Читать книгу Regency Scoundrels And Scandals - Louise Allen - Страница 18

‘Bloody hell, guv’nor!’ The outburst of swearing was Henry’s voice, Eva realised vaguely. They had stopped. She looked round, her head feeling like lead on her aching neck, and saw they were in front of the inn.

‘Stubble it,’ Jack growled, then, ‘Help madame down, will you?’

‘Gawd help us, you’re soaked, both of you.’ The groom caught Eva with as much respectfulness as was possible and set her gingerly on her feet. ‘And frozen.’

‘Get this animal out of sight. I’ve stolen it—you’ll need to find it in the morning and return it to the authorities.’

Henry took this news with a calm that said volumes about his expectations of life with Jack, Eva thought, amused despite her weariness. It seemed impossible that she should ever stop shivering, and as Jack took her arm to steer her into the inn she felt the betraying vibration under his skin, as well.

‘Upstairs, try not to be seen. If de Presteigne is in any fit state, he will start enquiries round the inns for soaking wet guests. At least we’ve stopped dripping.’

They went upstairs with all the caution of a pair of illicit lovers and regained their chamber with such relief that Eva found herself clutching the bed post with tears in her eyes. Jack leant back against the closed door as though he could no longer rely on his legs to hold him up. South facing and high up, the room still held the warmth of the day, but that mild air could not touch the bone-deep chill that racked her.

‘Get undressed.’ Jack straightened and pushed her towards the dressing screen, tugging the bell pull as he passed it. Eva began to fumble with buttons and hooks, set in swollen, sodden fabric. There was a tap at the door. ‘Hot water, lots of it. And a hip bath. There’s more of that if you make haste.’ She heard the clink of coin and the retreating scuffle of feet.

‘Here.’ A large towel landed on top of the screen.

‘I can’t undo the fastenings,’ Eva said, cursing under her breath as a softened fingernail tore. ‘Oh, damn.’ It was all too much, she just wanted to be back in Maubourg. She wanted a flock of ladies’ maids and footmen, she wanted her dresser and to be warm and dry, to curl up, sleep, forget.

‘Here, let me.’ She gasped in shock as Jack came round the screen. He was stripped, clad only in a large linen towel slung round his narrow hips. ‘You can open your eyes,’ he said after a moment in a tone that hung somewhere between amusement and irritation. ‘I would suggest that dying of cold and exhaustion but unsullied by a glimpse of my naked flesh is observing the proprieties too far.’

‘Yes. Yes, of course.’ Eva tried to sound brisk and matter of fact as she opened her eyes, trying to unfocus them at the same time. It was ridiculous to be prudish under the circumstances. Jack was her bodyguard and her friend. She had been a married woman—it was not as though she had never seen a naked man before. And, in any case, neither of them was in a fit state to do anything imprudent.

Jack began to work on the row of buttons that fastened the bodice of the dress, swore under his breath, and undid it by the simple expedient of tearing it open with both hands. Buttons pinged off in all directions. ‘Jack!’

‘It is ruined anyway,’ he pointed out reasonably, pulling the bodice apart and dragging it down her arms.

‘I..er…I can manage now.’

He ignored her, lifting the water-sodden skirts over her head and dumping the garment in a heap on the floor, then standing, hands on hips, regarding her as she shivered in stays, petticoat and chemise.

‘Did you tie these with a bow or am I going to have to cut the strings?’ He advanced on the neat row of lacing that secured the corset. Eva squeaked. ‘A bow. Excellent woman.’ The stays landed on top of the gown just as the maid knocked on the door. Eva retreated, leaving Jack to deal with the procession of inn servants with tub and steaming ewers.

She peeked through the gap in the screen, her lips curving in amusement at the sight of the maids reduced to blushing giggles by Jack’s well-displayed physique. They could not be blamed, she told herself, conscious that she was admiring the view just as much as they were. The bruises had begun to turn yellow across his back and chest. She ignored them as she studied the cleanly defined musculature, the narrow hips and the well-shaped calves. Hairy, but just right, she decided, as a violent shiver shook her, reminding her just how serious their situation was. Stop it! she chided herself. Ogling like one of the maids, indeed!

The door shut and Eva hastily bent to untie her garters and roll down her stockings. Jack reappeared around the edge of the screen. ‘Come on, hurry up, your teeth are chattering.’

