by Jane Feather
“Monsieur?” Silas appeared instantly.
“Take the umbrella and see if you can see her. She’ll be wearing maid’s costume and a turban.” It was little enough succor to offer, but all he could think of. Silas, without a flicker of protest, donned his oilskins again, and went out stoically to patrol the street.
“She will be very wet,” Angelique said in tones of concern. “I will prepare a brandy toddy for her. It will help to avert a chill.”
She was rewarded by an instant, warm smile. “That is a kind thought, Angel. Do so by all means.”
With a little smile of satisfaction, Angelique went out to the kitchen. Not for one minute had Dominic questioned her easy helpfulness, her apparent lack of concern that he was intending to spend the afternoon making love to some scrawny, underdeveloped whore. But then why should he question it? she thought bitterly. He believed absolutely that his established mistress had no right to object to anything he chose to do. He looked after her in exchange for what she had to offer. It was a simple contract—one of the oldest in civilization—and if the woman wanted it to continue, then she must do nothing to upset her protector. Unless she could capture him, body and soul. Then would she have the power to alter the balance of power.
Genevieve splashed through a deep puddle, rather resembling a river, and cursed as her broken-down boots filled with water. She had been crazy to attempt this, but one more minute in the house listening to Elise and Hélène discussing flounces and ruffs, and the relative merit of cord du roi over merino and she would have smashed something—probably one of the precious French figurines that her own mother had brought as part of her dowry and that would form part of Genevieve’s own, she reflected glumly. Her outbursts, like her father’s, always had the worst possible consequences, however unintentional; unlike Elise, who contrived to weep and storm without causing the least damage, and always arousing maximum sympathy.
Besides, over lunch, she had obtained her father’s approval for a visit to the Ursulines, and she found that she could not contain her need to tell Dominic. It was always possible, if she failed to make contact with him, that he would go off to Lake Borgne without her. He knew where the bayou was and did not really need her to navigate for him. He was presumably far too expert a sailor to need any assistance in the matter at all.
In spite of her heavy cloak, the front of the calico gown was soaked, the darkened material plastered to her legs, where the wind and rain had blown the cloak aside. The turban clung to her scalp, water dripping in a steady, chilling stream down her back. Genevieve did not think she had ever been so wet outside of the bathtub, and she could not remember ever having been more uncomfortable. As she turned onto Rampart Street from Ursulines Street, the thought of her own bedroom, of a steaming bath and Tabitha clucking around her with hot tea and thick towels, rose with almost irresistible force. She was too cold and wet and miserable to face strangers. And Dominic Delacroix, except in one essential, was almost a complete stranger. Why should she imagine that he would be sympathetic to her plight? He would probably laugh and say that he had never expected her to come out in such a storm, so the fault was all her own. He certainly would not be either able or willing to give her what she needed—what only Tabitha could give her.
With a wretched sniff, she stopped in the middle of the river that was the banquette. She would go home. At least her need for exercise and fresh air had been satisfied. But as she turned back, a voice hailed her. “Mademoiselle!” She spun round to see a figure hurrying through the puddles toward her. He wore oilskins and carried a huge umbrella. “Mademoiselle, come with me, please.”
It was the man called Silas, her abductor. The man who had no scruples about the methods he used to quench resistance. But then he simply obeyed orders. It was Dominic who lacked the scruples, she remembered. Silas came up with her, holding the umbrella over her. “This way, mademoiselle.” He took her arm, turning her up the street. Genevieve shrugged and complied. The succor of the umbrella was offered a little late in the day, she reflected, but it would be churlish to refuse it.
They reached the house, its front door flush with the banquette, and Silas hammered on the knocker. It was flung open instantly by a dry, elegant Dominic, not a hair out of place, not a ruffle disturbed, who said exactly what Genevieve had been afraid he would, and what was the last thing he had meant to say. “You silly child! Whatever possessed you to come out in this? You look like a drowned kitten!” There was exasperation, not amusement, in his voice, and it was too much for Genevieve.
“I needed the exercise,” she snapped, turning back to the banquette. “And I find I have not yet had sufficient.”
