His Wicked Kiss (59 page)

“Slap me?” he echoed in a menacing murmur.

“It was a dirty trick! Just because you want no part of humanity, Jack, don’t drag me down with you! You can turn your back on the world if you wish, just like Papa did, but I
don’t
intend to join you in your exile, too. I’ve already had that part of my life, t
hank
you very much!”

He stared at her. Did it never occur to Eden that maybe it was humanity that wanted no part of him?

“Say something!” she ordered.

“Very well. Now you know why I wanted to keep you in Ireland,” he uttered softly, gazing at her in reproach. “I knew that bringing you here would ruin everything sooner or later. That they would come between us, with all their artificiality, and I would end up like this—the villain, as always. But like a doting fool, I could not say no to you. I could not stand your tears.”

“Jack.”

“What do you want me to say? Go ahead. Side with them against me. I half expected it,” he added bitterly.

“I’m not siding against you, Jack.”

“Of course you are.” He glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the ballroom. “These are the same people who cast me into the gutter when I was a boy. Now their approval means more to you than our love. But so be it. You got what you wanted from me. You used me and my family to get yourself into this world. Now that you’re here, I’ve served my purpose, haven’t I?”

She searched his face in disbelief. “That is not true, you cannot believe that of me. Jack—I am your family. You said it yourself a few days ago.”

“Well, I was mistaken. My crew is my family. And it’s with them that I belong.” He paused, turning to reach for the door. “Good-bye, Eden.”

“Don’t you dare walk out on me now.”

“I’m going to go,” he said calmly, a rare note of defeat in his voice. “You do what you want. Dance to your heart’s content. I’ll be back in the autumn to take my child when he is born.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Especially if it’s a son. You know I need an heir to run the company. I’ll hire a wet nurse to care for him. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to, but I’m not raising my child here,” he said in a bleak tone. “I’m going to take him someplace far away, where people don’t set so much store on how high you were born, but on what you did with your life once you got here. Someplace no one can ever hurt him or make him feel like he doesn’t belong. India, maybe, where Lord Arthur lives. Society’s quite a bit looser there. There’s always Jamaica.”

“What madness is this?” she whispered, staring at him, her face gone pale. “You are not going to take my child away from me.”

As her husband, it was, of course, his legal right.

“You can always have another,” he said in a soft, cruel tone. “I’m sure you’ll find no shortage of prospective fathers who’d be more than happy to oblige you.”

“I am not like your mother, Jack, and I will not permit you to slander my honor.”

He fell silent, watching her stand up to him, just like she always had. God, he’d miss her.

“Your dubious birth doesn’t give you the right to
act
like a bastard,” she added.

“Ah, but I am one, sweet. And that’s all I’ll ever be.” With that, he walked out, beckoning a servant through the crowd of garden ladies who had gathered to eavesdrop outside the library door. They fled back from him when he came out, scattering like so many pecking birds. He ignored them.

“Fetch my brother, Colonel Lord Winterley, to take my wife home,” he ordered the footman. The library door was still open, so he turned to steal one last glance at his beautiful wife.

She was standing as though rooted in place, her face white.

“You’ll go to Damien’s now,” he instructed her. These flat parting words would have to serve as his farewell. With his stomach in knots, Jack closed the door on her and walked away.

* * *

Eden swayed on her feet as the shock of his departure sent a tremor through her. It took her a long moment to absorb what had just happened. He meant to leave now for South America, just like that?

No. There was no way she was letting him leave like this. She rushed to the door, only to hesitate when she heard the ladies’ worried murmurs on the other side.

Would they disdain her now?

She was terrified to face them, for she was nowhere near as brazen as Jack, but she saw there was no way around this. There was only one door out, and to catch up to Jack, she’d have to meet the ladies head-on. She took a deep breath and steeled herself to face her scandal. “Right.”

The minute she opened the door, they fluttered.

“Oh, my dear child, are you all right?”

“Did he hurt you?” one whispered.

“No, no,” Eden assured them.

“You should lie down. Do you need the smelling salts?”

“No, t
hank
you so much. Please, let me through. I just want my husband.”

“We all want your husband, dear,” a bored lady near the back remarked drily, though others tittered at her racy remark.

Eden shot a scowl in her direction. “Please, let me through! I need to talk to Lord Jack.”

“But, dear, his behavior was disgraceful!”

“Yes, I know, but, you see, I need to stop him before he goes—”

“Now he is leaving you?” they cried, appalled on her behalf.

“Not if I can help it,” she declared. Finally extricating herself from the knot of solicitous but nosy ladies, Eden strode down the corridor that flanked the ballroom, staring straight ahead.

She ignored the looks and kept her head high, though her cheeks flamed crimson. Their rude gawking and whispers helped her experience firsthand what Jack had gone through all his life.

A few people smiled at her, as though to assure her that they did not hold her culpable for her husband’s outrageous behavior, but having their forgiveness for herself alone only made her furious.

They did not know Jack. He was no villain. He was her lion, her love. They did not understand him.

But you do
, her conscience chided,
and you should have known better. You should have been gentler with him
.

In short, she should have kissed him back.

She’d had her chance to prove her loyalty and failed him. It broke her heart to see it now, but she knew the charge was true. She could have wept to know the hurt she had caused in the very place where he was most vulnerable. Outrageous as his scandalous kiss had been, now he felt betrayed. Finally, she saw that.

But how could he ever think she preferred the ton to him?

