Lord Savage (26 page)

“I will stay, Savage,” I whispered, blinking back tears of emotion as I curled as
closely against him as I could. “I will.”

*   *   *

The next day, I sat in Savage’s enormous marble bath, basking drowsily in the steamy
water while my maid, Simpson, washed my hair. Through the open bathroom door, I saw
Savage behind his desk in the sitting room, reading and reviewing various letters
from his bankers and lawyers that had arrived earlier from London, letters that needed
replies. It made me smile to see him like that, all brusque business and orders for
his secretary beside him, after so much pleasure with me.

Only I saw that side of him, and only I knew the true tenderness we’d shared. Holding
that knowledge like a treasured secret, I happily sank a little lower into the water.

“Here, ma’am, don’t drown yourself.” Simpson fretted, pulling me back up against the
side of the tub. “I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to you while you was
in my care.”

I laughed softly. “Nothing is going to happen to me, Simpson. What kind of person
would drown in the bath?”

“Oh, it’s happened, ma’am,” the maid said darkly. “Happened plenty o’ times, to plenty
o’ ladies and gentlemen, too, I’m sure of it.”

“Then I appreciate your concern, Simpson,” I said, closing my eyes. It was how lady’s
maids demonstrated their loyalty, fussing about like this. Hamlin could be much the
same, treating me as if I were made of the most fragile porcelain. “I wouldn’t wish
to perish here in his lordship’s bath.”

Simpson leaned closer, lowering her voice. “There’s others besides me thinking of
you, ma’am. Lady Carleigh’s worried sick, and that’s the truth.”

I frowned, and opened my eyes. “Why should Lady Carleigh be worrying over me?”

“Because, ma’am,” Simpson said succinctly, “you’re like a prisoner in these rooms,
ma’am. His lordship’s keeping you locked up tight as some poor traitor in the Tower,
making you take your meals up here alone with him and not letting you out for anything.
All the other guests, they’re speaking of nothing else.”

“What I choose to do with Lord Savage is not anyone else’s affair, Simpson,” I said,
a little testy. “Not Lady Carleigh’s, or the other guests’, or most especially yours.
I can assure you, I’m hardly his lordship’s prisoner.”

“No, ma’am?” Simpson asked, vigorously squeezing the shampoo through my hair. “Then
why don’t he let you come down to dine with the other guests?”

“It’s not that he doesn’t ‘let’ me, Simpson,” I said. “It’s no mystery. He and her
ladyship agreed that after the unpleasantness between him and Lord Blackledge the
other night, it would be best if he and I dined in private, apart from the others.”

“Then that would be news to her ladyship, ma’am,” Simpson said. “She’s fearing for
you, wondering why you’re keeping apart.”

My frown deepened. This was becoming too much. “Forgive me, Simpson, but I doubt very
much that her ladyship is confiding her fears in you.”

“But her ladyship did, ma’am,” Simpson insisted, “on account of me being the only
one his lordship lets see you. Excepting Mr. Barry, of course, not that he’s to be
trusted, belonging all loyal to his lordship’s household as he does.”

“Then I believe you’re mistaken, Simpson, or perhaps you misheard Lady Carleigh,”
I said. Why would a viscountess like her ladyship make a maid like Simpson into her
confidante? “She and Lord Savage agreed to it on Tuesday night. I assure you, Simpson,
that his lordship has only my best interests in the matter.”

“As you say, ma’am,” Simpson said, in a way that made it clear she thought that what
I was saying was complete nonsense. “But while his lordship’s taking such fine care
of you, ma’am, has he ever spoken to you of his poor wife, of what became of Lady
Savage?”

“Really, Simpson,” I said firmly. “Now you truly do presume on my good nature. Lord
Savage is not a modern-day Bluebeard. The tragic details of his wife’s death should
be of absolutely no concern to you at any time, and I doubt Lady Carleigh would approve
of her servants gossiping about any of her guests in such a disgusting and lurid fashion.”

But Simpson persisted. “It’s not lurid, ma’am, but the truth. Lady Savage was a young
and beautiful lady in her prime—just like you, ma’am—with no ailments or illnesses
to speak of, and a loving mother to his lordship’s little boy. Then all of a sudden,
there she was one morning, dead as can be in her own fine house. What do you make
of that, ma’am?”

