Lord Savage (2 page)

Swiftly I left the balustrade, hoping the other woman would not realize that I’d been
such an eager and shameless voyeur. Although as an American I wasn’t required to defer
to English nobility, I still sank into a graceful curtsey to the viscountess to be
polite, and also to give myself another few seconds to collect myself.

“My lady,” I murmured, keeping my head bowed until the viscountess motioned for me
to rise, and to reply. “On the contrary, Lady Carleigh, I have been enjoying the evening
immensely. But the company has been so brilliant that I became a bit overwhelmed,
and required a fresh breath of night air to recover.”

Lady Carleigh smiled, benignly accepting my social fib for what it was. Considered
the epitome of aristocratic beauty, the viscountess had a flawless complexion and
masses of auburn hair, but what most men noticed first was her voluptuous figure,
which not even the strictest of corsets could fully subdue. She was a particular favorite
of King Edward, and I’d heard rumors that she’d shared his majesty’s royal bed. The
viscountess was definitely part of the fast, fashionable set around the king, a lady
who clearly did whatever she pleased, and exactly the kind of person that I had wished
most to meet here in London.

“I did not believe New Yorkers were overwhelmed by anything,” Lady Carleigh said,
bemused. Lightly she fingered the thick dog collar of pearls around her throat. “Unless,
perhaps, it was the number of eager young bucks you had surrounding you in the ballroom.”

I smiled, too, one beautiful woman speaking nonsense to another.

“There was a crush of them, yes,” I admitted. “Doubtless I am the novelty of the evening,
the poor widow lady fresh from America.”

Lady Carleigh chuckled, her gaze taking in my silk evening gown by Worth and the diamonds
around my throat and wrists and pinned into my dark hair.

“You are too modest, my dear Mrs. Hart,” she said. “There is nothing poor about you,
as everyone knows perfectly well. You are the enchanting merry widow who has sailed
among us on a wave of gold. True, you have youth and beauty to recommend you as well,
but money is always most alluring to eager bachelors. You need only look at the success
of the former Misses Astor and Vanderbilt. I’ve no doubt you’ll be engaged to some
dashing peer of your own by the end of the season.”

“Forgive me, my lady, but you misunderstand,” I said, determined not to leave such
a grievous misconception hanging between us. “I have neither wish nor need of another
husband, even one with a title.”

“None?” Lady Carleigh asked archly, not believing me.

I shook my head. “My first marriage was not a love match, but an alliance for trade,
contrived by my father to cement his business assets. My late husband was a distant,
dispassionate gentleman, and I shed no tears at his death. Now that I have at last
earned my independence, I refuse to be shackled to another tyrant in trousers. I wish
for—for something more.”

“Heavens, such a speech,” said Lady Carleigh, more than a little condescending in
the way that the English often were. She raised her brows as she openly appraised
me. “You American women are so very frank.”

“Indeed I am, Lady Carleigh.” I wouldn’t apologize for what I’d said. I’d only spoken
the truth. I
had
been forced to sacrifice my youth and innocence to a much older man who’d no use
for either quality, and I was determined to make up for the time I had lost in my
loveless marriage. Once again I thought of the gentleman in the garden below, the
man who was as tempting to me as the Devil himself.

“Your fortune-hunting bachelors are quite safe from me, my lady,” I continued. “I
have spent my first twenty-five years pleasing others. Now I am determined to please
only myself.”

Before the viscountess answered, the gentleman in the garden suddenly roared with
his release, a deep, guttural sound of such purely male satisfaction that it made
me gasp, more with longing than surprise. Lady Carleigh hurried across the stone flags
of the gallery to lean over the balustrade in the place that I had discovered earlier.

“Oh, that must be Savage,” the viscountess declared, peering into the shadows. “I
would recognize his triumphant war cry anywhere.”

“‘Savage’?” I repeated, unable to keep from joining Lady Carleigh at the balustrade.
Clearly I needn’t have feared that she would find offense or mortification in the
sight of the two lovers. Instead, the viscountess appeared as eager as I had been
to glimpse the couple below. “‘Savage’? He is dressed quite like a gentleman, so I
assumed that—”

“Hush, hush, there he is,” the viscountess said eagerly, lowering her voice to a whisper
and motioning for me to do the same. “That is the Earl of Savage, my dear, Savage
by name, and likewise by inclination. There is
such
an air of danger about him that makes him quite irresistible, as any woman who has
been
possessed
by him will attest. Ah, what a splendidly male beast!”

