Just This Once (27 page)

The sun shimmered in her eyes, and reality
came crashing back. Josie found herself with her gown unbuttoned,
her hair wild, her lips bruised and hot from the force of his
kisses. She was lying on the grass, heat flowing through her body
in palpable waves. And Ethan was standing over her, very still,
listening, his face dark and dangerous.

But Josie was less concerned about the sound
they’d heard—a strange sound, rather like a hiccup, or a
sneeze—than she was about the situation in which she found herself
now that the madness of passion had fled. Good Lord, what had she
been doing? What had she been
thinking
?

That was the problem, she decided dazedly.
She sat up, a trembling hand fluttering to her throat. She hadn’t
been thinking at all.

Ethan moved slowly, in a smooth, catlike
prowl, toward the rise that cut up from the landscape just ahead of
the clearing. But at the sound of Josie lurching to her feet behind
him, he turned his head to look at her. He halted.

She knew from the intent expression on his
face that he was listening for another sound, but she was too upset
to care.

“You broke your promise!” she burst out in a
strangled whisper.

For a moment he seemed torn between
investigating the sound and coming back to her. But when she
whirled away from him to begin fastening the buttons of her gown,
and he heard the sob break from her throat, he started toward
her.

He caught her as she was trying to run back
toward the house.

“You’re not going anywhere yet. What promise
did I break?”

“About us... our... marital relations. We
had a b-bargain.”

“Seems to me I wasn’t the only one breaking
it. Or am I wrong, sweetheart?”

There was laughter in his eyes. And
tenderness. But because he was right, and she knew herself to be
equally to blame, Josie’s anger mounted. She thrust his hand from
her arm.

“Don’t touch me. Don’t ever touch me
again.”

“Josie...”

“I mean it. Everything was easy before. We
had an agreement, a business arrangement, and we both knew what was
involved. Now you’re changing the rules. I won’t have it. I
won’t!”

Ethan’s eyes narrowed on the blazing
whiteness of her face. “You weren’t so all-fired-up about the rules
a few minutes ago, Josie.”

“That’s not fair!” Shame and rage vibrated
through her voice. “You promised me! I only wanted to play my part
and then g-go—just as we agreed. You’re treating me like... like a
harlot....”

“No,” he said sharply. There was an odd,
challenging light in his eyes. “Like a wife. My wife. That’s what
you are, Josie.”

But she wasn’t. She was Snake’s wife.

She broke free of his grasp and started back
toward the house. Part of her wanted him to stop her, to kiss her
again until her senses whirled, and nothing mattered but the
sweetness she felt in his arms. And part of her wanted to race as
far from him as she could get, a safe distance, whatever that might
be, where she wouldn’t be subject to the power he had over her.

But he didn’t stop her. She didn’t even know
if he watched her. She ran on, her skirts clenched in her fists,
her feet flying over the meadow. And she didn’t stop until she had
sped in a blur past Mrs. Fielding and Perkins and reached the
solitude of her own room.

By then two truths were hammering through
her, both so huge and frightening, she collapsed onto the bed,
unable to stand.

The first truth was that she had left
everyplace that had ever been home to her, every person who could
have been called family. She was destined to run, to leave, to
wander. And she would leave this place too: Stonecliff Park,
London, England—whatever “home” she might know during this marriage
with Ethan Savage.

That was one truth, but it was the other,
larger one that brought tears springing to her eyes and caused her
chest to ache with unspeakable pain.

The other truth was that she had fallen
inescapably in love with Ethan Savage. And if she didn’t find a way
to fall out of love with him, this time when she left, she would
leave a chunk of her heart behind.

A chunk? Her whole heart.

He may as well cut it out with a Bowie knife
and set it on his mantel. It would be his.

Josie knew she’d die from the pain of
leaving him. Unless she could stop what had already begun. Unless
she could stop herself from loving this black-haired man whose
hypnotic lips and riveting gaze and powerful arms aroused her as no
other man’s ever had, whose voice could be cutting, or unexpectedly
gentle, who made her want to tell him everything and know
everything of him, who made her ache and smile and cry and think
about him night and day, when there were a hundred other things she
ought to be thinking about....

Stop loving him.

But how?

They were going to London today, to continue
this charade—if they could bluff it past Miss Crenshaw’s whispers.
They would be together in the city, even more than they had been
here.

The sob broke from her then, a long, low,
agonized cry muffled behind shaking hands.

How was she to stop the very beating of her
heart?

* * *

Ethan Savage did not go straight back to
Stonecliff Park when Josie fled. He turned instead and went
immediately in search of Ham Tyger.

The former groom was buttering bread for a
sandwich. A wedge of ham sat on the kitchen table as he held the
knife and glanced up at Ethan in the doorway.

“I’m leaving for London this afternoon,
Ham.”

“So I’ve heard. Will you have a bite of
lunch with me before you go, lad?”

Ethan shook his head. “That’s not why I’m
here. There’s something I need you to do.”

“Aye, lad. Just ask it.”

Ethan came forward and leaned both hands
upon the back of the chair. “Listen then. Here’s what you must
do.”

* * *

He waited until all sounds, all footsteps,
had faded away. Until silence claimed the clearing near the stream.
Then, when only the chatter of the birds and the harried scrabbling
of a squirrel remained, he sat up from within the curve of the rise
and drew a deep breath.

He’d gotten drunk last night, after all he’d
gone through, and slept it off for the most part at the inn. But
then, of all the damnable things, he’d awakened early with a raging
headache and a restlessness that no amount of strolling around the
courtyard of the inn could relieve.

