by Anne Stuart
He moved to the window, pulling his shirt free from his breeches. There was a quarter moon, casting enough light that he could look out over the harbor, see his sloop lying at anchor, see the dark outlines of the two he’d bought from Russell Shipping. He was still waiting for the Maddy Rose, the one he wanted with a fierce possessiveness. He’d known from the start that she was his ship, built sleek and trim, the last of the clipper ships as Russell Shipping turned completely to steam, and he wanted her beneath him. He wanted her namesake beneath him as well, he thought with a wicked grin. It was no wonder the solicitors were having trouble getting Russell’s daughter to sign off on the deed of ownership. They didn’t know where she was.
No, that wasn’t true, was it? She had entered his household under the auspices of Matthew Fulton, who had to know exactly who she was. Not something to endear the solicitor to him, Luca thought. Once he managed to convince Gwendolyn that she didn’t want to marry him he was doubtless going to be in need of new solicitors. It had made sense to use the same solicitor as Russell had, and once the old man had died there’d been no reason to change. Moving his business over to Haviland’s young associate, Fulton, was no longer an option.
He yanked off his shirt, stretching, then turned, suddenly aware that he wasn’t alone in the room. She was so slight he hadn’t even noticed the small lump on his bed. His new housemaid was curled up on the counterpane, sound asleep.
He moved across the room, taking care to be silent on his stocking feet, though he knew he made little noise when he moved, an old habit from his pickpocket days
Oh, bloody fucking hell. She’d undone the front of her dress, and he could see the hollow of her throat, the creamy swell of her breasts as they rose and fell with the softness of her breath, and damned if he didn’t feel his cock stir. He normally kept his parts under control—his cock got hard when it needed to and stayed quiet the rest of the time. In fact, he didn’t think Gwendolyn had managed to stir him in the slightest. But looking down at his treacherous intruder seemed to be another matter entirely, and he could feel himself start to react.
A better man would have hesitated, but he’d never had any illusions about himself. A woman he couldn’t stop thinking about was lying asleep on his bed, as sure an invitation as he’d ever known. It didn’t matter that she was clearly exhausted, shadows beneath her eyes. Her dress was open, and he wanted her.
She didn’t stir when he got on the bed. He sat back and calmly began to finish releasing the buttons on her bodice, one by one, his fingers sure and practiced. He wanted to bury his face in her sweet, pale breasts, he wanted to bury his cock between her sweet, pale thighs. He wasn’t going to think twice—she was there and he wanted her. Levering his body over hers, barely touching her, he let his lips brush against her with just the lightest of pressure. She sighed against his mouth, and he groaned softly, moving his mouth against hers. He touched her soft lips with his tongue, wetting them, and then slowly sealed his mouth over hers, sliding his tongue inside to claim her, as he lowered his body to hers.
She woke instantly, and any illusions he might have had about her arranging this vanished as she began to struggle. It took only a moment to subdue her flailing hands, her kicking legs, and he lifted his head to look down into her furious gaze.
“I’m presuming your presence in my bed wasn’t the blatant invitation it appeared to be?” he said mildly.
“Of course not!” she said. “Get off me!”
“No.”
It was a simple answer, but she stared at him in momentary confusion. “No?” she echoed.
“Don’t pretend to be stupid. You know what ‘no’ means.”
“Do you?” she shot back.
He gave her a lazy grin. “I’m not sure. I haven’t heard it very often.”
Her blue eyes darkened even further. “You are an insufferable popinjay!”
“Is that any way to talk to your employer?”
There was no missing the dawning horror on her face. Miss Madeleine Rose Russell suddenly remembered who she was supposed to be.
