“Don’t offer largesse to a rogue unless you mean it, angel,” he said fiercely, tucking her with him into a fold of the blanket.
He captured her chin in his palm and turned her mouth up to his.
Chapter 7
His cold mouth pressed against hers, drinking in her warmth, plundering her generosity. A kiss with a searing depth of passion.
Prudence was caught in a tangle of muslin, crushed against his naked chest, while the ice melted away in the flame where their lips met.
Through the thin fabric of her nightgown, intense fire burned from his skin into hers. They fell back together against the canvas, while Hal’s lean fingers ran boldly over her shoulders and down her back, following the curves of her waist and hips. He kissed her neck and the corner of her jaw, then ran his tongue down to the pulse at the base of her throat and suckled there, like a child. She knew only enchantment, the rapture of it, and moaned softly into his damp hair. This was so very, very, lovely.
She did not know that she returned his embrace, until she discovered for the first time the delectable feel of a man’s muscles under her hands, and the softness of the fine down that curled over his chest. He was so firm and smooth. It was so delightful to touch him. She wanted to discover everything about him, all of his mysteries and all of his subtlety.
With her hands and with her body, Prudence longed to know how and why he was so different, to discover all of his powerful, masculine secrets.
“What the hell is all this damned muslin?”
His voice was a soft rumble of amusement as he bit gently at the lobe of her ear. His hands were caught up in the voluminous folds of fabric.
Prudence knew to her shame that she wanted to tear open the buttons at the neck of her nightgown and let his sensitive fingers explore where they would. Her breasts ached. Surely only his touch would assuage that?
Yet he released her. Holding her firmly by the shoulders, he kissed her once in the center of her forehead.
“Sweet, foolish Prudence.” He was breathless, but healing laughter seemed to well up in him once again. “Your name belies you. There is nothing you can learn from a rake, dear kind soul, except the road to ruin. I wish you would slap me as hard as you can, marry a fine upstanding fellow with a brace of hounds and a house in the country, and send him after me with a double-barreled shooting piece. I deserve death in a ditch for this, and the wind wailing over me.”
“I don’t understand!” It was almost a sob.
The gentleness in his voice threatened to break her heart. “Don’t try, please, to understand. Go to bed. I shall sleep outside.”
Hal pushed her into the little nest under the canvas and pulled the covers over her, before he thrust back out into the cold night. He picked up the abandoned blanket and dropped away out of sight.
Prudence silently cried herself to sleep once again, as cold water slapped in a slow rhythm against the boat.
* * *
The next morning Hal walked along the towpath with the two boys and the horses, leaving Prudence on the narrow boat. In the clear, innocent light of morning, the entire encounter of the previous night felt like a dream.
He had treated her with a warm, gentle courtesy over breakfast, putting her at ease and allowing her almost to believe that it had never happened. Yet she had no desire to talk with Sam, who stood silently at the tiller, so she sat at the front of the boat and—for Bobby’s sake—did her best to act the dutiful wife.
Prudence didn’t want to meet Hal’s eyes, or allow herself to see anything of what he was feeling, but she was mending his jacket.
You hardly notice the way your eyes are sometimes green and sometimes brown, or that your eyelashes are two shades darker than your brows.
There was no decent mirror on the narrow boat. And anyway, it was nonsense. The practiced, deceitful nonsense of a rake. Prudence stabbed the needle blindly back toward the rent in his coat. Something hard turned it aside.
Or that if you smile there is the most enchantingly severe dimple in your left cheek.
How could he! She had been perfectly content with her life as a governess, before he had opened those eyes that reflected the sky and thought to amuse himself by tormenting her.
She pulled the needle out of his jacket, then rammed it back. The needle struck the obstruction again. How very odd!
Prudence felt carefully along the seam. Yes, there! A distinct lump in the fabric. This was the jacket that Hal had been wearing on the beach, the sailor’s jacket that no gentleman would dream of wearing. The jacket he had worn with the rough trousers—although now she knew that beneath them lay the undergarments of a gentleman.
Nothing about him made sense. Why on earth would he have lumps in his clothing? Without compunction, Prudence picked apart the stitches along the seam. In seconds she had uncovered a tiny, tight roll of oilskin.
Her fingers shook a little as she unrolled it. The oilskin contained a slip of paper with a set of odd symbols written across one side. Some were letters or numbers. Others were signs that seemed totally occult to her.
She had not known what or who he was, but she had been enthralled, hadn’t she? As fascinated by him as if he really were an alien creature from a fairy tale, the silkie who shed his skin to rear up at the foot of a lady’s bed in the shape of a man, then leave her with child, desolate.
The paper burned in her fingers. The writing might as well have been the witless scribbling of the wee folk, for none of the symbols made any sense.
Prudence clutched her hands together in her lap. This was proof. Proof that Hal was indeed something extraordinary. For ordinary people did not appear mysteriously on beaches in Scotland when no regular passenger ship had gone missing. Ordinary people did not wear the underwear and boots of the wealthy with the outer garments of the poor.
And ordinary people did not carry secret messages concealed in their clothes.
