Regency High Society Vol 4: The Sparhawk Bride / The Rogue's Seduction / Sparhawk's Angel / The Proper Wife

Chapter Ten

“We lost almost everything in the fire, ma’am,” explained Michel sadly to the landlady of the public house. “Not that we had so much, traveling by horse, yet still my poor wife lost everything but the clothes on her back, and you’ve only to look at her skirts to see how near a thing it was.”

“You poor creatures!” exclaimed the landlady, clicking her tongue. “Praise the Lord that guided you to my doorstep. You’ll find no better lodgings between Providence and New Haven and that’s the honest truth. If anyone can make you forget your travail, ‘twill be myself, Catherine Cartwright, here at the Sign of the Lamb.”

She beamed at them with such heartfelt sympathy that Jerusa squirmed inwardly. The woman was round faced and maternal, with a smudge of flour from the kitchen across her ruddy cheek, and clearly trusting enough that she’d never suspect a gentleman like this fine Mr. Geary of telling such out-and-out lies.

Not that what he was saying was exactly lies. She had lost all her clothes. They had been in a fire. The little scorched marks on her gown were from flying cinders. And they—oh, sweet Almighty, was she herself really getting to be as adept at twisting the truth as the Frenchman?

Jerusa, Jerusa, where are your wits? Better you should be listening and waiting for the chance to leave him than worrying about how many of his wicked, dishonorable ways have rubbed off onto you!

“Here now, Mrs. Geary, I’ll show you to your room myself,” Mrs. Cartwright was saying, already leading the way up the staircase. “‘Tis your good fortune that I’ve the front room free, the one I generally save for gentry such as yourselves. We’ve not much company at present, but my, you should see the crowd we have when the court’s in session!”

Only half listening, Jerusa began to follow her, then stopped when she realized that Michel had remained behind. She looked back at him, one brow cocked in silent question while Mrs. Cartwright continued discussing the last county court sessions.

“You go ahead, my dear,” he said softly so as not to disturb the landlady’s monologue. “I’ve business with some gentlemen here in the town, but be certain I’ll return to you as soon as I can.”

He kissed his fingers toward her, a lighthearted salute that did little to lessen the subtle warning of his words, and without answering, Jerusa hurried up the stairs after Mrs. Cartwright. She might kiss Michel Géricault a hundred times and he still wouldn’t forget she was his prisoner. To him it was all some sort of strange game with rules she’d never learned, and despite the warmth of the day, she shivered. Of course he would return to her; he always did. But maybe this time, she wouldn’t be there waiting.

“I hope this suits, Mrs. Geary,” said the landlady as, with a flourish of her large arm, she threw open the door to the room. “Like I told you before, you’ll be hard-pressed to find finer.”

She marched to the bed and vigorously plumped the bolsters while Jerusa remained in the doorway. A chair, a stool, an unsteady table with a candlestick and a pitcher for washing, a black-speckled looking glass and one bed. One bed, thought Jerusa with dismay, which doubtless Michel would expect her to share with him to carry on this ruse of being husband and wife.

But she wouldn’t do it. She couldn’t. He had promised he’d never force her, and he’d kept that promise. She was the one who had proved faithless and untrustworthy, to Tom, her family, even her own notion of herself. With this Frenchman she didn’t even seem to know right from wrong, even who she was, and she didn’t want to consider what might happen between them in this room. It was almost as if he’d cast a spell over her to make her doubt every last thing about herself. One more reason—as if she needed another—for her to leave as soon as she could.

With approval Mrs. Cartwright nodded at the newly plumped bolsters and folded her arms across her wide bosom. “I’ll leave you, then, to settle in, Mrs. Geary. The girls will be up directly with your bath.”

“A bath?” Embarrassed, Jerusa looked down at her filthy, stained gown. She’d traveled enough with her parents to know that a bath in a private room of a public house was an unthinkable luxury. Was it obvious even to Mrs. Cartwright that her new guest had worn the same clothes for six days and nights of hard travel, so obvious that she’d suggest a bath before allowing Jerusa downstairs with her other guests?

But the landlady only smiled benevolently. “It was your husband that suggested it, Mrs. Geary. He thought you’d welcome the chance to wash away the grime of the road. A kind man, ma’am. Most husbands wouldn’t be so thoughtful.”

