The Allure of Attraction

by Julia Kelly

  That was what she felt now as she looked at him, concern about her and Caleb etched on his face. He was a good man, no matter how badly things had ended between them, and he was here with her now. Couldn’t that be enough?

  “You wanted to tell me something too,” he prompted.

  She worried the inside of her bottom lip, knowing he wasn’t going to like what she was about to tell him one bit.

  She started with the easier news. “Mrs. Wark accosted me on the street.” When he reared back, she hurried to add, “Well, really it was in her carriage.”

  “What did she want?”

  “To warn me away from her son. Mr. Douglas was there too. I don’t like him. There’s something about him that sets my teeth on edge,” she said. “Did you know that he purchased Wark’s warehouse in Leith?”

  That made Andrew pause, but only for a moment. “We’ll talk about Douglas later. Why did Mrs. Wark accost you?”

  She blew out a breath. “Wark’s invited me to the prince’s ball.”

  To his credit, Andrew didn’t say anything. Instead, he gripped the back of a chair so hard she thought he might crack the wood in two.

  “Tell me that you said no,” he said.

  “Well, no. I said yes.”

  “What?” the word came out a sharp bark. “You accepted his invitation without speaking to me? When was this?”

  “Yesterday morning. It’s only that there’s been a development with Wark.”

  “And you didn’t think to leave a note at the drop point?” he asked.

  “I thought—” No. She was a grown woman of thirty-two. She was not going to be shamed like a green girl who knew nothing of the world.

  “I had hoped that I would see you yesterday evening,” she said.

  The way he was looking at her, his eyes guarded, set her ill at ease. In a few short moments, she’d gone from being kissed breathless to unsure of where the boundaries between what she could ask for and what was too much were.

  “I’ve been thinking about it,” she said. “The ball is the only place that makes sense for an attack to happen. Wark will know where the prince is supposed to be at all times, because he has a hand in scheduling everything.”

  “There’s the parade too,” he said.

  “There are too many variables on the route. At the ball, there will be a limited number of guards because everyone was supposed to have been invited and deemed appropriate ages ago. They will naturally be more lax.”

  “You aren’t going with that man,” he said. “And I’m serious this time. No subverting my orders because it suits you.”

  She braced her hands on either side of the kitchen counter, staring him down hard. “I hate to remind you, but I’m a woman who can do as she pleases. You’re not my captain or my father. You’re not my brother, and you’re not my husband.”

  He snorted. “Certainly not that. I am, however, your handler, and I say that it’s impossible. There is no way for me to protect you and the prince at the same time.”

  “I don’t need you to protect me. It’s the prince they’re after.”

  “Wark is too unpredictable. He could take you for a hostage or decide that you’re dispensable if you were to get in the way of his plan,” he said.

  “I don’t think he would do that,” she argued.

  “You said yourself that he wants to make you his mistress!”

  “Which is not the same as causing me bodily harm,” she pressed.

  “The answer is no, Lavinia,” he said.

  “I’m an asset to this operation. You need me to do this because I can help in ways that no one else can. You said so yourself!”

  He slapped his palms down on the counter to either side of her. “You are not an asset!”

  “Then what am I?” she shot back.

  “Everything!” His voice broke with emotion, and the tension seemed to drain from his shoulders. “You’re everything, and I won’t put you in danger.”

  When he looked up at her, his eyes were stormy with anger and worry and something she dared not name. Every single one of the days and nights spent apart seemed to hang on his face.

  Slowly, as though approaching a cornered animal, she raised both hands and laid them softly along his jaw. “You would never put me in danger, Andrew. I know that.”

  “I already have.”

  She wanted to stop him and ask what he meant by that, but he continued, “I thought it would be simpler than this. I was going to retire and disappear somewhere where no one would find me. After life on a ship, the idea of being alone was a luxury.”

  The words hit her in a way she didn’t expect. He didn’t want any of this—the operation, their reunion, and he certainly didn’t want her. If he could’ve chosen, he never would’ve seen her again, and after this operation was complete he’d do what he’d done after returning to Eyemouth: disappear. To him, people were a complication. She was a complication.

  “Everything we’re doing compromises my ability to keep you safe on this operation.”

  “Don’t say that,” she whispered. It sounded too much like regret, and she hated to think that he regretted this when she felt at peace for the first time in a long time.

  The intimacy of their one shared night had blurred things. In some ways, she was more confused than others—her entire safe, secure world that she’d built for herself in this new city was upended. Yet in others, things had never been clearer. She wanted Andrew. The comfort, challenge, and caring of him. He was still the man she’d hoped she would end up with, only age had somehow made him more. Gone was his quiet, dreamy ambition, and in its place was the burning determination of a man who has lost and gained and lived. She would, while he was still here, take any little part of him that he’d give her.

  He closed his eyes and leaned into her right hand, the stubble already growing in on his chin rasping against her work-worn hands.

  “What do you do to me?” he asked. “I thought I was cured of you after all this time, but I look at you and I can’t help wanting you.”

  Her thumb stroked over his mouth, playing at the generous flesh of his bottom lip.

