Betina Krahn (16 page)

“Never thought to see such a thing in this life,” Sprat said in a loud whisper, looking at his equally stunned companions.

“Iron Jack as giddy as a schoolgirl,” Dandy added, disillusioned.

“She’s bewitched him,” Bertie said, scowling. “Conniving little muff. Don’t know how the hell she did it, but it’s clear she did. He marched right up of his own free will and spoke vows with her. Used the special license I provided for her for himself! I’ve half a mind to make her live up to our agreement. At least once. Just to teach ’em a lesson.”

The three tiptoed back to the shadow-cloaked entrance, where Jack A. Dandy paused while opening the front doors.

“But, what if it’s real?” he said. “I mean, it
could
be a love match. Such things are known to happen.”

Sprat looked quite horrified. “Good God.”

Bertie gave him a smack on the arm. “You’re in a church, you horse’s arse. And with me.” When Sprat looked mystified, he snarled. “The next head of the Church of England?”

“Deepest pardon, Highness.” Sprat shriveled. Bertie picked the oddest times to insist on ecclesiastical niceties.

“They look
happy,
” Dandy persisted. “You think perhaps they’ve fallen in love?”

Bertie looked at the pair of them as if unable to believe his ears.

“You’re going dotty in your advancing years, the both of you.” He pushed past them to exit and then paused outside to make certain Jack’s party was still in the rectory. Beckoning for his coach, he muttered, “Love. Humph. You should have heard her talking about him earlier…about how she’d mold him and make him over into…”

An ugly thought struck him as his footman jumped down to open the door and unfold the carriage steps for him.

“She is a clever slip of muslin. It’s possible she purposefully…”

“She what, Highness?” Dandy asked, leaning closer.

“Couldn’t be.” Bertie grabbed the door and hoisted his bulk into the carriage. “No woman in her right mind would turn down the chance to make her fortune in a prince’s bed.”

Sprat and Dandy looked at each other and chorused, “Absolutely not.”

Bertie was clearly out of sorts as he chewed on what to do all the way back to St. James Palace. He sometimes spent nights there so that his manly “recreations” wouldn’t disturb his wife at Marlborough House.

By the time they reached St. James, he had what he fancied to be a clever plan. A pity he couldn’t test its soundness
against the wits of one of the few men he could count on to tell him the truth: Jack St. Lawrence.

“Cranmer,” he called Jack A. Dandy to attention as they disembarked within the walls of St. James. “Find me a cart-load of roses, some champagne and a diamond brooch the size of a walnut. Wake people up if you have to—we don’t hand out those damned royal warrants for nothing. Have them all delivered to
her
at Claridge’s, first thing tomorrow morning.” He turned to Sprat. “You, Avery…find me Edgar Marchant. Sober. I don’t care if you have to turn out every card room in club land.”

M
ARIAH SAT
on Jack’s lap on the way back to Claridge’s in the two-seater cab he flagged down on the Brompton Road. Mercy, done in by three glasses of wine and two pieces of cake, was dead to the world, so they were virtually alone. Mariah studied the slope of his nose, the strength of his jaw, and the softness of his dark hair. Every aspect of him pleased her, roused her, completed her. How could she be so lucky?

“I can hardly believe we’re married.” She buried her face in the crook of his neck and breathed in his warmth. “Tomorrow we get to wake up together, after sleeping in the same bed.”

“Not before noon, however,” he whispered, kissing her temple, her cheek and her throat as she offered them to him. “Because tonight I intend to keep you up late, ravishing you.”

“
Ravishing
…what a lovely word,” she whispered, then gasped quietly as his hand slipped beneath her jacket. “Ohhh.” She closed her eyes and sucked in a breath as his fingers skimmed her breast above her corset. “Shall I try on my new dressing gowns for you?”

He chuckled. “I doubt you’ll have time,” he whispered, his hot breath sending trickles of excitement through her. “I’m more in the mood for claiming and devouring.”

“Devouring?” she murmured. The word itself sent heat pouring into her sex. “Like this?” She nibbled his lip.

“Mmm.”

“Or this?” She tongued his ear and sucked his earlobe.

“Just like that,” he said, his voice dropping to a frayed rasp.

The minute the cab stopped at the hotel doors, he shifted her off his lap and sprang out to collect the doorman for help in delivering Mercy safely to her bed. Mariah went ahead to her room and stood in the dark, watching the dull glow of light from the hearth and realizing the passage that was taking place in her life. From widow to wife. From death and mourning into life and celebration.

The door latch snicked once, then a second time, and she held her breath. But instead of encircling her waist with his arms, he moved around to face her. In the dimness, his features looked taut and hungry; his eyes glowed the way they had that first night in Bertie’s room.