“Come back here!” Dominic grabbed her arm and yanked her into the hall where she stood dripping and indignant. “You’re going nowhere but upstairs where you will get out of those wet clothes and into a hot bath.” Hustling her toward the stairs, he gave brisk orders to Silas to bring up hot water and a brandy toddy immediately.
Genevieve, in perverse protest at what she wanted more than anything in the world, pushed back against the hand in the small of her back, twisting her head round crossly. She encountered the fixed stare of a pair of large brown eyes. Angelique stood in the parlor doorway, watching and listening with puzzled hostility. Dominic did not sound at all loverlike as he pushed the damp creature up the stairs, which did not seem at all surprising to Angelique, considering the condition of the creature—disheveled, bedraggled, dressed in those dreadful clothes. Perhaps Dominic was not really interested in bedding with her. Probably he just wanted something from her, and this was his way of getting it. The creature was struggling quite foolishly. Surely she knew that one did not resist Dominic Delacroix.
“Will you do as you are told, Genevieve,” Dominic said. “I do not want to have to carry you, since I shall get wet myself. But if you do not get out of those wet clothes, you will catch pneumonia.”
“If you would just permit me to return home, I would be able to change my clothes,” she retorted. “I did not come here to be bullied like a child in the nursery.”
Dominic chuckled suddenly. “No, I am well aware of what you did come here for, and we shall get around to that all in good time.” He gave her another imperative shove.
Genevieve, to her mortification, felt herself blushing. She stumbled up the stairs, deciding that further protest would only add to her embarrassment. And she could still feel those brown eyes on her. “You said Angelique would not be here,” she accused, sure of her ground on this one, as Dominic pushed her into the bedchamber.
“No, I am sorry,” he apologized carelessly. “But she had nowhere to go in this rain. She is not troubled by you, and will certainly not trouble you, so I suggest you stop thinking about her.” Unfastening the loop of her cloak, he lifted the heavy waterlogged weight off her shoulders. “Get out of those clothes now. I will give them to Silas when he comes up with your bath, and he will dry them in the kitchen.”
“And what, pray, am I supposed to wear?” she demanded in a hopefully sarcastic tone, pulling off the turban and shaking free her rain-darkened hair. “I do not intend wearing anything of Angelique’s, at all events.”
“No,” he agreed with infuriating calm. “Her clothes would not suit you at all.” Spinning her round like a top, he unfastened the hooks of her gown, pushing the material off her shoulders. “Step out of this now.”
“Well, what am I to wear?” Genevieve stepped away from the wet heap of gaudy material clinging to her ankles.
“I can’t see what need there is for you to wear anything,” he replied cheerfully, lifting the hem of her shift and drawing it up her body, over her head. With a little smile, he reached out to touch one breast, cradling the cold roundness in the palm of his hand, caressing the nipple until it contracted in a hard, tight bud. Genevieve’s breath caught in her throat, and his smile broadened as his other hand began to pay the same attention to her other breast. The sensation deep in her belly was so acute it was almost painful, and her hands c
ame up of their own accord to close over his wrists, circling the sinewy strength. Her tongue ran over her lower lip, and Dominic watched the tiny movement, so expressive of her growing desire, and matching passion blazed in the turquoise eyes. Then there came a loud knock at the door.
“One minute, Silas,” Dominic called with a rueful smile. He freed her breasts from that tormenting captivity with obvious reluctance. “Take these off, now.” Finger and thumb pulled at the drawstring waist of her frilled pantalettes, and they fell to her ankles with a sighing rustle. Striding to the armoire, he pulled out a garment of richly brocaded silk. “This should provide adequate cover.” He dropped the robe over her shoulders. Genevieve was about to reiterate her protest that she would not wear something of Angelique’s, when he bade Silas enter, and she was obliged to turn her back on the door, hastily thrusting her arms in the sleeves. As she did so, it became clear that the garment could not have belonged to Angelique. The sleeves flapped emptily almost to her knees, and she could have wrapped the sides three times around her body. Walking was quite impossible as her legs and feet had disappeared totally in the folds of material that flopped to the floor, settling around her in a colorful silken sea. So, she just stood still, her back to the room, while whatever preparations were being made went on behind her.
