“They will be down with a candle to light us out very soon,” he said.
Tess turned her face up to his. “Why did it happen?”
“A draught from above, or a lack of oxygen, perhaps,” Owen said. “Such things are enough to douse the lights completely.” His cheek brushed hers in the darkness, cool and a little rough. She felt his breath ruffle her hair. Instantly her senses filled with the scent of him, of cologne, ship’s tar, fresh air. She felt dizzy. She remembered their kisses, the feel of his lips against hers, the blaze of desire and the driving need to be closer still.
But this felt different. Tess hesitated for a moment and then took a step closer and rested her hands against Owen’s chest. She pressed against him, instinctively seeking reassurance and comfort. She felt safe and loved and at the same time her heart pitched over and she felt as though she had stepped right off the cliff and into thin air.
She felt his chest move against her cheek, felt his lips brush her brow, and her need transformed from the search for comfort to something sharper and hotter. Desire. She had so seldom felt it before. Now it burned her at every turn.
She could feel Owen’s heartbeat beneath her fingers, felt it accelerate as she stood on tiptoe and pressed her lips inexpertly to the corner of his mouth. The darkness was intimate, tempting. It made her feel brave. He had kissed her before, taken control. Now she wanted to try.
Tess heard him draw a sharp breath and in the same moment realised that she had never kissed a man and did not know how to do it, particularly when she could not even see what she was doing. She stood still, frozen into mortification, her lips an inch from his. Trapped between desire and embarrassment, feeling her body heat with what was surely the latter, not the former, she was about to withdraw when Owen bent his head.
“You think too much,” he whispered against her lips. “Just do it.”
That this was not bad advice was her last coherent thought before his mouth claimed hers unerringly in the darkness. Tess felt relief but it was banished as soon as it came, swamped by a wave of excitement and lust so fierce that she gasped against his lips. She had not expected it to be so ferocious; it swept her away. Owen’s tongue was in her mouth, twining with hers in a kiss so intimate and intense she thought she might melt. His hands were on her shoulders and the cloak fell. She felt one of his palms warm against the small of her back, holding her still against him as the kiss deepened with escalating hunger.
Tess clutched at Owen’s forearms to steady herself and felt him shift, felt her back come up against the cold wall of the cave. Hot and cold, her body shivered as though with a fever. Owen was pressing kisses against her throat now and she tilted her head back against the wall to make it easier for him. His lips brushed the hollow at the base of her throat, then the edging of the neckline of her gown, and she arched against him in sheer instinctive need. She drove her hands beneath the superfine of his coat, feeling the smooth linen of his shirt beneath and the warm muscles of his back beneath that. Owen groaned and Tess felt a flash of power so victorious that she smiled with the pleasure of it.
His fingers slid over the curve of her breast beneath the bodice and her nipple rose instantly against the touch. She felt a tug, and the sting of the cold air was against her bared skin. Her mind spun; it was astonishing, delicious. She had had no idea. And then his mouth was on her there…?. Her thoughts splintered in shocked delight. Her knees buckled and she thought she was going to faint. Owen caught her before she slid to the ground.
“Too fast.” He was breathing so hard she could barely discern the words. He held her tightly, his cheek pressed close against hers. “Teresa. We must slow down.”
She did not want to. This was all she wanted now, his mouth on hers, his hands on her body. But already the pleasure was slipping away from her, as elusive as water clasped in the hands. Her heartbeat slowed and her breath steadied. She was no longer afraid of Owen but she was uncertain, inexperienced and utterly taken aback by her own responses and emotions.
“Don’t tell me,” she said, striving for control. “You have no intention of consummating our marriage in a cavern two hundred and eighty feet underground.”
She heard him laugh, still shaken, still close to the edge. “No indeed.”
Candlelight flared; the voice of the attendant called, “Where are you, sir?”
