by Baird Wells
Spencer made a big show of seating the cork back into the green glass bottle. “That is quite enough for you, Mrs. Rowan. Nurse what you have or do without.”
She took a small mouthful of her second round, suddenly confessional. “It isn't Rowan.”
“What?” She might as well have slapped him, by the look on his face.
“It isn't Rowan. Just Paton. Rowan's just a name I adopted after my behavior humiliated Paulina with some imagined scandal. A name I was forced to adopt,” she corrected.
He scooted further back, and leaned in to study her face. “I don’t understand.”
“Silas had got control of our business, thanks to Chas. He had control of us, too. He wouldn't brook my nonsense and neither would she. Of course, Chas had no choice. So I was marched home from Carolina to discover that I had been 'gone on my honeymoon with Mister Rowan, who had tragically fallen overboard and drowned'.” She raised her voice theatrically, throwing arms wide from under the quilt.
“Carolina. Where had you truly gone?”
“To Carolina,” she asserted, a surprisingly raw ache in her heart. “Tempted by a man I was madly in love with.”
Spencer’s gaze cooled. “And now?”
“And now he’s a memory. I have no idea what became of Edward. If he wrote afterward, I never saw the letters.”
“He never came for you?” demanded Spencer.
“Silas was waiting when we put into port.” She swallowed and closed her eyes, wishing the images didn’t hang behind her lids. “I saw him on the docks, brutish and glaring, with Chas beside him. He dragged me ashore.”
“And no one stopped him, no one interfered?” he demanded.
“Not with his hands,” she clarified. “With a leash of fear and a heavy palm on my brother’s shoulder.” She breathed deep and let a swell of nerves subside. “I felt he would be at every port, waiting any time we came ashore and using Chas as leverage. Edward had been so patient through my father’s decline, tolerating Chas’s abuse. He grabbed my arm at the gangplank and said that if I left him now, it was for the last time.” She dabbed her eyes with a sleeve. “I didn’t even offer an excuse, just walked past.”
Spencer was up on his knees, raking fingers through his hair. “Well, did he come after you at all? Try to stop you? What did Silas want with it all?”
“What he has always wanted: my shares.” She shrugged. “To own Paton Shipping, and the obedience of everyone around him.”
“Why didn’t you run? Flee where he couldn’t find you?”
Her laugh rattled hollow in her chest. “I thought I had, with Edward. I’d been so careful, and still, there was Silas.” She pressed her eyes with trembling fingers. “If he had beaten me any less I might have found the strength to escape. He drove home his point with every blow of his walking stick. Silas truly beat the rebellion out of me.”
“That's madness,” Spencer rasped, mouth agape.
“It was. And I had to play along. He holds a majority of our company. Convinced the investors to make him trustee of my shares, in my absence. Just as a precaution, he assured them, in case something should happen to me.” She spit the words, swallowing down bile at their memory. “We do whatever he wants, because we’ve no idea what he will do if we disobey.”
“Alexandra, he’s holding you hostage. It cannot stand.”
“It won't,” she promised. “Not much longer. I've bought back nearly enough shares to have a real stake. Chas can take over, and I can cash out. I’ll finally be free.”
“What a wonder you are,” praised Spencer, kissing the top of her head and warming her with a note of pride in his words. “Not that you need me, but I am here. We will sort this out together at every turn.”
She leaned into him again, terrible memories calmed by his nearness and the rest of her scotch. They watched the waves come on relentlessly. Spencer's fingers played idly with tendrils of hair at her nape while she worried at a seam of his shirt. His other hand brushed her forehead, cradled her cheek and he turned her to face him.
Alix knew what came next. She closed her eyes and tipped her head back into his palm. His lips only played at first, brushing, pressing gently before they finally slid firmly against her own. He leaned into her, urging her back until she fell into the rough grass. Spencer fell beside her without breaking their kiss. His hand traced her waist and toyed with her sash. She braced his jaw with a palm, scraping over the barest hint of a beard. She drew him in close, tasting peat and smoke on his tongue. Driving fingers into his hair, she caught a line of sweat beading at his collar, trailed it into his shirt and raked nails over his taut shoulders.
