Something Reckless (13 page)

Jeremy took a deep breath as he paused before the door to his parlor. He hadn’t expected Penelope’s arrival, but he had no intention of sending her away. He just had to be very certain that she wouldn’t grow suspicious. He couldn’t show his remaining desire for her on his face. He couldn’t let her guess that he was the same man she had allowed such liberties the night before.

Slowly, he pushed the door open and stepped inside. Penelope sat on the very edge of the settee in the middle of the room, her hands clenched in her lap. When she heard the door, she glanced up and Jeremy rocked back. She looked so upset. A mixture of fear and disappointment and sadness that hit him hard in the gut.

Was her emotional turmoil all because of him? Could he really have developed such influence over her? It was a sobering thought.

“What is it?” he asked as he moved toward her.

She staggered to her feet as he approached and backed away, lifting her hands as if to ward him off. He stopped instantly. Invading her space, forcing her boundaries was the role of the mysterious man. During the day, Jeremy was her friend. As much as he wanted to touch her, force his comfort until she accepted it, that wasn’t the right tack to take if he wanted to continue on the delicate tightrope of their relationship.

Penelope looked at him for a long moment, her pale face drawn down. She opened and shut her mouth a few times, struggling for words.

Jeremy found himself leaning forward, waiting for her explanation, wondering how much she would tell him about her heated encounter with the man who had been writing to her.

“It is nothing,” she murmured finally, turning her back to him. She paced to the window and looked outside.

Interesting.

He shook his head. “You are pale as a bedsheet and clearly upset. Something must have happened. Did you have another encounter with the man who wrote to you?”

She spun around with a harsh gasp. Her hands gripped the windowsill, and she stared at him, lips trembling. Again he waited for the inevitable confession. Penelope had never been very good at hiding her emotions, at keeping secrets. It wasn’t in her nature.

But today, she fought that nature.

“I-It isn’t that,” she said, dropping her gaze to the floorboards.

“Hmmm.”
Jeremy tilted his head.

So, she had no intention of confessing, even though he already knew so much about this supposed stranger. Why would she want to keep last night a secret when she had already revealed so much?

Unless she regretted what had transpired in her bed.

His stomach turned at the thought.

“I saw my sister today,” she whispered.

Jeremy drew back. “Did you?”

“My mother secretly arranged for us to meet at her home. She wants us to end our ‘feud.’ I have not been that close to Miranda since…since my marriage, I suppose. Years.” Penelope shut her eyes, and Jeremy sensed she was fighting tears.

Again, he wished to move forward and offer comfort, but this time he held back for his own sake, rather than hers. Her confession about her emotional reaction to seeing Miranda made him more uncomfortable than any sexual secret would have. Penelope’s pain felt more
intimate
than hearing about her tryst.

“I wanted so much to talk to her.” Penelope opened her eyes. “I wanted to tell her—” She cut herself off.

Jeremy moved forward a step, almost against his will. “Why didn’t you?”

“I couldn’t. I once judged her so harshly. If she talked to me for a few minutes, she would see…”

Jeremy reached for her, finally allowing himself to touch her for the first time since he left her bed early that morning. He took her hand. She stiffened but didn’t draw away. Instead, she stared up at him, a little rabbit trapped by a wolf.

Only the wolf was just as affected by her as she was by him. Jeremy had the strongest urge to kiss her. Kiss her until she forgot
her pain. Kiss her until she would allow him anything. Until she realized that
he
was the man to whom she had surrendered her body last night. He wanted to demand she surrender even more.

“What would she see?” he asked, his voice low.

His question jolted Penelope from the spell and she tugged her hand away. “She would see what a hypocrite I’ve become.”

Jeremy stared at her. This self-doubt and self-loathing she was experiencing was exactly what he had planned for when he agreed to stop her. When he began, he had
wanted
Penelope to realize she was a charlatan, a fraud. But imagining that and seeing it in truth were two very different things. Now seeing her so broken was anything but pleasant.

It made him feel guilty. Again. And he did not like that feeling.

“I shouldn’t have come here,” she whispered. “I should not place my silly problems at your feet. I apologize.”

