Читать книгу Regency High Society Vol 2: Sparhawk's Lady / The Earl's Intended Wife / Lord Calthorpe's Promise / The Society Catch - Louise Allen, Miranda Jarrett - Страница 18

When he returned to the inn, Jeremiah ordered supper for two, then went to his room to change and shave. Because of Caro’s uncertain relationship with her mother-in-law here in Naples, she had swiftly agreed to end their disguise as husband and wife, and take separate rooms. Perhaps too swiftly, thought Jeremiah gloomily as he scraped the razor across his jaw. Although he knew he had no real hold on her, he could feel her putting distance between them, preparing herself to rejoin her husband.

He’d known from the beginning that it would be this way. All too well he remembered sending her on her way that first night, how determined he’d been not to involve himself with a married woman, despite how lovely or lonely she might appear. Too bad for them both that he hadn’t kept to his resolve.

Wiping a cloth across his face, he stood at the open window. Like nearly every building in Naples, the inn had a clear view of the bay, and in the setting sun Capri and the other, smaller islands were tipped rosy red against the deepening blue water. Cutting in and out among the islands were the striped sails of the last fishing boats straggling home, while fishermen who’d returned earlier and their wives spread their nets on the beach to dry.

Closer to the inn, a woman sang to herself, her language unknown to Jeremiah but the sadness in her song a match to his own mood. A vine with white, trumpet-shaped flowers framed the window, the tendrils weaving in and out of the red shutters and the heady fragrance of the blossoms more intense with the end of the day.

Caro, with her open, eager enthusiasm and delight in anything new or beautiful, would have loved the scene spread before him. Through her eyes he had once again come to appreciate life in a way he’d forgotten, and he hated how she wasn’t here now to enjoy this.

He turned his back to the window and reached for his shirt, sliding it over his head. Tonight he would tell her nothing of what he’d learned at the waterfront, not only from the English beggar but from the port’s officials, as well. Tomorrow would be soon enough for her to learn how the odds against their mission had increased. For Davy’s sake and her husband’s, he still meant to go to Tripoli, but now he could no longer offer any assurances that he’d return himself. With a sigh he pulled on his coat and went downstairs to wait for her.

The inn was owned by an Englishman married to a Neapolitan woman, and the establishment was a curious blend of the two cultures. While the rows of hanging pewter mugs and the keg of rum behind the grated bar in the common room could have been found in any shire, there were also little portraits of sad-eyed saints tucked into odd corners near the hearth, and the rich, spicy smells that wafted from the kitchen had no equivalent in an English cook’s sturdy repertoire.

Jeremiah found an empty chair near the window, choosing the comfort of familiar rum and water over the house’s customary red wine. Impatiently, he ran his fingers back through his hair, glancing down the street in the direction Caro’s hired coach had gone. She was late. She’d sworn she would return by five, and by his pocket watch it was half-past.

“Has Lady Byfield sent word for me?” he asked the innkeeper’s daughter as she refilled his tankard from a sweating crockery pitcher. “That she’s been detained, or some such?”

“The English lady what came with you, sir?” asked the girl, and Jeremiah nodded. “No, nary a word, sir. But if she does, I’ll be certain to bring it to you at once.”

“Thank you.” He swirled the rum in his tankard, no longer interested in drinking. Alone he watched the shadows lengthen and merge into dusk and then darkness, punctuated here and there by the wavering flame of a linkboy.

Perhaps, he thought morosely, she would choose to end it like this. She would patch things up with the old countess, become her guest in the villa, send a servant to bring a scribbled note of regret for him and collect her things. At least he would leave knowing she’d be safe here in Naples.

“Here, sir, for you.” The girl bobbed her curtsy as she held the folded note out to him, and he snatched it from her hand. “The lady came in by the back stairs, sir, not wanting to cause a fuss on account of the hour.”

The seal was hers, the Byfield crest, and in an instant he had cracked it and scanned the short note within.

My Dearest Capn.: Forgive me I would be most poor pitiful company tonight the Morn will serve us Both better anon.

Yrs. C.

