by Mia Marlowe
“Surely, I understate.” He shook his head ruefully. “You didn’t know me in the old days. Second sons tend to grow up without many expectations, you see. I certainly had none beyond the next pint or the next skirt. You have my apology if my candor shocks you.”
“Remember who you’re talking to, Father,” Jacquelyn said, still trying to imagine Eustace as the rakehell he claimed. “The fatherless daughter of a courtesan can’t afford to be easily shocked.”
“In a perfect world, the accident of your birth would not be held against you.” He sighed deeply.
“Alas for the Fall,” she said with a wry smile before she struck the pose of challenge. “En garde.”
“Alas, indeed.” Father Eustace saluted her with his sword and adopted a defensive posture. “Yet, even the imperfect world is filled with wondrous surprises. Who would have thought a reprobate like me would live to such an advanced age, let alone spend the pleasant hours of my dotage training a young lady in swordplay?”
“You’re no dotard.” She lunged forward. “And I’m no lady.”
Father Eustace parried her stroke with an approving nod. “In all the ways that count to the folk of Dragon Caern, you are.”
“And in all the ways that matter to the world, I am not,” she murmured.
If a well-born second son had few expectations, a bastard girl had none. Her mother paid handsomely for Jacquelyn to be educated in an exclusive school. To her fellow students, the head-mistress passed Jacquelyn Wren off as a noble orphan with a secret benefactor and kept Isabella’s visits to a strict minimum. Jacquelyn acquired all the polish and accomplishments of a lady, but without the necessary pedigree she was unable to take her place among the nobility when she came of age.
She might as well have been reared to be an illiterate milkmaid.
The position of governess for the Drake girls brought her to Dragon Caern. It was as high a perch as she dared reach. When the Lady Helen died and Jacquelyn took over the duties of chatelaine in such an effortless manner, it seemed not to matter to the grieving residents of the castle that she couldn’t name her sire.
But since she couldn’t, Gabriel Drake wasn’t allowed to even consider her for his baroness. He would marry and another would take her place as Mistress of the Caern. For a fuzzy moment, she couldn’t decide which bothered her more. That her position as chatelaine would be forfeit to another.
Or that the new lord would take another lady to wife.
“Concentrate, Mistress.” Father Eustace’s voice called her back to the moment. “Your guard is spotty.”
It certainly was. Whatever had possessed her to return Gabriel’s kiss with such abandon in the garden? The taste of his mouth rushed back into her unbidden and she was shamed to find her lips tingling.
Father Eustace’s small-sword tip slipped under her guard, pressing against her padded shoulder. “Touché. If your purpose for study is self-defense, you are sadly in want of attention this day.”
“Perhaps it’s because she feels no real threat from you, Uncle,” Gabriel’s voice interrupted them.
Why had she allowed herself to think on him at all? Call up the devil and he will come.
When Jacquelyn turned to face him, he was already drawing his blade.
“Well, Jack, once again we meet where swords are crossed,” he said, running a thumb along the cutting edge of his foil to test its sharpness. “You’ve been schooling me right enough these past few weeks. Pinky out, napkin tucked, and let us not forget, the rarified language of the fan. Time for turn and turn about. What say you to another chance to gut me?”
“It would be my pleasure, my lord.”
“No, no, none of that, children.” Eustace hastened between them, corking the tip of both blades. “If you’re to practice, you’ll do it safely.”
“I’m not sure Miss Jack likes to play safely,” Gabriel said, his dark eyes snapping. He raised his sword and she lifted hers in answer. “In fact, even if I withdraw, I suspect she’s likely to rush in.”
He spread his arms to the side, baring his breast to her in an attempt to provoke an attack.
She suspected he was making a bald reference to that blasted kiss she’d pressed upon him. And the deuce of it was, he was right. He had pulled away from her lips in almost a gentlemanly manner, but something dark flared to life in her belly and come wrack or ruin, she had to kiss him again.
It was convenient to blame her mother for her loose behavior.
