Cry for Passion (15 page)

“No,” she said.

They, too, had families of their own.

“Will you allow me to win you a separation?”

Rose stiffened in rejection. But she could no longer deny the precariousness of a woman’s legal standing.

Frances Hart had won liberation from her son, but only because the man beside her had withheld evidence.

“Yes,” Rose said, hand tightening around the darkness that embraced her fingers. And then, because it could no longer be avoided, she asked: “Why didn’t you offer to procure a separation for Mrs. Whitcox?”

The cab abruptly halted, wheels rolling backward . . . forward.

“Whoa, Bessy,” penetrated wood and glass. “Whoa there, I say.”

The heat that suddenly crushed her fingers evaporated into chill night air. Cool leather weighted her palm, the glove he had earlier removed.

For a long second she didn’t think he’d answer.

But then he did.

“For the same reason I didn’t ask James Whitcox for a divorce,” he said.

Jack Lodoun had needed Rose to see him. Rose did indeed see.

Chapter 16

“You loved Parliament more than you loved Mrs. Whitcox,” Rose Clarring deduced.

“Power,” Jack bluntly corrected. “Not Parliament.”

Inside the cab window, two pale images framed swivelling equine ears.

Rose Clarring. Jack Lodoun.

A woman who betrayed her husband. A man who had betrayed his lover.

Metal jangled. The cab rocked.

“I chose power,” he repeated.

Jack would live with the knowledge of the choice he had made for the rest of his life. And so would Rose.

Standing—umbrella and satchel weighting his right hand—he threw open the cab door. Digging out a florin from his coat, he tossed it upward.

Deft fingers caught the tumbling silver; immediately the cabby—age and face indiscernible in the dual lamplights of the hansom—settled back and bunched a scarf over the lower half of his face.

Turning, fingers throbbing as if they were his cock, Jack held out his left hand.

The incurious eyes of the cabby prickled his skin.

He had seen Rose Clarring. He now possessed her address.

Reporters would pay handsomely for the cabby’s information.

Pale, slender fingers reached out of the flickering darkness and firmly clasped his fingers.

Sensation fisted inside Jack’s chest.

Rose had such small hands.

She stood, eyes momentarily glinting blue in the lamplight. Turning—the platform stabilized by his weight—she stepped down off the cab into darkness.

Jack followed, platform tilting, groaning, no one to offset his actions.

The blue of the row house was black in the night.

Head bowed—blond hair bleeding into black wool—Rose unlocked the door.

Jack stepped into unmitigated blackness and turned the bolt.

The finality of their actions echoed inside the foyer.

Gas hissed. Blue light sparked. White fire flamed.

Rose lit a crystal sconce; a bronze-framed mirror and a cherry table leapt out of the darkness.

Jack leaned leather burgundy against clawed brass. Straightening, he hooked his umbrella on the narrow coat tree and shrugged out of his coat.

“I don’t have brandy,” reverberated off the naked expanse of wood flooring and empty walls; a small hand offered a black cloak, “but there’s wine, if you’d like. . . .”

Rose’s voice trailed off uncertainly.

Jack accepted her cloak and hung it beside his.

He didn’t want wine. He wanted her to hold him.

He wanted her to accept what he could not.

“Wine will be fine,” Jack said, hooking her black bonnet onto the coat tree beside his gray hat.

Retreating heel taps clattered down the hallway.

The Noes Lobby was carpeted; Jack’s passage between the Division desks had made no sound when he had voted—not for law but for the party.

The tie knotting his throat tightened like a noose.

Grabbing the tin of matches out of the top drawer of the small foyer table, he climbed the narrow stairs.

The first door opened into a rectangular room empty of furniture. Jack tried the second door.

White porcelain gleamed.

The small bathroom smelled of Rose.

There was no gas upstairs. He lit an oil-filled sconce.

Nickle-plated pipes gleamed in the flickering light. A damp pink towel draped a circular curtain ring.

Jack’s stomach clenched, realizing Rose had showered before visiting him.

He lifted the wooden lid on the toilet.

A stair creaked in warning.

Unfastening four of five trouser buttons, Jack pulled out his semiswollen flesh and aimed it downward.

Approaching heel taps clicked.