“How long ago did she return?” he asked, tracing his fingers over the raised crest.

“Not long, sir, a quarter of the hour. Would you like me to take a reply back up to her?”

“No,” he said with a sigh. “No reply.”

Poor, pitiful company, indeed, he thought. Well, if he chose not to share his afternoon with her, then she was equally entitled to keep hers to herself, too. But still he wished she’d come.

“Will the lady be joining you, sir?” asked the serving girl timidly. “Should I fetch out your supper now?”

“No, lass, on both counts. I find I’m no longer hungry, and neither is the lady.” He emptied the tankard and slowly headed back upstairs, taking a candlestick from the barkeep to light his way.

Searching for his key in his coat pocket, he noticed the strip of light shining from beneath his door and frowned. He knew he hadn’t kept a light burning when he’d left; besides, by now, any candle would have guttered itself out. Instinctively he drew the knife he always carried, and hung back to one side as he shoved the door open with his foot.

“Jeremiah?” called Caro warily.

“Caro?” Feeling foolish, he quickly tucked the knife away as he came into the room and set his candlestick on the mantel. “What in blazes are you doing here?”

“I was lonely,” she said. She was sitting on the bench near the window with her feet tucked up and her arms hugging her knees, her pale hair bright by the light of the single candle. Behind her the sky was full of stars, and the sliver of new moon was doubled in the bay. If he’d found the view beautiful earlier, now, with her in it, he found it downright magical.

She rested her chin on her knees, watching him. “Aren’t you going to ask again how I got into your room?”

He shook his head. “This is Naples, not my sister’s house. From the king on down, no one’s expected to behave with any sort of propriety. Most likely you have to bribe the servants here to be able to keep to your own room.”

She laughed. “Then I should have kept my money.”

“I like the surprise, anyway,” he said, shrugging off first his coat and next his waistcoat, tossing both onto his sea chest, followed by his neck cloth and his shoes and stockings. The room was warm, and like most sailors he felt more comfortable barefoot and with less clothing. After the weeks together in the tiny cabin, such casual familiarity before Caro seemed automatic. And yet because they now were in a bedchamber in an inn, an inn in Naples, he was aware of a new tension between them, a charged undercurrent swirling around them both. “And I was feeling a bit lonely, too.”

She smiled, thinking how he never would have made such an admission on that first night. She liked watching him move about the room, even his simplest gestures lithe and spare. He was so handsome, she thought with a little catch in her breathing, and she loved him so much, that what she was doing couldn’t possibly be wrong.

“I’m sorry about supper,” she said softly. “But I wanted to see you alone.”

She rose from the bench, and he stared. He couldn’t help it. She wore a dressing gown of deep blue silk, nearly the same color as the night sky behind her, that draped and slipped around her in rich, shimmering folds. Where the dressing gown fell open in front, he could see that she wore a night shift of palest blue, the linen so fine as to be almost transparent across the darker tips of her breasts and the shadowy triangle at the top of her thighs.

“You never wore that aboard the Raleigh,” he said, his voice low. He had never seen her in any color before save white or black. Hell, he’d never seen any woman dressed like this, tempting as sin itself, and he felt the temperature in the room rise another ten degrees.

“That’s because I bought it this afternoon.” The way he was watching her, his green eyes half-closed, made her shiver with anticipation. Before Jeremiah, she had found that raw, hungry look in men’s eyes disturbing, even frightening, but with him she felt only excitement. “The shops in Naples, it seems, respect the local sense of propriety.”

“Or lack of it. You couldn’t find anything like that in Providence.”

“Nor in Portsmouth, either.” She smiled shyly, daring to ask the question she knew was rhetorical. “You like it, then?”

“Oh, aye, I like it. I like it very much.” What the devil had that old woman said to her this afternoon? This time, there was absolutely no mistaking Caro’s intentions, and he found himself torn between wanting her with an intense desire that was almost painful, and the knowledge that to take her would be wrong, dreadfully, disastrously wrong for them both.

She lifted her arms to smooth her hair back from her forehead, her breasts thrusting upward through the sheer fabric, and he felt his whole body tighten in response. If he didn’t speak up soon, he wouldn’t be able to.

