The Dangerous Mr. Ryder

The weight shifted. Eva opened her eyes cautiously and found that his arm might have moved, but Jack had not. They were still close enough for her to have counted his eyelashes, should she have had the inclination to do so. They were unfairly long, very dark and framed his eyes dramatically. She was also in an excellent position to note that his eyes might be grey, but there were black flecks in them. The pupils were somewhat dilated and his regard intense. She found herself unable to stop staring back, directly into them.

‘One of us has got to blink,’ Jack observed, ‘or we may mesmerise each other and never get up.’

It seemed to Eva that someone had certainly been exerting powers of animal magnetism upon her, although she thought she had read somewhere that the effect required immersion of the subject in magnetised water. Or was it just her headache making her feel like this?

‘Yes, and it will have to be you because I am completely pinned down with you lying on these covers,’ she pointed out crisply. Thank goodness she still seemed able to speak with clarity and authority; she had been half-afraid she would open her mouth and mumble inanities.

‘Very well.’ Jack rolled away and stood up, stretching as he walked to throw open the shutters. He was dressed in a crumpled shirt and breeches, his feet bare on the boards.

‘You said you were going to wear a nightshirt.’ Eva sat up in bed, pushing her hair back off her face with both hands. She hadn’t even plaited it last night.

‘And you expressed horror at the suggestion. I believe an aversion to hairy legs came into it.’ Jack turned back from the window and stood regarding her, hands on hips, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

‘I didn’t say that, did I? Oh, Lord.’ Eva buried her face in her hands. If she didn’t look, then he wasn’t really there, she didn’t have to face the hideous embarrassment of knowing she’d been completely tipsy—no, drunk—and totally indiscreet. What must he think of her? She knew what she thought of herself.

‘Eva.’ The bed dipped beside her and a hand settled on her shoulder, large, warm, comforting.

‘Stop it. Don’t touch me,’ she snapped. It lifted again. ‘I’m sorry, I am finding this very difficult.’ Silence. ‘I’m not used to this intimacy with someone. I’m not used to someone being so close, so involved with what I’m doing, what I am thinking.’

She dropped her hands and looked at him, desperate to communicate how she felt. ‘I do not know how to be with you, because this relationship we have is outside anything I’ve known before.’ Jack’s face, intent, listening, gave her no clue as to his feelings—except that he did not appear to be inclined to laugh at her.

‘We are forced into this closeness and it is as if I am adrift without any chart to guide me. You are not a servant, you are not one of the family, you are not a professional man I have hired, like a doctor or a lawyer. What are you?’

She did not expect an answer, far less the one he gave her. ‘A friend.’

‘A friend?’ Why did that word hurt so much? It was as though he had shone a light on the great empty loneliness at the heart of her life and forced her to confront it. ‘I do not have any friends.’

‘You have now.’ Jack picked up her right hand as it lay lax on the counterpane. ‘Eva, you have shared a dark secret fear with me, you have told me how you feel about your son, how you felt about your husband. You have got tipsy with me and you have confided your prejudices about nightshirts. We are jointly engaged on a dangerous adventure. Today we will go shopping together. These are all things you do with friends.’

Her hand seemed small, lost within his big brown one, the long fingers cupping it protectively, not gripping, just cradling it. Eva found herself studying his nails. Clean, neatly clipped with a black line of bruising along the base of three of them, a rough patch on the index fingernail as though it had been abraded against a rough stone. That damage had been done as he had climbed down the castle wall to her room. Absently she rubbed the ball of her thumb over it, welcoming the distraction of the rasping sensation.

‘Do you make friends of all your clients?’ She did her best to sound like the Grand Duchess and not Eva de Maubourg, not disorientated, half-afraid, confused.

‘You are not a client, his Majesty’s Government is my client. But, yes, I do make friends with some. Not all. Some I do not like, many are in too much trouble to want to do anything but see the back of me when it is all sorted out. When we are in England I will introduce you to Max Dysart, the Earl of Penrith, and his wife; you will like them, I think.

‘But why have you no friends? Girls from your come-out in England? The Regent, the ladies of the court…’

‘Philippe is twenty-five years my senior, he is like an uncle. Antoine, I have never trusted. The ladies of the court, as you put it—no. Louis did not encourage me to make friends here, or to retain them from before, and that became established. I do not think there are any kindred spirits amongst them in any case.’ She assayed a confident smile, knowing it was a poor effort. ‘Certainly there is no one I could get drunk with, or have an adventure with, or risk telling a weakness to.’

‘Then I am the first.’

I am the first. The words Louis had used as he had undressed her on their wedding night, his green eyes heavy with desire. It had been very important to him that she was a virgin. Now, no longer an innocent, she knew it had titillated the jaded palate of a man she was to learn was one of the most energetic, and promiscuous, lovers in Europe. Theirs had not been a love match, but she could not complain that Louis had ever left her physically unsatisfied. Just emotionally empty, and yearning for affection. She had learned to be a good grand duchess, and to do without love.

‘What is it??

? Jack’s hand closed shut around hers. ‘Another nightmare?’

‘No. Just a memory. Thank you, I would like to be your friend.’ She looked up, relaxing, expecting to see something uncomplicated in his expression. He was smiling, but in his eyes there was something else, something she knew he was trying to mask. Heat, intensity, need. She recognised them because she felt them, too. The ordinary words she had intended to say caught in her throat. Somehow she not could pretend to herself that she did not see, or that she did not feel.

But I want…No, I cannot say it. I cannot say I want you, because if I do the world changes for ever.

Jack lifted her hand and pressed a kiss on her fingertips that were all that could be seen within his grasp. ‘You were right, ma’am, from now on we need a considerably bigger bed and then I can sleep under the covers and safely wear a nightshirt.’

‘Oh!’ Eva was startled into a gasp of amusement. ‘How can you make a joke about it?’

‘Because laughter chases away fear and it also puts many things in perspective. Are you hungry? Because I am starving and I don’t know where they are with the hot water.’ Jack tugged at the bell pull and retreated behind the screen.

‘I am ravenous.’ And suddenly she was. And strangely happy as though a weight had been lifted. Perhaps it was simply the cathartic effect of telling Jack how she felt. Except, of course, the fact that that she desired him. He feels the same way. The memory of the heat in his gaze as it had rested on her made her feel warm and fluttery inside and ridiculously girlish. Even though they had not acknowledged what that exchange of glances meant, the fact that an attractive, intelligent man found her desirable was the most wonderful boost to her confidence. Perhaps I’m not so old and past it after all.