Spencer sucked a breath against her lips, twitched and then pulled away. He sat up, knees to chest and stared across the water until she heard his breathing slow. He was fighting for control; she wished he wouldn’t.
Lying in the grass, Alix watched him, running a finger up his back and trying to read the set of his shoulders. She wanted him to come back, to lie over her and kiss her again. Instead, he stood up, eyes moving over her, head to toe. He stretched out a hand. “Let's go in. We should eat.”
A serious note to the words made her frown as he pulled her up. “Why?”
“Because we both need our strength,” he teased. His lips buried in her throat without warning.
Alix didn't recognize the moan as hers, not even when her knees buckled and Spencer dragged her close. He held her that way a moment, then reached down for the quilt and gave her arm a tug. “Come,” he pulled again. “It's time we went in.”
* * *
He was too hungry for continued seduction, and apparently so was Alix. Their dinner conversation devolved into teasing and good-natured arguing, all of it punctuated by concern over why they hadn't made more to eat. Smoked ham and earthy white potatoes, sweet onions and rich broth conspired to make him lazy. A pint of golden ale hadn’t helped matters.
“Hmm.” Alix pressed a hand to her chest and leaned back in her chair. “Good food. Good drink,” Her foot kicked his beneath the table and her eyes were warm and content, “Good company. I couldn't name a better day if you asked me.”
The compliment flustered him. Spencer drained the last mouthful of ale from his glass, sat back, and looked her over. “Alexandra.”
Her brows raised, and she cast him a sideways look. “Yes.”
“Why did you ask me to have an affair?”
Her head shook and she sputtered. Lips worked but nothing intelligible came out. “I thought we already sorted this out.”
“Obviously not.” He couldn't fight laughter straining his ribs. Taking up the bottle, he leaned and filled both their glasses one last time. “Or perhaps I want to hear it again. I'll give you a moment to answer.”
She shrugged, laughing now, too. “I like you.” Alix claimed her glass and drew an unladylike mouthful. Setting it just so beside her plate, she fiddled with the rim a moment and then met his eyes. “Why not you?”
He shrugged, not under any pretenses. “I'm old.”
“Old?” She laughed and scrubbed hands over her face. “Forty is not old.” Blue eyes studied him a moment. “You’re tall. Fit. You’ve long fingers and lips to tempt a saint. No one would call you old.”
Her praise started a slow burn. “Some do,” he argued, watching her.
“To hell with them, then.” She polished off her ale in one swallow. “Old,” she scoffed. “Experienced.”
His pulse doubled at her implication. “You like me; is that all?” he prodded.
Alexandra leaned across their narrow table, in his face and looking fully aware that she was being baited. “No. You're handsome as Lucifer. I love the way you smell. You kiss like a libertine, and sometimes your gaze makes me feel naked.” Her finger was pinning his chest now, and if her rant hadn't been so arousing he would have laughed. “I enjoy your conversation nearly as much as I enjoy you in a pair of buckskins. The books you read are educated. Judging by John's account of you in the ring, you could put a m
an's face through his head, and I have no idea why but I find that very appealing.”
“You damn me with faint praise madam,” he teased softly, brushing the tip of his nose to hers. Spencer tipped his head, set to kiss her and aching to stop dancing around why they were here.
“Now you,” she panted against his mouth, still worked up by her tirade.
He snapped back, putting space between them. “Me what?”
“You.” She waved a finger over him. “You tell me why you accepted.”
He hadn't imbibed enough to share her level of confidence; the question unbalanced him. Looking impatient with his silence, Alix crossed her arms. “I am old.”
“No,” he breathed, taking in her flushed cheeks and sea-blue eyes, an errant black curl or two caressing her cheek in defiance of her bun. “No, you are not old.”
He reached across the table, unknit her arms and took her hands. “I think that is a word that is only applied by the very young. When I was twenty, forty was decrepit,” he admitted, recalling what a brash ass he had been. “The finest points of my military career came in my thirties. I am the most content I have ever been. And I have no patience for the uninformed mind and idle chatter of a girl half my age.”
