A Lady of His Own (26 page)

“Thank you.” Charles fished in his pocket and drew out a sovereign; he offered it, but Mother Gibbs shook her head.

“Nay, not for this.” She fluffed her knitted shawl about her old shoulders and looked down at the fleet, bobbing at the quay. “Me and the boys don’t hold with this—Gimby might’ve been a blessed hermit, but he was one of ours. Whatever we can do to help you catch the beggar who killed him, we’ll do it and gladly. Dennis said as to tell ye he and the Gallants are at your disposal should you need extra hands.”

Charles nodded, returning the sovereign to his pocket. “Warn Dennis and the others to be extracareful all around. It’s possible the murderer’s already left the area, but something tells me he hasn’t.”

“Aye.” Mother Gibbs nodded. “I’ll do that.”

They parted from her at the lower end of the steep passageway leading to her door and strolled on along the quay.

Penny glanced at Charles’s face, often expressive, presently uninformative. “What are you thinking?”

He glanced at her, almost as if he’d forgotten she was on his arm. She narrowed her eyes on his. “Or should that be what are you planning?”

His swift grin broke across his face; he looked ahead. “Given that Nicholas is receiving dispatches, I was wondering if it was possible to arrange for him to receive the sort of information that would spur him to make contact with the French again. Assuming, of course, that simple treason is what we’re dealing with, a fact of which I’m still not convinced.”

“You think he might not have been passing secrets, but receiving them?”

“That’s one possibility we can’t as yet discount, certainly, but…” He shook his head. “It’s a feeling that the picture isn’t properly taking shape. Like a jigsaw with pieces that simply won’t fit. No matter what else we learn, at the back of my mind is the nagging fact that despite the assurances we received that there
was
a traitor working out of the Foreign Office, Dalziel never unearthed the slightest evidence that any information from the F.O. had actually turned up on the other side.

“Yes, the other side might have someone smart enough to hide all trace,
however
, Dalziel is terrifyingly good at finding such links, but in this case he turned up empty-handed, and it wasn’t for lack of trying.”

He stopped; arm in arm, they stood and looked out over the forest of masts lining the quay. “I don’t believe Nicholas is Gimby’s murderer. I was hoping, still am hoping that he’ll see the light and either confess, or at least take me sufficiently into his confidence so we can, regardless of all else, capture whoever killed Gimby. I
am
sure Gimby was the link with the French—the signals prove that. But while Nicholas is involved, just
how
he’s involved…” He sighed, frustrated.

She squeezed his arm. “I see what you mean about pieces that don’t fit.”

She sensed a sharpening of his attention, felt the subtle steeling of the muscles under her hand.

“Speaking of such pieces…”

She followed his gaze to a tall, thin figure standing on the wharf below in deep and animated discussion with two fishermen.

“The Chevalier.” She searched through the others thronging the wharf. “I can’t see Mark Trescowthick, or any others of that group.”

“No.” Charles was watching the exchange between the seamen and the Chevalier. “I have the feeling that while Mark might think he and the Chevalier are close friends, the Chevalier might describe matters differently.”

She considered. “The Chevalier’s rather older than Mark.”

“And far more serious than an overindulged pup like Mark Trescowthick. I’m sure the Chevalier is charming when he needs to be, but I doubt they have much in common.”

“If the Chevalier is just using Mark as his excuse to be down here, that rather raises the question of why.”

Charles studied the Chevalier for a minute more, then stirred. “With any luck Dalziel will help us with that—he has contacts enough to find out what the Chevalier’s real purpose here might be. Meanwhile, I should speak with Dennis, maybe tomorrow, and give him the names of our five visitors. Let’s see what he and the Gallants can learn.”

Together, they turned and started the climb back to the High Street.

“Perhaps we should ride to the Abbey and see if Dalziel has sent any word.”

Charles shook his head. “Not enough time has passed since I sent my report. The reply will come late tonight at the earliest, but most likely sometime tomorrow.” He looked at her. “Let’s have a quick lunch at the Pelican, and then, given Nicholas had a delivery this morning, I think a stint in the folly might be wise.”

They walked on in silence. As they neared the Pelican, she said, “On the way back, I’m going to stop off at Essington Manor. If I’m not seen about, visiting as usual, people will start wondering where I am—”

“And what you’re doing.” Charles sent her one of his devilish grins. “Good idea. I’ll endure the folly on my own. Who knows?” He arched a brow at her as he held the door of the Pelican wide. “I might even catch up on some sleep.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, elevated her nose, and swept past.