She winked broadly, her eye nearly disappearing into her round cheek. “But then, most husbands aren’t nearly so comely, eh? I’ll wager that’s one that’s a pleasure to please. No wonder he wanted you smelling sweet afore evening.”

Before Jerusa could stammer an answer, two serving girls squeezed past her, struggling with an empty bathing tub that was little more than a huge sawed-off hogshead, lined with a draped sheet to spare Jerusa from splinters. Another girl followed with a bucket of hot water in each hand, which she dumped, sloshing, into the tub.

“A dozen buckets will see you ready, Mrs. Geary,” said Mrs. Cartwright with satisfaction as she shooed the serving girls from the room ahead of her. “You begin to undress, ma’am, and we’ll have the tub filled before you’re ready. Unless, that is, you’d prefer one of the girls to stay and tend to you?”

“Oh, no, thank you, that won’t be necessary,” murmured Jerusa, remembering all too clearly the night she’d had to let Michel act as her lady’s maid. But the lacings on the simple bodice and skirt she wore now weren’t nearly as complicated as her wedding gown, and by the time the last bucket of water had been emptied into the tub, she was waiting in her shift, a ball of Mrs. Cartwright’s lilac soap ready in her hand.

Jerusa sighed with pleasure as she finally sank into the tub of water. The windows to the room were open, and the warm afternoon sun slanting into the room made her welcome the cooling temperature of the water. The heady fragrance of a climbing rose outside the casement mingled with the tangy scent of the Connecticut River a half mile away, and fat-bodied bumblebees buzzed lazily from flower to flower.

Swiftly Jerusa scrubbed away at the grime and sweat of the last week, working the soap from her toes to the ends of her hair until at last she felt clean. With a sigh of blissful contentment, she let herself sink deeper into the lilac-scented water and closed her eyes. She’d grown so accustomed to riding by night and sleeping by day that she felt drowsy here in the afternoon, and while she tried to force herself to plan what to do next, her sleepy, relaxed body shared no such intentions. For just these few moments, it was so easy to forget everything….

From years of habitual practice, Michel opened every door and entered every room as silently as a cat, and as he latched the door to this one behind him, Jerusa didn’t stir. He smiled wryly to himself, thinking what her reaction would be if she knew he stood behind her now. She was sitting so far down in the tub that her long, wet hair hung over one side and onto the floor, and opposite that he had a charming view of her ankles and feet casually crossed and propped up over the edge of the tub. Lilac soap and a warm, wet, beautiful woman. Morbleu, was ever a man more sorely tempted?

He should have left the new clothes he’d bought for her with Mrs. Cartwright and gone on about his business. He still could, and Jerusa would never be the wiser. There wasn’t any real reason for him to see her until supper. Lord knows, he’d seen enough of her this last week.

Though not, perhaps, as much as he was seeing right now.

She sighed and shifted in the water, dangling one hand over the edge. Her fingertips were puckered from soaking so long, dripping water like tiny diamonds in the sun, and he thought of how much he’d like to lift her from the water and carry her to the bed and—

Enough. She was his prisoner, not his mistress, and he’d be ten times a fool to think it would ever be otherwise between them. His mother had demanded to see a virgin Sparhawk bride, and by God, that was what he would bring her.

He walked silently across the room to the bed, intending to leave the new gown and go while she dozed. But as he did, her eyes suddenly flew open and she gasped and started. Automatically he turned toward her in time to see the bathwater sloshing as she tried vainly to shield herself.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded breathlessly, her face scarlet with shame. “How dare you come back to spy on me like this?”

She’d sunk down as far as she could into the soapy water, trying to hide, but there was still more of her than there was water, and though she hugged her bent knees as tightly as she could in the narrow space, her skin still glistened enticingly, pale and perfect with only the beads of water to gild it.

Yet somehow he managed to keep his face impassive as he watched her. He was, after all, a man of experience, a man of the world, and besides, he was French. Such sights shouldn’t faze him. So why was it taking every scrap of self-possession to stand before her like this?

“I didn’t come to spy on you, ma chérie,” he said as dispassionately as he could. “If I’d wished to spy, I would have stayed in the hall and peeped at you through the keyhole.”

She glared at him, unconvinced. He’d tricked her again, and she was as furious with herself for letting it happen as she was at him for doing it. “Mrs. Cartwright thought you were so blessed kind, ordering me a bath, when I know now you did it simply for the chance to see me—to see me—like this!”

