by The Spy
But he was still wearing far too many clothes.
She began the song once more, increasing the pace to a wild tempo. Before he could react, she whirled in close enough to kiss him, but then merely tugged sharply at his cravat and danced away once more.
He was quick, she had to give him that. Immediately, his hands flew to his cravat to untie the intricate knot. As she danced just out of his reach, he tossed the length of snowy linen to drape across her own discarded veil.
Then his gaze rose to hers in hungry challenge. She swayed closer and reached for his hand. She almost hesitated then. So far he had not touched her, had not done more than gaze at her with those hungry eyes. She was reluctant to allow this first caress. Even knowing what she knew, there was a part of her that ached for his hands on her skin.
He raised his hand to hers slowly, as if he, too, placed importance on this first link of physical rapport.
She slowly wrapped her slim fingers around his strong ones. His hand was warm and hard, rough and callused in places, yet he allowed it to sit lightly in her grasp as if he feared to frighten her away with a sudden movement. Lastly, but perhaps most charming to her own insecurities, it ever so slightly shook in hers.
He was as dreadfully unsure as she was herself. And she now held his hand in hers. She alone owned his hunger, she alone danced for him in this silent erotic moment in time.
Slowly she drew his hand to her throat and allowed the back of his knuckles to drag slowly, sensually down between her still covered breasts, across her dance-dampened belly, down to meet the gold links of the belt that rode just beneath her navel.
His breath was harsh on her face, causing the veil that covered her hair to shift between them. He half-raised his other hand to move it back once more but halted at her tiniest movement away. She raised her gaze to his. His face was hard and intent, even through the veil that separated them. So close that she might take his mouth on hers with only a step . . .
Remember your purpose.
Never looking down, she gently wrapped his willing fingers around one of the veils dangling from the side of her belt. She leaned into him. His lips parted in expectation. She closed his grip on the silk—
And danced away again, leaving the veil behind, fluttering from his clenched fingers.
This time it took less than a minute for him to discard his next item of clothing. His frock coat flew through the air in a dark blur to cover his cravat. She rewarded him with a swift twirl, feeling her silks shift and move to reveal teasing glimpses of her skin.
She played this game with him until he stood shirtless and barefoot in the moonlight. She was nearly out of veils herself. Only one silk dangled before her and one dangled behind. One scrap of nearly invisible blue-green wrapped from a single shoulder was all that hid her breasts from his avid gaze.
And it was her turn.
Chapter Twenty-two
Breathless and frozen in the moment, Phillipa and James stood no more than a foot apart in the moonlight. She could almost feel the heat from his skin on hers. He was so beautiful, so sculpted . . . so hard. Her gaze ran over him, touching upon his broad chest, his rippled belly, his bulging trousers.
She knew what to do with It this time. Button had told her as delicately as he could. She hadn’t had the heart to tell him that she had no intention of making love with James, but only wished to drive him senseless with lust.
Up until this moment, that had seemed like such a good idea.
Looking at him now, so male and hungry in the moon’s glow, she was feeling rather female and hungry herself. Her purpose began to fade behind the diamond-cut angles of his body. He was manly and beautiful and he wanted her.
When he reached to wrap two hot hands about her bare waist and tumbled her to the ground, she discovered what hunger truly was.
He covered her with his body, pressing a knee between hers. Wrapped in his arms, feeling his mouth on her neck, her shoulder, her breasts—
He pulled away the veil she wore angled across her torso to cover her breasts with his hard, searching hands. He was pressed to her, skin on skin. His mouth—he used lips, tongue, teeth on her flesh as if she were a feast.
His mouth covered her nipple.
Heaven.
Hot, wet, torturous heaven.
She fought to keep her mind from floating away on the wave of his lust—of her lust. She must remember, once he was past the point of reason, she must search him—
His hand slipped between her thighs, seeking her center through the silk veil. Her mind went stark blank as his fingers found her cleft. He pressed the silk down onto her wetness and stirred her with a gentle but implacable touch.