He forced himself to raise his gaze to her face. “Caro, sweet, listen to me. Tomorrow I’m leaving for Tripoli to try to find Davy and Frederick.”

“I know.” Her eyes were luminous, deep blue like the silk in the candlelight. “That is why—”

“No, lass, hear me out. The pasha there has declared war on America, and though that won’t stop me, it will make things damned difficult.”

In spite of his resolve, he reached out to her, tenderly cradling her jaw in the palm of his hand. “The odds aren’t smiling on us, Caro. The Barbary corsairs don’t follow the usual rules of war for prisoners, and the one that has Davy and your husband is the worst of the lot. He could have killed them both already, sweet.”

She shook her head vigorously, her unbound hair swinging across his wrist. “Lady Byfield says they’re alive. She’s had word through the envoys that all the prisoners on the list still live!”

“Pray she’s right, Caro.” He traced little circles on her cheek with his thumb, marveling as he always did at the softness of her skin. “Then pray for me, too.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because when I’m gone, sweetheart, I want you to remember the moonlight and the stars and the fishing boats with striped sails,” he said tenderly. “I don’t want you to regret a blessed thing.”

Her smile was unexpectedly bittersweet. “My whole life is too full of regret already. If I left you now, I would never forgive myself for what I had missed.”

“Be sure, Caro,” he warned, knowing that this time there would be no turning back for either of them. “Be very sure.”

She nodded, almost afraid to meet his gaze. Briefly her courage faltered. What if he said no? What if he dismissed her, or worse yet, laughed in her face? But she wanted more memories of Naples than moonlight and fishing boats. She needed this night with him to keep her warm through the lifetime of emptiness that remained before her at Blackstone House.

“You and I are always pretending we’re what we’re not, aren’t we, Jeremiah?” she said, hesitancy and daring mingled in her voice. “But tonight I would pretend one more time with you. I will be your Caro, yours alone. I will be innocent again, the girl I once was, untouched by any man except for you.”

His eyes narrowed as he listened, lingering over her lush, rounded body in the blue silk, a woman’s body, not that of an untried girl. Yet the game intrigued him, outlandish as it was; to pretend she was still a virgin was to make her husband and her marriage magically vanish. If this was what it would take to ease her guilt, than so be it. He wanted her too much to care any longer. Besides, the idea of being her first lover, even as a game, was enough to make his body quicken with growing interest.

“And what role am I to play in this, eh, sweetheart?” he asked, his voice low and intensely male. “A highwayman again, come to rob you of your virtue?”

“Oh, no, Jeremiah,” she whispered breathlessly, realizing he was agreeing. “You must be yourself.”

“Easy enough.” He slid his hand back along her jaw to bury his fingers in the silvery silk of her hair. She let her head fall back, luxuriating in the pressure of his hand on the back of her neck, and unconsciously her lips parted, red, full, waiting for his.

He kissed her gently at first, his lips barely brushing against hers, sensitizing them enough to make her sigh with delight. Her hands slid down his shoulders, her fingers digging deep into the muscles as impatiently she pulled him closer.

“Don’t be in such a rush, sweetheart,” he whispered. “By my reckoning, we’ve all night before us.”

Her hands stilled, her eyes so large with uncertainty that he chuckled. She was as good at this ruse as she’d been at all the other bits of playacting he’d seen from her. Maybe better. He could almost believe she’d never done any of this before.

Lightly he touched his finger to her lower lip, moist from his. “I’m not telling you to stop, Caro. I’m only reminding you that the journey can be every bit as fine as the destination.”

She smiled tremulously and he lowered his mouth to hers again, dipping deeper to savor her sweetness. His tongue met hers, coaxing and caressing as he urged her to join him. She shifted closer to him, seeking more, and he gathered her into his arms, reminded again of how soft and willing she was to hold as his lips moved from hers to the little hollow beneath her ear.

Her laugh of sheer pleasure was almost girlish. “Come back,” she ordered softly. “You taste too good to let go.”

