Authors: Miranda Jarrett
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Historical, #General
"I had considered you done," she confessed. "Truly. You
are
vastly improved, there's no doubt of that. But then you began speaking of love and Rose in the same breath, and I simply had to return to ask your intentions. Which are, my dear Nickerson, exactly what?"
"Hell, not you, too." He shook his head with disgust. "You wish to know my intentions, so here they are. I intend to leave
your
sister here in
my
sister's safekeeping, and wash my hands of whatever mischief they choose to find between themselves. I intend to bid Rose farewell, and wish her happiness in her marriage. I intend to sail in the morning, most likely back to the Carolina coast. I intend, in short, to return to my life as it was before you blundered into it."
Frowning, Lily stopped the swing and clicked her tongue. "Oh dear, Nick, that wasn't the answer I'd hoped for," she said with a sigh. "I suppose we're not through with each other after all."
"Damnation, Lily,
I'm
through! Doesn't that account for anything?"
"No, my dear captain, I fear it doesn't," she said sweetly. "You'd do well to consider what your sister has told you, and mind you keep your fingers from the parrot's cage. He looks nearly as choleric at present as you do yourself."
Slowly Nick climbed the stairs to his bedchamber, the light from the candlestick in his hand dancing shadows across the walls. Elsewhere in the house a clock chimed the hour, three deep, echoing
bongs
. Lord, had he really lingered that long with Michel?
His brother-in-law was excellent company, gracious and witty, as devoted a host as he was a husband and father. But beyond that, Nick wasn't certain exactly what Michel did. He went to no office, had no visible partners or associates, and while, according to Jerusa, he occasionally disappeared for days at a stretch with little warning, to the world he appeared to be no more than a charming gentleman of leisure and independent means.
But Nick wasn't fooled. Once Jerusa had left them, their talk had inevitably turned to the war. No idle gentleman could know as much as Michel did about the French and English naval forces gathered in the Caribbean or their leaders' strengths and weaknesses. Nick had listened carefully, storing away the information he could use and volunteering what he'd heard and learned in Charles Town, and though Michel had merely smiled and refilled their glasses, Nick was quite sure everything he said would be put to good use for the American—and of course the French—cause.
Yet as engrossing as their conversation had been, part of Nick's thoughts had continued to worry and tug at the idea that Jerusa had planted. He'd always thought he was immune to love, the way he was to smallpox, yet the more he thought about his feelings for Rose, the more he began to doubt. As he'd freely admitted to Jerusa, Rose was young, beautiful and agreeable.
But what he felt for her went a great deal beyond that, and the more he began to consider saying goodbye to her forever as he'd vowed, the more he realized he couldn't. Life without her in it had somehow become unimaginable, while the notion of blithely sending her off to marry a man who didn't care a whit for her had become the crudest torture he'd ever conceive. Damnation, he couldn't let her do it.
But what followed was even worse: if he really did love Rose, then what the devil was he going to do about it?
Gently he turned the latch to his chamber door, careful not to wake the rest of the family. Lord knows they wouldn't return the same courtesy to him. If he didn't lock his door tonight, he'd have all four children bounding gleefully across his bed at daybreak, and likely the infernal dogs in the bargain. Love alone seemed terrifying enough to contemplate; how any sane man agreed to fatherhood was still far, far beyond him.
He set the candlestick on the chest of drawers and began to undress. The night was still warm, as it always was in St. Pierre, and the tall window overlooking the bay had been left unshuttered, open to the night breezes. Among the ships moored in the harbor, he could easily make out the sleek, elegant lines of the
Angel Lily
at anchor, and he smiled wryly to himself. Whether Lily had brought the ship into his path or it had been fate alone, he was glad, infinitely glad, that things had happened as they had.
He pulled his shirt over his head, tossed it onto the chair with the rest of his clothes and snuffed out the candle's wick. Shrouded with gauze hangings against mosquitoes, the bed loomed ghostly pale, and with a yawn he shoved his way inside, grabbing a fistful of the coverlet to pull it back.
"Here you are at last," said Rose. "Faith, Nick, I thought you'd never come."
S
he had, once again, left him utterly speechless.
