Kate didn’t want words and promises, and she didn’t believe she had a future beyond this winter. There was only now. She fitted her body to his, sighed when she felt the evidence of his arousal pressed against her belly.
“Stop, Kate. Or we’ll end up on the floor, and I’ll do this all wrong.”
She couldn’t imagine how to do it wrong, only how consummation would somehow sever her from the decision she had just made, divide now from then, put decision and need both firmly in the past, allow her to go on.
He grasped her wrists and held her at arm’s length. “This is shock, Kate. The aftermath of great emotion. It is not how we should begin our affair.”
He backed her to the armchair she’d been sitting in earlier and pushed. She fell onto the cushion in an undignified tangle of skirts and petticoats, but the tortured expression on his face told her that her dishevelment was alluring, that her bruised lips and exposed ankles tempted him. He looked down at her and ran his hands through his hair; tension was plain on his face. She started to rise from the chair.
He groaned in exasperation and backed away. “Wait here.” He left the room and returned a few seconds later with a flask, rummaged in the pretty china cabinets beside the fire for glasses, and poured her a dram of whisky. She drank it. Desire fled.
Exhaustion replaced it. And desolation. “You must have planned this rendezvous with my father days ago. You never meant to seduce me tonight.”
“You sound almost betrayed.”
“I came rather overdressed for a rowboat.” And she felt foolish.
He smiled at that, and took the chair opposite her, his long legs stretched before the fire to cross with hers, his empty glass dangling from his fingertips. “You’re also overdressed for the other options available to us.”
She rolled her eyes heavenward. The man blew hot and cold. She’d just offered him that and he’d demurred. Besides, it felt oddly companionable, just sitting here with him, and she found herself starved for companionship.
He leaned across the distance between them, removed her glass, and took both her hands in his.
“Shall we make love, Kate?”
Her voice caught in her throat. Heat bloomed in her. He could have had her already, but he’d refused. He could have told the court-martial in New York about her, but he’d refused. He could have turned her over to André at Germantown, but he’d refused. And he’d risked his life to bring her father here.
They had talked of making love, but never of falling in it. She knew better than to speak of it now.
“Why didn’t you want me a few minutes ago?” She suspected, but she had to know.
“I did want you. Desperately. But not unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly.”
They were not part of the Quaker order of service, but she’d attended English weddings since coming to Philadelphia, knew where Peter’s words came from, and what he was trying to tell her. He was not offering her marriage, but he didn’t want her in a mindless frenzy, or for just one night.
“I need a moment alone first,” she said. In her mindless frenzy she had almost forgotten.
He quirked an eyebrow.
“Mrs. Ferrers advised me to take precautions,” she explained.
Tremayne sighed. “I can only imagine what she told you to do.”
“No imagination is necessary. It’s an entirely prosaic item,” she said, drawing the small wooden box from the practical pockets she insisted on beneath even her most impractical gowns. She held it up in the palm of her hand.
He removed the lid. “Have you used one of these before?”
“Of course not. But the theory seems sound.”
He capped the box, then covered her hands with his own. “Put it away. You don’t need it. There are other ways.”
“Yes. But the other ways all depend entirely on your goodwill.”
“And have I ever given you reason to doubt it?”
“Mrs. Ferrers says—”
“I’m not making love to Mrs. Ferrers, at the moment. I intend to make love to you. Is it so impossible for you to trust me?”
She swallowed. “I want to.”
“Kate, I’m not placing my pleasure ahead of your safety. I know how those things are prepared. Boiled in vinegar and soaked in brandy, yes?”
“It makes sense if you think about it. Nothing grows in a pickle jar.”
“And have you ever gotten vinegar or brandy in a cut on your hand?”
She was beginning to see his point. “Mrs. Ferrers said I probably won’t bleed. I’m too old.”
“She is a font of knowledge on the subject, I’m sure, but since we are being indelicate, I can tell you from experience that age alone does not ensure that it will be painless for you. Even if you don’t tear, you’ll be sore, and removing the thing once we’re finished might make the occasion memorable for you in an entirely different way than I intend.”
“Oh.” She subsided into her chair. Speaking so frankly of such intimate matters with Tremayne was bizarre, and somehow quite natural. “But I’ve brought nothing else.”
“We don’t need anything else. I can withdraw.”
She said nothing.
“You don’t need to rely on my goodwill in this. A child would be equally inconvenient for me as for you. Charming as you are, I will manage to control myself. I’m not an overeager schoolboy or a loutish farmhand.”
“I want to trust you—”
“—but you have not been able to trust anyone for a very long time. I know. Trust me, now.”
He held out his hand.
She took it. She felt very small beside him as they crossed the cozy parlor together and ascended the stairs.
It was an old house, like Grey Farm, but far more fashionable. The stamped wallpaper upstairs was fresh, delicately colored and pleasingly classical. The carpets were thick and bright. A fire was ready to be lit in the largest bedchamber, and Kate fleetingly thought of Bachmann, Tremayne’s loyal Hessian, camped downstairs. Not the po-faced conspirator she had imagined, perhaps, but what must he think of her, his master’s lover? She put it from her mind.
