Fifteen
The postscript had been unwise.
Jack knew it as soon as he wrote it. But he did not scratch it out.
The kissing, and his appreciation of it, had seemed important to Helen. And he wanted to give her something besides the cottage and the money and his address.
He didn’t really have anything else to give her, did he?
He had been sorely tempted to take something from her though, on that last night in Dunmore. Her virginity. He had wanted to climb on top of her or flip her over and plunge his cock into her rosebud. And until the very last moment, he had felt sure he would. He had had no compunction in the past when the woman was willing.
She had been willing. She had been asking. And she hadn’t liked his refusal, his self-denial. She hadn’t liked it one bit.
But there was no good way to explain to her why he would not rut with her or teach her how to make him spend with her hand or her mouth.
Because he didn’t know the why of it himself. Or even why he had left Dunmore at dawn.
He was in his first bath since getting back to his house in London last night. He supposed his cousin’s house was really his now. But he didn’t want it. Let John MacNaughton stay here in the house that Jack Pike had built. Not in the town house of the Duchy of Dunmore.
He sank down into the steaming water. Let this hot water chase the chill of Scotland from his bones.
And besides, he must keep the house. It was the address Helen had. Captain Jack Pike’s letters must find him, because he would not let her letters go unanswered. She had the ear of the duke, as long as he was duke.
He touched his member and his scrotum in the bath water. Yes, still there. But so much less demanding than in the past. He had sought his own release every night on his journey back from Scotland, but it had been by himself, alone, just as it had been in Dunmore. And his thoughts had been persistently haunted by a very particular woman. A strange woman who was . . . not beautiful.
His blood started to flow to his cock. He fondled himself in response.
He would think of other women now. Women in London. Marina. He would seek her out and break one of his own rules by going back to a former mistress. Or he would go to Nancy at Madame Flora’s.
But those generous bodies would not stay in place in his imagination. They moved and squirmed and evaporated. He felt only a small, hard body underneath him, in his mind. A strong one. An unexpected one. One with breasts so small they were barely there. And yes, part of that smallness was from want, but her breasts would always be small, wouldn’t they? The dresses she wore which were clearly relics from her days as the granddaughter of a duke had not been much bigger in the bodice than her body right now.
Her body right now. He tugged at himself almost as fiercely as she had, his countess of the Highlands who was barely able to keep her savagery in check and who surely hated him now more than ever. Because of her unfinished training and her dashed hopes of the duke. Because she had received things from Jack Pike which she would resent forever. The money in trade for her dirk which lay on his dressing table right now. The stay at the castle and the food there. His mouth and his hands.
But not his cock. Oh, why, why not his cock? To be on top of her, looking at her face when he took her. That strength pushing up against him, her arms clutching at him. Why not his cock? When . . . it . . . would have . . . been . . . unh. Panting slightly, his face sweating, he released his seed into the bath water.
Good, he was done with that part of himself for the day. He would be able to clear his mind of Helen Boyd and think of something else.
He got out of the bath, the water now tepid. His valet came in and shaved him. He thought of Helen, pointing her dinner knife at the nicks on his neck where he had cut himself. Those were long-healed now.
His valet dressed him in tight-fitting breeches. The tight-fitting breeches designed to make Helen and other women look at his groin, his legs, his buttocks. As she had said next to that cold stream halfway up a mountain.
He went to his dressing table to get his watch to put in his waistcoat. The dirk lying there was a reproach of some kind. The rubies and emeralds and sapphires shining in the handle. He would get it appraised by someone expert in the matter and make sure he had not cheated Helen.
And then his breakfast. Ham. Big, thick, pink slices on his plate. An abundance. Enough to feed four people. Helen, Mags, Duncan, and himself laughing at a table.
He pushed the plate away. He wasn’t hungry.
“You have a caller, Your Grace. The Duchess of Dunmore. I have shown her into the drawing room. Shall I say you are at home?”
Was he not to have twenty-four hours to himself in London before having to deal with Elizabeth? But time wouldn’t necessarily make the encounter any easier. He got up from the table and went to the drawing room.
She turned from the window, dressed in black. She was as lovely as ever, wasn’t she? Yes.
“Your Grace.” He bowed.
“Your Grace.” She curtsied. She met his eyes. “I suppose the news reached you wherever you had run away to. That I am not with child.”
“Yes.”
