Benoît’s hands tightened on her shoulders.
‘His blindness has made him bitter?’ he said quietly.
Angelica nodded mutely.
‘I wondered.’ Benoît sounded said, but not surprised. ‘Some of the things you’ve said. You’re desperate to get Harry back, aren’t you?’
‘He’s always so cheerful…optimistic,’ Angelica whispered brokenly. ‘Nothing I’ve done has made any difference.’
Then she finally responded to the steady pressure of Benoît’s hands and allowed him to turn her into his embrace. She rested her head against his shoulder, trying not to give way to tears. There was no time for this conversation. Benoît had to go to London, and she had to stay and take care of Adam.
She felt Benoît stroking her hair and wished she could prolong the moment. She longed to tell him everything that had happened since the Earl’s accident. All the bitter recriminations, the angry words—the despair. But even now she could not bring herself to do so. She lifted her head and met Benoît’s steady gaze.
“He’s not…easy…to speak to,’ she said with some difficulty. ‘You must be prepared for many changes in him. I hope—’ She broke off. ‘It would be better if I could come back with you,’ she said, ‘but I know you must reach London as quickly as possible. Tell Papa I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t worry.’ Benoît’s arms tightened around her reassuringly. ‘I’ll explain everything to him. Lord Ellewood need never know you followed me tonight. I’ll tell him that Admiralty business prevented me from escorting you home straight away—which is true. I will take you home as soon as I get back to Sussex.’
Angelica smiled: then she glanced down, biting her lip. She was grateful for Benoît’s quiet assurance. She believed he probably could make things right with the Earl. But his words had forced her to think of the future, and she knew how hard she was going to find it to go back to a life in which he had no part. She would wait with the Earl for Benoît to bring Harry back to them—and then what? Would she see Benoît again? Or would he consider his promise to Lord Ellewood had been kept and sail away on the next tide?
‘Angelica?’ he said, softly questioning.
She summoned a smile and looked up at him.
‘I’m sure you’ll know just what to say to Papa,’ she said confidently. ‘Benoît…’ She hesitated, focussing her attention on one of his shirt buttons. ‘I’m sorry for the problems I’ve caused you tonight,’ she continued breathlessly, after a moment. ‘But I’m not sorry I came. It has been an…adventure.’
‘You haven’t caused me any problems,’ he said, and his voice sounded very deep. He sighed. ‘I really must go,’ he said regretfully.
He bent his head to kiss her, and Angelica lifted her hand to touch his face, feeling the rough stubble beneath her fingers because naturally he hadn’t shaved.
Benoît had meant it only as a light, farewell kiss, but as his lips met hers a tide of strong emotion swept over both of them. His arms locked around her and Angelica forgot her exhaustion and all her anxieties as she responded to him.
The events of the night had been so fantastic that they bore no relation to anything she had previously experienced. The shabby inn room contained no reminders of her status or the conduct normally expected of her. There was nothing to inhibit her instinctive response to the man she loved.
And she did love him. He was her embodiment of life and adventure. There could be no other man like him. She could taste the sea salt on his lips, and her spirit soared with elation. The unquenchable vigour in his hard, masculine body was intoxicating: she pressed eagerly against him, unashamedly matching the intensity of his desire.
Benoît moulded her vibrant body with sensitive hands, rousing her to new heights of excitement. She murmured wordlessly, her slim fingers pressing into his shoulders in a strong, convulsive grip as he kissed her just below her ear. She lifted her chin, gasping with pleasure as his lips and tongue explored the soft flesh of her neck and shoulder.
Her petticoat was far more revealing than any dress she normally wore, but she felt no shyness as his lips continued their downward investigation. She quivered in his arms, new currents of delight pulsing through her as his kisses alternately scorched and soothed the tender, exposed curves of her breasts.
The small fire in the grate provided little warmth, but Angelica was burning with the sensations Benoît awakened within her. The cool air against her damp skin only heightened her arousal.
