[Cornick Nicola] The Last Rake in London(Bookos.org) (23 page)

Jack looked up as Sally started to walk towards the
chemin de fer
table. His gaze, intense and black, seemed to devour her. His concentration was on her alone. Sally was vaguely aware of all her guests hurrying into the Salon behind her, whispering and jostling. They could feel the tension in the air. They knew something unexpected was going to happen.

As Sally approached the table, both King Edward and Jack Kestrel rose to their feet.

‘Your Majesty.’ By sheer force of will, Sally kept her gaze from Jack and smiled demurely at the King as she dropped her curtsy. The light from the diamond chandelier was dazzling. The King, already wreathed in cigar smoke and with a champagne glass at his elbow, smiled expansively.

‘Evening, Sal.’ Edward planted a gallant kiss on the back of Sally’s hand. He did not apologise for arriving early and throwing all her plans into confusion. He knew he could do as he liked. ‘You look stunning tonight, my dear,’ he said, ‘does she not, Kestrel?’

‘Exquisite,’ Jack said, and the look in his eyes made Sally burn inside.

‘I am sorry,’ she said, ‘that I kept you waiting, your Majesty.’

‘No matter.’ Edward beamed broadly. ‘Jack here thought to keep me entertained with a game of
chemin de fer
. I fear he is already winning though, my dear. Five hundred up against the house.’

Sally grimaced. ‘Mr Kestrel has the devil’s own luck, sir, as you have observed yourself.’

Jack laughed. There was a wicked spark in his eyes. ‘I’ll wager all my winnings tonight against one night with you, Miss Bowes,’ he said, as he had once before.

There was a ripple of scandalous shock around the room.

Sally took a deep breath. ‘Mr Kestrel,’ she said, meeting the challenge in his gaze, ‘for all your prowess at the gaming tables, you are a slow learner. I told you once before that the Blue Parrot is not that sort of establishment and I am not that sort of woman.’ She raised her brows. ‘Besides, you are playing against your own bank now, are you not, Mr Kestrel? Now that you own a controlling stake in the Blue Parrot?’

Jack’s eyes narrowed. He masked his surprise well, Sally thought. It was no wonder that he was so successful at cards. But she could also tell that he had not known she was aware of his plans. In that one respect she held the upper hand. His gaze was fixed on hers and for the briefest second Sally saw uncertainty in his eyes, vulnerability even. He hesitated. Sally had never thought to see vulnerability in Jack Kestrel. It caught at her heart and it puzzled her as well.

Suddenly there was a silence in the room so acute that Sally could hear her own breathing.

‘What’s this?’ King Edward spoke sharply and both Sally and Jack jumped. Sally had forgotten he was even there. ‘You have bought up the Blue Parrot, Kestrel?’

‘I…Yes.’ Jack cleared his throat. ‘It was intended to be a surprise for Miss Bowes.’

‘It certainly was that,’ Sally said.

The King was looking from one to the other. ‘To what end?’

Jack was silent. The King was frowning. The crowd shifted and shimmered under the dazzling white lights of the chandeliers as everyone strained to hear what was going on. Even the waiters, busy dispensing champagne, had frozen where they stood.

‘I think I can answer that question, your Majesty,’ Sally said. She did not take her gaze from Jack for a single second. She could feel that she was shaking. She was about to take a huge risk, to let go of her doubts and show publicly all the love she had for Jack and the faith she had in him. And if he chose to use that to humiliate her then she would be finished.

‘I think Mr Kestrel bought the Blue Parrot for me as an engagement present,’ she said. ‘I think he intended to give the deeds to me tonight.’

Something shifted in Jack’s expression and suddenly she saw all the love and fear and doubt in him that was a mirror image for her own anxieties, and then she saw it swamped by a blazing joy as he grabbed her in his arms and kissed her so fiercely she lost her breath. Her heart leapt and she gave a gasp of mingled disbelief and elation.

‘Sally Bowes,’ Jack said, against her lips, ‘you are the sweetest and most generous and loving of women and I do not deserve you, but I love you so much…’

The King, as an amused onlooker, started to applaud. He had a wide smile on his face. After a shocked second everyone else in the Crimson Salon joined in.

‘Well,’ Sally said, emerging ruffled and breathless from Jack’s embrace, ‘that was neither the speech nor the spectacle I was planning, but I think it has got the evening off to a fine start.’

