Cry for Passion (24 page)

“No, thank you, Madame Benoit.” Rose stared at Jack’s reflection instead of the milliner. His stomach clenched, seeing the feminine appreciation inside her eyes. “Just these two, please.”

He wanted to pay for her purchases; he had learned his lesson at the bookshop.

Shoving a hatbox underneath his right arm, he thrust open the shop door; overhead a bell jangled. At the same time Big Ben hailed the hour.

“Look, Mama, it’s Mrs. Clarring!” wafted over the dual bells.

Jack’s gaze snapped toward the two women walking toward them.

For one second he caught their gazes; they glanced away on the second bong.

Rose stepped over the threshold, carrying the second hatbox.

She, too, had heard the two women speak her name.

“Hello, Mrs. Witherspoon,” Rose said politely. “Miss Witherspoon.”

The two women—one a matron, one a debutante—walked past her.

Jack glanced down at black felt and white feathers that danced on a sun-warmed breeze, all that he could see of Rose. He wanted to tell her it would get better: He didn’t. Because it wouldn’t.

Instinctively he found the curve of her elbow; a familiar pulse pounded against his fingers. “Where to now, Madame Clarring?”

Rose did not move for long seconds. Resolutely she squared her shoulders. “My dressmaker is just down the street.”

Jack shortened his steps to match Rose’s steps.

“You don’t have to do this, Jack.”

Jack leaned his head downward to hear over the grind of wheels and the clip-clop of hooves. “Do what?”

“I know what people are saying; I don’t need you to protect me.”

Jack could not stop gossip, any more than he could stop the careening wheels of a Clarence cab.

“I’m not here as your protector.”

Rose halted, face turning upward into the sunshine. “Then why are you here?”

Faint lines—Jack wondered how often she had laughed in the last twelve years—fanned outward from her eyes.

“I smell you, Rose, the scent of your skin, your sex. I still taste you on my tongue.” His fingers tightened around wool, and underneath that, fragile flesh and bone; releasing her elbow, Jack jerked open a glass-plated door. The chatter of women, the whispers of fabrics and the rustling of paper tumbled onto the London street. “I want to be with you.”

The pained pleasure inside her eyes squeezed his testicles.

He would never bring Rose the happiness that Jonathon Clarring had briefly given her, but neither would he condemn her to a life of loneliness.

Rose stepped over the threshold.

All sound abruptly ceased on a closing jangle.

“Mrs. Clarring!” trilled a feminine voice that possessed neither warmth nor sincerity. The milliner had not judged Rose: The expensively gowned woman with elegantly coiffed graying blond hair who hurriedly approached them did. “What a surprise!”

“Hello, Mrs. Cambray,” Rose said evenly, head tilting to stare up at the woman who stood five inches taller than she. “I’m sorry to drop in on you like this. Is Mrs. Throckenberry available?”

“Yes, of course.” Cold eyes raked over Jack. Recognition flared inside the frigidly disapproving gaze. “Please step in here.”

Her unspoken away from respectable customers knotted Jack’s shoulders.

The windowless antechamber was cramped with a pink velvet settee, a pink-striped armchair, a round table smothered in lace and ruffles, and racks of fabric samples.

In its unchecked femininity it was as harshly judgmental of women as the uncompromising masculinity inside the House of Commons.

“Miss Williams,” the proprietress called out in the palpating silence, “bring refreshments.” Lowering her voice, she pointedly asked, “What will you have, sir?”

Rose sat on the pink velvet settee, seemingly impervious of the insult the older woman issued. Jack settled beside Rose, his hip notching her hip.

Her heartbeat pounded inside his groin.

“Brandy,” he said, voice expressionless.

“Certainly.” The woman’s lips thinned, forced to address a woman publicly accused of adultery. “What will you have, Mrs. Clarring?”

Setting the hatbox on the table between the settee and armchair, Rose peeled off her gloves. “I’ll have the same, please.”

“Certainly,” the woman grimly repeated. “I’ll send in Mrs. Throckenberry.”

Rose reached up to take the heavy tome the older woman extended, hip and shoulder nudging his hip and shoulder. “Thank you.”

The silence inside the shop exploded with the closure of the door.

Jack moodily glanced down at Rose, unable to see her face. “Do you enjoy brandy?”

Rose opened the thick, cumbersome book. “It can be quite fortifying.”

Black-and-white illustrations of women with rosebud lips and exaggerated bustles posed on finger-crimped paper. Outside the closed door whispers raged across the shop.

