Savage Nights (The Savage Trilogy #2) (14 page)

True, his manservant, Barry, had seen me quite naked in Savage’s bathtub, just as my own maid, Hamlin, saw me that way whenever I bathed. But to have a servant witness me without a stitch in His Lordship’s bed with his spendings on my thighs would have been entirely different.

Still, it was clear that Savage’s servants were accustomed to his habits. Through the door I overheard him tell Barry to have our long-delayed dinner brought up as soon as it could be arranged, and Barry only murmured in agreement.

I sank a little lower against the pillows, pulling them up over my breasts and trying not to think too much of those habits. Of course a gentleman with appetites like Savage’s would have brought other women here to this bed. No wonder Barry seemed so unperturbed. I couldn’t possibly be the first, and yet that certainty punctured my earlier joy.

I sighed, staring up at the pleated silk canopy overhead. Like everything else in the house, it was a reflection of Savage’s personal tastes: beautiful, luxurious, and costly, and the candlelight only added to the romantic, otherworldly quality. Beauty was important to him, beauty of every kind, which was why he said he claimed to be so intrigued by me.

Perfect, he’d called me. I wasn’t sure I agreed with that, for like every woman I was acutely aware of my own flaws. But I had liked to hear it from him. I’d liked it very much. I smiled to myself, remembering, and let my fingers languidly wander over my nipple beneath the sheet, pinching and teasing the little peak as he had done. Certainly what we’d done together in this bed had been perfect, too.

And yet it wasn’t. Over and over he asked me to trust him, and then in turn he seemed unable to trust me with even the most mundane aspects of his own life. At first I’d thought his accusations of me spying on him had been part of our game, but the longer I considered it, the less likely this seemed to be.

When I’d entered his rooms, I’d been looking for him, not for any secrets. Even if I had, there didn’t appear to be anything in these rooms that required hiding. The only thing that he might have wanted to keep from me would have been the portrait of his wife, and even that had seemed more poignant than scandalous.

I’d respect his wishes. I was a private person myself and understood his need to keep things to himself, no matter the loneliness that often came with it. Besides, I’d promised him that I would. But that promise wouldn’t be enough to keep me from wondering what had made him so sensitive and guarded and what, too, I could do to help ease his private demons. I knew they were there. I’d only to look into his pale eyes to see both them and the pain that they caused.

“We’ll dine shortly,” Savage said, returning. He was carrying two glasses of wine with the bottle tucked beneath one arm, and he handed one of the glasses to me. “No doubt my cook wishes to throttle me for delaying our meal, but she hides her displeasure well, and I’m sure what she sends up to us will do well enough. Which is good, since I am famished.”

“So am I.” I smiled, taking the offered glass as he climbed onto the bed beside me. “But it was all worth your cook’s displeasure.”

He smiled, too. He’d stopped calling me “Eve,” which meant he’d put aside our game for now and I needn’t address him as my Master—even though of course he still was.

It made for a kind of truce between us. The tension that had lined his face earlier was gone, and I hoped I was the reason. Because he was more relaxed he looked younger. Having his hair mussed and the silk robe fall open over his chest only made him look more boyishly charming—and more wickedly attractive.

He tapped the edge of his glass against mine. “Then here’s to displeasing Mrs. Wilson, repeatedly.”

“To Mrs. Wilson’s continued displeasure,” I said, laughing softly as I raised the glass to my lips.

He did the same, his gaze locked with mine as he sipped his wine.

“I like that you wore my necklace,” he said, glancing down to where it lay between my breasts. “I’d hoped you would.”

“Of course I would,” I said, cradling the globe of the wineglass between my fingers. “It was a gift from you.”

His dark brows dipped together. “A gift should not come with an obligation attached.”

“There was no obligation,” I said. “I wore the pearls because they are beautiful, and because they remind me of you.”

“Ahh,” he said, noncommittal, though it was clear he was both pleased yet sheepish. The brows relaxed, too. “That was what I’d hoped when I chose them for you.”

“Then your hopes are answered,” I said, lightly running my fingers across the pearls. “You shouldn’t have had any doubt.”

“Oh, I have more doubts than you’ll ever know,” he said, striving to make a joke of it as he settled against the pillows beside me. “Hundreds upon hundreds.”

