Lord Savage (20 page)

He led me swiftly from the dining room and up the stairs toward his rooms. His stride
was so long and determined that I was breathless with hurrying, half running in my
heeled slippers to keep pace with him across the polished floors and thick carpets
and past the curtseying parlor maids and bowing footmen.

He offered no explanation of his haste, no apology for his earlier behavior, not even
any small talk. He didn’t so much as look down at me at his side. His expression was
dark and implacable, offering nothing, with his thoughts turned inward and away from
the rest of the world, including me. I’d already realized that his reticence wasn’t
part of the Game, part of playing the role of a master, but instead was part of him.
I recognized it for what it was, because it was part of me as well. I’d been alone
with him all of the last night and day, and had done wicked, shameless, wonderful
things with him that would once have made me blush, and yet I still knew next to nothing
of him as a man.

Nothing. And that, I did know, was exactly as he wished it to be.

As my father would have said, Savage kept his cards close to his vest. It was an excellent
attribute for a poker player, but the very devil of a challenge for me now.

But I couldn’t think of it, or him, like that. I needed to focus not on what he wasn’t
sharing with me but on what he was, which was exactly the sort of reckless passion
and excitement that I’d left New York to experience. I couldn’t think of Savage like
the ordinary gentlemen I’d known, who had ordinary families and homes and occupations.
He’d already made it abundantly clear that he wasn’t like that. I couldn’t think of
a future with him beyond Wrenton Manor and the Game, which had brought us together,
or beyond the seven nights that were all I was guaranteed to have with him.

I knew all this because, although I might be inexperienced with men, I wasn’t a fool.
And yet, when at last Barry shut the bedroom door and Savage and I were finally alone
together, I still said the one thing to him that I shouldn’t have, simply because
I was too polite to keep silent.

“Thank you, Savage,” I said to his back as he poured himself a glass of brandy. “Thank
you for stopping Mr. Henery when he became too—too forward.”

He didn’t answer, sipping the brandy in silence. Because the day had been warm, the
bedroom windows remained open, and the yellow flames of the candles around them danced
and jumped on their wicks, casting uneasy shadows across the walls that seemed to
mirror the evening’s mood.

I stood uncertainly, my hands hanging awkwardly at my sides. I wished he would reply
to me, wished it quite desperately. When he didn’t, I plunged on, feeling obliged
to fill the silence that was stretching more and more widely between us.

“It was very unpleasant, having Mr. Henery touch me as he did,” I said. “I didn’t
expect it, you know. I’ve scarcely said two words to the man, and then to have him
act so—so rudely—”

“Is that all it was to you, there in the dining room?” Savage demanded, abruptly wheeling
around to face me. “A bit of unpleasantness? Some fellow who was rude?”

Startled by his reaction, I drew back a step, folding my arms defensively over my
chest. Even by the candlelight, his expression was dark and impassive, much as it
had been downstairs.

“For me, yes, it was,” I said finally. “It was only part of the Game, I know, but
it frightened me.”

He frowned. “You were frightened by a drunkard pawing over your leg?”

I shook my head, unsure how honest I should be.

“In part it was Mr. Henery,” I admitted. “But what frightened me more was you.”

“You were frightened of me,” he repeated, incredulous. He drank the rest of the brandy
in a single swallow and set the empty glass down so hard that the crystal rang in
protest. “First you thank me, and then you say I frightened you. What in blazes am
I to make of that?”

“I thanked you for defending me,” I said quickly. “But it was how you defended me
that was—was frightening. I’ve never seen gentlemen fight like that.”

“Will you believe me if I tell you I’ve never lost my temper like that?” he asked,
his voice filled with bitterness, and more than a little of his earlier fury, too.
“I lost my temper. I dishonored my friends. I insulted their hospitality, and I attacked
another man as if I were some brawling bastard from the dockyards. If I weren’t who
I am, I’d be in jail for it now. And do you know why I did those things? Can you guess?
Or will you only stand there before me in judgment, like some damned sibylic oracle
from New York?”

“I’m not judging you, Savage,” I protested. “I never said I was.”