She began to remove her jacket, staring into those hypnotic golden eyes. He gave a deliciously wicked laugh and brushed her hands away to remove her clothes himself. When she stood in corset, knickers and stockings, atop a puddle of skirts and petticoats, he picked her up and swept her back against the wall by the door, pinning her there with his body.

“This—” his voice was ragged and demanding “—is what I wanted to do to you that first night.”

With exquisite deliberation, he planted his hands on the wall on either side of her and began to rub his body against hers. Every movement was a revelation, every angle and position an avenue to fresh, untried pleasure. She planted her hands just beneath his, as she had that first night. Soon her nipples had popped free of her corset and he rubbed every part of him against them…face, lips, tongue, chest, ribs. She was vibrating like a violin string by the time he paused to enjoy her response.

“If you’re going to ravish me,” she said hoarsely, “get on with it.”

With a laugh he began to do just that, kissing, tonguing, nipping…until she was incandescent with desire. By the time she reached for his trousers, he allowed her to guide him and soon supported her with his arms and thighs. When she climaxed, he took release as well and they collapsed together against the wall, waiting for the strength to move to the bed. She kissed his burning ears and rumpled his hair.

“You know, we might have saved a lot of time and trouble if you
had
done this to me that first night.”

With a teasing growl, he picked her up and carried her to the bed. This time her corset and knickers came completely off. But the stockings, as always, stayed on.

The next morning, the early sunlight turned Jack’s big body to gold as it sprawled over her and the bed. He looked a little civilized and a little barbaric, and a whole lot desirable. He was hers.

She slipped from under his arm and leg and stretched, feeling small, suggestive aches from the night’s exertions. A bath, she wanted a warm bath. Sliding from the bed, she padded into the bathing room, lighted the water heater, and prepared for a bath. Just as she was adjusting the final temperature of the water, she heard a tapping at their outer door.

Fearing it would wake Jack, she quickly donned her dressing gown and went to answer it. Outside stood every porter in the hotel, the manager, and even a couple of the morning-room attendants, all bearing large baskets of roses…big, gorgeous, extravagant roses in red, pink and white. She admitted them, holding a finger to her lips to insist on quiet. Behind them, on a rolling cart draped with linen, came an exotic display of fresh oranges and raspberries, buttery French madeleines and gâteau and champagne.

She was overwhelmed at the largess. Her heart swelled as she went from one fabulous bouquet to another, growing
intoxicated on the heavenly scents. When the room was cleared of extraneous people, she grabbed an orange and peeled it, then carried it to the bed. She waved it under Jack’s nose and he smiled lazily, keeping his eyes shut. With some coaxing he finally opened his mouth and nibbled it.

“Delicious.” Groaning, he pushed up onto his elbow and looked around the room in amazement. “What’s all this?”

“As if you don’t know,” she said, giving him an enormous hug.

“This is marvelous,” he said, sitting up and raking his hands through his hair. He rubbed his eyes and looked again. “Who are they from?”

“What a tease,” she chided. “You’ll have all the thanks you can bear after I’ve had a warm soak and something to eat. I have to keep up my strength for—”

She halted in the midst of carrying a perfect red rose to him on the bed, realizing he truly was confused.

“You didn’t send them?” She felt her stomach sink.

“I would have loved surprising you with such a grand gesture, Butterfly. But when would I have had time to arrange it?”

She turned to look at all the flowers and the tea cart. For the first time she noticed an envelope on it addressed to My Lovely Mariah.

Her knees weakened as she picked it up, dreading what she would find inside. The signature of the note confirmed her worst fear.

“It’s Bertie,” she said without looking up. She couldn’t bear to see Jack’s face. “They’re from him. He asks that I join him tonight for an evening of games and entertainments at The Wetherington Assembly Rooms.”

He was out of the bed in a heartbeat and reaching for the note.

As he read it, he reddened all the way to the roots of his hair.

“It’s an exclusive club,” he told her, his mouth tensing into a grim line. “Lots of gambling and drinking and fast company.”

“What do I do?” She hadn’t expected such trouble so soon.

“What do
we
do?” he corrected her, taking her into his arms. “We’re in this marriage, this life together, remember? We’ll figure it out together.”

He kissed her tenderly and promised he’d be back as soon as he’d gotten some fresh clothes from his room.

She set the note back on the table of luscious food and noticed in the center of that extravagant display a small velvet box. With unsteady hands she picked it up, opened it, and nearly fainted. There was an oval diamond brooch inside that shone in the morning light like a small sun. It had to be worth a fortune. Staggering back to collapse on the bed, she stared at it in horror.

