Lord Savage (32 page)

I thought back to the gallery and how he’d wanted to see me draped in pearls. I could
do that for him. In my room were the long, costly ropes of pearls I’d worn the first
night; the pearls, like the rest of my jewels, were kept in a special strongbox built
into the base of one of my trunks, and only Hamlin and I knew its precise location
as well as the combination to the lock. I didn’t trust Simpson enough to send for
her to bring them back, nor was there time.

But if I was quick, I could run to my room and get the pearls myself. Then, when Savage
returned, he’d find me in his bed, waiting for him in pearls and nothing else.

I tossed aside the notes and headed for the door, wrapping my dressing gown more modestly
about my body. I managed to avoid Barry, and swiftly hurried down the long hallways
to my own rooms. My bare feet made no sound on the polished floors, and I saw no one
beyond a few servants. It was strange to return to my rooms, and to see all my belongings
neatly arranged exactly as I’d left them last week. I’d grown so accustomed to my
insular time with Savage that I felt as if I were somehow looking back a great distance
over time, with my clothes and other things representing an Evelyn Hart that no longer
existed.

I was glad there was no sign of Simpson, and I quickly found the necklaces, taking
the long ropes of pearls from their silk-lined cases and tucking them into the pocket
of my dressing gown. The pearls clinked softly against the gold ben wah balls that
I’d forgotten were in my pocket, too, and I smiled wryly. What better symbols could
there be of the old Evelyn bumping against the new version?

I closed the door gently and began back to Savage’s rooms. Down this hall, turn left,
and to the end of the next. A pair of parlor maids with trays curtseyed, and I bowed
my head, not wishing to make eye contact with them any more than they did with me.
I quickened my step, turned the last corner, and nearly ran directly into Baron Blackledge.

“My lord!” I gasped with surprise and dismay, and stumbled backward, barely saving
myself from falling. “Forgive me, Baron, but I did not see you.”

“Not at all, Mrs. Hart.” He caught my arm to steady me, and kept hold of it. “We don’t
want you to take a tumble, do we?”

He was dressed for an afternoon in the country, in a tweed suit with a Norfolk jacket
and a gaudy argyle-patterned vest beneath, and if I had sensed I was underdressed
earlier in comparison with Lady Carleigh, I now felt as good—or as bad—as naked before
Lord Blackledge. His gaze raked over me as if he could see straight through my dressing
gown and my costume. I remembered that look from the auction, the raw hunger in his
eyes, and it took all my will not to shrink away from him.

“Thank you, my lord, but I am quite recovered,” I said, trying to pull my arm free.
“Where is your own Innocent, the blond girl? Why is she not with you?”

“We parted. She was far too … obliging, shall we say? No challenge. Not as you would
be, Mrs. Hart.”

He held fast to my arm, clearly delighting in my discomfort.

“If you please, my lord,” I began again. “Please let me—”

“Hah, how I love to hear a lady beg!” he said, leering as he cut me off. He glanced
past me, down the hallway. “Where’s Savage? He’s kept you locked up so tight this
week that I can’t believe he’d let you out of his sight, not like this.”

“I’m hardly Lord Savage’s prisoner, my lord,” I said, wishing now there was a footman
or two to summon for help. “Now if you’ll excuse me—”

“You should thank your stars you’re not, Mrs. Hart,” he said, his fingers tightening
around my arm. “He did that to his wife, you know, locked her away until she went
mad. Some say he even pushed her to her death, from the window of their bedroom.”

I gasped, shocked. Savage himself had told me his wife had died from her illness,
but nothing of a fatal fall. Was it too painful to mention, so painful that Savage
had purposefully omitted her death from his telling, or was Lord Blackledge simply
repeating more audacious, unfounded gossip?

Pleased to see the effect his story had had, Lord Blackledge nodded, his eyes glittering.

“You understand now why you’d be much better off with me, Mrs. Hart,” he said. “I’d
show you how a real Englishman treats a woman, and you’d thank me for it.”

“Thank—thank you, no,” I stammered. “Now if you’ll please excuse me, I must return
to his lordship’s rooms.”

