Temptation's Kiss

by Lisa Bingham

  “You were instructed to bring him home, but not at the expense of his well-being.”

  “Nothin’s been done that won’t wear off in a day or two.”

  “The bloke’s right on that account, missy,” Smythe inserted smoothly after throwing Jones a look rife with warning. “We were told t’ fetch Richard Sutherland at whatever cost, and we ‘ave. Therefore, I believe there’s a matter of coin due.”

  With a great deal of effort, Chelsea managed to conceal her own distrust. She didn’t like these men. She’d pleaded with Biddy to find another source of help. But Biddy had insisted that there was no one else. Only Chelsea had seemed concerned that Smythe and Jones would abduct some poor fool from the docks and try to pass him off as the long-lost Sutherland heir.

  “How do I know you’ve delivered Richard Sutherland and not an unwitting islander?” she asked. Chelsea’s gaze darted toward the boat long enough to ascertain that there was indeed a shape hidden by a canvas tarpaulin. But she had no guarantees of his identity.

  Smythe sighed. “I knew you’d be doubtin’ our fine work an’ would insist upon a token o’ proof.” He tucked his thumb into the watchpocket of his vest. “This was taken from his very person whilst on the island where we found ’im.”

  He removed a heavy gold signet ring that Chelsea recognized long before the man dropped it into her palm. For thirty years, the family piece had been lost to the Sutherlands; Lady Sutherland had described the intricate design to perfection.

  “Where did you find this?”

  “Took it off ‘is pinkie, we did,” the nasty little man blurted.

  The tiny hairs at the back of her neck prickled in warning. Somehow, she sensed that their methods of attaining the ring had not been as innocent as these men would have her believe. “I see. Then our business is concluded, gentlemen. I trust no word of your activities will be passed on? To anyone.”

  Smythe smiled, a feral upward slash of lips that brought a creeping sensation to Chelsea’s skin. “As long as you got the rest o’ the jewels, we’ve never ‘eard o’ Richard Sutherland.” He bowed imperceptibly. “Or o’ you, Miss Wickersham.”

  They knew her real name; she’d never given it.

  The two men must have sensed her shock because they snickered. Then Jones pinned her with an expression bordering on a leer.

  Not wishing to detain them a second longer, Chelsea withdrew the pouch she’d kept in the pocket of her skirt. “I believe you’ll find everything in order.”

  “What ‘bout the trans-por-tation you promised?”

  “Two horses await you beyond the point.”

  After inspecting the contents of the bag, Smythe settled his cap over his head again and touched the brim. “It was a pleasure doin’ business wi’ the likes o’ you … Miss Wickersham. Give our regards to ‘er ladyship when she comes to collect ‘er kiddie.”

  He grinned and walked into the night but his assistant lingered, spying Chelsea’s red-gold hair and the fitted bodice of her woolen gown revealed beneath the slit of her cape. Chuckling to himself, he scurried after his partner. The scrabbling sound of their footsteps faded into nothingness as they rounded the bend. With them, they took the last of Lady Sutherland’s personal jewels and her only spare team.

  To the soles of her shoes, Chelsea was profoundly relieved to see them go now that their errand was finished.

  “Is there a problem, Miss Chelsea?”

  Smee came to her so quietly, she hadn’t heard his approach. Reminded once again of the boy they’d spent so much time and effort to bring home, Chelsea hurried toward the skiff. “Everything is right as rain, Mr. Smee.” She was proud of the way her command emerged strong and clear, belying the nervousness that churned within her. “Come. We’ve got to get Richard into the coach at once.”

  “Yes, mum.”

  They waded into the surf, paying little heed to the hungry waves that caught at their clothing. By pushing at the rear of the boat, they anchored the craft more firmly upon the beach, then moved toward the sprawled figure obscured by the cloth.

  “Did he appear ill to you, Smee?”

  “I don’t know, mum, they kept him wrapped up. It took a half-dozen men to help him inside.”

  “But he’s only a child.”

  “No, mum.”

  “What?”

  “He was a big ‘un, he was. ‘Bout as tall as Greyson, I’d say.”