She spoke with such authority that I wondered if Lady Carleigh herself had been one
of the women
possessed
by this same lord. In New York, such an appraisal would have been unspeakably shocking,
but here it seemed only one more worldly observation. I had been presented to the
viscountess only a few hours before, and now here I was being her confidante in a
most intimate—and most fascinating—conversation.

I craned my neck to see over Lady Carleigh’s shoulder. To my disappointment, Lord
Savage had already tucked his member back into his trousers, and was standing to one
side while his partner sat on the bench and attempted to put her disordered dress
back to rights.

Finally the lady rose, still patting her hair. But no matter how many small repairs
she made to her appearance, she wouldn’t be able to change the expression of wanton
satisfaction on her face, her eyes heavy-lidded and her mouth swollen with it. If
she returned to the ballroom now, there wouldn’t be a man or a woman who wouldn’t
guess immediately what she’d been doing in the garden. From the adoring way she was
gazing at the gentleman, she didn’t seem to care if all of London knew it.

He reached out and brushed back a stray lock of her hair, tucking it back into place.
He said something that made her laugh, and then bent to kiss her quickly. She tucked
her hand into his arm, and together they vanished into the shadows.

Lady Carleigh straightened, and nodded briskly.

“Lady Cynthia Telford, used and discarded once again,” she said with obvious relish.
“A sorry creature who grovels for male attention—completely unworthy of Savage. He
knows it, too. Contempt mixed with carnality never makes for a pretty dish, nor one
to be savored at length.”

As my thoughts were still occupied with Savage, I said nothing. Lady Carleigh’s dismissive
comments surprised me. Savage hadn’t appeared exactly contemptuous, considering the
way he’d seen to Lady Telford’s satisfaction as well as his own, nor had the lady
acted as if she’d been either used or discarded. Far from it—so far, in fact, that
I would have given much to trade places with her in a heartbeat. I wanted this kind
of intimacy, this kind of trust, this kind of passion, with a man like Lord Savage.

No, I wanted it
with
Lord Savage.

“They are not lovers?” I asked carefully, not wanting to betray too much.

“Those two?” Lady Carleigh chuckled, still gazing into the now-empty garden. “Hardly.
She was a passing amusement for him last summer, and it would appear she longs to
renew their
affaire.
But it’s clear that Savage has no interest in that, or in her, despite what we have
just seen. He is a restless man, one who lives for the thrill of the hunt. It will
take a far more interesting woman than Lady Telford to capture him.”

A strong wave of relief swept through me, but still I needed to make certain I hadn’t
misinterpreted.

“You are sure, my lady?” I asked. “I thought Lord Savage seemed rather charmed by
her ladyship.”

“Oh, I am sure there is nothing between them, Mrs. Hart.” Lady Carleigh turned away
from the garden to study me shrewdly. “But tell me, my dear. Exactly how much of that
little engagement did you witness? No false modesty, now. You were already watching
when I found you here, weren’t you? How much did you see of Lord Savage’s, um, equipage?
Enough to engage your own fancy?”

I looked evenly at the viscountess. There was nothing to be gained by denial, and
yet my nature was to hold back, to retreat to the safety of privacy, especially from
someone who was, really, still a stranger. To confide like this was a risk, and yet,
if I didn’t, this opportunity might be lost.

“What did I see of him, Lady Carleigh?” I repeated slowly. “Why, I saw … everything.”

“
Quite
everything, my dear?” Lady Carleigh smiled, thoughtfully trailing her furled fan
along the curve of her cheek. “A sufficiency to inspire you to long to see more?”

I opened my fan again, the ivory blades clicking softly one by one as the ostrich
plumes fluttered apart. I was acutely aware of the significance of her answer. With
the scandalous Lady Carleigh to lead me, doors to every kind of adventure—including
those that I’d still no words to describe—might swing open to welcome me.

