by Cheryl Holt
She noted several bottles of liquor in a cupboard in the corner, and she went over and rummaged around till she found something that suited her. She poured a liberal amount, then snuggled down in a chair to calmly sip the liquid, and her nonchalance had him reeling.
He was livid over her brother’s stunt and wouldn’t have the cocky rooster tromping within a hundred miles of Mansfield Abbey.
“I don’t want him here ever again. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, Luke. I hear you loud and clear. There’s no need to shout.”
Was he shouting? His lack of restraint was an indication of how unsettled he was around her. The strong, certain man he’d been had vanished, replaced by a weak, smoldering fellow, who was filled with longing and regret. He passed his days hiding from her, and his nights burning with unrelieved ardor, terrified to go to her for fear of being further drawn under her spell.
Out of the blue, she urged, “Tell me about your mother.”
“My mother?” He hadn’t ceased haranguing over her brother!
“Patricia said she grew up here. Why didn’t you confide in me?”
“It wasn’t any of your business.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
The remark was cruel, and it was despicable to utter it. His mother’s prior presence at Mansfield Abbey was hardly a secret, so he couldn’t deduce why he’d failed to mention the fact.
She leapt up and stormed over. “You’ve been growling like a bear since I arrived. You’re intent on quarreling, and I’m more than willing to oblige.”
Her ferocity surprised him, and he couldn’t imagine why she’d presume he’d tolerate a display of feminine hysterics. “I’m not about to fight with you. Crawl into bed, and be silent.”
“To . . . to bed?” She pronounced the word as if it were an epithet. “If you think I’ll lie down with you when you’re acting like a lunatic, you’re either the stupidest man who ever lived or the most blindly arrogant.”
“I didn’t notice you complaining the last few times we were together.”
“That’s because I don’t have anybody to compare you to.”
“Trust me, honey, it’s all downhill from here on out.”
“You are impossible, and I am leaving.”
“You are not.”
“Obviously, you’re beyond coherent conversation, and I have no idea why. I haven’t seen you in three weeks, and in some deluded part of my mind, I thought you might have missed me, but all you can do is nag and pick. Welcome home, Luke!”
She marched to the door, but in her fury, she’d forgotten that it was locked—and that he had the key. She whirled around. “Let me out.”
“No.”
He didn’t understand women, and her tantrum was proof that he’d been wise to spend much of his life on ships, in prison camps and port towns, surrounded by rational, lucid men.
With no regard for his feelings, she had permitted Archie Mansfield to visit. Why should she be in a snit? Luke was the one who’d been wronged.
“What the hell have you to be angry about?” he demanded.
“Your mother is connected to my past. She’s the basis for this mischief with my brother, which means she’s overshadowed our every interaction. Yet you claim she’s none of my affair?”
“The subject is closed!”
“Closed! Hah! It’s barely been opened.”
Would he have to gag her to shut her up? For some reason, he couldn’t speak to her about his mother. There was an odd shame attached to all of it, as if he, himself, were at fault. He’d been so tiny when she’d died, so it was a ludicrous impression, yet he felt as if he should have saved her.
“Tell me about her!” Helen roared with such vehemence that he lurched away as if he’d been slapped.
Suddenly he was teeming with a deluge of emotions he couldn’t control. He was overwhelmed by a resentment and sorrow that was too heavy to carry. How could he have been harboring such a tempest and not know that he was?
“Let it go, Helen,” he said quietly. “Please. I can’t discuss it with you.”
He went to the window and stared out at the stars. He wished he was on his ship and winging across the ocean, with the wind in the sails and the bow smacking at the waves. There was no finer spot, no more beloved freedom.
Without his realizing it, she’d approached, and she draped herself to his back and hugged her arms around his waist.
“It’s all right, Luke,” she soothed. “We don’t have to talk about it.”
The entire sordid story was stuck in his craw, tumbling around and eager to spill out. He linked their fingers and pulled her around to his side. Nothing had ever felt better. Nothing had ever felt more fitting.
“I remember that she was so pretty,” he murmured without planning to make any comment, at all.
“Was she?”
“When she was here, she was . . . was . . . a girl. Your father was her guardian.”
“I suspected as much.”
“Your father introduced her to the Duke, and the Duke . . . well . . .”
“He has a pitiful reputation for philandering.”
“Doesn’t he, though?” It seemed the moment to blurt it out, or he might never have the courage. “When your father learned she was with child, he threw her out without a penny.”
“Oh, Luke . . .”
“It was like tossing a lamb to the lions. She didn’t have a chance.”
“Why didn’t the Duke help her?”
“I don’t believe she ever asked him.” He shrugged. “She was a very proud individual. I’d just turned five when she died. We were scraping by on the streets in London and I . . . I . . .”
There’d been sickness in the city that summer, and he’d tried to hide her body so the Watch wouldn’t take her, but they’d found her anyway. He had such a vivid recollection of them hurling her into the wagon, the other corpses ripe and bloated with decay.