“It’s only the rum,” he murmured, taking his time to reach her lips again. “Middling rum at that, just like you’d taste on any other sailor.”

“No one’s like you,” she whispered vehemently. “My own Jeremiah.”

He had never belonged to anyone, and he was surprised by how deeply her words touched him. Was it only part of the game, he wondered, protecting himself against the pain of feeling too much, or did she really wish to be his alone, if only for this night?

When he kissed her now, he forgot about teasing and coaxing. Now he wanted to make her his in the one way he knew how, to possess her and mark her in a primal male way, and his mouth moved relentlessly across hers. He knew from the way she opened to him, drawing him deeper still, responding with the heat he remembered so well, that she felt the same need, moving against him with an urgent abandon that only inflamed him more. They had both waited so long for this.

Ruthlessly he pushed the dressing gown off her shoulders and down her arms, and he felt her shiver as the silk slid across her skin like another caress. The shift beneath was even more insubstantial than he’d first thought, held together only by tiny ribbons at the shoulders above her bare arms. The sheer linen was no more than a mist across her body, tantalizing him with how much it simultaneously revealed yet covered, and he felt his body, already aroused, grow hotter still.

Yet, though her face was flushed with excitement, her lips swollen from his kisses, there was an uncertainty in her eyes close to alarm. The game, he reminded himself, of course, it was part of the game, and he tried to tamp down the rising fire in his blood.

“Forgive me if I frightened you, sweetheart,” he said gently, touching only her cheek to reassure her. “God knows I’d never want to hurt you.”

“I know that,” she said softly, her trust so touchingly genuine that it wrenched at his heart, “and you won’t.”

She turned her face into his hand to brush her lips across his palm, her eyes remaining turned toward his, their expression suddenly impish. “But it isn’t fair that you are still so…covered.”

Wryly he looked down at his shirt and breeches. “I’m afraid I haven’t anything in my sea chest to match that shift.”

“I’d rather see you,” she whispered, her voice husky with shy suggestion.

He grinned wickedly and cocked one skeptical black eyebrow as he yanked his shirttails free of his breeches. “I don’t think a modest young maid would want to see a naked man quite this soon.”

“This one would.” She took his wrist to unbutton the cuff of his shirt, the color of her cheeks stained darker despite her assurance. She stepped away as he drew the shirt over his head, tossing it carelessly across the back of a chair, and shook his thick, black hair back from his forehead. She swallowed as he unbuttoned the fall of his breeches, painfully aware of how he watched her face for her reaction.

And by the light of the two candles, he was well worth watching. A lifetime ago, in her mother’s apartments, she had been shown men without their clothing, and she thought she knew what to expect. But Jeremiah was different from those men. Very, very different.

As he stood before her, comfortable with himself and enjoying her scrutiny, his shoulders seemed broader, his waist and hips even more narrow. There was not an ounce of extra fat on him, his body honed to lean muscle and sinew by a hard life. That life had left other marks on him, too, not only in the long, jagged scar across his torso but in a half-dozen older ones, as well. They covered his body, arms, and legs, reminding her again of how lucky he’d been to survive this long—long enough to find her. Finally she let her gaze drop lower, following the tapering path of dark, curling hair from his waist.

“Still not frightened?” God knows she should have been if she truly were the virgin she was pretending to be. Sweet heaven, he’d never wanted a woman as much as he wanted her now, and the proof was unmistakable, hard and throbbing before him.

She shook her head, her face on fire. It was, she knew, far too late to turn back, nor did she want to, but she’d never really considered exactly how large a man he was. Yet at the sight of him, she felt the heat he’d already brought to her blood grow hotter still, her palms damp and her heart quickening with anticipation, her breasts oddly tight and yearning for his touch.

Her reaction, he thought, was almost perfect, and another time he might have been able to laugh about it. Almost perfect, but not quite. No virgin’s eyes would have shone so brightly as she faced her own ruin, the flush of desire spread across her throat and breasts. Sweet heaven, he’d never known a woman who responded this freely to him!

“Satisfied?” he asked, the single word rasping with the strain of holding back. “But now, Caro, I’d say you have the advantage of me.”

