His Wicked Kiss Part 41

"It appeared so," he admitted. "He is keeping her in a place called the Pulteney Hotel."

" 'He'? Do you mean Lord Jack?"

Connor sent him a dark look, an obvious affirmative.

"D-Did you kill him?" Victor asked, holding his breath.

"No." Connor sighed and returned to where he had sat before. "I was going to. Couldn't get a clear shot. So I followed him instead, and I am so glad I did."

"Why? What do you mean? And what did you mean when you said he is 'keeping' her there at the Pulteney Hotel? Has that blackguard dishonored my daughter?"

"What do you think? I'm the one she loves. And he will pay for everything he had done to her, trust me," Connor said, then he pulled a folded newspaper out of his coat. "In here it says they are married. She couldn't possibly have wanted this. He forced her. I know it. And he's going to die."

"Connor-"

"Oh, don't worry, Father. I'm not the one who is going to kill him."

Victor flinched at the way the obsession had taken his friend over completely, addling his wits-or had they always been addled, and he had just never noticed, so wrapped up in his own pain?

What sane man ever took it into his head to go and live in a jungle, anyway?

"I was thinking back to how angry Eden was after I protected her from the warrior who tried to molest her. I don't want to go through that again by killing Lord Jack and having her find out it was me. So, luckily, I found another way."

"How?"

Connor smiled. "I'm not sure I should tell you. You're very wily, old man."

Victor said nothing as he knelt down by his medical kit and rolled up his sleeves, preparing to treat Connor's dog bite. "Well, if you don't feel you can trust me, Connor, so be it. We've only known each other, what, twelve, thirteen years? You're my daughter's true love. But I'm just her father-"

"All right," he conceded, smiling broadly to hear his fantasies affirmed. He leaned nearer. "I followed him to his warehouse. It's right over there." He pointed toward the porthole. "Did you see?"

Victor squinted. "I cannot make it out with these broken spectacles," he lied. "But I will take your word on it."

"Well, I saw what he's up to." He sat back again. "Our Lord Jack is up to some very naughty business."

"Doing what?" Victor murmured, alarmed.

"He is gathering an army for Bolivar-and won't the Spanish emba.s.sy be interested to know it? Nature is efficient, Victor. I'll let the Spanish get him for me when the time is right."

"And, er, when will the time be right, my lad?"

"Soon. Just as soon as I figure out a way to get to Eden. I know she loves me, but-she is confused, you see. Like a wounded doe. She might try to fight me. I can't have that."

"Connor. You mustn't hurt our Edie."

"Of course not." Leaning forward, he reached under his cot and pulled out one of the cases containing their jungle samples.

Victor's heart pounded in trepidation as Connor opened the lid and scanned the collection of curare potions.

"This..." Connor murmured half to himself.

Victor paled but tried to hide his dread. "Listen to me. Those brews are deadly."

"Not this one." Connor lifted a small bamboo tube out with a placid smile. "It's very mild. I made it myself. It's quite gentle, very fast-acting. I used it to stun the little birds and creatures of the canopy for study. One tiny p.r.i.c.k of her finger, and she'll go to sleep. When she wakes up," he crooned, "I'll have her back again, forever."

Chapter.

Seventeen.

The weather turned foul on the night of the ball, but nothing could have dampened Jack's spirits with the magic of their little secret.

If the world could have guessed it, he would not have been surprised. He walked with a strut tonight, his chest puffed out, and a lift to his chin. He felt thoroughly unconquerable, and utterly in love.

The physician had been sent for earlier that afternoon, confirming Eden's delicate condition with a fair degree of certainty.

He was going to be a dad. After all the innumerable times he had thought and spoken about his desire for an heir, having the reality of it confirmed was another matter entirely. They were going to have a child! He had not known how much he had wanted this until his wife had said it. The notion of his firstborn scheduled to join them this autumn had done something to his heart like a canary being freed from a cage.

As for his Lady Jay, she laughed and blushed and scolded him for being overprotective from the second he had heard the news. He had to remind himself this was the chit who could hurl a machete into a bull's-eye from thirty feet away. She seemed to be taking the pregnancy in stride, as she did most things.

For now, she was rapt with excitement over her first true Society ball, though getting there proved to be no mean trick.

The location was a stately manor in Richmond set in several acres of green parklands. A long line of lamplit carriages waited in the steady downpour for their turn to pull up under the porte cochere and discharge their pa.s.sengers.