“That you are an inveterate tattle and slanderer, Simpson,” I said, disgusted. Like
every mistress with a staff, I’d had to deal with gossiping servants, and I’d even
sacked several for it. “My husband also died suddenly. Does that make you suspect
me of foul play as well?”

“No, ma’am,” Simpson said. “But you’re not—”

“Is it your habit to warn every Innocent who has drawn Lord Savage as a Protector
in Lady Carleigh’s game?”

“No, ma’am,” Simpson said promptly. “Because he’s never behaved like this before when
he’s come to Wrenton to play the Game, not with any other lady. You can ask her ladyship
if you don’t believe me.”

For the first time, I paused, letting my doubts creep in. Savage had told me exactly
that himself, over and over, saying that I was unlike any other woman he’d known.
I’d taken it as the kind of pleasing but empty flattery that gentlemen whisper to
ladies, especially ladies they wish to seduce. I’d never let myself seriously consider
that, with Savage, it might be true.

“Keeping you all to himself, ma’am, away from the others, being so possessive-like,
picking that fight with Mr. Henery—that wasn’t like his lordship, not at all,” Simpson
continued. “No one plays the Game like that.”

“I wouldn’t know otherwise,” I said, striving to sound aloof. “I’ve found the way
he has played it to be quite—quite enjoyable.”

Simpson regarded me with a look that could only be described as pitying. Uneasily
I remembered how the maid herself had been an Innocent before—perhaps even with Savage,
for all that she’d denied it—and was far more knowledgeable about men and sex than
I myself ever would likely be.

“Forgive me, ma’am,” Simpson said, “but that’s because you are the most innocent Innocent
that her ladyship’s ever invited here to play. Other ladies are more worldly-wise,
if you understand. They would’ve noticed the difference in Lord Savage straightaway.”

Abruptly I stood, scattering water drops, and Simpson hurried to wrap me in a towel.
This conversation was making me increasingly uncomfortable, even insecure, and I felt
that I was betraying Savage simply by having it. The sooner it ended, the better.

“I will admit that I’m not the most experienced of ladies,” I said, “That is why I
accepted Lady Carleigh’s invitation. I wished to, ah, to broaden my education, and
with Lord Savage I have done exactly that.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Simpson said, blotting my arms. “Forgive me, ma’am, but these bruises
on your wrists—”

I jerked back my hands, tucking them inside the towel. I should have realized the
maid would notice. My fair skin now wore wide bands of bruises like matching bracelets,
black-and-blue and rubbed raw by the silk cords that Savage had used yesterday. My
ankles were likewise marked, and there was a fresher mark on my shoulder from this
morning, where Savage had nipped at me again in the heat of his fucking.

I didn’t mind the bruises—in fact, in a way I’d become proud of them. I’d left my
marks on him as well. They were all visible proof of how intense our passion for each
other could become, and how, too, I became so abandoned to the pleasure he stirred
in me that I hadn’t been able to tell the difference between that pleasure and pain.
It was all vastly complicated, jumbled together into an intoxicating brew, and I didn’t
want to change any of it.

Except having the lady’s maid notice now.

“You are being far too forward, Simpson,” I said. I stepped from the tub, wrapping
the towel closely around me and tucking one end in to make it stay in place like a
gown.

“Yes, ma’am,” the maid said softly, wrapping another towel around my dripping hair.
“You’ve lost flesh, too. Don’t he let you eat what Cook sends up, ma’am?”

“Of course I’ve been eating,” I said. I did eat; I just hadn’t eaten much. I’d been
so consumed with passion that my appetite for mere food had disappeared, but I hadn’t
realized I’d lost weight, too. Not for the first time, I was thankful that Hamlin
hadn’t accompanied me here. Hamlin would have spotted it in an instant, and likely
tried to force-feed me as well. “I’m hardly starving, Simpson.”

“No, ma’am,” Simpson said, hesitating. “I know there’s only two more days before the
week’s done and the Game with it, but if his lordship dares go beyond pleasure, you
need only to call for—”

“How delectable you look, my dear Eve,” Savage said, joining us. “Venus rising from
the sea would be envious of you in my bath.”

I blushed, both from the compliment and from wondering if he’d overheard any of my
conversation with Simpson. Immediately Simpson stepped back, with her head bowed,
dipping a quick curtsey to Savage as she made way for him to join me.

