The Dangerous Mr. Ryder

‘Oh, Lord! I can just imagine our chamberlain doing just that! “I regret to inform your Serene Highness that the castle is on fire. Might I suggest you complete your coiffure at your earliest convenience, ma’am, as the flames are licking around my feet, ma’am…”’

She looks eighteen, a girl, so fresh, so natural, so sweet. The laughter drained out of Jack as he stared at her. Eva sat up at last, hiccupping faintly and mopping her eyes with the cuff of the shirt.

‘I am sorry, it must be the strain.’ She smiled at him hazily. ‘I can’t remember the last time I laughed out loud, or even found something silly enough to laugh about.’

Jack put out a hand towards her, not knowing what he wanted, only knowing he needed to touch her. Eva put her hand in his, her eyes questioning. He did not speak—there was nothing to say, nothing that he could articulate. For a moment she held his gaze, then awareness of who she was and where they were became clear from her expression and she looked away, chin up. Jack freed her hand and stood up.

‘Back to bed, we will need to be up in a couple of hours. You require your sleep.’

She nodded haughtily, very much on her dignity and got up, skirting carefully around him to slide under the covers on her side. ‘Good night.’

‘Good night.’ He stoppered the bottle of witch hazel, grateful for the way its heavy odour blanked out the feminine scent of her, and pulled the covers up firmly over his shoulders.

It was no part of his plans to be attracted to a woman, least of all a grand duchess. He had not thought himself so susceptible, nor so unprofessional. It was not as though he was short of feminine comfort for his physical needs—a succession of highly skilled barques of frailty made quite certain of that—for he had long since recognised that his chosen path was not one a wife could be expected to tolerate.

Not that the examples of marital life about him had made him eager to commit himself to such a relationship, so it was not such a deprivation. His recently widowed sister, Bel, had once confided that her husband was so dull she could hardly stay awake in his presence, his father had been a serial adulterer, and his friends, one after another, appeared to be sacrificing themselves on the altar of respectability by marrying simpering misses straight from the portals of Almack’s.

Flirting with young ladies of good breeding was boring and risked raised expectations and broken hearts. Flighty matrons and dashing widows required more emotional commitment than he was prepared to invest—which left the professionals, with whom one could at least be assured there was no hypocrisy involved.

So why was this woman making him hard with desire? Why did he want to shelter her to an extent that went way beyond his brief to bring her back safely to England? She was hurt, anxious and vulnerable despite her efforts not to betray that and she had got under his skin in a totally unexpected way.

It was the novelty, obviously, Jack decided, stopping himself turning over restlessly for the third time. He was unlikely to find himself on such intimate terms with a member of a royal family again, that was all it was. Satisfied he had put that anxiety to rights, he closed his eyes, willed himself to sleep, and forbade himself to dream.

On the other side of the bolster Eva was wrestling with her emotions, her body’s reactions and her sense of decorum and duty. She had woken, roused by instinct—for she was certain Jack had made no sound—and had lain for a moment looking at the silhou

ette of his head and torso against the pale frame of the window. His body was a beautiful shape, the classic male outline of inverted triangle over a narrow waist, enhanced by a musculature in the peak of fitness—hard, sculpted and wickedly exciting to a woman who had lived a life of celibate respectability for over twenty months.

Then the sleep had cleared from her mind and she forgot erotic considerations in anxiety about what he was looking at. That anxiety had carried her across the room to his side without self-consciousness, or any modest concern for how she was dressed, and no sooner had she recollected these things than she had been distracted again by the realisation that he was hurt.

Small boys with scraped knees were a matter of routine for a mother; grown men needing bandaging and nursing were part of a wife’s duties, and somehow that had carried over into caring for her brother-in-law, and now Jack. She simply had not thought of him as anything but a body to be mended until he had looked into her eyes and held out his hand to her.

What was he asking? What did he want? After the skill of that kiss in the alleyway she had no doubt he could make a fine attempt at seducing her, if that was what he desired. She would find him hard to resist, she acknowledged that. Eva had long since abandoned self-deception as a method of dealing with her situation in life, and she was not going to risk everything by pretending she did not know temptation when she saw it. For years she had been able to turn away flirtation, thinly veiled offers and outright attempts at seduction without the slightest quickening of her pulse rate, not a moment’s sleep lost. Now she felt as unsteady as a young girl in the throes of her first infatuation.

Was it simply friendship she had seen in Jack’s gaze, in his outstretched hand? Or was it the first move of a skilled seducer? She could afford neither, for if friendship brought her closer to him she feared her own need would betray her, and if he was intent on seduction, then only a rigorously maintained distance and discipline would save her from herself.

Eva closed her eyes and made herself lie patiently waiting for sleep.

There was no virtue in remaining chaste while there was no temptation, she told herself severely. The morning would bring new resolution and greater strength, she had to believe that.

Chapter Six

The sound of booted feet on the floorboards brought Eva awake with a start of alarm. Sunlight was flooding through the window, morning had broken and she was still abed while pursuit could be at the door. She sat bolt upright. ‘What time is it?’ How could she have slept so soundly? ‘How are your bruises?’

‘Six, that is all. But time you got up, all the same. And my bruises are much better, thank you.’ Jack straightened from fastening a valise and smiled at her, a casual smile that held none of last night’s unspoken complications. He was fully dressed, clean shaven and alert. It felt very odd to have a man in her bedchamber while she was still in bed. ‘There is warm water on the washstand. I’ll wait downstairs unless you need any help with…er…’ he waved one hand in an effort to find an acceptable word ‘…buttons or anything.’

‘Thank you, no,’ Eva replied, suppressing the information that she had carefully selected garments that did not require assistance with laces, buttons or any other fastening. Yesterday she would have probably blurted that out; today she was resolved to retain the utmost dignity compatible with sharing a room with a man to whom she was not married.

‘Very well, I will order breakfast for twenty minutes’ time.’ He paused, one hand on the key. ‘Lock the door behind me.’

She made it downstairs with five minutes to spare and was rewarded by a raised eyebrow as Jack stood and held a chair for her in the deserted parlour. ‘I have a busy schedule that requires frequent changes of clothing,’ she explained, answering the unspoken comment on her punctuality and accepting a proffered napkin with a nod of thanks. ‘Where is Henry eating?’

‘In the kitchen, I imagine.’ Jack helped himself to a hearty slice of ham, two eggs and a length of sausage.

‘I would prefer that he join us.’ She poured coffee into the large cups and added a generous amount of milk, still frothy from the milking pail.

Jack accepted a cup, frowning. ‘Why? He can hardly chaperon us in the bedchamber, so his presence at breakfast seems a touch superfluous.’

‘Even so. I wish to retain the appearance of respectability so far as I am able.’ How direct he was! She had hoped to raise the matter without mentioning chaperons or bedchambers, but, no, Jack made no concession to conventions, or to the mild hypocrisies that oiled the wheels of real life. Eva tried not to either blush, or look like a prude, and suspected she had ended up merely looking starched-up. Not such a bad thing.