by Jane Feather
She turned back to the room, just as the sound of booted feet on the stairs outside reached her. Instinctively, she seized her cloak and tossed it round her shoulders again, drawing the hood over her head, moving into a corner of the room, her back to the door. For some reason, Genevieve felt the greatest need to keep her identity a secret for as long as possible.
The key turned smoothly in the lock, and the door swung open. The hairs on the back of her neck lifted, and her heartbeat drummed in her ears. Sweat made her palms clammy, as her body, of its own accord, registered the presence of Dominic Delacroix. There was a chink of glass, the soft tinkle of pouring liquid, then he spoke. “I must apologize, Mademoiselle Latour, if you found your handling a little rough. It was certainly not my intention to cause you discomfort. But you should not have attempted to fight Silas. You will take a glass of brandy, and I hope you will feel quite restored.”
His voice so cool! Blaming her for that brutal assault! Fear forgotten, Genevieve swung round to face the room. The hood of her cloak fell back, revealing the shining mass of her silver-gold hair, and the tawny eyes blazed in a face paled by anger. “It is a pity, Monsieur Delacroix, that you did not advise against resistance in your so charming invitation.” Her voice shook and then she fell silent under that metallic, azure gaze, feeling his stillness as a palpable force in the deathly quiet. In that moment, Genevieve knew her danger to be acute. How could she have taken so lightly that which she had recognized from the first moment of laying eyes upon the privateer? This was no ordinary man, with ordinary responses. He was dangerous, totally unscrupulous, and he would exact a fearsome penalty for opposition or interference.
Very slowly, Dominic raised the glass in his hand to his lips, threw back his head, and tossed the amber contents down his throat with a twitch of his wrist. Then he replaced the glass carefully on the silver-embossed tray resting on a carved side table. “So,” he said, “little sister has decided to offer herself as sacrificial lamb. Is that it?” When Genevieve remained mute, her vocal chords seemingly glued together, he walked over to her.
He moved with lithe ease, a powerful, athletic man carrying an air of indefinable menace with every springing step, and Genevieve shrank back involuntarily. “You will be more comfortable without your cloak.” He unlooped the fastening at her neck, his fingers brushing her skin, scorching like burning tapers. The manteau left her shoulders, was tossed onto a chair, and she was held immobile in the grip of that turquoise, glinting gaze. “I wonder, my dear little Genevieve, if you truly realized what that sacrifice would entail,” he mused. “For some reason, I had not thought you the stuff of which martyrs are made. Crusaders, missionaries, certainly, those for whom action is their lives’ informer, but not for you the passive yielding of martyrdom.”
“You do not quite understand.” Genevieve found her voice at last and prepared herself to explain that she was here, not with the intent to forestall his plan, but to offer herself as a substitute, in partnership rather than as victim.
“No,” he interrupted gently, hooking a finger into the thin gold chain that made a gleaming line around her neck, accentuating the fragility of that slender column and the translucence of her skin. “You do not understand. Did I not make myself sufficiently clear to you that afternoon in the storeroom? I had thought to be absolutely lucid as to the consequences of any further interference on your part.”
Genevieve swallowed, feeling his bent fingers resting against her throat lift with the involuntary movement. But she managed to speak with a bold defiance, although the tinge of fear shaded her voice. “You were quite lucid, monsieur, but threats do not move me.”
His eyes darkened, and his gaze drifted over her face, her neck, the line of her shoulders to her bosom that rose and fell under her swift breath, skimmed down her body, touching her waist, the curve of her hip. “I can only assume, then, that you found the promise irresistibly enticing.” His voice was dulcet in its insolent meaning, and his look had stripped her naked.
