When Marrying a Scoundrel (9 page)

Jack and Lady Gosling sat close enough for their thighs to touch. The lady leaned into him, whispering in his ear with a coy smile. And Jack listened with an expression that was anything but coy.

She wouldn’t be surprised if Lady Gosling ended up walking bow-legged tomorrow. Or maybe, given the lady’s reputation, it would be Jack who would have difficulty walking. He had no interest in his own wife, but plenty in someone else’s.

It didn’t matter. Jack could do whatever he wanted, as could she. She hoped he got the pox.

Sadie turned away before Jack noticed her staring, a sick feeling in her stomach. She glanced at Mason sitting beside her, at his strong profile and the hint of shadow along his jaw. She adored him. Was attracted to him. Could she love him? Or had Jack ruined that for her? Sometimes she wondered if she could ever give anyone her heart again—if there was enough of it to give.

Mason’s head turned. He caught her watching him and smiled, dark eyes brightening. He didn’t say anything, just offered her his hand. Sadie didn’t hesitate. She readily slipped her fingers into his. When he squeezed, she squeezed back.

“You should come in,” she murmured. “When you take me home after the performance. You should come in.”

His expression didn’t change, but something in his gaze did. He understood an invitation when he heard one. He nodded. “I would like that.”

The lights lowered, so Sadie tore her gaze away from Mason’s and directed it toward the stage, her stomach alight with anticipation. Tonight, she would take a lover and she was going to make certain she enjoyed it.

To hell with Jack Friday.

The man’s smile might as well have been a fist, it hit Jack so hard in the gut. He looked away, ashamed and embarrassed to have witnessed it. Angry, too, though he wasn’t quite sure why. Probably because he had smiled
at her that way once himself. Sadie had a way of making a man smile like a dim-witted idiot.

Obviously she could still make an idiot of out of him because he wanted to charge up the aisle and knock the man’s teeth out. Let him smile then. Sadie was
his
wife, damn it.

No, she wasn’t. They’d both agreed that they were not married. He distinctly remembered agreeing that there was nothing between them, but there was no denying the jealousy rising inside him. Regardless of everything that had happened, regardless of how raw the old wound was, he still thought of her as his. And that was what rubbed the most salt in.

“Who’s that with Madame Moon?” he asked Lady Gosling—
Theone
.

She leaned into him with the pretense of getting a better look at Sadie and her companion, but it was obviously a ruse to flaunt her impressive cleavage. Unfortunately, Jack was uninspired by the sight.

“That’s Mason Blayne,” she whispered, patting his thigh as she sat back in her seat. “He’s been escorting her around town as of late.”

Were they lovers? He had no right to be jealous. He didn’t
want
to be jealous, but the idea of someone else sowing the field he’d ploughed first pissed him off. Did this man know how she liked to be kissed? Did he know how she liked to be touched? Worse, did Sadie know the same things about this man? This swarthy Casanova?

Yes, he could almost feel Mason Blayne’s bite on his knuckles.

The lights dimmed and he couldn’t see much of anything other than the stage, so Jack forced himself to look at it instead of the outline of Sadie’s head. He pushed his anger and jealousy down, deep inside. He didn’t want it.

The curtains parted as a few stragglers took their seats. Applause. Vienne La Rieux—stunning in an icy blue gown—took the stage to welcome everyone and introduce Nathan Xavier. More applause. Gradually, Jack relaxed a little.

Xavier was not what Jack expected. And what he’d expected had been someone more effeminate, not a man who looked as though he could go a few rounds with bare-knuckle fighter Jem Mace and come out the victor.

The magician was tall and powerfully built, with close-cropped dark hair and a jaw that looked like it had been carved from granite. But he had a charming grin and a low, melodic voice that filled the room. His hands were quick and performed tasks and illusions the likes of which Jack had never seen before.

In short, the man was bloody brilliant, and soon diverted Jack from any thoughts of Sadie and her lover. In fact, Jack sat back in his chair and watched the performance with great enjoyment, and when Lady Gosling slipped her hand into his lap to fondle him through his trousers, he almost jumped right out of his seat. She flashed him a saucy grin, and thankfully removed her hand. She trailed her fingers across his leg, meaning to tease him. Under different circumstances, it might have worked. As it was, it took a few moments for him to relax
enough to enjoy the performance once more. He kept expecting to be groped by his companion.

“And now, I require volunteers from the audience,” Xavier announced sometime later, as he wheeled a long box on a waist-high stand out onto the platform. He pointed into the crowd with that rakish smile of his. “Madame Moon, would you be so kind?”

Jack’s heart gave a little thump as a tall, slender woman in a fabulously bright gown approached the stage. Her skin looked like buffed alabaster, her hair rich coffee. Sadie always did know how to dress for attention. She knew her best assets and how to compliment them.