They fell apart, torn from the intimate cocoon that had held them. Tess hauled up her bodice and bent to grab her cloak, wrapping it tightly about her with hands that shook. She felt adrift and disoriented. Her body was still singing from Owen’s touch, craving more. In the growing light she could see that his face was taut, his breathing still hard. He tucked his shirt back into his pantaloons and smoothed his jacket, and Tess realised with a pang of shock that she had been the one who had undone those buttons in her desperate quest to be as close to him as she could.
It was fortunate, she thought, that in the face of the anxious attendant she was able to ascribe her flushed cheeks and shaking hands to the effects of being trapped in the dark rather than to the fact that she had been so close to begging for ravishment.
The man was frightfully apologetic, anxious perhaps for his tip. “I don’t know how it happened, my lord. The wind got up and the door slammed…?.”
Tess listened absentmindedly to Owen assuring the man it was in no way his fault and hurried up the steps towards the square of light at the top. Although it was snowing heavily by now she drew in deep breaths of the clear fresh air.
“Are you all right?” Owen said as he handed her up into the carriage and she sat down rather shakily on the velvet seat. His touch was warm and reassuring now. Her hectic pulse settled, and the turbulent emotions inside her simmered down. She felt safe again.
“What happened?” Tess said. “What happened between us?”
Owen looked moody, almost as though he were angry. “Lust,” he said shortly. “And lack of self-control on my part.”
Tess thought about it. “I’ve never felt lust before,” she said. “How singular.” She thought about it some more. “I rather liked it,” she admitted.
Owen’s expression had lightened a little. “Any time you would like to experience it again…”
Tess laughed. “Thank you, but I think I was getting a little out of my depth by the end.”
“You were not the only one,” Owen muttered.
Tess sat staring out of the carriage window as the snow thickened, turning the heath to a white haze beneath a pewter-grey sky. She knew she had a decision to make. She could retreat into caution or she could take the risk. The two emotions tugged on her, pulling in opposite directions, the deep, habitual fearfulness versus an utterly unfamiliar frisson of desire, wicked, wanton, thrilling.
She had not wanted to learn about physical intimacy. Now she did. She wanted to overcome her fears and she wanted to entrust herself to him.
Poor Owen. What a heavy responsibility to place on a man. A rueful smile curved her lips. “I’m sorry,” she said, as the carriage lurched over the snow-covered track. “This whole matter must be a great strain for you.”
The spectacular smile that lit his eyes made her heart give one of its giddy leaps. He drew her closer so that her body was just touching his. “I do believe that you are worth it,” he said. He gave her a brief, hard kiss. It left her breathless. “But yes,” he added wryly, “it is rather like trying to sail Sea Witch through the passage of The Needles. One false move and we are wrecked.”
Tess gave a spontaneous giggle. “You are comparing me to a shipwreck?” She touched her hand to his cheek. “I was thinking more in terms of the strain on your self-control.”
“That,” Owen said, “is very thoughtful of you.” He turned his head and kissed her fingers. “That too. It is completely wrecked. I have decidedly less self-control than I thought I had.” He kissed her again, more slowly this time, lingering, sensual, until Tess felt as though she was melting with the bliss of it. She drew back. Owen’s eyes were dark wi
th the intensity of his desire. Her heart thudded. To entrust herself to him… She did not know if she had the courage.
“You think too much,” Owen had said. “Just do it.”
It had been good advice. Her heart took a huge leap. The nervousness closed her throat. But her decision was made. It was time that she opened the door and banished those dark memories for good. It was time she stepped into the light.
She was going to seduce her husband. And she was going to do it tonight.
OWEN SAT IN THE CORNER OF THE carriage and watched Tess as they wended their way back to the Old George Inn in Greenwich for dinner. She was leaning forwards and gazing out of the window, her face averted from him. Given that it was almost full dark outside and that the snow was falling like a shroud now, he doubted that she could see much of the heath.