She’d realized in the first few weeks of her adventure in Philadelphia that no matter what the outcome of the war, she had transgressed. There would be no place in polite society, neither the learned salons of Philadelphia nor the forgiving parlors of Orchard Valley, for a woman who bartered her body for secrets. It was simply too sordid.
But this bedroom, borrowed though it was, was not sordid. It was the private retreat of proud parents. There were penmanship and embroidery samples on the wall, framed and hung with care. In the corner was the dressing table of a lady fine enough to receive visitors during her toilette, but not so fine as to banish the toys abandoned beside her chair: the cup and ball, the hoop and stick some toddler must have chased around the room just before they were forced to flee the house.
The bed was hung with cream wool and crewel embroidery. It was decades out of date but well cared for and obviously much loved. A fitting place to part with her innocence.
But now that she was in the room, she had no notion what to do. It had all seemed so easy in her bedroom at Grey Farm, when he had taken the lead, and even downstairs, less than hour ago, when she’d rushed headlong at him.
“I don’t know how to begin,” she said.
There were logs laid on, and a tinderbox. He knelt beside the hearth. “Beginning has never been our problem. It’s seeing the deed through that has eluded us. I half expect someone to start pounding on the door at any moment.”
She laughed, and he smiled up at her, and Kate realized that for tonight at least she would put her faith in him. Then he lit the fire. The next step, she knew, was to disrobe, but these were not the practical garments she’d grown up in. Her gown fastened in front, but the lacings of her stays required a maid’s assistance. Or a lover’s. She found herself blushing furiously, and when she looked up, he was draping his fine red coat over the back of a chair, removing his silver gilt g
orget and leather neck stock, and placing them carefully on the dressing table.
He smiled when he realized she was watching him. “You’re blushing. Do you like watching me undress?” he teased, unfastening the buttons on his waistcoat.
Her mouth felt dry. The elegant flourishes of his uniform were not just for the benefit of the guard; they were for her. The silver buttons on his coat and Mechlin lace at his cuffs. The sweet lime and rum cologne. They were to entice her, to please her.
How shockingly adult it all was. She’d been living among strangers under an assumed name and committing treason for months, had experienced a taste of intimacy with Bayard Caide, but only now, to her surprise, did she feel anything like a grown woman.
She forced herself to swallow. The room was warming quickly. Or maybe that was her own body. “Yes,” she said. “I want to see your hair down.”
“Yours first, I think,” he said, gently freeing the tortoiseshell combs and laying them beside his gorget on the dresser. They formed an intimate still life, her ornaments lying beside his regalia. Then he threaded his hands through her hair, unwinding the elaborate coils and loosening the tight curls, until it fell free over her neck and shoulders.
She closed her eyes, and felt his lips brush against hers, slow and patient, not seeking entry, only contact, until her mouth opened of its own accord and their tongues met.
When he finally broke away she felt dizzy. Everything around her, the carpets, her gown, the very air, felt cushioned and cloud light, as though she could float away.
She watched him shrug out of his waistcoat and fold it neatly. She tried to unhook the front of her gown, normally the work of a few moments, but the hooks kept slipping from her clumsy fingers.
“Let me help.” He covered her hands with his own and brought them to his lips for a brief kiss, then lowered them to her side. He made quick work of the hooks on her bodice, then untied the tapes cinching her skirts, and when both were open, he took her hands and steadied her as she stepped out of the circle of pooled silk.
He fingered the laces on her stays. “May I?”
She nodded, her heart pounding. He turned her to face the glass of the dressing table. She could see him, darkly handsome, standing behind her, the scarred side of his face lost in shadows, his eyes on hers in the mirror, his hands invisible but busy at her back. She was breathing in shallow gasps, the rapid rise and fall of her chest clearly visible in the glass.
Then the back of her stays parted and she felt cool air on her skin. He appeared to know better than to pull the laces out. He left them loosely plaited and drew the garment over her head. She wondered fleetingly how many other women he had undressed, then put it from her mind.
In the mirror she was naked and vulnerable before him, her gossamer shift transparent in the firelight. She could see the hunger in his eyes. His hands rested lightly on her shoulders, then slid down to cup her breasts through the cloth. He lifted them, tested their weight, then gently thumbed her nipples. She felt them tighten, saw them in the mirror, budding pink through the sheer fabric.
She was trapped between his body and the dressing table, every move visible in the tilted glass. Every involuntary twitch of her hips, triggered somehow by the play of his hands on her breasts, was visible both to him and to her.
She understood suddenly why he’d turned her to face the mirror. He wanted her to see, to know, to acknowledge that this was him and not his cousin. Him and not Bayard Caide.
He needn’t have worried. She knew the difference between the two men. Caide had played her body skillfully, driving her before him to knowledge and pleasure. But Tremayne, she now understood, was determined they should go there together.
She whimpered when he abandoned her breasts to untie the lace at her collar, then trace the lines of her collarbone, her neck, her jaw. When she felt the pads of his fingers pressed to her lips, she gave in to instinct and flicked her tongue out to taste him. She heard his sharp intake of breath, and when she opened her mouth to his questing fingers, she heard him groan. She suckled, and felt his hips shift, felt him press his arousal into the small of her back.