He pressed her fingers harder. “I wish to sit at my table and do as we are doing now. To be entertained, satisfied. Not wrung for compliments and otherwise ignored. I want to take a woman to my bed and want to be made to feel like a man.” Spencer smiled at wide eyes, brushed her cheek. “I enjoy all of that with you. Or, I will.”
“Spencer.”
He ached at the way Alexandra breathed his name and his heart hummed at her soft invitation. He got up, still holding her hand, and drew her towards the stairs.
* * *
Spencer had already made up the fire; before dinner she guessed, by a deep gray char to the logs. Small tongues of flame cast an amber glow over an otherwise dark room. Alix stood at a window, squinting out into the night, but there was no telling sea from land with the sun fully set.
Only Spencer's reflection filled the panes; her heart skipped and she turned around.
He shut the door with meaning, slouched against it and pressed it with both palms. Head leaned back, he watched her from across the room. “Here we are.”
She caught his smile and nodded. “Here were are.”
He straightened and beckoned her with a finger. Hesitant, she took him in a breath longer, knowing that the moment she moved, things would be in motion neither of them could stop.
“Alexandra,” he commanded, his voice gentle authority, “come here.”
She did. Her body did, delighted to obey whether her mind agreed or no. A thrill shivered through her.
They met at the fireplace. Spencer rested an elbow against the mantle, taking her in. She twitched at fingers raking her arm. “I want to have an affair with you,” he teased.
She stared at the hollow of his throat, following the open vee of his shirt. “I do. More than anything.”
Hands cupped her shoulders and Spencer turned her away. His fingers tugged the knot in her sash and his nose followed the curve of her neck. Alix gasped, tensed, then fell against his chest while her sash whispered to the floor. A stout hand worked between them; he popped each button with deft fingers. Cool air swept her bare shoulders.
Spencer drew lips over her nape, stubble rasping her flesh.
She began to unravel.
Palms curved down over her arms. With little encouragement her dress gave up, pooling with the sash at her feet.
Four sharp tugs got her stays loose. Spencer worked them over her head, taking quick liberty as he went, catching her breast through a thin chemise. And just like that, it and her stockings were all that remained. A hand at her waist turned her back to face him. Arms hung at his side, and, after a moment, Alix realized Spencer was waiting for something.
Settling at the mattress' edge, she leaned back onto her palms and looked him over. “Come here.”
He stepped between her knees and forced her shift up higher.
“Take off your shirt.”
She had expected him to take his time, make a show of it. Instead, Spencer grabbed the tail and untucked it, and pulled it free in a single fluid motion. It fell discarded with her own clothes. Reaching up, she raked fingernails at his throat and brushed from his chest to the flat plane of his stomach, and stopped just shy of his breeches.
“What,” she breathed, sitting up, “is that?” Angry and red, the scar banded beneath his ribs, a gash with thick skin healed over it. Alex ran a finger over the recent wound. Spencer's flesh twitched beneath her thumb.
“Musket ball,” he panted. “Not the first or the last.”
He was being truthful. Running her hands over him in dim fire light, her fingertips caught three more ragged scars and a dozen smoother ones, carved by blades or bayonets. Each was a brush with fate, a near miss which might have cost her Spencer before she had known to miss him, and robbed her of their future. The patchwork of his flesh was sobering, and she caressed each mark with reverence.
She pressed a hand to the small of his back and leaned in to brush kisses up from his hip. Sweat and sea salt stung her lips. Spencer's fingers crushed her hair a moment, muscles taut under her tongue, and then he drew back. A straining in his breeches was unmistakable. Alix ducked her eyes, stealing glimpses while Spencer bent to pry off his boots.
Tucking her legs, she crawled up the bed and wriggled beneath the quilts.
Spencer stood up and froze. Grinning, he shook his head. “Absolutely not. What do you think you are doing?”
She glanced over the bed, confused. “I thought … If we're going to,” she cleared her throat, “then we should be in bed.” Her experience might be limited but that part seemed fairly obvious.
