Page 14 of What Happens in Hedone

He gathered his gloves and walking stick, rose easily with his hat in hand, then held out his other hand to raise her. She slid her starfish back into the water, took his hand, and held it as long as she dared.

“Until tomorrow, Mr. Jay.” My, she was breathless from the mere motion of scrambling to her feet.

“Until tomorrow, Miss Effie.” He placed his hat on his head and touched the brim with his walking stick in salute.

She would see him tomorrow. But there was tonight first.

Chapter Four

“You’re going back?”

Farren leaned against the doorjamb of Jay’s chamber, watching him retie his cravat. It was Farren’s door, Farren’s chamber, and Farren’s lodgings where Jay was staying, so he couldn’t complain of the man taking liberty in his own house.

“Just one night more. I told the girl I’d come watch her tableaux.”

“I wouldn’t advise getting smitten.”

“I don’t intend to.”

Farren watched Jay with interest. “You’ve never thrown your heart after a woman before.”

They’d been at school together at King’s Ely, a matched set in a sense, Jay’s bull-headed strength the complement to the other boy’s sly sophistication. Farren was slender and tall, his frame shaped for drawing rooms and making a handsome figure in the latest fashions. Farren had been born a baron’s nephew and the heir presumptive, learning early his paces as an aristocrat, and he wore the mantle with careless ease. Jay had been born a baron’s son and learned the family trade young, needing an outlet for his energies.

“Never been led about by the nose, either,” Farren said with a scowl. “Saved you a great deal of blunt, I don’t doubt.”

“I’m not about to be taken up by a courtesan who works at a pleasure club, no matter how graceful or educated she seems.” Jay finally achieved a satisfactory set of folds to his cravat. He inserted a stickpin to hold his creation in place.

“Oh, they don’t get paid at Hedone,” Farren remarked. “The actors are after the fun, same as we are. So are the musicians, the card players, the ones there for conversation.” He snorted.

“I thought it was a brothel.”

“It’s a place for the well-bred and those who can afford it to play outside the regular rules. But don’t call it a brothel or you’ll have the watch down on their heads. Didn’t the lady tell you they are private transactions? She’s not a madame, and your girl ain’t a bawd. More likely she just wants a bit of prancing about she can’t do in mum’s parlor.”

She’d kissed him, Jake reflected, but it wasn’t the kiss of a woman skilled at the matter. More passion than technique.

Good God, the passion. He might be going to Hedone so he could kiss her again. One last indulgence before he became respectable.

“Still, not the girl you’d marry,” Farren added. “Don’t go taking ideas.”

“I am thinking of marriage.” Jay brushed off his hat. “Only not to her.”

“The shackle?” Farren stared. “About time. Your parents will be over the moon.”

“I’ve no more years than you, old man, and you’re not married.”

“About to be.” Farren glared into the glass he held.

Jay had heard of it during nights they stayed in with brandy and smokes in Farren’s parlor. The marriage his family had arranged, some cousin on his aunt’s side. The best Farren could say of her was that she’d be a credit as a baron’s lady and wouldn’t turn a hair if he kept on as he was.

“Is she that much an antidote?” Jay asked, sympathetic. His parents had never pressed him to wed. His father hadn’t been raised for the peerage, hadn’t thought to be in line for the Brancaster title and estates, and while the family was now attached to Holme Hall as their seat, Jay hadn’t been subjected to the kind of prosy speeches about lineage, name, etcetera that Farren had been raised hearing. Jay’s mother had been forced into a terrible marriage with her first husband and was not keen to do the same to her children.

Farren shrugged. “I’ve known the girl from a bawling brat. Always had muddy skirts from mucking about outdoors and was ever bringing home creatures in jars. My aunts spruced her up when her father came by his title, but still.” He stared moodily into the snifter of brandy in his hands, what he termed oiling up for an evening out. “Can’t expect that je ne sais quoi with a girl you’ve known from the cradle, can you? She’ll be thinking of her books and the next day’s menu while I try to breed her.”

Jay thought of his nymph and smiled. Effie. She possessed that ineffable quality in spades. He was quite willing to throw his heart after her, and he rather suspected she would treat it gently. As much a prize as a limpet in a jar, at any rate.

And he was quite certain he could ensure she would not be thinking of treatises on marine life or other aquatic creatures when he took her to bed. Her hand on his arm that afternoon had been electric, like the sting of those eels found in South America. She’d felt it, too; he could read that animated face of hers. When he held her hand, it had taken everything in him not to slide his palm up her arm, pull her to him, and there on the beach, in sight of God and everyone, set out to discover if the rest of her body had the same silken texture.

She was well-bred, intelligent, sweet-natured, and charming. His family would adore her. He could make her love him. He could offer her more than another man would.