“I’m inclined to side with Mrs. Cartwright.”

“Oh, aye, of course you would!” She tossed her head defiantly, scattering water across the floor. “Now, will you leave on your own, or must I scream for help?”

“Scream all you wish, ma chérie. Or do you forget that they believe we’re man and wife?” He tossed his hat onto the bed, reminding her again that he would be expecting to share it with her. “By English law, you’re mine to do with what I will, and short of murder, none can interfere.”

She nearly howled with frustration. “Then must I sit here all day pickling in lilac water until you decide to leave?”

He leaned against the windowsill and smiled slowly, almost as if he were realizing for the first time that she was naked. “I’m not stopping you, Rusa, am I?”

“You’ve no right to call me that!” she snapped. She struck one hand on the water hard, sending a great splash of soapy water over the front of his coat and breeches.

He glanced down at what she’d done, his smile widening. Her sweeping gesture had let him see the full, high curves of her breasts, glistening with soap as they bobbed gently in the water.

“A worthy suggestion, ma belle,” he said, shrugging his shoulders free of his coat and tossing it, too, onto the bed. “Perhaps I could use a bath myself. It does seem a shame to let all that water go to waste.”

“No!” Frantically Jerusa looked around for something to put on. Of course she had no dressing gown, and to her chagrin she remembered that Mrs. Cartwright had taken her only clothes to wash them. At Michel’s orders, no doubt; what better way to keep her here while he went about his business? All she had left was the worn sheet, draped over the back of the chair, that they’d given her to dry herself. “If you won’t leave, then you must turn your back and give me your word that you won’t turn around until I say so.”

“My word?” He hooked a finger into his neckcloth and tugged it free. “I thought by now, ma mie, you’d learned how little that article would be worth from me.”

“Then from common decency?” Her voice squeaked as she considered the consequences of what he was proposing. “You said you didn’t want to spy on me.”

His waistcoat thumped on the bed beside his coat and hat before he leaned against the windowsill long enough to pull off his boots and then his socks. “I’m still not spying. I’m taking a bath.”

In a single, fluid movement he drew his shirt over his head, and she barely stifled her gasp. His shoulders seemed broader, the lean span of his waist more narrow, without the billowy linen shirt to cover them. Dark whorls of gold hair curled across his chest with fascinating symmetry before it tapered low on his belly above the waistband of his breeches. The only flaw to his perfection was a single, long scar along one arm, the kind that came from sword fighting. He looked as hard and strong as she knew he was, his muscles the obvious mark of a man who lived—and would die—physically.

Yet there was still an inborn elegance to him that showed even now, a certain grace that would always separate him from common sailors or dockworkers. In the time he’d been gone, he’d stopped at a barber, for the dark beard that had softened the line of his jaw was gone, and he looked years younger without it. The ribbon that had held his queue had been pulled off with the shirt, and his dark blond hair was as bright as the slanting sunlight that filled the room, bright as a halo for the fallen angel he must be, and, with a little catch in her breathing, she decided that she’d never seen a more beautiful man.

Michel smiled, shameless before Jerusa’s scrutiny. Although her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were watching him with an eager interest that would have doubtless earned a reprimand from her mother, yet her innocent appreciation pleased him more than he’d ever expected. The worldly women in his past had purred over him like cats with fresh cream, as much, he’d guessed, because it was their trade as from any genuine admiration, and he’d always cynically dismissed their praise. But he didn’t doubt that Jerusa’s unpracticed response was real and true, a rare compliment for any man, and especially for him.

“Enjoying the view?” he asked lightly, his smile widening to a grin when he saw how her cheeks flushed even darker. But still, he noted, she didn’t look away.

“For-forgive me,” she stammered. “I didn’t mean to stare.”

He shrugged as he balled up the shirt and tossed it with the rest of his clothes. He shook his hair back from his face, and for once his smile reached and warmed the blue of his eyes. “Look your fill, ma belle, if it pleases you. Lord knows, I’ve done the same to you.”

She didn’t answer, acute embarrassment warring with her desire to do exactly as he said. In all her dalliances with Tom, he’d never gone beyond unbuttoning his waistcoat, but she’d seen her brothers without their shirts scores of times, and in the summer the sailors on her father’s ships had often stripped to the waist to work, but never once had she felt the way she did now. It was more of the sensual spell only Michel seemed to cast over her, the same spell that bewildered as much as it beguiled her.