“I have been inspired, yes,” I said cautiously, sharing more than I’d dreamed possible
of myself, but far less than Lady Carleigh obviously expected. “But I am still such
a newcomer to your country, and hope to be similarly
inspired
many more times in the course of my visit here.”

Lady Carleigh laughed. “Oh, you shall, Mrs. Hart, you shall. I have taken an instant
liking to you, my dear, and I am sure we shall become the fastest of friends. Now
come with me, and let us see what manner of inspiration we can arrange for you this
very evening.”

We returned to the ballroom together, and at once we were both carried off to the
dancing by eager partners. Yet, as one dance led to another, and a new partner with
it, I became aware of a change in the gentlemen asking me to dance, and it was clear
that my new friend Lady Carleigh had already kept her promise.

Gone were the callow bachelors my own age and younger, respectfully wooing me as a
future wife and investment. In their place were a different kind of gentlemen, confident
men in the powerful prime of their lives who made little secret of their desire not
for marriage but for seduction. Each open look of appraisal, each suggestive whisper
in my ear, excited me further. I had always thought the waltz a slightly insipid dance,
but now I wished the orchestra would play forever.

“You must come riding with me in Hyde Park,” my current partner was saying. He was
an officer in a splendid uniform that emphasized his broad chest and the numerous
medals that hung there. “You Americans do ride, eh, Mrs. Hart?”

“Of course we do, Colonel Roberts,” I said, willing to acknowledge the obvious double
entendre to his question. The colonel had potential, enough that I saw no harm in
encouraging him. “I have always enjoyed the feel of a high-mettled steed beneath me.”

The officer laughed heartily, his teeth showing beneath his clipped mustache. “I’d
wager you do, Mrs. Hart. How I’d like to see you well mounted when—”

“Stand aside, Roberts,” interrupted another man, tapping the colonel on the shoulder.
“This is my dance with the lady.”

To me this seemed the very height of rudeness, especially since I was enjoying the
colonel’s risqué banter. But as soon as I turned to confront the interloper, my rebuff
vanished. I’d never seen this man’s face before, yet I knew him immediately.

“Now, Roberts,” the newcomer said, faintly bored, his manner belonging to a man accustomed
to being obeyed. “There are plenty of other ladies who will welcome your leaden style
of flirtation.”

The colonel scowled and glared, clearly considering standing his ground and defending
it. But he, too, knew the other man’s identity and his rank with it, both sufficient
to take precedence over his own pride. The colonel had no choice, really. He bowed
curtly in concession and backed away, abandoning me to the other man.

The other man:
no, he was the only man, making all the others in the room fade away and vanish in
my eyes.

He was taller than the colonel, tall enough that by merit of his height alone he would
stand out in any gathering of ordinary men. His hair was black and sleek, his eyes
hooded with ennui, and, ignoring the fashion for mustaches and beards set by the king,
his jaw was so clean-shaven as to gleam faintly blue-black. His face was severe, all
bones and hard planes, and in contrast his mouth was sensually full.

His features could be called patrician, and indeed he was by birth an aristocrat.
But there was also a ruthlessness to his expression that did not belong on a man who
had been born to wealth and privilege. Rather it was the rapacious look of a man who
would take whatever he wanted, no matter the cost or the risk, and never be denied.

It was the look of the man that I had always desired without realizing it. Why not,
when it felt as if I’d been waiting my entire life for this exact moment?

“Lord Savage,” I murmured. “I am honored.”

I began to dip into a curtsey. He, however, did not wish to wait for such a nicety.
Now, I was neither small nor delicate, yet he swept me up into his arms and back into
the waltz and the center of the crowded ballroom, leading me away with such authority
that I’d no choice but to follow.

I felt both captured and captivated, and as I gazed up at his handsome face, I felt
as dazzled as any schoolgirl. His eyes were pale, blue and gray and the color of mist,
and ringed with dark lashes. Beautiful, mysterious eyes with a startling intensity,
a gaze that could equally intimidate and fascinate.

“I must compliment you, my lord,” I said, more breathlessly than I wished. Striving
to recover my composure, I glanced down from his face to the beautifully knotted white
silk tie at his throat.