Rain turned the drive to mud; darkened the horses hides' and made their leather traces chafe; rain dampened the wilting grooms' wigs until white powder trickled down their matching livery coats.

Through the steady spring shower, however, the cheerful lights shining through the great arched windows of the mansion looked all the more inviting.

As they waited in the line of carriages, Jack pointed out to Eden the large, cupola-topped conservatory off the south corner of the house and asked her if she'd like one just like that to be added onto their house in Derbyshire.

"We'll go and have a look at it," she promised, her eyes shining.

Every now and then, he just shook his head and sighed as he gazed at her. She tapped his arm with her fan and gave him a kiss while they waited.

Finally, they made it inside, politely refusing a cup of belly-warming negus in the thronged entrance hall where arriving guests were milling about.

Footmen scurried back and forth with umbrellas, while cloakroom servants took the guests' endless array of hats, wraps, pelisses, and greatcoats. Ladies exclaimed over the wet as they hurried off to change out of their warm carriage shoes into their dancing slippers for the rest of the evening.

Jack and Eden exchanged a slightly overwhelmed glance. After languishing in the row of carriages, they were both daunted to find another queue to wait in, several persons deep, which snaked up the magnificent staircase into the ballroom.

Above, the majordomo was formally announcing each new arrival to the throng of guests before herding them on to be greeted by their hosts' receiving line.

The old Jack would have deemed the whole procedure d.a.m.ned excruciating, he reflected, but walking in with his beautiful bride on his arm and seeing how happy the whole thing made her inspired him to endure it, even the always slightly unnerving moment when one's name was shouted out to the whole throng. He was never sure which was worse, being stared at as one entered or having one's arrival completely ignored.

He needn't have worried, he realized. People everywhere turned to look, but even the bony faces of the frightening grand dames who ruled Society softened at the refined beauty of his wife. With her white-gloved hand tucked into the crook of his arm, she lifted the hem of her gown just a touch and proceeded gracefully down the entry stairs beside him.

Coming down the staircase, Jack surveyed the brilliant ballroom in reluctant pleasure. Hundreds of glittering candles lit the soaring s.p.a.ce while a charming Mozart rondo lightened the drone of conversation with a little melody that the orchestra and pianoforte tossed back and forth playfully between them, now one, now the other.

He was glad he had listened to Martin and had worn what his valet had prescribed for the occasion. Eden had been complimentary, p.r.o.nouncing him very smart in his black and white formal attire. His ebony coat of silk was double-breasted, with bright gilt b.u.t.tons; his waistcoat gleamed as bright as the very cliffs of Dover.

Clean-shaved, white-gloved, and hair slicked back, he stretched his neck a bit, the starchy cravat rather more grand than what he was accustomed to, in a style with some French name he couldn't even p.r.o.nounce. What did he know of such things? But Martin had declared it "all the kick" and had finished it off with a bit of sparkle from the safe: a solid gold vertical cravat pin with a sizable diamond head.

Joining the crowd, he lifted two crystal flutes of champagne off the tray of a pa.s.sing waiter, but Eden declined the offered gla.s.s, casting a hungry eye over the sweets in the large, columned alcove designated as the refreshment area.

Near the wine fountain with four silver dolphins spouting Chardonnay, another liveried footman offered guests confections on a silver tray: candied ginger, licorice, chocolate drops, an array of colored bon-bons that echoed the soft, flower-garden hues of the ladies' gowns-pink and blue, green and white, lavender and yellow.

So many flowers in an English garden. But none so fair as his little orchid.

Her lithe body had only just begun to show the barest hint of her delicate condition-it hadn't been marked enough for Jack to notice it last night when she had been naked before him. Dressed in her finery now, the tautening low around her belly was not at all visible yet.

She was, of course, the loveliest female in the room, draped in a gown of l.u.s.trous shot silk, iridescent, like the wings of a dragonfly-pale green or lavender depending on which way the candlelight hit the exquisite fabric. Its shimmering quality stood in contrast to the creamy perfection of her skin, the fluid lines cascading down her figure like a secret jungle waterfall.

Her hair, the color of cinnamon, was parted in the middle, her beloved face framed by soft ringlets that fell to either side, with a high chignon on top graced with a clutch of dark pink rosebuds. He couldn't stop staring at her.

Moved by her beauty and dazzled to know their first child was now more than just a hazy fantasy, Jack had never experienced such a tug of war within him in his entire life.

How could he possibly go to South America now? How could he possibly back out? He had given Bolivar his word. Thousands of people could die if he failed.

