The Marriage Trap (25 page)

She was everything he had ever dreamed of and more, generous in giving, voracious in taking. Each kiss, each brush of her hands made him wild to have her. This was Ellie, he reminded himself. He had to slow down, had to make this good for her. She wouldn't listen. She was intoxicated with her power, edging to orgasm and dragging him with her.

In a riot of sheets and bedclothes, he rose above her. He lifted her knees, positioning her for his entry. She showered kisses on his arms and shoulders.

“Trust me,” he murmured. “I have to be cruel to be kind.”

She was turning his words over in her mind when he drove into her. In one stroke, all her pleasure was submerged in pain. She gasped, she groaned. Bucking, shoving, she tried to throw him off, but her struggles only drove him deeper into her body, and the press of his weight pinned her to the bed.

She knew then that she had never been more deceived in her life. If she'd followed her own instincts, she would have been hiding safely in that closet.

When the pain receded and she stilled, she looked up at him.
“That,”
she said wrathfully, “was the most disappointing experience of my life, and I never want to repeat it.”

He kissed her tears away. “Trust me. You'll change your mind. It's not over yet.”

When he moved, she braced for the next wave of pain. There was none, only pleasure, a flood of pleasure, then heat building inside her, consuming rational thought. All she could do was feel. At the end, she cried out in rapture.

She awakened to a sense of dread. She wasn't disoriented. She knew where she was, knew that the man who was adding coal to the fire was her husband. She could hardly forget that they'd made love, not when she felt the soreness between her thighs. What preyed on her mind were the words she had cried out when she'd lost control and shattered into a thousand pieces.

I love you.
She tested them gingerly and swallowed a groan. It was true. She loved him. How had this come about?

He hadn't said the words to her. She didn't expect them. But she'd wanted them to be equals. And now he knew. Would he gloat? Would he be amused? She wished she'd kept her mouth shut.

“Ah, you're awake.”

His voice brought her out of her reverie. He had donned his shirt, but she wasn't wearing a stitch. She sat up and, as naturally as she could manage, tucked the edges of the sheet under her arms.

She thought his smile was smug and there was a confident swagger in his steps as he approached the bed. She wasn't given time to think. His hand cupped her chin and his lips took hers in a long, proprietary kiss.

There was a smile in his eyes. “How do you feel?” he asked softly.

If her body would stop humming, she might think of a suitable rejoinder. “Fine” was all that came to mind. “How do
you
feel?”

He kissed her again, then gave a lusty yawn. “Surprised,” he said, “but deeply satisfied.” He joined her on the bed. “I mean, I knew from the kisses we shared that you had a warm nature, but I couldn't be sure how far those kisses would take you. Had I known, I wouldn't have held off for so long.”

He wasn't gloating. In fact, he seemed enormously pleased with himself. Her sense of dread began to ebb.

“And if I had known,” she said, “that you had to be cruel to be kind, I would have held you off till Judgment Day.”

He gave a whoop of laughter, pulled back the sheet, and slipped in beside her. Her humming nerves began to vibrate when his hairy legs brushed against hers.

“There was no fear of that happening,” he disclaimed airily. “Aurora wouldn't have allowed it. I know, I know. You and Aurora are one and the same person. But I have to say that sometimes I don't know whom I adore more, Ellie or Aurora.”

She was on the point of clouting him with her fist, but at the mention of “adore,” her hand fell away. This was as close as he was likely to come to a declaration. For the moment, it would do.

He was staring at her quizzically. “What?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I was wondering about Aurora. Where did she come from?”

She sighed. He still didn't understand. “
I'm
Aurora, Jack. I always was. I tried not to be. A vicar's daughter doesn't enjoy the freedoms that other young girls enjoy. We're supposed to be an example to the daughters of our father's parishioners. Oh, don't think for a moment that my parents tried to mold me into a submissive little prig. But we children of the manse soon learn that what we do reflects on our fathers. So, because we love them, we conform, as much as we are able. But that doesn't mean we don't long for adventure.”