‘Go away, then! Because if you think I am taking another thing off while you are—Jack! Put me down.’ He bent, swept her up and deposited her, petticoats and all, into the deep tub the girls had brought up. ‘Oooh. That’s wonderful.’ Warmth seeped through her, making her skin tingle and her frozen toes ache. But the momentary discomfort was worth it. She even began to believe that the bone-deep chill would disappear in time. ‘What a huge tub.’ It was big enough for her to tuck in her feet, provided she kept her knees bent up, sticking above the surface.

Jack began to scoop water up in his cupped hands and pour it over her knees and her shoulders. He paused, his hands and arms deep in the hot water for a moment, letting the warmth seep into him.

‘I’ll be quick, you need to get in,’ Eva said hastily.

‘No, you aren’t warm through yet, and your hair needs washing.’ Jack picked up one of the ewers. ‘Close your eyes.’ He poured the water through her tangled hair, then found the scented soap and began to work up a lather and rub it in. ‘Sit still, don’t wriggle or you will get soap in your eyes.’ He seemed quite at home doing it. Eva wondered vaguely if he bathed his mistress. Mistresses, more like, she reflected, moving her head languidly to the pressure of his hands. She could not believe that this man would find much attraction in celibacy.

‘You’re purring.’ His chuckle was close to her ear. ‘Keep your eyes closed, I’m going to rinse it.’ The warm torrent drowned her protest that of course she was doing no such thing, then she found her head swathed in a towel and realised he was rubbing it dry. It was so easy to let go and allow him to do it. Eva’s eyes stayed closed, even when the towel was lifted away and she heard Jack moving across the room. He came back almost at once, lifted some of the damp weight of her hair and began to comb it.

‘Jack, don’t bother with that, you’ll get chilled, I must get out.’ Eva opened her eyes and found he was very close, his fingers working carefully through the tangles.

‘No, I’m warm, here in the steam, I promise. Relax while I comb this.’ The grey eyes that could be so hard and cold were gentle as he watched her, the lines of his face relaxed out of their habitual vigilance as she had never seen them before, even in laughter.

Her eyes drifted shut again. The memory of being cold, of being afraid, seeped away under the strokes of his hands. ‘Lean forward.’ She found herself resting against his chest, her forehead on his shoulder as he reached round her, plaiting her hair into a thick tail. Then he coiled it on her head, fastening it with a pin he must have found with her comb.

The heavy weight of it made it difficult to lift her head up off his shoulder, or so she told herself. Against the skin of her forehead she could feel the hard line of his collarbone, smell the scent of him through the soap-scented steam. River water, chilled flesh, man. Jack. Her lips moved, touching lightly on the flat plane of his chest and he shifted, his hands slipping down from her hair to hold her against his body as he knelt there beside the tub.

‘You are cold,’ she murmured against his skin.

‘Warm me, then.’

Awkward, her wet petticoats tangled round her legs, Eva shifted in the tub until she was kneeling up, breast to breast with Jack. Her hands slid, palms flat, up his back, holding him close to her, pressing herself to the length of his torso so her heat soaked into him. Her nipples peaked, hard under the soaked petticoat, rubbing against the subtle friction of wet linen as she buried her face in the angle of his neck, feeling the thud of his pulse close to her ear.

Jack’s breath was hot on the side of her face, feathering her ear so that she caught her own breath, the almost-forgotten heavy heat of arousal settling low in her belly. She expected him to touch her ear, perhaps run the tip of his tongue around the curl of its moulding; instead his hands moved down to cup her buttocks.

The sensation of the two palms, cooler than her own hot flesh, the gentle grasp of the long, clever fingers, had her pressing closer so that when, without warning, Jack stood up, she was lifted with him in one smooth motion. He shifted, taking her off balance so that she clutched at him, then he was standing in the hot water with her.

They were so close that she could feel the hem of the towel he wore around his waist pressing against her knees, the roughness of wet hair where one of his legs pressed between hers. The sodden fabric she was wearing might as well not have been there as her body melted into his, the touch of hard nipples against her breast, the unmistakable heat and pressure of his arousal against her stomach.

Eva lifted her face from the shelter of his neck, his hair spiky with wet as it brushed her cheek. ‘Go,’ he said huskily.

‘What?’ she whispered. His eyes were closed, the lashes as wet on his cheeks as though he had wept, but the skin below was dry.

‘Go. Get into bed.’ Still blind, his mouth curved into a smile that had her longing to touch her lips to the corner of his. ‘I think you have warmed me as much as a friend might be expected to.’

