Chapter 4 #3
Something else she would lose when she married.
In truth she had lost that pure female companionship already, her years of schooling being over.
Now she was—what? Parading out during Seasons and trips abroad, showing herself to advantage.
Biding her time in her father’s house until she moved to the house of her husband.
“My guess is a school of some kind.” Jay’s voice broke her reverie. “Or a conservatory?”
“A university.” Pandora gave him a smile that mixed encouragement with provocation. Though older and with her affections otherwise engaged, even she was not immune to Jay’s charm. To the sheer magnificent presence of him, sultry power wrapped up in a gentleman’s togs.
Jay turned his palms up, abashed. Effie wanted, ridiculously, to crawl into his lap and have those arms come once more around her.
Iris sighed. “Azadokht Shahbanu. The wise and favored wife of Shapur the Great, the Persian king who defeated three Roman emperors. She helped the king found the Academy at Gundeshapur that became one of the greatest intellectual centers of the ancient world. She summoned scholars not just from across Persia but from Greece, India, even China. They studied astronomy, philosophy, mathematics, medicine. Do you English honestly know so little of Persia?”
“My ignorance is an affront, I agree. But I am interested in learning.”
Jay rose, and heat cascaded through Effie’s body, as if she’d been doused with a cooking pot. He was so very—Jay. He stepped around the chair holding the other gentleman, who stared at Iris with a kind of greedy despair, and held out his hand to Effie.
“May I escort you to dinner, o Queen of Queens?”
“At least he knows the proper title,” Iris grumbled, taking Cybele’s hand to raise the other girl to her feet.
“A moment while I divest myself of my riches.” Effie put her fingers to the clasp of the necklace she wore and found herself hopelessly clumsy. “I must return this to the treasury before I—drat this clasp.”
“Will you permit me?” Jay’s voice was as silky as a pour of warm water, drenching her again.
Her nipples tightened, peaking the delicate muslin of her robe.
Obligingly she pulled aside the hair at her nape.
When his fingers touched her delicate skin, she shivered.
He smelled of clay and salt and a faint trace of tobacco, and his body was a solid wall of heat.
An arrow of delight plunged through her belly to the place in bloom. A place which certain secret studies at Miss Gregoire’s had given her to understand the general workings of, but which no man had ever stirred.
“Thank you,” she said, breathless. Her bare fingers slid against his as she took the heavy chain.
Iris studied Jay’s face, then Effie’s. She tugged on Effie’s elbow, drawing her aside.
“Beware, Lady Erato,” she said in a quiet voice. “This man is a tradesman.”
“You know him?”
“He was at the Royal Pavilion this afternoon to consult about renovations the King is planning. The architect and builder brought him in to recommend his work, and he stayed to talk about another project my—guardian is investing in. I think he is a brickmaker.”
“He must be very good at his trade, if he is getting commissions from the King.”
Jay had spoken that morning as if royal commissions were only a wished-for dream. Not as if he might be the very man His Majesty would rely on to rebuild his palace. His status—his future—would be established if he had the King’s patronage.
If he moved in her circles, there was a chance he would see Effie again. Not at the beach, in an enchanted space carved out just for them, but on her husband’s arm.
But she had already settled upon him. She could not change course now.
She did not want to change course.
She placed her fingers on Jay’s forearm, to the same result as from earlier that day. Touching him made her feel a firework had gone off in her middle.
“Lady Hedone promised me a saffron cheesecake,” she told him. “And a hedgehog.”
“Not the small, spiny creature, I hope.”
She grinned at him. She adored when he was absurd. It offset the stern, rugged look of him so nicely. “It had better be a cake. Piles of almonds, and plenty of cream and butter in the paste, if she wishes us to remain friends.”
“You know Lady Hedone, then?”
She hesitated as he led her to the dining parlor, spread as usual with its delicious array. How much was it safe to reveal?
“We are friends from school, as it happens.”
He nodded, strolling down the room with her. “And you have a special affection for schools, my Sappho.”
“Study at Miss Gregoire’s is quite rigorous. Please do not tell my mother, who sent me there to learn etiquette.”
He chuckled. “My mother had a benefactor in Bath, once upon a time, who was a schoolteacher. She taught me the highest respect for the profession, and my sisters all attended. I shall have to ask the name of their school. Their thoughts on female education would be quite radical to some, but my sisters are very independent minded.”
