“What is it?” he asked, lightly touching her shoulder. “Did I hurt you?”
“No, no, not at all. Just look how late it is!”
He glanced around her at the wall of windows before pulling her back down into bed. “No, no, meu único ouro,” he rumbled, snaking his hand down her stomach. “There is still a fistful of light in the sky. No need to rush.”
“But I must,” she stated firmly, even though she regretted saying it. “As much as I would love to stay abed with you, I need to be back in the castle for supper. I don’t even know how long I’ve been gone!”
“Only a few moments,” he assured her, placing a feather-light kiss upon her wrist. “So if you stay a few moments more, no one shall notice.”
“Stop trying to seduce me.”
Gaspar groaned playfully and nipped at the tips of her fingers. “Well, meu único ouro, if I must take you back to the castle, at least let me fix your hair.”
She brought her hand to her head, feeling how her curls were tangled and mussed from their romp. “Oh, goodness, now everyone will know what has happened.” She began to feel ill. She couldn’t imagine her being bedded by Gaspar was something that would go over well if her brother heard.
“Do not fear, Gwendolyn, we will fix your hair and your cheeks.”
“My cheeks?”
He brushed his stubbly jaw with his hand and then touched the curve of her chin. “Nothing. You look lovely. Come, I’ll help you dress.”
Gaspar slipped from bed and grabbed his pants from the floor. Gwen took a moment to appreciate the generous slope of his behind, and couldn’t contain the frown as it disappeared behind thick, black fabric. After he buckled his belt, he collected Gwen’s clothes off the floor.
“Enjoying the view?” he asked with a mischievous grin.
“Perhaps,” she admitted, sitting on the edge of the bed, feeling a dull soreness between her legs. “Will you be playing my lady’s maid?”
Gaspar knelt down beside the four-poster and pressed his lips to her inner thigh. “It’s like cream.” Then he put on each stocking and raised her to stand. But he didn’t immediately help her put on her shift. Instead he ran his hands down her sides, resting them upon her hips. “You are perfect, meu único ouro.”
She felt her cheeks burn. “Oh, do stop your flattery and help me dress, it’s bloody cold in here with nothing on.”
When she was decently outfitted and her knotted hair had been tamed with a borrowed comb of Gaspar’s, she was ready to return to the castle. At that point, the sun had truly set and the cabin’s windows showed nothing but black sky.
“Still a fistful of light, is there?” she asked him as he dropped his cross back around his neck.
“It was a very small fist.” Gaspar tucked his shirt into his pants. “The night chill may have come. Here, take this.” He reached into a wardrobe and pulled out a dark cloak.
She fastened it about her neck. “Thank you. Aren’t you taking one?”
“You’ll be leaving me with a fire in my belly. I need the cold to quench it,” he told her as he took her hand to lead her to the main deck. “Hell, I might even jump in the ocean!”
Gwen’s throat tightened at being reminded of how close they were to drowning. She strengthened her grip on his hand. “Don’t say things like that.”
He looked down at her when they were out in the night air. The deck was deserted, but the sound of the crew below could be heard. “I’m sorry, meu único ouro.” He kissed the back of her hand and looped an arm around her waist. “Now, remember to stay close to me.”
There was no moon, only the sprinkle of stars in the sky as they began their descent down the gangplank. She could hardly see anything, but Gaspar strolled down the narrow walkway with ease, apparently able to see in the dark like some manner of cat. She clung to his chest, eager to get back to the rocky shore and away from the sea, which was only made more frightening by its new inky darkness.
Once she was standing on dry land, Gaspar released her, instead choosing to take her hand, entwining his fingers with hers. When they began the walk back to the castle, she was grateful for his cloak. He was right by saying that the night winds had come. He, on the other hand, seemed totally fine, oblivious to the spring chill.
