by Lara Archer
“Yes!”
He pulled her closer against him, swinging them both behind the drapes that curtained the alcove, shielded completely from the view of others.
She gave a little choking laugh, her fingers prying at his hands. “Let go.”
“Are you mad?” His arms locked around her, a cage she couldn’t break. His heart was thundering—and, blast it all, his body was responding precipitously to hers, and despite his best judgment, he found himself growing rapidly aroused. He fought to tamp down those feelings, keep his mind on rational concerns. “You can’t go anywhere near Rapson.” he insisted. “He knew you and your sister. He knows there were two of you.”
“Oh! Oh, Lord.” She blinked then, as if just coming out of a sleep. “Of course. It’d be a disaster, wouldn’t it, if he called me by name?”
“By name? Bloody hell—could he tell you and Sal apart?”
“Yes. He was the only one who ever could.”
“Damnation!” What in blazes was her tutor doing here, anyway? How had a poor curate managed to become Lord Fairholme? And why in hell was he in conversation with the likes of Lord Henry Walters? “When exactly was the last time he saw you?”
“More than three years ago, when my great aunts died. And he hasn’t seen Sarah since she ran away—nearly ten years.” Her back was straightening again; she was gathering her forces, her self-command. “He’d never expect to see me dressed like this. Or acting like this. I could make him believe I’m Sarah.”
“But if he should realize who you are—”
“It wouldn’t matter anyway. He’d protect me. I trust him with my life.” Her expression was utterly guileless. Entirely too trusting.
“Hogwash!” He shoved her to the wall, intentionally rough, his hands pinning her shoulders. “I don’t care if he’s St. Nicholas—he’s not to be trusted. No one’s to be trusted.”
“That’s ridiculous. Mr. Rapson taught me everything that matters to me!” Thankfully, she had the discipline to keep her voice too low to be overheard, even as she writhed against his grip. “When my sister ran away home, his friendship was all I had in the world!”
“You’re in a different world now, ma nonnette. Our kind don’t have friends.”
“Clearly not.” She stabbed him with a glare. “Enemies only.”
Without breaking eye contact, she threw her weight suddenly to her left, trying to dart past him. He slammed his palm to the wall to block her, his arm an iron bar.
Unreasoning anger pounded his skull. He could not let her go downstairs where anyone else could see her. “Do that again, and I’ll put you over my knee and spank you!”
“Try, and I’ll bite you somewhere you really won’t enjoy!”
He nearly laughed: in that brief moment, she was Sal. Precisely like Sal. Dizzyingly so.
“Unlike you,” she said, “Mr. Rapson is a gentle man. A kind man. When my sister left, he wrote letters all over England, to every orphanage, every workhouse, every clergyman he knew, trying to learn where she had gone.”
“So he told you.”
“So he did. He showed me the replies. He always urged me to have hope that life would bring better things for all of us. When I had to leave Rookshead and take work with the Greeleys, I’d have despaired without those words.”
Sebastian closed his eyes slowly. Something about this story, about this saintly Mr. Rapson, rubbed him the wrong way. “Tell me this, sweetheart. When you were first in Helm’s office, you mentioned beating your minister at chess. Beating him quite handily, as I recall.”
“Yes.” She sounded puzzled.
“And may I hazard a guess as to who taught you the game? Could it have been your Mr. Rapson?”
She paused. “Yes, of course it was him. There was no one else in Rookshead who’d have agreed to teach me.”
He opened his eyes again, fixed her with a knowing look. “And I’ll lay odds he was very good at the game.”
“Yes,” she admitted. “He allowed Reverend Cadwallader to win, but privately he pointed out to me the many ways the reverend miscalculated. The matches Mr. Rapson and I played were . . . rather more aggressive in character.”
“An excellent strategist, then.”
“What of that? What are you accusing him of? Intelligence? He has that. He’s brilliant.”
“And this brilliant man stayed as a curate in that backwater for how many years? Never sought advancement until you’d left? And now suddenly turns up here?”
