Seven Minutes in Heaven

  “Do you know how to swim, Mrs. Snowe?” Lizzie asked, looking up at her.

  “I do not,” Eugenia replied, adding faintly, “It’s a useful skill. Many people do not realize how dangerous water sports can be.”

  “I shan’t go in the lake,” Lizzie said firmly. “There are dead fish in there, and they might bite me.”

  “Pooh!” Otis said. “You think about death all the time. If you don’t learn to swim, you could be dead yourself someday. Did you think of that?”

  “I’ll enter the water only if Mrs. Snowe does so with me,” Lizzie said.

  “I should prefer not to,” Eugenia said.

  “I needn’t either,” Lizzie replied cheerfully.

  Ward gave Eugenia a look that aimed to remind her that, as her own experience had taught her, swimming lessons were very important.

  “I changed my mind,” she said, with patent reluctance. “I’d be happy to learn to swim.”

  “Excellent,” Ward said. “Swimming lessons tomorrow morning. Mrs. Snowe, I think we should forgo the ladies’ teatime. It is the children’s bedtime.”

  Lizzie was still clinging to Eugenia’s hand. “I feel angry.”

  Eugenia bent over and kissed Lizzie on the cheek. “I have a headache, my dear, but I promise you a tea party tomorrow, and you can teach me more of Middleton’s creative phrases.”

  “You know what gave Mrs. Snowe a headache?” Otis demanded. “It was that shouting. I’m lucky not to be deaf.”

  Lizzie dropped Eugenia’s hand and poked her brother hard in the ribs. “You are the most—”

  Over the clamor, Ward opened the door. “I apologize for my siblings.”

  Eugenia smiled at him, and Ward actually found his head bending toward her before he jolted upright again. He wanted that mouth. He wanted to lick inside and see that look she gave him last night, as if she needed him more than her next breath.

  “This was one of the more interesting meals of my life,” Eugenia observed.

  “We must talk about the new skill you taught my sister.”

  Her smile didn’t hitch. “Snowe’s Registry makes a point of being readily available to its clients.”

  He leaned a trifle closer; the children were squabbling and not paying attention. “Are you trying to remind me that you, and not I, are the expert in child-rearing?”

  “Yes.” Her eyes had a shimmer of desire.

  He could have pointed out that he was an expert in the behavior of polite society, but he found he didn’t care. “I want you,” he growled, leaning still closer so that his words traveled only as far as their mingled breaths.

  “Are you going to kiss Mrs. Snowe?” Otis’s interested voice asked.

  “No!” Ward said, straightening.

  “Of course they’re not kissing,” Lizzie said scornfully. “When people kiss, they hold their heads like this.” She flopped her head to the side like a wilting dandelion.

  “That’s stage kissing,” Eugenia said. “It’s different in real life, Lizzie. Your brother and I have no interest in kissing.”

  “I told you,” Lizzie said, nudging her brother with her elbow. “They’re not married.”

  “Be careful! You almost poked Jarvis,” Otis protested. “Anyway, you don’t have to be married to kiss.”

  “You’re not supposed to kiss unless you are husband and wife,” Lizzie stated.

  “An excellent point,” Ward said, feeling that a parental affirmation was required.

  “Mother kissed Mr. Burger all the time, and they weren’t married,” Otis said.

  “That’s private!” Lizzie snapped. “You were never, ever supposed to tell!” She burst into tears.

  Ward managed not to flinch at the revelation that his mother apparently had a lover named Burger. He reached down and picked up his weeping sister. “Time for bed. Come along, Otis.”

  “Would you like to say goodnight to Jarvis?” Otis asked Eugenia.

  “Certainly,” Eugenia said, in an obvious lie.

  Ward watched as Otis hauled Jarvis, who seemed eager to be part of the party, from his bag and put him on his shoulder.

  Jarvis nudged Otis’s cheek with his nose, a rattie kiss, and began combing his hair.

  Eugenia tentatively reached out and rubbed Jarvis on his head with one finger.

  Ward turned, settled his sobbing sister against his shoulder, and walked on.

