by Darcy Burke
“I leave on Thursday to spend the weekend with her and Livingston.”
“Ask Miriam what she thinks of transporting passengers as a packet ship,” Howard requested. To Richard’s unending relief, his friend had no objection to Miriam’s involvement in the venture. Howard valued Miriam’s analysis. It didn’t matter who held knowledge to him. Howard wanted the best work he could get no matter what the source.
“I assume you mean something other than our guests in need of transport?” Richard said with a cocky half-grin.
Howard cast him a dark look. “We don’t discuss them. For you, it’s all fun and games. For our guests, this is a deadly business.”
Chastened, Richard dropped his gaze to the floor. “Miriam thinks it’s going to delay the ship, waiting for passengers to sign-up. Particularly since this is our first voyage attempt.”
“I like to diversify our income sources,” Howard countered.
Richard chuckled. “You and Miriam think alike. She prefers to have her fingers in multiple pies as well.”
“She’s a smart lady, your Miriam. Pretty too,” Howard observed. It was the first time Richard had ever heard him express approval of a woman. Richard didn’t know what the man did to satisfy his base needs. Dock whores, most likely. Richard shuddered and immediately recoiled with guilt. Not that that emotion was ever far away from him. A woman had to be fairly desperate for money to tolerate a man like Howard in her bed. Richard found himself wishing for a stiff drink to ward off the discomfort of his newfound empathy.
“Miriam is far more intelligent than I am,” Richard agreed. His heart pinched. Somewhere between nearly killing her and asking for her hand, his affection for her had morphed. He was selfish enough to want her for himself.
“Has she figured out your connection to Lizzie yet?” Howard demanded.
“Miriam knows.” Richard swallowed. They had been so busy sending messages, planning a wedding and their new shipping venture that he hadn’t found a moment to try and appraise Miriam of her friend’s betrayal. It had taken all of Richard’s talent for fibbing to convince Miriam not to ask Lizzie to be her bridesmaid. Only the fact that Howard, his proposed groomsman, and Lizzie despised one another had dissuaded her. Soon, if all went according to plan, Richard would be able to stop looking over his shoulder as if to conjure Lizzie.
Anticipation sweetly twisted in his stomach all the way up the steep road to Cliffside. Richard had come to appreciate the minor luxuries that a bit of coin in one’s pocket offered. He had rented a horse for a month, which gave him a freedom of movement he’d once taken for granted. Nightfall had darkened the valley below, through which wound the Hudson River, by the time he arrived.
“I was afraid you’d fallen in,” Miriam said as he handed up his satchel to one of the domestic servants they employed here. On his first visit Richard had called him a footman and been corrected. Now, he’d forgotten the man’s name but was reluctant to ask. It didn’t matter, for the moment the servant disappeared with his luggage Miriam fluttered down the stairs like a wraith in a billowing white wrapper. She bent her head for a kiss. Richard obliged, soaking in her warmth. Miriam pulled back enough to murmur, “You’re chilled.”
“The wind coming off the river was fit to freeze me in my saddle.” It felt so nice to be fussed over. The world was a friendlier place when there were people who would miss you if you fell off a cliff than it was when everyone wished for such a calamity to happen.
“Do you want supper?” Miriam asked, clutching the neckline of her wrapper. Her modesty made Richard smile.
“No,” he answered. “Only bed.”
“This way,” she replied. “Father has let you stay down the hall instead of the guest house, on account of the cold snap. Our wedding is also a factor I presume.”
“Does that mean you’ll come to visit me in my room this evening?” The louche invitation popped out of his mouth without his brain’s intervention. He’d meant to talk but Miriam’s eyes twinkled with mischief.
“How shall I resist the temptation?” she chuckled with newfound sultriness.
Richard swallowed. Painfully. The greater question was, how would he resist sleeping down the hall from the woman who tempted him beyond reason? She was hardly the first woman who had gazed at him with adoration—hell, Lizzie could fake that—but every time Richard had known the woman’s affection for him extended only as far as his purse. With Miriam, an answering tide of desire sucked at him until Richard wanted to drown in her storm-gray eyes.