Water splattered water.

The sharp heel taps abruptly halted.

Out of the corner of his eyes Jack glimpsed Rose, black-clothed body framed by dark walnut.

In her two hands she held a bottle of wine and two water glasses.

She did not turn away. Jack did not stop urinating.

“I opened the wine,” she said quietly.

Her interested gaze danced up and down his vertebrae.

Jack shook himself before unfastening the last trouser button. “I’m going to shower.”

He didn’t want to go to her smelling of politics.

Jack jerked the porcelain pull; the toilet loudly flushed in the silence.

Still Rose did not turn away.

Releasing the front closure of his suspenders, Jack hooked his thumbs into the band of his trousers and smallclothes.

“I’ll get you a clean towel,” she said, watching the two layers of wool slide over his hips.

Her gaze latched onto his cock.

He grew longer. He grew harder.

“This is fine,” Jack said, stepping out of his trousers and smallclothes. Straightening . . . shirttail bunching around the base of his shaft . . . he grabbed the towel she had earlier used and brought it to his face. “It smells of you.”

“I don’t . . .” Uncertainty hitched her voice. “In what way?”

Jack tossed the towel into the plain, white porcelain sink, heavy sex swinging. “It smells like roses.”

“It’s the soap,” she offered.

Gaze snaring Rose’s gaze, Jack shrugged out of his jacket. Securing the bottle of wine between her breast and her left forearm, Rose stepped over the threshold and extended her right hand for gray, pinstriped wool.

The sharp feeling he had felt earlier while standing on the cab gauging her small hand squeezed his chest until he struggled to breathe.

This woman could lose her liberty. For no other reason than taking his body into hers.

Jack said neutrally, “Then I’ll smell like roses, too.”

A welcome scent over the stench of greed and power.

Rose accepted each article of clothing: waistcoat, shirt—his sex sprang free—vest. Dropping down the lid to the toilet, he sat—engorged cock dangling inside the commode—and peeled off his shoes and socks.

“When you . . .” Rose hesitated; Jack stepped into the shower, her gaze branding his buttocks. “. . . fucked your fist last night, did you touch yourself like you did the other night?”

A tear of excitement was squeezed out of his swollen glans.

“Yes,” Jack said, pulling the curtain closed.

Metal hooks sliding around a circular metal rod scraped his skin.

“Do you like it when a woman touches you like that?” breached the curtain.

The water was cold. His cock was hot.

“Yes.”

“Had a woman ever watched you before?” Rose asked over the stinging drone of the shower.

Hot water invaded the cold. Gray steam spiraled upward like cigar smoke.

Jack reached for the soap dish embedded in the tiled wall. “No.”

The truth.

No woman had ever seen his naked emotions.

“I’m glad I was the first, Jack.”

The scent of roses grew with each lather of his hands. “Are you, Rose?”

Would she still be glad come the morning?

Raining water greeted his question.

Jack showered off the soap: Rose was gone.

Emotion knifed through him.

Rose had collected his trousers, smallclothes, shoes and socks, and laid down a towel in their stead. Protecting him from the danger of slipping on wet tile.

But who would protect Rose?

Roughly Jack dried and draped the two towels—one blue, one pink—over the curtain ring.

No personal artifacts cluttered the white marble-topped wash-stand.

Jack opened the top side drawer.

Various jars, a toothbrush and tin of toothpowder gleamed in the shadowy depths.

The second drawer contained the comb he sought; it lay on top of a stack of washcloths beside a silver-plated mirror and hair-brush.

A gold hair shone in the flickering light.

He was overcome by the need to know Rose.

The bottle of Rose’s Lubrifiant occupied the third drawer, pushed between wood and thick towels. The top towel bulged with a familiar shape.

Jack remembered Rose’s utter loneliness when she had climaxed.

He did not know if he would see the same terrible solitude in her eyes when she came with his cock buried deep inside her. But he could hope that tonight would be worth the pain that the morrow would bring.

Jack returned the comb to the second drawer.

Engorged cock feinting the air, he walked naked to the bedroom at the end of the narrow corridor.

An oil lamp lit an iron bed. A rose-quilted duvet and a white sheet were turned down in readiness.

