Her face blanked; she seemed shocked by the words that spilled from his lips, essentially without thought. Naturally. Although he was attributing the panic and fear to her, it was his own fears he was describing.
“You’re afraid of learning more, of what you might feel once you learn it all—experience it all. All that might be between us.”
With one hand he brushed back the hair haloing her face. She tensed, but allowed him to move nearer. Surprise and incipient anger warred in her eyes; had he been in control, his usual persuasive self, he would have capitalized on her temper, prodding it until she did as he wished, but having given voice to what was swirling inside him, having drawn this close to her, the focus of his roused and abraded emotions, he was no longer thinking clearly. Could only respond to the wariness in her eyes. “Don’t be afraid.” He leaned closer, brushed his lips to her temple. “There are times in life when one has to take a chance—make a leap of faith. When we simply have to…”
When he eased back, searching, she offered, “Step off the edge of a cliff?”
His lips twisted. “Nothing quite so fatal. More like setting sail and letting the winds take us where they will.”
In convincing her, he was convincing himself.
Her eyes remained on his, searching them, searching his face. He’d drawn close enough to trap her if he wished, but with an effort he kept his arms relaxed; she had to come to him willingly for him to win her.
Again her eyes narrowed. “You’re very good with words.”
He let his lips curve. “I’m even better with actions.” He held her gaze from a distance of mere inches. “Trust me.”
Moving slowly, he fastened his hands about her waist, let his gaze lower to her lips. “Just try it and see. There’s so much more you’ve yet to learn, yet to experience—and why not with me?”
A heartbeat passed, then two. He held his breath, not daring to look into her eyes in case she saw how important her answer was to him. How much she already meant to him.
Unexpectedly she sighed, long and resigned, then moved into his arms. “All right.” She tilted her face, lifted her lips. “But this is very definitely not wise.”
He accepted her offering with alacrity, covered her lips with his; the wave of relief that flooded him nearly brought him to his knees.
She was right; this wasn’t wise. It wasn’t even merely dangerous. It was unmitigated madness, on his part certainly—possibly on hers, too; Heaven knew he would never be an easy husband, but he couldn’t draw back, couldn’t deny this madness its due.
No more than he could deny the heat that rose between them, that welled and grew and flared into flame once she was in his arms. Once she was pressed against him, her lips beneath his, her mouth surrendered, his to plunder at will, once her body, sleek and supple, was locked against his, all he could think of was appeasing that heat, feeding the madness.
Letting it take him, rule him, drive him, conquer him.
Their clothes fell like autumn leaves, a scattered trail in their wake as inch by inch they made their way to the daybed.
Then they were there, naked on the thick cushions, the summer air whispering over heated skin as they touched, caressed, sighed.
Caught their breaths. Gasped. The evocative sound of her strangled moan shook him to the core.
This time, thank Heaven, it was slower, even if the heat was not one whit decreased, the intensity of each long-drawn moment only brighter, sharper. Regardless, he felt, if not in control then at least more aware—of her, of how she responded to each touch, of himself, and how she made him feel.
Time stretched as his hands and fingers played over the smooth curves and hollows, then his lips followed the same path, delighting, setting small fires to burn in their wake.
Madeline embraced every last sensation.
Closing her eyes, she opened her senses, with reckless abandon gave herself up to the moment—to him. She couldn’t think, couldn’t hear, could barely see—her world had shrunk to him and her, and the pleasure he evoked, and lavished on her.
A generous lover. The phrase swam through her head, then out.
A devilish lover; his lips trailed a path over her stomach, over the curls below, then he spread her thighs and kissed her there and she screamed. Breathlessly, helplessly, clung.
As he pleasured her to oblivion and beyond.
The afternoon spun about them as she fought against the drugging tide, pressed him back on the cushions and explored. He’d been right; she had so much to learn, and these moments with him, limited as they were certain to be, might be her only chance to satisfy the cravings of the woman he called forth, the sensual being she became in his arms.