He took advantage of her momentary hesitation, lowering his mouth again to take her. Her struggles had ended up with him lying between her legs, her skirts rucked partway up her thighs, and he pressed his erection again her, feeling the shock vibrate through her body. He could feel her reluctant response, a shimmer of reaction dancing through her, and he wanted her, needed her so badly that his hands shook slightly as they slid down her legs, caught the heavy skirt and drew it up, feeling the silken warmth of her thighs. Suddenly he wanted to taste her, push her back on the bed, tie her up if need be, and teach her about sex. He wanted her to take him in her mouth, he wanted to watch her as she did it, cradle her head with his hands as she took him, sucked him. He wanted her damned clothes off, and he reached for the tapes of her drawers, ready to rip them, when a last, damnable bit of conscience hit him, and he hesitated, only for a moment, but it was a moment too long.
She shoved him, pushing him off her, and he went easily enough. He was more than strong enough to stay just where he was, but the idea of force took all the pleasure out of it. He fell back on the mattress with a groan as she scrambled off the bed, knocking against the bucket of water and sending the contents spilling over the floor.
“Oh, bloody hell!” she snapped in patrician tones. And then slammed her hand across her mouth as her eyes met his in the darkness.
CHAPTER NINE
Oh dear God in heaven, Maddy thought in sudden horror. What had she almost done? One moment longer, lying beneath him, and she would have been tupped before she knew it. She did her best to temper her instinctive glare. “Beg pardon, sir,” she said. “I don’t know what got into me. I’ll clean this up…”
Something white flew through the air at her, and she managed to catch it. “Use my shirt,” he said in his deep, distinctive voice. “There wasn’t that much water, and you can clean the rest up tomorrow.”
It was then she realized he wasn’t wearing a shirt. In fact, he was half-naked. Those short, yet somehow timeless moments she lay beneath him she hadn’t even realized it had been his bare skin pressing down on her sensitive breasts.
She stared at him, momentarily stunned. She had only Tarkington to compare him to, Tarkington and the sight of an occasional farmhand. Tarkington had been pale, almost white, and his skin had been surprisingly soft, she remembered in sudden dismay. There was nothing soft or pale about the captain. Even in the dim gaslight she could see the hardness of muscle and bone beneath his bronzed skin. Muscle and bone that had been pressed against her, and she realized her heart was still hammering, her breathing strangled.
“I suppose I ought to put a new shirt on,” he said in a lazy voice, as if he hadn’t been about to strip her of her clothing and what little remained of her self-respect. “You’d best soak that up before it leaks through into the room below. You don’t want to deal with Mrs. Crozier.”
She tore her eyes away for a moment, then dropped to her knees, pressing the fine cambric to the puddle of dark, dirty water. There hadn’t been much in the bucket, though she hated to ruin his shirt, a shirt that was still warm from his body and smelled like cinnamon and the sea. And then she looked up again to see his back as he was reaching for a new shirt, and she froze.
He was scarred. Not whip scars, as many sailors bore, but other, myriad wounds, some deep, some shallow, but bad enough to have left the marks of abuse on his strong, wiry body. But those were commonplace next to the strange picture that covered his left shoulder and snaked down his side.
A tattoo. She knew sailors often got them, just small blue marks on their arms or shoulders, but this was something very different. It seemed to be a cross between a snake and a dragon, and it was full of colors she’d never seen before. The scales seemed to glow in the gaslight, reds and blues and greens, moving as he moved, a sinuous dance across his muscles. She simply knelt there and stared at him in mingled awe and astonishment. And something else, something she ref
used to recognize. If he touched her again she wasn’t sure she could summon her moral outrage.
She scrambled to her feet. He must have felt her eyes on him, or maybe she’d made some involuntary sound. He turned around without putting on his shirt, and she could see that the tattoo reached over the top of his shoulder, one scaly, beautiful claw pulling at his skin. Oh, God, he had nipples, she suddenly realized. She’d forgotten that men had them as well, though in their case they were useless. Useless, but fascinating. It had been too dark to see Tarkington, but his cool skin had been covered with pale fur, whereas Captain Morgan had nothing but a faint trace of dark hair disappearing beneath his breeches, and he looked warm enough to…
“That’s Ren,” he said in a conversational tone.