He wondered if her avoidance tactics were because she was shy, shocked by what had happened between them in the caverns. It did not seem likely given her incendiary response to him and he hoped it was not the case. He had seen the bemusement on her face when the candlelight had first fallen on it and there had been astonishment in her eyes but no dread and no fear. Tess was discovering something she had never known, something that she was amazed to find she enjoyed very much, and, truth to tell, he had been equally astonished by her eagerness and her unrestrained response. Owen bit off a smile. He had never seen himself as a tutor. The women he had known had been as experienced as he. But this was exciting stuff. Introducing Tess to physical pleasure, watching her delight in the discovery, was going straight to his head as well as to other fundamental parts of his body. And they had barely started. Soon, if he were not careful, he would believe himself God’s gift to women.
Soon she would be driving him to the edge of madness.
He had promised himself and promised her that he would take matters slowly, but twice now Tess’s passionate reaction to him had almost made him lose that control. He had been taken by surprise. He had underestimated her. She might be damaged by what had happened in her past but she was brave enough to try again.
Tess caught the edge of his glance and their eyes met. She gave him a smile he had never seen on her lips before, a smile full of promise, wickedly teasing. Owen realised with a shock that she had not been avoiding his gaze because she was shy, quite the contrary. She had been exploring all manner of decadent thoughts. She was intrigued by what had happened between them, not repulsed.
The air between them instantaneously seemed to heat and burn. Owen felt his body start to harden into arousal. He wanted to grab her, tumble her onto the carriage seat beneath him and make frantic love to her. The need he had for her seized him by the throat so hard and fast his mind reeled.
Hell. How could Tess do this to him with only a few kisses?
This was going to be excruciatingly difficult. He had had no idea. And now he was committed. He was honour-bound to take this very slowly indeed.
“Will we be there soon?” Tess said innocently, her blue eyes wide. “I am very hungry.”
Hell and the devil. So was he. Owen turned his mind away from the many and varied ways he wished to slake that hunger.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
IT WAS DANGEROUS FOR Tom Bradshaw to venture into Mayfair where so many people might recognise him and where so many wanted him arrested, tried and hanged. But it was more dangerous to stay away, because Tom knew that fate was closing in. It was the end game.
He had been following Justin Brooke all day, noting the places he went and whom he met. Now his quest had brought him to this shabby house in Dover Street, tucked almost unnoticed between Green’s Hotel and the Dragon Club. He slid around the back of the house, scaled the wall with considerable ease and dropped down onto a snow-covered terrace that looked directly through the dusty windows of a library.
There were three men in the room, hunched around a table before the fire. Tom had already known that Brooke would be there. A second man he accurately and contemptuously identified as Catesby, one of Lord Sidmouth’s most treacherous agents. Sidmouth would not attend such a meeting in person, of course. He would want total deniability that he had ever been involved in a plot such as this. But Tom knew the Home Secretary was implicated. He was in it up to his neck, in fact.
The third man was unknown to Tom and he viewed him with some interest. He was not young but neither was he old. He had an equine face framed by excessively large shirt points, a ridiculously dandified waistcoat and a rangy body slumped in one of the battered wing chairs. He was a gentleman by birth perhaps but no gentleman to be part of such an unholy trinity as this.
Tom watched as Brooke took from his pocket some drawings and laid them on the table. Sidmouth’s spy stooped over them like a hawk. The dandy picked one up, perused it lazily and dropped it with a laugh. Tom pressed closer to the window. Even from here he could see the cartoons with their strong black lines and the arrogant signature by Jupiter. For a moment Tom was shocked that Rothbury must have ignored his warning and not told Tess of the danger in which she stood if she continued to act as the radicals’ cartoonist. Then his stomach dropped as the truth hit him. These were not Tess’s drawings. They were Emma’s work. Justin Brooke must have persuaded his sister to take up the mantle of Jupiter as caricaturist for the radical faction, and Emma, always so ardent in support of those causes she believed in, had agreed. Tom beat his fist against the rough stone of the wall. Emma had been in enough danger before when she had merely attended the radical meetings. By becoming Jupiter, the figurehead of the radicals, she was stepping directly into the line of fire.
