Louise Allen - Regency Scoundrels And Scandals

‘Do you have grounds for comparison?’ Jack asked coolly into the aching silence.

‘Only Louis’s own assessment,’ she replied, then came to a decision. She could not leave this. ‘Personally I have had no basis for comparison—only one kiss. On the basis of that Louis need not have been so confident.’

‘Nothing? In all that time?’ Jack sounded as though he was just the other side of the screen. She should step out, have this exchange face to face, but somehow Eva guessed it would be more truthful like this. ‘No one?’

‘No one,’ she affirmed. ‘No one while he was alive, no one since.’

From that, she supposed, he could conclude she was a love-starved widow, ready to turn to any personable man once she was away from the close scrutiny of the Grand Ducal court, or that she was cold and had not felt the lack of love and of loving.

‘The man was a fool,’ Jack said abruptly. It wasn’t until she heard the snick of the latch that she realised he had walked out and left her. Eva stood for a moment, filtering the few words through her mind, listening to the emotion behind the curt statement. Her friend was angry on her behalf. Her eyes filled; no one had ever understood what it must have been like being married to Louis, and yet a man she had just tactlessly insulted grasped it immediately with warmth and empathy.

‘Thank you, Jack,’ she whispered to the empty room.

Shopping with a woman was a new experience. At the age of twenty-nine one did not have many of those, and certainly few that were so entertaining. If his sister, Bel, had asked him to accompany her through the fashionable lounges and shops of London, he would have pretended an attack of mumps sooner than oblige her, but Eva’s delight at being let loose in the bourgeois shops of Grenoble was infectious.

In her travel-worn gown and cloak she darted from shop window to shop window, ruthlessly dragging Jack with her. ‘I must have a hat,’ she declared. ‘I feel positively indecent without one. Which do you think? The amber straw with the ruffle or the chip straw with the satin ribbons?’

‘Have both,’ he suggested, ignoring the inner warning that a carriage stuffed with hatboxes was not the efficient vehicle for clandestine travel he had designed it to be.

‘Really? May I?’ He was still looking into the window as she glanced up at him. Something about the reflected image of himself standing there with this lovely woman on his arm, her head tilted to look up at him with delight in her eyes, hit him over the solar plexus like a blow from a fist. They looked right together, and the sight gave him an entirely unfamiliar sensation of possessiveness. Jack tried to analyse it, but Eva was still talking.

‘Only I haven’t bought a gown yet, and I ought to buy that first and match the hat.’

‘Really? Is that how it is done?’

‘I think so—when I have new ensembles made they all come together with a selection of hats and shoes and so forth. I’m not used to shopping like this.’ Her nose wrinkled in doubt and Jack grinned. That was an expression far from the grand duchess he was used to.

‘Come on, let’s break the rules.’ He pushed open the door and held it for her as the little bell tinkled, summoning the milliner. ‘And you will need something in case we have to ride.’

‘If we do, that will be an emergency? Yes?’ Eva stopped inside the door and lowered her voice.

‘Yes. We’ll be picking up saddle horses a bit further north as a precaution.’

‘Then I need breeches.’ Jack felt his brows shoot up. ‘I will explain later, but I can ride astride.’ Eva turned to the shopkeeper, who was bobbing a curtsy. ‘There are two hats in your window I would like to try, if you please.’

Ride astride? How in Hades had she learned that? It was certainly useful—if they had to take to horseback then it would be because they had to abandon the carriage and move both fast and unobserved. His mind strayed to wondering how one bought riding breeches for a woman off the peg in Grenoble. Eva was tall and slender, but definitely rounded in a way that no man or youth was.

‘Jacques.’ He pulled himself away from a frankly improper contemplation of the curves hinted at by the fall of her gown and found himself confronted by a nightmare he had heard other men gibbering about. He was expected to make a judgement between two articles of clothing worn by a woman. ‘Which do you think?’

Eva was wearing the chip straw, the bow tied at an angle under her jaw. The deep green of the satin ribbon did things to the colour of her eyes he could not explain, but which made him want to cover a bed with velvet in exactly that shade and lay her upon it. Naked.

‘Delightful. It definitely suits you.’ He remembered to talk in French just in time.

‘Or this?’ She replaced it with the amber straw. The brim framed her face, the colour brought out golden tones in her hair. The daydream changed to a bed strewn with amber silks. ‘Delightful. Have them both.’

‘Yes, but then I saw this.’ She was biting her lower lip in thought. Jack closed his eyes for a moment’s relief and opened them to see a pert confection he had no name for. The only word for it was sassy and it made his dignified grand duchess look like a seventeen-year-old, ripe for a spree.

‘Wonderful. Buy them all.’

‘Jacques, you aren’t taking this seriously. You must prefer one of them, or don’t you really like any?’ It was exactly what friends had moaned about. Women asked you for an opinion and then were upset whatever you said.

‘I think they all look marvellous on you,’ he said, trying to inject sincerity into his voice. ‘But I think that whatever the hat, you would look good, so it is very difficult to express a preference.’

‘Ah, monsieur.’ The milliner obviously thought this was a suitable answer. Eva cast him a roguish glance that made something deep inside respond. He knew his pulse rate was up and drew in a deep breath to steady it.

‘Thank you. I think I will have the chip straw and…that one.’ She pointed to the sassy little hat.

‘Not all three?’ Jack queried as the gratified shopkeeper hastened to pack the hats in their boxes.

‘We have only just started shopping.’ Jack found himself grinning back in answer to Eva’s smile.

It was madness. Here he was, Jack Ryder, King’s Messenger, a man who chose danger as a way of life, looking forward to hours spent exploring dress shops, haberdashers and shoemakers. If Henry found out, he would never live it down.

Two hours later, laden with parcels, Jack called a halt and dragged Eva into a confectioner’s. ‘Enough! Can there be a single shop of interest to ladies in this town we have not explored?’

‘Not one.’ Eva smiled happily at him over the rim of a cup of chocolate. ‘Tell me what you bought for my riding clothes.’

‘Breeches, shirt, waistcoat, coat and boots. You can use one of my neckcloths.’

‘But how did you know my size?’ She blushed adorably, he mused, wondering how else he could provoke that reaction without overstepping the bounds of friendship he had set himself.

‘I can measure your height against myself, likewise your feet.’ He let his booted foot nudge against hers under the shelter of the tablecloth and lowered his voice. ‘As for the rest, well, I have held you in my arms.’

‘Oh.’ The rose-pink colour reached her temples this time. Jack tried not to imagine how soft the skin would be there, how it would feel to nuzzle along to the delicate curve of her ear and explore the crisp moulding before nibbling his way down…‘You have a good memory.’

Confessing that he had been recalling those few minutes in vivid detail ever since they had occurred was out of the question. ‘I doubt the breeches will be a good fit.’ Eva looked a question. ‘Any youth quite your, er…shape would be an unusual young man. They are certain to be too large in the waist.’