  “I want you too,” she whispered. “So much it almost frightens me.”

  “Will it always be like this?” he asked.

  She wanted to say no, and not just because he seemed so desperate for her reassurance. It would be easier that way, believing that they might one day be rid of this thread that seemed to bind them together in life, yet she couldn’t lie to him. Not about this.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “You said that first night in your workshop that this was inevitable. I didn’t understand then, but I do now.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “I feel as though I was made for you, no matter how dangerous that might be,” he said. He covered her hand with his, turning his head so he could kiss the center of her palm. The spot where his lips touched her flesh burned a hot, true line straight between her legs.

  “Tell me to go to hell, Lavinia. Send me away and tell me you never want to see me again. It’ll be best for both of us.”

  “Andrew,” she whispered. “Come to bed.”

  He slipped his hand in hers and silently they climbed the two flights of stairs to her rooms above the workshop. The rooms weren’t much—a fact she was acutely aware of—but they were hers and she loved everything in them. She could see now how Andrew could fit here, comfortably slouched in one of the overstuffed club chairs that sat in front of the fire, his slippered feet on the ottoman. But this was not the time for that. They needed each other now with no promises of the future, for that was all they could have, no matter how she wanted him.

  She opened the door to her bedroom and drew him inside, pulling him down to her for a long, aching kiss that pulled at each of her heartstrings in slow progression. Her fingers trembled as she began to undress him, popping the buttons of his waistcoat and drawing it down his arms with his jacket. A few tugs and she freed
his shirttail, letting go only long enough to let him yank the garment over his head. With a palm to the warm skin of his chest, she pushed him to the edge of the bed, where he sat. Kneeling, she undid the clasps of his boots, pulling them off as she’d once assumed she might when she’d thought they would be husband and wife. His belt came next and the placket of his trousers. He arched his body up so that she could pull them down with his smallclothes.

  She rocked back on her heels, looking up his body at the unashamed nakedness of him. He was beautiful, the tanned skin of his arms and chest flashing golden in the faint light of the fire she’d lit earlier to warm the room before she retired to bed.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked.

  “That no man has any right to be so perfectly formed. For me.”

  He smiled and leaned down to meet her, catching up her lips with his. The kiss and the trail of his fingers along her cloth-covered arms made her shiver.

  “Cold?” he murmured.

  “Needy.”

  Andrew didn’t need any more prompting. He set about undressing her with tantalizing care, stripping away the layers of her widow’s weeds. Her armor. When all that was left was her chemise, she stepped away out of his reach and pulled it off over her head, letting the soft cotton pool on the floor.

  He moaned low at the sight of her and reached out. His thumb dragged along the softness that covered her hip bone, as though trying to assure himself that she was real. Her fingers slipped into his hair as she straddled his lap, sinking down to him so that the length of his cock pressed along her slit, teasing her.

  His hands slid up over the swell of her backside and her waist, glancing over her breasts. When his thumbs circled her nipples, her back arched a little, pressing her breast closer to his mouth. He lowered his lips to her nipple and sucked. Her fingers tightened in his hair, holding him there as he whirled his tongue around it, flicking over the hardening bud.

  She rocked against him, the growing wetness between her legs slicking his cock and making it easier to slide in a deliciously teasing search for friction. She needed to feel him stretch her, making her gasp and moan with the sensation of it. She wanted to taste the salt of sweat on his skin and hear his groan as he came fast and hard, pulling out of her at only the last moment to prolong the intensity of their connection.

  “Andrew, I need you,” she whispered into the darkened room as she rocked against him.

  He moaned again, his hips thrusting under her, pressing harder into her. He started to roll them onto the bed, but she stopped him.

  “No, like this.”

  She trailed her hand between the two of them, gripping his cock before running her thumb slowly, teasingly over the head. Fire flashed in his eye, and he scooped his hands under her thighs to lift her slightly and resettle her a little higher in his lap.

  “This?” he asked.

  Instead of answering, she guided his cock to her and sank down on it.

  They both groaned, stilled for a moment by the powerful sensation of their joining. She clung to him, her breath coming in short, fast pants along his neck. She could lie to herself and say that this was as uncomplicated as two people finding satisfaction in one another, but it was not as simple as that. Nothing was when it came to Andrew.

  He felt vital to her, as though her body had been missing him all those years, but it was her heart that needed him most. A part of her had broken that day she’d spotted him, the man who was supposed to be dead. She’d known the moment she saw him that he knew of her betrayal—that he would think of it as nothing less than the worst treachery. She’d wanted to explain, but how could she? And so instead she’d let him tear her down and throw her broken promises in her face. She could take all of that because, in her heart of hearts, she knew it was true. But it was when he questioned her love for him that her heart had finally shattered.

  Simply being near him the last weeks had healed a part of her she’d never thought would mend.

  Slowly, Andrew ran his hands up her back, hugging her to him, and then he thrust. The quick spread of heat through her core chased away all thought, and her hips canted up before plunging back down on his shaft and burying him a little deeper. A wordless sound escaped her lips and she let her head fall forward against his shoulder.