“You shouldn’t,” I said softly. I thought again of his wife and how he still blamed himself for her death. “You’ve no reason to have any doubts at all.”

“Do not be so blasted understanding,” he said gruffly, studying the wine in his glass instead of me. “I do not deserve that, especially not from you.”

I set my glass on the table beside the bed and turned to face him. I didn’t say anything. I simply waited for him to volunteer more, or not.

He grunted, still looking down into his wine. “Did I hurt you?”

“I was more startled than hurt,” I said. The sting of his slaps had faded by now, leaving only a slight warmth that wasn’t unpleasant. “I didn’t expect you to do that.”

“Nor did I, not at that moment,” he admitted. His gaze slid back my way, watching for my reaction. “But you liked it.”

“I did,” I admitted slowly. “I don’t know why, but I did.”

“So did I.” He grimaced. “God, you’re making me hard again.”

Automatically I glanced down at the front of the silk robe, where, in fact, he did seem to be stirring.

“I didn’t lie,” he said drily, following my gaze. “You have that effect on me.”

I blushed at being caught. “I’m sorry if—”

“Don’t be, because I’m not,” he said. “As I’ve told you before, I find you irresistible. Not just in bed, either. I find you impossible to put from my thoughts.”

That should have been a compliment, and from any other man it would have been. But he was frowning, as if he found my irresistibility more perplexing than enjoyable.

Once again he looked away from me, swirling the wine in his glass.

“I didn’t want to hurt you, Evelyn,” he said. “But there are … things that are better for you not to know.”

The fact that he used my real name was significant. It was a sign that he was being serious and that those unknown things must be as serious as the things I already knew of him, of his temper and his wife and the man I’d earlier glimpsed hurrying from the house into the cab.

Yet I didn’t dare ask, not after Savage had accused me earlier of spying. I felt terribly inexperienced and wished I’d had more friends and lovers, wished my husband had been more communicative when he’d lived, so that I might be able to know what was right to do and say.

All I could do was trust my own instincts and pray that they’d be right.

“You do not need to tell me further if you do not wish to,” I said carefully. “Everyone has things about themselves they’d rather not share. If you wish to confide in me, then I’ll listen, but if you don’t choose to, then that is fine as well.”

“I can’t,” he said, his voice dark and rough with despair. He emptied his glass and set it with a thump on the far table. “That is the difference. What I wish is of no consequence. For your own sake, I must tell you nothing.”

“Then don’t,” I said softly. I laid my hand on his thigh in sympathy and solace, not desire, yet still I felt the heat of his skin through the silk. “It won’t change the days and nights we have together.”

“No, it won’t.” He sighed deeply, restlessly, and when he looked back to me his eyes were filled with sorrow and haunted by those secrets that he could not tell.

And yet he could, because he just had. Without words I understood and shared his suffering. I nodded in silent agreement.

He took my hand and raised it to his lips, lightly kissing the back of it. “That’s what we have, isn’t it?”

“Each day,” I said softly, “and each night, with you.”

He leaned closer, threading his fingers into my hair as he cradled my face.

“That, my dear, sweet Evelyn,” he whispered, “is why I cannot resist you.”

He kissed me then, as I’d known he would. But as he did I felt emotions I hadn’t expected twisting within me. What if there was more binding us together than either one of us had anticipated or wished for? What if what we shared was more than this bed, more than the idle amusement of fucking?

What if he felt the same confusion that I was feeling now?

I kissed him fervently and was grateful that my closed eyes hid the sting of tears behind them.

*   *   *

When my eyes first fluttered open—or, more specifically, one eye, with the other still pressed shut against the pillow—the next morning, I’d no notion of where I was. The bed was large and unfamiliar, though very comfortable, the room unpleasantly bright with the sunlight that streamed through the open windows. Although so much sun meant it must be closer to noon than dawn, I still wasn’t ready to wake, and I closed my eyes again, determined to slip back into blissful, unquestioning unconsciousness.

But even as my body longed to return to sleep my thoughts seemed to jump wide awake, and with them came a rush of memories of the night before. I was in Savage’s bed, in his bedroom, in his house, in St. James’s Square, in London. I hadn’t returned to my suite at the Savoy but had stayed here. I’d spent the entire night with him, and during that night we’d done wild, wicked, glorious things to each other.

