Anne’s chin lifted and she looked away. “As if I would say anything further. I have done nothing wrong.”
“What of the incident at the Royal Academy?” Jasper asked with ice in his tone.
“Dear God. You cannot think we had anything to do with that! We are not murderers. I’ve had enough of this.” She stood. “You have no right to detain me.”
“I’ll be taking you in to Bow Street,” Bell said, rocking back on his heels. He was a short and slender man, almost delicate looking. “We’ll see if the magistrate agrees with you. ’Til then, sit down.”
“That’s an expensive cape you wear,” Jasper noted. “And sizable emeralds at your ears and throat. Either you came into your marriage with money, or Miss Martin paid your husband exceedingly well.”
Unaccustomed to noting such things, Eliza reevaluated the woman’s attire. Anne Reynolds’s ensemble did indeed seem far finer than Eliza’s own accoutrements. She looked at Jasper. “How? I manage my own funds…keep my own ledgers…”
“You do not deal directly with your tenants. Who collects the rents?”
“Mr. Reynolds.”
“Right,” Lynd said. “Is it possible what you believe you are charging and collecting isn’t what the tenants are actually paying to Reynolds?”
Eliza paled. “I suppose it’s possible, if he was clever enough about it.” Which she knew he could have been. She looked at Anne, who was also wan, if defiant. “If he raised the rents over time without my knowledge, or charged for miscellaneous items of which I wasn’t aware. We should ask Miss Chilcott and my other tenants. Dear God…they are all as much victims as I am.”
“That’s likely why Reynolds wanted Bond dead,” Bell said. “Once you had a husband to assist you, the embezzlement might’ve been discovered or Reynolds’ duties reduced. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you when you hired me, Miss Martin. Let that be a lesson to me in the future.”
Jasper remained deadly quiet and expressionless.
“This was to be my last Season,” Eliza said softly. “I intended to retire to the country with Melville, at which point a greater portion of my affairs would have been left in Mr. Reynolds’s hands. He and his wife were so close to achieving their aims that my sudden decision to marry Mr. Bond must have made them desperate.”
“If you marry him,” Anne said coldly, “you deserve what comes to you. At least Mr. Reynolds was concerned about building your wealth. Gresham, I am certain, intends to squander it.”
Eliza pushed to her feet, unable to bear any more. “I shall leave this matter to you, Mr. Bell. I’m confident you will apprise me of the necessary information.”
The Runner gave a curt nod. “Of course.”
“Mr. Bond,” Eliza murmured, which caused Anne to laugh. “Would you accompany me, please?”
“In a moment,” he said without inflection. “I’ll find you.”
Eliza made her egress on wooden legs, wondering if she would, indeed, be found, or if Jasper would now be lost to her. Perhaps he’d never truly been hers to begin with. For all their promises to be truthful to one another, it seemed they’d kept more secrets than they’d shared.
Jasper reached the top of the staircase and turned to the right, following the directions to Eliza’s room that Lady Collingsworth had given him. If the dowager countess thought it was inappropriate for him to ask for them, she gave no outward indication. Instead, she told him the parson was having a fine time with both the champagne and Lord Westfield’s witty discourse, and he’d agreed to stay as long as they wanted him to.
Inhaling deeply, Jasper lifted his hand to knock on Eliza’s boudoir door. As he waited for her to answer, he struggled against the feeling of being made of glass; he felt as if he might break at any moment. Perhaps it was the endless string of unexpected revelations that had him so unsettled. Or perhaps he was simply experiencing a bridegroom’s expected nervousness. He thought it might be terror over the prospect of losing something irreplaceable, but he didn’t have any frame of reference to be certain.
The door opened, and Eliza stood there. She was in a dressing gown, and her eyes and nose were red. He remembered when they’d first met, he’d thought her pretty enough but no raving beauty. He couldn’t comprehend that determination now. He was certain she was the loveliest woman he’d ever seen.
Stepping back, she made room for him to enter, then she shut the door quietly behind him.