“Mr. Cadwallader was eventually going to retire, and Mr. Rapson had no other means to support himself while he awaited his opportunity to advance. They were a Dissenters’ church, not Church of England. Mr. Rapson had trained as an Anglican, but broke with them just before leaving Cambridge, over some subtle points of theology. He was a man of principle like that. Once he left, very few benefices were to be had.”
She squirmed in his grip. His fingers were squeezing her arms too tightly again, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.
“Stop and think. If your Mr. Rapson is Lord Fairholme now, he’s not precisely the same man you knew before. He didn’t communicate that little transformation to you, did he?”
“No. But I heard nothing at all from him while I was at the Greeley’s. He'd been called away from Rookshead for a family funeral just before I had to accept the offer of employment or be left with no roof over my head. I left a letter for him, but either the Reverend refused to give it to him, or the Greeleys held back Mr. Rapson’s letters to me. It was the sort of thing the lot of them would do, just for spite.” She fixed him with a pointed look. “Mr. Rapson would have told me the news if he could. We were friends.”
“Friends?” It was as if a row of face down cards had flipped over, and he knew exactly what was wrong with this scenario. “Bugger that. How old were you in your last year of study with him?”
“Twenty-one.”
“Twenty-one?” Hell—Sebastian had known Sal at that age. One roll of her shoulder, one smile, and she’d broken the wills of men who thought themselves impenetrable as steel. “Studying alone with him?”
“Yes, of course.” Her voice was clipped, offended. “My sister had been gone for years.”
“Ladies don’t have tutors, you know. They have governesses. And there’s damned good reason for that.”
That set her spine straight enough to anchor a Greek temple. “What?” she snapped. “You don’t think women can be true scholars? That they should just learn a bit of fashionable French, and devote the rest of their brains to playing the pianoforte and—and tatting lace?”
“No. I meant there’s a reason young girls are taught by other females. When Sal told me of your tutor, I assumed he was ancient. Crippled and shriveled up.”
“As I said, he was a curate. Fresh from university.”
He shook his head. “Did he come with a wife, perchance?”
“No. He couldn’t afford to marry.”
“Then did he have a woman? In the village somewhere?”
Her mouth fell open. “Did he have a what?”
“A woman? A lover? A sweetheart? A paramour?” He moved in closer, crowding her tighter against the wall. Damn it—need for her shot through him, blistering hot, difficult to ignore. His body ached to show her what he meant by all those words, and he had to fight to keep his brain in control. “Did he have some barmaid, perhaps, who found her heart melted by his civility and clean fingernails and pretty gold curls?”
“Of course he didn’t! He was a man of the cloth!”
“Under the cloth, my dear, still a man. And if he had no woman, and spent all that time alone with you, then he was a man burning with lust.”
“Oh!” She shoved at his chest with both hands. To no practical effect. “He was a very, very moral man. I doubt it fully registered with him that I had a gender at all.”
Sebastian let his eyes rake her up and down. “How did he read all that literature, then, if he was stone blind?”
“Stop that!” He
r color heightened to a fiery peak. “Mr. Cadwallader and the housekeeper were always in the house with us!”
He leaned in against her, letting her feel the hard evidence of his arousal. “Do you think if I’d had you alone,” he said, “that an army of reverends and a phalanx of housekeepers, each armed with a Bible and a freshly-sharpened meat cleaver, would have stopped me, if I’d put my mind to having you?”
As he spoke, the rhythm of her breathing changed, and her pulse quickened at the base of her throat. But she was fighting whatever desire she might have felt. Her mouth twisted as though her tongue tangled within.
He had to work to gain control of himself, to remember that his one goal here was to keep her from giving her identity away to a man she shouldn’t trust. He needed her to see her situation clearly.
“Mr. Rapson,” he said, “was asked to give you Christian instruction, yet he didn’t have you reading Boethius, or Augustine—something deathly dull and safe and high-minded that puts all desires to sleep? He had you alone, and he had you reading Sappho? Reading Catullus? Aristophanes? Plato’s Symposium?”