She clung mindlessly to him, her arms wrapped about his brawny shoulders, her fingertips digging into his muscles. Her head fell back, she didn’t care a whit. There was nothing but that mindless, exquisite pleasure.
Please, don’t let him stop. I would do anything—
Cold shock washed through her at her own thoughts. What was she doing, rolling about in the grass with her father’s assassin? She struggled beneath him, trying to push his shoulders away with her hands. She pressed him back—
Pushing past the silk, he stroked a finger deep within her.
Silken, slippery rapture.
Her hands stilled on his shoulders, then tightened once more. She pulled him to her, nails digging deep as he thrust in again.
She couldn’t breathe . . .
She couldn’t think . . .
She couldn’t do this.
Gathering up the last shreds of her disintegrating will, she shoved him from her to roll back on the grass. His sound of surprise was lost in her mad scramble to gain her feet.
“What—wait, come back!”
His husky, confused cry followed her as she fled the clearing, bare-breasted and unnerved. She ducked into the darkness beneath the oaks and ran, leaving James and his wicked breathtaking allure far behind.
• • •
When James returned to the ballroom—by the long route, for his erection refused to fade—he found Collis, bedraggled and blissfully weary, waiting for him in the aperture by the doors.
“Had a kip in the grass, did you?” Collis blearily waved his glass to indicate James’s hair. “Still carrying a bit.”
James brushed at his hair angrily. His shoulder ached like hell from rolling around on the ground, though he’d not felt a twinge at the time. “Nothing so relaxing as a nap, unfortunately. Have you seen a woman, a harem dancer in Turkish-blue veils?”
Collis shook his head regretfully. “Not since I caught a glimpse of you leaving with her an hour ago. Fantastic courtesan, I’ll wager.”
“I wouldn’t know,” James muttered bitterly. “Where’s Phillip?”
“My footman found me a moment ago—said Phillip’s passed out in the carriage.” Collis wavered on his feet. “Capital idea, that. I think I’ll join ’im.”
James took a good look at Collis for the first time. His friend was fair to collapsing. He bolstered him on one side and they made their way from the hall.
“Met a charming girl in a housemaid uniform.” Collis held up his finger and thumb not an inch apart. “Little scrap of lace and gabardine, it was.” He rubbed his forehead. “Utterly charming. Unfortunately, she wasn’t what I had in mind.”
“Why, Collis, I never knew you had a yen for housemaids! Or have you got that Rose on your mind?”
Collis went absolutely ashen with horror. “Take that back! You know I think she’s unbearable.” He lurched at James. “Take it back this instant—”
The champagne sloshed and so did Collis, fortunately into an uncomplaining bush. James waited patiently, for he’d been known to douse the greenery a few times in his life.
When Collis returned, pale but a bit steadier, James only led the way to their carriage waiting patiently in the stands. The Etheridge footman opened the door for them quite expressionlessly. Good man. Lack of expression was a handy trait in a serva
nt.
After he virtually shoved Collis up and in, James climbed stiffly into the carriage to see Flip stretched out across one seat, and Collis, already snoring, stretched out across the other. James shook his head and stepped back out.
“Hawkins, it seems I’m up with you this evening.” Wearily, James climbed to the upper seat. At least the cool air might do his aching groin some good. The condition that sultry dancer had left him in was probably going to require ice.
Women.
Unfortunately, the venom of his thoughts lacked strength when he put his hand in his pocket to toy with the silk veil he’d tucked within it.
Inside the carriage, a wide-awake Phillipa lay still as a stone and listened to Mr. Tremayne snore.
She’d gotten the idea of faking a drunken sleep when she’d made her way out to the carriage stands after donning Phillip’s clothing in the garden gazebo where she’d left it. Although most of the coachmen seemed to have kept themselves in check, the carriages themselves were absolutely draped in groaning, snoring, vomiting male youth.
