Cry for Passion (25 page)

Emotion chased away Rose’s shock: pain . . . anger. Realization of what she would endure for a lifetime suddenly transformed into resolve.

“Please instruct Mrs. Cambray to join Mr. Lodoun and me immediately,” Rose said evenly.

“Yes, ma’am.”

The door swished half-closed.

Rose stared past Jack for long seconds before confronting his gaze. “You never asked Mrs. Whitcox if she wanted a divorce.”

“No,” he said, knee throbbing, cock aching.

“Because of this.”

“Yes.”

She would have become a pariah to the society she loved.

“You were afraid she didn’t love you enough to agree.”

The truth but not the whole truth.

“But you were even more afraid,” Rose said, blue eyes black with pain, “her love wouldn’t survive the scandal.”

And now he would never know.

“Yes,” Jack said flatly.

He smelled the proprietress, a rush of expensive perfume and pettiness: She smelled much like Blair Stromwell.

“Is there a problem, Mrs. Clarring?”

Staring eyes burned his knee, mentally photographing the image of Rose and Jack to fuel more gossip.

“Indeed not, Mrs. Cambray.” Rose slowly glanced away from Jack. “I wished to express my congratulations.”

“Indeed.” The older woman’s voice was nonplussed. Insincerely, she added, “Thank you.”

“Your establishment must be quite prosperous,” Rose continued calmly, face pale, chin high.

The older woman’s voice bloated with pride. “Yes, we do quite well.”

“You must do so well, Mrs. Cambray, that you will not miss the business of seven women.”

Jack could feel the proprietress’s smugness draining like pus.

“You do realize, I’m sure,” Rose said, “that if you refuse my business, you also refuse the business of my mother and my five sisters-in-law.”

“I am so sorry, Mrs. Clarring,” the proprietress stiffly apologized, “if we have in any way led you to believe we do not value your patronage.”

There was no rancor on Rose’s face, only the quiet determination of a woman who refused to be judged. “Then you will send my bill to the address with which I provided Mrs. Throckenberry.”

“Of course.” Outside the open door malicious whispers rose and fell. “I will speak to Mrs. Throckenberry: She must have misunderstood my words.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Cambray.” Rose nodded her head in dismissal; dusky pink edged her cheekbones. “I was certain it must be a mistake. Please tell Mrs. Throckenberry to choose whatever accessories she feels will complement my wardrobe and to send them with the hats next week. You are very fortunate to have her; should you not, I believe we should have to take our business elsewhere.”

“We deeply value Mrs. Throckenberry, Mrs. Clarring. As we do you and your family. Good day.” Jack felt the proprietress’s gaze. “Mr. Lodoun.”

The defeated woman exited in a rustle of silk: Her scent lingered.

Rose had gambled and won.

This time.

Standing—cold embracing his knee—Jack extended his hand. “What would you have done if she’d said au revoir?”

Rose’s naked fingers clasped his naked fingers; she stood in a rush of wool. Roses and Rose replaced the scent of perfume and greed. “I would have regretted the loss of my frocks.”

“And would she have lost six additional customers?” Jack asked alertly.

Had Rose lost her family, as well as her husband?

Sadness dimmed the triumph in her eyes. “We’ll never know, will we?”

Reaching up, Jack grazed her cheek with his forefinger, offering her a moment’s respite. “I ache for you, too, Rose.”

Briefly she closed her eyes and leaned into his touch.

Silence fell inside the shop, the proprietress murdering one rumor at a time.

Rose abruptly pulled away from Jack and hooked her arm through his. “Shall we go?”

The sunshine celebrated Rose’s victory, dancing and bouncing on glass and metal harnesses.

Stoically Jack watched a four-wheeled Clarence cab pass him by.

A dark profile shone within.

Jack did not know if it was a man or a woman he glimpsed.

Slashing motion captured his gaze.

Rose hailed a hansom cab, black beaded reticule winking and waving.

Somberly he gazed down into cornflower blue eyes.

There was no judgment inside Rose’s gaze.

“You did not make me an adulteress, Jack,” she said firmly. “You made me your lover.”

The acrid scent of horse and sweat stung his eyes.

Hand seeking, he found the anchor of Rose’s spine.

He felt the bunching of muscle, her leg lifting. Her back stretched, arm reaching for the splashboard.

“Pantechnicon on Motcomb Street,” drifted over the whine of wheels.