She moved toward the door, but Jeremy caught her arm.

“No,” he said, holding her steady. “You have been…”

He hesitated. He was going to lie, he was going to manipulate. Those things had never been hard for him before, but now…

No. He shook his head. He couldn’t let Penelope steer him from his course. This was the perfect opportunity to continue with his plan.

“You have been a friend to me. The least I can do is be the same to you.” He released her, and she stumbled a step out of his reach. “May I take you on one of my excursions?”

Penelope wrinkled her brow. “Right now?”

He nodded. “I think I may be able to show you something that will help you.” He glanced at the clock on the mantel. “If we leave now, I’m certain of it.”

She worried her lip for a moment, darkening the smooth, full flesh to a tantalizing deep red. Then she nodded. “Very well.”

He smiled as he offered her his arm. He had never had such trust from a woman before.

And he had never betrayed that trust so fully.

But there was no getting around it. Not anymore.

“Where are we?” Penelope asked as she peered out the carriage window at the large, fashionable home that rose up before her.

“This is John and Arabella Valentine’s Pleasure Palace,” Jeremy explained with a smile.

Penelope looked at him, feeling her eyes go wide even when she wanted to appear unmoved. “
Pleasure Palace
?”

He nodded. “An exclusive club for the most particular of men…and women.”

He reached into his pocket and withdrew a mask. “Here, you should wear this. There might be people inside who would recognize you. And you them.”

Penelope stared at the mask. Instantly, her body grew wet at the sight. Memories roared back. Memories of her mystery lover spreading her wide. Memories of his tongue laving her flesh, his fingers breaching her in so many wicked ways.

“Penelope?”

She jerked back to the present with a blush and took the mask with shaking fingers. As she secured it around her face, she stared at Jeremy. He was hardly looking at her as the door to the carriage opened and he stepped out onto the drive. He extended a hand, which she stared at for a long moment before she allowed him to help her out of the vehicle.

She had come to Jeremy’s home with every intention of confessing her activities the night before and pleading for his advice on how to proceed. But once she actually stood before him, staring up at the handsome face that had haunted her dreams and fantasies, she hadn’t been able to confess that she had spent the entire night writhing in another man’s arms. Nor could she admit that she hadn’t allowed that man to actually make love to her, no matter how much she ached for that kind of intimate joining.

And she certainly couldn’t reveal to Jeremy that while she surrendered to a mysterious man’s touch, she secretly thought of
his
face.

What would he think of her if he knew the truth? After all, the more time she spent with Jeremy, the more she was beginning to think that perhaps he truly
was
changing.

The irony was that she was changing, too. If Jeremy was becoming a respectable gentleman, than she was becoming a wanton. Their roles were reversing. Did that mean that ultimately Jeremy would look on her with the same disdain that she had gifted upon him before they became truly acquainted?

The idea gave her an unpleasant shiver that she tried to stifle as Jeremy led her up the marble stairs and through the front door of the estate.

She straightened her spine. His feelings for her should make no difference whatsoever.

“Arabella!” Jeremy said as they entered the foyer.

Penelope tensed as a blond woman turned away from a well-dressed servant to look at them. Her face lit up as she started across the small hallway toward them. Penelope looked out of the corner of her eye at Jeremy. He was smiling genuinely, and who
could blame him? The woman was a beauty. Her hair cascaded over her shoulders, sweeping over her full breasts, and her eyes were blue, but not pale like Penelope’s. Dark and deep like sapphires.

“Kilgrath,” the woman said with a laugh as she pressed a kiss to Jeremy’s cheek. “We have not seen you in what seems like forever. Welcome. What are you doing here so early in the day?”

Jeremy motioned his head toward Penelope with an audacious wink. “I wanted my…
friend
to see your establishment.”

Arabella turned her attention to Penelope. Again, she stiffened. Perhaps this woman would recognize her, despite the protective mask. Penelope was certain the purveyor of what amounted to a house of prostitution would not be a fan of hers, since she had spoken out against such places quite publicly in the past.

But if Arabella recognized her, she made no indication. Instead, she merely smiled. “Good afternoon, my dear. Welcome.”