“I’m behaving badly.” Rose abruptly glanced up. Her hip chafed his hip. “I should not have requested brandy.”

There was no sign of the feminine curiosity or the sexual awareness that had earlier shimmered inside her eyes.

“Why did you?” he asked neutrally.

She glanced downward, face dissolving into black felt and white feather.

“I’ve never been shopping with a gentleman,” she evaded.

Nor did she now: Jack had never claimed to be a gentleman.

“I’ve never been shopping with a woman,” he admitted.

Black felt and white feathers became a pale white face and searching blue eyes.

Rapping knuckles overlapped muted whispers. Without waiting for permission to enter, a dark-haired girl pushed open the door, charged voices rushing past her: Mrs. . . . How dare . . . Poor Mr. Clarring . . .

Rose’s pupils dilated with pain.

Jack’s lips tightened into a thin, hard line.

This was the gossip with which she would live every day of her life.

Blushing a painful red, the dark-haired girl—younger than Jonathon Clarring’s secretary—proffered a silver tray: Dark amber liquid sloshed inside crystal glasses. “Mrs. Clarring.”

Head lowering—hat shielding her face—Rose grasped a short, crystal stem; Jack felt the shifting of her hip throughout his body. “Thank you, Miss Williams.”

The young woman extended the tray to Jack. “Sir.”

Jack scooped up the second glass.

The door softly closed. Pinching the stem as if it were a wine-glass, Rose raised her snifter.

Her thoughts were on the other side of the door.

“Cup it,” Jack instructed over the pulse of gossip that throbbed like a heartbeat through the thin walls. “Like you cupped my cock.”

Rose glanced up, startled awareness flickering inside her eyes. “I beg your pardon?”

“Warm the brandy between your fingers”—Jack embraced brittle glass instead of the flesh he ached to touch—“until it’s the same temperature as your body.”

Eyelashes shielding her gaze, Rose’s palm curved around her snifter, fingers smaller than his, more vulnerable than his. “You make drinking brandy sound sensual.”

He saw in the shadows on her face the years of neglect she had experienced, married to a man who chose the oblivion of alcohol over the comfort of her arms.

“It can be,” he said, deliberately drawing Rose’s attention away from the pain of the past. “Bring the glass up . . . like this . . . and slowly inhale.”

Jack held the rim of the snifter level with his chin.

Rose imitated his motions.

“The first smell is called the montant.” Harsh alcohol burned his nose. “Now gently swirl your glass.”

Rose carefully swirled her snifter, amber liquor sloshing.

He felt again the gentle caress of her fingertip, swirling his ear while he suckled her breast.

Her heartbeat had tattooed his tongue.

“A fine brandy—like a woman,” Jack said, cock aching for her and from her, “has a special bouquet. Swirling releases the true character of the liquor. Inhale it”—he raised the snifter to his lips; above the glass he caught her gaze—“like this.”

Rose raised her snifter. Her nostrils delicately flared.

“A fine brandy,” Jack continued, “will have a fruity or floral aroma.”

“I don’t smell anything other than alcohol,” Rose said, a woman of reason but also a woman filled with emotion.

Jack raised his glass and swallowed. Rose duplicated his movements.

“That’s because,” he said calmly, lowering his glass, watching her swallow, “this isn’t a fine brandy.”

A strangled laugh filled the narrow mouth of the snifter. Quickly, she replaced the glass with her fingers and patted dry her lips.

Jack knew her laughter wouldn’t last.

“I can’t change what I’ve done to you, Rose.”

Rose glanced up, feathers dancing, laughter dying. “What do you mean?”

Chapter 25

“I’ve made you an adulteress.” A soft knock brought home his point. “Every day you’ll be judged.” Jack remembered the tear he had licked from the corner of her eye, holding her inside the suspended lift while grinding cables coiled and recoiled around them. “But every day I’ll fuck you until the pain goes away.”

Inside her gaze he could see a question forming.

“Just for a moment,” Jack added.

Always the pain would be waiting in the wings.

A turning click warned Jack of the coming intrusion.

“Hello, Mrs. Clarring!” fell on a sudden lull of gossip. “Sir.”

For a long, charged second Rose assessed Jack. Head suddenly tilting higher, she smiled, a smile that was filled with both warmth and sincerity. “Hello, Mrs. Throckenberry.”