Jack followed Rose. Her scent and her heat filled the cab.

“What are we shopping for?” he asked, lungs constricting at her nearness.

The cab leapt into the stream of traffic.

“I have an empty house that needs to be filled with furniture.”

Jack had a house full of furniture: He had not chosen one piece of it.

A small square of light glinted off a pearl earring.

“I shouldn’t have mentioned you by name,” Rose suddenly apologized.

“She recognized me,” he said neutrally.

Rose’s likeness had in several papers been coupled with Jack’s photograph.

“Surely it won’t matter what a few shopkeepers say.” The cab lurched. Rose grabbed a leather pull. Jack braced his foot against the door. “Will it?”

“No,” Jack lied.

Turning, Rose half stood and slid down onto the floor between his knees, dark hat and waving feather obscuring her face. “I want to feel you come in my hands, Jack, against my tongue.”

Jack’s heart gorged his cock. “You don’t have to do this, Rose.”

“But I want to.” Hands bumping and grinding with the motion of the cab, Rose freed the second button fastening his trousers. “Inside the elevator, your cock pulsed inside me like a heartbeat. I want to taste your heartbeat, Jack.”

Vulnerability charged through him.

Jack grasped her hands; her fingers continued moving. “I’ve been inside you, Rose.”

The third button slithered free, his sex hardening with each twist of her fingers.

Rose rocked between his thighs with the motion of the cab. “I know, Jack.”

She had tasted herself on his tongue, but she had never before taken a man’s cock into her mouth.

Jack instinctively braced his foot more solidly to hold his body still against the shuddering motion of wood and leather.

“I don’t want you to be repulsed by my scent,” he said, forcing his fingers to release her.

Rose freed the fourth button. “Why would I be repulsed by the scent of our sex?”

Small hands found him. . . . Cool air kissed him.

Jack’s head snapped back against the leather seat.

The hansom chased a Clarence: The four-wheeled cab could not outrun the two-wheeled cab.

“When I got up this morning”—warm breath blurred the top hat that whipped free of the Clarence cabby—“I smelled like this.”

Jack closed his eyes, hands gripping the leather bench.

“Of roses, my scent.” Warm lips grazed his cock. “Of spice, your scent.”

Two women danced behind his eyelids: Cynthia Whitcox in red; Rose Clarring in black.

“Of musk”—a rasping tongue tasted the tears his cock cried and swallowed the woman in red—“our scent.”

Hot liquid crawled down his cheek.

“I wanted you, Jack, the first moment I saw you,” Rose whispered. Four distant bongs pierced wood and wool, flesh and bones. “For more than a splendid fuck.”

Chapter 26

The glint of crystal and amber-colored brandy filled the darkness.

Across from the glass-topped desk, Jonathon could make out the shimmering outline of a woman.

She sat in a brown leather wing chair. She cradled a snifter of brandy against her stomach.

She talked. He listened. Unable to respond.

Now Rose was gone. And still the pain gnawed at him, every day swallowing another chunk of his life.

“Mr. Clarring?”

Jonathon was abruptly aware of where he was—his office, not his den at home—and the incessant hum of wheels that wafted up from the busy street below.

“Yes?” he asked alertly, head lifting.

A woman’s head peeked around a mahogany door. “I stayed late to finish the letters you dictated this morning. Shall you sign them now, or wait until Monday?”

Pain stabbed through Jonathon.

The hazel eyes of the twenty-two-year-old woman were filled with so much vitality it hurt him to stare at her.

“Come in, Mrs. Jacobson,” he said quietly, averting his gaze. “I’ll sign them now.”

The secretary reluctantly pushed open the door.

Afternoon sunlight slanted across thick burgundy carpeting, picked up gold highlights in her dull brown hair, and sharply delineated her extended abdomen.

She was embarrassed by her pregnancy. Jonathon thought she was beautiful.

Waddling slightly—hands holding a sheaf of papers in front of her to hide her condition—Elda Jacobson crossed the burgundy carpeting. She halted beside his desk, so close he could touch the rounded abdomen she strove to conceal.

Jonathon accepted the sheaf of letters, eyes focusing on the neat black typing instead of her gaze. “Sit down, Mrs. Jacobson.”

“Thank you, Mr. Clarring, but I’m perfectly well, really I am.”