Her rooms were decorated in the same hues of cream and burgundy as his own. He noticed that immediately, and took an odd sort of comfort in the similarity. He shouldn’t forget how alike they were in the most fundamental of ways. If only they could strip away their exteriors and bare that affinity…
“I should have told you—”
They spoke and ended in unison. Startled to have said the same thing at once, they stared at one another. He waited for her to speak first. After the day’s revelations, she deserved the opportunity to give him a tongue-lashing.
Her hands tightened the belt at her waist. “I hired Tobias Reynolds in the beginning, when I knew nothing about you. You said the connection between you and Lord Gresham would withstand greater scrutiny, and I told myself I was only confirming the claim before someone else had a mind to. But I recalled Mr. Reynolds from the task before he reported anything. I wanted you to be the one to tell me whatever you felt I should know, in your own good time.”
Jasper nodded and linked his fingers behind his back. “I should have told you about my mother. I knew I would have to, but I thought we had time—”
“We do.” She stepped closer. “All the time you need.”
“The time is now, Eliza. You should know me before you wed me. I couldn’t bear for you to turn away from me after you’re mine.”
“I cannot turn away. I love you.”
His eyes closed on a shuddering breath. “Eliza—”
“I don’t want you to say anything,” she interrupted quickly, “until after we are man and wife. I need to marry you with my heart, not my mind. I need to trust in my own instincts, over my reason, so I can make the changes necessary to be what you require, to be whole. I need you to know I accept you just the way you are, without reservation or doubt, so you can—God willing—someday grow to love me, too.”
Eliza was defying all of her routines, setting aside habits of a lifetime, deliberately making one concession after another …for him. She was determined to leave herself open to trusting him, even when everything suggested she shouldn’t.
“I love you,” she said again.
He looked at her. She’d taken a seat upon one of the settees with her hands clasped demurely in her lap. Insanely, that aroused him—the vision of her so controlled, when he knew how wild she could be in his arms. It was the way she revealed her deeper self when they were intimate, even more than the physical pleasure, that drove his sexual craving for her.
“I am undone,” he said hoarsely. “You rule me completely. I would do anything to possess you.”
Eliza’s hand lifted to her throat, her fingers wrapping around the graceful column. He crossed the room to her and caught that alabaster hand. Jasper pressed a kiss to the back of it, then moved to the tips of her fingers. He licked the end of the one that would bear his ring by the close of the day, and she shivered. Her lashes lowered and her lips parted on soft panting breaths.
Opening his mouth, he sucked the slender digit inside, swirling his tongue around it until a whimper escaped her.
The sound of surrender freed him from any restraint.
He reached down and opened the placket of his breeches with his free hand. His cock fell heavily into his palm, so thick and hard he fisted himself to stave off his hunger.
“Jasper.”
His mouth slid free of her trembling fingers. “I need you.”
Eliza fumbled with the belt at her waist. Jasper sank to the floor on his knees and pushed up her chemise, his hands rough with impatience. He caught her hips and tugged her down to his lap, her legs straddling his. The cleft of her sex pressed against the silky length of him.
He caught her nape in his hand, forcing her to look straight into his eyes. “I need to be in you.”
“Yes.” She grew slick with welcome due to the heat of his rut. She loved him like this, uncontrolled and lustful.
He shifted her, urging her up and then over him, the thick crest of his penis gliding along her slit and nudging her clitoris. She moaned and caught his shoulders, tense with impatience and greedy for pleasure.
When he notched himself at her clenching opening, she trembled. With a groan, he thrust, pushing his thickly veined cock deep into her.
“Eliza.” His arms tightened around her, crushing the air from her lungs and immobilizing her against him.
She clawed at his back, writhing. The heat of his skin burned through the linen and velvet of his garments.
“Please,” she begged, quivering around him. “Please.”
Jasper gripped her hips, lifting and dropping her. Working her onto his rigid length. Pumping her up and down. Grinding and screwing deep.
Eliza sobbed with the pleasure. “Yes!”