A gift from Bertie to his mistress.

A gift worth a king’s ransom.

Or a woman’s virtue.

She looked around at the roses and champagne and back at the diamonds. It was a bribe. A not-so-subtle way of letting her know that she’d been claimed and paid for.

And what did it mean that he’d sent such things after she’d proposed marrying Jack? That he intended to let her wed Jack and then claim her as his mistress anyway? Could he have so little regard for Jack’s honor and her own moral standards? It would crush Jack to know Bertie could treat him so. Feeling sick, she clicked the box closed, carried it into the bathroom, and tucked it into a stack of towels.

A moment later, the door reopened and she hurried out to find Jack holding a familiar-looking vellum envelope and handwritten invitation.

“I got one, too,” he said. “The same time, the same place.”

“We have to go, don’t we?”

He nodded. “So, we’ll go.” He pulled her into his arms, taking strength from her and giving it back in equal measure. “And we’ll tell him the truth.”

T
HE
W
ETHERINGTON
A
SSEMBLY
R
OOMS
were actually a single mansion in the west end of London, in an area of townhomes belonging to the wealthy. Built originally by a shirttail royal, it had been sold for debts and had traded hands until it was suggested as a replacement for the gaming houses and deteriorating pleasure gardens being closed in other parts of the city.

The Wetherington never attained or aspired to the respectability of an Almack’s. It developed instead a more dangerous and alluring cachet as the sporting ground of people of fashion who had secrets to keep and money to wager. It was a place where men could be seen openly with their mistresses and gaming buffs could find stakes high enough to tempt jaded palates.

The prince arrived early, claimed the old library—now a gentlemen’s smoking room—as his base for the evening, and settled in to wait. It wasn’t long before Sprat arrived with Baron Marchant in hand.

“There you are.” Bertie waved Marchant to a seat on one of the leather sofas and offered him a cigar. There was an edge about the west-country baron tonight, and a tightness about his red-rimmed eyes that Bertie noted without comment.

“Tell me how your special project is going, Edgar.” He rubbed his hands together in a show of eagerness. “You know, the one I asked you and Jack St. Lawrence to handle a fortnight back.”

“Actually…” Marchant looked as if his collar was bothering him. “I haven’t spoken to St. Lawrence since I reported our success to you more than a week ago. I left the lady in his care. I’m sure all has gone well and the lady will be ready to receive you soon.”

Bertie casually rolled the ash from his cigar into a cut-glass tray. “You haven’t checked to see how things are going?” he asked.

Marchant shrugged, choosing his words carefully.

“I presume that Jack has handled it with his customary thoroughness and dispatch.”

“I have heard rumors that the lady is already in London. That St. Lawrence brought her here and has been seen out and about with her.”

“Truly?” Marchant sat straighter, feigning surprise. “I had no idea.”

“
No
idea?” Bertie smiled one of his affable but totally inscrutable smiles…the sort that men who knew him well dreaded.

A door opened on the far side of the room to reveal Jared St. Lawrence standing outside, his face ruddy with contained outrage. Further pretense was useless. With a defensive huff, Marchant confessed.

“I left him with instructions to see her wedded within two weeks, as I reported to you. The next thing, I knew, he was in London with her. And I saw them together. At Claridge’s. Looking chummy.”

“How ‘chummy’?” Bertie demanded.

“It was a bollocks-up disaster.” Marchant’s words were not so carefully chosen now. “I asked his brother to help me talk some sense into him. I thought he would see reason and you would never—” He halted, realizing his misstep, but Bertie finished for him.

“Never know that he had ‘been there before me’?” Bertie said with ice in his eyes. “Edgar, you and I have had our ups and downs. I’ve always made allowances for your peccadilloes because you were often amusing and sometimes earnest.” Bertie stubbed out his cigar and rose. “But a prince must be certain of whom he can and cannot trust.”

When he turned his back and strolled to one of the bookshelves to peruse the titles, Marchant staggered to his feet and looked to Sprat and Dandy for help. Neither man would meet his gaze. The prince’s sufferance had run out. Marchant tugged down his vest, red-faced, and strode out.

Bertie took a book off the shelf and spoke to Jack’s brother while examining the antique leather binding.

“Jared, my boy, go have a bit of fun. You look like you could use it.”

When the door closed behind Jack’s brother, Bertie turned back to Sprat and Dandy.

“Is she here?”

“Just arrived. Jack is here, too. They arrived together.”

“Is she wearing it?” Bertie asked.

“I didn’t see it,” Sprat said, adding glumly, “but that doesn’t mean much. My eyes aren’t what they used to be.”

“Give them a few minutes, and then bring her to me.
Alone.
”