  Chapter Thirty

  At bedtime, Eugenia tried to decide whether she should undo the braid that Clothilde had put in her hair after her bath. She was fairly certain that fallen women greeted their paramours wearing diaphanous nightdresses, hair flowing around their shoulders.

  Her nightgown was made from sturdy cotton, just what a respectable widow ought to wear to her solitary bed.

  In the end, she undid her braid and slipped between the sheets to await a discreet knock. The next she knew, her hair was tangled around her shoulders. And she was no longer alone in the bed.

  Ward was lying on his back beside her, head turned away and one strong arm under her, embracing her. She was snuggled against him, for all the world as if they were man and wife.

  Lovers were intimate, of course. But she had thought that lovers didn’t sleep together; rather, they engaged in sinfully thrilling debauchery, and then parted to sleep in their own chambers.

  Now, though, pearly light was stealing into the room, signaling the dawn. Somehow they had slept through the hours for thrilling debauchery, and it was time for her bedfellow to make his way to his own chamber.

  “Ward,” she whispered, running her fingers over his naked shoulder and then his neck, and along his jaw. He had finely drawn cheekbones for a man, but they didn’t feminize him.

  He was the opposite of her godfather, the Duke of Villiers. Villiers was at perfect ease in glittering attire. He insisted on scarlet heels, even as younger men eschewed that fashion for Hessians.

  Of course, Villiers’s grip over London society was such that red heels still regularly made appearances everywhere from the queen’s drawing room to Vauxhall.

  Ward’s deep bottom lip opened and her finger slid inside a warm, wet mouth.

  “Good morning,” Eugenia said huskily, pulling her hand away. “Whatever are you doing in my bed, Mr. Reeve?”

  He blinked sleepily and ran his free hand through his hair. Chestnut locks tumbled into an arrangement that a valet would need an hour to achieve. “I’ve never liked to sleep alone. My father says I used to roam the house at night, joining people in their beds.”

  “What people would those be?”

  “Relatives, for the most part. Although on one occasion I made my way into my future stepmother’s chamber and wet her bed.”

  “I’m glad you outgrew that tendency,” Eugenia said, heartfelt.

  He was wide awake now, his eyes gleaming. He took her hand and placed it on his chest. “Please return to what you were doing.”

  Eugenia ran her fingers down his taut abdomen.

  “Last night it was all I could do not to reach across the dining table and haul you onto my lap,” Ward said.

  “Not in front of the children.”

  “I kept my hands to myself,” Ward said, his voice breaking in a groan. “Please don’t stop.”

  She obeyed.

  Two hours later, Ward pulled himself upright and stretched. Every part of him was content.

  Eugenia was prone on the bed, her hair spread over her naked breasts. “Time to get up.” He bent over and kissed her cheek.

  She moaned something.

  “We have a swim lesson this morning,” he said. “Surely you haven’t forgotten?”

  At this, her eyes popped open and she sat up so abruptly that they collided. “I’m doing nothing of the sort.”

  Ward grinned at the sound of her hoarse voice. Mercifully, the house’s walls were thick, so Eugenia had been able to express herself freely.

  Scream all she wanted, in other words.

  “Lizzie won’t enter the water wi
thout you. I can’t believe I didn’t think of the danger when I took them fishing.”

  She groaned and rolled on her side. He nudged her over, sat down, brushed the hair from her face, and gave her a coaxing kiss.

  “Go away,” Eugenia said, pushing at him. “I can’t lie about in bed all day. You must leave before my maid appears.”

  “Your maid won’t come upstairs until my man informs her the coast is clear.”

  “Oh.” He watched as Eugenia digested the significance of this; namely that the household was fully aware of their circumstances. “I have no interest in learning to swim.”

  If he handled this badly, Eugenia might refuse to go near the water for the rest of her life. “Your late husband would not wish you to fear the water,” Ward said, as tactfully as possible.

  Eugenia sighed. “One thing I’ve come to understand in the last few weeks is that Andrew’s wishes cannot continue to guide my own.”

