Something Reckless (10 page)

He shook his head. What was he thinking? A month ago, he wouldn’t have given a damn about her pain. Or her past. He had to forget the fact that he was beginning to
like
this woman and focus on the duty at hand.

“Do you want my advice?” he asked, rising and pacing to the veranda wall. He leaned back against the barrier and looked at her.

She nodded. “Yes. You have far more experience in these things. And you claim you are trying to improve yourself. Tell me, Jeremy, what should I do? How do I stop this madness?”

He tilted his head. “I don’t think you should make any attempt to stop it. I think you should take the pleasure you are being offered, Penelope.”

Penelope stared at Jeremy, her eyes as wide as saucers, no matter how she tried to pretend she was unmoved by his suggestion.

“Take the pleasure?”
she repeated, hoping her utter confusion and the temptation of that permission wasn’t clear in her voice and expression. “You cannot mean that.”

He nodded. “I absolutely mean it. This man is offering you a gift, and I think you would be a fool not to take it.”

She frowned. Somehow she had thought Jeremy would tell her to fight her inner urges. Or even be…
jealous
that she had allowed another man such liberties. Although they were not courting, she had sometimes sensed a connection between them. A sizzling fissure of heat that drew her closer.

But perhaps she had misread the situation entirely. Perhaps Jeremy felt no attraction to her whatsoever. At this point, his bored expression and utter lack of emotion were proof of that fact.

“I don’t understand,” Penelope said. “If I surrender to this man, it will go against everything I’ve said and done. It will fly in the face of my arguments against the sexual excess of our class.”

He nodded. “I can see why you would see it that way, but I am thinking of it from an entirely different point of view. Let me explain.”

Penelope hesitated. Again, she wondered if she were being played a fool by this man. He had vowed that she could trust in him, but now he told her to throw all her ideals to the wind.

“Please,” she finally whispered, her curiosity overwhelming her reason.

“You are fighting a war, Penelope,” he said, moving toward her slowly. “It isn’t a pretty war, either. When you speak about the lack of morality in the men of the
ton
, when you encourage unhappy wives to confront their husbands and demand better treatment, there are some in my circles that see that as an underhanded tactic. And they feel no compunction in fighting back with little regard for you. And the fact is, you are unarmed.”

“Unarmed?” she repeated, shaking her head in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“When I first spoke to you about my…” Penelope thought he hesitated a moment, but then he continued on, his face never registering any uncertainty. “About my change of heart regarding my activities in the past, I offered to show you a little of the world you were fighting against. I thought that would help you know your enemy better. But until this afternoon, I didn’t fully realize how ill equipped you are to fight them. A few nights hiding in the shadows while you see for yourself the sensual excess of the underground is not enough.”

Penelope got to her feet. “I still don’t understand.”

“You don’t, I know.” He sighed. “You see, I assumed because you were married that you had felt, firsthand, the pleasures of sex. That you had a basic understanding of why sins of the flesh would draw a person, and that when you saw the darker side of that pleasure that it would simply round out your education. But you have just told me that your husband’s bed was never a place of desire for you. Never a warm and pleasurable hideaway.”

Dark blood colored her cheeks and she moved to turn away, but Jeremy reached out to catch her arm, keeping her in place. He cupped her chin with his opposite hand and tilted her face up until she couldn’t avoid his pointed, dark stare.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he whispered. “What Norman did wasn’t because you weren’t desirable.”

She caught her breath. Without being told, Jeremy had struck upon the very fear that had plagued her for so long. One she had never spoken of to anyone, just as she had kept the bitter secret of her empty marriage to herself. But he saw through her.

He knew her. Without having to ask. And that was a terrifying prospect.

Did it also mean he knew what was best for her when it came to the stranger who had offered her seduction and sin in the cover of darkness?

“You said you liked it when that man, whoever he was, touched you last night,” he continued.

She nodded.

“You felt pleasure?”

“Yes,” she said, the word torn from her tight throat. “I stopped him before I could feel even more, but there was pleasure.”

He swallowed hard enough that she saw his Adam’s apple work with the action. “Good.” She tilted her head and he hurried to explain himself. “I only mean that feeling the pleasure will help you. I say that you should surrender to what this man offers because after a few nights under his tutelage you will fully understand the desires that drive others to sexual excess.”