I lifted my head, shoved my hair back, and opened my eyes, looking for him. The place beside me was empty: the sheets were rumpled and the pillow hollowed, showing he’d been there, but he wasn’t there now. Perhaps he was in the bathroom and would be back in a moment. I touched my fingers to the sheets to see if they were still warm from his body.

They weren’t. Where could he have gone?

I blinked and squinted, for that infernal sun was very bright. What kind of servant would open the curtains in a bedroom before breakfast? Turning away from the window, I rolled over and began to sit upright.

“Don’t move,” Savage ordered sharply. “The light is ideal.”

I froze as he’d ordered and shifted only my eyes. He was sitting in an armchair near to the bed. He was already dressed, though not in his usual impeccable manner, in a loose-fitting jersey and a pair of soft, wide linen trousers such as sailors wear, with turned-up cuffs. He wore no shirt, no socks, no shoes. The sleeves of the jersey were shoved up over his bare forearms, and his tousled hair fell over his forehead. He hadn’t yet shaved, and his jaw was darkened with his beard. He looked more like a gypsy or Bohemian rather than an English earl, but mostly he looked devastatingly rakish and thoroughly desirable.

I was, in fact, so overwhelmed by his appearance that at first I didn’t notice what he was doing. He didn’t seem to require as much sleep as most people, and he’d often sat awake and watched me while I slept. Though it had startled me the first time I’d awakened and seen him beside the bed, it now made me feel protected, as if he wasn’t just watching me but watching over me, too.

But this morning was different. Across his legs was propped a wide board with a sheet of paper pinned to it. Although I couldn’t see the paper, I could tell he was drawing on it from the quick, sweeping motion of his arm. What took me longer to realize was that he was drawing me, his gaze darting from me on the bed to the paper and back again.

I blushed, suddenly shy. It wasn’t because I was naked or even that he was drawing me that way. It was the fact that he was drawing me at all, preserving an image of me like this in his rumpled bed.

“What are you doing?” I asked, even though it was obvious.

“Trying to capture you,” he said, scowling down at the sheet. “Trying, and failing.”

He pulled the sheet from the board and tossed it to the floor and grabbed a fresh page from the table beside him. As he did I craned my neck to see the pages that were already scattered on the carpet around us, curious to see what he’d drawn.

“I told you not to move,” he said as he began a fresh drawing. “The sun at this moment is exquisite, and I want to keep trying as long as I have it.”

He drew with authority, decisive strokes of the chalk across the paper. I kept still as he’d ordered, but I didn’t think there’d be harm in speaking.

“Have you done this before?” I asked. “Drawing people, I mean. Obviously you’ve never drawn me.”

“Yes,” he said, answering my question. “And you don’t know that for sure, do you?”

My cheeks warmed again. “I … I suppose I don’t.”

“You needn’t worry,” he said. “No one else will ever see any of these pictures. Whether I keep them or destroy them, they’ll never leave my keeping.”

“I wouldn’t be ashamed of them,” I said quickly. “It’s just that I’d no idea I was sitting for my portrait while I slept.”

He glanced at me wryly. “You weren’t sitting. You were lying, and in rather luscious abandon, too.”

“I was asleep!”

“Then you were lusciously asleep.” He chuckled. “Surely the celebrated Mrs. Hart has been painted before.”

“Not for years,” I said. “My last portrait was after my wedding, by Mr. Sargent.”

“Oh, yes, it would be Mr. Sargent,” he said, “who has turned more sow’s ears into silk purses than any other portraitist in history. But then if one wishes to empty the silk purses of American millionaires and their dismal wives and daughters, I suppose that is what one must do. Present company excepted, of course.”

“Of course,” I said, aware that he was teasing. He didn’t do it often, showing a playful side that few others would ever see in him, and I liked it. “But then I never knew you liked to draw in the first place.”

“I wouldn’t say I liked it,” he said, scowling down at his work. “Nor that I do it for pleasure. Rather, I am driven to do it. It’s a rascally demon that torments me by always holding satisfaction just beyond my reach, tempting my eyes with what my pitiful hands can’t capture.”