  “I didn’t know him,” Ward said, wrapping an arm around her, “but I suspect he wouldn’t want you to mourn him forever.”

  “No one would say I’m in mourning, considering your presence in my bed!”

  Ward pushed her back, pinning her to the bed, their bodies sliding into perfect alignment. “I am jealous of Andrew. Would you give me seven years of mourning?” he growled, nipping her ear.

  “For you, a month or two,” she murmured, laughter running through her voice. “Six at the outmost.”

  Why were they talking about mourning? Ward felt a shock, like cold water. He couldn’t marry Eugenia, and it wasn’t right to pretend it was a possibility.

  She was undeniably helpful with the children—notwithstanding last night’s cursing interlude—but the woman he married had to vanquish the qualms society had about his birth. His household—his wife—had to be irreproachable.

  “Well,” he said briskly, rolling off the bed and standing up, “it’s time for that swimming lesson.”

  “I truly don’t—”

  “Yes, you do.” He pulled on his dressing gown. Screw delicacy; it was time to be blunt. “Andrew gave his life to save yours.”

  Eugenia flinched.

  “You can’t drown after he sacrificed himself to keep your head above water.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Where does fairness come into it? I’d like Lizzie to be able to save herself, and she won’t enter the water without you. The idea that dead fish were floating under the surface almost ruined our fishing excursion before it began.”

  Eugenia rose and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her delicious curves against him. “Couldn’t we have our lesson tomorrow morning?”

  Ward cleared his throat. “Now that is unfair.”

  She laughed. “I had no idea it was so exhilarating to be improper.”

  “I promise to give you more chances to be improper,” he said, meaning it.

  “I don’t mean only in the bedchamber. It was very helpful for Lizzie to express her rage, no matter how eccentric my approach.”

  Ward hesitated, unsure of how to phrase his response. “I am in full approval of your embrace of impropriety, but not my sister’s.”

  Eugenia kissed his chin. “I can feel your ‘full approval.’” She wiggled against him.

  “But please don’t teach Lizzie the conduct that you are embracing.”

  Her brows drew together, and she pulled away from him. “You imagine that I would teach her to—to do this?”

  “The cursing,” he clarified. “If Eugenia utters one of those words in a countess’s drawing room, it could ruin her.”

  “I doubt it,” Eugenia said. The hurt in her eyes was changed to unruffled composure. “You’d be surprised by how earthy women can be in conversation.” She turned away to retrieve her dressing gown and pulled it on.

  “The ladies who rule polite society,” Ward insisted, “are fickle, if not cruel. Lizzie could forfeit her chance for a good marriage with a single mistake.”

  “If your sister does not express her feelings of anger, she will constantly try to express other people’s—and her penchant for dramatics will not be viewed sympathetically.”

  “Lizzie needs to think like a lady,” Ward said. Damn it, he was having a conversation with his mistress—about his little sister.

  That just wasn’t done.

  “Lizzie needs to put in words her feelings about your mother,” Eugenia said.

  “She can do it without profanity,” he pointed out. “Ladies must act as such, all the time, Eugenia. It’s—”

  He stopped, aware he was about to say something she might take as an insult.

  “Lady Lisette is dead,” Eugenia said, after pausing to see if he cared to finish the sentence. “Lizzie tried hiding her face—and her anger—behind that veil, but it’s not helping.”

  “She doesn’t hide her face for that reason,” Ward said. Though in truth he wasn’t sure why his sister wore the veil. “The more important point is that ladies do not belch out lists of vulgarities.” His gut twisted at the line he had to draw between them, but he had no choice. “The children are my responsibility. I have to conceal the fact that Lizzie knows such vulgar words.”

  Eugenia dropped down on the side of the bed, and looked at him, clear eyes sober but not indignant. “Would you like me to leave, Ward?”

  “No!” The word shot out of him with such force that she couldn’t mistake his sincerity. “God, no, Eugenia. You’re . . . you’re making this ordeal bearable. Please.”

  “I want to be very clear about what you’re asking. You wish to shield your sister from anything that can possibly be construed as ill-befitting the behavior of a lady.”