She had propped the pillows up against the headboard so that she was sitting as much as lying against them. Her hair was loose and full over her shoulders, her eyes shining silver, and she was wearing—dear Lord, what was she wearing?
"You shouldn't be here, Rose," he said as soon as he could force his mouth and brain to work together.
"I know that," she agreed promptly. "You shouldn't be here, and neither should I. We should both be back at sea, safe in your cabin on board the
Angel Lily
."
"Rose," he began, his voice strained, "Rose, that is not what I meant."
"Well, it's what
I
meant. The
Angel Lily
's where we should be, but if we must end up somewhere else, this seems as pleasant a spot as any. Likely more comfortable, too, for there's no doubt your bunk was made for only one, while this bed—well, Martinique
is
French, so I suppose there's not a chaste, narrow bedstead on the whole island."
She shifted on the pillows so she could reach out with the hand of her uninjured arm to pat the sheets beside her. "Please, Nick. I vow I can't begin to guess what you and Monsieur G
é
ricault found to rattle on about until now. Since I slept all afternoon long, I've been lying here awake forever waiting. And, of course, thinking of you."
She smiled, and by the silvery light of the moon slanting through the open window he saw the innocent eagerness that lit her eyes. So innocent, he thought, thoroughly wretched, his insides twisting with the desire to claim that innocence and make it his own. He still clutched the bunched coverlet in his hand, gratefully holding it to cover the most salient part of his naked male anatomy. The devil knows she wouldn't be prattling on so merrily herself if he hadn't. More likely she'd have run back screaming to her own bed.
"Rose," he said, his heated blood racing in his ears. "Rose, what in God's name are you wearing?"
"More than you, I'd say." She looked at him with such open, unfeigned admiration that he felt it as vividly as if her little hand had actually touched him. "You are a beautiful man, Nick."
"Not as beautiful as you, sweetheart."
Her grin turned into a shy smile as she awkwardly climbed up to her knees on the bed. "I wanted to wear the necklaces again since that had pleased you so before, but because of the way your sister tied the bandage around my hand, I couldn't work the clasps. And of course I couldn't very well ask the maidservant to help me dress like that. Can you fancy the look on her face, and on your sister's, too, when the girl told her? No."
"No," he agreed. But he could imagine all too well how Rose would look, draped again in gold and pearls, and he shifted the coverlet in his hand a bit higher. "You couldn't."
"No, indeed. But then I found this in my trunk, directly on the top of my other things, where I'd no notion to expect it."
She looked down at the gown she wore, her expression still faintly surprised at finding it on her body. Nick could understand that surprise. His own reaction was something close to shock.
The gown was some dark-colored silk, gleaming dully in the half-light as it slipped and fell over the soft curves of the body beneath. The bodice was cut without sleeves and so deep and low that only a handful of bows, fragile, straining little bits of ribbon, kept it clinging to her breasts at all. Through the fabric her nipples already showed hard as little pebbles, silently begging for his touch as his own rigid body ached in sympathy, and when she shifted her kneeling legs apart to find her balance on the yielding feather bed, the fabric pulled across her open thighs and dipped into the shadowy valley in between, and he barely held back a groan of frustration.
With artless pleasure, she slid her hand along the silk, unaware of how the simple gesture smoothed the fabric more provocatively over her hips. "I found this among Lily's wedding clothes while I was deciding which to have remade for myself, but I thought I'd put it aside to leave behind as too wanton. One of the maids at home must have packed it anyway—there's no other explanation."
Oh, yes, there was, thought Nick. What the hell was Lily plotting
now
? Honor and goodness were one thing, but was he supposed to become a candidate for sainthood and resist temptation like this? He would try, but he wasn't going to try with much enthusiasm.
"Be glad it wasn't left behind." He was, anyway. "Your bridegroom will like it better than all your other wedding clothes combined."
"Really?" Her face lit happily. "Then you like it, too?"
"Oh, aye, I like it," he said, his voice deep and hoarse, his gaze roaming over and enjoying what his hands didn't dare. "I like it just fine. Unless he's dead—long dead, and buried, too—I'll wager Lord Eliot will as well."
