After Innocence (42 page)

“Do you deny that you were trying to seduce me?” she cried, her voice pitched far too high.

“Yes. Seduction was not my intent.”

She regarded him, trying to penetrate past the anger and into his mind. It was impossible. “I do not understand.”

“Oh, Christ! I’m a man, Sofie, and you’re a woman, and that’s one helluva sexy gown.” He leaned over her and unlocked her door. His arm brushed her breasts. Sofie forced herself to ignore it.

And she fought to keep from crying. His words could have been a compliment, if said differently, in a different circumstance. But they were an insult, and he knew it just as she did. He was making it very clear that she had kindled his animal-like lust with her dress, nothing more.

Sofie turned, groping blindly for the handle to the door. Edward appeared on the other side of the motorcar and opened her door for her. He reached for her arm and helped her out, but once standing, Sofie shook him off. She started up the drive, realized that he was following. She whirled. “Haven’t you done enough? What do you want now? Go away!”

“We’re not through, lady,” he said. “I want to see Edana, remember? And I don’t trust you worth a damn. You’re going to say good-bye to your hosts and to Marten, and then I’m taking you home.”

Sofie was frozen and furious and filled with indignation and fear.

Suzanne attended to her guests, feigning calm and forcing gaiety. But Lisa’s engagement party, which she had planned with such enthusiasm, had turned into her worst nightmare.

Outwardly Suzanne was smiling. Inwardly she was bleeding.
Oh, Sofie. You hate me
—
but I love you, I do!

Suzanne had not thought that Sofie would attend Lisa’s
engagement party. And when she had first seen her, she had been as thrilled as she was relieved. Her worry for her daughter knew no bounds. As more time passed, as Sofie failed to come home in capitulation to Suzanne’s demands, Suzanne began to fear that she had seriously miscalculated—that her daughter was far stronger than anyone would have ever dreamed.

But not only had Sofie come to the party, she had lashed out at Suzanne with a fury Suzanne had never known her capable of.

Remembering made Suzanne sick. Had she lost her daughter? Had she meant those things? Didn’t Sofie know how much she loved her?

Suzanne greeted yet another couple, for she was working her way through the crowd, performing her duty as hostess. Her social pleasantries were automatic and she hardly heard a word anyone said to her. If only she could find Sofie and talk to her, yet instinct told her that she could not break through to Sofie now. Her daughter was far too furious.

Her pulse skittered and her palms were wet. What had happened with Sofie was bad enough, but Jake was here, too.
When she found him, she would kill him.
Jake had nerve,
urrer nerve.
coming here like this! She had sent him two more letters, which he had not answered, and this time she had apologized for her loss of temper in her first letters, while insisting that she had changed for the better. This time she had even confessed that she still loved him—and that she always would.

But the son of a bitch had ignored her yet another time.

And now he was here. He had dared to attend a party in Benjamin’s house. What was he trying to do? Destroy her marriage, destroy her publicly?

Shaking, a smile plastered on her face, Suzanne nodded to a friend of Benjamin’s and paused behind a pillar, gulping air. She could not relax, could not shake Sofie’s vicious, hurtful words from her mind, could not free herself of the terror that someone was going to recognize Jake at any moment and destroy her once and for all. At that moment,
she hated him far more than she loved him—but she had never needed him more.

She froze, spoiling him out of the corner of her eye. Jake lounged against a pillar, sipping a glass of champagne, the picture of male beauty, male dissipation, and arrogant male indifference. Their gazes locked. Jake lifted his flute to her in a mock salute.

Fury swept through her. Suzanne itched to claw that smug expression right off his face. But she must rein in her outrage. If anyone could help her, it was Jake. Because in the end, Jake was her Rock of Gibraltar, her half-ton anchor in stormy seas.

Trying to control her trembling, she started towards Jake—but in the next instant she was frozen in shock.

The Marquis of Connaught had paused at Jake’s side. For the first time in ages, Suzanne saw Jake smile with genuine goodwill. The two men shook hands, Suzanne watching in disbelief and horror. They knew each other? Then the marquis pulled Lisa forward, clearly introducing her. Suzanne actually felt the floor tilt beneath her feel.