  “Yes.”

  “As such, you are dismayed that I allowed Lizzie to curse. Do you feel the same about our excursion to the kitchens?” Her face was perfectly composed, but her fingers fidgeted with the tie of her dressing gown.

  “Eugenia—” he began. “I’ve bungled this. I didn’t mean to make you angry or to hurt your feelings.”

  “I am not angry,” she stated. No one could look more placidly ladylike than Eugenia, when she wanted to be.

  Just as no lady could be as ferociously real as she was, when she wanted to be.

  Noticeably, she said nothing about hurt feelings. She must often be hurt by the abrasive insouciance of the aristocracy—witness his grandmother’s rudeness and Lady Hyacinth’s slights.

  “Lizzie’s debut will be challenging,” he said, trying again. “We have our mother’s wretched behavior to overcome, and my irregular birth. I am complicating her marital future by not allowing the duchess to raise her.”

  Eugenia shook her head. “We both know that the Duchess of Gilner would not be a good choice.”

  “My point is that Lizzie has to be more ladylike than—than the queen. Her comportment must bamboozle women such as Lady Hyacinth into thinking she is conventional. She has to appear a true lady in every respect.”

  “I assure you that my reputation as the head of Snowe’s will benefit Lizzie. You kidnapped me for that very reason, remember?”

  Eugenia was sitting in a pool of sunlight, the tangled hair about her shoulders making her look wild and debauched, nothing like a lady. He couldn’t bear the idea that she might think he’d kidnapped her for any motive other than the one now roaring through his limbs: blind, fierce desire.

  With a growl, he dived at her and pulled her against his body, taking her mouth in a ravenous kiss. She was unresponsive for a moment, but then her body melted against his and her arms circled his neck.

  He pulled back, looked into her smoky eyes. “Unless you want me to flaunt my own command of profanity—which far surpasses my sister’s—you won’t suggest that I have any motive for having you in my arms except the obvious.”

  “Which is?”

  He pulled her up so her legs curled around his waist. “If I watch you taste one of Marcel’s desserts, I damn near come in my breeches.”

  He loved her cool l
ogic and her dizzy delight . . . but most of all he loved her laughter. He pushed the thick arch of his cock against her. “Forgive me?” he whispered roughly. “I feel guilty about Lizzie. It’s not only that I’m a bastard . . . you and I are lovers now. Even though there are children in the house.”

  A shiver went through her body as he ground against her. “It’s dreadfully inappropriate,” she said, nodding.

  “I can’t stop myself.” His voice was savage with pure emotion. “Damn it.”

  If the duchess ever learned that he had dallied with Eugenia—let alone that he had contemplated marriage to her—she would use the knowledge to wrest the children from his care.

  “No one will find out,” Eugenia said, pressing kisses on his neck.

  His heart stuttered at the look in her eyes.

  “We will guard the secret,” she promised. “No one will guess because, frankly, Mrs. Eugenia Snowe of Snowe’s Registry is precisely whom you require by way of a superior governess. They will delight themselves by trying to guess how much money you paid me. What’s more, I’ll travel to my father’s house as soon as a new governess arrives, even if that occurs earlier than a fortnight.”

  The idea of Eugenia departing caused an iron band to tighten around Ward’s chest. He would never have enough of her.

  Eugenia pulled free and reached for the cord to summon her maid.

  “No,” he rasped, too late.

  “We have no time to make love.” She put her hands on her hips, her dressing gown revealing a sliver of a tender flesh, the rounded under-curve of a perfect breast.

  The last shadow had flown from Eugenia’s face, replaced by her joyous smile. He lunged at her, but she pushed him back. “Swimming lesson first. If you’re lucky, I’ll dip a toe in the water.” Her eyes were dancing.

  The iron band around his chest relaxed. They had made it through.

  She’d forgiven him.

  She had understood.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  It took Eugenia a full hour to force herself down to the lake. In the end, she managed it only because of a strongly worded message from Ward, accompanied by a pair of breeches and a shirt borrowed from a stable boy.