God, she had perfect breasts. Such perfect skin. And perfect hair. She was simply perfect in every way—a fairy come to earth, trying to pass as a mere mortal without success. And he was a tosser who hadn’t been able to hold on to her.

“I need one more volunteer,” Xavier continued after kissing Sadie’s gloved hand. He stepped off the edge of the stage and came down into the seating area. “A gentleman, strong and strapping. You, sir.”

Jack’s eyes widened at the finger so close to his face. “Me?”

Xavier nodded. “You.”

Christ Almighty. Fate was truly out to bugger him senseless. He could refuse but that would only make him look a poor sport, and since at least a quarter of the people in this room had money he’d like to help them dispose of, he couldn’t present himself as a man afraid to take a risk.

Lady Gosling clapped her hands—no longer in his lap. “Oh, do go! This is so diverting!”

With a grimace, Jack rose to his feet and was met with more polite applause. He followed Xavier up onto the stage, careful to avoid Sadie’s gaze. It was impossible to ignore her completely, though, with her in that gown.

“Madame Moon,” the magician said, “Would you be so kind as to climb into this box?”

Sadie, to her credit, didn’t argue. She didn’t look any more comfortable than Jack did, but she wasn’t afraid by any means. She accepted Xavier’s hand and allowed him to assist her onto the table and into the open box, which looked a little bit like a coffin, Jack realized morbidly as the magician closed the sectioned lid.

“Are you comfortable?” Xavier asked. Sadie nodded. For a split second, her gaze flitted to Jack’s and he saw unease there that had nothing to do with being in a box and everything to do with him.

“Excellent.” The magician turned to face Jack. “This is for you, my good man.”

Jack glanced down. In the man’s large hands he held a gleaming saw, the blade of which had huge, jagged teeth.

“What am I to do with that?” Jack asked. He glanced at Sadie. Was it just him or was that amusement he saw in her eyes?

Xavier grinned, and like any good showman, turned to his audience. “Why, you’re going to cut her in half!”

E
ven if she lived to be a hundred and lost all there was of her mind along the way, Sadie didn’t think she’d ever forget the look on Jack’s face when Nathan Xavier handed him the saw.

He stood over her with the serrated blade in his hand and horror all over his face. It was all she could do not to burst out laughing. Of course, having a sense of humor over the whole thing was easy for her—she knew the secret to the trick.

While Xavier distracted Jack—and the audience—with their dialogue, Xavier’s lovely assistant, Honora, had helped Sadie into the upper section of the long box. Once inside, she brought her legs up as far as she could while Honora eased a pair of false feet through the holes where Sadie’s should have gone. When the lid was closed it would look to Jack, as well as the audience, that Sadie was fully stretched out within the confines of the box.

All that was left now was for Jack to “saw” her in half. Poor Jack looked as though he’d rather strip naked and run through the aisles than complete the task with
which he’d been charged. She almost felt a little sympathy for him.

Almost.

Sadie couldn’t take her gaze off him. She should be looking at the audience—hamming it up at Jack’s expense, but she couldn’t look away. He was truly afraid for her. Or for himself should anything go wrong.

Of all the people Xavier could have chosen, why did it have to be Jack?

The magician made a great show of spinning her mobile prison around so the audience could see that it was indeed solid. Sadie turned her head and smiled at Mason, who grinned at her from his seat. She wondered if he knew how the trick worked as well. He and Xavier were good friends, but it wouldn’t do for Xavier to reveal his secrets to more people than he had to, would it? After all, he’d chosen her because he knew he could trust her, but normally he planted volunteers in the audience for the more secretive aspects of his illusions.

“Before we begin,” Xavier said. “Madame Moon, would you be so good as to wiggle your feet so there can be no doubt in the audience?”

Sadie didn’t move, but she knew the feet sticking out of the box were. How did he do that? The audience practically sighed in response. Jack, however, had a uniquely different reaction. He looked at the bottom of the box, then up at Sadie. And when their eyes met, she knew he’d caught on to the trick. How, she wasn’t sure, but when he grinned at her in that delightfully evil way, she couldn’t help but grin back.

Dear God, he knew those weren’t her feet. Somehow, after all these years, he remembered
her feet
and knew the ones wiggling for the crowd were not hers.

Xavier repositioned the box in front of Jack who, now that he was in on the trick, seemed to have been filled with the spirit of the evening. He raised the saw to demonstrate to the audience how very sharp it was by cutting through a stick. Then, at Xavier’s command, he set the serrated blade into the groove at the halfway mark on the box.

He paused, casting his gaze toward her. For a second she saw true concern in his eyes. Of course he knew this was all a sham, but he was still going to come very close to her person with a very sharp blade. There was a slight chance that something could go wrong.