Sidmouth’s spy was addressing Justin, firing off questions at him. From what Tom could gather they were going to use the caricatures to incite violent trouble at the next big radical meeting the following week. But that was not all. Sidmouth wanted to capture Jupiter, the figurehead, the talisman, and Brooke was nodding. The dandified wretch in his gold brocade waistcoat was suddenly alive as though someone had jerked his strings and was sitting forwards, and it was Tess Rothbury’s name that had caught his interest. Catesby was talking now about how they could use the cartoons to trap and arrest Tess, and Brooke looked as though he wanted to protest, but in the end he slumped in his seat, his face grey, and said nothing at all. Tom could see that Brooke had betrayed Tess, just as he had suspected he would. And now Sidmouth’s spy also knew that Emma had been complicit in the drawing of the cartoons and that made Tom’s heart contract with terror because Sidmouth was ruthless and Emma was in terrible danger and her own brother had put her there.
Tom felt a wave of despair sweep through him. He did not know how to warn Emma. She would never believe a word against her brother, least of all if the warning came from him. Emma had steadfastly refused to see him and Tom knew that Brooke, who had orchestrated his removal from Emma’s life in the first place, had completely poisoned her mind against him. Yet still he had to try to persuade her of her brother’s perfidy before it was too late. And he had no notion how he was going to do it.
TESS WAS NOT HUNGRY. IT WAS A shocking waste of good food, she thought, but there was no getting away from it. Ever since she had decided that she was going to seduce Owen she had been simultaneously exhilarated and terrified, completely unable to eat a crumb. Nature was conspiring with her too; by the time they had reached Greenwich the snow was too thick for them to return to town and they were marooned at the Old George Inn for the night.
The inn parlour was deliciously warm, with an open fire that had soon thawed the cold from the caverns and soothed Tess after the long, slow drive through the snow. The beef pie steamed deliciously and there was hot soup to tempt her if the pie did not. The landlord had already been in twice, his brow increasingly furrowed when he saw she had not touched the food and drunk only a drop or two of her coffee.
“You’ll make the poor man most unhappy if he thinks his food not good enough for the Viscountess Rothbury.” Owen had discarded his jacket and was sitting opposite her, elbows on the table, shirts
leeves rolled up and showing his muscular forearms dusted with golden hairs. His voice was cheerful but in his eyes was the same concentrated intensity with which he had been watching her since they had arrived. Something clenched inside Tess, released and clenched again, and she found the latest mouthful of pie had turned to sawdust in her mouth and the breath was trapped in her throat.
“It’s your fault.” She wanted to sound cross but the words came out too faint to contain any authority. She drew a jerky breath. “All you do is look at me. Like that.”
A smile she could only describe as smug curved Owen’s lips. “And so you lose your appetite?” he said.
“Yes, damn you.” She pushed the plate away. The soup slopped. “I’m hungry. Starving. But when you look at me like that you make me nervous.”
The smile in Owen’s eyes made her heart ache fiercely. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You have nothing to fear.” He stretched. Tess watched the ripple of muscle beneath the linen of his shirt. “I have booked two separate rooms.”
“I don’t want my own room,” Tess said. “I want to stay with you.” She felt hot, mortified, and yet there was a razor-sharp edge of excitement in her stomach. She swallowed convulsively. Well, the words were out now. Let him make of them what he would.
Owen stilled. He put down the beaker of ale he was holding. “If you are concerned that you will not be safe on your own I can assure you that this is a very respectable inn.”
“Please don’t be obtuse,” Tess whispered. “I do not want my own chamber as I wish to be with you. I want to make love with you.”
She pressed her palms together. They felt slightly damp. Her whole body felt strange, aware of each shift and slide of her gown like a caress against her skin. She was burning up inside, part anxiety, part wicked delight. She was not sure if she was mad to take this risk and entrust herself to Owen when she was so uncertain of everything. She only knew that her instinct prompted her to give herself to him. She had been alone for ten long, barren years and now that could change only if she took a leap of faith.
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