by Sara Ramsey
“All you want from me is children?”
She nodded.
“You’d keep me like your stallion? Use me for breeding, then put me out to pasture?”
He said it so coldly. Callie swallowed. “You can see the children, of course. If they interest you.”
“Legally they would be mine. I could take them from you and never allow you to see them again.” His voice dropped as he spoke, taking the temperature of the room with it. “You could ask my mother how that felt, but she is no longer able to give advice.”
She hadn’t realized until it was far too late that she’d touched a wound. Not just touched it — poured acid into it.
“Shall we start tonight?” he continued. His voice turned savage. His hand dropped to his trousers, unfastening the first button. “A demonstration of my skills before you buy me?”
She swallowed again. “I have already seen your skills. I shall return to my room, I think.”
She stood. But she was too close to him, and he grabbed her wrist before she could escape. “You can have your ships. And you can have my seed. But don’t allow yourself to think you can use me.”
“I will never believe that,” she whispered.
She looked down into his eyes as she said it. They were finally close enough that even in the darkness she could see the expression there — desperation and regret mingled together, with enough anger and self-loathing to feed the harshest words.
“Will you not?” he whispered back. The savage tone was gone, replaced by despair. “I’ve known you less than a week, and I would enslave myself to touch you again.”
His words shook her. But she couldn’t forget what he had done. “You’ll be sated soon enough,” she said. “When you are, you’ll turn your attention to my business. I won’t have any power at all to stop you. Now, let me go.”
She tried to shake him off. His grip tightened. “You haven’t heard my counter-offer.”
“What is it?”
“Not that it matters — if you don’t marry me, you will be so ruined that not even Ferguson and Madeleine will receive you publicly. But I’ll grant you your ships. We will set aside your dowry in a trust for our children.”
“That isn’t a counter-offer,” she said.
His other hand returned to his trousers, undoing the remaining buttons. “I’m merely adding a codicil. I’ll father your children. But I will be the only one who touches you. And you won’t deny me anything when I come to your bed.”
* * *
He had expected her to demand a marriage of convenience. But he hadn’t expected this.
It was the only reason he could find for why he was so angry. Surely it was merely that she had offered him something he hadn’t planned for.
Surely it wasn’t that he was hurt.
He’d shocked her into silence. Her wrist felt so fragile in his hand, but he wouldn’t let her go. No matter what she said, no matter how she said it. She was his. His to protect, his to touch, his to love.
That word was too dangerous. He pulled her into his lap and kissed her, hard.
She made a surprised sound in her throat, but she didn’t push him away. She opened her mouth instead, inviting him in. He took what she offered, wanting to touch every bit of her, to taste every part of her soul.
There was salt at the corner of her mouth. He grazed his thumb over her cheek and felt moisture there.
“Callie,” he whispered.
It was the only word he could say. He wanted her to hear what was behind it — sadness, regret, certainty. He couldn’t be the man she deserved. And he was the very devil for stealing her.
But it never could have ended differently.
She grabbed his hand and pulled it away, not letting him trace her tears. “Business,” she said. “This is a business arrangement. You can’t take more than what we agreed to.”
He wasn’t sure whether she was reminding him, or herself. But it made him angry again. “Do we have an agreement?”
“I keep my ships, you give me children, and we live in separate houses? I accept if you do.”
He wanted more than that. He wanted so much more. There was nothing in that agreement that promised laughter. Or sweetness. Or any of the hundred new and varied emotions he felt when he saw her. It was as bloodless as the original agreement they’d made in the same room a week earlier — as though nothing had happened between them that merited something more.
Something better.
But he had never deserved her.
“I accept,” he said.
He wanted her to hear what he couldn’t say. Any words he tried would be the wrong ones. He kissed her instead, branding her with his mouth. He let go of her wrist so his hands could rove over her, seeking the delicious boundary between silk and skin. The dress was beautiful, but he didn’t need silk to find her appealing. He would have been happier to see her in her divided skirt, standing in the mud, teasing him.
He wanted her to know that. He attacked her hair, not stopping the kiss as he scattered pins on the floor. He hadn’t seen her hair framing her face since she’d asked a real lady’s maid for help with her hair. He had been a fool to say she should.
Her hair fell around them, slowly, a veil dropping and yet revealing what he sought. He found the final pins to set her free, then ran his fingers through the winding strands. She arched her neck, letting her head fall back into his hands. He moved lower, kissing the pulse point above her collarbone, making her gasp.
“Callie,” he whispered over her skin. “I accept.”
But he didn’t just accept. He worshipped. He skimmed his lips over her collarbone as his fingers dropped through the waterfall of her hair to find the buttons of her dress. He yanked harder than he should have. Some of them fell to the floor to join the hairpins, but he was beyond caring. She never should have been in that dress. She should have been in something stronger, something made for the sea.
He shoved her sleeves over her shoulders and down her arms. The silk slipped over her chemise, and he shoved that down as well. Her stays were still fastened, pushing up her breasts, offering them to him.