Unfortunately, it was not just. Even if Jacquelyn’s lustiness was an echo of her dame’s, it was not Isabella Wren who forced herself on Gabriel Drake. Isabella would have been too cunning for such a blatantly wanton display.
“The trick, darling,” her mother would always say, “is to lead the man to believe that he is taking the lead.”
Gabriel seemed to be leading right now, but it was none of Jacquelyn’s doing. He lifted a dark brow in question, daring her to engage him.
“Defend yourself, my lord,” she said in a silken tone laced with spurs.
“No, nephew. Not without proper padding,” Eustace said. “I’ll not have it.”
“You’ve nothing to say about it, uncle. This is between Mistress Wren and me. I may not be able to defend myself from those little hellions everyone assures me are my nieces, but if the day comes when I can’t face down an armed woman intent on doing me harm, I’ll slice my own throat.”
“Gabriel, caution is always wise,” Father Eustace began in a conciliatory tone. “As the Good Book says, ‘Pride goeth—“
“And so do you, uncle. Right now.” Gabriel cast him a black frown.
Eustace tossed an apologetic shrug to Jacquelyn, signed a benediction in the air between them and shuffled to the door. He paused with his hand on the knob.
“If the pair of you force me to administer last rites this day, I’ll see that you both spend a hundred years in purgatory—at the least!” The door slammed behind him.
“Father Eustace is right,” Jacquelyn said. “Suit up or I’ll concede and you’ll never know if you could have bested me.”
“I’ll take my chances. Besides, Mistress, give me credit for knowing you a little bit. It’s not in your nature to concede. Let’s make this interesting, shall we?” Gabriel said as he drew nearer. “A wager?”
“And what might I have that you care to win?” She circled slowly, looking for a weakness. “Last time you disarmed me, you seemed to think you had the right to carve up my clothing and unbutton my shirt. I suppose this time you expect I’ll forfeit my maidenhead.”
As soon as the words left her lips, she wished she could pluck them from the air and unsay them.
His brows shot upward. “An interesting idea, but no. The rare gift of a maidenhead is something that can’t be forfeit. Such treasure must be given or there’ll be no pleasure at all in the exchange for either of us.” His mouth spread in a slow, wicked smile as he mirrored her circular steps. “However, it pleases me no end that your thoughts are running in that direction, Jacquelyn.”
She growled low in the back of her throat and lunged. He parried her thrust and danced back a step.
“Tsk, Mistress. You’re rushing your fences again. Much as there is to commend unbridled passion, there’s more to be said for control.” He loosed a string of light blows that had her giving ground, though she turned his blade each time.
She drew a deep breath and returned his assault in a more measured and effective way.
“Much better,” he said with a smug grin. “I’m delighted to find you so apt a pupil.”
“Perhaps it is you who will be schooled, my lord,” she said with a deft flick of her blade that he barely managed to meet. “What is your wager?”
“First touch on the torso wins. If I manage to penetrate your defenses, all I demand is the truthful answer to one question,” he said.
She narrowed her eyes at him. Something about the way he said ‘penetrate your defenses’ made all sorts of unsuitable images spring to her mind
. The kind of images that made her nipples tingle. “And what might that question be?”
“Where’s the fun in that?” His sinful smile would have tempted a saint. “Not knowing is part of the wager. Do you accept?”
She nodded warily. “And if I win?”
“What do you want most?” his silky baritone rumbled through her.
You, a dark part of her clamored. His black eyes sent forbidden thoughts rushing through her brain and heat flared in her belly. An image burned across her vision . . . of the unpredictable, utterly male Lord Drake pressing her against the ancient stone walls . . . with her skirt hiked to her waist. She shook off her inner wanton and forced a scowl. Of the all men in the world for her to lose her battle with lust over, why must it be this bloody pirate?
“If I win,” she said, schooling her voice into bland evenness, “I want you never to seek private speech with me again.”
“An acceptable wager. Besides, speech is highly over-rated,” Gabriel said. “There are plenty of things we can do with each other that don’t involve talking at all.”