“By locking your door,” he replied, grasping her bare fingers and raising her knuckles to his lips. He brushed a kiss across her knuckles and heard her faint inhale. The shy dimple at her cheeks appeared. “As I shall do to mine.”
Miriam didn’t pout, but she did duck her chin and peer up at him through thick lashes. “We are to be married, Richard. I don’t wish to wait until our vows are formalized before a pastor to make our love real.”
She pressed a key into his palm. A hush fell over the darkening hallway as she closed his hand around it. The simple glide of elegant fingers over his sent a shiver promise up his arm.
“Our love is real, Miri,” Richard whispered. His resistance hung by a thread, ready to break at the slightest provocation. He wanted her, too. He wanted to taste her salt, drink in the feminine nectar of her skin. His cock throbbed with the unaccustomed sensation of thwarted desire. His feelings were as new and tender with inexperience as Miriam’s body, gentle, fierce, and confusing.
A man who loved his wife-to-be would be honest with her about how their union had come to pass. Richard traced her petal-soft cheek with the back of his knuckle. He could not hurt her, this woman who gazed up at him with all the trust in her generous heart.
Miriam shifted on her feet. Richard released her, but Miriam’s arms wound up and around his neck to pull him closer. Her breasts flattened against his chest. Richard was lost. He grasped the only solid rock he could hold as feelings raged through him. His arms circled her waist. Her wrapper gaped open to reveal a modest white nightdress. The row of buttons at the back of her neck dragged over his palm with a thrilling sense of trespass. The tips of his fingers grazed the nape of her neck and burrowed into her hair like a terrified animal, pulling her hard against his front. With his other arm he clutched the key until its metal teeth bit his flesh as he held her close to him. As if he could meld their bodies into one and keep her safe.
Protected.
Wanted. So badly wanted. In ways and for reasons Richard didn’t fully understand. He wanted her forgiveness without telling Miriam what he’d done. No matter how he ached to tell her the truth, he knew that it meant losing her. She must never know even if he had to live with this dark secret for the rest of his life. With luck, in a few years he’d have left this American scandal an ocean behind them.
Best not to think about the way he was abdicating his responsibility. If Arthur Van Buren refused to acknowledge Lizzie’s child Richard ought to take the babe away from her less-than-maternal care. But then, what? Ask Miriam to raise his bastard?
Miriam tipped her face up to his. Their mouths met in a slow sweep of sensual contact. Richard tasted her breath and needed more. He took it with a glide of his tongue. Miriam’s parted lips were wet with warm desire.
Richard took her kiss and returned it with all the words he didn’t yet know how to say.
I need you.
I cannot live without you.
I have betrayed you in the cruelest possible way, and I cannot bear to tell you for fear I will lose you.
Her hands fisted in his linen shirtsleeves. Richard ran his hand back down her body to the small of her back. Then, a fraction lower. Miriam mewled and tilted her hips against him. It would take nothing to lift her, pin her against the wall, and give her what she whimpered for. What she had asked him to do.
Deflower her.
Richard stilled. He could not…would not take her under false pretenses. He grasped at the thin straws of his h
onor. Miriam wanted to give herself to him, yet he could not accept her gift in good conscience. What a wonderful thing to discover now, after so many years of believing the utility of a conscience limited one at best and served as a liability at worst.
Miriam was the cure he hadn’t known he needed to heal from the yawning gap of loneliness and insecurity that no amount of money or status could ever fill. His belladonna, stopping the bleeding ever since Lizzie had coerced him into this disastrous plan.
Miriam gasped as Richard nipped his way down her neck. “I want more of your touch,” she whispered with hot breath against his temple.
“I want it too. So badly, Miri,” he groaned. Need tightened his body until every nerve vibrated with desire. God, if he could only lose himself in her touch and be reborn a new man—one worthy of her. Not this lying, terrified shadow who was desperate not to lose the only good thing that had ever happened to him.
“Take it,” she whispered.
“No,” he breathed, though his disobedient hand disentangled from her hair and skimmed down her ribcage. His thumb traced the outer curve of her breast. Miriam groaned.