She ducked her chin, tucking her hair behind one ear. "He won't because he's not going to see it."
He hadn't expected the swift rush of happiness that particular news brought him. "He'll be disappointed to know that."
"No, he won't, because I'm not going to tell him." Without lifting her chin, she looked up at him, her smile tight. "I'm not going to marry him, either."
His happiness swelled into cautiously unbridled joy. "What happened to not dishonoring your father and shaming Lily's memory?"
She sighed, and sank back down to sit on her heels. "Papa will be furious. There's no overlooking that. He said he'd disown me if I disobeyed his wishes, and he very well might. If he does, I suppose I'll live with Aunt Lucretia, or find a position as a governess. And as for shaming Lily's memory—as soon as I saw this gown again, and thought of how much she was anticipating her marriage, I knew the real shame to her memory would be to wed without love."
She looked up at him then, her eyes bright with unshed tears. "You can't know how much I've changed, Nick," she said softly. "You've changed me. After all that I've done with you, I could no more become Lady Eliot, smiling docilely and pouring tea for the other officers' wives, than I could sprout wings and fly. You've made me different, Nick, and I wish—that is, I believe—oh, I practiced this over and over, and now it's coming out all wrong."
"No, it's not." He reached out to curve the hair more neatly around her ear, letting his fingers drift across her cheek. "It's not at all."
But Rose shook her head, determined to finish, and squeezed her eyes shut so she wouldn't be distracted. "I know you mean to sail tomorrow because I overheard your sister tell the children, and I know I'll be left behind," she said, her voice breathy and sad. "I don't know how long you'll remember me, Nick, or if you'll recall me as no more than that silly, undersize English virgin who won twenty pistoles from you playing draughts. I've heard how cavalier you seamen are. Maybe as soon as you sail from the harbor you'll forget I ever crossed your life. But I'll always remember you, Nick,
always
, as long as I live."
"Oh, Rosie," he murmured, reaching for her even as she eased herself away. "How you could ever believe
—
"
"I'm not quite done, Nick." She lifted her chin and opened her eyes steadfastly to meet his gaze. With the heel of her unbound hand she rubbed away the glaze of tears from her cheek, then lightly touched her fingers to his lips, begging his silence another few moments longer.
"That is why, you see, I'm here now," she said. "If I don't marry Lord Eliot, Papa will most likely reclaim my dowry, and without it I may never find anyone else to take me as a wife. I could bear that if I knew—if I knew the rest. I'm greedy and selfish, I know, but if all I'm to have for comfort are memories, then I want them to be grand enough to last my whole life."
She'd said too much, she thought with despair. The shadows masked his eyes and his feelings with them, but she knew, she
knew
, she had asked too much. She pulled her hand away, rubbing her bare arm instead.
"Ah, sweetheart," he said at last. "You know it doesn't have to be like that."
"How else could it be?" She tried to smile and couldn't. She'd rehearsed her speech this far, over and over as she had lain alone in the dark, but she'd never figured out what would come next. "I'm not so very clever now, am I? But I wish you'd treat me like you did at Cassie Morton's house. I wish that you'd touch me, and kiss me, and make me feel like that again, one last time. One time, that is all."
"Rosie, Rosie, what you ask," he said hoarsely. "As if one time with you would ever be enough."
This time when he reached for her she met him, his arm circling her shoulders to draw her across the bed to him. Kneeling as she was on the bed raised her to his height, and he slid his fingers into her hair to cup her head, pulling her mouth to his. Tonight she wouldn't wait for coaxing or gentle wooing, and at once she opened her lips to his, hungrily tasting him. She was greedy, greedy for him, and he knew it, grinding his mouth against hers with the same raw urgency that inflamed their kiss to a fever pitch in an instant.
She looped her arms around his shoulders, and he answered by fitting his hands around her waist, his fingers sliding restlessly across the slippery fabric to find the softer, fuller flesh below, kneading and lifting her hips against his. She broke away and gasped, instinctively moving her right hand lower along his back. His skin was smooth and hot beneath her fingers, and she reveled in the feel of him, the play of hard muscles and rough hair and the pounding of his heartbeat.