Before I could react, he was with me, holding my face between his hands so that I
couldn’t look away. His pale eyes were hard and cold, even with the candle flames
reflected in them.

“Answer me, Eve,” he demanded roughly, his thumbs pressing into my jaw. “I want to
hear you say it. Tell me why I acted like a madman.”

I had no idea what he meant, or what he expected me to say. I stared back at him,
my heart beating wildly. He was going to kiss me, I was sure of it, and then it wouldn’t
matter what I said.

“Tell me, Eve,” he ordered in a harsh whisper, his face only inches from mine. “You
know the reasons better than I.”

I swallowed, the muscles of my throat working convulsively just beneath his fingers.
At last I shook my head in the tiny fraction of motion that his grasp would permit.

His mouth tightened, his lips so tightly compressed that the little cut began to bleed
again, a tiny, glistening trickle.

Abruptly he released my face, lifting his hands away with such suddenness and force
that I staggered backward, off-balance. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been swaying
into him, so much that he’d been supporting me.

“Stubborn,” he said, biting the word off. “Why won’t you say what we both know?”

“Because I
don’t
know!” I cried furiously. “You are making no sense, Savage, none. None!”

He’d begun to pace back and forth before me like some great jungle cat, caged and
unable to keep still.

“I came to Wrenton for pleasure,” he said. “Mindless, rutting pleasure. That’s the
whole point of Laura’s little game, isn’t it? I’ve done it before, with other women.
I should be fucking you whenever it pleases me, and anyone else who pleases me as
well. I should be making you suck my cock at the dining table, while I suck some other
woman’s breasts. I should be sharing you with Carleigh, or any other man who wants
you, and be eager to fuck their women—their Innocents—as well.”

“Then do it, if that is what you want,” I said, shoving back my tangled hair. I hated
how he was saying the word
fuck,
short and sharp and ugly, and nothing like what he’d done with me. “I won’t stop
you.”

“But you already have, Eve,” he said. “You have blinded me to all the others. I can
think of nothing but touching you, smelling you, tasting you, fucking you, and I would
kill any other man who tried to take you from me. I almost did with Henery.”

I wasn’t sure if he intended this as a compliment or not. To me, it wasn’t. Inspiring
a man to attack another did not strike me as very flattering, and automatically I
glanced down at the bloodstains on his cuffs, the crimson now darkening to brown.

“Your voice stopped me,” he continued, tugging apart the knot of his necktie and opening
the throat of his shirt. “Only you could do that, because at once I thought of how
much I wanted you. I wanted to throw you down and pound my cock into you with your
legs around my waist. That’s what you wanted, too.”

I shook my head, not wanting to admit the uncomfortable link between his aggression
and my arousal.

“Don’t lie,” he said. “I saw it in your eyes then. I can see it there now, too.”

My face grew warm, and I looked down so that my eyes wouldn’t betray me again. Daring,
I closed the space between us and reached up to curl my palm around the back of his
neck. His skin was hot beneath my touch and the tendons were tight as iron bands,
and gently I rubbed them with my fingers.

“Do you want me in return?” I asked softly, already knowing the answer. I didn’t have
to look into his eyes: his entire body was tense with white-hot lust. No wonder I
was trembling in response, poised and ready for him.

But not for what he said next.

“You are like a witch who has cast her spell over me,” he said, his voice hoarse with
the same fury he’d shown before. “With every other woman, once I’d had her, the novelty
was done, and I was cured. I thought you’d be the same. But you’re like a poison I
can’t resist, Eve, a poison that’s claiming my life. I think of nothing but how I
fucked you last time, and how I’ll fuck you again. I don’t know how you have done
it to me in so short a time, but damn you, you have. You
have.
”

I gasped, so shocked by what he’d said that I recoiled from him as if I’d been burned.

“How can you say such ridiculous things to me?” I cried, my anger swiftly flaring
to match his. “How can you be so unfair? You
are
mad, to speak so! How can you call me poison? How can you fault me for your—your
weaknesses? Why, you’re no better than Blackledge, blaming me!”

He raked his fingers through his hair. “Blast you, Eve, I’m not Blackledge. I don’t
blame you. I said you were the reason. That’s not the same at all.”