“Please,” she begged. “Come to my room. My father won’t care. Mrs. Kent won’t know.”
“No,” Richard grunted as he flicked his thumb over the tight bead buried beneath layers of fabric. The glorious woman in his arms strained against him. Damn her modestly cut bodice. He couldn’t taste the peaks of her breasts. The key clattered to the floor as he blindly hooked one button through the loop at the base of her neck.
“Yes,” she whispered.
More buttons. Richard’s fingers urged them through the fabric, one after another. “Why do you have so many buttons?” he complained.
“To keep my dress on my body,” Miriam observed dryly. “Rather inconvenient at the moment.”
“Agreed,” Richard muttered. His body refused to heed the warning signal flashing in his brain. Stop now, before you make this even worse. As long as he didn’t deflower her everything could go back to the way it was. To protect her he must preserve her innocence. No matter how difficult Miriam made it for him to resist.
He could give them something, though, if he could get past the barrier of her clothing. Their lips met again, hers swollen slightly with the force of their kisses. Richard gentled. Miriam nipped his lower lip as the fabric slipped down her shoulder. Moonlight, filtered through the window, revealed a flash of pure white.
Don’t sully her.
Too late. He was in the gap before the thought had fully formed. Fine. He would give them a taste of mutual satisfaction, the promise of the future he yearned for with all his being. Only a taste.
Richard palmed the curve of her exquisite breast. Once, he’d fancied himself a connoisseur of fine bosoms. The small, plump, pert mound that rolled beneath his touch was delightful, but nowhere near as much as the sigh Miriam exhaled into his neck.
“I’ve wanted this for so long,” she whispered.
“This? It has hardly been more than a few weeks,” Richard replied, stroking her again as she curved against him, seeking more. Yet he knew what she meant. It felt as if he were the innocent, experiencing lust for the first time. Ridiculous, of course. But how else to explain the frantic tremble in his body as he delved through layers of soft linen and cotton to find the hard tip of her—
Ahh. There it was. Miriam’s sigh echoed his own as hypersensitive skin met like. Richard rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger.
“More,” she demanded, her arm anchoring around the back of his neck. “I like that. Do it more.”
Richard grunted and complied. A long, satisfied sigh in his ear told him he’d found a rhythm she liked. His own lust lay banked, awaiting his lady’s satisfaction. But his forbearance would not be rewarded this night. The tail of a ribbon tickled his wrist. Richard grinned and tugged it. The long string unwound from her chemise. Miriam moaned.
“Excuse me. I heard a noise.”
Miriam froze in his arms. An arctic chill settled over them, cooling their ardor in an instant. Richard felt it in the stiffness of her back where seconds ago she had undulated wantonly against him.
“Mrs. Kent. Lord Northcote was wishing me good night,” Miriam said, breathless with guilt. She cleared her throat and pulled back. Richard dropped his arms.
“So, I see.”
The woman stood before them in a plain white nightdress with an equally unadorned wrapper. A white cap covered her braided hair, which dangled over her shoulder. She eyed them accusingly. Richard had never heard such repressive condemnation in three small words as he did from Miriam’s caretaker. The thin woven ribbon he’d stolen dangled from his fingers, proof that his hands had been where they didn’t belong.
Chapter 16
Slowly, he removed his hand from Miriam’s bodice. Quickly he pulled it up, wishing buttons could magically fasten themselves. It would have had the added benefit of getting Miriam naked that much easier, although at this precise moment he wanted her modesty restored. He had no right to besmirch her innocence no matter how badly he wanted to.
“Another minute, Mrs. Kent,” Miriam spoke firmly this time. Her keeper eyed them with wary disappointment.
“I shall see her to bed.” Richard is keenly aware of the impropriety, but it’s only the nurse.
Mrs. Kent sniffed. “It isn’t as though Miriam needs assistance with her fastenings.”
Miriam’s chin rose. “We are to be married.”
The woman’s expression changed almost imperceptibly from fierce remonstrance to pensive sadness. Fear. If he needed confirmation that Mrs. Kent suspected his motives, he had it now. Unease prickled the back of his neck. What might she do to prevent their union?
