Love and Adventure Collection - Part 2

by Jennifer Blake

  He fell silent when they reached the hotel. With his hand under her elbow, he moved with her across the lobby and up one side of the double staircase. Lorna, trailing her fingers along the mahogany railing, was aware of his preoccupation as they reached the first landing and rounded the upper newel to mount the second flight of stairs. By the time they had mounted to the third floor, the feeling had become oppressive. She nodded to the uniformed Negro guard who stood in the hall halfway between the door of her room and the arched entrance to the piazza, murmuring a quiet good night. Tall and slender, but wiry, he answered respectfully. His gaze remained on the man at her side, however, a fact of which Peter, from his glance of irritation, was well aware. At her door, he took her key and inserted it into the lock, turning it. With his hand on the knob, preventing her entering, he said, “Lorna, I must talk to you.”

  “All right,” she answered.

  “Seriously, my love.”

  Something portentous in his manner warned her this would indeed be no light discussion, even as she heard the lilt of humor in his endearment. “Oh.”

  He sighed. “Your joy and anticipation unmans me, but I will persevere. Will you have dinner with me tomorrow night, here in the hotel dining room?”

  She stared up at him, meeting his dark blue gaze with an uncomfortable feeling of guilt. “You have been good to me, Peter, and I like you, but I hope I’ve given you no reason to think—”

  He shook his head. “Very little. But, I would as soon not discuss it here with your watchdog looking over my shoulder. Dinner?”

  “Yes, I suppose so.” How could she refuse so reasonable a request? She had the feeling that she should have done so, but it was too late now.

  He pushed open her door, then took her hands, pressing his lips to first one, then the other with an endearing lack of self-consciousness, for an Englishman. Releasing her, he stepped back. His voice low, he said, “Until then.”

  “Yes. Good night, Peter.”

  He did not reply, but stood watching her as she closed the door. It was a moment before she heard his footsteps receding, fading down the hall.

  It was a warm night, giving a hint of the summer to come. Lorna wandered to the washstand and put down her purse, then began removing her gloves. Throwing them down, she moved to the French doors and set them wide to the night air, leaving the jalousies open since there was so little wind stirring. She stood for a moment, staring out at the scattered lights of the city, watching the riding lights on a ship at anchor in the harbor, a coal barque from Newcastle she thought, ready to restock the bunkers of the ships in the harbor. Some of the runners would be leaving tonight, perhaps even the Lorelei.

  She swung from the French doors. She felt unsettled, on edge. She didn’t want to think of Ramon and his ship, or of Peter, of what had occurred this evening, or the untenable position in which she found herself. She wished with sudden fierceness for oblivion. The thought of laudanum drops, such as her aunt had sometimes given her daughters for headaches, toothaches, and their monthly cramping, registered briefly. She had none, however, and no way of getting any at this time of night. Perhaps a bath would soothe her disturbed senses and provide a degree of composure. It must at least help her to feel fresher.

  The only trouble was that after the long trek to the bathroom and her submersion in the tepid water, all that was available at that time of night, she was even wider awake than before. Wearing her nightgown of handkerchief lawn with small cap sleeves and a low-cut, tucked bodice fastened with tiny pearl buttons, she settled down beneath the mosquito netting to try to read.

  It was difficult at first, but slowly she became absorbed. Time crept past. At last, her eyes began to burn. Putting the book aside, she blew out the lamp, adjusting the sheet over the lower half of her body, and closed her eyes.

  As if at a signal, it began, the haunting melody of a guitar coming through the open doorway. Lorna sat up to listen. She had not heard it since her return from the run. She had missed it at first, that midnight serenade, then had thought no more of it. Now, the leashed passion of it seemed to strike inside her, tearing at her emotions. It soared in fervent rapture, then sank to throbbing anguish; it commanded and enticed, grated in vital dominance and shredded her heart with such piercing sweetness that she felt the rise of tears — and something more, the flaming touch of desire.

