Louise Allen - Regency Scoundrels And Scandals

‘Thank you.’ Eva blinked back tears, dropping her cheek momentarily to rest against his raised hand. He smiled at her, then she saw his eyes focus beyond her, the laughter lines creasing attractively. ‘And who are you flirting with, might I ask?’

‘Behind us. A most respectable dame who obviously thinks we make a pretty couple.’

‘We do.’ Eva dimpled a smile. ‘Look, see the mirror to your right, you can see us in it.’ Jack glanced across. She was right—on the wall was an ancient mirror, probably something that had found its way from one of the great houses of the district during the Terror, for it was too fine for this workaday place

The old glass was soft and kind, framing them as a portrait of lovers, hands clasped, heads close. Eva, so feminine despite her severe man’s clothing, with her dark plait lying heavy on her shoulder. Him, just a man…Jack stared. That was him, it couldn’t be anyone else, but somehow the reflection looked different. Younger, more—he fought for the word—more complete. Which was nonsense. It had to be the flattering effect of the mirror. But Henry had said he had changed, and he felt different.

He stared deep into his own eyes, deep into the eyes of a man in love. Hell! Jack shut his eyes on the betraying image, turned his head sharply and released Eva’s hand. No, that was not going to happen, he could not let it, it was impossible and there was nothing there for him but misery.

But the trouble was, he knew it was too late. That warm centre of contentment, that feeling of completeness that threaded through the desire he felt for Eva, that stab of black misery that hit the pit of his stomach when he thought of leaving her—he had never felt those things before.

The bustle of the inn dining room faded around him as he sat there. He had fallen in love, the one thing he had sworn he would never do. And he had fallen in love with the most inappropriate, most unobtainable woman he could have chosen, short of one of the royal princesses. He felt his lips part without conscious volition and tried to control his instinct to say the words, here, now, at once.

‘Jack? What is it?’ Eva was staring at him, her lovely mouth curving into a smile that was half-amusement, half-concern. He must be gawping at her like the village idiot, that fatal declaration trembling on his lips.

‘Nothing.’ Everything. My heart. My world. My soul. ‘Nothing at all important, just a thought that struck me. This chicken is good, is it not?’

‘It is pork.’ The smile became a teasing grin as he clenched his hands around knife and fork to stop himself reaching across the table and pulling her to him. ‘Does champagne always have this effect on you?’

No, you do. ‘No. It is not the champagne, it is pure, unadulterated desire.’ He made himself match her bantering tone and found himself smiling as the ready colour stained her cheeks. She was so deliciously modest and reserved, yet when they touched she was utterly abandoned in her lovemaking. It was like her whole character. Outwardly she could be aloof, autocratic, reserved; inwardly she was warm, vulnerable, loving. ‘We will take another bottle upstairs—I have wicked thoughts about what we can do with the contents.’

The brown eyes watching him opened wide with speculation that was both shocked and titillated. Jack called up reserves of self-control he had never had to apply to his own feelings before and made himself focus only on the here and now. This meal, this tension between them and the sound of cannon fire which was becoming fainter and less frequent as the darkness drew in, became the whole of the world. Jack felt the urgency draining out of him, to be replaced by a sense of anticipation that was thrumming through his body with almost orgasmic intensity.

He was going to make love to Eva tonight, and when he did it would be astonishing, even better than all the times before, and yet that was not all he wanted any more. He wanted—no, he needed—to watch her, see her in minute detail. He needed to learn the way she wrinkled her nose at a flavour she did not like, how she smiled when she thanked the maid for some small attention, how the colour of her eyes changed in the candlelight, how the tiny mole at the corner of her left eye moved when she frowned at him in mock-anger at a teasing word.

He packed away the pictures of her at every moment, the sound of her voice when she chuckled, the throaty laugh of real, uninhibited amusement, the sudden, serious, expression that kept transforming her face and which he could not persuade her to explain. All of these impressions he saved, learned, as he would a map of enemy territory or a complex brief from a client, storing them away for the time when they would be all he had of her. All he could ever have.

Eva pushed away her plate with a little sigh of repletion. He poured the last drops of the champagne into their glasses and gestured to the maid for another bottle. ‘Shall we go up?’

Their chamber had been cleared of bath tub and shaving water. The puffy white eiderdown on the big wooden bed had been turned down invitingly and candles burned on the dresser and beside the bed. On the washstand a bunch of June roses made a blotch of warm colour in the pale room.

‘Eva.’ Jack reached for her.

‘No.’ She held up a hand, halting him. ‘No, tonight I want to make love to you.’

‘What have we been doing up to now?’ he asked, conscious of the straining ache of arousal that had been building all evening towards this moment.

‘You have been making love to me, we have been making love together,’ she explained. ‘Tonight I would like to…to lead.’

Had he the strength, the willpower, to let her set the pace? Jack swallowed, realising he wanted this, badly, and that his imagination was already threatening to tip him over the edge. Unable to speak, he nodded.

‘Good.’ She was blushing, but determined. ‘Undress for me.’

He could not unlock his eyes from hers. By touch Jack pulled off his neckcloth, unbuttoned his waistcoat, shed it with his coat, careless of where they fell. He had hardly any recall of how his shirt got off, or his shoes, but he found himself standing there in bare feet, clad only in the light trousers he had changed into when they arrived.

‘Everything,’ she said huskily, releasing his eyes as her own gaze slid down his torso.

He was so hard his fingers fumbled momentarily on the fall of his trousers, then he was pushing them down, feeling the relief as his erection was freed from the constriction, hearing her gasp as she saw him. ‘You have me excited almost beyond bearing,’ he confessed.

‘Do not apologise,’ Eva murmured, apparently transfixed. Her intent regard made him swell harder, larger, as if that were possible. ‘Lie on the bed. On your back, please.’

Intrigued, Jack did as she ordered. This was a new experience. What was she going to do now?

What she did was to proceed to torture him by slowly removing each article of her own clothing with deliberate intent to send him insane. She took off her coat and waistcoat with prim care, hanging them carefully on a chair while he admired the tight fit of her breeches over her buttocks and the slender length of her thighs.

She eased off her boots, sliding each down her leg in turn in a way that made him fantasise about sliding in and out of her body. Her neckcloth came next. She stood by the bed untying it, shaking her head reprovingly as he reached for her and only moving again when he lay back. Then she used it to trail down his body, the featherlight touch of the muslin wafting the subtle scent of her heat to him as it teased his nipples into hard knots, then slithered over his groin.

‘Have some mercy!’ He grabbed for it, only for her to whisk it away, leaving him aching. Jack fought the urge to take himself in hand to gain some relief from this torment.