Season for Scandal (19 page)

He smiled, as she hoped he would. “I have the distinct feeling it would not improve the state of my digestion.”

“You’re right about that.” She walked over to her vase, her beautiful faraway Chinese vase, and touched the smooth glaze.

“Jane. May I come to you tonight?”

The words made her freeze, her finger in the act of tracing the purple-tinted river winding through knobby brown mountains.

“Not for—well. I don’t mean to press any attentions on you.” The words stumbled from his tongue.

She turned from her vase to regard him, only to find that he had drawn close.

“What do you have in mind?” Jane liked the idea of him
pressing his attentions
on her, except for the fact that he described it like unwanted business.

“Simply a bit of companionship. Simply—well.”

“Say what you mean at once, or I will throw a shoe at your head.”

His mouth curved in a half smile. “I thought we could sleep together. Not for any reason except rest.”

“No reason other than that?”

“I thought you would like it?”

“Why does that sound like a question?”

“I thought you would like it,” he amended. “It’s not a question. That’s what I thought.”

Nonsensical man. He offered her this instead of a few words about what was on his mind. “Would you like it?” She was beginning to want to throw a shoe at his head again.

“I think so,” he said. “I’ve never done such a thing before.”

“Slept with your wife? I know you haven’t. I’d have been there.”

His smile melted away. “Not to be impolite—”

“I would give you ten thousand pounds to be impolite just once.”

“A gross overpayment,” he said lightly. “I don’t mean to be indelicate. What I mean is that I’ve never stayed all night with any lady.”

She had assumed he’d had other women, but the very thought made her feel jealous and contrary. “Why not?”

“It never seemed to serve a purpose.”

“What sort of purpose?”

“Jane, I don’t wish to discuss this with you—”

“Discuss it.” She knew she was being rude. But he hadn’t told her anything about his thoughts, his tensions that kept him from eating a decent meal. She felt as though she had to follow some thread through to its honest end, even if it became dirty and frayed.

He sighed. Taking her fingers in his, he pulled her to a seat on the drawing room’s long sofa, then sat next to her. From here, she could see her painted Chinese vase.
Escape escape escape.

“Discuss it, Edmund,” she said through gritted teeth.

He pulled his hand away, then rose to his feet. “Fine, Jane. Fine.” He paced away, then back, catching and holding her gaze. “There is no reason to stay the night when one only wishes to give pleasure to one’s partner. Once the pleasure is done, the encounter is done. Sleeping is not to the point.”

“Oh.” The words hurt; the vehemence hurt. Yet she took satisfaction in his painful honesty. “What if”—she swallowed—“what if the closeness itself gave the woman pleasure?”

“I have my limits.” He stopped his pacing. For a moment, he stood still, as though he’d forgotten his destination; then he sank onto the sofa beside her again.

And Jane realized: this talk of pleasure was carefully meted out, just as the pleasures themselves were. He wanted to spare Jane any discomfort or jealousy, just as he had wanted to fulfill the desires of those other women.

But that sort of fulfillment was all about quantity: meet the goal, move along to someone else. He wanted to help as many people as possible, which meant he had little time for any one individual. A wife was no exception. At the moment, he thought he could best please her by ending the conversation.

Wrong. Though she might end by taking no pleasure in it, she was determined to tug him beyond his careful boundaries. “What about me?”

Leaning back against the unyielding cane and silk of the sofa, he shut his eyes. “My limits are different with you.”

“In what way?”

“In every way.” His hand fumbled for hers; she let him take it, but she didn’t close her fingers around his.

“You’re offended.” Before she could reply, he sat up, making a noise of impatience. “I knew I shouldn’t have talked about this. I told you, Jane, it doesn’t have anything to do with us.”

How entirely he missed the point. But she was done with explaining; done with hoping, even if not with wanting. “Pleasure does not?” A polite expression was pasted onto her features.

“That’s not what I meant, though I’m not sure that it does. We married out of good sense. And pleasure hasn’t gone all that well for us, has it?”

“If you except our first encounter,” Jane said primly, “then it’s been all right.”