  Flinging herself back down on the bed, she caught her pillow and turned onto her stomach with it held over her head to blot out the sound. Still, she heard it, almost as if the sound could penetrate the sensitive surface of her skin, vibrating inside her mind, seeping into the marrow of her bones. She cringed inside, torn with a longing that she could not deny, with the need of one man. How could she feel so about him when she could not respect him, when she despised his grasping and cynical nature? It was degrading that she could not control her mental and physical responses. Memories stalked her of Ramon’s arms about her, his mouth upon hers, his hands.…With a stifled moan, she drew up her knees, curling into a ball, her raised arms pressing the pillow to her ears.

  She was not sure when the music stopped. Had it died away gradually or ended with an abrupt flurry of chords? The echoes of it seemed to resound in her ears still, though she knew it for nothing more than an errant fancy. Slowly, she rolled to her back. She released the pressure on the pillow, staring wide-eyed into the dark, listening. No, the serenade was over; she could sleep. Sighing, she relaxed and let her eyelids fall shut.

  The noise came a few minutes later. Like the rattle of metal against wood, it had a familiar sound. It seemed to come from outside, at some distance down the veranda, perhaps even on the piazza. Her brows drew together in a puzzled frown. She had heard something similar not too long before. It was not a common noise, not something you heard every day. Where had she heard it? When? She could not recall. How maddening, when it was such a simple thing. Lately, she had been here at the hotel, and aboard the Lorelei, of course. The squeaks and moans and rattles of a ship were a bit unusual, but fairly constant things. The whining and explosions of shelling had been new, startling, quite unlike anything….

  It couldn’t be. It couldn’t. Her mind was playing tricks. And yet, she would swear that rattle of metal on wood, suddenly cut off, was exactly like the sound made by the grappling hooks the federals had thrown to secure their small craft against the side of the Lorelei before boarding. Sharp-pronged, the grapnels had bitten into the wood of the deck railing before being pulled taut by their attached ropes.

  Her breath caught in her throat. She sat up, swinging her legs from the bed, starting toward the French doors. At that moment, a shadow moved in the opening, detaching from the darkness of the night, etched against the gray velvet of the sky. It was the height, the shape, of a man.

  She drew breath to scream. At that first soft sound, he swung toward her, launching himself at her white shape in the dimness. A hard arm snaked around her waist, bruising her ribs as he snatched her off her feet, dragging her backward against him. His hand clamped over her mouth, smothering her cry. She writhed in his arms, painfully aware of how powerless she was against his superior strength. Ignoring her struggles, he held her. She felt his chest shudder in what might have been a laugh of satisfaction. He leaned to whisper against her ear.

  “Is this any way to greet a dream lover?”

  16

  She went still. Ramon. Relief swept her, and with it the shock of outrage. Hard on their heels came the realization of what he had said. That foolish fantasy. Why in the name of heaven had she ever confided it to him? Why? It had become, in his skilled and callous hands, a weapon.

  “That’s better,” he murmured, and slowly decreased the pressure on her mouth, lifting his hand away.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

  “I came at the request of a lady.”

  His breath was warm against her cheek, his voice husky. He lowered his hand until it came to rest on the curve of her breast above the clasp of his forearm. Thr
ough the thin material of her nightgown, she could feel the hard pressure of the muscles of his legs against the backs of her thighs. The clean male smell of him was in her nostrils, along with the salt tang of the sea and the fresh scent of the night. Weakness crept along her limbs, an insidious thing, as if desire were a form of poison. Trying to banish its debilitating effects, she shook her head, so that her unbound hair dipped and swayed like a curtain of soft spun silk around her. “No.”

  “Oh, but yes.”

  “You are mistaken.”

  “No. Such a thing, I could not forget. And, if you say that you have, chérie, remember that I can feel your heartbeat, and if you lie I will know it.”

  Routed from her position before she had even taken it, she was forced to other defenses. Her voice cold, she said, “Let me go.”

