The Book Of Scandal (12 page)

Frankly, Jack did not remember her being such a deliciously handsome woman.

“Good afternoon, my lady,” Benton said crisply, for he was, if nothing else, England’s finest butler. “Shall I pour tea?”

“Thank you, Benton,” she said cheerily. “Two lumps of sugar if you please.”

Lindsey squinted at her. “Are you quite all right?”

“Oh, I am very well, sir!” she exclaimed. “I’ve had a rather vigorous walkabout this afternoon!”

“Through the forest?” Jack asked, eyeing the wet hem of her gown.

“Why, no. To the orangery,” she said, looking pointedly at Lindsey.

He raised a quizzical brow. “The orangery is empty.”

“Yes! I discovered that!” she said with a wave of her hand that almost hit the teacup Benton held before her. “Imagine my surprise—the orangery empty! It was so lovely there! Benton, didn’t you think it was lovely?” she asked, her eyes locked on Lindsey.

“I did indeed, madam.”

“Did you know it was empty, Benton?”

He calmly put her tea beside a chair near the hearth. “Yes, madam.”

“It is empty because it has gone unused for some time,” Lindsey curtly interjected.

“Ah. Of course,” she said, and smiled sweetly at Lindsey as she passed by them and took a seat next to the tea. “It’s really a pity,” she said as she picked up the cup. “I put quite a lot of effort into it. Quite a lot.”

“Indeed you did,” Lindsey agreed, his voice tight, as if he was refraining from speaking too loudly. “But as it has gone unused for nigh on three years, the fruit was rotting, the furniture mildewing, and I saw no reason to keep it up.”

“Oh, I see.” The countess daintily sipped her tea. “Benton? Have you seen the small rose garden?”

“Yes, madam.”

“Do you think it has gone unused and that is why it has not been properly maintained?”

“I would wager that is a fair guess.”

“And the house, as well? The worn carpets, the fishing accoutrements in every room?”

“I could not say,” Benton said, and with a bow of his head, he stepped away and put his back to the wall. Jack wished to do the same and exchanged a helpless look with the butler.

“What is the matter, Evelyn?” Lindsey asked, his voice cooler.

“I beg your pardon,” Jack said. “I should…be about the, ah…”

“No, sit, sit!” Lindsey snapped. “My wife is distressed about the bloody orangery, but I assure you, she will recover! Benton, pour whiskey all around!”

Jack expected the countess to swoon with indignation, but she turned a charming smile to him. “My husband is right…for once,” she said sweetly. “I shall recover. In fact, I have recovered completely already. Please do sit, my lord. How is your sister? I scarcely saw her at all in London.”

Jack looked uneasily at Lindsey.

The countess stood. “Please, sir,” she said again, and smiled in a way that could make a man lose his head. The woman possessed a feminine charm Jack had never seen in her, and of a sudden, he was filled with pity for his good friend Lindsey.

“I beg your pardon if I have made you uncomfortable,” she continued. “It’s just that I loved the orangery so. And the little rose garden. And my cherrywood secretary. Alas, they have fallen into such disrepair—or disappeared altogether—and I don’t know if any of them can be reclaimed.”

“Bloody hell,” Lindsey muttered irritably.

The countess resumed her seat and took a sip of her tea, set the cup and saucer down, and abruptly stood again. “What am I thinking? I have intruded and run off your guests. I will leave you to your whiskey, gentlemen—I know how much you enjoy sitting and drinking…and sitting. Besides, I have some correspondence to attend to.”

She started for the door, but paused when she saw the remains of the furniture. She looked up, smiling mischievously. “I am certain Benton told you that my old and brittle secretary fell apart. I shall have to avail myself of the library, my lord.”

“That secretary belonged to my grandfather,” Lindsey said, pointing at the debris.

“Oh!” she said, and looked wide-eyed at the pieces of wood. “That must have had great sentimental value.”

“Evelyn—”

“I suppose it went unused for some time and fell into a state of disrepair.” With a nonchalant shrug, she smiled again. “Good afternoon,” she said, and deliberately stepped over the remains of the secretary and walked impertinently out of the room.

The three men stared after her.

Jack couldn’t help but notice the look on Lindsey’s face. It was a mixture of excruciating pain and powerful lust. He could hardly blame the poor man, but oh, how he pitied him.