“‘All right.’” If another man made the ensuing sound, Jane would have called it a snort. Never had she known Edmund to do anything so impatient or cynical as snort.

“Yes,” she repeated. “‘All right.’ I don’t know another description. I have no other experiences to compare it with.”

“I rather hoped for ‘marvelous’ or ‘earth-moving.’”

“How astronomical of you.” She fixed her eyes on her vase. Over its antique glazed surface, the river flowed purple and winding. “Have you given me your best, then? Leaving as you do each time?”

The silence before he spoke was long and hollow as an echo. “I give you the best I can.”

“And I say that it’s all right.”

He touched the point of her chin, then turned her face to him. “Jane. I asked if I might come to you tonight. I’m offering you something different this time. Just sleep, and I won’t leave until morning.”

The offer was intoxicating in a way even the brandy had not been. Where he touched her chin, her skin tingled, tempting her to relent. “I
am
very tired.”

His finger traced the line of her jaw. “I am, too. Shall we?”

A swell of sharp-sweet hunger made her catch her breath. “Yes.” She slipped her loosened shoe back on and stood.

As they walked up the stairs to their connecting bedchambers, her heart thudded as it hadn’t since her wedding day. He didn’t intend to touch her in a sexual way. Yet the idea of sleeping together seemed more intimate than sex, and in a way, more pleasurable.

I won’t leave
, he had said. He had chosen her, only her, all night.

Not just over another woman, or all the women of his past, but over the responsibilities that split him from her during the day. The sense of obligation that drove him toward, then away from, her bed. He might not desire her, yet he gave her this piece of himself: this time, this closeness, that he had never before shared.

She wasn’t lying about being tired, though as she undressed and pulled on her nightclothes, the fatigue was limned with nervousness. Did he mean it? Would he really join her, and stay all night?

The door opened with a quiet sound that seemed loud. Lying beneath the coverlet, Jane’s breathing seemed loud, too. Edmund’s footfalls on the carpeted floor marched toward her like drumbeats, and when his hand tugged back the covers, the rustling fabric sounded like a howling wind.

He pressed his body behind hers, full-length, and encircled her waist with an arm. “Good night, Jane.”

“Good night.” Her voice was oddly bright.

For a minute, he held her tight, then his arm loosened to curve gently over her waist. “Sleep well.”

“You, too.” That stupid bright voice again. She couldn’t help it. She was nervous about this new, odd intimacy, even as he still kept his thoughts locked away.

But that was that: two short sentences apiece. He didn’t speak to her again, and within a few minutes, the soft, slow sound of breathing told her he had fallen asleep—or he was better at pretending than she was.

After some minutes or some hours, when the sky was black outside and the world had gone quiet, Jane fell asleep, too. When the sun reached through the bedchamber window at dawn, she was still within the circle of his arm.

But when Jane stretched out and turned over an hour later, she was alone but for an indentation in the soft mattress.

Darling Edmund. Damned Edmund. Once again, he had fulfilled his promise, and nothing more.

Chapter 14

Concerning the Proper Steps

All things considered, Edmund thought that whole business of sleeping with his wife had gone rather well. When the sun rose, he had awoken, refreshed as he rarely was after a night alone.

Maybe because, holding Jane within his arms, he knew he kept her safe. Maybe because the lithe warmth of her body was a balm to him, too. At last, he felt he’d done something right, and the following morning, he couldn’t resist prolonging the pleasant sensation.

He located her in the breakfast parlor, where she was crunching through a heap of toast and sweetening a cup of coffee.

“Jane, I have a wonderful idea for this morn—
how
much sugar are you putting in that coffee?”

She lifted her brows. “Enough to make it taste good. I think it’s been scorched.” Watery sunlight painted her face, gilding the tips of her lashes. Her eyes looked woodsy-green this morning, reflecting the shade of her gown.

Long familiarity had led him to take her appearance for granted, but now that he looked her over again—why, she was lovely, wasn’t she? It was more than just her form and features; it was her vitality. She was curious and lively, bringing him out of himself with her teasing ways.

“You look pretty,” Edmund blurted. “This morning. You—you know. Look pretty. Did you sleep well?”

