Something Reckless (17 page)

He hated that the realization of how much pain she was in made his own chest ache.

Penelope stood in the silence a long time after her mysterious lover was gone before she reached up and removed the blindfold from her face. She stared at the cloth. It was a fine black handkerchief, but there were no initials stitched on the fabric to reveal her lover’s identity.

With a frown, she dropped it onto the floor next to the pile of
her nightgown. Perhaps it was best not to know. If the man was someone in her acquaintance, she couldn’t bear seeing him and knowing he didn’t want her anymore.

She sighed as she swept up her night shift and pulled it over her head. During the nights her mystery lover had joined her in her bed…and even before that when he was nothing more than a series of erotic words and descriptions in the letters he sent, Penelope had
liked
being wanted. She had liked being touched and told she was beautiful. She’d craved the power she had when she touched the faceless man in return.

And that reaction was more than an experiment. It was more than a study in passion so that she would know her “enemy,” as Jeremy had said so many times. She had truly given in to her desires. Fully.

Only to be denied at the last moment.

She shook her head as she pulled a dressing gown from the armoire and draped the heavy robe over her shoulders. Images bombarded her, even as she fought to keep them at bay. They were memories of the many varied pleasures she had experienced. There were so many ways she had been touched and touched in return.

For the first time, she really understood why people would sacrifice so much to feel as she had felt. Both men and women. Even her sister’s behavior began to make sense now that desire had become a driving force in her own life. Penelope thought about it day and night. It had compelled her to do things she had never thought she would.

And now she had lost it. Not once, but twice in one day. From
two different men. And that loss hurt her. It cut like a knife down to the marrow of her soul.

She opened her door and moved into the hallway quietly. She wanted to find Fiona. To talk to her. Her maid had experienced pleasure in the past, and she had also been through great pain. Perhaps she could help Penelope clear her head. Remember all the very good reasons she had for avoiding such passion.

At the very least, Fiona would understand what she was going through, perhaps better than anyone else.

The house was still as Penelope moved through the hallways and up into the servant area. Most of the staff would be in bed by now, deep in dreams and completely unaware of their mistress’s torment.

She stopped in front of Fiona’s door and drew in a breath to calm herself. Quietly, she turned the handle and pushed the door open a fraction, ready to apologetically wake her maid.

Instead, she staggered back a step and reached a hand up to cover her lips. Fiona wasn’t asleep. And she wasn’t alone. No, the former courtesan was bent over her narrow bed, totally naked. Candlelight cascaded over her pale flesh. Next to her stood one of Penelope’s footmen. He was stripped down to only his trousers and he was swatting Fiona across her backside with his bare hand.

Penelope swallowed her gasp and stared. Fiona didn’t seem to mind the spanking, even though her backside was pink from the results of the slaps. In fact, she arched up with a lusty moan every time the young man made contact.

Too shocked to know what to do, Penelope spun around and
fled, the sounds of Fiona’s cries of pleasure echoing in her ears as she flew down the stairs and all but ran back to her own chamber. She slammed the door and leaned back against the barrier, her breath short.

It felt like her whole world had been yanked off its axis and thrown into a different place. Penelope didn’t know herself, she didn’t know her body, she didn’t even know her own beliefs anymore. Everything she had come to depend upon was different now.

When she discovered Fiona and heard the former courtesan’s story, she had been certain that by offering the other woman a place on her staff, she had been saving Fiona. That her maid had desired to leave her life as a courtesan because she didn’t enjoy it. But now…now Penelope didn’t know anymore. Fiona had clearly been enjoying the shocking activities Penelope had just seen.

What did it all mean? Had Penelope been totally wrong? Had Fiona simply been unhappy with the
man
who was her protector, not the life she had been leading? And did her maid secretly wish she could return to that decadent life she lived before? To the erotic days and nights she had spent as the plaything of powerful men?

Penelope blinked at sudden tears as she threw herself onto her bed. She winced. The masculine, arousing scent of her secret lover still clung to the bedclothes. Tempting and taunting her.

She had no one to talk to. No one to share her confusion with. No one to give her council.

“Jeremy,” she whispered, her own harsh voice startling her.

