Zoë Archer - Sweet Revenge

Right. It was a disguise, meant only to get him into the ball at some gentleman’s house, where he’d find Gilling. And then, they’d proceed with the next step of their plan.

Many things could go wrong tonight. He could be barred from getting into the ball. Gilling might not be there. Or Gilling would be there and shout the house down the moment Jack made his move. The investigation against Rockley could collapse, leaving them with nothing and no means of bringing him down.

But what truly made Jack’s skin feel tight with nerves, what made his heart pound, was thinking about what Eva might do when she saw him in his new evening clothes. Would she laugh at him, say something snide about stuffing a bear into silk and wool? It oughtn’t matter what she thought. Yet it did.

Footfalls sounded on the stairs. A man’s and a woman’s. She was here. Simon had gone to fetch her, and now he was back. With her. Their muted voices came through the door.

Jack stopped his pacing and stood in the middle of the parlor. He felt big and ham-fisted, uncertain. But his chin rose and he pulled his shoulders back when the door opened and Eva appeared.

She stopped abruptly, causing Simon to nearly collide with her. When she didn’t move any further, Simon sidled around her and into the flat. But what the blond toff did after that, Jack had no idea. All he saw was Eva.

He felt as though someone had punched him in the chest. Hard. He couldn’t speak or breathe. Could only stare.

She wore a dress of shiny golden fabric, with dark blue velvet ribbons along the low neckline and trimming the ruffles of her skirts. Golden beads glittered on the front of her gown. She’d put fresh flowers in her elaborately pinned hair, roses with pale yellow petals. The dress left the slopes of her shoulders exposed, and even in the harsh gaslight, her skin gleamed like a pearl. Long white gloves came to just above her elbows, and the skin of her upper arms was just as gleaming as her neck and shoulders. Her neck was bare, but she wore a glittering pair of earrings that caught the light with each turn of her head.

It wasn’t the fanciest dress he’d ever seen—the ladies from the other night had had more ruffles and bows and beads—but, by God, he’d never seen any woman look more beautiful.

“I see”—she cleared her throat when her words came out in a rasp—“Olney managed to get your suit ready in time. He did an … excellent job.”

There wasn’t a full-length mirror in the flat, and Olney had delivered the evening clothes. Jack had caught glimpses of himself in some of the smaller glasses but he had no idea what he looked like once he’d put everything on.

Judging by the way Eva looked at him now, he looked like a juicy steak, and she was starving.

Her gaze moved over him, and he felt it as surely as if she’d taken off her gloves and run her hands up and down his body. Her appreciative look lingered on his shoulders, then traveled lower, down his chest, and lower still. She wet her lips. In response, his cock thickened, snug against the wool. He clenched his teeth to keep from groaning aloud.

If he’d felt awkward before, now manly confidence surged through him. He liked the way she stared at him. An improper look if ever there was one. And the ideas spinning through his head weren’t proper, either. They were downright indecent.

Did she have silken drawers on underneath that gown? Were they white, pale blue? Trimmed with ribbons or plain? He wanted to grab up big handfuls of her golden skirts and find out.

“What a pretty gown,” Harriet said, coming out of the kitchen. She approached Eva and tugged playfully on the narrow band of her sleeve. “What on earth are you doing with it?”

Pink crept into Eva’s cheeks. “It was an indulgence. I’ve no real need for it.”

“You do tonight.” Harriet glanced back at Jack, who still couldn’t move or get his mind to function, and winked. “If a gown could be a weapon, yours is a Gatling gun.”

Jack felt more like he’d been knocked clean off his feet by a sledgehammer.

“When are we going to see you in something like that, Harridan?” Lazarus chuckled.

“Be grateful that you won’t,” she fired back. “Because if you did, you’d expire of ecstasy on the spot.”

Simon held up a printed card. “Present this invitation to the butler, and you’ll be permitted entry. Be very careful not to lose it.”

Eva took the card and examined it. “This must be a valuable commodity. How did you obtain it?”

“It’s the art that appears not to be art,” the blond man answered. “ Sprezzatura, the Italians call it.”

Marco grimaced. “Your pronunciation is abominable.” He repeated the Italian word, and even Jack had to admit it sounded like music when spoken by Marco.

“That card might get you in the door,” Simon counseled, “but once you’re inside, the rest is up to you.” He looked at Jack pointedly. “Genteel behavior is essential.”

For all Simon’s helping Jack with the fitting, it was plain that he still didn’t trust Jack. Suited him just fine. He didn’t trust Simon, either.

Jack rolled his eyes. “Here I was planning on having a belching contest in the middle of the dance floor.”

“Next time,” Eva said. She looked at the clock, and again Jack was struck by the slim curve of her throat. He hadn’t missed the swells of her breasts, either, the tops just visible at the dipping neckline of her gown. Nice handfuls they’d be, soft and full. He ached to touch them, to hold them, to tease her nipples into tight beads.

Damn it. At this rate, he’d be strutting around the ball with a cockstand all night. He needed to get control of himself and his thoughts.

“It’s just nine now,” she said. “The dancing’s already begun, which means it’s the perfect time for us to arrive.”

He was starting to know the ways of polite society, and stuck out his arm for Eva before she had to ask. What was it the gentry said? Ah, that’s right. “Shall we, my lady?”

“Oh, we shall.” She rested her hand on his arm, and smiled up at him. He felt dizzy. “Time to infiltrate the serpent’s nest.”

* * *

Eva took one step. Then another. Slowly, slowly, she and Jack ascended the stairs outside Lord Chalton’s ball. They were sandwiched between guests waiting to present their invitations to the butler. Music and light spilled out the door, combining with the chiming of flutes of champagne and equally bubbling conversation. Within minutes, she would show the butler her invitation and come up with identities for herself and Jack. She’d worked something out earlier in the day, and rehearsed it to herself in the carriage ride over, but she hoped her cover story held beneath the butler’s imperious stare. The upper servant could have her and Jack tossed out onto the curb if he so desired, invitation or no invitation.

Her pulse raced and her palms dampened her gloves as she and Jack went up another step. The woman standing in front of them continued throwing glances over her shoulder, the plumes in her hair bobbing with each movement. Compared to the splendor of the woman’s Ottoman silk and velvet gown, Eva’s ensemble was almost austere, and she stiffened beneath her regard. But it wasn’t Eva’s simple gown that kept drawing the woman’s gaze. It was Jack.

Had the plumed woman’s escort known the way she looked at Jack, he would have been mortified, if not livid. Eva herself wanted to throw her gloved fist into the woman’s face.

Yet she couldn’t blame the plumed lady’s interest. In his evening finery, Jack looked … dangerous. The severe black-and-white of his clothing, the excellent cut of his coat across his wide shoulders, and the fit of his trousers over his long, muscled legs—all of it emphasized how very wild he truly was. Evening clothes only highlighted the difference between him and all the other elegantly attired men waiting to attend the ball.