  Chelsea’s heart tripped on an irregular beat. “But surely …” Her words melted away, and her fingers closed around the canvas. Moving slowly for fear of frightening her new charge, she drew the covering away, inch by inch.

  Dark, sea-kissed hair.

  Tanned skin.

  Rugged features.

  Beard-roughened jaw.

  “Oh my,” she whispered to herself. A heady disbelief churned in her as she continued to pull the material free.

  Muscular shoulders.

  Broad chest.

  Narrow waist.

  Lean hips.

  “Oh my!” she murmured again.

  Richard, Lord Sutherland, was most definitely not the child she and Biddy had been expecting. He was completely grown. That fact was made abundantly clear by the sculpted symmetry of his torso, the concave flatness of his stomach, and the well-endowed masculine bulge shielded by a brief loincloth.

  “He’s not a little tyke, is he, mum?” Smee said, stating the obvious.

  Although Chelsea knew she shouldn’t give in to the temptation, she stared with a blatant intensity at the figure sprawled on the planked flooring. A curious tingling began to lick at her nerve endings.

  No. Richard Sutherland was not a boy—in any sense of the word.

  He was a man.

  A very primitive, savage man.

  Chapter 3

  A moan spilled into the early-morning hush of the still-sleeping inn. The sound—so completely out of character in the first hours of dawn—wriggled into the dark skein of Chelsea’s dreams and tugged her inexorably toward consciousness.

  She resisted the intrusion upon her rest. She hadn’t had a full night’s slumber in weeks, months. After she’d finally claimed the elusive state of oblivion, something called her back. Something disturbing.

  Chelsea stirred upon the bed, automatically groping for the rumpled covers beneath her chest. The last wisps of sleep skittered away, and she blinked against the murky predawn gloom cloaking the cramped bedchamber.

  Dungetty. The inn at Dungetty.

  The delayed recognition of her surroundings caused the evening’s events to come hurtling to the fore: the half-naked savage in the bottom of the skiff, the struggle to carry him to the carriage, the long ride with his damp head cradled in her lap.

  Peering at the watch pinned to her bodice, Chelsea groaned in dismay when she noted she’d fallen fully clothed onto the counterpane and had slept but a quarter-hour. Not even enough time had elapsed to dry the still-sodden hems of her traveling costume.

  Rubbing her eyes, she tried to settle into the arms of Morpheus, but her body ached and her thoughts whirled. She was disoriented after spending hours galloping through the night intent upon a single goal: covering as many miles as possible before the first kiss of the sun.

  Struggling into a sitting position, Chelsea propped a pillow behind her, realizing rest was not going to be so easily obtained. She shivered against the damp that had soaked through the layers of clothing she wore, but she couldn’t summon the strength to rise, strip off her gown, and change into her night rail.

  Sighing, she plucked at the pins that anchored the swirl of braids to her neck, then unraveled the plaits until the waves spilled over her shoulders in a rippling curtain. Because of the utmost need for secrecy, she and Smee had ridden pell-mell to the Hog’s Head Inn at Dungetty, where they could shield themselves during the daylight hours. The drugs Richard had been given by Smythe and Jones had taken their toll. Throughout the journey, he’d been so still, so sick.
She’d been supremely grateful when the Hog’s Head Inn came into view and she could see her charge placed in a proper bed. She regretted that they couldn’t stay any longer than nightfall. But once under cover of darkness, they must continue on their way to Bellemoore.

  A cry split the darkness. Rough, deep, masculine.

  Richard! Flinging the bedclothes aside, she bolted from the room.

  A pink stain of sunlight crept down the narrow hallway, revealing the shabby runner and the cracking paint on the walls. Doors on either side of the passageway squeaked open, and censorious eyes followed her travel-stained figure as she hurried toward the chamber bordering her own.

  Chelsea paid little attention to the curious guests who followed her progress. Her only thought was on the man she’d sworn to protect.

  Drat it all, she shouldn’t have left him alone! She’d been so worried about propriety that she hadn’t taken into account how ill he was. She’d left him in an unfamiliar place, an unfamiliar bed. Careless. Very, very careless.

