devotion.

This cut much too close to the bone.

Perhaps if he could explain to her…

But no. Why should he have to?

As she stopped coughing and began pacing, railing in general terms about what a very bad fellow he was—throwing the earl in the fountain, threatening to kill people who flirted with her, and half ravishing her in public—Jack could barely follow her words, let alone absorb them.

He was suddenly so depressed that he didn’t think he even had the heart to try to justify himself. Couldn’t she once just give him the benefit of the doubt? Trust that perhaps he knew what the hell he was doing?

He didn’t deserve this, nor did he have the time to wait out another of her grudges.

One thing was clear.
She loves this world, and I just don’t belong here
.

Eden might not understand his true reasons, but her anger was contagious; for when Jack saw how furious she was at him, he lost all motivation to explain himself to her.

Last night she had promised him forever, but it seemed that was only as long as he played by her rules.

With the raw emotion churning in him since the moment he had realized the rumor’s implications for their child, and all the echoes of pain he was still carrying around from the trauma he had suffered on account of his own ill-starred birth, what he really needed right now was her tenderness.

Instead what he got was her rage.

He couldn’t believe she was yelling at him.

It felt like a betrayal, far worse than finding her in the conservatory with some blue-blood weasel of an earl. His main ally, his beloved, was siding with the ton against him. For what?

Perhaps he was not thinking as clearly as he should right now, but he could not stand here and spell out the facts for her, the rumor and all. She was sure to hear it from someone else, he thought, so let her.

Lucien could explain it all in detail. Then maybe the genius’s daughter could figure out the rest for herself.

“Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?” she cried, her cheeks flushed with anger and brandy.

Head down, arms folded across his chest, Jack flicked her an insolent glance. “You could’ve put a bit more effort into kissing me back.”

“Oh!” she gasped. “You’re lucky I didn’t slap you!”