Renegades, Rebels, and Rogues

All Shook Up-5

Eduard left Reza in the care of a servant and went in search of his wife. As much as he dreaded telling Marien about the resurfaced letter, he knew it best to get it over with and weather whatever outburst she might make before she discovered Reza would be staying in their home for a while. If she learned through one of the servants, or even ran into the man on her own in the halls, Eduard would never hear the end of it.

Outside her closed bedroom door, he paused to gather himself together. He raised a hand to knock, thought better of it, and opened the door to sweep into the room instead.

Marien sat at her vanity, her blouse unbuttoned, pulled open, as a pretty young native woman daubed rice powder between Marien’s breasts. To absorb the sweat from the summer’s sweltering heat, no doubt, but for an instant, the three of them froze in a tableau very similar to the interrupted tryst in Eduard’s rooms earlier. The servant glanced up, her eyes wide, and met Eduard’s gaze in the mirror as an insufferable look flickered across his wife’s face. The distasteful grimace that twisted her lips broke Eduard’s silence. “Marien, God.”

Rebuttoning her bodice, Marien rearranged her breasts with no embarrassment and laughed. “Eduard, really. It was just a small quake. I only hope none of the china shattered this time.” As her servant fluttered around her, Marien waved the woman away. “Ayu, please.”

Eduard turned his anger on the servant. “You. Leave us.” When the woman didn’t move, he snapped, “Now.”

Marien touched the woman’s hand. “It’s all right,” she murmured. “I’ll call for you when he leaves.”

Head down, her gaze on the floor, the woman edged around Eduard to disappear through the door, shrinking back to avoid touching him. He slammed the door in her wake.

With a sigh, his wife rose from her chair amid the rustle of her silk skirts and turned to watch her reflection in the mirror as her hands fluffed her bustle. “Is this to get me back for interrupting you earlier?” she asked, paying more attention to her appearance than to him. “Because that boy is in the kitchens, I hear, if you want another try at him. I promise to keep my distance this time. As long as you’re finished before dinner—”

“Marien.” Eduard crossed the room to lean against the post at the foot of her bed. He didn’t know what he wanted to say or even how to say it—he just knew it had to be said. Turning, he stared at the tight sash around her narrow waist and hated to think of losing this home, this life, this charade they’d built together. Raising his eyes, he waited until she met his gaze before he spoke again. “Did you recognize that man? The visitor I had?”

“Should I have?” she countered. “Forgive me, Eduard, for not caring much about your…interests, but all your conquests look the same to me, if I’m being honest. You seem to favor a particular type. Tall, lanky, native. Young, I might add. You like them fresh off the vine, it seems.”

He ignored the barb he heard in her voice. “That was Reza.” When she didn’t react to the name, he prompted, “From the Prins Nicolaas? The crewman with whom I spent most of the voyage?”

“Oh.” Her voice brightened, and the slight frown that had creased her brow smoothed out. “Nice boy, if I remember correctly. Do invite him to stay for dinner, won’t you?”

Taking a deep breath, Eduard told her, “He’s staying a little longer than that.”

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What do you mean?”

“Remember that letter?” Eduard waited, watching her face as if he could read her thoughts in the shape of her lips, the gleam of her eyes. When her expression didn’t change, he reminded her, “From Viscount van De Lier, introducing his youngest son to the overseer of his colonial spice plantation? Written because no one in Java knew who the young van De Lier heir might be?”

Now her blue eyes flashed with ire. “Yes,” she said cautiously, drawing the word out. “What about it?”

Eduard looked away. “He has it.”

“What?” Marien shrieked. “You said it was destroyed. How—”

“I gave it to him to burn.”

In an instant, her anger swelled to crash over him like the incoming tide wiping away a sandcastle before it. “You gave it to him? What the hell possessed you to do something as stupid as that?”

“I told him—” Eduard started.

But Marien cut him off. “You didn’t do it yourself? Or…or watch it burn?”

Eduard’s excuse sounded lame to his own ears. “I was distracted,” he told her, and that was the truth, he had been distracted. By Reza, whose tight body and warm hands had quickly turned Eduard’s joy over copying the letter into a hungry lust that threatened to consume them both. He’d asked Reza to burn the original as he took the copy to show Marien his handiwork; she was every bit as guilty as he in the duplicity. When he returned to his cabin, he’d wanted nothing more than to celebrate by losing himself in his dark lover. Charred bits of parchment littered the desk near the guttering oil lamp. He had assumed they came from the original letter, and had been too trusting, too naive, to think otherwise.

And, he thought grimly, let’s face it—too damn horny to care.

Now Marien stood before him, her pale skin blotchy with rage as she drew in breath after breath to swell like a balloon. “Distracted?” she shrieked, her voice an octave higher than normal. It ratcheted up another notch when she said it again. “Distracted? Eduard, you have no clue who might have seen that letter in the last two years—”

Hoping to calm her down, Eduard said, “He assures me no one.”

That earned him a bark of a laugh. “Oh,” she said, throwing her hands in the air. “Must be all right then, if he assures you. This from the man who claimed he destroyed the letter that only threatens to ruin everything we’ve built here! Forgive me for not quite believing everything he says!”

“Marien…”

She reached behind her to grab a hairbrush off the vanity, and he ducked down to sit on the bed. The hairbrush sailed harmlessly over his head, but the way she glared at him suggested the next thing she threw would hit its target.

“Marien, look,” he said again. “All I need is to get that letter, right? So he’ll stay here a few days—”

“Oh no,” she said, shaking her head. “Hell, no, Eduard. I’ll not have that bastard in this house.”

But Eduard’s mind was already thinking to a time when he would seduce Reza with sweet talk and s*x. “Where’s he going to go?” he countered. “If he stays here, the letter stays here as well. There’s no danger of anyone finding it accidentally. I’ll get it back—”

Marien folded her arms across her chest. “You better get it back,” she groused. “I’ve grown too fond of this land—this life—to let you muck it up. I don’t care what you have to do, but I want that letter, and soon.”

“I’ll get it,” Eduard assured her.

As if she didn’t hear him, she muttered, “I’ll destroy it myself this time. Obviously the task was too difficult for you.”

“Marien,” Eduard sighed. “I said—”

“I heard you,” she snapped.

Eduard groaned. As he pushed himself up from her bed, Marien added, “Fetch my servant girl on your way out. And don’t even look at me again until you have that letter in hand.”