  “So, you can scorn me and flay me with words. Never.” He rubbed his cheek against her hair, moving the fine strands aside to nuzzle her ear.

  “You … you think that this is all you have to do, to touch me, and my resolve will melt, so you can do as you will.”

  “It isn’t your resolve,” he said, his low voice etched with certainty, “that interests me.”

  Her body was on fire, and it was a desperate effort not to press, herself against him in surrender. From the depths of her self-disgust she cried, “But, I despise you!”

  “Don’t you think I know that.” The words were rasping as his hold tightened. “It doesn’t matter. I have no resolve, and little pride of the kind that would keep me from you. I am a man bewitched. The need of you is a torment beyond bearing. To stay away is more than I can do, though I tried.”

  “Oh, yes, you wanted to see me so badly that you could barely force yourself to go to the opera tonight with Charlotte Lansing instead!” Any weapon would do as a means of protection.

  “Were you jealous?”

  “I? Don’t be ridiculous!”

  “Why else should you mind?”

  His thumb was brushing the peak of her breast. She shivered. A ragged sound in her voice, she said, “I didn’t mind! I … I only meant to say that I don’t believe you have been pining for me.”

  “I was jealous,” he admitted, his voice pensive. “I could have seen Peter drawn and quartered with pleasure, have hanged him myself from the yardarm, or ordered him keel-hauled.”

  “Am I supposed to care? I want nothing to do with you. Nothing.”

  “Is that why your heart is fluttering like a wild thing under my hand?”

  “Get out,” she cried. “Get out and leave me alone!”

  “After going to such effort to come to you? How can you suggest it?”

  He shifted his grasp and she felt herself lifted with his arms beneath her knees. He turned toward the white bulk of the bed and strode to duck beneath the looped mosquito netting, placing her on the yielding surface of the mattress. The moment she felt its softness, she threw herself from him, sliding, reaching for the other side. He lunged after her, pinning her to the bed with his weight. With the fury of a cornered wildcat, she struck for his face. He turned his head so that her fingers sank into his thick hair. She closed her hand, only to have him catch her wrist, snatching her grasp free. He had her other arm beneath him. Shifting to put his knee across her flailing legs, he lowered his head then, seeking her mouth.

  His victory had been so easy. Panting with exertion, trembling with rage and something more that she refused to name, she waited until his lips touched hers, then she sank her teeth into the lower one.

  He jerked back, his elbow sliding on the satin length of her hair that was spread around them. He shifted, and his shoulder with his weight behind it pressed into her breast. She gave a soft moan of pain.

  Instantly, he pushed from her, swearing under his breath. He released her and wrenched himself to a sitting position on the side of the bed. A moment later, he came erect and moved to the French doors, where he stood in the opening with one hand braced on the frame and his head down, his breathing harsh.

  Over his shoulder, he said, “I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”

  With his retreat, his sudden freeing of her, she felt peculiar, almost as if she had been deserted. She drew her knee up and turned to her side to stare at his tall figure silhouetted against the sky in the window frame, at his square shoulders and bent head. As if the words were forced from heir, she said, “I know.”

  “I didn’t mean it now, nor that afternoon at Beau Repose, and especially not when I brought you to Nassau. It was just … something it seemed I had to do. You have every right to blame me, even to hate me.”

  With the threat of physical coercion removed, she could think rationally once more. She ran her tongue over her lips, sending him another swift glance. “I don’t — hate you, that is.”

  He turned slowly, his movements concentrated, as if he were weighing the sound of her words. “But, you blame me.”

  “Not entirely.” Honesty compelled the answer. If she had not gone riding that earlier afternoon, if she had turned and left the deserted house the instant she had heard the sound of his guitar, if she had stated plainly that she would not permit intimacies, then her position might now be different. It might, in fact, be worse.

  “I want you,” he said, the words strained. “The need of you is like a fever in my blood. I could force you to respond to me, or take my pleasure without it, but that isn’t what I want.”