“You are purposely misunderstanding me,” she accused.
“No, I understand you far better than you think, Mistress.”
That’s what she feared most.
“In earnest, then.” Gabriel Drake brought his sword before his face in salute. “Defend yourself, Miss Wren, for this is a contest I don’t intend to lose.”
Chapter 10
In the flurry of steel that followed, Jacquelyn barely held her own. Through monumental concentration, she managed to turn his foil tip at the last possible moment whenever it chanced to slip beneath her guard.
“Bravely done,” he conceded after a particularly well-executed feint and riposte.
“Not yet,” she murmured through clenched teeth. “Your gut is still intact.”
He laughed. “Good thing I like bloody-minded little minxes, Jack.”
She clamped her lips tight. He was trying to rattle her with conversation when all her attention needed to be on his naked blade.
“Not so sure I like calling you Jack though,” he said as he turned with her as smoothly as if they were doing the minuet in a ballroom. “Not with a bosom such as yours. Nothing remotely Jack-like about you.”
“My bosom is none of your concern,” she said, unable to keep from retort or from the tingling heat that crept up from her bodice to spread over her neck and cheeks. “Jack is my name. Jacquelyn, Jack, it’s evens or odds. Perhaps you should settle on Mistress Wren, my lord. Though once I win, you’ll not need to call me anything at all, since you will not be speaking with me except in public.”
She launched a hail of blows that had them both breathing hard.
“No, Jacquelyn doesn’t suit either,” he said, ignoring her more proper suggestion as he parried her thrusts. “Jacquelyn is far too buttoned up for your sort.”
“My sort?” She drew in a panting breath. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Jacquelyn is a hard, brittle sort of name and even though you try not to let it show, you’ve much more softness about you than you want to admit.” He paused, the tip of his foil waving before her like an adder poised to strike. “Has no one ever called you Lyn?”
“Never.”
“Then I’ll be the first. Lyn.” His tone caressed the name and a strange warmth stirred in her chest. “I want to be the first for you. In everything.”
He moved so quickly, her eye couldn’t follow the blur, but suddenly her small-sword was flying across the room. It clattered to the floor and rolled to rest at the feet of one of the suits of armor.
She stood before him defenseless, his foil poised for the coupe. Her chin jutted up a notch.
“A gentleman would allow me to retrieve my sword so we could continue.”
“No doubt a gentleman would. Unfortunately for you, I’m a pirate.” he assured her. He closed the distance between them and slid an arm around her waist, pulling her tight against his hard chest. “I win.”
“There’s been no touché,” she protested. “Your foil has not touched my torso.”
He pulled open her protective padded jacket, exposing her décolletage. Her nipples hardened beneath the lace of her bodice. Jacquelyn couldn’t bring herself to move as he lowered his mouth. He pressed his lips to the tender skin over the slender bone that ran from the hollow of her throat to her shoulder. She trembled like a beech in a breeze.
“I didn’t say it had to be a foil touch.” He let his rapier drop and splayed a possessive hand over her right breast. “Touché, Lyn.”
She’d lost. Anger flare inside her. She drew back her arm and struck him across the cheek with all her strength.
He blinked in surprise, but didn’t release her. Instead he grabbed both her wrists, lifted them above her head and pinned her against the stone wall. She’d had a wicked fancy of him doing just such a thing, but the action was less romantic and far more frightening in real life.
And far more rousing than she would have believed.
With her arms raised, her bodice pushed her breasts up even more that usual. She suspected one or both of her pebble-hard nipples peeped from behind the Brussels lace at her neckline. The panniers that held her skirt away from her bare thighs usually gave her a sense of freedom of movement. Now, she felt acutely aware that, barring the stockings that were gartered at her knees, she was naked from the waist down beneath her broad skirt. A dull ache started at the apex of her thighs.
“Don’t your scruples give you pause before you strike your lord?” he asked.
“No more than yours stop you from ravishing your chatelaine.”