Jack stood motionless, following Eva’s retreat behind the screen by sound. When he heard the flap of a towel from the direction of the screen he opened his eyes, poured in the remaining ewers of hot water and, discarding the towel, took her place in the tub.

The heat took him into its embrace like a lover and he leaned back against the high back of the tub, his knees hooked over the other side and his feet dangling. It was possible, he thought hazily, that he would just lie there all night, luxuriating.

If only he did not have to think. To plan. To try to get some sort of perspective on what had happened just now. The warmth was doing absolutely nothing to subdue the evidence of just how much the sensation of holding Eva in his arms had aroused him.

What had gone wrong? Cold, battered, exhausted, all he had intended was to get her tucked up in bed, warm and safe. If he had been asked, he would have laughed at the thought that he could have summoned either the strength or the inclination to think about sex. It seemed he did not know his own body as well as he thought.

There was a discreet cough and he closed his eyes as Eva’s footsteps padded past, wondering if she was looking at him, wondering, for the first time, what she thought of the man she saw.

Arrogant devil, he chided himself, as he fished blindly over the edge of the tub for the soap. What she saw was an adventurer, a man she could rely on for violence, low cunning and an insolent disregard of her status and position. She saw a man who promised to be her friend and who had damn nearly taken her there and then, dripping wet, on the floor beside this tub.

But he hadn’t. Why not? Jack began to scrub the smell of the river water and mud off his skin, grimacing as he realised he’d picked up Eva’s soap and not his own. He would reek fragrantly of gardenias as a result, but he felt too relaxed to get out and find something else. He hadn’t even kissed her, hadn’t bent his head to sweep his tongue over those taut nipples he had felt fretting against his own chest, hadn’t let his hands take the sweet weight of her breasts in their palms.

Because I want to make love to her, not just have sex with her. And make love when she is fully awake and aware of what she is doing, he thought grimly, not clinging to me because she is exhausted, frightened and I have saved her life—just.

And what the hell am I thinking? Jack demanded of himself savagely as he slid down so his head went under the water. He emerged, streaming, and scrubbed his hands through his hair with intentional force.

That was a grand duchess in that bed, not some game pullet, not even a sprightly matron who was interested in showing her gratitude for a well-executed commission in ways that went beyond paying his bill. That happened now and again. He never sought it, sometimes took steps to evade it and sometimes found it a mutually satisfying, if short-lived, encounter.

This was different. The Grand Duchess Evaline was different. There was an innocence about her that was at odds with her marriage to one of the most hardened roués in Europe, a softness under that imperious manner that she could adopt at the blink of her long-lashed eyes. The memory of those lashes against his skin sent a stab of lust lancing into his already aching groin.

It was going to be a long night. He might want to make love to her, she might, in her vulnerability and disorientation, turn to him, but Jack knew full well that he could not let it happen. She was chaste, he could tell that almost at a glance, and she would have had countless opportunities discreetly to be otherwise. The fact that she had not meant that this was something that was important to her, to what she was as a woman, and he could not destroy that.

He opened his eyes, saw nothing but a mound under the white covers to show where Eva was, and began to scrub at the soles of his feet which seemed irrevocably black. Had she spurned de Presteigne at some point? His instinct told him that she had. The man would take that as an insult, would nurse it in his breast as a slight to be repaid. It made him even more dangerous—if he still lived.

Jack climbed out of the tub, registering dispassionately the muscles that ached, the ones that felt least responsive. Weaknesses he could not afford, gaps in his training to be worked on. Tomorrow he wanted to ride, if Eva was up to it. Two of their pursuers were dead, he had made sure of that. But there remained de Presteigne—wounded certainly, and if alive no doubt as furious as a scalded cat—and the soldier who had fallen in the river who might have been able to swim.

Pursuit was either still on their heels, or as far away as Prince Antoine, waiting impatiently in the brooding castle of Maubourg for news of the hunt. Ahead was safety. He rested one foot on the edge of the tub as he scrubbed the leg dry and reconsidered that thought. Safety unless Antoine had had the sense to send agents on ahead of de Presteigne in the hope that the colonel would act as the ferret down the rabbit hole and drive them headlong into his hands.

Without ever having met Eva’s brother-in-law, Jack felt a deep dislike of the man, a traitor both to his own family and his country and the attempted murderer of his nephew and the boy’s mother. But that did not make him a fool, and to misjudge him could be fatal.