Odd. He truly seemed to care if he hurt her—physically, at any rate. Why couldn’t he be so solicitous of her feelings as well?

Xavier clapped Jack on the shoulder, a sign that all would be fine. “I would ask now that the audience give Mr. Friday complete silence as he performs this feat,” the magician requested in an ominous tone. “One wrong move on his part could mean dire consequences for Madame Moon.”

Jack grinned rakishly at the audience and then at Sadie. “I promise, dear Madame, that this will not hurt a bit.”

To which Sadie quipped, “I wager you say that to all the girls.”

There was a chorus of titters and chuckles from the audience.

Xavier gestured to the box. “Mr. Friday, please begin.”

Jack nodded at the magician. Sadie could almost imagine his fingers tightening on the handle of the saw. She couldn’t see, but she heard and felt the movement of the blade as it slipped through the concealed slit between compartments.

Xavier must have put something in the space between the two separate halves to provide resistance, because the blade only made it so far before it hit something solid. Always one for putting on a good show: Sadie gasped—and the audience reacted accordingly. Several women cried out.

Even Jack jerked a little. His wide gaze whipped to Sadie’s, but his surprise quickly gave way to laughter. She tried so hard not to smile, but a bit of it slipped out, letting him know that she was fine.

Xavier stepped forward. “Madame Moon, are you all right?”

At Sadie’s nod, the magician bade Jack to continue. And Jack did.

When her erstwhile husband began to saw through the box with great gusto and showmanship, Sadie wasn’t certain if the tightness in her throat was restrained laughter or tears. They used to have such fun together playing tricks and telling jokes. Rarely did either one of them ever get angry at the other for a good laugh at their expense.
Even now, after all that had transpired and grown bitter between them, he still appreciated the joke, and embraced it wholeheartedly, even when the halves of the box were pulled apart and ladies screamed in response. One even cried out, “Murderer!”

Jack turned his back to the audience then, unable to keep from grinning.

“My good people!” Xavier shouted to the distressed crowd. “I assure you that Madame Moon is quite all right!” He gestured to the lower box and, this time, because of how the two halves had been separated, Sadie could see the wiggling feet. They were very realistic, even as close as she was. And though she knew it was folly, her heart warmed a little more knowing that Jack had realized they weren’t hers.

As she watched the wriggling appendages, Sadie was quite certain someone in the audience had fainted.

“Madame Moon,” Xavier asked, “how do you feel?”

“As though I’m half the woman I used to be,” she replied easily, earning a round of laughter from the astounded audience.

The magician grinned at her. “Then let us make you whole again. Mr. Friday, if you will, please?”

Quickly, Xavier took the bottom half and instructed Jack to do the same with the top. As he hovered over her, hands braced to push the half holding her back into place, Jack glanced down at her.

“Well done,” he murmured.

Sadie’s smile took a wry curve. “It must have given
you some pleasure to cut me in half.” It was meant as a joke, but it was obvious that Jack didn’t share her amusement.

His eyes darkened as though clouds covered them. “I’ve never intentionally set out to hurt you, Sadie. I never have and I never will. Think me every sort of villain, but you know I speak the truth.”

She did, and yet she could not say it because the earnestness in his gaze undid her.

For that moment there was no one else in the world but the two of them. He was so close she could smell his soap and she breathed that spicy scent deep into her lungs, because she did so love it, and God only knew when she might smell it again.

He pushed, and she felt herself move. There was a soft thud as the lower half of the box butted against the one she was in. Almost over. Thank God, her hips and legs were beginning to cramp from being bent up. And then Jack walked away.

She would have gladly suffered another hour in that box to keep him beside her. How stupid was that? How foolish was she to wish for him beside her when he had run as far away from her as he could all those years ago?

The audience applauded for her when she finally climbed out of the box and was given back her shoes. No one seemed to notice that her stockings weren’t the same as the ones on the feet in the box. Of course, those feet were tucked away inside their compartment now, where no one could see them.

Xavier shook Jack’s hand and kissed Sadie’s cheek,
thanking them both before sending them back to their seats. Sadie watched as Jack returned to where Lady Gosling sat waiting. They made a very handsome couple, she acknowledged with a bit of a low feeling.

She resumed her seat next to Mason. His dark eyes sparkled at her as he took her hand and leaned close to whisper, “You were brilliant. For a moment even I believed he’d cut you.”

Regardless of his claim that he would never knowingly hurt her, Jack had done just that. The fact that he hadn’t meant to only made it worse, because it meant he simply hadn’t stopped to consider his actions.

One little laugh between them on a stage, in front of dozens of people, could not erase the pain.