After they’d lumbered off, he’d tarried for an eternity, a small boy all alone, with nowhere to go and no one to care what happened to him.
Was it any wonder he’d become such a ruthless, determined man?
“If you don’t want to, Luke,” she said, “you don’t have to meet your father.”
“I know.”
“He doesn’t deserve to have you in his life.”
“Probably not.”
“You could stay here with me. I wouldn’t mind.”
I wouldn’t, either!
The words rang in his head, but he was too much of a coward to voice them aloud, and he was amazed by how brave she was—so much braver than he.
She was offering him a future, a place to belong and call his own. He craved it more than he’d ever craved anything, but he couldn’t grab for it.
He’d always been on his own, and he was tired. Tired of battling for every crumb. Tired of struggling for more than what he’d been given.
What if he dared to accept?
He simply couldn’t imagine what it would be like. He was baffled about what he truly wanted and rattled by her urging him to picture himself in a different light. He couldn’t fathom who that man would be, and to mask his confusion, he smashed the intimate interlude to pieces.
“If I’m not inside you in the next ten seconds, I can’t predict what I’ll do.”
“You still intend to fornicate? I thought I was clear that I—”
“In ten seconds, Helen.”
He lifted her and braced her against the wall. She was off balance and grappling for purchase, and he leaned in, his loins pressed to her center where he needed to feel her most.
This was how he liked her, splayed wide, at his mercy, and ready to satisfy his every carnal desire. They were at their best when they were copulating, and he detested their other exchanges.
He hated talking to her! She had a manner of pestering him until he was morose and unsure and worried that he was making all the wrong decisions. He liked her much more than he ough
t, and at times, he was terrified that he might . . . might . . . even love her. How else could he account for his fixation?
He couldn’t abide any evidence that he’d grown too close, so he’d ignore his peculiar yearnings and focus on what he knew and understood.
Until the day that his other life—his real life—lured him away, he would dally with her at every opportunity. In fact, if they never left his bedchamber, he’d be tickled to death.
“I don’t want to chat anymore.”
“Well, I do. You can’t—”
He kissed her, cutting off her complaint, as he clasped her dress and ripped it down the middle. Underneath, she wasn’t wearing a corset, only a chemise, so he ripped that, too. In a thrice, she was mostly naked, perched on his thighs, her delectable puss open and tempting him to dissolution. He reached down, his fingers slipping in to fondle and stroke.
He’d been celibate for three weeks. Three weeks! He couldn’t remember when he’d last endured such a protracted drought, and he refused to admit that he could have broken it in London with many partners but hadn’t. Around every corner, there’d been some hussy batting her lashes, but he hadn’t followed through on a single solicitation. None of them were Helen, so he hadn’t been interested.
Did he require any further proof that she’d driven him completely insane?
She yanked away. “You can’t destroy my clothes! I haven’t hardly any gowns as it is. You can’t be tearing them in half.”
“When I was in London, I bought you an entire wardrobe.”
She groaned. “Tell me you didn’t!”
“All right, I didn’t, but deliveries will commence shortly.”
“We’ve been through this. You can’t be dressing me.”
“I’m not. And in case you didn’t notice, I’m undressing you.”
“Luke!”
“I’m weary of you walking around like a poverty-stricken hag. You’re mine, and I’ll attire you accordingly.”
“But . . .”
“Be silent! This matters to me. It will make me happy.”
“Oh.”
“Just bed me; that’s all I ask in return.” He tried not to sound like he was begging.
“I can do that.”
“Thank you!”
He slid her to her feet, and he knelt before her, sampling her breasts; then he continued down, to her stomach, her abdomen, till he was at her woman’s hair.
He laved her over and over and, ecstatic at the attention, she hissed out a breath.
“Ooh . . . how can I be angry with you? You’re too wicked!”
“I know.”
“This is so naughty. Are you sure it’s safe?”
“If it’s not, let me kill you with pleasure.”
He lapped at her sexual nub as his fingers latched onto her nipples, and within seconds orgasm swept over her. She bucked against his mouth, and he rode the storm with her till the tumult waned. Her body went limp, and she glided down to kneel with him.
“I can’t believe I allow you to do that to me.”
“How could you resist?”
He needed her so badly that his state of arousal scared him. At that instant, he might have done anything to her. He stood and frantically jerked at the buttons on his pants, baring himself so that she was eye-level with his phallus, and she stared greedily.
“My, my”—she grinned—“it appears that you’ve missed me.”
“Take me in your hand,” he commanded.
“Like this?”
“Yes, and lick me with your tongue.”
She was an avid pupil who’d quickly acclimated to the whore’s tricks he’d taught her. She bent in, working from base to tip; then slowly—inch by agonizing inch—she sucked him inside. At being impaled between those lush, ruby lips his balls filled to bursting, and his seed surged with an urgency he could scarcely control.
He staggered away, as she scowled up at him.
“I wasn’t finished.”
“You can do it again later,” he managed to spit out.