Jonathon wondered what Rose would look like, swollen with child. Would her face glow with pregnancy, like the secretary’s face glowed?

Would it bring joy back into her eyes?

He reached for a heavy silver pen. A shadow caught his gaze: It punched the front of the secretary’s gown.

“Mr. Jacobson and I are ever so thankful to you, Mr. Clarring.” The secretary’s youthful enthusiasm spilled over Jonathon. “I don’t know what we’d do now, if you had cut me off.”

A woman was expected to retire out of sight of society once she was pregnant. As if carrying a man’s child was something shameful.

“I appreciate the fact that you’ve stayed on, Mrs. Jacobson.” Jonathon focused on the letter, and the pen that he suddenly clutched. “You’re quite the most accomplished typewriter I’ve ever had.”

“Thank you, Mr. Clarring.” The wafting voice of a vendor faintly cried out; it was instantly swallowed in the whining careen of afternoon traffic. “I appreciate you saying so.”

Another shadow punched out the secretary’s dress.

Jonathon paused, pen poised over a scribbled C, breath coming more quickly.

Surely the movement could not be what he suddenly suspected.

Dragging his gaze away from the secretary’s abdomen, he finished his signature and laid aside the vellum paper.

“Did you take on that gentleman Mr. Stromwell recommended?” crawled down his spine.

Forcefully Jonathon concentrated on separating the second and third letters. “No.”

“I’m glad,” the secretary confided. “He made me a bit uncomfortable. It was his eyes. Purple, they were. Like purple ice.”

Jonathon had not noticed the color of Jack Lodoun’s eyes.

He had always known Rose would one day take a lover. But he had never thought he would meet with the man vis-à-vis.

Blindly he affixed his signature.

“A woman came after he left.” The scent of wool and powder drifted over Jonathon; out of the corner of his eye he saw the secretary scoop up the signed letter. “She was quite pretty. She said she was a client, but I’ve not seen her before.”

Jonathon reached for a third sheet of vellum paper.

He remembered the woman Rose had once been, as innocent and vibrant as the young secretary. When he had gazed at her in white organza with rose blossoms crowning her guinea-gold hair, he had thought she was the most beautiful woman God had ever created.

Jonathon still thought so.

“What was her name?” he asked, head bent over his work, knowing the answer.

“She didn’t say.” The scent of wool and powder washed over him, the secretary scooping up the third signed letter. “In her way, she was quite as frightening as the gentleman with the purple eyes. I told her you weren’t available, and she marched right into your office. You must have just left to go down to the pit: I heard her call out. Did you hear her?”

“No,” Jonathon lied. Jonathon reverberated inside his ears; it was chased by please. He reached for a fourth letter.

“Her eyes were quite striking, too,” the secretary said, unaware of the fact that she talked about Jonathon’s wife. “Blue as freshly picked cornflowers, they were. They’d make beautiful babies, she and the man with the purple eyes. Do you know her?”

Sharp quill slashing across vellum paper—lashes hiding the tears that suddenly blurred his vision—Jonathon quietly repeated, “No.”

“Shall I ring security should she come again?”

Of one thing Jonathon was certain: “She won’t be back,” he said, and extended the fourth and final letter.

But Jonathon could hope.

Jack Lodoun did not love Rose like Jonathon loved her.

Jonathon could hope that the MP would do what was best for her.

The shadow punched out of the secretary’s abdomen.

An uncontrollable yearning gripped Jonathon.

“Is that the baby?” he asked compulsively.

“He’s very active today.” A soothing hand rubbed the swollen abdomen. Distant bongs carried on a whine of traffic. “Mr. Jacobson says he’s going to kick his way out one of these days.”

“Does it hurt?” Jonathon openly gazed at her pregnancy. “When he kicks?”

“It’s a bit of a jar.” Sudden laughter reverberated inside Jonathon’s ears. “That was a big one. You should feel it. . . .”

The secretary’s voice died off in sudden embarrassment.

Jonathon tore his gaze off her abdomen and glanced upward. Her youthful face was crimson, the glow of pregnancy replaced with a flush of shame.

“I’m sorry,” she said, exuberance stilted.

“There’s no need to be,” Jonathon said in all sincerity. “Your condition is perfectly natural.”

She gazed at Jonathon for long moments, understanding slowly blossoming inside her hazel eyes, eyes the color of rich earth and fertile grass. “You don’t have children, do you, sir?”