Sadie squeezed Mason’s fingers and determined to enjoy the rest of the performance. As of that moment Jack Friday didn’t exist.

Sometime later Xavier took a short intermission so the audience could freshen themselves or their drinks, or both. While Mason slipped backstage to converse with the magician, Sadie snuck away to the private ladies’ retiring room, reserved for guest performers, to relieve herself and blot the shine from her nose. When she came out she spied Jack and Lady Gosling slipping through a set of doors that led to the gardens.

It was none of her business.

She followed them. Oh, she knew she shouldn’t. Nothing good would come of it, just like reading her own leaves, but she tiptoed into the night regardless.

They hadn’t been that far ahead of her, but they were out
of sight by the time she reached the garden entrance. Straining her ears, she caught the low tones of their voices and the swish of skirts. She lifted her own skirts to follow.

She found them behind a hedge, designed for just such a purpose. If she hadn’t known every inch of these grounds she might not have found them at all. Everything about Saint’s Row had been built with discretion and privacy in mind so that trysting lovers needn’t worry about being discovered—unless being discovered was part of the game.

Here, she had only the moonlight to see by and unfortunately it was a clear night with a fat, bright moon hovering above. She could see all too clearly as Lady Gosling reached up and brought Jack’s head down to hers, pressing her mouth against his. Sadie remembered the feel and warmth of his lips against hers. Remembered how sweet he tasted.

The memory brought a sharp slash of pain to her chest. She stepped back, not wanting to witness Jack’s arms sliding around the other woman’s waist. The hedge rustled as she brushed against it.

Lady Gosling didn’t appear to hear, but Jack did. And before Sadie could scurry out of sight, his head had lifted and his gaze pinned her where she stood.

The bastard had the gall to look sorry.

“Is someone there?” Lady Gosling asked, opening her eyes and gazing lazily at Jack with a dreamy expression. One slap would fix that, Sadie thought, ducking behind the hedge and hurrying down the path back toward the club.

She was headed toward a small group of people whom she knew when she heard him call her name. “Mrs. Moon? A moment, please?”

Damn him. She could hardly give him the cut with all these potential witnesses. Gritting her teeth, she stopped on the gravel path and turned to face him. A false smile plastered itself to her face. “Mr. Friday. We meet again.”

Jack’s smile was just as false, but on him it had a much more dangerous edge. “Indeed.” He glanced down at Lady Gosling, who was hanging from his arm like a wet wool coat. “Would you mind, my lady?”

Lady Gosling flashed him a seductive smile. “Of course not. I see some friends I must speak to. I shall meet you inside.” The look she gave Sadie before she walked away could only be described as proprietary.

He’s all yours
, Sadie thought.
I hope you choke on him
.

As soon as they were alone, Jack’s brow furrowed. “Sadie, what just…”

She held up a hand. “It’s none of my business.”

He snorted. “No, it’s not. But you made it your business, didn’t you? Did you see what you hoped to see?”

“Shut up!” Sadie hissed. She was not the one at fault here! “I didn’t spy on you on purpose.”

“Of course you did. You couldn’t have simply stumbled upon us, not there.”

She could slap him. Kick him. Do all manner of violence to him, but she couldn’t because they weren’t truly alone. It was very difficult to look at him and
make her expression a pleasant one when she wanted to disembowel him.

“I think you wanted me to see,” she countered. “Admit it.”

“There’s nothing to admit,” he replied, folding his arms over his damned splendid chest. “But you know me—I would have preferred to give you a bit more of a show. It’s all about the show, right?”

Hadn’t she thought something similar earlier? “Why did you have to do this here?” she demanded, ignoring his goading. “Don’t you own a hotel or something? Go shag her there.”

His brows lowered. “What was I supposed to say? No, I can’t go out there because my wife might see? Did you happen to notice that she kissed me, not the other way ’round?”

“Your mouth was on hers.” It was the first thing she could think of as a suitable retort. “And I am
not
your wife.”

“Then why are you acting like a jealous one?”

She stiffened. Flattering himself, was he? And she’d walked right into his trap. Fists balled at her sides, she glared at him with all the venom she could muster. “I hate you,” she whispered.

Jack’s lips thinned—even then they were still perfect. “You know why I’d want you to see me with another woman?”

“Because you’re petty and vain?”

His face turned hard and tight, but his gaze was bright with anger and pain—so much, she could barely meet it.
“Because if you’re watching I can’t pretend the woman I’m with is you. And maybe then I can get a proper shag for the first time in a damned decade.”

He started to walk away, leaving her staring after him in stunned disbelief. But then he hesitated, and tossed one last anguished, angry glance over his shoulder. “Sometimes, I hate you too.”

Theone Gant, Lady Gosling, woke the next morning foul, her temperament that of a bear with a toothache.