  She burst into his quarters and ran to the bed. Richard lay sprawled on his back, the covers tangled about his hips and dripping onto the floor. His skin was dappled with sweat and chalky in color. Arching his head into the pillows, he cried out as if tormented by his dreams, the sound like that of a wounded lion, pitiful and tortured.

  “Richard? Richard!” She sank down on the feather tick and reached out to him, but at the contact he reared free.

  “Miss Chelsea!” Smee burst into the chamber, followed by the innkeeper and his wife. “What is it, mum? What’s frightened him so?”

  Seeing that they were drawing a collection of gawking, half-dressed tavern inhabitants, Chelsea stared pointedly at the door. Smee, heeding her tacit request, quickly shut it, allowing the proprietor and his portly spouse to stay.

  Once they were closed in the privacy of the small cubicle, she turned her attention to the bare-chested man. “Richard?” Speaking comfortingly to him, she edged nearer. The gray tinge to his skin had intensified over the last few minutes; his breath came ragged and swift. “Shhh … Richard … shhh.”

  The lulling melody of her voice seemed to calm him somewhat, but when she touched him, he rolled from the bed and retreated to the corner of the room, where he propped his spine against the wall. He faced them all like a cornered animal, teeth bared. His eyes were open but glazed, as if he focused on some sort of demon manufactured by his mind.

  “What in the world has come over him, mum?” Smee asked, his mouth agape. “He was fine a minute ago. I peeked in on him before retiring.”

  The innkeeper’s wife harrumphed and folded her arms tightly beneath her ponderous breasts. “He’s naught but a loony. Give him another dose of laudanum, and he’ll be right as rain.”

  Chelsea, who had been inching toward her charge, felt a chill creep over her, then a slow anger. Straightening, she swiveled to face her, slowly, haughtily, staring at the woman as if she’d heard incorrectly. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Laudanum. Give him a bit of laudanum. I put a healthy dose in his tea little more’n an hour ago, and he slept like a baby.”

  “You gave him opium?” Chelsea asked, her tone forbidding. “Without my permission?”

  The woman faltered, her mouth opening and shutting like a fish, when she realized her news had not been favorably met. “It’s the best thing for his kind, I tell you.”

  “His kind …”

  “You know. Tetched. Mad.”

  Chelsea’s spine became ramrod straight, and she glared at the woman down the slender bridge of her nose. “This man is not crazy. He’s been drugged. Drugged! To top it all off, you’ve just given him a healthy dose of opium!”

  The woman’s arms dropped. Her throat worked. “I never—”

  “Get out.”

  “But I—”

  “Out!”

  The innkeeper, seeing that his wife was about to dig an even bigger hole and he was about to lose a shiny coin for the use of the room, tugged her into the hall. “Come along, Bess.”

  “But—”

  “Come along!”

  The pair departed, leaving a bleak, throbbing emptiness. A fulminating fury burned in Chelsea’s breast long after she heard the slap of footfalls disappearing down the corridor. Damn them. She’d needed Richard fit and alert. That woman had delayed their plans another day, maybe two or three. There was no telling how long it would take for her charge to regain his wits.

  “Richard?”

  He braced his palms flat against the wall. Before she could reach him, he slid down on his haunches. When she tried to touch him, he growled and caught her in a crushing grip. For the first time, she noted the brackish bruises that marred his wrists and ankles—marks caused, no doubt, by the sort of iron manacles used to restrain dangerous prisoners on ships.

  “Shh, shh.”

  He didn’t release her. The longer he held her, the more a horrible realization rooted in her brain. Judging by his need to protect himself through force, he’d been beaten during the journey. Beaten, penned up, and abused. His mind was too hazed to realize he had been liberated from his prison. He thought she meant to hurt him—and for some reason, that thought disturbed her unbearably.

  “Is he ill?” Smee whispered, concerned.

  “No, Mr. Smee.” Chelsea had seen this reaction before. The shaking, the perspiration, the unhealthy pallor. “He’s seeing things that aren’t really there.”

  Smee, obviously lost by her cryptic reply, tiptoed forward.