How much worse could this evening get?

For she expected Lisa to reveal the truth. Lisa had seen not just the portrait that Sofie had done of Jake, but the photograph from which Sofie had painted him. Jake had hardly changed.

Time stood still. Suzanne could not breathe. She knew her life was about to be destroyed—and that this time, she would never be able to recover.

But Lisa did not scream or faint. She nodded politely at Jake, appearing quite pale and strained, and a moment later the marquis moved on, Lisa in tow. Suzanne sagged, gasping for breath.

But the evening had only just begun. What if the marquis inadvertently introduced Jake to Benjamin?! The possibility was terrifying. Surely he would recognize Jake even though Lisa had failed to.

Suzanne marched to him.

He saw her coming and settled more comfortably against the pillar, watching her in an insolent, thoroughly male
manner that never failed to elicit a dark, heated response within Suzanne. No matter how afraid and furious she was, no matter how desperate for his aid, he was the man of all her dreams, he was the only man she wanted. She wanted him back, and she had from the moment she had learned that he was still alive.

And she would get him back, or die trying.

Suzanne forced her mind back to the issue at hand, no easy task with her blood running so hot now through her veins. “What are you doing here?” she snarled. “You are mad! What if you are recognized?”

His white teeth flashed. “Julian invited me.”

“Julian?” The word came out strangled with hysteria. “How in God’s name do you know him?”

“We’re friends.” Jake grinned at her. “Good friends.”

“What if he introduces you to Benjamin?” Suzanne cried, much too loudly. She froze when she realized that several guests had turned to look at them, but then they all resumed their own conversations. Flushing, Suzanne squared off against Jake. “Damn you for putting me in this predicament! Maybe you should have stayed dead!”

“But I thought you wanted to be my wife,” Jake mocked. “Surely you wouldn’t be content with a ghost for a husband?”

“As far as I’m concerned, I am your wife,” Suzanne whispered tersely. “You’re hardly a ghost, and we both know it.”

“Then just what is Benjamin?”

Suzanne’s cheeks were mottled red. She had done some very discreet checking into the legality of the situation. “He is my husband.”

Jake sputtered with laughter. “Are you telling me that you’re a bigamist, darling?”

“It wasn’t intentional and you know it,” she cried, fists clenched. “What if St. Clare introduces you to Benjamin?”

“He won’t.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because he knows the real story. Because he knows who I really am.”

Suzanne cried out.

Jake smiled, but it wasn’t friendly. “I wasn’t lying when I said he was my good friend, Suzanne.”

Suzanne forced the hysteria down. “You are a miserable bastard and I hate you.”

“That’s not what you said in your letters.”

“Why do you bring out the worst in me?”

“I hate to tell you this, Suzanne, but nobody forces you to act the way that you do.”

She could not win, not with him, never with him. “Jake—we need to talk privately.”

His gaze drifted over her nearly naked breasts. “Talk?”

Despite her very acute worries, various scenarios flashed through her mind. In bed, Jake was insatiable, selfishly demanding but also selflessly giving. In bed, Jake would use her until she begged for mercy; but she would use him until he begged for surcease, too. “Damn you, you are teasing me,” she said low, unable to prevent herself from licking her lips.

“Can’t take what you’re so good at giving out?”

Suzanne stiffened. “I’ll meet you in the library at the end of the hall,” she said. She turned and hurried away.

Jake watched her through heavy, lidded eyes. Phrases from her letters echoed in his mind.
I miss you, I always have
—
I always will. You are the only man I’ve ever wanted, really. I will leave Benjamin—I will destroy myself—for you. If you only say the word. I am your wife, Jake, and you know it. Take me back.

I love you so much, darling.

Every time Jake had received one of her letters, he knew he should burn it, unopened. But he had read every one, more than once.

I love you so much, darling.

Once he had loved her. He wondered if somewhere inside himself, he still did.

Still watching her, his pulse too fast, his breathing not quite steady, he pushed himself off the pillar and followed her.