Collis being in matching condition she could not have hoped for. That meant she had the entire ride home to contemplate what a monumental ass she had been.
A silly, susceptible mad fool. She’d known what effect James had on her, yet she’d persisted in believing she could maintain the upper hand in such a confrontation.
You liked it very much.
Phillipa sat up and pulled her hat down over her eyes. She was in no mood to listen to conflicting inner voices battle out her emotions. She knew precisely what her problem was . . .
No matter his intentions toward her father, she still had a weakness for James.
Finally, they arrived in Ashton Square. Unwilling to allow a footman to sling her over his shoulder, Phillipa decided to “wake” when the carriage pulled up before the Cunnington house. She stood on the walk with James while he sent Collis off with a few encouraging words. He obviously mistook her silence for hangover, for he very sympathetically guided her into the house.
“I told Denny not to wait up. Come up to my room. I keep my secret cure for the drinking man up there.”
“No, I—”
“I won’t accept protest, Phillip. You have no idea what you are in for tomorrow. Go up, now.” He was smiling, but she could see he would brook no refusal. He led her up the stairs and into his bedchamber.
The huge tester bed loomed in Phillipa’s guilt-ridden vision like a banner declaiming her lack of character. Traitor, the bed jeered, you want him still.
Yes, she did. So she stood absolutely still in the center of the large, luxurious room and would not look at the bed where she so longed to tumble with James.
A wrinkled cravat landed at the carpet near her feet. Her eyes widened, but she did not raise her gaze in the slightest, not even when she heard shirt studs jingle as he dropped them into a crystal dish.
“Damn. Lost one,” he muttered, obviously to himself, but she heard him. Should she tell him that she had found it snagged in her last remaining veil after she’d fled him?
Perhaps not.
He pulled off his boots and tossed them to the end of the bed. She stared at them. One lapped over the other as if embracing it. She shut her eyes. She was seeing lovers everywhere.
“Here you are.” A glass was thrust before her nose. She took it automatically. Liquid swirled unappealingly in the glass. It looked as though someone had taken a fistful of garden dirt—leaves and insects and all—and slopped it into a glass of pond water.
It smelled much worse than that. She held it away from her, looking up at James for the first time. “No.”
“Go on, Flip. It’s a mess of herbs and such. There’s nothing harmful to it. I have it made up for me by the housekeeper on my estate, Mrs. Bell. She raised me. She’d never poison me.”
Turning away, he pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it on the pile of clothing as if she weren’t even there. Then he stretched, twisting this way and that. Phillipa gulped when she saw the red marks on his shoulders from her blunted nails.
And his body—in candlelight it was even more beautiful than in moonlight, for his golden skin seemed to glow with animal health and fire. Mesmerized by the shadows rippling under his skin, she unthinkingly took a large sip of the remedy.
And spat it right out again, spewing it across the pristine counterpane of his enormous bed.
As she tried to inhale past her burning tongue and tried to see past her burning eyes, she heard James utter a soft expletive.
“Damn. Denny’s going to be right pissed.”
A perfect echo of Robbie’s boyish fears. It was too much. Phillipa began to laugh completely against her will. Half weak-kneed protest, half sheer exhaustion, with perhaps a dash of leftover confusing arousal—she laughed until she couldn’t talk.
She staggered to a dressing table and collapsed in the chair. Lowering her head to her arms folded on the tabletop, she laughed until there was nothing left in her.
When she was at last able to draw an unbroken breath, she realized that the room was very silent. She looked up into the mirror before her to see James leaning on one of the bedposts with his arms crossed over his bare chest.
“You laugh like a cat.”
“Cats don’t laugh.”
“Neither did you, until now. Not really.”
She inhaled deeply, now that she could again. “I’m sorry about the bed. It wasn’t humorous at all. I’ve ruined it.”
