THREE DESPERATE CHOICES: Brothers Mortmain Book 3

by North, Evie

  Gabriella found her eyes lingering.

  During the past few days she had seen Maddox in many different guises. She had seen him half undressed, in pain and vulnerable, speaking of private matters as he struggled with his fever. She had seen him rant and rave, calling everyone about him awful names, and she had felt his hands on her body and his mouth on her skin and learned that despite Terrence’s treatment of her she hadn’t learnt her lesson. She could still fall into the same trap with Maddox. He might be the son of an earl, but he was a man first, and a man she found herself becoming more and more attracted to.

  There was an edge about him, something dangerous, and although she knew she should put distance between them, her natural inclination was to get closer.

  As if he could read her thoughts, the man in question opened one eye and, raising his head slightly, looked directly at her. For a moment he stared and then he lifted a hand and beckoned her over. Like a sultan calling for his concubine, Gabriella thought irritably.

  She could have ignored him, she supposed, but he had seen her now, and she was his secretary. She stood up, smoothing her skirts, and made her way cautiously along the slippery deck to his side. She was used to the sway of the yacht now, so long as they weren’t in very rough weather. Some of the crew had joked with her, and told her she should have been a sea dog. They teased her, which made her laugh. She wasn’t sure which unknown ancestor she had gotten her sea legs from, but they had certainly come in handy.

  “Yes?” she asked when she reached Maddox.

  “Sit down,” he ordered in a voice that was half petulant and half weary, “you’re hurting my neck.”

  Gabriella sat down beside him. His injured arm was still bound, but she knew from her earlier inspection of it that the swelling was gone. Maddox was on the mend and she couldn’t help but wonder what that might mean for her. What if he’d changed his mind about his offer? What if he no longer wanted to employ her after all?

  He was watching her from beneath his dark lashes, which were ridiculously long for a man. Maddox was very handsome and it was difficult not to notice the fact, even when he was cursing and throwing up in a bowl.

  “How far are we from the coast?” he wanted to know.

  “A day or so. The captain says this fine weather will hold now.”

  “It appears you’ve made friends with the crew,” he said coolly, but again there was something in his tone that made her wary. “I hope they’ve been treating you with respect.”

  “Why yes!” she cried, surprised. “They have been very respectful.”

  “Good.” He turned his head to gaze out over the water, watching a sea bird duck and dive.

  She hesitated to broach her concerns, but now was as good a time as any. “I wondered about your plans, Sir. I mean, when we reach our destination.”

  He turned back to her, waiting for her to explain.

  “Plans for me. When you no longer need me to write your letters, I mean,” she added awkwardly, knowing she wasn’t being as coherent as she would have liked, but he was making her nervous. Her breath was coming more quickly and her heart was beating faster, and she had to tell herself to be calm.

  His pale eyes slid down over her mouth, then further, pausing on the open buttons of her bodice. He lingered, until she put her hand protectively against the small triangle of exposed skin.

  “What do you want to do?” he asked slowly.

  She stared back at him in shock. No one had ever asked her what she wanted to do before. She had never expected it. Never imagined it. Such things did not happen in her world.

  “What-what I want to do?” she echoed, stunned.

  “Yes, you,” he said as if it was nothing to him that he had just given her such a remarkable gift. “You are young and beautiful. Clever. You can do whatever you wish, can’t you? You and I are not confined by the mores of Society, not any longer. We have broken those bonds, Gabriella, simply by being together aboard this yacht. I am a wanted man and you were handed your notice because of a son who could not behave himself, only to fling yourself into the arms of an even worse scoundrel. Luckily you fell in with me, and now we have cut ourselves loose forever.”

  She hadn’t thought of it quite like that. When she thought about her future she had been imagining all sorts of dire circumstances, because how could she return to England and resume her previous life as a governess? She may find someone willing to overlook her disgrace but they would probably pay her a pittance. Her choices were limited, and yet Maddox seemed to think the world lay waiting like a ripe fruit at her feet.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered shakily. “I haven’t…I didn’t dare to think!”

  “Well it’s time you did,” he said briskly, and closed his eyes again, dismissing her.

  9

  MADDOX

  Gabriella hovered by his side He could hear her breathing. As if she was waiting for him to open his eyes and tell her it was all a joke and no, he wasn’t going to set her free from a life that, as far as he could gather, had been cruel and unfair up until now.

  The idea that he could help her escape that life was a warm ache inside his chest. Her surprised and delighted smile made him want to smile too. Maddox had never done anything quite so unselfish before. And it felt good.

  And at the same time he was wondering what he had done to her when he was racked with fever that made her approach him so warily across the deck.

  “Mr Hawley?” she murmured. “Maddox?”

  He pretended to be asleep and eventually heard her sigh and then move away. Alone now, or as alone as was on a yacht in the middle of the sea, he tensed the muscles in his arm until it began to ache. Definitely getting better, he decided with relief. Cadiz had informed him that without Gabriella’s care and attention he would probably have been food for the fishes by now.

  He owed her his life. Perhaps her impromptu arrival in his room at the inn had been a miracle in disguise. If she thought she owed him for rescuing her, then he owed her far more.