  “Can you help him?”

  “Yes. I can help him.”

  Leaning closer, she ignored the salt-sticky encumbrance of her hems. For the first time she could remember, appearances held a minor priority. Since he still held her hands in a punishing vise, she rested her forehead against his, willing him to hear her, understand her as she said, “Richard? I won’t hurt you. Richard, look at me. You’re not on The Seeker anymore. You’re nearly home.”

  He didn’t acknowledge her. If he noted the content of her statements at all, he gave no sign. She wriggled free from his imprisoning clasp, touching his hair and stroking the tousled waves as if he were a boy—or a frightened beast.

  “Richard …” His labored respiration rasped against Chelsea’s heart, plucking at the cords of her compassion in a way no child had ever been able to do. Minutes ticked past. Long, tension-fraught seconds. Then he looked up, his eyes a brilliant gold and green and brown. So piercing was their intensity that Chelsea could nearly believe he was cognizant of his surroundings. Then he smiled, a silly, drunken grin that spoke of little boys and naughty thoughts.

  “Mr. Smee, can you help me get him into his bed?”

  “Yes, mum.”

  But when Smee tried to approach, Richard snarled at him—sounding so much like a wounded bear snapping at a dog that Smee jumped.

  Chelsea stifled a grin at Smee’s abashed expression. “Never mind. If you’ll just fetch me some water, a face cloth, and my silver-handled brush.”

  “Yes, mum.”

  Smee disappeared, leaving Chelsea alone with her heathen.

  “Come along, Master Richard. Back to bed.”

  He didn’t stir. The smile he’d worn faded, replaced by a much more potent expression. He visually roamed her features as if disbelieving what he saw, and he reached out to catch her head between his palms.

  Chelsea instinctively reared backward, but he held her firmly, almost cruelly, his grip digging into her skull. He grunted, squinted. Then his clasp gentled, soothed.

  Chelsea began to push him away but soon halted. At the contact with his bare skin, her pulse began a slow, sluggish beat. A heat seeped into her limbs, an icy chill.

  No.

  A slow, delicious languor stole through her senses. A wanton, soul-wrenching physical response to his nearness. But she refused to accept the phenomenon. She couldn’t allow this to happen. She wouldn’t. She was his governess.

 
“Come to bed, Master Richard.” Old regrets, long-lost urges knocked at the closed door of her memory, but she kept them snugly contained. She wouldn’t be caught in a man’s spell. Never again. Never.

  He petted the waves of her hair, her cheek.

  “Please, Richard,” she whispered, more desperately this time. “Come to bed.”

  He bent close. His lips parted.

  He was too near, too close, too dangerous. Yanking free, she rushed to the opposite side of the room, but once she’d put a safe distance between them, she refused to cower. Instead, she assumed all the hauteur, all the pride that she could muster.

  Richard didn’t immediately follow, but he blinked at Chelsea in confusion. He struggled upright and peered at her from the slit of half-closed lashes. The laudanum had caused his pupils to grow large and black; he seemed to study her with the hunger of a jungle cat. His chest gleamed in the weak light of morning probing through the grimy windows. Never had his loincloth seemed so brief, so ineffective. Chelsea knew without a doubt that she had unwittingly intrigued him. Aroused him.

  More unnerved than she would care to admit, Chelsea stared him down much as she would a recalcitrant bully. But her silent warning had no apparent effect. Instead, this man seemed to drain her of her stoic professionalism, leaving her flushed. Unsettled.

  “No.”

  She didn’t realize she’d spoken the word aloud until it pounced into the heavy stillness.

  As if drawn by that single bark of sound, Richard wavered, then shuffled forward.

  She didn’t speak again, but she didn’t retreat. Not even when he stood so close that she could feel the heat of his body, smell the musk of his skin. Silken threads bound her, preventing her from moving, but she refused to give in to the pleasure being offered. She stood as coldly as a block of ice. She would not be ensnared by this man’s drugged overtures. She would be strong. Resolute. Unapproachable.

  His head dipped.

  Hers tilted away.

  He edged closer.

  She stiffened.