When he touched his wet fingers to her aching breasts she felt a coiling pleasure between her legs. He continued rolling her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers, moistening her chemise until it was damp and transparent, the pink of her nipples showing red in the firelight. Her breaths were coming shorter now. Every muscle in her body tensed. She closed her eyes. If he only squeezed her nipples once more, surely she would—
He stopped. Cool air swirled around her thighs and her eyes flew open. Back to the mirror. He was drawing up her chemise.
One hand held her hem, the other fingered the neatly trimmed hair at the juncture of her thighs. “Very pretty. The Widow’s grooming, I presume?” he said.
“She insisted.” Kate gasped as his finger slid through the curls.
“Did she help you, or did you do it yourself?”
She’d never thought of the procedure as erotic before, but she could tell the thought of another woman touching her intimately excited him. “She helped me the first few times. Then I used a mirror.”
“Did you part yourself and look?” he said, spreading her open with his fingers.
She shook her head.
“Did you touch yourself like this?” He found the bud that pulsed there, then circled.
“No!”
He stopped.
“No? You wish me to stop?” he asked playfully, dropping kisses on her shoulder. “Or no, you did not touch yourself?”
“I didn’t touch myself.”
“That’s a pity.” The circling resumed, light and deft. “But other times, you explored yourself?” he asked, persistent.
“Yes,” she admitted. She felt curiously unashamed.
“And did you bring yourself to climax?”
She shook her head. “No. I’ve never…” But that wasn’t quite true. “Bay did.”
His hand stilled. He dropped her chemise and it fluttered back into place.
She met Tremayne’s eyes in the mirror, expecting anger but finding only amusement.
“Bayard Caide, Angela Ferrers,” he said. “What a lot of people we seem to be bringing to bed with us.”
“He didn’t…” She groped for words.
“Make love to you?”
“No. He just…”
“Pleasured you,” he finished for her.
“Yes.”
“With his hands?” he asked, drawing her hem up once more. “Like this?”
“Oh,” she cried out as he found her again, his touch cool against her heated flesh.
“Or with his mouth?”
The thought nearly undid her. She looked up at his face in the mirror, his eyes intent, his hair falling over her shoulder. She needed…
But his hands slowed, pulled her back from the brink, turned her gently to face him. “I’m determined to banish all thought of Bayard Caide from your head. And in the event that my attentions aren’t frequent enough for you, my passionate pearl, I’ll teach you to take care of yourself in the interim.”
“Show me,” she said hoarsely.
He picked up the hand mirror lying on the dressing table, and led her to the bed. They climbed on together, and she sat uncertainly with her legs folded beneath her. He knelt beside her and began kissing her mouth. Long, languorous, tongue-tangling kisses. He dragged her chemise off her shoulders, used the weight of his body to guide hers back against the pillows, and chuckled with satisfaction when her legs fell open and she drew her knees up of her own accord.
Then, still in his breeches and shirt, he knelt between her legs and spread her sex with his long, skillful fingers. She gasped when she felt the cool air touch her heated folds. “You are pink and lovely and, I am sorry to say, decidedly virginal. We should go slowly, Kate.”
“How can you tell?” she asked, genuinely curious and wildly impatient all at once.
He placed the mirror in her hand a
nd helped her angle it until she could see herself. It was bizarre to think there were parts of her own body she had never seen, could not actually, with her own eyes.
She watched as he traced a finger around her entrance. It was the most erotic thing she had ever seen, and the tiny quivering muscles in her thighs made obvious her desire.
Down, around, and up he traced, then he stopped on the downswing and applied gentle pressure to the flesh there. It became taut when he pressed. “If I go slowly, it should stretch, not tear.”
“Oh.” It was a detail Angela Ferrers had left out.
He mistook her tone. “Are you afraid, Kate?”
She shook her head. “Not of the pain.” Of the intimacy. Of where it would lead.
“Would it be such a terrible thing for us to fall in love?” he asked.
Of the way he could read her so easily.
“Ask me again in the morning.”
His eyes, so unguarded a moment ago, became shuttered now, and she knew he was going to bend all his formidable skills to procure the answer he desired.
He circled the nub at the top where so much tension centered. “Do you know what this is called?” he asked, with a wicked gleam in his eyes.
“Tell me,” she said breathlessly.
He did so. Then he bade her touch it herself. “It’s so small,” she said, amazed that such a tiny thing could so rule her desires when touched like this.
“It swells more when you are very aroused,” he said. “Let me show you.”
Before she could protest, his head dipped between her thighs and he sucked the swollen nub into his mouth, worried it with his tongue. When he relented, her eyes were closed, her head thrown back, her legs splayed wide.
“Now look,” he said, holding up the mirror.
But she was done with playing. She batted aside the mirror, desperate for relief. But his fingers resumed their play. She arched shamelessly into his hand.
“I see you know what you want,” he drawled, stretching out to lie beside her, one hand propping up his head, the other stroking her, as if he could do this all night. “I was thinking about killing Bay for touching you, but now I think I might have to thank him for awakening you. It’s breathtaking.”
The Turncoat Page 20