He felt a twinge of guilt. Her guileless words had put him squarely in the camp of those censorious parishioners who forced her to conform. There had to be a middle way. Aurora was adorable, but she terrified the life out of him.

He said doubtfully, “I don't remember you as a ‘submissive little prig.' A ‘prig,' maybe, especially when you were showing off your Latin and Greek grammar. But ‘submissive'! Never!”

“That's because you always brought out the rebel in me.”

“Aurora?”

She grinned. “Would a dutiful vicar's daughter arrange a clandestine tryst with a young rake under false pretenses?”

“I thought you were the miller's daughter!”

“That wasn't my fault. I didn't pretend to be Becky. You assumed too much.”

She shivered when he drew the edge of his teeth along her shoulder. “I came close to thrashing you,” he said.

“I know. You can imagine that after that, Aurora was put on a tight leash.”

“How long did that last?”

“Until the circumstances were right for Aurora to emerge, and that didn't happen until I needed money to leave my Cousin Cardvale's house.” She turned her head on the pillow to see him better. “Poor Aurora. She's lumbered with Ellie's conscience, and poor Ellie is lumbered with Aurora's sense of adventure.”

He began to laugh. “Just when I think I understand, you confuse me again.”

She frowned. “It seems clear enough to me.”

He kissed her frown away. She kissed the column of his throat. “Jack?”

“Mmm?”

“I feel like you. Surprised. And deeply satisfied.”

She could feel his smile against her brow. “I'm glad.”

“And,” she added innocently, “still looking for adventure.”

He raised his head. “What?”

She gave a low, rich chuckle. “I told you. I have so much time to make up. Let's not waste a minute of it.”

He had always known she was a quick study. She proved it here. Her phenomenal memory told her just where to kiss and touch to drive him mad to have her. Demanding, possessive, her hands brushed over every inch of him, leaving a trail of sensual heat wherever they touched.

It came to him that she was putting all her newfound knowledge into practice. Ellie couldn't help being Ellie. She was mastering him the way she would master a particularly difficult conjugation of a Greek verb. The optative, no doubt. That's not what he wanted from her. He wanted her wild and free and as adventurous as Aurora.

His mood swung between amusement and resolve. His little scholar had a great deal to learn about the ways of love. He pinned her with his weight and kept her hands clamped above her head.

“Memorize this,” he said.

He rubbed his lips over hers but refused the offer of a kiss. Slowly, carefully, he tempted, he tortured, till she was bucking wildly beneath him. He wasn't satisfied yet. He turned her over and began the same process with every vertebra in her spine. When he kissed her bottom, she muffled her moans against the pillow.

He turned her onto her back.

Eyes wide and dazed, she gazed up at him. She said something, but it wasn't coherent, so he knew he had what he wanted. Ellie, not thinking, but feeling.

Only now did he take her the way he wanted to. At the end, her cry of rapture, mindless, abandoned, was everything he wanted for her and from her. No one else had given him this, only Ellie—or was it Aurora?

He drifted into sleep with a smile on his face.

They stayed at the Clarendon for three more days. This was Jack's idea. If things had been different, he said, he would have taken his bride to Italy or Greece for their honeymoon, but with this being Caro's first season, they were obliged to stay in town. All they were doing was stealing a little time for themselves. Though he kept the thought to himself, what he had in mind was to make love to his beautiful wife every chance he got. In Park Street, there would be too many interruptions, too many claims on their time.

Ellie was more than happy to fall in with his wishes. She felt free away from the house in Park Street. There was no Frances to find fault with her and no sneering housekeeper to put her in her place. Just for a little while, she could forget all her troubles and enjoy being with Jack.

There was still the problem of what to do about Alice, but Jack arranged everything with a speed and efficiency that left Ellie breathless. Lodgings were found with Mrs. Mann in Henrietta Street where Ellie still kept on her rooms. Only, at Jack's suggestion, Alice had become Mrs. Travers and wore a thin gold band on her ring finger.