She did not protest when Benoît picked her up in a swift, urgent movement and carried her to the bed. He laid her down gently, and sat beside her, his hand resting on her waist. Her heart beat a tattoo of excited anticipation and she looked up at him with open trust and love in her eyes.
His black hair glinted in the candlelight, and she could see his lean face was tense with desire as he leant towards her. She lifted her hand to touch his cheek, glorying in her freedom to reach out to him so spontaneously.
He turned his head, catching her fingers between his lips and biting them gently. Then he slid his hand up from her waist to cup her breast. Angelica caught her breath, her eyes locked with his. More than anything she longed to feel his touch against her naked skin, with no barriers between them.
The electric moment lengthened almost unbearably; and then Benoît bent to kiss the hollow between her breasts.
Angelica arched her back instinctively, lifting herself towards him, He slipped an arm beneath her shoulders—but then he paused, his rough cheek resting gently against her soft flesh. She could feel his warm breath against her skin.
She put her hands behind his head, feeling the sticky salt in his hair, holding him against her. Her body was crying out with longing for him to continue his lovemaking. She had been swept along by the riptide of their passion, and she felt frustrated by his delay.
But then he drew in a deep, shuddering breath, and sat up.
‘You’re a dangerous woman, my lady,’ he said unsteadily, a glimmer of wry amusement in his dark eyes, and she realised that he had been fighting to regain control of his raging emotions.
‘I am?’ she murmured, her eyes locked with his, a provocative smile teasing her lips as she stretched her neck and shoulders luxuriously.
She felt both disappointed, yet incredibly moved by his efforts to control his desire for her.
‘Like playing with fire,’ Benoît almost groaned.
He reached out to stroke her cheek as if he couldn’t help himself, but he didn’t kiss her again. She could sense the fierce struggle he was having to contain his ardour, and she was amazed at how desperately she wanted to tell him that his restraint wasn’t necessary. Only a deep-rooted shyness and some remaining shred of decorum prevented her.
He sighed, turning his head to brush the soft skin of her inner arm with his lips, sending rivulets of delight chasing through her veins.
‘I always thought I was a man governed by self-discipline and reason,’ he said wonderingly, ‘but at this moment it would take very little to make me abandon both sense and duty. What have you done to me, my lady?’
‘I don’t know.’ Angelica smiled mistily, unbelievably happy at his admission. Surely it meant he would not leave her when he had rescued Harry. ‘What have you done to me, sir?’
‘Nothing,’ Benoît said quietly. ‘I have never known such a passionate, high-couraged woman.’
He gripped her wrist gently for a moment, then he stood up, startling Angelica with the abruptness of his action.
‘I will speak to your father as soon as I have been to the Admiralty,’ he said more briskly. ‘Don’t worry, Angelica. I’m sure that when Lord Ellewood knows Harry is coming home, he’ll feel more like his old self.’
‘I hope so.’ A shadow crossed Angelica’s face as she thought of her father. She sat up. ‘Benoît…?’
She felt confused. Not certain what was happening. One moment she was being carried along on the greatest surge of passion she had ever known—the next Benoît was calmly te
lling her he was going to visit her father. Was there a connection between those two things? Or…?
‘I must go,’ he said softly. ‘Sleep well, mon amour. But make sure you put on the nightdress I obtained for you, and get under the covers before you do so. Otherwise you will be extremely cold when you wake up!’
‘Now you sound like my old nurse!’ Angelica protested, her heart singing as she just realised he had called her his love.
Benoît laughed, sounding unbelievably lighthearted.
‘If I didn’t have to go urgently to London, I might throw caution to the winds and demonstrate some of the essential ways in which I differ from your old nurse!’ he retorted. ‘Good night, Angelica.’