Could she go to him after his rejection? She had no other choice. Even if he didn’t want her, he would at least understand. And she needed his friendship and guidance, at least one more time.

Perhaps for the last time.

Jeremy stared out the window at Worthington’s Club, watching as droves of the
ton
’s elite wandered down the sidewalks, seeing and being seen in the fine summer weather. He frowned. They all looked so damn happy. So content and certain.

While he was twisted inside like a wrung-out handkerchief.

“Are you even listening?”

Jeremy turned to face Anthony Wharton. His friend was pacing around the private room, his face a dark, ugly red and his hands clenching in and out of fists at his sides. Jeremy arched a brow. He’d never seen his friend so angry before. It was clear it bothered the others, as well, for everyone in the room was staring at him.

“You have had more than enough time to finish this foolishness,” Wharton railed. “And yet Lady Norman continues to be
a problem. You have not properly humiliated her, and the mistresses and wives are still in an uproar caused by her ridiculous notions.”

Jeremy pursed his lips and tried to remain calm. There was no way he could tell his friends that he was beginning to see Penelope’s thoughts as less than foolish. Or that they had no one to blame but themselves if the various women in their lives were upset.

Dunfield chuckled, but it was clear he was only trying to lighten the mood in the room. “Great God, Wharton, is it worth all this bluster?”

“Shut your mouth, Dunfield,” Wharton snapped, spinning on the Earl with a scowl. “You haven’t suffered at all from this woman’s tongue. I’m the one who lost my mistress, and I still haven’t found the little bitch.”

Jeremy stared. He hadn’t been aware that Wharton was continuing to look for Fiona, despite her rejection of him. His language and his demeanor made that revelation troubling. It certainly didn’t encourage Jeremy to share the fact that Fiona was now Penelope’s servant.

“Let it go,” he advised as he lit a cigar and tried to feign nonchalance. “Why would you want a woman who didn’t want you?”

He flinched at his own choice of words. He had rejected Penelope the night before. Did she believe he didn’t want her? That she was undesirable when the utter opposite was true. She was
too
tempting.

“I would wager my best mount that Penelope Norman knows something about it,” Wharton said with a scowl. “And if you
aren’t going to take care of her, Kilgrath, then you’ll leave me no choice but to do it myself.”

Jeremy flicked his still burning cigar onto the floor and advanced on Wharton in three long steps. Before his friend could react, Jeremy caught him by the throat and slammed him against the nearest table. Wharton gasped for breath as Jeremy leaned over him, his face mere inches from his friend’s.

“That is enough, Wharton,” he growled, fighting hard to temper his rage. “Perhaps you are only blowing off your frustration, but you will cease your tongue’s flapping before you lose it. No one will bother Lady Norman. I am taking care of the situation, and I don’t want to hear anything else about it. Am I making myself clear?”

Wharton shoved him away and rubbed his red throat. “Perfectly,” he said, his voice hoarse.

His friend straightened up from the table and strode from the room without so much as a word for any of the remaining men. The Earl of Dunfield got up from his lazy seat on the settee and sighed.

“Well, he’ll need to complain about this to someone. I’ll go after him.”

The Marquis of Chartsfield clamored to his feet with a side glance for Jeremy. “I’ll go, too.”

Jeremy watched the two men follow Wharton out with a frown. How had it come to this? These were his best friends, and now they were fighting like schoolboys. And all because Jeremy hadn’t kept one promise. He might claim he had, but it was a lie.

He’d had plenty of opportunities to resolve the situation with Penelope. He could have revealed her, blackmailed her, crushed
her spirit over and over. Yet, he hadn’t. But Wharton’s reaction, his veiled threats against Penelope had struck a chord in Jeremy, a protective reaction that he hadn’t expected any more than his shocked friends.

He looked up to find the remaining Nevers, Ryan Crawford and Viscount John Lockwood, staring at him.

“Want to discuss it?” Lockwood asked as he leaned back in his seat with an appraising look for Jeremy.

Jeremy hesitated. How could he discuss something he couldn’t even fully explain to himself? He shook his head. “Not particularly.”

The door to the private room opened, and a footman dressed in the club’s fine livery appeared. “I beg your pardon, gentlemen. Lord Kilgrath, you have received a message. Your servants forwarded it from your home.”