“I trust I’ll smell more agreeable than if I’d landed at your feet in a scallop shell,”
I said, smiling as I held my hand out to him.

He was barefoot, wearing loose linen trousers and a V-neck sweater of soft blue lamb’s
wool that was the exact color of his eyes. The fact that he wore the sweater without
bothering with a shirt beneath it was thrillingly intimate to me—something that an
earl would never ordinarily do, and something, too, that I guessed must pain Barry
exceedingly. He’d dressed in careless haste and without the manservant’s help, going
from being in bed with me directly to the pile of letters in his sitting room, and
the results looked like it. He’d lingered so long with me, too, that he hadn’t left
time to be shaved, which meant that his jaw remained darkened with ungentlemanly stubble.

But in my eyes, Savage had never looked more irresistibly handsome, his sleeves shoved
up over his forearms and the deep V of the sweater’s neck offering me a heady glimpse
of his broad chest and the dark, curling hair upon it. Beside his properly dressed
secretary in his stiff, starched collar and tailored suit, Savage didn’t looked like
an earl at all. He looked like a pirate.

As he took both my hands in his, his smile was roguishly piratical, too, his teeth
white against his stubbled jaw.

“Very well, then,” he said gallantly. “Not Venus rising from the sea, but my own Innocent
rising from the sweetest of rose petals strewn across her bath.”

I laughed, pulling the towel from my head and letting my hair fall over my shoulders
in damp, unruly curls.

“No rose petals, either,” I said. “Only some sinfully expensive French nonsense, poured
into the water to scent it and me with it.”

“Ever the American, literal to a fault,” he said, laughing with me as his fingers
linked into mine. “Where’s the romance in your soul, Eve?”

“You have more than enough romance in your soul for us both, and a dozen others besides,”
I teased in return. It was true, too. He was the most romantic man I’d ever met, or
perhaps the most romantic man who wasn’t afraid to let it show.

“If I do, Eve,” he said, “then I’ll lavish my stock entirely upon you.”

His laughter faded as he raised one of my hands to his lips. His blue eyes smoldered,
white-hot, when he looked at me: I could express it no other way. With his gaze locked
with mine, he kissed not my hand but the bruise circling my wrist. When he was done,
he lifted my other hand and did the same, his lips tracing a protective ring around
my wrist that reminded me all over again of everything we’d shared.

I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until he finished. I sighed in a shuddering
rush of delight, a sigh that blew away all the niggling little doubts that Simpson
had planted, too.

How could I ever doubt Savage when he’d do things like that? How could I ever suspect
him of anything other than being his own darkly irresistible self?

“Dismiss your maid,” he said, still holding my arched wrist before his mouth. “I want
you alone.”

I nodded, unable to look away from him. “Simpson, that will be all.”

I was vaguely aware of the maid curtseying, seeing from the corner of my eye only
the final dip of Simpson’s black-clad figure as she backed from the room.

Savage didn’t wait until she’d closed the door before he slipped his hand inside my
towel. He quickly found my bottom, spreading his fingers to caress the swell of one
cheek.

I swayed into him and rested my hands on his chest, loving the feel of his muscles
beneath the soft wool sweater. I parted my lips and tipped my face up toward his,
sure he’d kiss me now.

He didn’t.

“What was your maid saying to you?” he asked. He was smiling still, but the warmth
was gone from his eyes.

“Nothing of any importance,” I answered. That much was true, and I hoped it would
be enough.

“Really, Eve?” He turned his head slightly, cocking a single dark brow to show his
incredulity. “Nothing?”

I shook my head, drops of water flicking from my tangled hair. I’d no reason to be
nervous with Savage, and yet I was. My gaze dropped from his eyes to his mouth.

“That ‘nothing’ upset you,” he said. “I could hear it in your voice.”

I sighed. “It was nothing but backstairs tattle, the kind of nonsense servants are
always whispering among themselves about their betters. But—but you’re right. What
Simpson said did upset me, because it was so preposterous.”

“Then tell me.” He continued to caress my bottom beneath the towel, arousing yet comforting
at the same time. “If you’re upset, I need to know, so that I can remedy the problem.
I don’t want you to keep things to yourself. A trouble shared is a trouble halved.”

I smiled nervously. “Didn’t Benjamin Franklin say that first? A wise American?”