And hoped, in the dimmer light inside, that he wouldn’t see her blush.

That blush hadn’t owed its genesis to any prudish start but to her realization of how reluctant she was to forgo an afternoon in the folly with him.

But reason had to prevail.

When she rode into the Wallingham Hall stables at five o’clock—and not a minute earlier, as he’d instructed—he was waiting. Together they walked up to the house.

“Did anything occur this afternoon?”

“No. Nicholas is sitting tight.” Charles looked toward the wing that housed the library. “I’m inclining to the notion that he doesn’t know who to contact any more than he did when he first came here looking for Granville’s friends. If that’s so, it’ll be pointless to arrange to give him something worth another pillbox to sell.
However
, I think he’s very much afraid someone knows to contact
him
, and he doesn’t know what to do.”

“So he’s being extracareful.”

“Indeed. I’m going to try to rattle him this evening.”

Reaching the garden door they entered, and once again went their separate ways. She repaired to her room, bathed and changed for dinner; given Norris was in Charles’s confidence, she expected he was doing the same. Certainly, when she walked into the drawing room fifteen minutes before the dinner hour, he appeared immaculately groomed.

He was standing with Nicholas by the fireplace, dwarfing Nicholas more by vitality than size, and appeared to be in expansive good humor—a fact Nicholas, it seemed, had learned to view with suspicion, as well he might.

She did her best to provide the right foil for Charles’s machinations; it didn’t truly matter which of them Nicholas decided to trust. If he ever did; despite Charles’s best efforts—not overtly intimidating but in a vein any scion of Eton or Harrow would instantly recognize and correctly interpret, such as a largely one-sided discussion of the type of secrets that Gimby might have assisted in ferrying across the Channel—Nicholas remained tight-lipped.

Indeed, his resistance seemed to have hardened. The antipathy between the two that Charles had originally remarked seemed to be resurfacing.

When, hours later, she went into the front hall to farewell Charles, much to Nicholas’s transparent relief, she murmured, “He’s more…
dogged
, don’t you think?”

Charles nodded, the line of his lips tending grim. “We’re going backward with him. He’s come out of his funk and realized we have no evidence whatever. If he just sits tight, he’ll escape any net.”

“I wonder,” she said, walking toward the front door left open to the pleasant night, “if something in those papers he received might account for his change of heart. Perhaps we could look at them later?”

“He’s keeping them in his room, but there’s nothing there other than what he suggested—memos he needs to approve.”

When she turned to stare at him, he smiled. “Norris has missed his calling. He looked, and remembered enough for me to be sure.”

She sighed. “In that case…” Raising her head, she met his eyes and gave him her hand. “I’ll bid you…
au revoir
.”

His smile deepened. “Indeed.” Lifting her hand, he pressed a kiss to her fingertips, paused, his gaze on hers, then turned her hand and pressed a much more intimate kiss—one she felt to her marrow—to her palm, then gracefully bowed, released her, and went out and down the steps.

Leaning against the doorframe, a smile curving her lips, she listened to the scrunch of his boots as he headed around the house toward the stables. Outside, the night was peaceful, serene but dark; the moon had yet to rise. She drank in the silence, let the aura of home wrap her about. And thought of how long it would take Charles to circle the house and slip upstairs.

Her smile deepening, she straightened and turned inside. As she crossed the front hall, Nicholas came out of the drawing room. He halted; a faint frown shadowed his face.

Drawing near, she raised her brows in easy query.

“How does Lostwithiel come and go? I haven’t heard wheels on the gravel when he leaves.”

She smiled in understanding. “He’s most at home in a saddle. Knowing him, he rides over the fields—he never was one to stick to any straight and narrow.”

“Indeed?”

Faintly disconcerted, as she’d intended, Nicholas nodded a good night and headed for the library. According to Norris, he’d lost all interest in the local area and was now leafing through her father’s books on pillboxes.

Inwardly frowning, she climbed the stairs.

Ellie was waiting. Penny thought about dismissing her, but decided to stick with her usual routine.

Eventually, Ellie left. Rising from her dressing stool, Penny snuffed the candles, then went to the window and opened the curtains. The moon was just rising over the escarpment, sending fingers of silvery light into the room. She remained at the window, looking out as the light strengthened and the familiar landscape was reborn, transfigured by the play of moonlight and shadow.

A minute later, Charles materialized from the shadows behind her. She hadn’t heard him enter, but knew he was there before he stepped near.