She tried to remember exactly what Hal had been telling Sam. For it was obvious that the paper was in code, and Hal had brought it from France just as Napoleon was leaving Elba. Which meant that Hal was either a spy or a traitor, or very possibly both.
She glanced up at him where he walked ahead with the boys. With those elegant, clever, gentleman’s hands he took Bobby around the waist and tossed him onto the back of one of the horses. The child’s squeal of delight echoed across the water.
Prudence quickly folded the paper and slipped it inside her own pocket, until she could decide what on earth to do about this appalling discovery.
* * *
Three days later, in a deathly silence broken only by the insistent ticking of the large clock on the mantelpiece, Lord Belham received the news that his quarry had dropped off the face of the earth. They had been seen last in Liverpool—and then nothing.
No carriage, either private or public, had carried a woman, a boy, and a black-haired man south. His agent would swear his soul on it. An ever-widening net of questioning at coaching inns had uncovered no sign of the fugitives.
Surely Miss Drake could not have carried the boy north again?
Liverpool was a major port. God help him, if she had boarded a ship and taken to sea and the child with her!
The marquess studied the letter from his agent once again. The man was thorough and knew his task. Miss Prudence Drake, daughter of a respectable and canny doctor, had earned her own living since she was seventeen. She had siblings, orphaned and scattered about the globe. Apparently her upbringing had been dour and restricted. Everything pointed to the hypothesis that she was naive and trusting.
Did she trust this mysterious black-haired man to rescue her? Miss Drake no doubt cared for the child and desired his safety, but was she capable of protecting him?
Belham looked up and cursed aloud, shattering the quiet of his study. Devil take this black-haired man, whoever he was! By all accounts he was careless and cavalier, but he had somehow managed to secrete little Lord Dunraven and his governess—and so well that trained spies had lost track of th
em.
So the dissolute Marquess of Belham was going to have to take a hand in this damnable business himself. He stood up, then crossed to his sideboard, his movements as lithe as a stalking cat’s, and poured himself a brandy.
If the man with black hair was indeed a gentleman, it was likely that he was a member of one of the London clubs. Had anyone gone missing? Was there a family concerned over the whereabouts of a son or a brother? He was rumored to have come from France. Was there anyone who was known to have gone there, and was expected back?
Thank God the agent had sent such a very complete description, for something in it was painfully familiar. Perhaps the identity of the fellow wouldn’t be so hard to discover, and that might determine where the hell he was likely to be going—and the little heir to Dunraven Castle and its fortune with him.
For God’s sake! The life of a five-year-old hangs by a slender enough thread. He must find the child as soon as possible.
Someone knocked at the door. Lord Belham turned in considerable annoyance.
“Come!”
* * *
The slow ripple of water slapped against the narrow boat, gently rocking Prudence where she sat on her cushions outside the cabin with the mending. One of Sam’s shirts lay in her lap.
They had stopped somewhere on the Oxford Canal, with the green fields and budding trees of England spreading away on both sides of the water.
Prudence was barely aware that their slow progress had halted, or that the air was heavy with the promise of the oncoming evening. The needle lay still in her fingers. She was agonizing over whether she had done the right thing.
If Hal carried treasonous messages, someone in government had to be told, didn’t they? Prudence had a brother in His Majesty’s Navy. Angus had written her long letters about the fight against the French. Even though there was an uneasy truce with Napoleon right now, her brother’s very life might depend upon her acting with resolution.
What if the message contained information about Napoleon’s plans, even an invasion of the south coast, or a sudden strike against the allies in Belgium? Angus would expect her to follow the call of patriotic duty, whatever her personal feelings about it might be.
So before she could change her mind, Prudence had folded the paper with its occult symbols and odd collection of letters and numbers inside a letter to Admiral Rafter in London. Angus had mentioned him once, and she did not know the name of any other person in government.
As soon as The White Lady tied up that night, Prudence had slipped ashore and posted her missive.
And felt like a snail for not telling Hal what she had done.
For if she had shown him the coded message, it might have jogged his memory of who he was and why he had been traveling to Scotland, and cleared him of the agony she had witnessed all those nights ago, when he had kissed her.
But what if he remembered that he was a French spy? And what if she had been so wanton in the arms of a traitor to his country?
A slow, deep burn flooded up her neck as she remembered it. And remember it she did, every day. Hal had promised to teach her something, but what she had learned had woken a restless longing that would leave her never content again.
Plain, prim, and proper Miss Prudence Drake, douce Scots governess, had discovered that she was no better than a strumpet.
It made it very hard to meet his eyes in casual conversation, or act with the affection that a wife should, so that Sam would not become even more suspicious. Especially when Hal had greeted her across the breakfast table the next morning with dark circles under his eyes.
“Whatever ails you this morning, lad?” Sam asked brightly. “Spent the night with the nightmare riding your conscience?”
Hal looked back at him and laughed. “Bad dreams, sir? Indeed, my dreams are of beautiful women. Why would you think they would rob me of sleep?”
Had Hal had gone straight from her arms to dream again about the mysterious Helena?
Did it make it even worse that Hal was spending most of his time now with Bobby, teaching the boy to ride and swim?