James shrugged. It did lovely things to his chest. She blinked, pulling her eyes away with difficulty. If he should catch her watching, he’d think her mad.
“I’ll pay for it,” she insisted, though she knew not with what. That lovely creation of velvet surely cost more than what remained of her quarter’s advance. She looked down to avoid seeing the ruined bedcover and examined the objects on the dressing table with sudden interest.
There was a silver comb and a buttonhook and a sheet of paper with curling edges that appeared to be a political cartoon by the popular artist Sir Thorogood. She touched the cartoon with one finger to turn it upright. It slid to one side, off its supporting pile of ribbon and gold . . .
Medals.
Two enormous medals, the sort that were granted heroes of the highest order. The Prince Regent’s profile gleamed from one of them. She blinked. James . . . a hero?
She traced a finger along the edge of one gold disc. It didn’t shift under her touch. She turned surprised eyes to James. “It must be solid gold!”
He shrugged. “That’s likely. Weighs a bloody ton.” He rubbed at his chest as if he could still feel its weight.
She looked back down at the medals glowing like treasure amid the clutter of the dressing table. If James was a hero—a British hero—then why was he part of the plot against her father?
There was something here . . . something she didn’t understand. It skittered through her mind while her consciousness trailed just behind, unable to grasp it. She turned to James. “Will you tell me about these?”
He looked away. One hand still pressed over his heart, almost as if he cradled some hurt “Not long ago, there was a plot to assassinate the Prime Minister.”
She remembered. It had happened just a few days before her own arrival in town and everyone had been much abuzz with the details. “A woman fired a pistol. A lady.”
His eyes darkened. “Yes. Some might call her that.” He dropped his hands to his hips and contemplated the carpet. Unfortunately, this only pulled Phillipa’s attention from his perfect chest to his perfect stomach. And that little trail of dark hair that led somewhere most—
“I was close enough to push Lord Liverpool aside and . . .” He indicated the starburst scar near his shoulder with a dip of his chin.
“You were shot?” Phillipa’s jaw gaped. “That was you?’
He shot her a warning glance. “Don’t make a racket over it, Flip. I didn’t do anything all that grand. It’s only that the Prince is fond of giving
medals and—”
“You’re a national hero.”
She turned back to the table to hide her smile. She wanted to do so much more than smile. He wasn’t on the wrong side. He was as brave and honorable as she ever could have dreamed. She wanted to jump and run into his arms and tumble him back onto that massive bed—
“. . . Rupert Atwater must be Eliminated.”
Oh, no. If James was a loyal Brit, then he must believe that her father was a traitor.
“Atwater has systematically fed critical information to the enemy from our own coded dispatches.”
No. Papa wouldn’t! Nothing on earth could make him work for Napoleon!
Unless he thought Phillipa was in danger.
She knew it, for she knew her father. She knew the lengths to which he would go to keep a member of his family safe. Had she not seen it, when he’d nearly beggared them with the fruitless travels, the noxious remedies, the charlatans who said they could heal her mother?
Somehow, Napoleon must have convinced her father that his men had found her after all. If Rupert Atwater thought his daughter in the hands of the Mad Emperor, as he’d called him, then he would do whatever was necessary to fight for her life.
Even betray his own beloved England.
James cleared his throat behind her. She started, looking up to meet his curious gaze in the mirror.
“I believe there’s smoke coming from your ears, Flip. Whatever are you thinking about so hard in my chamber in the last hours before dawn, when we both ought to be sleeping off our night of genteel debauchery?”
A reluctant laugh broke from her lips at his long-running speech. “Never subtle, are you, James?” She stood, wishing things were different, wishing she could tell him what she’d realized.
No. She could not reveal herself now. Now she must decide what to do about saving Papa on her own. She turned to James and gestured at the counterpane.
“Will you allow me to pay for that?”
“No.” He grinned. “I’d rather watch Denny take it out on you.”