He scooped her up and dumped her on the bed. She was half on the mattress, her legs dangling over the edge, with him braced on the floor. With no finesse, no preparation, he spread her thighs, found her center, and penetrated to the hilt.
With a vigorous growl of satisfaction, he thrust and came, flexing to the end and beyond. When the last drop had been spilled, he rolled off her and onto the mattress, too, so that they were both on their backs and gazing up at the ceiling. Perspiring, respirations labored, hearts pounding, they struggled to calm.
“Is this how married couples do it?” she inquired.
He laughed as he hadn’t laughed in years, and there was an odd sensation coursing through him that he thought might be joy. “I doubt there’s a married man alive who could survive such a coupling.”
“Is it always so wild?”
“No.”
“Why is that?”
“You’re a vixen, and I’m insatiable. It’s a combustible combination.”
“Do you suppose—just once—that we could try it the normal way?”
“The normal way?” Bewildered, he frowned. “And what would that be?”
“Well, you know. We would remove our clothes and crawl under the covers. I imagine there’d be some hugging and kissing, some talking and cuddling.”
“Talking?”
“Yes. Talking.”
“And cuddling?”
“It wouldn’t kill you,” she scolded.
He shuddered as if she’d mentioned the plague. He’d never cuddled with a woman in his life, but if he had to start, Helen was the perfect partner. Still, he teased, “Do I look like the sort of fellow who would take the time?”
“We can all learn new things, if we make up our minds to change.” She arched a brow. “Do you realize that I’ve never seen you without your trousers?”
“That’s because when I’m with you I’m always in such a damned hurry.”
“Is that good?”
“Yes, my darling, Helen. That’s very, very good.”
She chuckled, the sultry sound of it washing over him like cool water. He rose and reached for her hand.
“What?” she asked.
“Stand up.”
“I can’t. My legs have turned to mush.”
Without her assistance, he lifted her and tugged at the blankets; then he laid her down under them.
“What are you doing?” she queried.
“I’m going to show you that I can do it the normal way.”
“Really?”
“And I can guarantee you’ll like it.”
“Will it include cuddling and talking?”
“If you’re very, very nice to me . . . yes.”
She smiled, eloquent and tempting as Eve in the Garden. “I can hardly wait.”
He stripped off his pants and stretched out next to her.
16
What happened to your eye?”
“My eye?”
“Don’t pretend to be unaware that you have a black eye.”
Patricia stomped over to investigate, which Robert knew would be agony, and he flinched away. He was bruised from head to toe, and he couldn’t bear the thought of the slightest pressure anywhere on his body.
Captain Westmoreland had made good on his threat to see how many times he could hit Robert before Robert stopped getting up. As it turned out, Robert was much more stubborn than he’d recognized. Over the course of many days at the boxing club, Westmoreland had inflicted a stunning round of punishment, but Robert had absorbed it with a vigor and strength he wouldn’t have imagined possible. By the end of their London excursion, he’d figured out how to land a few blows of his own, and he was proud to have delivered them with force sufficient to make the mighty Westmoreland wince.
Still, Robert couldn’t explain his activities to Patricia. She’d never understand his desire to be a fighter, so he couldn’t allow her to view his chest or back. He looked as if he’d been trampl
ed by a horse, and when they crawled into bed he intended to have the candle blown out and the room dark.
“Don’t worry about my eye.” He brushed her hand away and gestured at her torso. “What have you done to yourself?”
“I came out of hiding.”
“You certainly did.”
There was no longer any doubt about her gender. She’d been transformed into a beauty, or perhaps she’d always been prettier than he realized, and her sudden metamorphosis had him unnerved.
Where had his Patricia gone, and how was he to interact with this stranger? She resembled a person he used to know, an old friend’s sister or a distant cousin, but not the wild paramour he’d left behind three weeks earlier.
“What do you think?” She twirled in a circle. “And since I haven’t worn a dress in years, you’d better say you like it.”
“Why did you do this?”
“Do what?”
“Why did you decide to be a woman again?”
“I was a woman from the start! I’ve been naked for you often enough! You shouldn’t be surprised!”
“Yes, but you weren’t a . . . a . . . woman like this.”
He was being a thick oaf, but he was confused by what had precipitated the alteration, and he had to make sense of it. He’d become someone else, and while he was away, she’d become someone else, too. He couldn’t deduce what that meant or why it had to mean anything, but she was so fetching that he couldn’t envision her keeping him as her lover. She was now the sort of female he frequently saw with Westmoreland, the sort a rich and powerful man flaunted to highlight his position.
Robert didn’t stand a chance of retaining her affection, and his spirits plummeted. Why couldn’t anything go right?
“What is it, Robert? Are you claiming you don’t like how I look?”
“No.”
“Then, what’s your problem?” Her exasperation was quickly evolving into fury. “Am I not attractive enough to suit you? Is my gown not fashionable? Is my skin not smooth and pale like the simpering girls around whom you were raised?”
“No, it’s not that at all.”
“Then what the hell is it?”
“You’re so different.”
Her joy faded. “You don’t like it.”