The only reason Jake had stayed at the ball so long was to annoy Suzanne and anger her. Even though he had asked
her for a divorce once long ago, even though, shortly after, he had been forced to flee New York, leaving her and their daughter behind, even though he was legally dead, the truth of the matter was that she was still his wife because he was very much alive.

Like any man, no matter what his feelings really were for her, every time he thought about her with Benjamin, he felt a surge of rage.

She claimed that she loved him. Did she love him when her current husband made love to her? Did she? Jake could tell himself that he did not give a damn, could hope fervently that it was true, but he knew damn well that she did not cry out his name when she slept with Benjamin Ralston.

He paused outside a pair of heavy walnut doors, which she had left ajar. He hesitated, his instincts telling him to turn and go back, then shoved through them. Suzanne stood inside the room, her back to the door, as still as a classical Greek statue. And, despite it all, despite the past, as lovely.

Once, Jake had worshiped her beauty. Once, he had loved her completely. She had been everything he was not, everything a man like him dreamed of having in a woman. She had been beautiful, elegant, aristocratic, and wealthy. Because he was a common Irishman and she was high society, she should have been unattainable—yet he’d married her, and she had given him his precious child.

Since then, there had been so many betrayals and so much anger, so much disillusionment and so much sorrow. For both of them. He could not forgive her her many lovers when they were wed, but perhaps most of all, he could not forgive her marrying Benjamin Ralston within weeks of learning that he was dead.

Sometimes in the dead of night, alone with a bottle of Irish whiskey, Jake wondered what would have happened if she had not remarried, if he had succeeded in contacting her, if she had met him in Australia with Sofie as he had planned while in prison before escaping. He dreamed of a simple life, one in which he worked hard with his hands in order to provide the basic necessities for his family. He dreamed of love and laughter and undying passion.

It was nonsense. When sober, he knew that for a fact. Suzanne had hated him when they were newlyweds for taking her away from high society. How could he have ever dreamed that she would be happy as a farmer’s wife in the Australian outback?

Now she had what she’d wanted to begin with, a place in high society, a wealthy, blue-blooded husband, riches and respectability. Jake stared. He only half believed her claims of undying love. He only half believed she would throw it all away for a common Irishman like himself.

Purposefully, yet with some regret, he kept his distance from her. “What is it you want to discuss? What is so important?”

Suzanne wet her lips. “Sofie.”

Jake stared. “What’s wrong?”

Suzanne swallowed. “Jake—everything’s wrong. Sofie is ruining her life, and I cannot make her see reason! I am so afraid. To make matters worse—” and suddenly genuine tears spilled down her cheeks “—she has left home. I thought she would come back—but she hates me. Jake!”

He strode forward and gripped her arms, shaking her. “What the hell do you mean, she has left home?”

“Exactly that!” Suzanne cried. “She rushed out of the house—I don’t even know where she is living!”

He shook her again. “Why? What did you do? I know that this is your fault!”

Suzanne stiffened. “Damn you! It is not my fault! I only want the best for her, and I have encouraged her to do what’s right.” She jerked free of his hold. Their gazes locked. “I want her to give up her illegitimate daughter to a wonderful couple for adoption.”

All the color left Jake’s face.
“What?!”

“Sofie had a baby. In France. She thinks to remain unwed and to keep the child. Of course, she can do no such thing and we both know it. Already the entire household has learned the truth—but no one will spread any gossip, I can assure you of that, because I will destroy
anyone
who dares to besmirch my daughter.”

Jake clung to the back of a chair to remain upright. His face was a mask of shock. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”

“How could you? You cannot expect to keep abreast of our lives while living in seclusion and anonymity in the Irish countryside!”

Jake lifted his head, some of the shock fading. “The father. Who is he?” he snarled.

Suzanne hesitated.

“Tell me, damn you!” he roared. He reached Suzanne in two strides and lifted her off the floor. Then his eyes widened. “It’s Delanza, isn’t it? Isn’t it?” he shouted, shaking her again.

Suzanne nodded, her eyes filling with tears.

“Goddamn it,” Jake shouted. He set her down abruptly. “Forget adoption, Suzanne. That bastard is going to marry Sofie, and there’s no two ways about it.”