“Take these and dry them, Silas.” Dominic picked up her discarded clothing, including her pantalettes, and handed them to the imperturbable sailor. The door closed, and a reflective silence seemed to take the place of the busy, bustling sounds. “Are you, like Lot’s wife, turned into a pillar of salt?” The privateer’s voice teased, a bubble of amusement in its vibrant depths. “You have not moved for at least ten minutes.”
Awkwardly, Genevieve turned round in the swathes of material swaddling her. “Walking does not appear to be an option I have, at the moment. This must belong to a giant.”
“It belongs to me,” she was informed with a laugh. “But, compared with you, sprite, almost anyone would be a giant. Take it off now and get in the bath.” Shrugging out of his coat, he tossed it over a chair and unfastened the mother of pearl buttons at the wrists of his shirt. With careful deliberation, he rolled up his sleeves.
Genevieve swallowed, her eyes riveted on the bronzed forearms where silky fair hair curled over rippling muscles. She had never known anyone but laborers who had suntanned bodies, but the privateer’s arms, torso, and face were deeply bronzed with a color so layered that it would take months of confinement away from the sun for it to disappear. He could only have one reason for rolling up his sleeves, she thought distractedly, fumbling with the tasseled girdle of the monstrous robe. It was one thing to be ministered to by Tabitha who would bathe her and dry her and wash her hair in the comfortingly familiar ways she had employed since Genevieve was a baby. But men did not do such things. Did they?
Dominic bent to run his hand through the water in the porcelain hip bath. “Hurry,” he directed softly. “It will get cold.”
Why did she feel so shy? The other night she had not been. She had offered herself shamelessly, yielding to the powerful demands of her body without thought or inhibition. What was different now? Was it that it was the middle of the afternoon? It was such a ludicrously prosaic thought that an embarrassing giggle threatened. Pure nervousness, she recognized distantly, as, unable to stall further, she pushed the robe off her shoulders and stood naked.
Dominic looked her up and down, his eyes hooded, that little smile playing over his lips. “In with you,” he said, pointing to the tub.
She walked across the floor, feeling the texture of the rug, warm and slightly prickly against her bare soles. The wood of the floorboards, where the rug stopped, was cool and smooth in contrast. All her senses seemed abnormally acute: her ears catching the drumming of the rain against the window; the whisper of the bathwater as Dominic drew his spread fingers across its surface; the slight shuffling sound of his buckskin-clad knees as he dropped to the wooden floor beside the tub; her eyes catching the play of light as the wax tapers, lit against the storm dark, were reflected in the swing mirror on the dresser; her nostrils catching the mingled scents of candle wax; a lingering perfume that was not her own; a dustiness from the little track of spilled face powder on the dresser, the clean tang of soap that Dominic was rubbing between his hands; and the wet smell of her hair as it clung in tendrils against her face.
Genevieve reached the tub, stood for a minute, her toes curling against the floor, her calves brushing against Dominic’s thigh as he knelt, waiting for her. Slowly, silently, he clasped the ankle nearest him, stroked the sharp pointy bone, ran his hand up her leg, molding her calf, tickling in the soft, sensitive spot behind her knee, stroking up her thigh, then higher to caress her bottom with a light, feathery touch. Genevieve trembled and wondered if she would ever manage to make the move that would take her into the waiting water. The tantalizing exploration of his fingers was sapping her will, leaving her formless, mindless. In an instant, she would sink to her knees beside him.
Then he took his hand away, leaving her skin cold and bereft. “Get in the bath, sprite,” he instructed, his voice husky, yet quite determined.
She stepped over the rim of the tub, then sat down slowly, sinking into the water’s warm benediction.
“Now,” Dominic promised softly. “I am going to give you a bath, unlike any you have ever received. Put your head back.” Reaching with one hand for a copper jug from which a spiral of steam curled, he lifted the wet mass of her hair with his other hand and poured the hot water in a slow, deliciously comforting stream over her head and shoulders. “You have the most incredible hair,” he murmured, his voice a caress as smooth as the hands that now massaged soap into her scalp. “I have never seen such an extraordinary color, and the texture is like satin.”