Spencer was already shaking his head again. He pinned the mattress beside her with a knee, and grabbed the quilts and dragged them all the way to the foot of the bed. “I'm not making love to you like a dowdy, under the sheet in my night cap and dressing gown.”
She bit back a smile at the image, heart racing at how easily he took charge.
His rough palm bridged bare flesh between the top of her stocking and the hem of her shift. Fabric bunched helplessly in his path to her hip, and his fingers brushed over her ribs. The chemise gathered around her face, and then it was gone, tossed from view.
She didn't meet Spencer's eyes, instead staring at shadows of flame dancing on the wall. Alix had never really thought of herself as self-conscious, but then, no man had ever seen her nude. It was a foreign, wondrous feeling.
“Alexandra,” Spencer beckoned, obliging her to look up, “take down your hair.”
She obliged him, under a spell. Eight pins; she drew them slowly, reveling in the way he watched her, caressing her with his eyes while she worked. Bold, she held both arms higher as she went, aware of the effect it was having by the slant of his gaze. A moment later her teasing was rewarded by a low groan.
Finished and triumphant, she tossed her pins to the floor and pinged them off of the wood without caring. Hair brushed her back and shoulders, a sensation she had experienced a hundred times before. Tonight, though, it was different.
Spencer pressed her back against the bed and raked fingers through her waves to fan them over the pillows. When he sat back to survey his handiwork, Alix turned her face away from the scrutiny. Fingers circled one wrist, then the other; he raised her arms and rested them above her head and hummed his approval.
When stood up and the mattress shifted, giving her the courage to look at him again. His eyes didn’t leave her body while he worked his breeches open with the same deftness as he had her gown. Long planes and sharp angles were silhouetted by the firelight and she watched unabashed as he stripped the pants away. He came back to her, sat, and then stretched out beside her along the bed. His hard frame crushed her softer one, and she sighed.
Spencer wrapped her with an arm, tucking a hand into the small of her bac
k. Then he stopped, head bent halfway to her mouth. “Do you feel that?” he whispered.
She felt a lot of things. Uncertain, Alex shook her head and he smiled.
“I can just feel your heart against mine.”
Exhaling, she closed her eyes and smiled. She did feel it, and contentment washed over her. She breathed his name, exhaling the last syllable against his lips.
There was no preamble to his mouth’s force. He crushed lips against her teeth until she winced, but she had no desire to pull away. Something about a little pain made her heart thump harder, and she gripped his shoulder and pulled, silently begging Spencer to cover her body with his. He obliged with one easy shift, settling between her knees.
He assaulted her neck and shoulders, the tops of her breasts. Teeth nipped, his tongue soothed, and Alix struggled to catch a breath.
She traced the corded lines of his back, his buttocks, memorizing the shape of his body. She'd never seen, let alone touched, an entirely unclothed man. Something primitive whispered for her to scrape, to knead, to learn. She wanted to learn him with fingers and legs and tongue, to touch every inch.
Spencer stiffened between her legs, groaned into her breasts, and pulled away. He stared down at her, chest heaving. He was asking; she understood by a hungry look he fixed on her. Alix closed her eyes, raised arms above her head in surrender, and arched against him.
Spencer's weight shifted on her, transferring onto one arm, crushing her while lips painted her shoulder with hot gasps. Knuckles brushed the inside of her thigh. He drew back, and then pressed her with infinite gentleness.
“Mmph!” She arched further, winced, and sucked in a breath. It hurt, and then it passed, washed away on a surge of need.
Spencer stiffened. She didn't hear him so much as breathe, and then he pulled back.
“No! No, no!” Alix grabbed at his shoulders, his hip, holding him.
“Alexandra,” he panted, pulling harder.
“No.” She locked a leg over his back, and when that didn't work, raised her hips to sink him fully inside. “No,” she gasped again, knowing she'd won when Spencer weighted her back against the mattress. He came into her again, pushed up the length of her body with a pressure near to pushing through her. He tore a cry from her chest, coming on again at the same delicious pace.