Only to him. He cupped them in his hands as her nipples hardened and the arch of her back gave him the response her voice denied him. She filled his palms perfectly, and he reveled in how they fit each other.
But his dreams of her couldn’t be fulfilled by breasts alone. He unfastened her stays and threw them aside, then moved her off his lap and onto the bed.
She had dreams of her own, though. It was clear in how she sat up and put a hand against his chest. “I want to see you,” she said.
He arched a brow.
“Your grace,” she added.
His heart broke on the words. He wanted her to tease him, call him ‘sirrah’ again.
But this was business. He pulled his shirt over his head.
Her smile was reward enough for now. She trailed a single finger down his breastbone, through the hair scattered across his chest. Then lower, to his stomach, which flattened under her as he sucked in a breath. Then lower still, to his unbuttoned trousers and the aching need waiting for her.
Even through his trousers, it was torture. He should have kept everything slow; she was still all but an innocent.
She was also more daring than anyone he knew. And the slow grin she gave him as his shaft hardened beneath her fingers fueled his deepest longings.
He flipped her onto her stomach, shocking a laugh out of her. He needed that laugh, needed to hear something lighter when all he’d brought her was darkness. He skimmed his hands down to her ankles, pushing her slippers off her feet. Then he moved higher, gathering her skirt as he went, revealing endless legs. When he found the edges of her stockings, at another perfect boundary between silk and skin, he paused.
When the silence grew too thick, she looked back over her shoulder. “I accept,” she said.
There were so many other words he wanted to hear from her. So many other words he wanted to say to her
. He looked into the fathomless depths of her eyes and saw everything he wanted there, waiting for him.
But, fool that he was, he didn’t know how to dive for it.
He moved his hands higher, over the last torturous inches of her thighs to the sweet curve of her derriere. He shoved her skirts over her waist, pooling them around her. And he kissed the base of her spine, right where all her backbone gave way to softness.
“I accept,” he whispered against her skin, so softly that she wouldn’t hear him.
His thumb trailed over her cleft. His fingers curled under her and parted her folds. She gasped as he stroked her, gasped again when he slid a finger inside her. She was already wet for him.
He leaned over her, trailing kisses through her hair as his fingers increased their tempo. “I accept,” he murmured into her hair, hoping it would keep his secret.
Her hands clawed into the blankets as he, relentless, pushed her harder. Endless minutes of it, until she writhed underneath him. He bit her shoulder, lightly, then kissed the pain away. “I accept,” he said, in the softest voice he was capable of.
She cried out then, convulsing, shaking against his hand. He didn’t wait for her to settle; he couldn’t, not anymore. He freed himself from his trousers, slid an arm under her, pulled her up onto her knees, and drove into her.
For Callie, this was something she hadn’t dreamed of. His arms, his legs, his cock — she was surrounded, filled. Utterly at his mercy.
Thorington didn’t have mercy. But Gavin did. He whispered something as he rocked into her. She couldn’t hear the words, but the tone was a promise. His rhythm was devious, relentless. Her need built again.
She should have been shocked. She was enthralled instead. His fingers twined in her hair, pressed against her neck. It could have been business. He could have been using her…
Or it could have been love. He could have been serving her.
He slammed into her again.
“I accept,” she sobbed into the pillow. “Gavin, I accept.”
She wanted to say something else. But those were the only words they had, the only words for the contract they’d offered each other.
She came on his final thrust, as he emptied his seed into her.
He’d given her what he’d agreed to give her. It didn’t feel like business, though. As he collapsed, as he pulled her into his embrace on the narrow bed, as they splayed around each other, as they twisted in their half-removed clothes, all she felt was love.
She loved him. She loved him, and he could destroy her with it.
She couldn’t think about it. She ran her fingers over his chest. It heaved beneath her as he fought to catch his breath.
“God, Callie,” he said. “You are magnificent.”
Her heart bloomed. Her head couldn’t stop it.
But reason still ruled her tongue. She couldn’t bring herself to lie — couldn’t bring herself to say the words that would tear the moment apart, to hurt him before he could hurt her.
She could stay silent, though. She pressed a kiss against his heart, letting her lips give him the words her voice wasn’t allowed to say.
They stayed there for endless minutes. It must have been hours; the room turned grey instead of black as the candles guttered and made way for dawn. She should have gone back to her own bed, but it was beyond her power to leave.
He hadn’t made that choice for her. She had trapped herself more effectively than he ever could have.
Finally, as the grey slowly turned to gold, Callie sat up. Putting herself back together wasn’t a task either of them were equipped for, but she pulled her chemise and dress up and shoved her hair into a messy knot.
He watched her as she did so, trailing his fingers down her back over the row of buttons he’d destroyed. He did up the ones that remained, pressing kisses in the gaps. She shivered.
She felt like crying.
She stood and shook out her skirts. He stood behind her, smoothing his hands over her hips.
“I will do my best by you,” he said. “I vow it.”
She bowed her head, let him kiss the back of her neck. “I know it.”