She knew she must look like an idiot as she stared at him blankly. “I beg your pardon?” She knew it sounded too upper-class once the words were out, but she had to hope he hadn’t noticed. Even though she suspected the captain noticed everything.
“My tattoo,” he said. “Her name is Ren. She comes from the Japan Islands. Their dragons are a bit different from ours.” He moved marginally closer to her. “Ren is an elegant specimen, but I should warn you; she eats little girls for breakfast.”
Good God, why should that start a strange warmth in her belly? She rallied herself, belatedly, trying to draw her gaze away from the mesmerizing dragon. “Then it’s a good thing there are no little girls in this household.”
His smile could almost be called predatory, and he still held his fresh shirt in his large, capable hands. “I’m not sure Ren knows the difference. Though she does like being petted.”
All right, this was getting to be too unnerving. “I didn’t realize we were trading with Japan.”
“England wasn’t at the time. When we sailed there we weren’t under the flag of any country.”
“You mean you were a pirate.”
His mouth curved up in a faint grin. “I prefer privateer. You’re very knowledgeable about my career. Did you have any other questions?”
He was close, too close. If she turned to run he could simply reach out with his long, strong arms and stop her. But if she backed away from him he’d know she was scared. “When were you there?” she said, then realized a maid didn’t ask such questions. Nor stand there like an idiot staring at him. Remembering that when she was young she’d wanted to run away with pirates or the gypsies, and here she had both in one irresistible package. But she didn’t have those daydreams any longer, she reminded herself.
The captain didn’t appear shocked at her impertinent question. “Five years ago. Just before I took up with Russell Shipping.”
He made it sound as if he’d been her father’s partner, not his employee. Though indeed, she remembered her father’s particular affection for this one captain of his. At least until the end, when he’d suddenly withdrawn his command and left that cryptic note. “Never trust a pirate…”
He came closer, so close that she backed away without thinking about it, almost knocking over the bucket again. “Aren’t you going to ask me the next question?”
“What next question?” she said dazedly. There was no place she could move, except forward, toward him, toward the warm, seductive length of him. She was so tempted. When he kissed her she forgot everything, her rage, her sorrow, her doubts. All that existed was him, and God help her, she wanted him.
What was wrong with her?
He leaned forward, his mouth almost brushing her ear, and her entire body felt as if it were on fire. “Did it hurt,” he whispered. For a moment she thought he was asking her a question, and then she realized his meaning. She jerked away from him, trying to pull her scattered brain together, and she met his hooded gaze with the best version of limpid interest she could summon. Not this man, she reminded herself.
“Well, did it?” she asked. “They do tattoos with needles, don’t they?”
There was just the faintest light of amusement in his dark eyes. “It hurt like bloody hell.”
“Then why did you do it?” She should stop this conversation immediately, grab the bucket, beg his pardon, and run like the wind. Instead her feet were frozen to the floor.
“Pain isn’t something to be avoided at all costs, Mary—that’s the name you’re using, isn’t it? In fact, there are those who can find a certain pleasure in pain.”
“I cannot imagine it. Sir,” she added. What did he mean, that’s the name you’re using? What did he think she was?
His smile was fleeting, disturbing, a flash of white teeth in his dark face. “If you’re a good girl sometime I might show you,” he said softly.
Good luck to that, she thought grimly. She had to get away from him, as quickly as she could. She’d always been able to put importunate young men in their place—she certainly should have been able to handle a retired pirate.