Penelope slowly pulled her arm from his grip and backed away. When he explained his logic like this, it almost made sense. He was right that she had never fully understood why women surrendered to men or why men strayed with no thought to the consequence. Understanding that could give her great power, as long as she didn’t lose herself.

“But there are so many risks,” she murmured, more to herself than to him.

Jeremy shook his head. “Not really. What this man offers is temporary. It is secret.”

“No,” she said. “It is secret to me, but he knows my identity. He knows my name and my face. He could easily betray me.”

Jeremy pursed his lips and seemed to be pondering that thought. She found herself leaning forward, waiting for him to explain away that final fear. Hoping, in some secret part of her, that he would find a way to allow her all that pleasure.

Because she wanted it. She hated herself for it, but she wanted it.

“I suppose he might have some kind of nefarious motive,” he conceded, and Penelope’s heart sank. “But he had every opportunity to expose you last night and chose not to.”

Penelope stopped. “Yes, that is true. If he had arranged for someone to stumble upon us…” She tapered off with a shiver at
that thought. “I would have been ruined. And yet, he did not.”

“Then that is probably not his purpose in seduction.” He turned away suddenly to look out over the estate grounds behind him. “It is more likely that he simply wants you.”

Penelope sighed as she moved to stand beside him and look out over the cool green grass behind the garden below. “He may have wanted me last night, but I pushed him away. I told him to leave me alone. It is entirely possible he might not want me anymore, even if I knew of some way to contact him.”

Jeremy turned to face her. She drew back at the intensity in his eyes, the sudden focus that pulled her into the darkness she saw there.

“He would be a fool if he didn’t still want you,” he said, his voice low and seductive.

Penelope’s lips parted. Here they were, talking about her going to bed with some other man, indulging in a secret affair for the sole purpose of understanding pleasure, and yet she still felt that connection with Jeremy. Her treacherous body warmed under his gaze, beneath her skirts she grew wet and ready.

She found herself leaning forward, her trembling hands lifting up. He watched her every movement, though he didn’t step toward her. But just as she was about to wrap her fingers around the fine fabric of his lapels, the terrace door opened behind them, and a servant appeared, carrying a tray laden with food.

“Your luncheon, Your Grace,” the young woman said as she set the tray on the table behind them.

Penelope jolted away from him, staggering back. She stared at Jeremy, stunned by her lack of control. She had wanted to
kiss
him. And she very well might have if not for the interruption of the servant.

“I-I cannot stay,” Penelope stammered as she backed toward the door. “I’m sorry. I must go.”

Before he could respond, she ran, not daring to look behind her. Not daring to see if he beckoned her back to him. Not daring to test if she would be able to resist him if he did.

Jeremy strummed his fingers along the smooth wooden surface of the sideboard, staring with unseeing eyes at the glass of whiskey he had just poured himself.

“Whiskey so early in the day?” his brother asked from behind him. “Is there something you would like to discuss?”

Jeremy turned to look at his younger brother. Christopher Vaughn was sprawled across his settee, looking every bit as debauched as he had just a year ago when the two of them had prowled London together, seeking out vice and pleasure of all kinds.

Except now his brother’s appearance was only an illusion. Six months before he had married. Not a forced marriage, not one for show. He had married because he claimed to have
fallen in love
, of all things.

And the brothers had not shared the same relationship since then. In fact, Jeremy more often avoided his brother’s company than sought it out. He simply didn’t know how to handle Christopher’s newfound fidelity and peace.

And yet, after Penelope fled from his side, he had been driven to come here. To see his brother. To talk to him as they once had.

But now the words wouldn’t come and awkward silence filled the space between them.

“Jeremy?” his brother repeated, straightening up. “
Is
something wrong?”

He shrugged as he threw himself into a chair across from Christopher. “No, of course not. What could possibly be wrong? I live the perfect life.”

His brother’s eyebrow arched, but if he had arguments against that statement, he blessedly kept them to himself.

“I only ask because normally you avoid my company unless Mama is in town. And she is on the Continent for another month, at least.”

Jeremy tightened his grip on the still-untouched drink. “Do you not desire my company?” he asked, his voice strained.