But he seemed to have his limits, too, his own defined needs. Bare moments after she closed her hand about his turgid length, he muttered something, caught her wrist and removed her hand, flipped her onto her back and followed, spreading her thighs wide, his hips between, then joining them in one smooth motion.
She could only gasp and cling, hold tight as he drove them into a wall of flames. Straight through and on, into a landscape of scalding heat and demanding desire, of passion so hot it seared.
He bent his head and their lips met; together they rode on. Up.
Straight off the edge of the world into that void where nothing existed beyond the timeless moment, beyond searing sensation. He groaned, battled to hold them there for one last instant, then the power fractured, fell away, and they plummeted into earthly bliss.
She woke to find herself sprawled on her back on the daybed, with him sprawled, boneless and heavy, apparently non compos mentis, over her. Her lips curved spontaneously; she suppressed a silly, pointless giggle, trying not to shake and wake him.
In truth, there was nothing humorous about the situation; she made a valiant effort to sober, and failed. She couldn’t understand why her heart insisted on singing…then she remembered, in the same instant scornfully told herself it simply couldn’t be. Not yet. Fate, having sent him to her expressly with seduction in mind, would surely give her a little time to enjoy him before tampering with her heart.
No. She wasn’t the sort to fall in love in a day, not even two. She wasn’t a soft-hearted person; she wasn’t all that trusting. She wasn’t especially gullible, either; as long as she kept it firmly in mind that this—their liaison—was an exercise embarked upon solely to educate her, to extend her horizons beyond the boundaries that would otherwise have been, as long as she viewed this engagement of theirs with the cool detachment of a business arrangement, her heart would remain safely hers.
Unbidden, her hand drifted to his hair, to play in the soft curls. She thought again of his argument—that she was afraid of what might come. He’d been right about the fear, but not about what she feared. If he knew that she feared falling in love with him, he might well, out of honor, step back. But while that remained her secret she had nothing to fear, from him or from prolonging their liaison, as long as she kept her heart locked away.
She hadn’t intended to court any risk at all—had seen no reason to, not last night—but now he’d demonstrated that there indeed was more to learn, then her reckless, curious Gascoigne self wouldn’t rest, not until she’d learned it all. At least glimpsed it all.
He stirred, sighed; with a muffled grunt he lifted from her and slumped on his side beside her. Curled his arm around her, held her to him and nuzzled her ear. “You don’t have to go anywhere, do you?”
Spreading her hand over his chest, she looked down the long muscled body displayed for her delectation. Hers to explore. “No. Not yet.”
Gervase remained slumped on the daybed after Madeline had risen, dressed and gone. She’d insisted they shouldn’t risk being seen leaving together; he’d acquiesced, not least because he needed time to digest all that had happened, and all that that meant.
At least he had the answer to the question he’d posed just before she’d ridden up. Yes, he needed her, Madeline Gascoigne. No one else would do
; the instant she’d tried to cut and run, he’d known.
Incontrovertibly, beyond a shadow of doubt.
Worse, the primitive response that had gripped him had left no room for pretense. He wasn’t giving her up—not now, not ever. Not even though he was going to marry her.
That last was no contradiction, not to his mind. Being in thrall to his wife—a Valkyrie, what was more—was not the way he’d imagined things would be.
He grimaced, then shifted to reach for the decanter and pour a little amontillado into a glass. Fortification.
Sipping, he relaxed on the cushions and took stock. Not that he could set any name, let alone any meaningful measure to the maelstrom of emotions her attempt to escape him had unleashed. That was how he’d in that instant seen it—as her escaping him—and he’d reacted, at least inwardly, accordingly.
He’d scrambled to find some way to draw her back; he’d succeeded, but only by mining his own vulnerability, a desperate act. Just voicing his fears had shaken him, even if he’d disguised them as hers.
Before he’d let her up from the daybed he’d extracted an agreement that they would meet again, that she wouldn’t try to retreat from their now-established intimacy. Well and good; his immediate need was met. Yet now he’d got that much from her…where to from here?