“It will make things less awkward for her,” he said to Ellie. They were waiting for Alice to get ready to make the trip to her new lodgings.

Ellie beamed at him. “I had no idea you were so resourceful.”

He replied obliquely, “Marriage to you, my love, has done that for me.”

She laughed, but looked a little guilty. “Am I such a trial, Jack?”

A smile came into his eyes. “What you are is generous to a fault, though a tad too impulsive for my comfort.” Before she could take umbrage, he went on seriously, “What happens when Alice has her baby? There are few landladies who will welcome infants in their homes.”

She said with more hope than certainty, “Mrs. Mann is a kindhearted woman. She won't throw Alice into the street. And if things don't work out, well, we'll make other arrangements. There's plenty of time.”

“When is the baby due?”

“I forgot to ask, but I'm sure it's not for a few months yet. She's hardly showing.”

“What about the father of the child? Is he completely out of the picture?”

“I don't know. She's convinced that he will come back for her.”

“And if doesn't?”

“Don't worry, Jack. I'll think of something.”

He patted her hand. “
We'll
think of something.”

It was a small room in the attic, but when they were shown into it, Alice behaved as if it were a palace.

“I don't have to share it with anyone?” she asked the landlady. She was testing the bed, bouncing on the mattress.

Mrs. Mann shook her head. “No, dearie. I likes my lodgers to be comfortable, else they'll find rooms elsewhere.” She looked at Ellie. “Have you decided what you want to do with your rooms in the basement?”

Jack's gaze focused on a smudge on his boot.

Ellie didn't have to think of her answer. It was the opposite of what she would have said a week ago. “I'm giving them up. Well, I have no need of them now, do I?”

Jack's smile almost blinded her. “Maybe Alice could have them,” he said.

Mrs. Mann demurred. “After the break-in, I've decided to let them only to gentlemen. I wouldn't be easy in my mind if one of my ladies came face-to-face with a burglar, not after last time.” To Alice, she said, “It would be different if Mr. Travers were here. When are you expecting your husband to join you?”

A look from Jack kept Ellie silent. He'd already warned her that, though Alice needed a helping hand, she did not need a champion. She was quite capable of answering for herself.

Alice gave the housekeeper a clear-eyed look. “He went up north to look for work. When he finds it, he'll come back for me.” She moistened her lips. “Me and my baby both.”

There was an interval of silence, then Mrs. Mann's rosy cheeks bunched in a huge smile. “A baby, you say? Well, we must take good care of you and see you're kept busy so you won't have time to mope.”

They left Alice in the kitchen, helping Mrs. Mann with the mending and ironing while Jack and Ellie went to the basement to take inventory of the furniture she wanted to keep. Jack took the key out of Ellie's hand and unlocked the door. He entered first, looked around, then ushered her inside.

She was amused. “I'm not helpless,” she said. “Why do gentlemen always open doors for women as though we don't know how to use a key?”

“Manners,” he replied. “It's drilled into us when we're boys. And sometimes it pays to be careful, as you should know.”

“You think I could forget that night? Never! I'm armed and dangerous now.” She felt in her coat pocket and produced something shiny and silvery.

He looked baffled. “What in Hades is that?”

She held it up to the light. “A fork. I borrowed it from the Clarendon, and I'm not afraid to use it.”

“Fine. After this, you can open the doors first and check to see there are no thieves hiding under the bed.”

She laughed, threw off her bonnet, and looked around. It was still dark and airless, but everything had been put back in its place, and no one would have known that they'd surprised a burglar in the act.

It could have been so much worse. The things that mattered to her were untouched—her mother's mahogany dresser with the shiny brass handles, a highly polished drop-leaf table that once belonged to her Grandmother Brans-Hill, and a glass-fronted cabinet with her small library of books. She was as attached to her modest heirlooms as the Raleighs were to theirs, but she doubted that her precious objects would fit into the house in Park Street any more than she did. All the same, she couldn't bear to part with them. That's why she had found a permanent home for them when she'd parted ways with the Cardvales. Nothing less could have induced her to spend her hard-earned money on these dismal rooms.