Until now, Richard had not had to consider failure. Yet, until Miriam wore his ring and he could sweep her away from Lizzie’s influence, there remained a distinct possibility of discovery. He could not break Miriam’s heart. Therefore, she must never suspect. Their leaving America was the only answer.
“I wish you joy,” Mrs. Kent replied woodenly, her eyes lighting accusingly on him. “Now, off to bed.”
Miriam sighed. “I am not a child. Are you planning to stand there until I return to my room?”
“Yes.” The women commenced a stare down, which Miriam quickly won. Mrs. Kent averted her gaze. “If you promise to return to your separate rooms, I shall wait out of earshot in the hallway.”
When she was gone, Richard bent to retrieve Miriam’s key. “I suppose I summoned her when I dropped this.”
“Heavy iron keys. My father swears by strong locks,” Miriam observed wryly.
“Understandable. He has a treasure to keep safe.” Richard threaded the string through a loop of the key. Miriam watched, wide-eyed, as he knotted the ends together around his neck and tucked the heavy iron key into his shirt. Close to his heart. Miriam smiled shyly. “I will come for you when the time is right, Miri.” He kissed her cheek, inhaling her sweet fragrance as though her delicate strength was enough to carry him through this mess he had made. “Not tonight.”
Miriam hitched up her sleeve. “I suppose I can wait a while longer. If I must.”
“Soon, Miri. I promise.”
Mrs. Kent coughed. Richard released his bride with great reluctance.
“Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?” the pastor intoned gravely. Behind him, a vista of thick green trees and gray cliffs obscured direct view of the river.
This could not be happening. Her? Marrying an English lord? When she hesitated, the pastor intoned again, “Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
“Yes,” Miriam said eagerly, her gloved hand clasped in Richard’s. In her free hand was a large bouquet of summer flowers. Roses interspersed with lilacs and a vine dripping artfully down her wrist.
“Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?” the pastor intoned gravely.
“Of course,” Richard drawled in his most English lord to
ne. Miriam frowned at him.
“I need a yes or no.” The pastor waited.
“Yes. That is what of course means,” Richard observed. The officiant stiffened. His eyes narrowed. He cast a dark glare at Miriam as if to quell her optimism for this union. In turn, she glanced sidelong at Richard. He squeezed her gloved hand reassuringly.
Although it was only mid-morning, Miriam wore a rose-colored gown with silver trim at the neckline and lace at the sleeves and hem. Her father had rolled his eyes upon finding her so dressed. “You’re only getting married, Miri.”
As marriage was one adventure she had never expected to embark upon, Miriam had decided a bit of sparkle was warranted. It offset the thin gold ring Richard had placed on her left hand.
“I pronounce you husband and wife,” barked the officiant. He snapped his book closed. Behind them, Livingston Walsh clapped loudly. Mrs. Kent’s brow knit over her thin nose, but tears shone in her eyes. Richard bowed and offered Miriam his arm.
It was done. She was a wife.
“Are you going to kiss me?” she asked, a little breathless.
Tonight, Miriam would have her next adventure. She shivered with awareness. Richard bent his head to hers and brushed a chaste kiss against her mouth. Well. That was disappointing. Understandable, considering their audience, however.
“Surely you’ll accept a glass of champagne on your wedding morning,” Livingston declared as they trooped into the bright dining room to find a large table spread with crystal and delicate pastries.
“Father. Stop. He doesn’t drink now,” Miriam shushed. A tense moment passed as Richard stared down both temptation and her father. He wavered. She could see it. Miriam shot a dark glare at Livingston.
“It’s fine,” Richard murmured. Richard stood before his chair and raised the cool glass by its thick stem as Livingston launched into a brief toast.
“I wish you and Miriam a long and happy life together. Welcome to the family.” Livingston touched his glass to Miriam’s, then Mrs. Kent’s, and finally to Richard’s. The ladies sipped the fizzy stuff. Richard pressed the vessel to his mouth. He swallowed a small sip and placed the glass back on the table. Miriam beamed at him.