Marry the damn woman as soon as humanly possible was the answer backed by every instinct he possessed.
He imagined proposing….
Eyes closing, he dropped his head back and groaned. “If I tell her I want to marry her now, she’ll think someone has seen us and I’m doing the honorable thing.” He thought, then added, “Or worse, that I’ve simply come to my senses, realized I’ve seduced a gently bred virgin, and feel compelled to offer for her hand.”
He grimaced horrendously. He didn’t need even a second to realize what sort of argument proposing would land him in—one he’d never win. Opening his eyes, he sipped, felt the crisp wine slide down his throat. “This can’t be happening.”
If he proposed now, he’d risk losing all he’d thus far gained. Worse, he’d put her on her guard against him.
Frowning, his wits now fully re-engaged, he reviewed his campaign—as if winning her were a war with her and her hand the prize. While seducing her had seemed an excellent idea at the time, having won that battle and taken that hill, he’d now discovered that the position made his push to take his primary target harder, not easier.
He had to take another approach. A flanking maneuver.
Replaying her reasons for believing he couldn’t possibly be interested in marrying her, while he’d undermined one—that he wasn’t honestly attracted to her—the other three still stood firm, at least in her mind. Her age, society’s expectations of the type of lady who would be his wife, and their compatibility in day-to-day dealings.
Given where they now were—given she’d already tried to step back—if he wanted to convince her he truly wanted to marry her, he would need to attack and weaken, preferably vanquish and quash, those other three reasons before he risked asking her to be his.
In light of the feats he’d routinely accomplished over his years as a spy, that shouldn’t be beyond him. He drained his glass, eyes narrowing as he planned. Persuasion was his strong suit, but sweet words didn’t work well with her—she was too wary, too cynical. Sweet actions, however…
By the time he sat up and set aside the empty glass, his new plan of campaign was clear in his mind.
“Sybil?” The following morning, summoned by Milsom to the drawing room, Madeline discovered that not only Sybil but Belinda, Annabel and Jane had come to call. Touching fingers with Sybil, acknowledging the girls’ curtseys with a smile, she waved them to chairs, then sat beside Sybil on the chaise. “Is anything wrong?”
“Not wrong.” Sybil fixed her with a sober gaze. “But I have to confess, Madeline dear, that this is a social call with a purpose.”
“Oh?” Glancing from Sybil’s unusually serious expression to those of her daughters, equally intent, for one dizzying moment Madeline wondered if someone had seen Gervase and her at the boathouse, on the path…but Sybil wouldn’t have brought the girls if that were the case.
Turning back to Sybil, she raised her brows. “What purpose?”
Sybil leaned nearer. “It’s the festival, you see. With the best will in the world…well, Gervase is a man, my dear, and desperately needs female assistance.”
Madeline studied Sybil’s blue eyes, then glanced at the girls. “I thought you…?”
“Oh, no, dear.” Sybil sat back with a light laugh. “Not that we wouldn’t be glad to help—and indeed we will as far as he’ll allow. But you see, he thinks of us as…well, dependents. As ladies to be cosseted, not taken notice of.”
“He’s been our guardian for years, of course,” Belinda put in, “so he views us as veritable babes—never to be taken seriously.”
“The notion that on some issues we might know more than he, especially as he’s been away for so long, never enters his head.” Annabel looked disgusted.
“Yes, well”—Sybil bent a reproving glance on Annabel—“it’s not that we don’t value his protection and his care of us. No.” She turned to Madeline and laid a hand on her sleeve. “Indeed, it’s because we understand why he’s unlikely to listen to advice from us that we’ve come to appeal to you.”
Madeline suddenly found herself the object of four pleading looks not even her brothers could have bettered.
Sybil patted her hand. “We know how busy you are, dear, but if you could find the time, just to hint him in the right direction. Oversee things, as it were. I know I can rely on you to know just how to word advice so he’ll follow it, and he’ll listen to you.” Sybil smiled. “The truth is, he’s such a strong character that it needs an equally strong character to make any impression on him, and sadly none of us is up to his weight.”