His free hand slipped over her shoulders, lifted the cascade of hair at her back, slid beneath to palm her scalp and, as she waited, mesmerized by her knowledge of what was about to happen, he brought his mouth to hers. That same lightning bolt tremor ran through her, the slow spreading warmth and, with a hot flush of bewildered shame, she felt herself lean into him, her lips parting beneath his almost before he demanded entrance. Dominic still held her, hooked by the chain at her neck, but his grip shifted, his spread fingers sliding up her throat, kneading the soft skin beneath her jaw. In the deepest recesses of her mind lurked the foreknowledge of the overpowering humiliation that would follow this eager surrender, yet it seemed to make no difference. She seemed to have no control over her responses. It was as if some other person inhabited her body, and the sensation was only pleasurable. Was this what she had come here for, this that she had known since the afternoon in the storeroom would follow a further intrusion into the privateer’s life? Her breasts pressed against the deep expanse of his linen-clad chest, her nipples burning against the fine lawn of her underdress as her tongue, tentative and inexperienced, attempted to join with the dance of his.
Then, without freeing her mouth, Dominic moved to clasp her beneath the arms and the knees, and she was lifted, her own arms finding their way around his neck. The bed ropes creaked as he laid her down, and then, finally, he raised his head. But even as she shrank from the expectation of his mockery, the look in his eyes contained only speculation tinged with an amusement that was not unkind.
“You are a treasury of surprises, it would seem. What would you have of me, Genevieve of the tiger’s eyes?” he asked softly, reaching to lift away a bright swath of silver hair where it fell across her breast. A long finger trailed over the soft mound, where the upper curve was revealed, lifted above the scalloped neckline of her gown as she lay, arms flung above her head. “You did not come here simply to save your sister from perdition. There was more to this rescue mission than your unfortunate tendency to busy yourself in the affairs of others.”
Having only just realized those truths herself, Genevieve was unable to answer him, but the tawny gold eyes were heavy, languorous in the way of a woman experienced in loving, of one who could anticipate the pleasure waiting in the wings. Yet he would have staked his life on her innocence. “Is it a teacher you would have?” he probed, allowing his finger to slip inside the neckline, reaching down to the small, erect crown of her breast. “Is the Creole maiden desirous of learning something of the glory that can lie between man and woman? Is that why you are here, so recklessly defiant of the consequences of interference?”
As if it belonged to someone else, her head moved in almost imperceptible affirmation. Her body shifted on the bed beneath the caress of his finger, and her eyes became deep pools of wanting—wanting something that, so far, she had felt only as a tantalizing hint.
Dominic found himself strangely moved by this curious girl-woman. There was something hauntingly familiar about her eager fearlessness, her warm softness. But she was not at all like Rosemarie in face or form or experience. What was it? He had intended to frighten and humiliate her, to teach her once and for all that her weapons were of the puniest, and her attempt to join battle with his vastly superior strength merely laughable. He had intended to send her home, weeping with mortification, but in all essentials unchanged by the experience. Now, he was not so sure. His anger had left him some minutes before, to be replaced by interest and the unmistakable stirrings of desire. And she was hardly a child. Those eyes, gazing up at him, were most definitely not the eyes of a child. If this was what she wanted, what could he lose by gratifying her? True, instructing the inexperienced was not a pasttime that in general afforded him much satisfaction, but unless he was much mistaken, this golden-eyed sprite would prove a most ardent pupil.
“Then learn you shall. It will be my pleasure.” Smiling, he slipped the neck of her gown off one creamy shoulder. The white shoulder strap of her underdress followed, barin
g the pearly, rose-tipped mound of her breast. His lips trailed over the soft roundness, and he heard her gasp as his tongue flicked the hard crest. For one last time, he raised his eyes, examined her face, saw only what he had seen before. But now the eagerness, the excitement was transparently revealed with her parted lips, the wonder in her eyes. Would she regret this? It was the faint murmur of a conscience that rarely troubled the privateer. “Genevieve, if you would have me stop, speak now, or forever hold your peace.” For answer, her hand touched his cheek in a fleeting caress, and Dominic gave a little sigh of resignation to the inevitable.
