One Forbidden Evening. Jo Goodman

      This last shout shook her. It echoed painfully in her ears, each repetition louder, not softer, than the last. She clapped her hands over her ears and felt the weight of him leave her. The blankets were torn from her, and she understood that she was once again alone in the bed.

      The shouting in her head stopped abruptly. The silence startled her. What frightened her was that she could no longer bring the sound of his voice to mind. How could that be? How could she have forgotten the sound of her husband’s voice as if she’d never known it?

      Her eyelids fluttered open in the same manner they had closed just a short time ago. The candle in the dish on her bedside table still flickered.

      She had never been in the dark, only in her dreams.

      The bedcovers were in disarray around her. Her night-shift was crumpled about her hips. One of her hands lay cupped under her breast, the other was tucked between her thighs. She removed it slowly, conscious of the dampness of her fingertips. The small friction of withdrawal was enough to prompt a contraction and a residual ripple of pleasure. Her hips moved once in helpless response. She jerked her other hand from under her naked breast and turned away from the candlelight, pressing her face into the pillow.

      Tears welled in her eyes. She bit her lip and tasted blood quickly. So that part of her dream had been real, too.

      Only he was not real. Her husband. She had betrayed him, she knew that now, for it was not her husband who had come to her bed. She had been alone, yet not. She had wanted it to be Nicholas who was with her, but how could he be? Nicholas was dead, and she had betrayed him with a stranger. She understood that it had happened only in her mind, that what pleasure she’d felt had been by her own hand, yet it still seemed like the worst sort of betrayal for even her dreams to have turned on her.

      Five years ago today she had exchanged vows with Nicholas Caldwell. So it was on the anniversary of her marriage, not on the anniversary of his death, that she had allowed herself to entertain another lover.

      At her sides her fists bunched and she wept in earnest. At last.

      Chapter One

      London, November 1817

      If it was possible to die of boredom, Ferrin was of the opinion he was not long for this earth. Only minutes ago he had been contemplating murder. Not seriously, of course. Perhaps if he had been contemplating the murder of someone other than his own mother, he reasoned, he might have been able to think the deed through to completion. But murder his mother? No, it was just not done. Not even in his own mind, no matter the provocation.

      He could, however, cheerfully throttle Wynetta. The masquerade had been her idea and everyone—save him—had pronounced it a splendid notion. He would have pronounced it corkbrained, but since his views on such things were well known, no one considered it necessary to consult him.

      There was never any doubt but that he would throw in his lot with the rest of them. He was ever the easy touch when it came to matters of family, though he knew this would surprise his society and many of his acquaintances. That was just as it should be, else what was the point of cultivating a reputation for not suffering fools?

      “I say, Ferrin, you’re a dark one, right enough. Are you going to make your play or merely scowl at your cards?”

      One of Ferrin’s dark eyebrows lifted in a perfect arch; the scowl remained unchanged. “Why cannot I do both?” He tossed a four of spades toward the other cards at the center of the table and took the trick with trump.

      Across from Ferrin, Mr. Porter Wellsley returned to the contemplation of his own cards. “Don’t know how you manage to do that,” he said idly, rearranging his hand. “Damned if you do not always make the right play.”

      Ferrin led the next round with an ace of hearts. “Then count yourself fortunate that you are my partner.”

      “Oh, I wasn’t complaining. Just don’t know how you do it.”

      To the left of Ferrin, Mr. William Allworthy flicked his cards with the buffed nail of his index finger before choosing one. He didn’t look up as he spoke. “Enough chatter, Wellsley. This ain’t the ladies’ table.”

      Wellsley was about to respond, but he caught Ferrin’s deepening scowl and thought better of it. He threw off a card and sat back, waiting for their fourth to make his play.

      Mr. Bennet Allworthy folded his cards, tapped one corner of the slim deck on the table, then fanned them out again. He studied them as carefully now as he had upon receiving them. He glanced repeatedly at the cards already thrown down as though they might have changed their spots while his attention was on his hand. He never looked at his cousin.

      Ferrin placed two fingers on Bennet’s wrist just as he was about to make his play. “Not the spade, Allworthy. Not when you still have a heart in your hand. You do not want to renege, do you? Wellsley might not be so generous of a nature as I and consider it a cardsharp’s trick.”

      Bennet froze. Just above his carefully crafted neckcloth the first evidence of a flush could be seen creeping toward the sharp point of his jaw. He did not raise his eyes from his cards, nor did he shake off Ferrin’s light touch. “Is your lordship calling me a cheat?”

      “Merely doing my part to make certain you don’t become one. Wellsley is credited to be a decent enough shot.”

      Wellsley rubbed the underside of his chin with his knuckles. “Decent enough?” he asked. “Is that the best you can say about me, Ferrin? Damned by faint praise. That’s what that is. I’d do better by you, you know.”

      Ferrin removed his fingers from Allworthy. He regarded his partner at cards from beneath his hooded glance. “That’s because I’m better than a decent shot.”

      “What? Well, there is that.”

      “Indeed.” Ferrin waved idly in Bennet Allworthy’s direction. “Play the heart and have done with it.”

      For the space of a heartbeat three of the four players were aware of nothing so much as the music from the adjoining ballroom, the drone of too many guests crowded into the space, the flirtatious laughter of a few as new liaisons were made and old partners were dismissed. It was only in the card room that others seemed to sense a shift in the atmosphere. Voices dropped pitch to a whisper; glances shifted uncertainly toward the center table. No one made a play. For a moment, no one save the Earl of Ferrin breathed.

      Mr. Bennet Allworthy dropped the ten of hearts on the table.

      As simply as that, the natural order was restored. Ferrin collected the trick as if nothing untoward had taken place. Indeed, from his perspective, nothing had, except perhaps that for a few moments he had not been bored. He led trump, resuming play. It required only another minute to finish the set. He and Wellsley thoroughly trounced the Allworthy cousins. When it was done, no one suggested another go at whist. The cousins excused themselves and exited for the refreshment table in the ballroom, making rather too much of their parched throats by clearing them loudly and often.

      “I shouldn’t wonder if they don’t trip over themselves in their haste to be gone,” Wellsley said. He shuffled the cards absently. “You were rather hard on Bennet, don’t you think? Playing trump out of turn might have been an honest mistake.”

      Ferrin shrugged. “If you thought that was so, you could have come to his defense.”

      “And pass on an opportunity to shoot someone?” He unbuttoned his frock coat and patted the pistol tucked into his breeches. “Not bloody likely.”

      “A pistol, Wellsley?”

      “Part of the costume.”

      “What part? I don’t recognize your intent. Save for that much abused hat you are wearing, you are dressed as you always are.”

      “I’m a highwayman. You did not notice the disreputable twist of my neckcloth?”

      “Disreputable?