“So you think I’m about to ravish you?” The fierce hunger in his face when his gaze swept down her neck to her breasts made ravishment seem a foregone conclusion. “Good idea, but no. When I take a woman, it’s because she wants to be taken.” He met her eyes with a smoldering gaze. “You’re close, Lyn, but you’re not there yet.”
“My name is Jacquelyn,” she said.
“And yet to me, you’re Lyn,” he said in an almost tender rumble. He nuzzled her neck and stopped when his lips neared her ear. She tried to squirm away from him, but his one-handed grip on her wrists high over her head was firm. “Settle yourself, girl and it will be done with all the sooner. Time for the question.”
“Go ahead, then.” She’d almost forgotten her forfeit was the truthful answer to this unknown question. His warm breath sent shivers of pleasure down her neck, but she willed herself to stand perfectly still.
“It’s about what happened in the garden—”
“I suppose you want to know why I ran away.”
“No, I already know the answer to that.” He pulled back to look her square in the eye while his free hand traced the edge of her neckline, stopping when his fingers brushed an exposed nipple. He drew deliberate slow circles around her sensitive areola with his thumb. “You were afraid.”
“I’m not afraid of you.” The ache between her legs throbbed steadily.
“Perhaps you should be, but I hope not,” he said. “But in the garden, you weren’t afraid of me. You were afraid of yourself.”
Her snort of derision made her breasts jiggle and his eyes flared at their movement. She silently cursed herself for making things worse. He slid his hand down her bodice and came back out cupping her breast in his hot palm. He lowered his mouth to her taut nipple and teased it with his tongue.
Jacquelyn gasped. The lust in her groin shot from an ache to white-hot pangs. She caught herself arching her back, the better to present her needy breast to his mouth. She bit her lip to keep from pleading with him to suckle her and be done with it. Anything to stop the torment.
The question. He had a question for her. It might be her salvation.
“What did you want to know?” she managed to ask as she ground her teeth. “Your question . . .”
That brought his head back up and she nearly cried out at the sharp longing in her nipples. If she didn’t feel
his mouth on them again, tugging and demanding soon, she might go mad.
At least he pacified her breast with his hand, flicking the taut flesh as he leaned in to touch the side of her nose with his. His eyes were closed and his mouth was so close to hers, his breath feathered across her lower lip.
“I need to know why,” he said, his tone ragged. “After I let you go, why did you kiss me in the garden?”
Because I’m insane. Because I’ve inherited my mother’s lack of judgment about men. Because . . . A dozen answers sprang to her mind, all of them perfectly plausible. But only one of them true.
“Because I couldn’t bear not to.”
She felt his cheek lift in a smile. “Do you think you could bear to do it again?” he whispered.
“That makes two questions, my lord.”
“Who’s counting?” When he drew back and lifted a brow at her, she knew she was lost.
She raised herself on tiptoe, found his mouth and slanted hers across it. For a moment, he seemed content to let her set the pace and she embarked on a leisurely exploration of his lips. But when she slid her tongue into his open mouth, the kiss changed.
Command of their carnal odyssey shifted to him and he took possession of her mouth as if by right. To her surprise, Jacquelyn didn’t mind. She surrendered to his plundering tongue, gasping for breath when he released her mouth to trail his lips over her jaw, down her neck and straight as a plumline back to her aching nipples.
Far from stilling the need, his mouth at her breast made her want all the more. Outlandish things. Wicked, indecent things. Things her mother had told her about. She never dreamed she’d actually want a man to do them to her, but now they suddenly sprang into her mind. A second heartbeat pounded between her legs and she felt a spurt of moist warmth.
She groaned. She could no more control the helpless little noises of distress coming from her throat than she could stop the torrent of wanting that washed over the rest of her.
“Ah, Lyn, that’s it, lass. Sing for me.”
He released her wrists so he could palm both her breasts. She was free, but passion rooted her to the spot where her spine pressed against the cold stone. Instead, she buried her fingers in his hair, kneading his scalp, whispering urgent encouragement in disjointed sounds. It was no language known to man, but he seemed to understand her perfectly.