He kissed the hollow of her throat, felt the pulse beat fast and erratic against his lips. Slipping a hand beneath her, he raised her against him, his fingers feeling for the hooks of her gown. They flew apart with the ease of temptation, and he let her fall to the bed again, hitching himself on one elbow to lean over her as he drew the gown down to her waist before, with tantalizing slowness, doing the same with the thin underdress. His hand, beneath her again, lifted as he drew the wadded material over her hips, and Genevieve felt the cool satin of the coverlet against her bared flesh. For one instant, panic flared. What was happening to her? How was it happening? Why had she allowed—no, invited this? Then the sensation of his palm on her naked abdomen, pressing as it stroked, drove all questioning from her mind. Her head turned from side to side on the bed, the gesture expressing her incoherent bewilderment as her blood poured in swift tumult through her veins. Although she had not yet experienced it, the shape of bodily joy grew in atavastic memory, suffusing her, filling her with liquid warmth.
His hand flattened between her closed thighs, moved in intimate exploration, and the tears of confused pleasure stood out in her eyes, to be instantly hidden as she dropped her eyelids. Dominic took her lips again, as the tender but inexorable trespass brought her to a peak of vibrant desire, the skin of her belly rippling, the muscles beneath growing rigid. Then, with almost demonic knowingness, he raised his hand, leaving her for long seconds, her senses ravished by an arousal that screamed for completion, her soul branded by the recognition of her wanting.
She raised her lashes in a long sweep, her tormented gaze fixing him as he watched her. His eyes were blue flames in a face where the muscles, like those of his arms and shoulders, were ridged with the strain of restraint. She knew then that no degrading mockery would follow this. His own defenses were breached, and his wanting was as open and acknowledged as her own.
She trembled, a slow burn of an age-old triumph creeping over her as he stripped off his pantaloons, shrugged out of his shirt, then drew her beneath him, parting her thighs, her moist, tender flesh to guide his surging, searing entry within. There was the moment of resistance, when she felt the stretched fullness, and he checked, touched the corner of her mouth with his tongue, whispered a tender word of reassurance. Then there was a sharp, rending pain. Her cry was silenced against his mouth, and the hurt receded. Gently, he kissed her eyelids, the tip of her nose, the sensitive corners of her mouth. His hand caressed her breast, stroking the nipple that grew pliant beneath his touch as the tension left her. He eased deeper then, stroking the body beneath him to a wondrous peak of pleasure that astounded her.
Setting a rhythm, smooth and even, Dominic watched her constantly, listening to her body with his own, and when both eyes and body told him she was ready, he increased his pace, driving deeper until she gripped the corded muscles of his upper arms and yielded up her self to be tossed in the maelstrom of glorious sensation. Then, and only then, did he yield the dikes of his own control, sure that the maiden-no-longer beneath him had made a true start along the paths of loving.
Genevieve lay motionless, listening to the quiet tick of the clock, basking in the warmth of his skin pressed close to hers, in the dreamy lethargy, a relaxation more wondrous than any she had ever experienced spilling in her veins, anointing her muscles. So that was what so petrified and revolted Hélène? That was what the matrons whispered about in the parlor, what Elise feared, even as she wondered and talked nobly about wifely duty. That wondrous happening a duty! Her soft, joyous laugh filled the warm, rose-glowing room, startling Dominic out of his own reverie.
“What has amused you, tiger eyes?” Propping himself on one elbow, he leaned over, exploring her face quizzically.
“I appear to be ruined,” she said with a little smile.
“On the contrary,” he drawled, lifting a lock of silver-gold hair and twisting it around his finger. “You are much improved, to my mind. Virginity is a tedious burden for a passionate woman to bear.”
“And am I a passionate woman?” she asked, the question managing to sound like a perfectly ordinary query.
Dominic laughed. “Oh, yes, Genevieve. You are, indeed.” With sudden energy, he swung himself from the bed and strode to the door, flinging it wide. “Silas, bring wine and a supper tray, for two.”
Genevieve looked at his glorious, unconcerned nakedness as he strode over to the side table and poured brandy into a glass. Men were really most beautiful, she decided; the male form certainly had as much to recommend it to the artist as the female. Although, that would probably depend on the model, of course, in both cases. The one coming over to the bed must surely be unsurpassed with that narrow waist, the slim hips, and long, muscular legs lightly masked with fair curling hair.
Dominic read the message in that wide-eyed, uninhibited appraisal, and a smile touched his eyes, curved his mouth.