But when she saw his hands move to the fall of his breeches, reaching for the first button, her conscience abruptly jolted her back to the reality of her situation. She was sitting in a tub full of tepid water with nothing to clothe her but fading soapsuds, before a man who was going to be in much the same state in a very few moments if she didn’t speak up now.

“Michel, don’t!” she ordered, struggling to sound firm. It had been bad enough to travel alone with him across the countryside, but somehow it seemed infinitely worse—and more frightening—to be with him like this in a room upstairs in a public house. “Turn around and let me dress first, and then you may wash.”

“I told you before I wasn’t stopping you, sweet Jerusa.” He slipped the first button free, considering how much further he’d go to tease her. “I’m still not.”

“But, Michel—”

“But, Jerusa.” He liked to hear her say his name, especially now that she did it so automatically.

“Michel, no!” she cried, finally panicking. He’d robbed her of so much already, and she had so little left to take. “Please don’t do this to me!”

He frowned, stopped by the edge of fear in her voice. He hadn’t heard that from her since the first night, and it stunned him. Only seconds before she’d been spitting fire, taunting and daring him as much as he was her. But then to have her beg like this—Lord, he’d never heard that from her before, and it made him feel low and mean.

“Whatever you please, mademoiselle,” he said softly, and as he turned his back to her, he caught the grateful relief in her eyes, which seemed somehow worse than the fear. He didn’t want to hurt her; he’d never wanted that. But mordieu, what had she done to him?

He listened to her scramble from the tub with a great slosh of water, and he tried not to imagine how she must look with that water streaming from her lovely body only a few feet behind him. He swore beneath his breath, struggling to will his body into polite, disinterested submission. Why couldn’t the favorite daughter of Gabriel Sparhawk have been walleyed, squat and pudding faced?

“It’s your turn to wash now, if you still wish it,” she murmured self-consciously when she was done. “I’ll sit near the window while you do.”

Yet when he turned to face her, he had to swallow back the groan that rose in his throat. She had wrapped the sheet around her body, tucking the ends beneath her arms and above her breasts so that she was covered from there to the floor. But if she believed she was now decent, she was woefully mistaken. The worn, thin linen clung to every damp curve of her body, accentuating the ripe flare of her hips and waist and the shapely length of her legs more than if she’d remained naked. And her breasts—mordieu, the water must be cooler than he realized to leave her full flesh so round and taut.

She lifted her arms to squeeze the water from her dark hair, and her breasts rose higher, the water falling across them making the sheet so transparent that the rosy circles of her puckered nipples were clearly visible. With tiny diamonds of water tangled in her lashes, she smiled shyly with the most ill-founded trust he could imagine.

Sacristi, did she have any notion of what she was doing to him? All she’d have to do was look at the front of his breeches to learn. Before she did, he stalked to the bed and tore open the package he’d left there with his saddlebag.

“Here,” he said gruffly, forgetting all the genteel phrases he’d rehearsed in the dressmaker’s shop. “This will suit you better than an old sheet.”

He shook out the green calimanco gown he’d bought for her and flung it across the bed. A new pair of lisle stockings tumbled out onto the floor, along with a new shift and petticoat and a green silk ribbon for her hair.

She looked down at them, clearly confused. “But Mrs. Cartwright said she’d bring my other clothes directly, once they were clean.”

“To hell with the other clothes,” he said sharply. “For now I want you to wear these.”

Swiftly her gaze rose from the clothes to him, her eyes turned wary at his tone.

He sighed with exasperation at his own want of manners. “Sacristi, non, that’s not what I meant,” he said, raking his fingers back through his loose hair. “What I did mean, Jerusa, is that I thought you’d prefer these. If you wish to wear them, that is.”

Still she said nothing, and his exasperation with himself grew. The gown and other fripperies were more fashionable—and more expensive—than the things he’d given her before, but what he hoped she’d notice was that he’d chosen it all with her in mind, from the green that nearly matched her eyes to the tight-laced bodice that might actually fit her slender waist.

Given her: that was the difference. This was a gift, he realized uneasily, meant for her alone, and the first he’d ever given any woman, save his mother. He didn’t know why he’d done it or why it mattered so much that she notice.