  The salty air was cool against his skin, while the sun was warm, and he let himself drift with the simple pleasure of being alive. He told himself he was doing the right thing, and if occasionally his eyes opened a slit so that he could watch her as she chatted with the crew or laughed at something one of them said, he pretended it was merely out of concern for her.

  Certainly not lust or want. There was also an odd twisted feeling in his stomach which reminded him that although he had said he would protect her, he was the last person she should look to for protection. Maddox knew himself to be a selfish man but he was trying to be better. It just wasn’t easy.

  One of the younger crewmen seemed to be particularly attentive to Gabriella, and Maddox moved restlessly. His eyes were open more often than not now as he watched his secretary smiling at the boy. Her eyes sparkled and her dark hair was tangled around her face, the breeze tossing it into her eyes. She reached up to tuck it back at her nape, twisting the curling strands into a knot. Raising her arms like that drew her bodice tight across her breasts, outlining them in a way that made Maddox catch his breath.

  He was hard. He shifted in his nest of blankets and tried to pretend he wasn’t, but that only made him irritable and annoyed with himself and the world in general. Why was he suddenly desiring the one woman he had deliberately put beyond his reach?

  The boy continued to linger by Gabriella’s side, obviously smitten with her. Maddox tried to ignore it, forcing his eyes closed, trying to concentrate on the warmth of the sun and his recovering body. And he knew now he would recover. The brothers Mortmain were as strong as steel blades, even if they were inclined to behave in ways their father deplored.

  The thought made him smile, only to have his pleasant interlude interrupted by Gabriella’s laughter.

  His eyes shot open and he saw the boy leaning down toward her, so close he was almost touching her, and suddenly Maddox had had enough.

  It was an effort, but he rose to his feet. Several
of the crew looked over at him in surprise and then, as if reading the expression on his face, passed a glance amongst themselves. Good, he wanted them to be worried.

  He took a step and then another, and suddenly he was only a few feet from Gabriella and her would-be beau. Startled, she looked up, and for a second her face brightened as if she was glad to see him. Or glad to see him on his feet anyway.

  And then her eyes clouded and flicked away, as if she was remembering something that made her uneasy. Or afraid. He didn’t have time to ponder yet again what that meant. He was too busy staring at the boy.

  “I don’t pay my crew to spend their time gossiping,” he said in a cold, hard voice.

  The boy stammered something by way of an apology. He was barely old enough to shave, his cheeks smooth as a girl’s, but Maddox didn’t let that sway him. He’d looked the same when he had his first girl, or was it his second?

  Gabriella’s surprised gaze darted between them, and then her dark eyes narrowed on him. “Mr Hawley, I thought this yacht was your father’s,” she said.

  “My father doesn’t approve of the crew gossiping either.”

  “Your father isn’t here, and we weren’t gossiping.”

  She seemed to regret the words as soon as they were spoken, because she bit her lip and looked away.

  “Sir, is there a problem?”

  The captain had noticed and come up behind them. Maddox nearly lost his balance as he turned to face him and stumbled slightly. The man reached to steady him but, seeing the look on Maddox’s face, took his hand away.

  “One of your crew is overstepping the mark, Captain. That is the problem.”

  He looked at Gabriella and then the boy. He cleared his throat. “I didn’t realise you had a prior claim, sir. I’ll deal with it.” And he jerked his head at the boy, who followed him away down the deck.

  “It’s nothing to do with having a prior claim,” Maddox muttered to no one in particular. The deck seemed to be moving more violently than before and he reached out to hang on to something, but there was nothing there.

  “Maddox!” Gabriella squeaked, as he fell across her lap.

  His face was somewhere warm, soft, and it took him a moment to realise he was pressed into her skirts, over the intimate notch between her thighs. Her hands were fluttering over him, touching first his head, then his shoulders, and she kept asking him if he was all right.

  Maddox decided then that he was very much all right. In fact, he was perfect. He could smell her sweet scent, that womanly perfume that had nothing to do with what came out of a bottle. He groaned.

  He forced himself to turn over. Her beautiful face was above him, her eyes full of concern. She was silhouetted against the blue sky and as he stared he asked himself if he had ever seen a sight quite like it.

  “Maddox?” she said again, her voice shaky as she stroked his dark hair from his brow. She rested her cool palm upon his skin, as if testing whether the fever had returned.

  “I’m well,” he heard himself say, even knowing that he wasn’t.

  The fever wasn’t the problem. He knew he was recovering. No, the problem was he wanted to kiss her, and then he wanted to lead her down into his cabin and strip her bare. And after that he wanted to keep her there until he’d tasted every delicious inch of her.

  The revelation shocked him back to his senses. Maddox struggled to sit up, but she was helping him, and so were some of the crew. He told them to stop fussing and moved away as soon as he felt steady enough, muttering about going below.

  Despite his complaints, he was relieved when Cadiz arrived to assist him. As they negotiated the stairs, he told himself that his strange reaction was probably due to the lingering effects of the fever. He’d made a vow to leave Gabriella alone, but it shouldn’t be this difficult.