“Passionate, you may be, sprite, but I suggest you slip between the sheets before Silas comes in. It would not bother him in the slightest, but unless you are something less or more than I believe you to be, it should concern you.”
It was impossible not to understand. Less of an innocent, more of a whore. Genevieve got off the bed, pulling the covers back and putting herself between them. She was hardly in a position to protest the truth. She had arrived in this room the virginal jeune fille, and had proceeded to behave like the most shameless wanton. She did not think that Dominic’s statement had been intended to hurt or humiliate her, it had been a plain statement of fact. It rather seemed as if she had to rethink her conception of herself. Curiously, the idea, far from being either shocking or alarming, was merely exciting.
Silas entered after a sharp knock, bearing a tray of cold meat, cheese, and pastries, a carafe of wine and two glasses. This he placed on the table and, while he could not have failed to notice either Genevieve, propped up against the pillows, or the disorderly heap of her clothes on the floor, his eyes remained strictly in front of him. As he walked to the door, however, he said, “A word with you, monsieur.”
Dominic, in the act of stepping into his pantaloons, frowned. “Well, speak up.” He fastened the waistband and trod over to the table, pouring wine into one glass and refilling his own with brandy.
“Angelique …” Silas coughed. “She was desirous of knowing when the room would be free.”
“You may tell her that I do not know,” Dominic snapped. “She would be well advised to pass the night elsewhere.”
“Very well, monsieur.” Silas bowed, his face expressionless, and left the room.
“Who is Angelique?” Genevieve asked, reaching to take the glass of ruby wine that Dominic held out to her.
His face closed as if a shutter had been dropped. “No concern of yours. Drink your wine.”
“But is this her house?” Genevieve persisted in blatant disregard of the warning. “I did not think, somehow, that this could be your bedchamber.”
Dominic sighed and attempted to temper the sharp snub that rose to his lips. “To the extent that this house belongs to me, this is my bedchamber. But, as it happens, I do not live here.”
“No, Angelique does.” Genevieve sipped her wine and looked around the room again. “She is perhaps a quadroon placée?”
Dominic sighed again. “Exactly so. I do not wish to continue with this catechism. Angelique has nothing to do with you, nor you with her. Is it quite clear?”
Genevieve shrugged. The matter was hardly worth quarreling over, and it was hardly surprising that Dominic Delacroix should have a quadroon mistress; not nearly as surprising as that Genevieve Latour should be sitting up in the bed of the quadroon placée, the only difference between them was that one earned her keep by giving what the other had rendered with a free and eager spirit.
“When will you send Papa the ultimatum?” she asked, changing the line of questioning to one every bit as interesting, helping herself to a cheese tartlet from the plate he had placed on the coverlet beside her.
“When will I what?” The question stung like a lash, and Genevieve realized with sinking heart that she had just betrayed Nicolas. She had not intended to reveal that she knew all the details of Dominic’s plan, but wanted merely to imply that she had guessed in general terms and was willing to help him, so that he would not need to use her sister. But the events of the evening had eroded her caution. The privateer was still a most dangerous man, for all that he had just given her such a tender, joyous gift.
“I can see that it is incumbent upon me to teach Nicolas the advisability of keeping a still tongue in his head—at least where my affairs are concerned,” Dominic said, softly, menacingly thoughtful.
“Please …” Genevieve stammered. “You must not blame Nicolas. I forced him to tell me.”
Those fly-away eyebrows lifted incredulously. “Resourceful, I know you to be; tiresomely willful and determined, I know you to be, but do not expect me to believe, my dear Genevieve, that you have the means to force a grown man to reveal what he knows he must not reveal. Unless, perhaps, you have access to thumbscrew and rack?”
“No, of course I do not, but Nicolas knew that by telling me, he would not make difficulties for you. You see …” She was having trouble explaining under an unflinching, ice-coated stare. If only he would move, just a twitch of a muscle, the flicker of an eyelash. The utter stillness was more intimidating than anything she could ever have imagined. When the silence continued, she drew breath and resumed. “I came here tonight intending to offer myself as Elise’s substitute in your plan to …” Blackmail was the word, of course, but somehow she didn’t think she could use it. “To compel Papa in the matter of the anchorage.”