“Not yet.” With a little jerk, he pulled me closer, his broad face red with excitement.
“Tomorrow night, I mean to claim you, Mrs. Hart. You’ll be mine for next time, and
Savage won’t be able to stop me.”

He pushed me to one side to throw me off-balance as he bent over me, determined to
kiss me. I twisted sharply in his grasp and fought to break free, and turned my face
away to avoid his mouth.

“Let me go, Baron,” I ordered, fighting my panic to sound as stern as I could. I didn’t
want to cause even more of a scandal and scream for help, but I decided that if he
persisted, I would. Surely there must be someone else in earshot, even in this cavernous
house. “Let me go at once!”

“Release her.”

Savage’s voice was deceptively calm, but I recognized the steely tension coiled in
every word. He had come up behind us, silent and barefoot, and he stood with his feet
slightly apart and his hands knotted into fists at his sides.

One wrong word from Blackledge, and he’d strike. It was as simple, and as obvious,
as that.

I didn’t want them to fight over me. Blackledge wasn’t like Henery. He was broad-chested,
stronger, and with a bully’s bravado. But that wasn’t all. If Savage gave in to his
temper again, I feared that Lord Carleigh might actually summon the local constable
to have him arrested. Both men must have realized it as well—how could they not?—yet
still Blackledge didn’t release my arm.

“She’s tired of you, Savage,” he jeered. “Look at her! Why else would she be trolling
the halls dressed like this, eager for a man who could satisfy her the way you can’t?”

“That’s a wicked lie, my lord!” I cried furiously. “You know I was returning to Lord
Savage’s rooms, and yet you trapped me!”

Savage’s pale eyes flicked from Blackledge to me, revealing nothing. He couldn’t believe
Lord Blackledge, could he? Didn’t he trust my word against the baron’s?

“She’s always wanted me,” Lord Blackledge continued, goading Savage. “She never wanted
you. You paid for her, but she wanted me more.”

“No!” I shook my head, desperate to defend myself against such an outrageous lie.
“I have never wanted you, not even for a second!”

“Then why were you coming to my bedroom?” he taunted. “Why had you left Savage for
me, and—”

“Let her go, Blackledge,” Savage interrupted curtly. “See which of us she chooses.”

“Why should I leave the decision up to a slut like this?” Blackledge said, but after
a moment’s hesitation he released my arm, adding a shove for good measure. “Go on,
decide.”

I fled to Savage, darting to safety behind him. “You’re an evil, manipulative man,”
I called back to Blackledge. “I would never choose you, not under any circumstances.”

But Blackledge only laughed, and wagged a fat finger.

“You say that now,” he said, “but you’ll change your tune fast enough when you finally
get a taste of my cock. Tomorrow, Mrs. Hart, tomorrow and you’ll be mine.”

To my relief, I felt Savage’s arm circle my shoulders, drawing me close. Yet, the
gesture seemed more possessive than protective, and definitely not affectionate, which
tinged my relief with uneasiness.

“Come with me, Eve,” he said, his voice still curt as he led me away, his fingers
locked with mine. “You—we—have no place here.”

If I’d expected a fiery outburst from him, none came. Instead, as soon as we’d returned
to his bedroom, he dropped my hand and retreated to stand alone beside the window.
He pretended to stare out at the lawn; I knew he saw nothing.

“When I returned,” he said finally, “you were gone.”

“But only for a few minutes,” I protested, joining him at the window. “I intended
to be back here to greet you.”

He was so skilled at making his face blank, hiding everything deep inside.

“But you weren’t,” he said. “Did you read what viscountess wrote of me? Was that what
made you run away?”

I retrieved the notes from where I’d left them earlier, handing them to him with the
most recent one open on top.

“Read them yourself,” I said. “There is not a single word there that would make me
leave you.”

He scanned the notes so swiftly that I wondered if he was looking for some particular
word or statement.

“You see,” I said. “Nothing.”

He stared down at the last note in his hands, holding it so tightly in his fingers
that the stiff card was bending. “You are not frightened of me, as Lady Carleigh says
you should be?”

“Why should I, when you have given me no reason to do so?” It was so hard not to go
to him, to throw my arms around him and reassure him the way I longed to do. But I
couldn’t—not until he was ready. “You must challenge me more than that, Savage, if
you wish to drive me away.”

