Chapter Twenty-Five
Jerome sank back into the hot water of the bath and closed his eyes on a groan.
Ava knelt behind the head of the bath and put her hands on his shoulders, her fingers digging into the taut muscles there.
It was all over. He had been acquitted, exonerated of all blame for Charis Dunsenay’s death by a unanimous vote of the house.
But the damage to his reputation and honor was done and could never be undone.
His shame was known to all the world now.
No longer a dark secret he kept buried inside.
There ought to be some relief in that, but paradoxically, he felt a burning need to strive even harder for the perfection that was always just out of reach.
Because now he had things to atone for in the eyes of society.
His tainted roots were known and would be the fodder of gossip for months, if not years, to come. Will I ever live it down?
Ava’s lips grazed his stubbled cheek, and she whispered, “You’re home now, my love. Let it go.”
He sighed and reached a wet hand to grasp one of hers on his shoulder. “I have so much to be grateful for: you, and Rob, Garrow—he was magnificent! You should have seen his performance. I couldn’t have asked for a better defense.”
“You were exonerated because you spoke the truth! You were not guilty. It would have been a complete miscarriage of justice for the lords to have pronounced any other verdict.”
He smiled at her impassioned tone, and turned his head to capture her mouth in a kiss, which she gave willingly, and he tugged at her arms to bring her around to the side of the tub.
“Want to join me?” he asked, his body stirring. They had been apart for over a week, the longest separation since their wedding.
“I think,” she said, dropping her voice to a husky purr and plunging a hand into the warm water, “I want to pleasure my husband.” Her hand landed on his stiffening member and gripped firmly.
Jerome groaned again with a different kind of pleasure, and he tugged her closer for a deep kiss. “Come here,” he said, wrapping wet arms around her and pulling her over the edge of the tub.
She shrieked on a laugh as he pulled her into the water, gown and all. “Jerome!”
The light muslin fabric splayed around her as she rearranged her knees on either side of his hips.
He got his hand under her gown and found her flesh with his fingers, stroking and coaxing as he kissed her with ravenous hunger.
Her hips undulated in the water, responding to his touch, and she moaned, her expression of pleasure almost undoing him.
She was so beautiful, his wife, his Ava.
So precious. His heart swelled, lifting his spirits from their melancholy thoughts.
She moved to engage their bodies, and he let her, as eager as she for the bliss of union.
As she slid down his length with another moan of satisfaction, she leaned forward to kiss him, her mouth taking as much as giving.
He found he didn’t mind being dominated by his little wife.
Ava might be small of stature but she was large of spirit and strength, and he was as proud of her lioness courage as he loved her generous heart and spirit.
She rode him with fierce delight and brought them both to that pinnacle of shattering pleasure in moments, sloshing water on the floor, heedless of the mess they were making.
Their groans intermingled with their gasping breaths, clutching hands and clinging mouths, as the moment enveloped them in a brief, but transformative fusion of the soul.
At least that was how it felt for him, as he came gradually back to himself, relaxing into the water and bringing her beautiful, flushed face with sparkling eyes into focus. She collapsed forward onto his chest and moaned softly, “I’ve missed you so much!”
He wrapped his arms around her tightly and kissed her golden curls, falling in disarray around her shoulders. “I missed you too, so very much, my darling.”
*
In the aftermath of the trial, Jerome had demanded that Tindal hand over his mother’s diary to him, which the man did with some embarrassment.
He learned from Tindal that Lady Mostyn had bribed a servant to search his mother’s room for anything of interest and that was how the diary came into her possession.
Which finally explained the loose floorboard in her bedchamber.
He put the document in the top drawer of his desk unopened.
He was not equal to reading it. Yet. He would perhaps take it to Letty and they could read it together. But not yet.
Jerome returned to his usual pursuits with renewed vigor however, determined to put the past behind him, and found to his surprise that the majority of men accepted him back into their ranks with no trouble at all.
He was engaged with a party of sporting gentlemen at the Daffy Club one night, when the celebrated whip and fellow member of the Four Horse Club, Sir Henry Peyton, joined them with his friend and fellow club member, Mr. Annesley.