The bottle of wine waited on a walnut nightstand, two mismatched water glasses carefully arranged in front of it.

Pale movement snared his gaze.

Rose squatted in front of a small iron fireplace.

White cotton hugged her hips and buttocks. Gold and shadow streaked her shoulder-length hair.

Jack had told her she was a very pretty woman. He had lied: Rose Clarring was a beautiful woman.

His gray, pinstriped frock coat hung from an oval mirror. His trousers and smallclothes were neatly folded on top of a scar-pitted chest.

Bare feet silent, Jack padded across the wooden floor and reached into the inner pocket of his jacket.

His fingers closed around cold metal. Her fingers imprinted the small of his back.

“May I?” Rose asked.

Straightening, turning . . . spine tingling . . . Jack gave her the small, silver-plated condom holder: It fit in the palm of her hand.

“This is much more attractive than a tin bearing Queen Victoria’s likeness,” she huskily observed.

Above the silver holder, light and shadow caressed the tops of her breasts, plunged inside the low-cut white cotton chemise. Dark nipples edged the square neckline.

“Gladstone’s image is quite popular, too,” Jack said, hands fisting to prevent himself from taking more than she offered.

Rose glanced up. “I would think the likeness of Mr. Gladstone would wilt any erection.”

The image of the dour queen chased away that of the stern statesman.

“I assure you, not nearly as quickly as the thought of begetting nine children,” Jack said dryly.

The budding smile faded from her eyes.

She tilted her head downward, gaze hidden by the fan of gold-tipped lashes. A small snap exploded the silence.

Jack glanced at the silver holder she had opened, and the six compartments that each held a condom.

Carefully Rose selected a rolled sheath. “Have you ever wanted children?”

Silently Jack took the condom holder out of her hand and snapped it closed. “No.”

“Why not?”

Jack envisioned his parents, mother worn-out from childbearing, father a bantam rooster, ruling his roost.

They resembled the queen and the former prime minister, he thought.

Cynicism curling his lips, he tossed the condom holder onto the bed. “I never fancied procreating for God and country.”

Heat jolted up his urethra.

“Do you have brothers to carry on your name?”

Was Jonathon Clarring the last of his line?

“Yes,” Jack said, watching Rose’s somber face as she explored his cock.

A sharp nail traced blood veins that throbbed inside his eyes.

“You watched me in the bookshop.”

Jack watched her now.

Testing his weight. Measuring his circumference.

Outlining the taut ring of his foreskin.

Her lashes flickered. “Did you feel my touch, Jack?”

“Yes,” he said.

Each probe. Each glide.

“Your skin is so soft here.” A small fingertip—smooth and gentle instead of rough and blunt—spread the slick lubrication of his desire over his glans. “Softer than leather.”

Fighting off a wave of vulnerability, Jack reached up—carefully cradling her face between his hands—and gave her unimpeded access to his body. “I’m not a dildo.”

Just a politician.

. . . and didst commit whoredom . . .

“I’m not experienced.” Head tilted downward—gaze hidden by the fan of her lashes—Rose positioned the condom. “But neither am I an ignorant bride.”

Gritting his teeth, Jack concentrated on the baby-fine hair that clung to his hands and her cheekbones that pulsed against his palms rather than the rubber that slipped and slid and the fingers that struggled to harness him.

“I know what I want, Jack.”

Firmly she gripped the base of his shaft with her left hand. Rubber ballooned over his glans.

“What do you want, Rose?” Jack asked, his heart beating inside his cock.

“You.” Shadow licked her lips. Rubber pinched his frenulum. “Like this. Hard. Erect. Wanting me.”

The truth weighed more heavily than the blood that pulsed inside his cock.

She had said she would pay the price. But she did not yet know the cost.

Rubber squeezed Jack’s chest.

“I’m not a dildo,” he repeated, fingertips digging into soft hair and warm skin, independently seeking the essence of Rose Clarring. “When you take my cock inside you, you will lose all your legal rights.”

“Exactly what rights will I be losing?” she countered, gaze lowered, face solemn. “The right to sleep alone each night?”

“A woman charged with adultery forfeits custody of her children and maintenance from her husband,” Jack said bluntly.