  Women were women, and he’d known many over the years. None of them had meant more than the others. Not that he was ever cruel. He wasn’t a cruel man, just a thoughtless one. He could truthfully say that his heart had never been engaged.

  And Gabriella was not about to change that.

  10

  GABRIELLA

  Maddox was out of sorts. She didn’t know why, but he hadn’t flashed her that charming smile of his for over a day now, not since the incident on deck. He’d been avoiding her, relying on Cadiz for most of his needs. The cabin boy had been avoiding her too, although in his case she understood why he may not want to seek out her company.

  Why did Maddox behave in that way? Did he really consider her reputation in danger—and now she came to think of it, what reputation?—or was he simply staking a claim on her, as the captain believed.

  He’d said his offer of work didn’t come with strings attached, but his actions seemed to suggest that he wasn’t being entirely honest with her. Or was she wrong? Maybe he really did consider her under his protection in the nicest of ways and was looking out for her. Like a father or a brother, like a friend.

  That last thought made her uncomfortable. Not because she didn’t appreciate it, but because there was a conflict inside her that she hardly dared let herself think about in private, let alone speak aloud.

  She didn’t want him to be her brother or her friend.

  Maddox Hawley did things to her heart and body that reminded her of Terrence and yet were so very different. Her previous experience faded into nothing in comparison to what Maddox could do with just one look, one word, one touch. Even thinking about him made her yearn in a way she knew could not bode well for a trouble free future with him.

  It was foolish to imagine he would feel the same for her. If he did guess her feelings, would he turn from her in disgust, or would he use her as Rattray had wanted to? She didn’t want to believe he was that sort of man, but he was the son of an earl, and she was a disgraced governess and an orphan. She didn’t need to be terribly clever to understand she could not have him in any other way. There could be no happy ending for them.

  The best idea might be to avoid him as much as possible until they arrived in Italy, especially when Cadiz was taking over many of her nursing duties. But on a yacht it wasn’t always possible. On deck it was fine, and when Cadiz was in the cabin with them she could maintain a proper distance, but whenever they were alone she feared she would give herself away.

  That moment came all too soon. Gabriella was leaving her cabin and came face to face with Maddox in the cramped decks below. It was gloomy here, and she didn’t notice at first that he was bare chested, his dark hair wet and dripping, and his skin clean and salty from his sea water bath. He must be making his way back from his morning ablutions up on deck.

  As if they had a will of their own, her eyes skimmed over his chest, over the tight hard muscles of her stomach, down to where his breeches hung low on his slim hips. Her heart began to pound, and the tips of her breasts tightened with a needy ache. From nowhere came a memory of Maddox’s mouth on her when she first met him in the inn at Dover. The taste and heat, the brush of his tongue against hers. She knew she was in desperate trouble even before she realised he was taking up the whole corridor and there was no way past.

  “Mr Hawley,” she said idiotically. Perhaps she could squeeze along the wall beside him, or shove his chest? And yet both would mean touching his warm, muscled body, and she was not sure she would survive it.

  “Gabriella,” he said. His pale eyes had narrowed and slid down over her mouth as far as her breasts before returning. As if he knew exactly what she was feeling.

  She jerked her gaze up to his but even that wasn’t safe. Something in those blue depths seemed to draw her in, swallow her up, until she couldn’t think straight.

  “Did you need me for anything?” she asked.

  A crease appeared in his brow. A bead of water dripped from his wet hair, running down his chest until it caught in the line of dark hair that ran from his belly button into his breeches. She found herself watching it all the way, until suddenly realising what she was doing and her gaze jerked up to his again.


  He smiled that smile she had missed and lost any hope she might have had of behaving in a cool and rational manner. What was wrong with her that he could disconcert her so quickly and so easily? What power did he have over her?

  “That’s a dangerous question,” he said with another wicked grin. “It brings to my mind all sorts of possibilities.”

  “Does it?” He was teasing her, or that was what he wanted her to believe. She felt awkward and uncomfortable in case he read what was really in her mind.

  “Of course. You must know how beautiful you are, Gabriella.” He raised an eyebrow. “The crew certainly think so.”

  Remembering the way he had behaved when the cabin boy was flirting with her, Gabriella grew flustered. “The other day on deck, you seemed to think… that is, you must know I would never…”

  He frowned. “I was reminding the crew that you were my employee, that was all,” he said. “In case they took advantage. As you are my employee and under my protection, I was concerned for your welfare, Gabriella.”

  Her eyes dropped to his chest again. His hard, lean body, so different from hers, fascinated her. She knew she needed to leave and as soon as possible, but her feet seemed stuck.

  She heard him sigh. “Gabriella,” he murmured quietly. “Are you afraid of me?”

  She shook her head without meeting his eyes. She dared not. What if he saw what was in her heart? What if he remembered what he had done to her in the cabin and knew how much she had enjoyed it? He would begin to believe Lord Rattray’s lies about her lack of morality and for some reason it was important that Maddox think well of her.

  “You are afraid of me,” he said in a level tone. “You needn’t be. I won’t hurt you. I promise. I don’t bite. You can even touch me, if you want to.”