He turned and went swiftly out of the room, leaving her alone in the glow of the firelight. She could hear the wind rattling at the shutters, and there was a cold draught blowing around her shoulders, but until that moment she hadn’t noticed it. She turned her head to look around at the barely furnished room. It contained none of the luxuries she was used to, but it provided her with everything she needed—except Benoît.
Chapter Seven
The day was well advanced when Angelica woke up. For a few moments she felt bewildered by her strange surroundings, unsure of what had happened the night before. She was only aware of an unspecified glow of happiness. Then she remembered.
It was hard to believe that it wasn’t just a dream. Had she really done all the things she remembered doing? Most importantly of all, was she right when she hoped and believed that she meant as much to Benoît as he meant to her? She replayed their final conversation in her mind, reassuring herself as she remembered the expression in his eyes, the loving touch of his hands and those last few words he’d uttered before he’d left:
‘Sleep well, mon amour.’
Benoît didn’t say things he didn’t mean. She smiled happily and pushed back the bedcovers, ready for the next part of the adventure.
The fire had long since gone out and the room was bitterly cold. She gasped, shivering convulsively, then winced as she sat up, because her muscles ached from her unaccustomed exertions of the previous night.
She climbed resolutely out of bed and washed as well as she could with the icy water in the jug on the wash-stand. Then she grimaced at her reflection in the tarnished mirror. She hadn’t realised just how muddy and bedraggled she was until she saw herself.
Her hair was a tangled disaster, her stockings ruined, her petticoats damp and grubby, and the half-boots unwearable. The riding habit was in little better condition.
Benoît had spread it over the chair to dry, but it was still damp and unpleasant to touch. She beat out as much of the mud and sand as she could, but wearing it was an unenticing prospect. Unfortunately, she didn’t have much choice. She flinched as the clammy wool touched her skin, then buttoned it up decisively.
At last she sat down and contemplated the wreckage of her hair. There was a comb beside the water jug. She picked it up and tried to drag it through her knotty curls. After nearly half an hour she finally managed to reduce her hair to some kind of order, but her eyes were watering from the discomfort and her arms ached from holding them above her head so long.
She let her hands drop into her lap and wondered what she was going to do now. She’d retrieved a few hair pins, but it was a mystery to her how she was going to put her hair up and make it stay up. She almost wished Martha was with her, but that was defeatist thinking. After all she’d accomplished the previous night, she wasn’t about to let a little thing like doing her own hair stand in the way of her newfound independence.
She persevered until she’d achieved a result she wasn’t entirely unsatisfied with, and then wondered what to do next. No one had come near her, and although she knew she wasn’t supposed to draw attention to herself, she was very hungry. She was also concerned about Adam.
She got up and went to the door, listening to see if she could hear anything, then she opened it a crack. Voices floated up from the taproom downstairs, but the landing was empty. She slipped out of her room, down the corridor and into Adam’s room like a wraith in her bare feet.
There were two men in the chamber and they both looked up sharply as the door opened. Adam was lying in the bed, his face pale and strained; Thomas the groom was sitting beside him on an upright wooden chair.
Thomas leapt to his feet as Angelica came in, then visibly relaxed as he saw who it was.
‘Good afternoon, my lady,’ he said gruffly, not sounding particularly pleased to see her.
‘Hello, Thomas,’ Angelica replied.
She had been momentarily startled to see the groom, but now she realised Benoît must have sent him to take care of Adam.
She walked over to the bed, her long skirts dragging across the floor.
‘How are you?’ she asked Adam, studying him carefully and a little anxiously.
‘I’ll do.’ He smiled and held out his hand to her. ‘I’m sorry you had such an uncomfortable time of it last night, my lady.’
In the background, Thomas snorted disparagingly, and Angelica saw a small smile flicker in Adam’s eyes as he returned her gaze. She turned to look at the groom.
‘That was a fine trick you played on me, your ladyship!’ he said truculently, a scowl in his eyes. ‘And Martha! A tricksy, meddling, deceitful—!’