As they strolled in silence, Gwen had time to think. The addition of clothes did much to enhance her thoughts. If she and Gaspar had still been lounging in his bed, there was no possible way she would have the strength of mind to be able to speak. But then, with the only sound being the waves and the wind, she pondered her next move. Her afternoon in Gaspar’s arms had been carnally perfect and she knew she would always look back upon her first time with relish. But would there be a second? A third? She had to know.
“Gasper…” she began, trying to find the words to convey her tumbling thoughts. It was easier to speak with him in the darkness, but still a difficult subject. How was a highborn lady meant to ask a roaming captain to continue pleasing her in bed? None of her lessons in finishing school had taught her that.
“You want to know if you can see me again?” he asked quietly, as if reading her mind. “Do you want to see me again?”
“Well, I’ll see you every day for my Spanish lesson,” Gwen pointed out, avoiding directly answering his question.
He squeezed her fingers. “Then you will see me every day in whatever capacity you wish.”
“That’s rather vague.”
“Then you want to know if I will bed you again?”
Gwen didn’t answer. For the first time that evening, she felt embarrassed. It should have been simple to tell him exactly what she wanted. But as they walked hand in hand to the castle, the words evaded her. She waited for him to say something until they reached the gate, but he was equally silent.
“I suppose this is where I leave you, unless you wish to dine with us?” she asked him as the sentry on duty began his walk away from the gate around the wall.
He regarded her for a split second, and then pulled her between the two sections of wall, hidden from all sides. They were enclosed in darkness, their chests touching.
“Gaspar, what are you doing?” Her voice was low, but held a hint of excitement.
Without speaking, he pressed his lips roughly to hers. His hands slid in the fabric of her borrowed cloak to caress her breasts through the silk of her gown. Gwen moaned into his mouth and held tight to his shoulders, wishing she had done as he commanded and stayed in the bloody boat.
When he pulled away, Gwen was left speechless and she leaned back against the cold wall, trying to catch her breath.
“I will see you for our next lesson tomorrow,” he told her as he backed away. But just as he was turning to go, Conner came out the door, his figure lit from behind by the lanterns in the hall.
“Ach, where have ye been, lass?” Conner asked when he spied her. “It’s dark as sin out.”
Gwen debated lying, as she knew she had the face for it. It was a skill that always made Flora jealous. But she decided to go for a half-truth, to save what was left of her clean conscious. “Captain Gaspar was teaching me a few things,” she said smoothly, stepping forward toward the door.
“Is that right?” he asked.
“Sim,” said Gaspar, stepping into the light.
Conner ushered them both inside. “Gaspar, ye’ll stay for supper, aye?”
“If it is no imposition,” he replied politely.
“No’ at all.” Conner took Gwen’s borrowed cloak and passed it to a maid.
When they entered the family dining room, Charlotte was already seated with little Ian and baby Alec. As soon at the manservant spied Gaspar, he busied himself with making another place setting. Gwen sat on the left side of Conner, who was at the head of the table, and across from Charlotte. Gaspar sat to her left and she repressed the urge to glance his way. It felt almost sacrilegious to sit at the MacLeod table beside him, the evidence of their encounter still slick between her thighs.
“Are you well?�
�� Charlotte asked Gwen, a light frown on her lips.
“I have been working her quite hard,” Gaspar explained seriously.
Conner began filling Charlotte’s goblet with wine. “Did ye learn anythin’ useful?”
Gwen regretted this course of action, but there was no way out. “Oh, very, but I’m not an expert by any means.”
Charlotte nodded. “It takes time. Just be a good student and work as diligently as you can, as frequently as you can.”
“Do not fear,” Gaspar assured her. “I will be giving her many lessons and seeing how malleable she can be.”
Gwen bit the inside of her mouth to keep from bursting out in inappropriate giggles. Gaspar’s hand snaking under the table and squeezing her knee playfully did nothing to quell the sensation.
“Wait,” Conner cut in. “Ye were no’ in the library today. I just met ye outside.”
“Because I was on the ship,” she admitted slowly, her focus on her dinner. She wondered if that would be the thing that undid her lies.
Conner and Charlotte exchanged looks of pure shock. But it was Conner who broke the silence. “You were on a boat…a real boat in the…the water?”