Every day Bobby rode the great horses, learning a good seat and an easy balance. Each evening the lithe man and the fragile child dropped together into the canal, and Bobby shrieked with delight in the silver sprays of water splashed up by their games. Bobby was already able to float by himself, and hang onto the side of the narrow boat and kick.
Meanwhile, whenever they must be together, Hal was gentle with her, and teasing, and patient to a fault, but Prudence could not forget that she had felt such a burning passion in his arms.
She had let a man awaken her—like Sleeping Beauty—with a kiss, and then she had stolen his coded paper and betrayed him.
It made her hot with misery, as if the blazing sun and the open barge left her with no place to hide.
Prudence closed her eyes and dropped her head over Sam’s torn shirt, knowing her face would soon be as red as the painted poppies on the cabin wall.
“You would seem to have caught too much sun, angel,” that cultured voice said with its enchanting edge of humor. “You should wear your bonnet when England decides to surprise us with such a warm day.”
She looked up to find that Hal had climbed onto the small deck and was smiling down at her.
He dropped down on his haunches beside her.
“I had hoped I was forgiven,” he said quietly. “It has been three days.”
Prudence deliberately took the way out. They had not shared a personal conversation since that eventful night, and she was determined to keep it that way.
“We are stopped,” she said, looking away across the fields. “Why?”
“We are almost to Banbury, where there is a major boatyard. The toll gate is locked at eight o’clock sharp.”
“Where shall we stop for the night, then?”
“Here. Sam has taken the boys with him to take care of the horses. There is stabling at a small inn just around the next bend, but the berths there are all filled. We shall stay tied up along the canal bank, as we have done every night since I kissed you and you kissed me back. And once again I shall sleep on the bank, rolled in a blanket under the hedge like a gypsy, lest I ravish you in your sleep.”
So he would not let her escape.
Prudence stood up and looked after the retreating figures of their skipper and the two boys. They had unharnessed the horses and were leading them away.
She had been left alone on the narrow boat with Hal, while she dreamed away the moments during which she could have avoided it.
A kingfisher dived with a sudden flash of blue into the water, startling her.
“If you were a gentleman you would not talk of what happened,” she said.
“We must talk about it, angel. Sam thinks I’ve been beating you. He told me he would not keep such a villain aboard, if I did not win back your smiles. Was it so very dreadful to kiss me?”
Prudence whirled about to face him as the kingfisher rose from the water, a small silver fish in its beak.
“You are a villain. A rake and a villain!”
Hal stepped up onto the cargo and lay down, casually stretching out his long legs.
“Is that why you blush like a rose whenever you think of me, angel?”
“I’m not blushing. It is hot, and the sun is too strong, that is all. I think I shall suffocate if it does not cool off soon.”
“Then you should come for a swim in the canal. It would calm all your passions and soothe your wrath.”
The kingfisher perched on a branch overhanging the water. In one quick movement the bird turned the small fish in its beak and swallowed it.
Something close to panic reverberated in her heart. “I can’t swim.”
He supported his cheek on one hand, his weight on his elbow. Dark hair curled over his fingertips.
“But the water is cool and refreshing and kind. It’s very clear and clean here. I could support you, and you could bathe away all of the hot, sticky antagonism y
ou have felt toward me for the last several days, and the heat of the sun that has poisoned your bones, and the difficulty of not washing as much as you have wanted. Slide into the water with me, angel. It feels lovely.”
“I told you I can’t swim. It’s completely out of the question.”
“Why? Don’t you trust me?”
If only he weren’t so beautiful, looking into her eyes with that searching harebell gaze!
“After what happened? I know I can’t trust you.”
“Because I kissed you and you liked it? For God’s sake, I should have thought, if there’s one thing that I proved then, it’s that you can trust me. In spite of all your accusations and my own fears, I am not a rake.”
He could reach out a hand and catch her to him, if he wanted. He could kiss her again, there on the small deck with the sun beating down, and she would not be able to stop him.
“How on earth do you arrive at that conclusion?”
“Because, my dear Miss Drake, a rake would not have stopped as I did, when I did, and thus you would no longer be in possession of your virtue.”
She said nothing as he sat up and looked away into the willows, the sun casting a strong shadow under his jaw.
“I wanted to go on,” he said fiercely. “I wanted it with every fiber of my being. You are an enchantment to my senses. But I did not—even though you would have let me. If, after that, you think that you cannot trust me, then I’d very much like to know what is your definition of trust.”
“Do you trust me?” she said miserably.
He looked down at her and smiled. “Absolutely.”
She felt the enormous weight of her betrayal like a collar of iron. “Why?”
His harebell eyes watched her with nothing but concern. “Because you are open and honorable and kind, and would do nothing underhanded or cruel.”
“You cannot know that!”
Hal leaned down and caught her hand. “Yes, I can. I have watched you day after day. I know you. I would trust you with my life, angel. For I know I have already trusted you with my heart.”
Prudence swallowed hard. Her face flamed. Her pulse hammered uncomfortably in her throat, as if it would choke her.
Folly's Reward Page 10