Lindsey whirled away from the door and pinned Benton with a look.

“Yes, my lord?” Benton asked.

“Whiskey,” he said gruffly, and stepped over the broken secretary and stalked to the hearth, where he stood with his hands clasped tightly behind his back, staring into the flames.

On a hill above Eastchurch Abbey, the lone rider stared down at the massive neoclassical mansion. Smoke curled out of ten of the fourteen chimneys, and the river that ran behind the house was rushing. A phaeton was speeding away from the house, and a pair of horses stood tethered in the drive. A coach, still stained with the mud and grime of the road, was parked outside the stables. The door was open, and a lad emerged with a pail and a handful of rags.

The rider watched a few moments longer before adjusting his hat and turning his horse around, toward the main road.

E velyn did not dine with them that evening, which was undoubtedly a good thing, for Nathan could not be certain what he would do or say.

He’d stood at the windows of the green salon late that afternoon, watching her ride away from the house on one of his best horses, her speed reckless, her golden hair spilling out behind her.

He was disturbed by the sight of it. He sensed there was something more than anger that filled her by the reckless way she rode. He knew that sort of rash carelessness, for it was the same way he reacted when he felt the world crashing down around him.

Was it Dunhill? Did she yearn for him? Had she loved him?

Lambourne began to regale them with tales of the soirées he’d attended at Montague House in an area of London known as Blackheath, where the Princess of Wales resided. He seemed to be particularly amused by a night of Egyptian dancing.

“What do you mean, Egyptian dancing?” Donnelly asked, staring at Lambourne intently. Donnelly was as randy as the rest of them, but his primary interest in life was horses, and as a result, he sometimes missed the adventures with women that Lambourne seemed to find almost routinely.

“Sounds quite erotic, aye?” Lambourne teased him. “Imagine if you will,” he said, painting a picture in the air with his hands, “a lovely abdomen, bared but for a thin layer of silk above the soft sway of her hips…”

“If you will excuse me, I’ve an early meeting with my solicitor,” Nathan announced.

Neither of his guests took much notice. “Good night, Lindsey,” Donnelly said, then looked at Lambourne again. “How was she moving her hips?” he demanded.

“Declan, lad,” Lambourne said with a laugh. “Have you no’ seen a woman move her hips?”

Nathan walked out of the dining room.

He did have an appointment with his solicitor on the morrow, but it was neither early nor particularly important. In truth, he had something else entirely on his mind, the only thing, really, that had been on his mind since Christy had explained he must go to London: his wife.

This afternoon had rendered him incapable of thinking of anything else. She’d appeared looking so windblown and alluringly fresh. Alexandra, his good friend, had all but disappeared beside Evelyn. Evelyn—Lord God, the woman was exasperating! He didn’t know how it had happened, but his wife had grown into a beautiful, independent, and infuriatingly bold woman. That was an explosive combination for any man.

She was not the least bit intimidated by him as she’d once been. In fact, she was trying to goad him—into what, he hadn’t a clue.

He took the grand staircase that curved up toward a celestial painting on the domed ceiling and turned right into the corridor where the family rooms were located.

He rapped on the door of the sitting room between his suite and hers, and strode inside.

Evelyn was not within.

He moved on, entering a bare dressing room. There had been a time when wardrobes and trunks would be open, gowns and undergarments spilling out and pooling on the floor between beaded slippers, boots, and evening shoes.

Nathan had forgotten what it was like to live with a woman, how their things could creep into every corner of every room, crawl up under your skin, and wrap around your heart. Evelyn’s stockings would hang on a rack used for towels and linens in the bathing room, and jars of face creams and vials of perfume would litter every surface of her dressing room. Somehow, those things even made it into his dressing room and his bedroom.

But he’d never minded it. He’d rather liked it.

He strode through the dressing room and opened the door leading into her bedroom.

With a shriek of surprise, Evelyn, seated at her vanity in a dressing gown, jumped up and caught the edge of the vanity. “I beg your pardon!”

Nathan likewise was a bit taken aback. The dressing gown she wore was made of silk and was belted loosely at her waist. It skimmed every curve of the luscious body beneath.