‘Oh, no!’ Angelica protested instinctively.
‘I’m not normally one to speak out of place,’ the groom continued, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘But I tell you to your face, my lady, I’ll not be made a game of like this! Jaunting about the countryside as if you were in Hyde Park. And who do you think would have been blamed if anything had happened to you—that’s what I’d like know!’
Angelica flushed guiltily.
‘I acted on the spur of the moment,’ she said placatingly. ‘I’m sure no one would have blamed you, Thomas.’
‘Made a right fool of me, she did,’ he grumbled, unappeased.
‘Oh, no! I’m sure she didn’t mean you to feel like that!’ Angelica protested, realising that Martha’s diversionary tactics had seriously hurt Thomas’s pride. ‘It was just…’
‘Blind loyalty to you!’ Thomas said grimly.
Angelica bit her lip. She had no idea how Martha really felt about the groom, and she didn’t think it would be sensible to make false claims on her maid’s behalf, but she did feel guilty about Thomas.
‘In a right stew, she was, when the horses came home without you,’ he said, with grim pleasure. ‘Only way I managed to stop her following me today was to threaten to tie her up. And she still made me bring some things you might be needing!’
He gestured to a nondescript bag on the floor.
‘Poor Martha,’ said Angelica guiltily. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to give everyone such a fright.’
She lifted her eyes and looked at the groom as she spoke. Her luminous blue eyes were clear and sincere as they met his.
He grunted wordlessly.
‘You’d best sit down,’ he said grudgingly, offering her the chair. ‘Though this is no place for the likes of you, my lady.’
Angelica laughed.
‘I know you don’t mean that!’ she exclaimed. ‘You’re probably thinking that it serves me right!’
The groom looked at her for a few seconds, then he smiled, very grudgingly.
‘When it’s dark I can take you back to Holly House if you like,’ he said. ‘We can go out the back way.’
‘What about Adam?’ Angelica asked immediately, glancing at him in concern. ‘Surely Ben—Mr Faulkener—sent you to look after him?’
Adam pulled a face.
‘I can look after myself,’ he said.
Angelica turned back to the groom, a question in her eyes.
‘There’s a nasty wind blowing,’ he said immediately. ‘I wouldn’t want you to take sick on top of everything else, my lady. And Joe—that’s the innkeeper—his wife died a while back. He hasn’t time to keep coming up here.’
‘Be my guest,’ said Adam grandly. ‘I haven’t much of an appetite at the moment, I’m afraid.’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ said Thomas, and went quietly out of the room.
‘You don’t need to stay,’ said Adam, when he’d gone. ‘Thomas is just being overcautious. No one’s going to bother me here. And even if they do,’ he added carelessly, ‘there’s nothing you can do to help.’
Angelica had been eating the bread and cheese as quickly as she respectably could, but at Adam’s dismissive words she lifted her eyes and looked at him steadily over a distance of some six feet.
‘I hope I’d be of some use to you, sir,’ she said coldly, a hint of unfamiliar imperiousness in her usually friendly voice. ‘I’m not accustomed to allowing anyone ride rough-shod over me—smugglers, magistrates, or French agents!’
She stared at him uncompromisingly. Her eyes were implacable blue sapphires, her back was straight and her carriage regal. Her bare feet, dirty riding habit and untidy hair did nothing to diminish the force of her personality as she confronted him.
Adam drew in a deep breath.
‘My apologies, Lady Angelica,’ he said after a moment. ‘I did not intend to offend you. I should have known better. Forgive me.’ He held out his hand to her.
‘Of course.’ She took it and shook it briefly. ‘I have a quick temper sometimes, particularly when I’m hungry,’ she added ruefully. ‘I didn’t mean to be so overbearing.’
‘You’re a very unusual woman,’ said Adam, looking up at her curiously. ‘Did you really follow Ben just because he was wearing a black cravat?’
Claire Thornton Page 15