  He clasped her to him and rocked them, his cock stroking over and over. She could live like this forever, wrapped up in his arms while she rode him, the balance of control shifting back and forth between the two of them as they both strove toward their pleasure. Then, all at once, the pleasure and tension building in her body sharpened, and she was there, coming hard against him. Heat rolled through her, her eyes fixed on the spot where their bodies met. She ground her hips down on him, gripping the back of his neck as she was pulled along.

  She was almost limp in his arms, every last sensation strung out, when Andrew gripped her hips, shifted her a little, and thrust shallow and hard. When he pulled out of her, he choked out her name and whispered it again and again.

  They stayed, arms wrapped around each other, for longer than she could say. As she listened to their steadying breaths with her head on his shoulder, a truth kept running through her mind.

  I’m falling in love with him again, but it is too soon.

  It would always be too soon. The wounds they’d given each other were too deep, and Andrew had made it abundantly clear that after the mission was complete he had every intention of retiring and leaving this place. There was no room in his life for her, and she couldn’t bring herself to demand that he change his plans when she knew what the answer would be.

  Instead she would help him in any way she could and try to prepare herself for the pain of the separation that would likely follow. If there was any mercy in the world, it would be brief and she would be left to slowly heal. Letting go of him had seemed nearly impossible after she’d thought him dead; watching him walk away, she could survive. She’d done it once before.

  And so she turned her mind to the code she’d found and the contents of Wark’s desk and the quickly decreasing number of days they had before the mission would be over.

  Chapter Seventeen

  ANDREW SAT IN front of Sir Reginald Palmer-Smythe, commander of the branch of the Queen’s Guard, trying his best not to explode. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Gillie casting worried glances in his direction, but he was determined not to blow up. Even if the man was being an insufferable ass.

  “The prince won’t have it,” said Palmer-Smythe, who would be attached to the Prince of Wales’s entourage in Edinburgh and had come to the city to conduct the advance work needed to ensure the prince would be safe.

  “With all due respect, sir, His Royal Highness’s safety could be at risk—mortal risk,” said Andrew. It was five days until the prince’s arrival in Edinburgh, seven until the ball, and they still weren’t any closer to figuring out what Wark’s plot was. He and Gillie had finally secured an interview with the commander, and they’d arrived that morning hoping that the man would see reason.

  They could not have been more wrong.

  “Nothing you’ve said to me this afternoon has convinced me that there’s one bit of credibility to this threat,” said Palmer-Smythe, his mustache twitching with displeasure.

  “There has been a significant amount of activity at the home of Harold Wark, a man who was found with a cache of weapons,” said Gillie.

  “Harold Wark?” Palmer-Smythe snorted. “The man is on the prince’s organizing committee.”

  “Which gives him an unprecedented amount of access to the prince during his stay,” said Andrew. “And access to the prince’s private schedule.”

  “We have reason to believe that an attack will come at the ball,” said Gillie.

  “If there’s an attack, which you have not convinced me is imminent, why would it be there?” Palmer-Smythe asked.

  Andrew and Gillie exchanged looks. They had nothing more than their gut instinct to go on. Despite Lavinia’s efforts, they
were still guessing and praying they weren’t wrong.

  “Access,” said Gillie.

  “And the opposite can be said for the ball,” said Palmer-Smythe. “Invitations only went out to the highest ranking of Scotland’s society. Every man there will be either a gentleman of impeccable breeding or a titan of industry. Mr. Wark is one of those men. So is the Duke of Livingston, at whose house the prince will dine that evening before attending the ball. He will be with the prince for a considerable amount of time, even allowing the royal carriage and the prince’s staff to rest in the mews behind his home while the prince dines. Does that make him a suspect? I should think not.”

  Andrew sighed and ran an assessing eye over the man. Palmer-Smythe was hardly old enough to have seen action, let alone to have done anything more than study military strategy, and in Andrew’s opinion, theory and strategy were no substitute for real experience.

  “Sir, were you ever in battle?” he asked.

  The Queen’s Guardsman drew his shoulders back, ready to be offended by whatever he believed the implications of the question to be. “I’ve served Her Majesty loyally for nearly a decade.”

  That was a no then.

  “While I was never in the Royal Navy, my work brought me into enough skirmishes to have shown me that battles are fought differently in different places,” Andrew explained. “You have to understand the context of your surroundings to know the merits of an ambush over a siege or a phalanx. You ask yourself whether the enemy will have cover and whether he can beat a retreat if the battle isn’t going the way he planned. You prepare for the fight you’ll face, not the one you hope will materialize.

  “After giving it a great deal of thought, I believe Miss Gibson is right. She argued days ago that the prince’s ball is the one place that makes sense for this attack. The parade is out in the open, it will be heavily policed, and you can’t control for the variables that might thwart an attack. The prince’s ball is a closed space with easy exits, if this group knows what they’re doing. It will also be a controlled environment where they can endeavor to isolate the prince. It would require little effort to slip in and commit an act of violence against the crown if you had the right sort of invitation.”