Penelope nodded without speaking, fearing that Arabella or one of the other people milling in the lobby would recognize her voice. Again, Arabella made no indication that Penelope was being rude or strange by remaining silent.

“Let me fetch Valentine before we discuss your pleasure. I’m sure he’d like to see you. He has missed playing cards with you in your absence.” She pressed a hand to Jeremy’s arm and slipped away.

“Missed taking my money, you mean,” Jeremy called after her with a laugh that she echoed from a distance.

Penelope clung to his arm and whispered, “You are friendly with her?”

Jeremy glanced down at her with genuine surprise in his eyes.
“Arabella is impossible not to like. I dare you to spend more than ten minutes in her company and not feel a kinship to her. And her husband is a friend, as well.”

“Her husband?” Penelope shook her head. “What did he do, pull her out of the ranks of his whores?”

Jeremy chuckled. “You really are completely unacquainted with the world you fight against. This is Arabella’s place. John is half owner now, of course. But Arabella built this establishment herself. John came into her life long after she had an empire all her own.”

As Arabella began to make her way back to them, her arm laced through a tall, handsome gentleman’s with a stern face, Penelope stared. A
woman
had built this establishment? A woman had that kind of power? And clearly wealth, judging from the accoutrements of the home and garments of those around her.

“John,” Jeremy said as he shook Arabella’s husband’s hand. “Good to see you.”

“Yes.” John Valentine glanced down at Penelope with a brief smile that made his serious face very handsome, indeed.

As the three of them briefly chatted, Penelope watched in awe. The Valentines were educated, well spoken, and so devoted to each other that it almost hit her like a wall.

In short, they were nothing like she expected, and once again all her thoughts and preconceptions were dashed like ships against a rocky shore.

“Now, on to business,” Arabella said as Valentine bowed away. “What is it you desire, Kilgrath?”

Jeremy cast a quick side glance at Penelope before he leaned in
close to Arabella and whispered something in her ear. Penelope was surprised when a harsh, hot blade of jealousy sluiced through her chest at the sight of Jeremy murmuring in the other woman’s ear. And when Arabella smiled at him, knowing and sensual, she was ready to scratch the madame’s eyes out.

“I think that can be arranged,” Arabella said. “Come.”

They followed her down a hallway and through a series of twisting corridors that led past room after room. Penelope blushed as she heard the occasional lusty cries or guttural grunts of pleasure from behind the doors, even though it was the middle of the day. To her ultimate shame, Penelope found herself not shocked by the sounds, but curious. What were those unseen people doing to pleasure each other?

Finally, Arabella led them to a room. It was small, tidy, but with a big bed in the center, its velvet coverlet dark and inviting. Penelope looked away as she released Jeremy’s arm and paced into the room. What in the world did Jeremy have planned for her, alone in the bedroom of a house of ill repute?

“You’ll want to examine the picture there,” Arabella said softly as she motioned across the room. “Enjoy.”

Then she slipped away and left them alone. Penelope turned toward Jeremy with a nervous shift. “This is not right. We ought not be alone together.”

He moved toward her slowly. “Afraid I’ll ravish you?”

She swallowed as her gaze moved, almost against her will, to the bed a second time. It was just far too easy to picture Jeremy’s big body over hers, his mouth on her skin, his cock tunneling deeply inside her waiting, weeping slit.

“I assure you,” he said softly. “If I wanted to do so, I could have easily managed that on my own, far more comfortable, bed. No, I brought you here to see something else entirely.”

Penelope’s breath was short as she managed to grind out, “What?”

He stepped to the picture above the fireplace that Arabella had indicated before she left them. It was a portrait of a woman from the waist up. Entirely commonplace, except that she was naked and holding her breasts, offering them up to some unseen lover. Penelope blushed as he maneuvered aside a camouflaged panel over the painted woman’s eyes and motioned to Penelope to join him.

She stepped up, and noticed there was a small bench before the fireplace. With Jeremy’s help she positioned herself so she could peer through the panel. She caught her breath in utter shock. The painting allowed her a perfect view of the next room. A place where she could see onto the opposite bed.