“Isn’t it?” I said. “It certainly seems so to me.”

“It’s not,” he said sharply. “Not at all.”

I couldn’t bear this. He was leading me down a dark, twisted, turning road, and I
didn’t want to follow any longer.

“I’m leaving,” I said, heading for the door. “There’s no need for me to stay and listen
to you insult me.”

He stepped in front of me, blocking my path. He stood with his legs apart and his
hands clenched loosely at his sides, a black-and-white wall of impossibly handsome,
confounding maleness. Part of me warned that I should be frightened again, but I was
too angry and hurt to care.

I placed my palms on his chest and tried to shove him aside.

“I’m not staying with you, Savage,” I said. “I’m leaving.”

“No, you aren’t,” he said. “Because I’m leaving first.”

Before I could react, he turned and was gone, slamming the bedroom door behind him.
With a wordless exclamation of frustration, I threw myself at the door. My fingers
slipped on the polished brass doorknob and fumbled as I tried to turn it, certain
he’d locked me inside. But then the door opened easily, and to my chagrin I stood
face-to-face not with Savage but with an unperturbed Barry.

“Where is his lordship?” I demanded, quickly scanning the corridor. “Where is he?”

“He has certain matters to attend to, ma’am,” Barry said, as mild as usual. “Is there
anything you require, ma’am?”

I paused, my thoughts racing wildly. I could follow my first impulse and return to
my rooms, praying that I wouldn’t meet Blackledge or any of the other masters on the
way. I could send for a car in the morning, leave Wrenton for London, and never see
Savage again.

I could do all that, or I could stay.

I could remain here in Savage’s bedroom, surrounded by scores of flickering candles,
and wait for him to return. He would, too. I was just as sure of that as Barry was,
because I was certain he’d expect me to be here when he did.

And he’d be right. I wasn’t ready to end things with Savage, at least not like this.
I was realizing that as my anger cooled. I had been equally at fault, letting my pride
get the better of me. It hadn’t been easy hearing him describe me as a poison, and
yet I understood, for he’d become exactly the same for me.

I’d become jealous of any time he spent with others, let alone being parted from him.
I thought of nothing except him and his cock, and what he would do next to please
them both. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I’d been almost incessantly
aroused since he’d sat beside me to watch the entr’acte. Even the merest touch from
him had that effect on me, and for the first time I truly understood what an obsession
could be.

Oh, yes, he’d been right: I did want him. My whole body ached fiercely with wanting,
my quim too empty and longing for him to fill me again.

And that need would humble my pride every time.

I took a deep breath, striving once again to look like the lady I’d been born, at
ease with servants, and not a scorned Innocent in a rumpled costume.

“Thank you, Barry, no,” I said. “I require nothing more.”

He bowed, and I retreated inside the room, letting him close the door gently after
me.

I rubbed my arms against the evening air, noting wistfully how my nipples now were
tight from the chill, not Savage’s touch. With a sigh, I pulled the costume over my
head—I was sure he would want to discover me naked when he returned—and climbed into
his bed.

The sheets had been changed since Savage and I had lain there earlier, the pillows
plumped and the coverlet straightened, and in vain I tried to recapture some sense
of how it had felt to have him beside me. The bed was too large for one person alone,
and I curled into a tight knot in the very center of the mattress with the coverlet
pulled high beneath my chin.

I wondered where Savage was now. Was he stalking through the manor’s hallways or gardens?
Had he retreated to the library to lose himself in a book? Had he taken a horse from
the stables to ride hard across the estate’s moonlit fields?

I prayed he hadn’t returned to the others in the dining room, and wasn’t party to
whatever else Lady Carleigh had concocted for entertainment. I remembered all too
vividly how earlier he’d called the viscountess by her given name, and how both Lord
and Lady Carleigh had hoped he’d come join them in their bed with their Innocents.

I prayed he hadn’t gone there, either, or to any other bed besides. There was only
one bed where he belonged, and it was here, with me, and I smiled forlornly at how
woeful and pathetic that small certainty, however true, would sound to anyone else.