“We read all those,” she ground out. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Good Lord, half of Greek and Roman literature’s an incitement to unbridled lust. Maybe he just prefers boys, and that’s all it is.” He lowered his mouth to her ear, let his words be hot breath against her skin. “But if not, then he was dying to have you. The whole time. Either way, your Mr. Rapson knows how to hide himself very deep. And that makes him a very, very dangerous man.”
“He’s not . . . that’s the most outlandish . . . don’t you dare try to ruin the one thing in my life that was . . . perfect, and purely good!” Even her curls were trembling. “Just because you personally have the moral restraint of a wildcat in heat doesn’t mean other men can’t keep their minds fixed on higher things.”
“Believe me, the majority of his thoughts never rose much higher than your breasts. On a good day, maybe your mouth.” He pulled back for a moment, gazed rather hungrily at her lips. “Oh, definitely your mouth.”
Her hand flew up between them and her palm cracked across his cheek.
He laughed, but he didn’t’ let go of her. “Strike me all you want. I know what I’m talking about.”
“You’re wrong. Wrong. He always cared about me. As a human being.”
“People don’t do things because they care, sweetheart. They do things because they’ll get something they want in exchange.”
She drew in a deep breath, clearly gearing up for some new tirade, or perhaps some new assault. But, as far as he was concerned, this conversation was over.
No way in hell was he letting her anywhere near her former tutor. They had a ship to board in the morning, and he was determined to see her safe aboard.
In one quick swoop, he seized her by the hips and tossed her up and over his shoulder. One arm clamped over the soft mound of her buttocks. The other clamped over her lower legs, to keep her from kicking excessively.
She could pummel his back with her fists all she wanted. Nothing would stop him finding the fastest route down the back stairs and out of this place.
Chapter Six
Rachel stood near the prow of the good ship Calliope, staring out into the waves. Her cloak snapped like a flag in the vicious wind, and cold bit into her bones.
But she’d stand out here and freeze solid, shatter and be blown to the four corners of the globe before she’d spend the day in that wretched little cabin with Lord Gargoyle.
He might have had a valid point the other night about the dangers of revealing herself to Mr. Rapson, but not to keep discussing it with her rationally, to snatch her up instead and haul her about like that, as if she were a tantrum-throwing three-year-old, was intolerable.
Nearly as intolerable as his seemingly endless ability to turn her body to flame.
Which, she reminded herself, was something she had determined not to think any more about.
At least the ocean was a good distraction.
It was vast and unpredictable—a chaos of gray and green and white, shifting and swelling, rising here while dropping there. Nearly as chaotic as the great mess of emotion roiling inside her.
The deck pitched suddenly beneath her feet, as the wind over the waves made one of its unaccountable, violent shifts in direction. She clung to the rail with both fists.
Instinctively, she turned. And, of course, there he was. Strolling towards her with his hands tucked behind his back, as though the pitching deck were no more difficult to navigate than a city street. Looking as cocky as if he’d caused the ocean to jolt, as though he were Lucifer himself. Could the man not lose his balance, just for a moment? Stagger just a bit?
Oh, what she’d give to have him trip, and land facedown in a bucket of tar. Or flip straight over the railing, into the waves. She might call the sailors to fish him out again—but she could take her time about it.
He stopped just before he reached her and fixed her with a sharp, accessing look. “Not about to be sick, are you?”
She returned a tight smile. “I might be now.”
“I’ll come no closer, then. I value these boots.” With a curt bow, he brought his hands out from behind his back, and held out a dark bundle to her. A woolen blanket. “Captain Whitmore says you’ve been out here over an hour. I thought you might require this.”
She considered refusing, but then her baser instincts won out, and she snatched it from his grasp, and wrapped it around her shoulders. The wool offered an additional barrier between them, which was even more welcome than its warmth.
“How are you this morning, my lord?” she asked. “I trust you enjoyed your usual eleven or twelve hours of sleep.”