Reaching past her, he unlatched the window and pushed it open. In the same movement, he stepped close, one large hand sliding across her waist to ease her back against him.

Smiling, she relaxed and crossed her arms over his hand, holding him to her; leaning back into the haven of his strength, she rubbed her temple against his jaw. “Nicholas asked how you traveled back and forth from the Abbey. He noticed the lack of carriage wheels on the drive.”

“What did you say?”

“I intimated that, unconventional as you were, you probably rode.”

There was a moment’s silence. “Unconventional?”

“Hmm.”

She could almost hear his mind working.

“You don’t like conventional.” Statement, not question.

“Conventional is well enough in its place, but there’s a time and place for everything, including the other.” She turned in his arms, looked into his face. “And the other is certainly more…challenging.”

His smile would have beguiled an angel. “And,” he said, bending his head, “you like to be challenged.”

“I do,” she whispered, and kissed him.

She’d learned long ago the art of dealing with him, treating with him. It was imperative to stop him from grabbing the bit of their interaction and running with it, leaving her forever trying to catch up. Instead, as before, she boldly seized the reins.

Opened her mouth to him, lured him in, sank into his arms, pressed herself to him, drew him deep, then turned the kiss on him. Let her fire rise and pour through her into him; let her desire—the desire he’d shown her she had—freely rise and take her, and claim him.

She dropped all pretense; she knew what she wanted of him—she let it show. Knew that would provoke him as nothing else could.

Winding her arms about his neck, she held him to the kiss. Pressing into him, she swayed, flagrantly caressing his already rigid erection, deliberately taunting its hardness with the giving tautness of her belly, sliding her thighs against his, sinuously shifting her peaked breasts against his chest.

He stilled, then surrendered, yet even as he gave way, as he let her will dominate and ceded control to her, she knew she hadn’t, this time, succeeded in stunning him long enough to seize it; he’d been waiting, ready for her, but had made a deliberate decision to let her lead. To
allow
her to script their play.

That willing subservience was such an un-Charles-like act, at least of the Charles she’d known; with an effort she broke from the kiss that had progressed to beyond voracious, that had already reduced them both to gasps, to, from a distance of an inch, try to read his eyes, his face.

Her wits were her own, but they weren’t functioning logically, all but overwhelmed by her senses. Her gaze steadied on his dark eyes, then lowered to his lips. Hers throbbed. “Why?”

She was sure he’d understand, was sure he did, yet he didn’t immediately answer.

He hesitated long enough to make her wonder what he was hiding.

She raised her eyes to his.

He held her gaze, thinking for a moment longer, then replied, his voice so low she wasn’t sure she heard so much as felt his words.

“Whatever you wish, however you wish. I’m yours. Take me.”

Love me
. Charles bit back the words—not yet, not now. He might be caught, but he wasn’t sure she was. Experience had taught him not to imagine he could read women’s minds; heaven knew they were infinitely more complicated than men’s.

Her eyes searched his, verifying his meaning, then a slow, sultry smile—one he’d only seen in recent days—curved her lips.

“However I wish…” she murmured, and stretched up and kissed him.

I
NWARDLY SMILING
, C
HARLES GRIPPED HER WAIST
;
FOR LONG
moments, as her tongue dueled with his, he simply savored the feel of her between his hands, supple, imbued with feminine strength, subtly rather than overtly curvaceous.

Why that last should so attract him he’d never understood; perhaps it was because her body with its svelte charms echoed her elusive and therefore more tantalizing feminine responses.

If she liked challenges, he liked them even more. Especially when they were feminine. Especially when the female was her.

Letting her have her way wasn’t easy; his instinct in this arena was always to control, for his partner’s pleasure as much as his own. But pleasure was not the only currency he—they—were dealing in; if he wanted that other coin in the mix, he had to give ground, yield as she wished, and accept the risk that whatever was revealed wasn’t too frightening. Either for her, or him.

She pressed close again, and he shuddered, then she drew back enough to start on his clothes. Coat, waistcoat, cravat all went while he schooled himself to do no more than return her kisses, to leave his hands riding at her waist. He wasn’t sure where her imagination might lead her; he was eager to learn.

Inevitably he responded, not just to her nearness or the touch of her hands, but even more to her intent. From the instant she’d turned into his arms, that had never been in doubt. She wanted to take him inside her, wanted him inside her; that knowledge alone was enough to make him ache.