She set down her slice of toast. “For a while.” She frowned, as though his words made no sense to her.

“You look pretty,” Edmund said again. It seemed important that she understand this.

“Why?”

“Why do you look pretty? It’s hard to explain. Something about your expression.”

She kept frowning.

“You still look pretty when you frown,” he added. “It’s just the way you’re made.”

Her frown quivered and changed direction.

“And when you try not to smile, you’re even prettier.”

“There’s the blarney from your Irish blood.” She picked up her toast again. “Stop it. You’re being ridiculous.”

He drew out a chair and sat at her left. The pile of toast looked rather good. “May I?” When she nodded, he grabbed a slice.

“So,” he said between bites, “what am I to say when I think you look pretty, if not that you look pretty?”

“Just stop saying it.” She looked puzzled. “You don’t have to say anything. I wish you wouldn’t.”

“Because?”

She crumbled the crust of her toast to powder. “Because it sounds like exactly the sort of thing you say to everyone else. So it doesn’t mean anything.”

So simply stated. So well aimed; so dreadful. Their brutally honest conversation yesterday had cracked something that lay between them. He had thought that
something
a wall that separated them, coming down. But maybe she saw those little truths as betrayals, breaking her trust in him.

Some reassurance, then, that he was all hers now. Edmund pasted a rakish grin on his face. “If I can’t talk about the way you look, am I at least permitted a few impure thoughts?”

A tiny smile crossed her features. “I can’t possibly control your thoughts.”

“Nor can I.”

“Edmund, when you came into this room, were you going to tell me something?” Abandoning her scorched coffee and toast, she stood.

He followed suit, brushing crumbs from his fingertips. “Yes. Well—no, I was going to suggest something. So it was actually more of a question than a statement. Or more of a suggestion than a question. An offering of—”

“Oh, stop, and just tell me what it is.” With a smile, she slid her hand into the crook of his arm.

“I have a free morning, and I thought we could use it to practice dancing.”

She went still. “Dancing.”

“Do you dislike the idea?” The few bites of toast in his stomach became lead.

“No. I just didn’t expect that you’d really teach me.”

He caught her under the chin, tilted her face up to look him in the eye. “I said I would, and I will. Jane. I always keep my promises to you.”

“I know,” she sighed, patting his hand where it touched her jaw. “I know you do.”

This didn’t precisely sound like the yipping delight he had hoped for. Still, he led her into the drawing room, in which a pleasant coal fire glowed. To clear a space for dancing, he pushed aside a small table on which her recently purchased Chinese vase teetered, and Jane heaved a striped ottoman out of the way.

“We’ll try a waltz,” he decided. “That’s the only dance I can think to teach you without the help of others. A quadrille or a reel have such complicated figures that we’d need a whole dancing school to sort them out.”

“A waltz?” She quit shoving at the ottoman and marched to stand before him. “I know how that works, sort of. I slap my hands all over you and we twirl around to the count of three.”

“Yes, that’s right. And I slap my hands all over you, too.”

Jane held up her hands. “Where do they go?”

“My dear, they can go wherever you like.” At Jane’s snort, he added, “But for the sake of a waltz, your left hand can go on my shoulder. Your right hand holds my left.”

“And yours?”

“Mine goes here.” He laid his right hand on the curve of her waist.

Hardly an intimate touch for a husband who had seen and stroked all of his wife’s body. He could scarcely feel the shape of her form beneath gown and stays and chemise, so many layers of fabric separating them. Her hand on his shoulder felt featherlight atop the woolen bulk of his coat, the spiderweb of linen shirt. Yet such touch was forbidden in the cold stare of public view, unless it came in the course of a dance.

“Now we’re settled,” he said lightly. “I’ll count for us and spin, and you let yourself be pushed about backward.”

“How delightful,” Jane grumbled. “Pushed about backward like a broom. I can’t imagine why I haven’t learned this before—
oh
.”

For with a quick one-two-three, Edmund had swept her in a wide circle, and when she stumbled, she pressed against the full length of his body. Her hair smelled so good, soapy-clean and smooth in its simple twist, that he dropped a kiss on top of her head.