One aristocratic eyebrow shot up. “If you must know, I was up half the night with a packet of sealed documents fresh from Portugal, which our agents there entrusted to Captain Whitmore. You were snoring like a drunken soldier when I came to my hammock.”
“I do not snore.”
“You most certainly do. And loudly.”
“Liar.”
“Maybe.” His eyes had that familiar gleam of amusement again. “Of the two of us, I’m afraid I’m the only one who knows for sure. Regardless, I slept fine. Nothing like sea air and rocking waves to wrap one tight in the arms of Morpheus.” He came a step closer, and propped his forearms against the railing casually, gesturing towards the horizon with his chin. “So tell me, what’s so fascinating out there that has you risking death by exposure?”
Half a dozen insulting retorts ran through her mind, but she decided on a version of the truth. “I’ve never seen the ocean before.”
That seemed to genuinely surprise him. “Never?”
She paused. A long pause. A very, very long pause. “If I refuse to talk to you, I don’t suppose that will make you go away.”
“Not at all. My curiosity is insatiable. Besides, I’m done with those packets now, and I’m bored.” He had the nerve to grin at her. “You’re all I have to entertain me. So, entertain me.”
Blast the man. Was he deliberately trying to provoke her? Could anyone truly be so arrogant?
For a brief time back when they were in his coach, and she’d looked into his eyes, she thought she’d seen something else in him, something very different from this lazy, drawling entitlement. But perhaps that was just illusion.
Why was it so difficult to tell what was going on inside his head?
“Now, why would I wish to entertain you?” she asked.
“For the sake of the mission, of course. Salomé was always entertaining, and, frankly, you need the practice.” He waved his hand airily. “So, on with your story. Explain about this never having seen the ocean business.”
She imagined her gaze slicing him up rib by rib. He gave no sign of noticing.
“If you must know,” she said tartly, “we lived inland, and my great aunts regarded travel as nothing but opportunity for temptation. As wandering by the way.”
&
nbsp; “A rather grim answer. You’ll have to work harder if you mean to amuse. Anyhow, I thought the Christian soul was meant to face temptation.”
“We are not advised to seek it out. Temptation comes quickly enough, all on its own.”
“Is that so?” His voice had deepened, darkened in a dangerous way. His weight shifted closer to her side.
Then his knuckles brushed her cheek.
She refused to flinch, though her nerve endings flared like kindling. “Do not touch me.”
“Why not?” His voice became a deep purr. The knuckles brushed lower, along her jaw. “You liked it well enough when I touched you before. Besides, I told you I need entertaining.” His hand turned so that his fingertips stroked her skin, trailing towards the sensitive hollow at the base of her neck.
She shifted sideways, but a thick coil of hemp rope at her feet prevented her from entirely escaping his reach.
“Come now, my courtesan,” he said. “You’ve missed your cue for flirtatious banter.”
Now she knocked his hand away, and let fly with a colorful, vile-sounding curse she’d heard one of the sailors use yesterday.
“Ouch,” Sebastian said, stepping back hastily and shielding his private parts with spread fingers. “That may be banter, but I wouldn’t really consider it flirtatious.”
“Good.”
He looked quite pained. “Do you even know what that phrase means?”
She tipped her head in the general direction of the parts he was protecting. “Judging by your reaction, I’m guessing it means about what I was hoping it meant.”
“Well, that’s vicious of you.” He blew out a long, whistling breath, but then he leaned his elbows on the guardrail again, as though she’d never threatened him at all.
One thing she had to admit—he wasn’t easy to intimidate.
“I’m not vicious by nature,” she said. “You’re the first person ever to bring it out in me.”
“Am I?” He turned his body towards her now, resting his weight on one elbow, as always completely at his ease. He studied her curiously. “Please, explain to me, then—what’s gone wrong between us? We were getting along so well on the night of Lady Barham’s party, as we rode home in my coach. One might say we were quite companionable, in fact.”