Evelyn backed away from him as he moved deeper into the room, gathering her gown and wrapping it more tightly around her. But her modest gesture did not have the effect she desired—it only accentuated her curves and made him hungrier.

He clasped his hands tightly behind his back, eyeing her, admiring her. She returned his gaze with one full of distrust. Clever woman—she should distrust him, for the thoughts running through his mind were anything but chaste. He’d forgotten the secretary, the orangery, her impudence before his friends. He had but one thought on his mind.

“Please stop looking at me in that manner!”

Nathan did not stop. “In what manner?” he asked. “In the manner a man looks at his wife? A wife as lovely, as beautiful as mine?”

“Stop, Nathan,” she said sternly.

He wouldn’t stop, he would never stop. He was a man, and he had a man’s thirst, a thirst that had gone unslaked for longer than he cared to admit. She was a delectable, desirable woman—and she was his woman. He instinctively reached for her.

Evelyn darted out of his way, scurrying around the end of the bed.

Nathan was not the least deterred; if anything, he was spurred by it. The more she denied him, the more he felt an almost primal need to reclaim his rightful role as her husband.

“What’s the matter, darling? Afraid you will enjoy it?”

She tried to run around the bed for the door, but Nathan easily bounded over the bed and caught her from behind, anchoring her to him with an arm around her waist.

She clawed at his arm. “I suppose now you intend to take me as you took me from the streets of London?” she asked breathlessly as she struggled against him.

He forced her around to face him. “You once craved my touch.”

Something flickered in her eyes. Oh yes, she remembered, too. “That was long ago. I certainly don’t crave it now,” she said, and shoved hard against him.

But Nathan was impervious. He leaned forward; she tried to lean back, but he simply slipped his hand behind her head and pulled it closer to his. In the golden light of the hearth, he admired the furious flush of her cheeks, the slender column of her neck, and the rapid rise of her chest. There was a look in her eyes that he felt very deeply inside him—it was an odd mix of the familiar and the unknown.

“I mean it, Nathan! If you do not unhand me, I shall scream and bring the house down around your ears.”

One hand drifted down her back. “If you scream, I rather suspect they will assume I am pleasuring you as I would very much like to do.”

“Ha! What makes you believe you ever gave me pleasure?”

“I was there, love, remember?”

She managed to get one hand on his ear. She grabbed it, twisting.

“Ouch!” he cried, and let go of her.

Evelyn twisted around and leapt over the chaise, putting it between them. Nathan straightened and looked at her. The color in her cheeks was high, her eyes were glittering. He rubbed his ear with one hand and pointed at her with the other. “You are enjoying this little game of cat and mouse. Admit it.”

“You flatter yourself.”

“Come now, Evie. You remember as well as I do that if there was one place you and I were at peace, it was in that bed.”

She frantically looked around and grabbed up the fire poker. “If there was one time you and I were at peace, it was when I was in London and you were here! If you touch me again, sir, I shall feel not the slightest bit of remorse for defending myself.” She raised the poker high, revealing the curve of her breast.

He laughed. “Don’t be so pugnacious, Evie. It doesn’t suit you.”

“Don’t be so aggressive, Nathan. It gives you an air of desperation.”

That wasn’t very far from the truth. “I like to think of it as unmitigated desire for my wife. And I recall a woman who was always rather desperate with desire herself.”

“You are a bloody scoundrel.”

He grinned. “At your service, madam,” he said, and lunged toward her. With a shriek, Evelyn tried to leap out of his reach, but Nathan caught her and landed with her on the chaise. The poker clattered to the floor, and without so much as a word, a breath, Nathan touched his lips to hers.

Evelyn made a sound of protest against his mouth and grabbed his lapels, trying to shake him loose, but Nathan was lost in her lips. Soft, wet, and plush, they were everything he remembered. His hand slipped to her neck, his thumb on the velvet curve of her ear. She wore the scent of lilacs in her hair and on her neck, fueling many deep and intimate memories. His anger, his uncertainty about who or what she had become, about who or what they had become, was swallowed whole by his desire.

Evelyn pushed hard against his chest, but when he slipped his tongue into her mouth, he felt a change in her. She still pushed against him, but at the same time, she curved into him. He kissed her madly, his tongue in her mouth, his teeth on her lips, his hand drifting to the swell of her lovely bottom, grasping it and holding her against him.