Little shivers of pleasure tiptoed up and down her spine, as she listened to his words and felt the sensuous touch of his hands. Her eyes were shut tight as she yielded her body to the delights of sensation—the warm river of water rinsing the soap from her hair, the vigorous rubbing that made her scalp tingle as he dried the shining mass with a thick towel before wrapping the towel lightly around her head and turning his attention to the rest of her.
Not an inch of her skin escaped the attention of his soaping hands, yet she was not being washed so much as deliberately, skillfully, knowingly aroused. Dominic seemed to be intent on discovering the most sensitive areas of her body, and Genevieve discovered, with considerable surprise, that those areas were not always where she most expected. Her ears, for instance, were obviously not designed simply for hearing. They were devastatingly sensitive to the flicking touch of his tongue, sending paroxysms of a pleasure so intense it verged on pain coursing through her entire body. The same was proved true of her feet. Small and narrow though they were, every millimeter seemed sensitively attached to some other part of her body, so that as he stroked over the soles, ran a soapy finger between her toes, massaged each toe with a firm, pulling movement, some other portion of her body came alive with delight. At the very end, he parted her thighs, spreading her legs wide over the sides of the tub, and her opened body leaped beneath his fingers, the exquisite pleasure simply the logical, inevitable extension of what had gone on before, completing the circle of arousal and fulfillment that had been applied to every inch of her.
When he laid her upon the bed, her skin glowing from a vigorous toweling, Genevieve thought that she had exhausted the possibilities of pleasure; only to discover, as she watched him undress, his movements swift and economical, and watched him come to her, powerful and most amazingly beautiful, his passion rising hard with promise from the base of his flat belly, that both mind and body demanded that the limits be extended.
Dominic stood beside the bed, looking down at her. “I wonder,” he said softly, “if you are ready yet to accept without fear my need, an ungentle and demanding need for your body.”
Genevieve reached out a hand to enclose the pulsing shaft that would enter
and fill her. She knew what he meant, knew that previously he had thought only of her, gentling her into pleasure, checking himself lest he scare or hurt her tender inexperience with an unwary movement. Now, he wanted to take what she was learning to give. “I am not afraid,” she whispered, kneeling on the bed to take him in her mouth, as he had taught her, concentrating with every stretched nerve in feeling his desire and pleasure through the movements of her lips and tongue and fingers. She felt his hands on her bent head, fingers twisting convulsively in the still damp hair on her neck, heard his breath, fast and uneven, as she moved her hands round to grasp his buttocks, her fingers digging into the hard, driving muscle as his mounting passion spread to enclose and involve her in the tight spiral that he broke abruptly, taking her by surprise as he pushed her urgently onto her back on the bed.
She looked up into a stranger’s eyes, deep, dark blue oceans of self-enclosed passion. “This time, you must come with me as you are able, sprite,” he declared, his voice a low throb as he knelt over her, spreading her thighs wide to receive the thrust of his turgid flesh. Genevieve heard herself whimper as her body closed around him, and her belly tightened, her hips arcing as he pressed deeper, reaching her very core, it seemed. With each thrust, he drove harder, further, beyond the boundaries of her self so that his presence within her became a part of her very self. His head was thrown back, his eyes closed, his hands on her shoulders, so that she bore the weight of his upper body. But she found herself able to bear the weight without difficulty, just as she found that she was able to take responsibility for her own pleasure, matching him thrust for thrust, her fingers biting deep into the flesh of his buttocks as she expressed her urgency the instant before the explosion racked her body, and her cry rang through the room, joined by Dominic’s a split second later.
It was an eternity later before the weight of him crushing her breasts, the soft press of his lips against her neck, brought Genevieve back to recognition of her own identity in the world. Her arms were flung wide on either side of her body as they had fallen in the aftermath of that explosion. Her legs were still spread wide around him, her skin damply melded with his. She brought her hand to his back, running a slow caress down the lean, muscular length, and Dominic raised his head and kissed her mouth—a kiss of affirmation, but affirmation of what, Genevieve was unsure.