“That’s the furthest thing from my mind,” he said, a fervency in his words that I
hadn’t heard before. He was watching me closely, ready to pounce on any hesitation
or doubt. “But I wish to be certain, Eve, and I wish you to speak only the truth.
There is nothing you have heard or read today that has made you distrust me?”

I didn’t pause, even proudly raising my chin. “Nothing.”

“Rubbish.” He tossed the notes onto the sideboard and sighed. “I’ve told you before,
Eve, that you were not born to tell lies. I heard what Blackledge said to you about
my wife, and I heard you gasp when he did.”

“No, Savage, please!” I cried. “It was because I could not believe he’d repeat such
a dreadful story about you—about her!”

His eyes seemed emptied by sadness, his expression bleak with resignation. “Don’t
you fear that you’ll be next, Eve? Everyone else does. Don’t you worry that I’ll shove
you from this window to break your pretty neck on the drive, too?”

Tears of sympathy, not horror, stung my eyes, and I clasped my hands together at my
waist to keep from reaching out to him.

“Tell me what happened, Savage,” I whispered urgently. “I did not believe the baron,
but I will believe you. Tell me the truth.”

He closed his eyes and bowed his head, his dark hair falling across his forehead.

“I had had her nurse bring her to my library to dine with me, the two of us alone,”
he began in a hoarse whisper. “It was her birthday. She seemed happy enough, laughing
and teasing the way she had when we’d first married, and I dared to think she was
improving. Fool that I was, I turned my back, and that was all she needed. She ran
to the window, and before I could reach her, she jumped. That was how she left me,
in an instant and without good-bye. She left me, and she was gone.”

“Oh, Savage,” I said softly. His mother, his father, his wife, all gone without farewell.
No wonder he was so haunted by the past, when his past harbored such sorrow.

“I let them all believe she’d fallen,” he continued, his voice as heavy as lead. “The
nurse, the doctors, the police, the magistrate at the inquest. I didn’t want to damn
her memory with the truth that she’d taken her own life.”

“But you told me.”

He nodded, and slowly raised his gaze to meet mine.

“I did,” he said. “Because I knew you would be the only one who believed me.”

I went to him then, slipping my arms around his shoulders as if they were meant always
to be there, drawing him close. With a sigh, he buried his face against my hair, his
beard bristling against my throat, and clung to me like a drowning man. I murmured
little scraps of words and nonsense over his head, and gently stroked my hands along
his arms and back to comfort him as best I could.

I couldn’t begin to imagine what he’d endured by keeping such a secret locked so tightly
within him. He’d acted from love, protecting his wife in death as he had in life.
In their aristocratic world, madness was unacceptable enough, but suicide was far
worse. Her name would forever have been tainted—damned, as he’d said himself—and no
minister would have buried even a countess in sanctified ground if it was known that
she’d taken her own life.

Instead, he’d let the rumors circle around him, whispers of what a dangerous man he
was, and how he’d pushed her to her death. He’d endured the scandal and rumors, saying
nothing and telling no one, for the sake of his lost love.

At last I understood why, whenever he was most unguarded, he’d been so desperately
insistent that I not leave him. His poor, mad wife had fled from him, in the most
final of ways, and he could not bear for me to abandon him, too.

It hadn’t been part of the Game. It was part of his life.

And now, so was I.

THIRTEEN

I wasn’t sure how long Savage and I stood there together. Three minutes could have
passed, or thirty. What mattered was that by the time he finally separated from me,
the bond that existed between us had strengthened and deepened.

Although it was curious to think that this had come about because of his late wife,
in a way it was inevitable. His Marianne had made him who he was, just as my Arthur
was a part of me, too. The past couldn’t be changed, it could only be accepted as
it was, and I was touched and honored that he’d trusted me with so intimate a part
of his. I’d trusted him from the beginning. Now I knew—now I believed—that he trusted
me in return, and that was a bond that would not break.

“Eve,” he said softly, rubbing his thumb across my lower lip. His features had lost
their tension, and though the sadness remained, the despair had left his face. The
greatest difference showed in his pale eyes. The haunted introversion was gone, replaced
by a clarity that was for now focused entirely on me. “What would I do without you?”