He was pulling at the ribbons on her gown, hooking his fingers into the bows one by one until they gave way, freeing her breasts to welcome his touch. He filled his palm with her softness, rubbing his callused thumb against the sensitive peak as the untied silken ribbons fluttered and teased against her skin. She moaned and arched against his hand, and then, as he lowered his lips to taste her, against his mouth, his tongue a gentle, flicking whip to urge her onward.
"Your arm," he gasped. "I don't want to hurt you."
She shook her head, too light-headed with passion to answer, as carefully, so carefully, he eased the thin straps of her gown down over her shoulders to puddle at her waist. She rubbed her breasts against his chest, shameless in her need to touch him, and kissed him again, melting into the heat of his mouth.
He was pulling up the hem of her gown and she shifted her legs to help him, the silk sliding across her skin another caress. She trembled with anticipation as his fingers traveled along the softest skin of her inner thigh, slowly tracing their way through the passion-damp curls to find the sweetest place of her desire.
She shuddered when he touched her there, clinging to him for support even as she blossomed and opened to him. This was what she remembered, this was what she wanted. Gently he stroked her, the same delicious torment from before, but this time he didn't stop, her body coiling and tensing tighter and tighter until she cried out his name as at last release came, and with it a sweet, delirious joy that left her panting and weak against him.
She was only half-conscious of him spreading her legs wider, lifting her, touching her again, and then the sudden shock of him thrusting deep within her body. She stiffened, the first pleasure gone before the sharp pain and the unfamiliar sensation of him within her.
Damnation, he'd hurt her. He had meant to go slowly, to be patient, but his body had wanted her too long. Even now she was so hot and tight around him that he could scarcely hold himself still.
"Rosie, sweet Rosie," he whispered hoarsely as he eased her onto her back, still sheathed within her. "Look at me, sweetheart."
Slowly she obeyed, her breath shallow and panting with confusion. Her eyes were heavy-lidded, her lips swollen and red from his kisses, her hair a tangled, fragrant cloud against the sheet. She curled her legs higher across his back and exhaled with a shuddering sigh, and he swore as he struggled to control himself. No other man would ever possess her like this; she was his, only his, and the realization fired his need even hotter.
"Rosie, I'm sorry," he gasped. "I—damnation, I can't.
Rose
."
He kissed her again, hard, as he began to move within her. Somehow it didn't hurt as much now, her body stretching to take him, and tentatively she began to move with him. He groaned her name, driving in deeper, and she arched to match his rhythm. She hadn't expected to find the same pleasure, not now, but as she moved against him she began to feel it building again, more slowly but stronger, too.
"Please, Nick, oh, please," she begged, the words drawn out of her in a single long breath. "Oh, please don't stop!"
The pain forgotten now, she gave herself to their union, and when he slipped his hand between them to touch her where their bodies were joined, she cried out again as the waves of joy swept over her, over them both, carrying them together in its reckless path.
Shuddering and gasping, he kissed her again, brushing back the tangled hair that clung damply to her forehead. "I love you, Rose," he whispered raggedly against her cheek. "I love you."
Her eyes widened with wonder. "Oh, my," she whispered. "Oh, my, I never dared
to dream.
…
"
"You don't have to dream," he said with a tenderness he'd unknowingly been saving for a lifetime, just for her. "It's real."
"If you say so, Captain, then so it must be." She reached up to touch his face and laughed softly in delight. "I love you, too, Nickerson Sparhawk. I love
you
, mind?"
But he could only smile his joy, and hold her all the more tightly. So he had found love after all. The secret had been finding Rose.
And Lily, bless her white-feathered wings, had left him alone to do it.
"I trust your night was peaceful, brother dear?" asked Jerusa blandly as Nick joined her and Michel for breakfast. "Landlocked we may be, but I should think that every once and again you'd enjoy a bed that didn't plunge about beneath you."
"To tell the truth, it makes little difference at all," said Nick as he sat at the table. Instantly a maid set a plate filled with fried eggs and ham before him, and he smiled with anticipation. Lord knows this morning he was entitled to a lion's appetite. "I believe I can sleep anywhere."