Everyone was coming up to congratulate them now. Gregory Holt shouldered his way through the crowd and offered Jack his hand.

‘You could have had my stake as well if you had only told me what it was for, old fellow,’ he said. He smiled at Sally. ‘I will make my shares over to you tomorrow, Sal.’

Jack looked rueful. ‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘I have a bad habit of secrecy. But I am sure Sally will cure me of it.’

Some enterprising musician struck up a celebratory dance and Jack caught Sally’s hand.

‘If you will permit, your Majesty?’ he said.

‘Of course.’ Edward kissed Sally soundly. ‘Spirit your fiancée away with my blessing, Kestrel. I shall come to the wedding of course,’ he added, much to Sally’s secret horror. ‘But for now, more cards—and more champagne!’

All those who had been present at the Blue Parrot that night later agreed that it was the event of the Season. The King won at
chemin de fer
, the champagne flowed like a river, the dancing continued until morning and that most unobtainable bachelor, Jack Kestrel, was so besotted with his fiancée that he refused to leave her side for a second, a sight which many people had thought never to live to see.

‘You were right, of course,’ Jack said. Dawn was breaking and he and Sally were sitting alone in the rose arbour in the garden of the Blue Parrot. The morning scent of dew on the grass filled the air and the birds were starting to sing. Jack held Sally’s hand as though it was a lifeline. He could still not quite believe that she was truly, publicly his. He still could not believe he could love her so much.

‘When I first bought up all the stakeholders in the Blue Parrot, I had no intention of giving the club to you,’ he said. ‘I was so angry and disillusioned that I wanted to take everything away from you and ruin you. I am so sorry, Sally.’

Sally’s head was against his shoulder. Her hair tickled his face. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said serenely. ‘I guessed that was what you planned. Greg came to warn me, and I was very fearful, but some instinct told me you would never hurt me like that. So I took the risk.’

‘You showed me how much you trusted me,’ Jack said, turning his face into her hair and inhaling the scent of her, wanting to feel her deep in his bones. ‘You are braver than I. I was humbled.’

‘Hmm,’ Sally said. ‘That cannot happen very often.’

‘I love you,’ Jack said. He slid an arm about her and drew her closer against him, where it felt as though she belonged. ‘I loved you from the first moment we met, though I utterly failed to realise it. I was so accustomed to thinking that the only woman I could ever love was Merle.’

‘I understand,’ Sally said. ‘She was your first love.’

‘It was madness,’ Jack said, ‘like a drug. From the moment she and I met I was entirely swept away, in love with the idea of love, as well as with her. But with you…’ he paused, then kissed her ‘…I feel so much more—love and acceptance and peace as well as excitement at the prospect of the future.’ He stopped. ‘I am not so good with words,’ he said gruffly, ‘but I love you so much I can scarce believe it.’

‘You could show me,’ Sally said, tilting her face up to his in the most innocently provocative way he had ever seen, ‘if you would like to.’

Astonishingly, Jack found himself hesitating for a second. It seemed extraordinary that he, the greatest rake in London, should be reluctant to make love to his own fiancée, and yet he felt unsure. He felt hesitant about almost everything in the newly discovered world of his where Sally held his future in her hands.

‘If you are absolutely certain—’ he began, stopping abruptly as Sally put a hand around his neck and brought his lips down to hers. She tasted sweet and desirable and his head spun. He relaxed into the feeling, recognising now that there was so much more here than lust, so much of warmth and generosity and love, and that it was his for the taking.

‘I think,’ Sally said, as their lips parted, ‘that once we set a wedding date your Great-Aunt Ottoline will insist on an inordinate amount of propriety from us, so it is perhaps best that we should be totally improper now.’

Jack grabbed her hand and was about to hurry her back inside the club, but she stopped him. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘There are too many people there. Come with me…’

Like a wraith in her silver gown, she led him into the green depths of the garden to where a topiary arch led to an enclosed garden with a sunken pool and a little wooden pagoda. The dawn light glittered on the water and the air was full of the scent of roses. Sally let go of him only for long enough to go into the pagoda and emerge with a heavy rag-rug seat cover the same red-and-gold colour as the roses. She laid it down on the grass in the shadow on the hedge.

‘Here,’ she said, with a bewitching smile. She lowered her lashes. ‘I must confess,’ she continued, ‘that our last encounter gave me a taste for fresh air.’

Jack’s mouth went dry. ‘Here?’