But even though he escorted her back to her room, even though he held her hand as though they were sweethearts, even though he’d made a vow he wouldn’t break…Callie didn’t know if Gavin’s best was enough to make up for Thorington’s worst.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Callie had never had much patience for dressmakers. She had even less patience for this one.
“Please, hold yourself as still as possible,” the modiste said the next morning as she draped Callie in yellow silk. “If I do not cut this properly, it will be ruined.”
“I have been standing still for hours,” Callie said.
“It has only been twenty minutes,” Mrs. Jennings said, not looking up as she perused a pattern book.
“It feels like hours,” Callie said.
Her maid sighed. “You haven’t had a new dress made in over a year. You might enjoy it if you let it happen.”
Callie stood still. But it all felt too sudden. She’d had only a few hours of sleep after Thorington had escorted her back to her room, but it wasn’t fatigue that made it difficult to concentrate.
It was the question of what to do about Thorington. She was already tired of thinking about it. Would she drive herself mad thinking about him between now and their wedding?
Already she realized she had made a mistake the night before. She knew better than to negotiate anything in anger. It was one of the earliest lessons she’d learned when she had taken over her company, and she had never made that mistake again. But she hadn’t been able to stop herself.
The memory of Thorington’s lovemaking, though, gave her endless opportunity for regret. She finally understood the lesson he’d wanted to teach her during their first night together. They weren’t meant for a business arrangement. Her heart couldn’t bear the thought of spending her life with anything less than all of him.
But could she accept the risk? She’d known him for a week. She never would have bought a ship after so little research. In their marriage, he would have all the power and all the authority. No matter what happened, there was no escaping him until one of them died. She couldn’t win a divorce from a duke. And if he took his marriage vows as seriously as he took all his others, he’d never let her go.
You don’t want him to let you go, her heart whispered.
She tried to put him out of her mind. But it was impossible — especially when a steady stream of visitors wanted to talk of nothing but him.
The first, surprisingly, was Octavia. When she knocked, Callie shook her head at Mrs. Jennings. “I do not wish to receive any callers,” she said to her maid.
Mrs. Jennings, for once, overruled her. “She is your family. It would do you well to have more family after all this time.”
Her maid opened the door before Callie could stop her. If Octavia had heard their conversation, she made no sign of it. “I wanted to congratulate you last night,” Octavia said as she strode into the sitting room Callie had commandeered for the fitting. “But so many others were offering their best wishes that I thought it better to call on you this morning.”
“Thank you,” Callie said.
Octavia was sharp enough to notice Callie’s reticence. “You aren’t blushing as I expected a newly betrothed woman to be. Is something amiss?”
“Of course not. I merely failed to sleep enough last night.”
Octavia looked Callie up and down. Callie twitched, earning another reproof from the modiste.
“Are you not happy? I’ll grant that Thorington isn’t the one of those brothers I’d have picked, but he is a fine enough match. If you like dukes, of course.”
“Do you not like dukes?”
“I find there are far too many of them at the moment,” Octavia said. “Two at one party isn’t just unusual — it’s unwelcome. They make all other men shabby by comparison.”
Callie re
membered the night before, when she’d caught Rafe watching Octavia. Octavia’s earlier comment suddenly struck a different chord. “How do you feel about brothers of dukes?” she asked.
Octavia tsked. “You will have to be more subtle than that, cousin. I’m not fresh from the schoolroom.”
Callie held up her hands.
The modiste yelped. “Do not move again, Miss Briarley, I beg you.”
“I apologize,” Callie said to the modiste. To Octavia, she said, “I’ll say nothing further on the matter. But I wish you luck finding a match. Ferguson won’t let me win with Thorington as my husband, and I can’t bear to see Lucretia get her way.”
“Nor can I,” Octavia said. The steel in her voice was perceptible even under her drawl. “Especially not after she brought Captain Hallett here to trouble you.”
Callie cast a sideways glance at the modiste and her assistant, gauging what she could safely say. But there was no way to ask Octavia how she’d heard of Hallett — whether she had merely observed the name in the Gazette, or whether she had guessed Callie’s business. She moved the conversation to safer waters. “Did Lucretia really steal all of your invitations? How did she manage that?”
Octavia nodded as she took one of the pattern books from the pile in front of Mrs. Jennings. “I live at my brother’s former hunting box. It’s in the farthest corner of the Maidenstone estate, removed enough that I can go for weeks without ever crossing Lucy’s path. I’ll have to fire all the servants. She must have paid them a small fortune not to tell me about the party.”
She said it casually, as though they’d fought similar battles before. But there was an underlying note that Callie was too familiar with. “Were you lonely there, all by yourself?”
“I find ways to amuse myself.” Octavia flipped through the pattern book. “When you are done with your modiste, I would like to order a few dresses. I haven’t seen a modiste in far too long.”
Callie let Octavia change the subject. They talked of dresses for several minutes, as the modiste finished with the yellow silk and moved on to green. But the peace between them was soon disturbed by another arrival. Lucretia walked through the door. She stopped, startled, when she saw Octavia. “I didn’t expect to see you here,” she said.