  She could deny nothing he had said. Wasn’t the turmoil fading from her veins proof that he had only to touch her to bring forth a response, regardless of the strength of her will? And she could not claim that it was the frustration of being denied the pleasures of the body that drove her. Peter’s touch had left her unmoved beyond the warmth of compassion and friendship.

  Still, she said nothing; there were times when it was best not to press honesty too hard.

  His clothing rustled as he moved toward her. The foot of the bed sagged, the bed ropes complaining, as he put one knee upon it. “I would ask you to forget what has been between us. Pretend, if you will, that this is no more than a dream. Make me a part of it, chérie. Permit me to share your dream with you; only that, nothing more.”

  No doubt he meant what he said, for the moment. The trouble was that the moment would pass, and then what? His plea, passionate though it might be, had contained no hint of permanence; if anything, quite the opposite. And yet, the night was dark and soft, and the need to become lost in it strong. Given the flaws in his character and her reaction to them, was she certain she wanted to be with him always? If not, how could she fault him for not offering something she did not want?

  Even as she considered, he closed his warm hand upon her ankle. He sat down on the bed and leaned to rest his weight on his elbow, his thumb moving in slow circles upon the sensitive instep of her foot. It was an oddly soothing motion, certainly not as if he were touching her more intimately. She lay still, hearing the strength and timbre of his plea echoing in her mind. She did not want to deny it, but how could she agree? Whether from an urge to distract him, or herself, she finally spoke.

  “They say you will be making another run.”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight.”

  “So soon?”

  “It has to be soon or not at all.” His voice was steady. His fingers inched higher, stroking her ankle, circling it, his grip so sure that she felt it would be difficult to break. He bent his head and pressed his lips to the delicate arch of her instep. She felt the moist flick of his tongue.

  She controlled a shiver. “You … you will be going to Wilmington again?”

  “Uhmm.”

  His breath, ticklish and warm, touched her ankle. His tongue flicked the hollow just below it. So novel was the sensation that it was a moment before she realized his hand had crept higher, pushing aside the hem of her nightgown, massaging her calf and the turn underneath her knee.

  “Your cargo,” she said, grasping at a subject, “is it a dangero
us one?”

  “Hardware.”

  It sounded innocuous enough, but she knew that was the term used on the manifests of the runners to indicate arms and munitions consigned to the Confederate government. Her voice almost a whisper, she said, “Gunpowder?”

  “Not this time. And no bonnets.”

  The last barely penetrated the lassitude that had crept over her. “Are you certain it’s safe enough? The moon is nearly at the quarter already.”

  “Why? Are you worried that I might have to stay in Wilmington until the next dark moon?” His hands were upon her thighs, the heated wetness of his mouth at the bend of her knee.

  “It could happen,” she said, the words little more than a whisper, “if the reloading is slow.”

  “It won’t be, I’ll have to sail under a half moon, but will gain and leave port before moonrise.”

  “But, the risk!”

  “They won’t be expecting us. We’ll catch them napping.”

  “Ramon, no, I—” She scarcely knew to what she meant to object, his going, his calculations of the moon phases, or the insistent, invasive play of his hand.

  “Yes, chérie?” he mocked her gently, a husky note in his voice.

  The hem of her nightgown was at her waist, his touch, feather-light, ceaselessly caressing, was on her hips, while he gently nipped the tender skin of her inner thigh with his teeth. She moaned a low sound instantly stifled. She put her hand on his shoulder, trying to halt his upward progress. He paid no heed, and after a moment her fingers spread, closing on the knotted muscles she found there.

  His hold tightened, drawing her toward him, and he pressed his face to her, seeking and finding the warm, honeyed entrance to the depths of her body. He slid his hands to the slender indentation of her waist, spanning it, kneading, hovering over the fluttering muscles of her abdomen. Gently marauding, inescapable, they moved to the mounds of her breasts that shuddered with the pounding of her heart, fastening upon them, teasing the nipples until she was caught in a triangle of fire, her pulse leaping with molten desire.