Christopher shook his head. “Of course I do, I miss our times together. I simply wasn’t expecting you today. And now that you are here, you seem distracted. Distant. I feel like there is something you want to share with me, yet you hesitate. If there is some way I can help you, you know I would do it. No matter how things have changed, we are still brothers, Jeremy.”

Jeremy stared at his brother. Christopher was younger than he by a year, and Jeremy had spent their entire growing up lording his elder-brother status over his head. Even as grown men, Jeremy by contrast had always felt a little more worldly, a little more experienced.

But now Christopher looked at him as if he were a child. And he felt like his brother
did
understand more than he. It was a strange feeling.

Could he tell Christopher of his plans for Penelope? Of his in
teractions with her and the odd way they made him feel? Would his brother even understand his motives anymore, or would he just be horrified by the lengths Jeremy had gone in the name of protecting their once mutual friends.

“I doubt you would understand,” Jeremy said with a wave of his hand that didn’t reflect his inner turmoil in the slightest fashion.

“Because I am in love?” Christopher asked blandly. He had a little knowing smile that Jeremy didn’t particularly care for.

“Love,” he snorted.

“You ought to try it,” his brother said quietly. “There is much to be said for the feeling.”

Jeremy shook his head. “You mean have only one woman, no one else?
Bah!
Sounds like a prison to me.”

Christopher’s smile fell, and the knowing glint in his eyes was replaced by something even more irritating. Pity.

“If that is truly how you see a union of souls, then that is your misfortune. I hope someday you will find a woman who changes that. Otherwise, you shall live an empty existence, indeed.”

“You lived that ‘empty existence’ yourself, not that long ago,” Jeremy snapped, more emotional than he wished to be.

Christopher nodded. “Yes. And I do not miss it.”

Jeremy stared at his brother. How could that be true? Christopher had been the one who celebrated his freedom most. Could he truly be content settled into the boring day-to-day life of a marriage?

As if on cue, the parlor door opened, and Hannah Vaughn stepped inside and interrupted their conversation. Jeremy stared at her as she moved into the room.

Christopher’s wife was a beauty, there was no denying that fact. With a heavy mass of auburn curls bobbing around her cheeks and bright, lively green eyes, she was exactly the kind of woman his brother had always been attracted to.

Except Christopher hadn’t merely seduced her as he had so many before her. He’d married her.

Jeremy staggered to his feet out of politeness as his sister-in-law gave a wide smile and pressed a kiss to her husband’s cheek.

“There you are, dearest,” she said. Then she turned on Jeremy. There wasn’t an ounce of hesitation in her eyes, despite Jeremy’s having spoken to her only twice in six months. She stepped forward, holding out both her hands.

“And Jeremy, how lovely it is to see you.” She squeezed the hands he held out briefly. “I’m so pleased you could come. Christopher and I think of you often.”

Jeremy shifted uncomfortably. “Th-thank you.”

He stared at Hannah as she took a seat beside his brother. Jeremy had not always thought of her in the kindest of lights, yet she was never anything but welcoming to him. He had disparaged her for being nothing more than a lady, yet her ladylike behavior shamed him.

She was a woman of Penelope’s class. And though Penelope was more jaded by the circumstances she had related to him just a few hours before, he had a sneaking suspicion the two women would get along quite well. He could almost picture the four of them, sharing tea together in this very room.

With a jolt of shock, he shook away that troublesome thought. Dear God, he was going mad to think that kind of thing would be
satisfying in the least. That was because of his brother’s words, not some true desire.

“Have you heard from your mother lately?” Hannah asked, completely oblivious to his internal thoughts, though Jeremy thought he saw Christopher’s concerned expression.

Jeremy nodded. “I had a letter from her two days ago.”

“She is enjoying her tour enormously, it seems,” Hannah said, then laughed. “Who knew she would become such an adventurer?”

Jeremy wrinkled his brow. Their mother had been traveling since just after his brother’s wedding, and she’d written him many letters. But like the one sitting on his desk at home right now, most had been left unopened and others he had only skimmed. It wasn’t that he didn’t adore his mother, he simply didn’t have much interest in her doings. As long as she was safe, he was content to live his own life and leave her to hers.