Madeline blinked, but as a good neighbor and friend she couldn’t fail to agree. “I’ll do what I can, of course. The festival is for the entire district, after all—only fair that a few of us share the organizational burden.”
“Exactly!” Sybil beamed. “I knew you would know just how to put it. Now, I hope you’re free to dine with us tonight? Just us”—with a wave she included the girls—“and Gervase. I thought perhaps you could bring your brothers, as well as Muriel, of course. It might be useful to learn if the boys have any suggestions for activities that might keep the younger males amused.”
Madeline found herself agreeing, then Sybil rose, collected her shawl and her daughters, and with her usual sweet smile, departed.
Standing on the front porch waving the carriage away, Madeline considered, then sighed. Turning inside, she headed back to the office and the work still remaining from the previous afternoon.
There was absolutely no point in cultivating moss. Gervase had lived by that maxim for most of his thirty-four years; he saw no reason to eschew it now. So while Sybil and his sisters drove to Treleaver Park to cultivate Madeline, he bobbed on the waves, and cultivated her brothers.
He’d set out to find them after an early breakfast; fate had smiled and he’d intercepted them riding across his lands. He suspected they’d been on their way to search the caves tucked in the various coves that scalloped the western shore of the peninsula, but they’d been readily distracted by his suggestion of taking out his favorite sailing boat and tacking around Black Head to beat up the coast toward the Helford estuary to a fishing spot they all knew.
They’d dropped anchor in the inlet near the village of St. Anthony; they’d each flipped a line into the sea, and now sat slumped against the sides, watching the breeze ruffle the furled sail.
Although his gaze was on the pennant rippling from the top of the mast, Gervase was aware of the glance the three boys exchanged.
“I suppose,” Harry said, “that when you were younger, you must have done runs with the smugglers.”
Gervase hid a grin. He nodded. “Quite a few.” Still lazily ga
zing up at the pennant, he went on, “In those days, there were runs every few weeks—at least one a month, often more. The wars, and the excise levied because of them, made smuggling a lucrative trade. Now, however…”
Appreciating how devoted Madeline was to his three eager listeners, and when he married her, then regardless of any legal obligation certain natural and moral responsibilities regarding them would fall to him, given all that he had no wish to inflame their already engaged enthusiasms regarding the smugglers, and joining their runs.
“Now the wars have ended, there’s a rather large question over what smugglers will run—what goods will make smuggling worthwhile, whether there’ll be reason enough to continue doing runs at all. At present, there’s not much that would be worth the risk”—he lowered his gaze to sweep the three attentive faces—“which is why the gangs have gone quiet.”
He let that fact, and the implied prediction, sink in, then smiled. “Have you heard how the smugglers helped His Majesty’s services during the wars?”
Edmond’s eyes went wide. “They helped our forces?”
“Often.” Gervase settled his shoulders against the boat’s side. “For instance, when I was in Brittany, at a little fishing port called Roscoff, near St. Pol-de-Léon, I had to get back to England, fast, and…”
For the rest of the hour that they bobbed in the inlet, he held them enthralled with stories of wartime adventures, some his, some of other operatives like Charles St. Austell and Jack Hendon, whose exploits had passed into legend.
Noticing the wind rising, he capped his last tale with, “So those are some of the adventures my generation had, but while your generation will doubtless have adventures, too, as the times have changed, those wanting adventures will need to look in other arenas. The exciting new challenges will assuredly come from some different, unexpected direction—that, my lads, is the nature of adventure.”
Edmond and Ben grinned, then scrambled to help as he moved to ready the sail. Although Harry also smiled, Gervase noted his more pensive expression, and was satisfied. He hadn’t had a chance to probe the cause of Harry’s underlying restlessness; he hoped Madeline had acted on his advice and taken steps to include Harry in the work of the estate.
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