“What are you thinking, Ellie?”

She tried to sound positive. “I'm wondering where to store my mother's furniture. I suppose there's room in the attics in your house?”

“
Our
house,” he corrected. “And why in the attics? It's obvious that you're attached to all these pieces. Put them wherever you want.”

“Thank you.”

She doubted that she would, because she didn't want anyone sneering at them.

Jack said, “What about your private sitting room? ‘The yellow room,' my mother used to call it.”

“It's the blue room now,” she said gently.

“I know. After Frances became mistress, she made a number of changes. I expect you'll want to do the same.”

And she would, just as soon as she found the gumption to stand up to Frances.

She was moving around the room, examining bits and pieces, wondering if there was anything she could bear to sell or give away. She started on the books. One in particular caught her attention—her mother's recipe book.

After watching her turn pages for a goodly number of minutes, Jack took a chair. When more minutes had passed, he said, “Let's arrange to have everything moved to Park Street. I can see that you're not going to part with a thing.”

She waved him to silence. “This is amazing.”

“What is?”

She brought him the book and pointed. “Read this.”

“Cardvale's punch,” he read dutifully. He thumbed through other pages of faded writing. “This is a book of recipes. What's so special about that?”

She snatched the book from his hands. “‘
Cardvale's punch
,'” she read, “‘from the kitchen of Jeanne Daudet.'”

When the name registered, he sat up straighter. “Let me see that.”

He read it again.

“And there's more,” said Ellie. “There's one for
Soupe de Poisson
and
Soufflé au Fromage
. And they're all from the kitchen of Jeanne Daudet. There's something else, something Robbie told me. The reason Louise took an interest in him wasn't because he was amusing or attractive or whatever. It was, so she said, because she and her mother came to live with us for a short time.”

He was dumbfounded. “And you never thought to tell me before now?”

“I know I meant to, but other things crowded it out of my mind. So much has been going on. Besides, Mama was always helping people, and this must have happened a long time ago, because I don't remember them. Is it . . . is it important, Jack?”

He thought for a moment. “Cardvale,” he said. “That must have been your cousin's father.”

“I suppose so. Or it could be my cousin. He was very young when he came into the title. Thirteen or fourteen, I think. Not that I remember. He's ten years older than I.”

She kneeled in front of him and sat back on her heels. “I can't see how this helps.”

He said slowly as the thought turned in his mind, “Well, it connects Cardvale to Louise Daudet, or at least to Jeanne Daudet.” He smiled into her anxious eyes. “It's possible that Cardvale doesn't remember her, either.”

She sighed.

“What?” he prompted.

“I thought we were free and clear. I thought the French authorities had discovered who murdered Louise. It's her dresser and her lover, isn't it? Can't we let sleeping dogs lie?”

“They're only suspects, Ellie. They have not been charged with the murder. And did I say that I was going to make trouble for Cardvale?”

“No. But I know you. Look how you came after me.”

He gathered her in his arms and set her on his lap. His eyes glinted down at her. “Are you sorry that I did?”

She looked up at him sharply, then promptly blushed. He must know that she wasn't sorry, not after the night they'd shared. Just thinking about it made her bones go weak.

“No. I don't regret it,” she said, “but I wish you would think kindly of Cardvale. He has always been good to Robbie and me. It was Dorothea who was hard to get along with.” She pushed out of his arms and got up. “I don't want to part with a thing.”

He got up, as well, and put an arm around her shoulders. “I promise not to go after Cardvale,” he said.

She wasn't convinced. “There would be no point in it, and you might embarrass him. Perhaps there are things about his father he shouldn't know. And it's not as though a murderer is on the loose, stalking us. Apart from the break-in here, nothing out of the ordinary has happened. There's nothing to worry about, is there?”

“Absolutely nothing, except . . .”

She was losing patience. “Except what?”

“Except that I'd be easier in my mind if you got rid of that fork. People will think I've married a lunatic.”

She laughed at his jest.