Jeremy stepped forward and took the letter that was propped onto a silver platter. Waving the man off, he turned the missive over to look at the seal. An ornate N. His heart lodged in his throat as he broke the seal and read the contents.

It was from Penelope. Her hand had been shaking when she wrote that she had to see him and would be arriving at his home at two that afternoon. He glanced at the grandfather clock across the room. It was one now.

“I must go,” he said, folding the papers into his pocket.

“Ah, there he is!” Ryan Crawford crowed.

“There who is?” Jeremy asked with a scowl at the younger man’s elation. “What are you going on about?”

“We’ve all been wondering where the wolf went,” Crawford explained. “Since you began your pursuit of Lady Norman, he has
been hidden. But I just saw a flicker of him in your eyes. It must be a woman who wrote to you. Happy hunting, my friend.”

As Lockwood joined Crawford in chuckling, Jeremy shook his head and exited the room. He certainly didn’t feel like a wolf when he thought of meeting with Penelope. Not after everything that had happened the previous day.

He felt like something. But not a predator.

Penelope paced around the quiet back parlor in Jeremy’s home. Her hands shook and felt sweaty as she clenched them behind her back and tried to find some semblance of calm. She failed miserably. Her mind was spinning and her stomach did flip-flops as she awaited Jeremy’s appearance and prayed he wouldn’t appear chagrined when he saw her there.

The door to the parlor opened, and Jeremy stepped inside. She stared at him, examining his face for any adverse reaction to her presence. But there was none. In fact, he hardly reacted at all. Her heart sank.

“Is everything well?” Jeremy asked as he moved into the room and motioned her to a chair. “I worried when I received your missive.”

Penelope fought a blush of pleasure. It had been a long time since someone worried about her.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to trouble you,” she said. “I am…well enough. I just needed…”

She broke off. Oh, it was so hard to explain this to him. She was going to sound silly. Fragile. Wanton.

“Needed?” he pressed, his voice soft as he looked at her with encouragement.

“I just needed to talk to you.” She shook her head at her own folly. “It seems you are the one I have been turning to as of late. Perhaps too much.”

He frowned. “I’m glad you came. I actually had a question for you.”

Penelope slowly sank into the chair he had indicated and looked up at him with wide eyes. A question? She couldn’t read his expression at all, almost like he’d purposefully blanked his emotions away. Dear God, did he already know about her behavior? Her shocking conduct?

“What is it?” she asked, her voice cracking.

“Fiona,” he said as he took his own seat. “Why did she run away from Wharton?”

Penelope felt her face fall. That was the last question she had expected, and while she was relieved that Jeremy hadn’t discovered her activities from some other source, she was now in an odd position. Jeremy was Anthony Wharton’s closest friend and confidante. Could she truly trust him with Fiona’s secret?

But then again, she was willing to trust him with her own. Perhaps he would understand her better if he knew what drove her.

She cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Your friend,” she began, locking eyes with him. “He was abusive to her.”

Jeremy sucked in a breath.

“He beat her quite badly before I met her. I noticed the bruises beneath her makeup one night when we bumped into each other
at the opera. We talked, and one thing led to another. I offered a place on my staff, and Fiona took it to escape Wharton’s abuse. And I thought to escape the life of a courtesan.” She frowned as she thought of Fiona’s shocking behavior the night before. “But now I don’t know. Perhaps I was a fool to think Fiona wanted to be ‘saved.’”

Jeremy scrubbed a hand over his face, and his ashen countenance drew Penelope’s thoughts from her own confusing troubles. He looked physically sick as he stared at the floor with unseeing eyes.

“How could I have not known?” he murmured, almost more to himself than to her. “Was I so blind, so selfish, that I couldn’t…or didn’t want to see?”

Penelope’s lips parted in surprise. “You berate
yourself
for Wharton’s behavior?”

He glanced up at her as if he had momentarily forgotten her presence there. “I was with them many times. I should have seen, should have guessed. But I was too interested in only myself to notice.”

She got to her feet with a shake of her head. “It is not your fault, Jeremy. Fiona told me many times that she hid what was happening from the world. No one knew.”

