But Jack liked the simpler dress Mrs. Allen eventually found for her. So much so that he kissed her in the street and took her to an inn and made love to her with his mouth. And then she did the same for him.
Of course, she knew it wasn’t really the new dress. He took the dress off of her, didn’t he? And last night, when it had been so heated between them and she had thought he would ravish her right there in the drawing room, she had been in her brown dress. Which they burned in the grate of the bedchamber at the inn. Good riddance.
In a way, she felt closer to him as they stood watching the dress burn than she had felt when they had been in the bed together. Because she couldn’t believe she was touching and kissing and receiving so much pleasure from a man who was still the most handsome man she had ever seen, even after seeing so many new faces on her journey.
She couldn’t believe he wanted her.
But she could believe Jack and her destroying something they both hated. Like the brown dress.
It was a puzzle. What was he doing with her? It wasn’t just male need. Surely, there were plenty of women available to him for that, here in London. Beautiful women. Feminine women. Much less difficult women.
Maybe it was a jab or some spite directed at John MacNaughton. To despoil the woman who hoped to marry the Duke of Dunmore. To be able to laugh about it behind the duke’s back if the duke did marry Helen.
But she couldn’t think that ill of Jack. He was not a bad man. His greatest sin so far in her acquaintance with him was that he made her want to do bad things. With him.
In the room at the inn, he told her what they were doing had nothing to do with her training. Nothing to do with teaching her to seduce the duke. And he had said the same thing the night before.
And she was fine with that. Because, of course, she wanted Jack Pike for his own sake. She had wanted him from the first moment she had seen him getting off his horse in the cold rain just over the border of Kinmarloch.
But suddenly, this was all becoming too much about Jack. Which dress he liked. What he wanted done to his cock. How much her thoughts were consumed by him.
If she had been a different woman, not the Countess of Kinmarloch, she would have been happy to have it be all about him.
She didn’t care too much about clothing. She could dress to please Jack Pike, even though seeing the pink dress whisked away had given her a twinge in her chest.
She would do anything to his cock he wanted. She had liked giving him a release with her mouth, feeling that power over him. But if he wanted something else done to his cock, that was fine, too. Because the important thing was he wantedherto do it.
But being in London was not about Jack Pike. Or about her. It was about Kinmarloch. She must remember what she was trying to do. She was here to save lives and livelihoods. She was here for duty’s sake and it was what she had been born to do. She hadn’t been born to wear a pretty dress and pleasure Jack Pike.
If only she had been.
Back at the rooms, Jack silently followed her up the stairs. She didn’t know why he bothered accompanying her since he wasn’t talking to her.
She opened the door onto an empty drawing room.
“Mags? Duncan?” Calling at first, then shouting, then running from room to room.
They were not here. They were on the streets of London. Alone. Two innocent bairns from Kinmarloch. She saw Duncan being beaten and impressed into the army, Mags kidnapped to work in a brothel.
Thank God, Jack had followed her up the stairs.
“Jack. They’re nae here!” She threw herself at him, clutched at him.
“Helen, hush. They likely went out to see something of the city.”
“But I told them to stay here.”
“They’re young. They’re in London for the first time. Of course, they went out. Although if I were a young man with a redheaded girl,” Jack raised his eyebrows, “I would have stayed in, myself.”
“Stop,” gasped Helen. “Yer nae helping.”
“Helen. Duncan is, what? Twenty? One and twenty? He’s a grown man. A very protective, very large, grown man even a drunk would think twice about crossing. I grant you he knows nothing about city ways—wait, check his room.”
“For what?”
“His kilt.”
“’Tis there. Lying on the bed.”
