Cry for Passion (28 page)

“Yes,” Jack lied, stomach coiling with the ascension of the cab.

“Good morning, Mr. Lodoun.” Nathan Dorsey sat at his desk, dry and dignified, rifling through a manilla folder. A mug of steaming coffee sat at his elbow. “Did you have a pleasant weekend, sir?”

Jack would not describe the time he had spent with Rose as “pleasant.” She had alternately eviscerated him with her passion and humbled him with her generosity.

“Quite pleasant, Mr. Dorsey,” Jack said. Fleetingly he wondered if Rose had gone back to sleep. Or did she lie awake between sheets wet with their sweat and their sex, thinking of her husband to whom she had yet to say good-bye? “We’re running late, I’m afraid. I rode the omnibus.”

The clerk followed Jack into his office, a vigilant shadow. “Apparently Mr. Thaddens rode an omnibus, also; tonight he’s reading a petition to grant the city more monies to expand services.”

Jack derived from this piece of information that the House of Commons’s “Order of Business” had arrived.

“He’s won a vote.” Jack hung his dripping coat on a hook beside his umbrella. “Arrange for a cab to pick up Mrs. Clarring tonight at seven.”

“Yes, sir. You have time for a shower and a change, if you like,” the clerk calmly suggested. “We can go over the briefs in a cab.”

Hot water did not diminish the chill caused by leaving Rose.

Quickly he toweled dry and dressed in dry clothing.

A quarter chime penetrated water, brick and wood: It was fifteen minutes after ten o’clock.

Motion sounded behind the bathroom door.

Jack turned the brass knob. “Mr. Dorsey—”

Slashing rain framed a balding head. Thick cigar smoke curled upward in the gloom.

Jack stiffened. “Chairman.”

“Lodoun, old boy.” Blair Stromwell sat in Jack’s chair, an overt gesture of the political power he wielded. “Young Mr. Dorsey was kind enough to brew coffee. Come join me.”

“Another time,” Jack said shortly. “I have a court arraignment.”

The affability slid out of the older man’s eyes. “You do have a penchant for other men’s wives, Lodoun.”

The heat of the shower crystallized on Jack’s skin: The junior member of Parliament had not been able to keep his mouth shut.

For a moment, he felt the same sick helplessness he felt when confronted with a Clarence cab, unable to stop the past.

“You’re in my chair.” Jack’s voice was toneless; emotion coiled inside him. “And you’re mingling in my business.”

“When you fuck a whore, Lodoun, that’s your business.” Dark smoke circled the senior MP’s head. “When you fuck another man’s wife and cram her down the public’s throat, that’s our business.”

Anger had a color: It was gray like cigar smoke.

“I have voted for the party,” Jack coldly returned. “I will not live for the party.”

No more.

“We have stated our position on the matter of marriage,” Blair Stromwell countered.

The rule of men rather than the rule of law.

“For ten years we’ve groomed you.” Water like worms crawled down the glass framing the Chairman of Justice. “We are not going to allow you to upset our ambitions because you can’t keep your cock out of other men’s wives.”

A jagged streak of lightning momentarily blinded Jack.

“You will cease this disastrous liaison,” Stromwell warned, “or you will regret it.”

Jack knew the power that the older MP exercised: He had in the past deliberately courted it.

The lightening faded: Jack clearly saw the Chairman of Justice.

“Get out of my office.” Jack’s dislike was mirrored on the older man’s face. Crossing the carpet, he jerked open the door. Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed a familiar silhouette. “Mr. Dorsey. Do not ever again allow Mr. Stromwell into our office unless he makes an appointment.” Holding the pale brown gaze, he deliberately mimicked the Chairman of Justice’s question three days earlier. “Do you understand?”

Chapter 30

“Is breakfast to yer liking?” the maid anxiously asked, plump cheeks a raw red. She did not meet Rose’s gaze. “Mrs. Finley will prepare ye something else, if ye like.”

It was obvious she had heard the creaking bedsprings.

The embarrassment Rose should feel would not come.

“This is perfect, Mrs. Brown.” Rose spread strawberry jam on evenly browned toast. “Pantechnicon will be delivering furniture this afternoon. Please inform Mrs. Dobkins that I would like the house thoroughly cleaned before the delivery. If you or Mrs. Dobkins or Mrs. Finley would like any of the old furniture, please do take it. Pantechnicon will take away the rest.”