“He seemed so angry,” he muttered, again to himself. “I thought he was just blustering, but…” He stopped and glanced up at her with wide eyes. “You stay away from him, Penelope.”

She sucked in a breath at the concern she saw on his face. He was pale and almost shaking as he rose to his feet.

“Jeremy—”

“Just stay clear of him.” He paced toward the door. “I need to speak to him. I need to make sure he won’t…do anything.”

Penelope leapt forward as Jeremy approached his parlor door. He was so distracted by the realization of his friend’s true nature, so upset that it appeared he was ready to leave her without hearing her true reasons for coming that afternoon. And she might not ever have another chance to tell him.

“Wait, please,” she said, hurrying to catch his arm. “Jeremy, I need your help. I need your council. I have nowhere else to turn.”

He stared at her fingers, curled around his arm, and then his gaze moved to her face. Suddenly there was a powerful flame of heat in his eyes. Desire. She was sure of it. It caught her off guard.

He had rejected her! He didn’t want her…did he?

“You need me?” he said with a tilt of his head.

She swallowed, recognizing the double meaning of his question. She chose to ignore it. “Yes.”

“What is it?” he asked.

She closed her eyes. Heat flooded her cheeks, but she forced her nervousness aside and let the words flow in a burst. “I told you about the man who was secretly writing to me. The one whom I met with that night at the ball. But I never told you the rest. He has been coming to me ever since, Jeremy. And I have been allowing him…liberties.”

She opened her eyes to judge his reaction and found that Jeremy was staring at her. But he didn’t seem horrified or upset or even surprised. He just…
stared
. Like he couldn’t believe she would confess such a thing.

“You have been letting him make love to you, you mean?” he asked blandly.

She shook her head as she released his arm and moved away. “No. Other things, but never that.” The words were hard to say, but they were also freeing. As if saying them out loud made them lose their constrictive power over her. “I somehow thought that I could distance myself if I didn’t let him actually make love to me. That I could remain only logical and use what happened between us in my fight against sensual excess, as you suggested.”

He moved toward her one step. “But it didn’t work?”

“No.” She sighed. “As hard as I tried, I was still moved by everything we did. More than I should have been. I’m so confused, Jeremy. I fought so hard against such things. I told myself I could live without passion, without pleasure. But now I understand why so many people lose themselves in lust. I did. I even went so far as to beg this man to take what I originally withheld, but he…he didn’t want me.”

There was a moment’s silence. “He is an idiot.”

She shook her head. “No, he isn’t. Perhaps he only sensed what a fraud I was. That I thought of…of someone else while he touched me.”

She covered her mouth the moment the words escaped her lips. She hadn’t meant to admit to that. Slowly, she let her gaze move up to Jeremy’s. He was staring at her, and for the first time strong emotion lined his face. His face had darkened, and the fire in his eyes was no longer lust but anger.

“Who?” he growled, moving toward her again.

She shook her head. She couldn’t confess that. Not for anything in the world. It was too much. Too hard.

“Who?” he repeated, and this time he said it louder. “Who did you think of while he touched you?”

Her breath was coming faster now, and tears stung her eyes.

“You,” she whispered. “I thought about you.”

Jeremy stopped advancing on Penelope as shock flooded him. He’d thought he understood every working of Penelope’s mind and body. He’d thought he could almost read her thoughts when he touched her. But he’d never known that while her “stranger” touched her, it was his own face that had danced before her eyes.

Her emotions were raw and real. And she had been so brave to confess them when she already believed he had rejected her. Certainly, he had never been so daring or lain so much of himself on the line.

Without thinking, he caught her arms and yanked her against him. His lips came down and covered hers, and he devoured her mouth like he had been longing to do since the moment he entered the room. She was stiff in his arms for a moment, just a fraction of time while surprise shook her. But then her hands jerked up to his hair, and she returned his kiss with a fire and passion that was deeper and richer than any time he had come to her as the stranger.

Together, they staggered back toward the settee and fell against the cushions. Without breaking the kiss, Jeremy found the scooped neckline of her pretty blue gown and slipped his fingers beneath, nudging fabric aside until he found her rapidly hardening nipple beneath. She arched toward his hand with a little cry and sucked his tongue harder.