She tipped her head to one side quizzically, not understanding. He reached across the small distance between them to untie the little bow on her left shoulder. Her eyes widened but she didn’t flinch as the soft fabric slipped from her shoulder, stopping just above the swelling curve of her breast.

“Better,” he murmured, “but there’s better still.” His fingers trembling, he slowly tugged on the end of the second bow, watching the satin ribbon slide across her skin as the bow gave way. With a little shush the sheer linen dropped to her ankles like a pale cloud.

“Oh Caro,” he breathed. “You’re so beautiful I’m almost afraid to touch you.”

“Don’t be.” She looked down so he wouldn’t see the tears glittering in her eyes as she slipped her arms around his waist. “I’m here, love, and I’m yours.”

With a deep groan he took what she offered, drawing her close. As his mouth found hers, his fingers sank deep into the soft curve of her hips, fitting his body against hers. She tasted his kiss like liquid fire, searing her blood, as the pressure of his body against hers overwhelmed her senses. When he lifted her against him, she moaned into his mouth, her nipples tightening as they brushed against the rough hair of his chest and the hard, hot power of his arousal against her belly.

He swept one arm beneath her knees and she gasped with surprise, clinging to his shoulders as he carried her the few feet to lay her on the bed. After the hard bunk of the Raleigh’s cabin, the feather bed felt light as dandelion down beneath her and the linen sheets were faintly redolent of rosemary. Alone, Caro looked questioningly up at Jeremiah as he shoved back the bed’s curtains, the rings scraping along the iron rod.

“You’re too fair to hide away in the dark, sweetheart,” he explained, thinking how a real virgin would have pulled the sheets up tight beneath her chin instead of curling so invitingly naked against the bolsters the way Caro was now. “Whether by candlelight or moonlight, I want to see you. If it’s not, of course, too much for your poor maidenly innocence?”

She chuckled, throaty and more alluring to him than she realized with her silvery hair tumbled across the pillow. Watching him with the same hunger that filled his eyes, she slid across the mattress to make room for him.

“Nay, Caro, not so fast.” Lying down on the bed beside her he curled one arm around her waist and pulled her back, rolling her deftly beneath him. “No scuttling away from me now.”

“Whyever would I want to?” she asked breathlessly. Although he supported most of his weight on his elbows, she liked the feel of his body on hers and the way the mattress gave gently beneath them. Exploring, she rested her hands on his lower back to feel the bunch of muscles there, the little indentations below his waist. She reached up to kiss him, teasing light as a feather.

“No reason on earth that I can consider.” Past teasing, he caught her lower lip in his teeth, working it gently as his hand found her breast, and felt the tremor clear through her body. Beneath his fingers her nipple rose firm and taut, delighting him with her response. With a broken sigh, she arched her back into his caress, her hips instinctively rising beneath his to rub against him in a way that tore at his selfcontrol.

“Easy now, sweetheart,” he growled, intensifying the caress as her fingers clutched convulsively into his shoulders. His heart was pounding in his ears, his blood fevered, and the tension that had swirled around them all evening focused now on the beautiful woman beneath him. “My sweet, hot Caro.”

“You make me feel so—so perfect, Jeremiah,” she whispered raggedly, and closed her eyes with the heat that his touch brought her. She had never dreamed there could be so much pleasure in the world, so much sweet, agonizing pleasure.

“Almost there, love, almost there.” He raised himself up just long enough to ease her legs apart, his hands gliding across the soft skin of her inner thighs until she trembled. When he touched her, wet and hot and ready, she whimpered, her legs curling around his hand as she desperately sought the release her body craved. “Almost home.”

He opened her legs wider to take him and she stared up at him wildly, her eyes dark with passion and her breath no more than ragged gasps. “You won’t—you won’t hurt me, will you?”

He was so close he could feel her heat welcoming him, guiding him. He was long past playing games, long past pretending, past anything but the intense reality of her need waiting for him. Groaning, he buried himself in her with a single stroke, into her heat, deep into her velvety sweetness, and, unbelievably, through the very real barrier of her maidenhead.