“Oh, that’ll be lovely, Mrs. Clarring.” The maid’s appreciation overcame her embarrassment. “Thank ye! Shall ye be needing anything more?”

“No, thank you.”

The maid’s departure was followed by a burst of activity.

A reverberating knock froze the fork between the plate and Rose’s mouth.

It was too early for the furniture to be delivered.

Muted voices drifted down the hallway. The door abruptly slammed shut.

Hot steam lazily curled upward in the greenish-gray morning.

Rose now knew how Jack took his tea. But it was not Jack who walked the corridor.

Brisk heels tap-tapped wood. Harried footsteps—those of the maid—followed.

Rose set down her knife and fork, heartbeat accelerating.

First came a shadow. Then came the visitor.

Blue eyes snared her gaze.

Rose’s heart skipped a beat.

“Mrs. Clarring—”

“It’s all right, Mrs. Brown,” Rose interrupted. “You may go.”

The familiar blue eyes studied Rose for long seconds. “You are having an affaire.”

It was not a question.

“Yes,” Rose confirmed.

Five days earlier she was not, but she most certainly was now. Rose had showered: Jack continued to occupy her.

The blue eyes—her mother’s eyes—suddenly filled with tears. “You were so happy when you returned from your honeymoon. You glowed with love and joy. But week by week your happiness faded. I kept telling myself I was imagining things. But I knew I wasn’t. Then I told myself you’d be happy again when you had children. But you didn’t have children. Then I told myself you’d tell me if something were the matter. But you didn’t.”

Because it wasn’t her secret to tell, Rose wanted to say.

But Jack had seen through the lie.

“I couldn’t,” Rose said.

She had not been able to admit her husband had married her only for the children she could give him. She still could not admit it to her mother.

“This man with whom you’re having an affaire . . . can you talk to him?”

“Yes.”

Rose had never talked as openly to another person as she had talked to Jack.

The blue eyes that her brothers had inherited but which Rose had not closed on a spasm of pain.

Rose had to know: “Did Jonathon send you?”

Her mother opened her eyes. “No.”

“Has he talked to you?”

“No.”

“He talked to Derek,” Rose said.

And Jack.

But all Jack had relayed of the conversation was that Jonathon would not divorce her, and that he believed she would return to him.

What exactly had the two men discussed?

“What did Jonathon say?” her mother asked, blocking further speculation.

Rose blinked back sudden tears. “He said he forgives me.”

Understanding flooded the older woman’s eyes. “And Derek told you.”

“Lucy did.”

“Lucy is a prat.”

The tears stinging Rose’s eyes burned her chest. “Derek said he didn’t understand why I had left Jonathon, because I’d always been so happy.”

“Derek is a prat, too.”

Rose had never heard her mother use vulgar slang.

She looked at the woman instead of the mother.

“Why did you name me Rose?” Rose impulsively asked.

“Because it wasn’t Susan,” Susan Davis returned frankly.

Laughter pushed up inside Rose’s throat; tears pushed it back down. “I can’t win a divorce, Mother.”

“So our solicitor said.”

“You and Father saw a solicitor?”

“Your father still sees the little girl whose hurts he kissed away,” Susan said pragmatically. “He isn’t ready yet to see a woman who must make her own way in life. I consulted with our solicitor earlier this morning.”

Rose remembered cornflower blue eyes—her eyes, masculine instead of feminine—clouded with hurt.

“What will Father say when you confirm that I”—have a lover caught in her throat—“am having an affaire?”

“Are you ashamed of your actions?”

Rose felt many emotions when she was with Jack, but shame was not one of them.

“No.”

The rift Rose had created between husband and wife flickered inside Susan’s eyes. “Your father loves you, Rose: He will not turn away from you, any more than will I.”

Rose glanced down at her nearly empty plate, and saw not the remains of egg, bacon and tomato prepared by the cook, but the omelette prepared by Jack. “Would you like breakfast?”

“What I would like, Daughter”—Rose glanced up at the sudden determination inside her mother’s voice—“is to see your new house.”

“Certainly.” Rose patted her mouth with the folded napkin. “This, as you can see, is the drawing room.”

For one brief second gold and red glinted in front of the iron fireplace.

No memorabilia adorned the room, but already it contained so many memories.