So that was why he had not been put off by her lectures on sea creatures, Effie thought. He was accustomed to learned women.
What a splendid companion he would make for a woman who knew her own mind.
He was hardworking, respected, intelligent, warm.
Completely lacking in that self-aggrandizing impulse that so many men possessed.
He didn’t require admiration from others; he had earned his place in the world through his own merits.
More and more Effie envied the future Mrs. Jay Burnham.
Heddy, wearing her black mantilla with a purple gown tonight, headed them off at the syllabub, cutting Effie neatly from Jay and finding a quiet space for them beneath one of the scented oil lamps set in its sconce on the wall.
“Have a care, Effie,” Heddy murmured, watching as Jay fell into conversation with the other gentleman who had attended their tableau.
“You think he will hurt me?”
“No,” Heddy said. “I would not have let him in my door if I sensed he is the type to hurt a woman. I rather fear you will want more than you can have from him.”
“I can stand being denied,” Effie said bravely.
“You darling goose,” Heddy said with the tenderness of an old and most privileged friend. “You’ve never been denied in your life. Your parents have given you everything, and what they have not given you, you have taken yourself. You’ve never had your heart broken.”
“But I will,” Effie said. “When I am in a marriage that at best will be cordial. When my husband is out once again with his friends and I am at home with fretting children and the week’s menus to plan. That is what will break my heart, Heddy.”
Her friend put her hands on either side of Effie’s face and regarded her with a serious stare. “I want more for you, dear.”
“I want more for myself,” Effie said. “And for now, that is him. A taste of what I will never have otherwise.”
“And doom yourself to a life of longing for what you cannot have?” Heddy said softly. “Will it be worth it?”
Effie watched Jay, the way he leaned back on one leg, his big frame at ease. The way he listened politely to the prating gentleman. The way a muscle flexed in his jaw when he chewed on a saffron cake.
“Yes,” she whispered. “It will be worth it. I will trade a lifetime of resignation for one night with him.”
Jay stood studying the feast when Effie joined him. A crumb of cake specked the corner of his mouth. She reached up a finger to brush it away.
He caught her hand and held it. She felt like the cuttlefish from the pool, startled, pulsing with color. She could not disguise herself from him; the flimsy mask hid nothing.
“Why is Lady Hedone’s cook so liberal with the saffron?”
Effie held back a laugh. “It is thought to be an aphrodisiac. Did you not know? Everything on this table is designed to augment the senses in some fashion.”
He stared at her. “Almonds?”
“Some think them an aphrodisiac, yes.” She dared to flatten her palm against his shoulder. How firm he was. Her fingertips pulsed with the mad beat of her heart.
He anchored his palm over hers, holding her there. “Nutmeg,” he said.
“Increases desire in women particularly, I am told.”
He shifted his eyes to her. His gaze burned her skin. Or perhaps that was a fever rising. The wish to move her hand, touch more of him.
“The tea Hed—Hedone makes for her patrons? Goat’s head. Your friend there is especially fond of it. Known to incite vigor in rams and goats, and presumably human males also.”
He simply stared. Effie was conscious that well-bred young women did not discuss sexual activity in animals of any kind. They were supposed to be innocent that any such aspect to human nature existed. Babies were discovered under bushes or washed up on the foam like Aphrodite rising from the sea.
She curled her fingers, pressing into the fabric of his coat. Thick, but not padded. He had no need to accentuate his form. He had no need either, she was sure, of supplements. He was the very image of masculine vigor.
“I could ask the lady to brew some for you,” she cooed.
His hand on hers was heavy and hot. So was the look in his eyes. “I should think all a man would require is the sight of you in that robe.”
Her nipples tightened again. Had they ever stopped? Her throat was dry with the desperate need for him to kiss her. She licked her lips, and his eyes followed the movement of her tongue, then the convulsion of her throat as she swallowed. His gaze dipped to the flush spreading over her chest.
“Shall we discuss what you came for?” she whispered.
His eyes darkened to charcoal. His fingers clenched around hers. Was that the beat of his heart she felt, or her own headlong pulse? She must be mad, to speak so boldly.
“What do you believe I came for, Lady Erato?” he said in a low voice that made the gooseflesh rise again, like silk rubbing over her skin.
“What we all hope to find here,” she said simply. “Pleasure.”