He’d rented a horse from the landlord and
ridden out, thinking the air would do him good. Naturally he’d come
here, to Stonecliff Park.

Not to the house, of course. Ethan mustn’t
see him or he’d hit him again. But he’d needed to ride the glorious
meadows and pastures, view the fishpond, the fine trees, the
salutary stream, which should have been his... his!

He’d known it all along. The bitch was no
more a lady than he was! What had she said: she’d been a dance hall
girl? And a cook! And a thief!

Oliver Winthrop wanted to laugh out loud.
But Ethan might still be nearby, so he clapped his flabby fingers
over his mouth and silently thanked his lucky stars that his horse
had thrown him, that he’d ended up sleeping off the last effects of
the liquor here beneath this bloody rise, just out of sight of the
stream.

That had been a bad moment though, when he’d
sneezed. Fortunately, his luck held and Ethan had been too
distracted by the girl’s charms and her tears to investigate
properly.

But then my big handsome cousin has
always been a fool for the cheap little tart, hasn’t he?
Winthrop smirked to himself as he reached for his bowler nestled in
the grass.

Ah, now he had ammunition. Now he had a way
of getting what was rightfully his—of snatching it right back from
his lying, cheating cousin. He’d make Ethan pay for hitting him,
for trying to steal Stonecliff Park from him under false
pretenses.

And that little hussy would pay for
helping.

Dusting off his trousers, and setting his
bowler on his head, Winthrop stood unsteadily and glanced around to
get his bearings. Then, picking his way as quickly and quietly as
he could, he headed back toward the Green Duck Inn.

He wanted to get the afternoon train to
London. That would put him in the city this very afternoon. There
were matters of great importance to see to—and not a moment to
lose.

L
ondon.

It was a city of striking contrasts. By day
there was a panorama of fashionable shops, elegant homes, grand
carriages, and fashionable parks. By night the glimmer of moonlight
and fog and hissing gaslight across damp cobbled streets, the
gaiety of dinner parties, and card parties, and balls, of opera at
Covent Garden, and Gilbert and Sullivan at the Savoy.

On one side of town, beggars and drunkards
and prostitutes prowled the streets of the rookery. On the other,
often only a few blocks away, ladies in velvet cloaks and silks and
taffetas chatted and flirted with gentlemen in swallowtail coats,
walking sticks, and silk top hats.

London was a great city, a monstrous city, a
mysterious city, where the grand homes of those in society, the
pleasant streets and footmen and gardens, stood in stark contrast
to the smoke and factories and gin houses that choked the slums of
the poor.

Josie saw much of it—the gaily magnificent
part of it—on Ethan’s arm during the week.

And everywhere she went, with everyone she
spoke to, she asked about a young woman named Alicia Denby.

All to no avail. Lady Cornish, who invited
her to walk in Hyde Park, had never met any such person. Miss
Peabody and Mr. Himple, whom she met at the Savoy Theatre one
night, looked puzzled and assured her that if the young lady lived
among fashionable people in London, they would surely have known of
her. And the very old, very intimidating dowager Lady MacCormick,
whom she screwed up her courage to ask while shopping in Regent
Street, only stared at her from beneath haughty silver brows and
sniffed that she had never heard of such a young lady, and
therefore this Miss Denby person must not be a young female whom
the Countess should care to know.

Ethan had happened to stroll by the window
at that moment and spotted her, and she had quickly changed the
subject before he came through the door. The last thing she wanted
was for him to discover she was searching for an English girl named
Alicia Denby—she didn’t know how he would react to the idea of her
searching for a possible relative, and she had no desire to find
out. This was
her
secret,
her
dream, Josie told
herself. It had nothing whatsoever to do with Ethan Savage or his
plan to attain his inheritance.

An inheritance that began to appear
overwhelmingly impressive. Not only was there the country estate,
with all its accompanying gardens and grounds, the carriages,
horses, furnishings, and retinue of servants, but Ethan’s house in
Mayfair proved every bit as lovely in its own way as Stonecliff
Park. It boasted three drawing rooms, a music room, a ballroom, a
dining room where twenty guests could be comfortably seated, and
eight bedrooms, including a suite much like the one she and Ethan
shared in the country—separate rooms linked by a sitting room, and
a private door between.

He hadn’t tried to avail himself of that
door, not once the entire week they’d been in London. He hadn’t
tried to kiss her again. He’d been like a stranger during all of
these days, speaking to her only when it was necessary, leaving her
side as soon as he saw that she was able to manage the company in
which she found herself. And spending considerable time at his
club, coming home when she was already in bed, and though she was
wide-awake, she never heard his step come anywhere near her
door.

They hadn’t spoken anything but trivial
niceties to each other in all this time.

Which was just as well, she told herself as
the footman handed her down from the carriage in front of
Stonecliff House. If she was to have a prayer of keeping this
arrangement with Ethan on a proper businesslike footing, and of
saving her heart from being broken when the six months was up and
Ethan sent her packing, she would need to keep as much distance as
possible between them.

His attitude toward her had altered
dramatically, Josie reflected as she mounted the steps, a package
tucked under one arm—the new silk gloves she’d just purchased to
wear to Lady Cartwright’s dinner party tonight folded snugly
inside. Ethan treated her with chilly politeness when they were
alone—and with heart-stopping warmth and attentiveness when they
were out in society. It was all Josie could do when she looked into
his frankly admiring gaze or danced with his arm tight around her
waist, to remember that it was all a game, a pretense. All for the
purpose of inheriting his title and lands, and Stonecliff Park,
which would no more be a part of her life in a few months than
Ethan would.