Room by room Rose showed off the small row house: the dining room . . . the kitchen and the scullery that was being cleaned by the cook . . . the upstairs bathroom . . . the two empty bedrooms that were being cleaned by the housekeeper and the maid. She did not show the bedroom that was filled with the scents and sounds of her and Jack. Nor did her mother request to see it.

The middle step squeaked, Susan preceding Rose down the stairs. “Your help seems competent.”

“Yes, they are.”

Inanely Rose wondered what Giles would say of the odd trio of women.

Susan stepped down off the last step and turned. Their eyes were level. “You have a lovely home, Rose.”

It wasn’t—the row house was tiny in comparison to Jonathon’s and her parents’ town houses, and desperately needed paint and furnishings—but Rose flushed with pride. “Thank you.”

“Did Jonathon hurt you?” arrested the spurt of pleasure.

Rose did not look away from her mother’s searching gaze. “Not in the manner you mean, no.”

The need to know more was a palpable pain in the pale blue eyes.

Susan took a deep breath. “Will you humor your mother and allow her to take you shopping?”

Rose had never seen uncertainty inside her mother’s eyes: She saw it now.

“She, too,” Susan said, “is having a bit of difficulty adjusting to the fact that she can’t kiss away your troubles.”

A blue flash of light aureoled the older woman; immediately she was engulfed in greenish-gray gloom.

“I’d like that,” Rose said. “The furniture won’t be delivered until later this afternoon. I’ll just tell Cook I’m leaving.”

Rain as sharp as needles pricked her skin. A dull flash of lightning streaked the sky.

“You kept the cab waiting,” Rose noted, tilting the umbrella to protect her face and hat.

“I’m punishing your father,” carried over the steady drum of water. “The more money I spend, the more quickly he’ll get over the sulks.”

Clear laughter rang out over a rumble of thunder.

It was so absurd, to hear her mother talk as if her father were a little boy.

A surprisingly strong arm pulled Rose into a maternal embrace. Soft lips—feminine instead of masculine—burned her forehead. “It’s been so long since I’ve heard you laugh, Rose.”

The needling water stung Rose’s eyes.

She lifted up her head and kissed her mother’s rain-dampened cheek, inhaling the familiar scents of love and lilac. “It’s been a long time since I felt like laughing, Mother.”

“He makes you happy.”

Her lover.

“Yes.”

The feminine arm tightened, offering warmth as well as safety.

One second Rose was a sexual woman; the next instant she was a little girl.

“I love you, Mother.” She clung to the older woman, rain trickling down her collar. “I’m sorry I’ve hurt you and Father.”

Rose had not realized how strong was a mother’s love: The arm holding her squeezed her lungs empty of air.

Watery laughter abruptly pierced the pounding rain and freed Rose. “Why are we standing here getting wet when we have a cab!”

Laughing for no reason whatsoever, Rose linked arms with her mother and raced down the steps to the Clarence cab. No sooner did they settle on opposite benches than the four wheels lurched forward.

“You’d like Mrs. Hart,” Rose said, closing her umbrella.

“She certainly sounds like an interesting lady.” A flurry of water droplets pelted Rose. Susan propped a rain-slick umbrella against the right door. Green and gray shadow erased the age that marked her face. “What was the club like?”

The Men and Women’s Club.

“It was a discussion club.”

“What did you discuss?” Susan asked with genuine interest.

They had discussed so many things over the course of two years.

Not once had they touched upon the unbearable tenderness sexual intimacy engendered.

“Prostitution,” Rose said. She thought of John Nickols, crippled because he had investigated a ring of child prostitution. “Darwinism.” Rose thought of Ardelle Dennison, the woman who would not conduct meetings outside of the museum in which she worked. “Malthusianism.” Rose thought of Louis Stiles, a man who buried his nose in a sketching pad but who did not show his sketches.

Rose suspected she would never see his drawings.

“I didn’t know about contraceptives when I married your father,” drew Rose away from the uncertain future. “It seemed as if every time we were intimate, I conceived. But that was the way it was supposed to be. Or so I thought at the time. I love you and your brothers dearly, but I have to agree with our queen: I rather felt like a rabbit. After Jason was born, your father admitted there were machines to prevent pregnancy. I got so angry—that he hadn’t told me before—I didn’t speak to him for a month.”

It had never occurred to Rose that her parents might use contraceptives.