Yet if anything went wrong to delay his journey, from uncooperative weather to violent resistance from the Spanish navy, he would miss the birth of his child-and these things did not always go smoothly.

Eden needed him, too. Her confession last night haunted him. When she had told him that she had been holding back from loving him ever since they'd left Ireland not just because of their falling out, but also because she knew he had to leave, her words had resonated with him in a troubling way, reminding him of the man he used to be and the way he had lived before she had come swinging into his world on that silly vine.

Always sailing from port to port, he had kept the world at arm's length, never allowing anyone close to him, deliberately keeping a careful detachment from others in order to protect himself. He knew how much it hurt to exist that way, and now he was about to inflict the same way of life on Eden.

Maybe I shouldn't go. Maybe I really should leave it to Trahern. But putting such a vital mission in the hands of a man barely twenty-six years old seemed insane. Thousands of people could die if he failed, their only chance at freedom crushed. Jack's wife and babe might need him, but how could he ever be selfish enough to put his private life before what he deemed right?

He found himself wondering what Uncle Arthur would have advised. Where was the old devil, anyway? Perhaps the repairs on the Valiant had been more involved than his uncle had expected.

At any rate, their arrival in the ballroom created a bit of a stir.

People he had never seen before greeted him with cordial nods and smiles as he and Eden sauntered past with steps perfectly fitted to each other's. Whether it was Eden or their well-matched couplehood, his wife generated an air of approval about her that he knew he could never have obtained alone.

Having been starved for human company for so long, she was genuinely pleased to sea everyone, and as a result, n.o.body could resist her. He sensed the usual whispers behind fluttering fans, but with Eden beside him, he didn't care. Society's tireless busybodies required a constant diet of new gossip to keep their empty heads abuzz. It did not signify.

"What have you done to these people, darling?" he murmured to her at length. "Have you cast a spell on them? Put some of that what's-it leaf into the punch bowl?"

"Why do you say that?"

"They're smiling at me."

"Well, that's easy enough to explain. I haven't been merely amusing myself in all my gadding about, I'll have you know." She sent him a discreet smile askance. "I've been campaigning for you everywhere I go, as well, making a point of telling the world how wonderful you are."

"Wonderful?" he echoed. "Trying to ruin my reputation, are you?"

"As the terror of the West Indies? I'm afraid so," she replied, then greeted a pair of turbaned and jewel-covered matrons from the Garden Club who fluttered to her with an apparently earth-shattering announcement.

"Oh! Dear child, we have the most wonderful news!"

"What is it?" she asked, beaming at them very like a ray of tropical sunshine.

"We spoke to Lady Jersey and Countess Lieven on your behalf, and guess what? They've agreed!" said the first.

The second chimed in. "You are to be summoned to one of their homes to receive a voucher to Almack's! Yes, it's true-for the two of you!"

"They're letting me into Almack's?" Jack drawled.

"Oh, yes, my lord. It was no mean feat convincing the Patronesses-"

"But I don't wa-" he started, then shut his mouth as Eden's fingers clamped down on his arm in warning. He obeyed and merely smiled. "Thank you," he responded to their frail champions. "I'm sure you're very kind."

The garden ladies warned them to secrecy. "But you can't know yet! You'll have to act surprised."

"We will," Eden promised. "Won't we, Jack?"

"Hmm."

"My dear ladies, you are so good to speak to them on my behalf! I had no idea you had taken up for me."

"Tut, tut, gel. We need more women of sense at these things."

"Amen to that," Jack muttered.

"Besides, your tips for helping to get rid of our aphids were absolutely brilliant. My prize roses owe you their lives!"

"Oh, it's just a little trick of Papa's," she said modestly.

"Ah, what's this?" The lady in white glanced in the direction of the dance floor, where the master of ceremonies had made the long-awaited announcement. "They are starting the dancing."

"You two will make such a lovely pair," the other one said, favoring them with a wreath of smiles. "Go on, then. You newlyweds run along and have a dance."

Eden turned to Jack with an eager smile. "Shall we?"

He blinked. "Uh, Eden."

The ladies bowed to them and moved on to mingle elsewhere.

d.a.m.n. He had forgotten about this dancing business. He turned to his wife in a state of extreme discomfort. "Darling, perhaps you really shouldn't, in your condition."

"Don't be silly," she whispered. "It's just a bit of dancing. It's not as if I'm going to run a marathon."

No, a marathon would have been far preferable, at least for him.