What she saw in both men was an echo of that yearning, turned on her. From both of them.
She shivered and ducked her head, confused by that desire and her reaction to it. Didn’t Stephen deserve better than her panting over not one but two men? Especially if he’d been struck downbecauseof her.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked, her voice sounding thick and wobbly.
Marcus exchanged a side glance with Everett and then said, “To a safe place.”
That was no answer, and she thought he knew it. She sighed. “How long will I be there?”
Everett arched a brow. “Until we can resolve who shot at you and potentially if they killed one or more of your late husbands.”
She let out another long breath. It seemed she would have no answers from either of them. At least no satisfactory ones.
“And my clothing,” she said. “I cannot stay in this dress forever.”
“Of course not,” Everett said. “I have made arrangements for a handful of your things to be waiting at our destination tomorrow. Your servants will believe that you have decided to spend a few days with a friend. That way they are not in danger for knowing something about your true whereabouts. And they cannot share them with anyone if they are involved in this plot against you.”
Naomi’s lips parted. “You think my servants—”
“We have no way of knowing,” Marcus interrupted gently. “I realize that may come as a shock to you.”
She bent her head as nausea overwhelmed her. “Perhaps not. After all, it seems you never really know a person, do you? You can believe in them and then…they turn out to not be what they seem.”
There must have been something in her tone, for suddenly Marcus leaned in and caught her hand in his. She shivered at the warmth and comfort it brought all over again, knowing how foolish it was to allow herself to feel that from a stranger.
Her upset and her shock today was making her do a great many things she hadn’t expected.
“While we are in the carriage,” Everett said, his voice raspy now, “perhaps we should take this opportunity to talk more about your past. That will give Marcus and me some leads to follow once we are settled and you are safe.”
She shrugged. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Especially if it will help you uncover the truth.”
Everett was silent a moment, two. Then he leaned forward and snagged her gaze. “I’ll start with the most delicate of topics. One connected to the man whose murder is most likely. Marcus and I have seen you before. We both recognized you from the Donville Masquerade.”
Naomi’s breath hitched. In the months of their marriage, many times Stephen had taken her to the masquerade, an underground club where those of quality played out their most erotic desires. She hadn’t always worn a mask, at her husband’s request. She had played the games he wanted to watch her play. She had watched the ones he desired to take part in. It had been a sexual awakening of the most personal kind. She’d learned her own needs, her own body. It hadn’t brought her closer to him, but she regretted none of it.
“If you mention this to shame me,” she said softly, “you are wasting your time. I did go to the masquerade. I’m not sorry. I enjoyed my membership there and all I saw and did.”
Everett arched a brow. “It is in no way meant to shame you, my lady. After all, my friend and I were also there. But perhaps your husband’s murder and your attack was linked to something you two participated in.”
She swallowed. She hadn’t considered that. “But…but my other husbands never took me there.”
“And we don’t know for certain if their deaths were murder,” Marcus said, releasing her hand at last. “So it is best to start exactly where Everett has suggested. Tell us about your time there.”
She straightened her spine and met Marcus’s eyes evenly. “My husband liked to take on many lovers,” she said. “Two and three women at a time. He saw it beneath me, as a lady. So he refused to participate in those desires with me. But he wanted me to watch him. So I did.”
Everett’s brow wrinkled. “He never touched you there?”
“No, just them.” She blushed now, remembering her husband’s gaze as he watched her watching him. Then stopped watching her. Forgot her. Left her to make her own pleasure in those hot, steamy rooms. He’d all but stopped touching her at all once he began to take her there.
“Were you finding your pleasure elsewhere?” Marcus asked, shifting and drawing her attention to the hard line of his cock beneath his trousers. She stared at it, felt herself lick her lips without meaning to.
She jerked her gaze away before she whispered, “Not exactly. Occasionally I would dance with other men there. They touched me, but nothing to bring me to completion.”
“More than one man,” Everett said. “We saw you dancing with two men one night.”
She looked at them again. God, they were both so big in this carriage. Taking up all the space, all the air.
She thought back to the night they mentioned. Yes, she had been dancing with one man when another had approached. Touched her from behind. They’d moved together, sensually, with a promise she had so wanted fulfilled.