Gwen speared a potato with her fork. “Yes. I was on his ship for a large part of the afternoon. It’s why I was so dreadfully late.”
“I’m so proud o’ ye, lass,” Conner said in disbelief. “I never thought ye’d get over your fear o’ the water.” He looked over at Gaspar. “I can no’ believe ye got her to do it. You teach her Spanish and have her get over her fear? Unbelievable.”
“You must be a very good teacher in order to get Gwen to go on your ship,” Charlotte mused, dabbing some droplets of soup off Ian’s face. “I wish I studied more languages. But I guess Gaspar has a very talented tongue.”
Conner nodded. “Aye. Tell us, Gwen, does he treat ye well? Or does he have a hard hand?”
Gwen nearly choked on a potato and it took several moments for her to regain her breath. She had no idea how Gaspar was sitting there so silently, calming eating. “He’s a fair teacher.”
As the conversation moved to other things, Gwen found it hard to follow. She couldn’t focus on the current conversation of land sales and trade agreements when she had just lost her maidenhead on a Portuguese merchant ship! The mere thought of it sent her skin aflame, and not due to embarrassment. Of course, she knew she should be ashamed for her wanton behavior, but she didn’t have it in her to give a damn. It wasn’t as if she would marry the Spanish prince for love; it was quite possible they wouldn’t even meet until she got to Spain. And until the time came for her to step into the church to say her vows, she didn’t see the harm in having some fun.
As Gaspar gently stroked her thigh out of sight of her family, she knew he saw no problem with their relationship either.
Chapter Eight
Gwen was in the library when Gaspar came for her. She hadn’t seen him for two days and she had begun to wonder if he was over their dalliance. But the playful flash in his eye as he pored over her body told her a different story. Gwen thought about speaking to him directly, but decided it would be better for him to wait, as he made her do. And after taking her virginity no less! It was shameful. So she kept her eyes on her work, leisurely flipping through her pages.
“Good morning, Gwendolyn,” Gaspar said, his hands in his pockets.
She glanced up at him briefly, then back to the desk. “Good morning, Gaspar.”
“Are you well, this fine day?”
“Exceedingly. And yourself?”
“Fine, Fine…” He meandered through the room a bit, poking at some of Conner’s odder collectables. “Are you very busy?”
“Just going over the spring seeding plans for the farmland.”
“And you do all that yourself?” he asked, coming closer.
She shuffled a few pages aside, looking for the notes on the previous year’s barley crop. “Of course I do. I have for several months. I rather enjoy numbers.”
“Is that right?”
Gwen looked up at him. “They are very predictable, stable, dependable.” There was a pregnant pause in which Gaspard regarded her closely. She knew that didn’t need to be said, but if their casual arrangement was going to work, he needed to know that she waited for no man.
“I admire that,” he told her, coming to stand on the other side of the desk. “Many women would be content to sit and sew.”
“Everything well with the ship?” Gwen asked mildly, changing the subject. She didn’t like being reminded she wasn’t like other women. If she were, then she certainly wouldn’t have been in bed with him. She jotted down a few numbers in her receipt book.
He placed his hands flat against the desktop and leaned forward. “Perfectly. I needed to survey the supplies for our journey back to Portugal.” He lowered his voice. “I would have sent a note…but I could not trust myself to not write all the things I wish to do to you.”
Gwen closed her pen and looked up at him, feigning innocence. “You mean how you wish to teach me to become fluent in conversational Spanish?”
“Yes. I was thinking we might go over parts of the body? Anatomy, their functions…if you would be agreeable to such a lesson?”
She felt the stirring in her loins, something she had tried to ignore for the two long days she had waited for him to contact her. “Quite,” she responded evenly, rising from her chair. “Where shall these studies take place?”
“I was thinking we could go to the ship. We need quiet for our lesson.”
“But the crew?”
“Mostly gone to the village,” he explained, straightening his back and raising his brow at her. “So, meu único ouro, will you join me?”