But this man was different from the London beaus, and he was about as easy to handle as one of the wild jungle cats she’d seen in the London Zoological Society. He fascinated her, drew her, frightened her, when she was a woman who refused to be frightened. But she couldn’t make herself leave him. Maybe it was that unsatisfactory time in Tarkington’s bed that was suddenly making her think about things she shouldn’t be thinking about. Such as whether he would feel the same between her legs, if he’d be harder, if he’d be larger, if he’d know how to awaken her longings instead of driving them away as Tarkington had done. She already knew the answers to those questions. He’d pressed against her, that hard, rigid part of him, so very different from her limited experience. And she’d felt more pleasure from his mouth than she’d received from all of Tarkington’s fumblings. She could suddenly see why some women sought out the degrading experience. For the sake of kisses like that it would almost be worth it. Almost.
She could feel her face flush.
“Whatever are you thinking about?” he said with a soft laugh. “Whatever it is, it must be quite decadent to make you blush like that. Would you rather I put on my shirt?”
He was so close she could see the tattoo perfectly, stretched across his golden skin with gold-tipped scales. So close she could feel the heat from his body, so close she could simply sway toward him and she’d be in his arms. She wanted him to kiss her again, she wanted him to touch her again.
She was crazy, she told herself. Tarkington’s efforts shouldn’t make her think of the captain in the same light. There’d be no reason she’d ever want to do that again unless she had to. Marital relations were just the faintest bit unpleasant if not for the snuggling before and after, and there hadn’t been enough of either. She was hardly eager to try with someone new. The captain didn’t look like a man who snuggled.
In fact, he was a man who might very well have betrayed and murdered her father, a man who was disturbingly shirtless in a bedroom in the middle of the night, watching her with unreadable dark eyes.
She started forward, but he was too close, his eyes glittering and wary in the darkness. “Beg pardon, sir,” she said breathlessly, reaching for her accent and knowing she fell short. “I don’t know what got into me. I didn’t meant to fall asleep. I was tired—I just closed my eyes for a moment. Please don’t tell Mrs. Crozier.”
“Mrs. Crozier answers to me,” he said, not moving. “You may come to my bed any time you please.”
She took a deep breath. “I’m a good girl, sir.”
“And I do prefer bad girls,” he said with a sigh. “But good girls don’t lie. And they don’t move into a man’s house and pretend to be a maid.”
A moment of shocked silence in the darkness, and her irrational longing vanished into cold fear. “What makes you think I’m pretending anything?”
“A maid doesn’t speak like a toff sometimes, a Geordie the next, and a Cockney for good measure. A maid doesn’t have your lack of stamina or your dull but expensive clothes or your dislike of being told what to do. And a maid would know how to kiss. I could teach you.”
“Why?” The que
stion came out before she could stop herself.
He laughed. “Don’t be ingenuous, my sweet. I don’t kiss strange women on the docks of Devonport unless I want to fuck them.”
Her cheeks flamed at the crude word, at the image. He remembered. Of course he did! Steady on, girl, she told herself. This was a tricky game she was playing, and she had to watch her step. “I told you, sir, I’m a good girl. And why would I pretend to be something I’m not?”
“I have no idea. That’s why I’m asking you.”
She took a deep breath. She’d thought this through ahead of time, prepared for questions. “It’s simple enough, sir,” she said, favoring her Northern tones. “My mother was from Lancashire and me father was from Shepherd’s Bush, and I worked for a lady who gave me some of her cast-off clothes and was helping me learn to better meself, including my way of talking. If it weren’t for her husband sniffing around me skirts I would be well on my way to being a lady’s maid by now.”
“Maybe he recognized his wife’s skirts.” He was entertaining himself, she thought, irritated. This was a game to him. The odd, sensual languor in the air was simply part of his entertainment, the bastard. He continued, “You don’t like it when Mrs. Crozier or Miss Haviland tell you what to do.”
“I don’t like Mrs. Crozier or Miss Haviland,” she said, then could have bit her tongue, but he simply looked amused. He moved back, and suddenly Maddy could breathe again, though the strange tension inside her still held.
“I’m not sure I blame you. But being in service means being told what to do.”
“That’s what me mother said,” she replied pertly. “I’ve always been a bit impertinent. I need to work on it.”