She could not live without him.

He was the rock of her life.

It was just so hard for him to believe that because no one had ever loved him before.

When it came down to it, Eden realized, her words back there in the library were empty. She would have gladly given up London for him, gone and lived in a
palafito
in the middle of a jungle swamp, rather than let her darling scoundrel ever doubt that he was everything to her, sun and moon and stars.

Aye, with Jack instead of Connor, life in the jungle might indeed have been pure paradise.

She could only pray it was not now a paradise lost.

T
hank
s to the garden ladies’ interference, by the time Eden burst out the front door of the mansion into the night, Jack was gone.

A chill crossed her heart, for she feared that, this time, unlike at Ireland, he wasn’t coming back.

The rain had stopped, hut the air was warm and wet. The trees and tall bushes of the sculpted grounds still dripped, dark, hulking mounds of deep greenery in the night. A few outdoor lanterns on graceful posts threw off watery globes of orange light, barely warding off the pitch blackness.

Eden wrapped her arms around herself and walked numbly down the front path, trying to spy him. Her steps were like those of one lost in a dark forest; her feet carried her all the way to the far edge of the graveled carriage loop. Her dancing slippers were soaked through from the wet ground, ruined, but she didn’t care.

Jack.

Oh, this couldn’t be happening. He had left her.

He was gone. Tears filled her eyes; her mind reeled.

“Jack!” she yelled into the void, then whispered his name again as two tears spilled down her cheeks.

He was really gone—and if she had thought she was alone in the jungle, it was nothing compared to this. The whole world seemed abandoned.

She stood there trembling, still searching the darkness for him, and fighting back a sob.

They
couldn’t
leave it like this. If something went wrong, she might never see him again. Never get the chance to tell him how much she loved him. To say that she was sorry—yet again. Oh, this love business was so much harder than it looked.

She drew in a jagged breath. Perhaps if she hurried, she could still catch up to him before he sailed away.

Fighting to regain her composure, she decided to ask Damien to take her down to the Knight Enterprises docks at once.

Jack might not want to see her, but she would make him listen and would not leave him alone until he finally believed her again when she told him how she felt.

Without another moment to lose, she pivoted and headed back inside.

As she started to walk back toward the house, a deep voice suddenly called her name from somewhere off to her right.

“Eden!”

She drew in her breath with sudden hope, but when she whirled around, she could not see anyone.

She scanned the area, not sure who had spoken.

Then, from among the dense greenery that flanked the mansion, a tall, powerful figure stealthily emerged from the shadows, coming out into the open. Plain clothes. A guarded posture. He walked toward her across the wet grass. As he came closer, the lamplight glimmered on his blond hair.

She narrowed her eyes, unsure if they were playing tricks on her again. “
Connor
?”

“Eden. Is it really you?”

“Connor!” She hesitated, torn between running toward him in happy reunion with one who was all but family to her, and running away, instinctively alerted to some nameless danger by the strange light burning in his eyes. Choosing neither in her hesitation, she stayed in place, but he joined her at the edge of the graveled carriage loop within a few strides, and warmly grasped her offered hands.

Her sense of this moment was surreal. Had he truly been standing outside the conservatory staring at her?

“Oh, Eden. I can’t believe I finally found you. T
hank
God you’re safe!” He leaned down and kissed her forehead.

“What are you doing here?” she cried, absently noticing the swath of dark wool cloth slung over his shoulder.

“Looking for you, of course! Let me see you now. Oh, Edie, you look so beautiful,” he said reverently, gazing at her expensive gown and her elegantly coiffed hair. “Just like the ladies in your magazines! I can’t believe I finally found you.”

“I can’t believe you’ve come!” she answered. “I-I thought I saw you through the window in the conservatory—Lord, you gave me such a fright! But then you were gone, and I thought I had just imagined you.”

“Yes, well, I’m very sorry about that. I didn’t mean to startle you.” He smiled. “The servants wouldn’t let me in. I had to make sure I had the right place. It wasn’t easy to find you. I saw Lord Jack, too,” he murmured, gazing at her. “He was yelling at you.”

Her face fell, then she lowered her head. “Yes, we had a bit of a disagreement tonight.”

“Eden, your happiness means the world to me. I should hate to think that any man would ever raise his voice to you.”

She smiled wanly at him. “T
hank
s, Con. So, where’s Papa? Please tell me he’s come, too?”

“Well, he’s still on the boat moored in the Thames. Would you like to see him? I could take you there now.”

“Of course I would! I was just heading to the docks myself.”

“You were?”

She nodded. “Jack’s brother can take us there in his carriage.”

“Wait,” he said as she started to pull away. “Eden.” Connor’s face had darkened with a look of concern. “I think I’d better warn you that your father’s been through a lot since you ran away.”

She paled. “Is he all right? He’s safe—?” The reminder of what she must have put them through chastened her. This night would be a reckoning in more ways than one.

“Yes, he’s safe,” the Australian conceded.

T
hank
God
. She lowered her head. “He’s angry, isn’t he?”

“Yes.” Connor nodded. “A bit. He misses you—so very much. He needs you, Eden. He has often told you so. I would be lying if I said he wasn’t very badly hurt by the way you left.” He stared at her in his unnerving way, which she had managed to forget until just now.

She was beginning to wish he’d let go of her hands.

“But for all that, he still loves you,” he said softly. “Indeed, he wouldn’t want to live if he couldn’t have you by his side.”