Dry and warm at last, he padded over to the bedside and looked down at Eva. The thick plait had come loose from his inexpert attempt at pinning it up and lay on the covers, making her look heart-wrenchingly young. He thought about just falling into bed, then spent several minutes extricating the long bolster without waking her, and setting it down the middle of the bed. He might be resolved now to fight her sensual spell, but he would not have wagered so much as a groat on his body paying any heed to that if he touched her as he slept.

The soft mattress took him like a cloud as he finally slid between the sheets and sleep swept over him even before he could pull the covers up to his shoulders.

The tattoo of knocking on the bedchamber door had Jack out of bed with his pistol in his hand before he was even conscious of moving. The sun was streaming in through the window, the old clock in the corner registering eight. He took a steadying breath and called, ‘Oui?’

‘C’est Henri, monsieur.’ It must be, no one could imitate the groom’s atrocious accent.

Jack turned the key in the lock and let the man in. ‘Thought I’d better check, seeing the time’s getting on.’ He glanced round the room and added reprovingly, ‘You know, guv’nor, you shouldn’t be walking about like that, stark naked with your wedding tackle on show. There’s a lady to consider, and not just any lady. She’s a grand duchess, when all’s said and done.’

He looked defiant as Jack glared at him, but the retort came, not from him, but icy—if somewhat muffled—from the bed. ‘The Grand Duchess in question is right here, Henry, and the reason I am stuck under these very hot covers is to spare myself the sight you so graphically describe. If you gentlemen would be kind enough to remove yourselves, dressed or undressed, I would like to get up now.’

Jack dragged on his breeches and shirt, scooped up the rest of his things and strode out of the room. ‘We will be in the private parlour, ma’am. Please be so good as to lock the door behind us.’

The lock clicked before they were three steps along the landing. Jack dropped his shoes, swore mildly, and kicked them ahead of himself into the parlour. ‘You don’t half whiff, guv’nor. Like a flaming lily,’ Henry observed.

‘Gardenias,’ Jack corrected, dragging off his clothes again so he could put on his drawers and stockings. ‘Better than smelling like the banks of the Rhône, believe me.’

‘Can believe that.’ The groom hitched one hip on the window ledge and regarded Jack critically as he dressed. ‘You hurt any? You look banged about.’

‘Nothing that won’t heal soon enough.’ He felt as though he had been stretched on the rack, then beaten with broom handles, but admitting to that would only lead to Henry offering one of his brutal massages.

‘Good enough.’ The groom looked uncomfortable. ‘Look, guv’nor, you really shouldn’t be getting involved with her Highness like this.’

‘Like what?’ Jack demanded.

‘No, don’t you go pokering up on me, guv’nor, you look like your late unlamented father when you do that, and it’s enough to give a man the colic, with all due respect…’

‘The chance of some due respect would be welcome, but I suppose you are going to have your say,’ Jack retorted grimly. To an outsider the liberties he allowed the groom would have been inexplicable, but Jack was prepared to listen to a man whose loyalty and courage had been proven over and over again, even if his tendency to embarrassing frankness was legendary.

‘I am that. She’s a real lady, that one, and royalty, almost. You shouldn’t be—’

‘I’m not.’

‘Yes, that’s all very well for you to say, but when you come hopping out of her bed in a state of Abram, who’s going to believe that?’

‘You are, if I tell you so, you suspicious old devil. There’s a bolster down the middle of the bed every night—stop laughing, will you!’

‘Are you two going to indulge in whatever crude conversation is amusing you for much longer?’ a frosty, disapproving voice enquired from the doorway. ‘Because I want my breakfast.’

Jack saw Henry’s jaw drop and turned slowly. The figure standing on the threshold was clad in breeches, boots, a snug-fitting waistcoat and white shirt. Her hair was bundled into a net at her nape and a neckcloth dangled from her hand. ‘Can one of you show me how to tie this?’ Eva enquired calmly, her eyes defying them to comment on her attire. ‘I must say, I had no idea how difficult it is to get into men’s clothes.’

The unfortunate turn of phrase was too much for Henry, who collapsed in hoots of laughter. Eva went scarlet. ‘You should meet Mr Brummell,’ Jack said, attempting to save her blushes by pretending not to notice the double entendre. He kept his face straight with an effort that hurt and aimed a kick at the groom’s ankle. ‘He would assure you it takes two hours at the very least.’