She looked at him a little quizzically. ‘I am beginning to think that your reputation is decidedly undeserved, Mr Kestrel.’

Jack was beside her in one stride, covering her mouth with his, pulling her into his arms. ‘We’ll see,’ he said.

‘This is a Worth gown,’ she said, when he released her. Her voice was a little unsteady.

Jack laughed. ‘Darling, I’ll buy you twenty of them.’

Sally, whose busy fingers had been working on the fastenings of his shirt, paused for a moment. ‘Could you?’

‘Yes,’ Jack said, obliging her by shrugging himself out of the shirt, and pulling her down to sit with him on the rug. ‘So far you seem to have given little real thought to my financial circumstances—despite my shameful suspicions that you were a fortune hunter—but I am accounted extremely wealthy, you know.’

‘How delightful,’ Sally said. Her hands were sliding over his bare chest in distracting circles. She pressed a kiss against his collarbone and the ripples of sensation shivered across his skin. He tried to concentrate, before it was too late.

‘You will want to continue working after we are wed,’ he said huskily. ‘I understand that.’

‘I thought that you must,’ Sally said, trailing kisses haphazardly down his chest, ‘when you gave me the deeds to the Club.’

‘But we may have a house in the country—’

‘Where I may design a garden even bigger and more exciting than this one,’ Sally finished. Her fingers had reached the waistband of his trousers now. ‘Must I do this all myself?’ she complained.

‘No,’ Jack said. He tumbled her over beneath him so that she lay looking up at him, ethereal in her silver gown, her hair spread out about her on the rug. He slid the gown from her shoulders. ‘Mmn. I like this one.’

Her skin was creamy white, bathed in the dawn light. He lowered his head to kiss her brow softly and to trace the curve of her cheek with his lips, nuzzling lower to her neck and the vulnerable skin beneath her ear. He heard her breathing catch and felt her shiver as he eased the gown down over her body to pool in a silver heap on the rug beside them.

‘No damage done,’ he said. He ran his hands down her tightly laced body, lingering over the curve of her breasts, delving into the satin softness of the bloomers, finding the gap that left her completely defenceless to his touch. ‘Odd,’ he said reflectively, ‘that a corset is as effective as a suit of armour above, and yet below…’ Slyly, his fingers stroked her inner thigh, then slipped deeper to caress her intimately. Sally gave a little gasp and arched to the touch of his hand.

‘Jack…’ Her voice broke on his name.

‘Have patience, sweetheart.’ He dropped a lush kiss on her mouth. He found the contrast of her tight lacing above and flagrant exposure below intensely arousing. It was something, he thought, that he would need to explore at length in future. But for now, he needed her naked. He wanted to devour every last inch of her cool, sweet body and know that it was his entirely, freely given.

‘I need to unlace you,’ he whispered.

Through a combination of luck, force and willpower Jack managed to relieve Sally of her underwear and himself of the remainder of his own clothes, and managed to keep his sanity intact as well. He was so hard now that he was desperate for her, but he was not going to hurry. He covered her pale body with his own, worshipping her with his hands and his mouth, branding her with kisses over her breasts and the sweet curve of her stomach. His tongue traced the line of her hip and again she arched against him with a gasp of pure need. With a groan he dragged her body against him. She tasted hot and sweet and smelled of summer and roses and it drugged his senses until they spun. She gave him back each eager kiss and caress, generous and open as ever, and his heart swelled with love and peace and the last dark corners of his mind were flooded with light.

‘This time it is with love,’ he whispered, ‘and it always will be.’

Her eyes were wide and dark, dazed with passion, brilliant with tears. His fingers brushed her cheek tenderly. She clung to him, drawing him down, and he took her mouth with leashed passion, pressing gently within her, feeling her tighten around him and his body catch fire from hers. He was aware of nothing then but her sweet, fevered response and the whirling, painful spiral of his own desire until he tumbled over the edge, gave all of himself without reservation for the first time in his life, and lay spent and dazzled with Sally clasped tightly in his arms and against his heart.

‘Sally?’

Sally woke reluctantly to the sound of Jack’s voice and realised that she was still lying naked in his arms on the rag rug and that a drift of rose petals had fallen from the tree about them and dusted their bodies with pink and gold. Her skin felt a little chilled from the fresh morning air and she shivered and burrowed closer to Jack’s warmth. His arms tightened about her in response.