“I’m sorry to keep you waiting.” A gangly, ginger-haired woman—older than the girl who had served their drinks, but younger than Rose—perched on the pink-striped velvet armchair opposite the settee. Instantly she stood. “I’m sorry. Do let me take your cloaks.”

“No, thank you, we’re fine,” Rose assured her.

The ginger-haired woman sat. “I see you’ve been to Madame Benoit’s.” Leaning forward, the woman pried off the top of the hatbox. “May I?”

“Certainly,” Rose said.

Jack silently took Rose’s snifter: He couldn’t protect her from gossip, but he could protect her from cheap brandy. Leaning forward, he set both glasses onto the lace-covered table.

“How exquisite!” Purple flashed in his peripheral vision: The ginger-haired woman held up the heliotrope hat. “I know just the dress to compliment it.” Reaching over the table, she flipped through the fashion book. “There . . . isn’t it splendid?”

Jack had only ever seen a finished frock. Curiously he studied the black-and-white illustration.

Rose dismissed it out of hand: “It has fur—”

“It can be removed,” the dressmaker hurriedly assured her. “Both the dress and the mantle are made of heliotrope faille française , and are quite versatile. They may be worn in spring, summer and fall. The mantle is of a darker heliotrope, and has bead and chenille ornaments on the front and the back, with heliotrope-colored beads on the shoulders. With your figure and your hair, you’d be positively smashing, Mrs. Clarring. I’ve often thought . . .”

Jack alertly glanced up.

The woman’s face matched the pink of the settee. Her eyes were sincere: There was no pettiness inside them.

“What I mean to say, Mrs. Clarring, is that I think you’re a beautiful woman. You’ve been nothing but kind to me, and I deeply regret the reception you’ve received today.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Throckenberry.” Rose was forgiving: Jack was not. “The dress is beautiful. How soon can I have it?”

The ginger-haired woman was not pretty; her smile transformed her face. “I should think in a week.”

A date for Rose’s hearing would be forthcoming in the next week, Jack thought.

“Is that another hat?” The dressmaker’s eyes caught Jack’s gaze: Her beautiful smile evaporated. “May I see it, sir?”

“Certainly,” Jack said evenly, echoing Rose.

Gaze sliding away from Jack, the ginger-haired woman efficiently lifted the hat from the box.

“This is quite charming, Mrs. Clarring. If you’ll turn the page . . .”

Rose studied fashion plates. Jack studied Rose.

Her fingers tracing a panier . . . Her breasts straining her cloak . . . Her hand reaching for a fabric sample . . . Her voice deciding upon a pattern . . .

She was animated in a way he had never before seen a woman.

Jack realized this was the picture of femininity that Parliament held: A woman taking pleasure in simple material comforts. A dress. A home. A child.

They didn’t see that underneath the silk and lace their flesh pulsed with the need for love.

But Jonathon Clarring knew, Jack thought.

The dressmaker gathered together her notes. “We’ll start work immediately, Mrs. Clarring.”

“I have a new place of address, Mrs. Throckenberry.” Rose reached into her reticule and withdrew a card. “Please send the bill here.”

“Yes.” The ginger-haired woman smiled. “Of course.”

The dressmaker disappeared in a swirl of skirts: She did not close the door.

“When you’re inside me”—Rose addressed Jack, but she stared at the empty chair—“does it ease your pain?”

Jack stared down at black felt and white egret feathers. “Yes.”

“Did you like it”—her black cloak tented, breasts rising on an inhalation—“when I suckled your breast?”

The emotion she engendered squeezed his testicles.

“Yes,” Jack said.

“I ache from you, Jack.” Rose glanced up. “But I ache even more to feel you inside me again.”

Her admission of desire squeezed a tear from his glans. Shifting, hand raising—knee pressing into her thigh—Jack skimmed her cheek that was softer than silk. “Rose—”

“Excuse me, Mrs. Clarring, sir,” shattered their private moment.

The dressmaker’s voice was stiff and angry.

Jack braced himself, hand dropping. Knowing what was coming.

He could give Rose moments of pleasure, but always the pain would return.

Rose glanced away from Jack, innocent still of what he had done to her. “Is anything the matter, Mrs. Throckenberry?”

“Mrs. Cambray said we cannot bill your new address.”

Shock blackened Rose’s eyes.

“She said . . .”

Jack waited, focused solely on Rose.

“She said she would be happy to bill your husband’s address.” The dressmaker’s voice shook with embarrassment. “Or if you prefer, you may pay now.”