“I will addict you to this,” he promised in a dark, dangerously rough voice. “Addict you to me. Soon, you’ll seek me out in public, unable to wait another moment. You will lift your skirts and beg for my mouth on you, my tongue in you. In the extremity of your lust, you won’t care where we are. You will crave the taste of me. You will sink to your knees and service me with your mouth, sucking my cock until I spill into you, thick and hot and mad with hunger.”
She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, eyes closing as he surged repeatedly inside her. The feeling was incredible. She would never have enough of it. The stroking of the furled underside of his crown rubbed deliciously, finding her most sensitive nerve endings and setting them afire.
He slid inside her, deeply, filling her with the heat and hardness of him. Filling her with pleasure that made her arch wildly. His possession was indescribably erotic. As addicting as he threatened.
He withdrew, and she felt empty. He returned, and she bit her lip to hold back cries that would betray their actions to a multitude of guests.
But Jasper would abide no restraint. “Let me hear you,” he coaxed. “Let me hear how much you want this.”
His free hand cupped her thigh, opening her wider so that he could thrust deeper. Swiveling his hips, he worked her into a frenzy with ruthless skill, making her insensate with lust and hungry for more. Always more. As much as he gave her, it wasn’t enough.
Eliza gasped and dug her nails into the flexing muscles of his back. The horrors of the day created a sharp urgency. “Finish me.”
“Too soon,” he ground out, sweat dripping down his temple.
“We have forever to go slower. Don’t make me wait now.”
He crushed her to him. “I love you. Eliza…love you.”
She climaxed with a force that left her shaking. Jasper followed swiftly, his hips ramming upward with ferocious speed. She felt his climax building, felt the tensing of his muscles and the frantic heaving of his powerful chest. When he came, it was violent, his thick penis jerking inside her with every molten spurt of his seed. Her name fell brokenly from his lips until she kissed him, swallowing the sounds of his pleasure with unconditional love in her heart.
They were married an hour later. Aside from the parson, who was flushed and happy with drink, it was a somber wedding. If the stamp of Jasper’s passion was evident in Eliza’s appearance, no one said anything to her, and she was certain Regina would have.
Jasper’s hair was still damp when he said his vows. He’d sent the Crouches back to his home to retrieve fresh clothes, then bathed in a guest bedroom to save time.
Fewer than a dozen people witnessed the short ceremony. The celebration afterward was equally abridged, since everyone had been present for hours by the time the vows were said.
Eliza wore a new cream-hued satin gown with fine lace sleeves and bodice. It was cut and fashioned in the latest style, the first of many that would assist her transformation. She intended to enhance what beauty God had given her, using every weapon in her feminine arsenal to please her husband and deepen his love for her.
When the time came to retire, Jasper was relieved. Eliza led him to her suite of rooms with his hand in hers.
“I have something for you,” he said, when they were alone.
“Oh.” She bit her lower lip. “I did not think of a wedding gift for you.”
“You’re all the gift I need.” He reached into the inner pocket of his coat and withdrew a lady’s signet ring.
He held his hand out for hers, slipping the golden circlet onto the ring finger of her right hand. “It was my mother’s.”
Eliza looked up at him with luminous eyes. “Thank you.”
He nodded and shrugged out of his coat. “Would you care for a drink?” he asked solicitously. Having taken her body so peremptorily earlier, he intended to savor her now.
“No. I want you.”
Satisfaction surged through him. His chest expanded on a deep inhale. His blood thickened and flowed hotly. “Have you no reservations? No questions?”
“Why are you still talking?” She presented her back to him.
“Will you always surprise me?” He approached her and reached for the first button of her gown.
“Haven’t we had enough unpleasantness for one day? Tomorrow is soon enough to address the rest.”
He pressed his lips to her shoulder, grateful for her.
Her head turned, and her gaze met his. “If you’d gone to the jeweler’s today instead of Lynd…”
“Eliza…”
She pivoted into his arms, catching his mouth with her own in a fervent, awkward kiss. He caught her close, lifting her feet from the floor. Her slender arms wrapped around his neck, her fingers pushed into his hair in the way that never failed to inflame him.