The club had been experiencing difficulties of late with disagreements among the membership as to its rules, and Peyton bemoaned the fact that he rather thought they would have to disband.
“Buxton was saying so to me the other day,” he said gloomily, raising his glass.
“If there were a way to bring in some new membership,” mused Annesley, tracing circles in the spilled liquid on the table, “the dissenting voices might be drowned out.”
“Hm,” murmured Peyton, contemplating his now empty glass. “What if we were to put on a demonstration of the art, show our mettle?”
Annesley sat up. “Now there’s a thought! But why not make it interesting: a race, so that bets might be placed. That will surely draw attention.”
“True,” said Peyton. “I’ll put up my hand for that. Who shall dare to try to best me?”
Jerome, who had listened to this exchange with mild interest, could no more resist that challenge than he could stop breathing; his competitive spirit spurred to the fore.
“I will, Sir Henry. Name the distance and over what ground and I engage to beat you by—the distance of half a mile or two minutes!”
“Done!” said Sir Henry, his merry eyes lighting up.
And thus it was that the two men were engaged to race a week hence from Hyde Park Corner to Hounslow Heath, a distance of just over twelve miles, at ten o’clock in the morning when much of the route would be heavily snarled with traffic, requiring the drivers to exert every ounce of their skill to negotiate the course safely and at speed.
News of the race spread, and it was entered into the betting books at White’s and Brooks’s.
Whether it was Jerome’s recent notoriety that fueled the interest, or just the ton’s attraction to a closely matched race by two acknowledged whips, there was scarcely a sporting gentleman in London who did not take an interest in the race.
*
And while Jerome was settling back into his social milieu, Ava was navigating the choppy waters left in the wake of Lady Mostyn’s bitter malice.
Ladies, she discovered, were far less forgiving, and she was in a constant state of vigilance to defend Jerome’s honor.
Mama, Sarah, and Letty were staunch allies in this endeavor, and the four women battled bravely through, refusing to kowtow to the attempts to cut them down.
The dowager duchess was not without influence, and gradually their united front began to pay dividends, winning over such high sticklers as Mrs. Drummond-Burrell and Lady Cowper.
And in the middle of it all, there was the scandal over Rick and Miss Cecelia Woodrow.
Cecelia had been a debutante the same year as Ava.
Both girls were pretty, petite blondes and Cecelia was an heiress to boot.
They had often been bracketed together. Miss Woodrow had been engaged to the Earl of Tavistock, but for whatever reason, the engagement came to nothing, tainting her reputation somewhat in the process.
Ava had felt for her when her engagement faltered, but all the same she wasn’t sure that she was best pleased to have her favorite brother’s name linked with Miss Woodrow’s.
Now there was this scandal hanging over her and Rick.
Thus, Ava was surprised, and a little troubled, at opening an envelope over breakfast to find a gold filigree invitation inside.
“Oh, no!” she said.
“What is it, my love?” asked Jerome, looking up from his paper. She passed the invitation across to him.
His eyebrows rose as he perused it. “‘You are cordially invited to the wedding of’—. Well, Rob got him to the sticking point after all.”
“It would seem so,” she said with a frown.
“You’re not happy, love?”
“I’m not sure that she is right for Rick,” she confessed. “I don’t think he is ready for marriage yet. They could both be miserable.”
“You never know. It might be the making of him.”
She sniffed skeptically. “Rick isn’t one to settle down, and she—” She cut herself off from saying anything uncharitable, but it burned inside her.
Miss Woodrow struck her as not mature enough for Rick.
As much as she adored her scapegrace brother, she privately thought he needed someone who would stabilize him.
Miss Woodrow seemed too young and unformed to give him the ballast he needed.
Unless he loved her, of course. She resolved to speak to him and ascertain his feelings on the matter.
However, the opportunity wasn’t afforded to her until the wedding breakfast, held at Layne House, which was rather too late.
She watched him with Cecelia, trying to gauge his feelings, but he wasn’t giving anything away.
He was so tall and lean and she so petite, they appeared as a rather odd couple to Ava’s way of thinking.
Rick treated Cecelia with careful courtesy and Ava noticed how Cecelia’s eyes followed him with a kind of mournful longing when he moved away from her. This isn’t good!