“I suppose I could fit you into my schedule.”
“Clear it, Gwendolyn,” he growled as she passed him to leave the library. “What I have planned for you might take all day.”
***
Gwen thought she should feel nervous when the door to the captain’s cabin was locked tightly behind them, but it was quite the opposite. She trusted Gaspar implicitly, although she hardly knew him. Besides, she felt oddly at home in the lavish quarters and immediately kicked off her shoes and began unrolling her stockings before Gaspar stopped her, his shirt already gone. Her fingers itched to touch his chest.
“No, Gwendolyn,” he said lowly, kneeling before her as he did the first time they came to the cabin. He reached up her skirts, skimming her leg. He pinched the tops of her stockings and pulled both off. “Meias—stockings.”
“Meias,” she repeated, watching him with interest.
“Vestir.” His rose and his fingers made quick work of the fastenings to her gown. “It means ‘dress.’”
“Vestir.” Gwen tried to put her arms around his neck, eager for him to continue disrobing her.
But Gaspar dropped the gown to the floor with a satisfied smirk. “No, no, this is all part of the lesson. Now, this is espartilho.” Gaspar began unlacing her corset. “And this is your pescoço.” He brushed his lips against her throat.
“My neck? Mmm…what else?” She was beginning to thoroughly enjoy his lesson.
He kissed her shoulder. “Ombro.” His fingers hooked over the straps of her shift and let it puddle on the floor. “A bainha.”
“And this?” Gwen asked, grabbing him by the belt.
“Cinto.” Gaspar helped her to unbuckle it and it fell with a clatter upon the wood. “E calças.” He gestured to his pants, which she hurriedly lowered.
They fell into the bed together, and Gwen reached for his member, but Gaspar grabbed both her hands, holding them above her head. Her breathing quickened in anticipation, but it seemed that Gaspar had other plans than taking her as she hoped he would.
He nipped at her lower lip. “Boca.” And his knee thrust her legs apart, making her gasp. His mouth caressed her breast. “Peito.”
“Pieto…” Gwen hummed when he found her nipple. “Gaspar, can we—”
His head darted u
p. “Hush, I have not gotten to the best part.”
“I think I’m fine. We can continue to the next step, if you don’t mind.”
Gaspar shook his head and released her wrists, sliding his hands down her arms, over her breasts and down her waist to cup her thighs. His lips followed, halting at the gentle peak of her hipbone. Gwen’s voice hitched in her throat as he continued his journey south and dipped his tongue at the juncture of her thighs.
And try as she might to pay attention, Gwen couldn’t recall a single word.
***
“I swear, I’ll never be able to say a single thing in Spanish,” Gwen murmured into her pillow. She was watching Gaspar pull on his pants, leaving his belt on the floor. “You’re a terrible teacher.”
“You mean to say you didn’t learn anything today?”
“Oh, I learned plenty.” She laughed, brushing her hair away from her face. “Just nothing useful in conversation.”
“Then I suppose our next lesson should be at a desk, in your brother’s study? There I can instruct you on all the grammar and uses of this glorious language.”
Gwen groaned. “Never mind. I’d rather continue my study in biology.” She reached out to him with a lazy hand. “Will you come back to bed?”
He walked over to her and brushed his knuckles on her cheek. “I am just going to get us something to eat from the galley. I will be back in a moment.”
Gaspar turned and left the room, giving Gwen a good look at the dimples on his lower back. She also spied a series of thin scratches above she knew were from her nails. She peered at her hands and stifled a small laugh, then sat up, holding the brocade cover to her chest. All around her were tokens of his travels—wondrously strange things she had only ever read about in books.
There were Russian nesting dolls, an African mask, tusks of gilded ivory as tall as she, and fine paintings that simply covered every available space on the walls. It was a cluttered cabin, but not a dirty one. Every exotic piece was clear of dust and even his bed smelled of soap and fresh linin. She rather liked his chambers. It suited him, and if she were honest, it suited her as well.
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