He tried not to dwell on it, instead reminded himself that courtesy of her relative inexperience combined with her confidence, the moments before they reached any rapturous state were bound to be not just fraught, but full of potential potholes large enough for him to bury himself in. He was feeling his way with her just as much as he was with her relative, but succeeding with her was far more important.

She’d opened his shirt; now she broke from the kiss, spread the halves wide, and visually devoured. “Stand still.” She leaned close and set her mouth to his skin.

He closed his eyes, felt his fingers tighten about her, helpless to desist, and reminded himself how vitally important winning her had become. Her mouth felt like flames licking over his already heated skin. Her greedy fingers danced, tangling in the dark hair dusting the muscle bands, finding the flat disc of one nipple and teasing, lightly tweaking.

Her lips and tongue distracted him while her fingers slid down to his waistband. And stilled.

She trailed kisses up the midline of his chest, through the hollow at the base of his throat, then up to his chin. He opened his eyes as she drew back, studying his face. He raised a brow.

“I’m thinking.”

That struck him as even more dangerous than usual. “Would you like me to make a suggestion?”

She shook her head, her gaze perfectly steady. “I’m trying to decide which, not what.”

It was going to be torture whichever option she chose.

One brow arched; she looked at him consideringly. “I think…” She stepped back, out of his hold. “Stay there—don’t move.”

He watched as she took another step away, then, hands bunching the fabric at her sides, she drew up her nightgown.

He’d been right, much good did it do him; the battle to remain where he was, to not reach for her as she—smoothly, gracefully, and entirely unhurriedly—drew her nightgown up and off over her head, then tossed it to fall across her dressing stool was fraught, as difficult as any he’d faced. Totally naked, she considered his chest, then her gaze drifted down.

“Your boots—take them off.”

Leaning back against the edge of her bed, he complied, flicking open his breeches’ buckles and stripping off his hose as well, setting all to one side.

As he straightened, he fixed his gaze on her feet, then slowly traced upward, over the curves of her calves, the long, sculpted lines of her thighs, lighting on the thatch of pale blond curls at their apex before idly drifting up over her belly, her waist, her breasts, ultimately to meet her eyes.

Her skin was already faintly tinged; in the moonlight he couldn’t tell if his perusal had made it rosier still.

She held his gaze for a moment, then smiled, a cat sighting cream.

“Good,” she said, and closed the distance between them.

He’d forgotten his legs were against her bed; she stepped into him, not trapping him but limiting his ability to move—to create any distance between them—without moving her. Her breasts brushed his chest, wickedly evocative, then she lifted her head and set her lips to his—and set her hands and her body willfully to his. To work on his.

That was the option she’d chosen.

She plunged into his mouth, deliberately seized his senses with a scalding kiss, then broke away to take mouth, lips, and tongue on a ride of pleasuring delight over his burning skin, over his tensed muscles, flickering beneath the restraint he’d placed on them.

He hauled in a breath, held it as her fingers dallied once more at his waistband. As her mouth cruised across his chest, then commenced a leisurely descent. Slowly raising his hands, he spread them over her back, holding her lightly, tracing upward to rest on her shoulders as she wended her way down.

Until she flicked the buttons at his waistband free, in one easy stroke slid his breeches down, in the same movement sank to her knees, fitted her mouth over him, and smoothly took him in.

He nearly expired. For one finite instant, his heart stood still, then bolted. Raced as she experimented, hurdled when she bent to her self-appointed task of pleasuring him witless.

His hands had risen, without direction had fisted in her hair. His fingers tightened as she drew him deeper still; he realized he could no longer breathe. Eyes closed, he clung to the only thing she’d left him—sensation—and felt every last scintilla of her devotion as she licked, stroked, sucked, his existence reduced to the hot wetness of her mouth, to the scope of her will as she caressed him.

He’d had no idea she would even think of it, of pandering to his senses, his passions in such an overtly immodest way. In such a blatantly wanton way. Battling to mute the groan she drew from him, he wondered if she’d guessed what her being wanton, so utterly abandoned, did to him.

It was more than torture to stand still and force himself simply to accept all she pressed on him, to look down at her pale head moving against him, her flaxen locks spreading and tangling, catching as she worked, and not respond, not grasp, seize, and demand more.

Simply to receive.

To not have to issue any demands at all, but to have many of the wanton thoughts he’d indulged over the years brought to life. To have caresses he’d dreamed of lavished upon him.

Because she wished to.

The thought very nearly brought him—and her—undone. He endured for ten heartbeats, then, gasping, sensually reeling for the first time in more years than he could count, he guided his hands to her face, slid his thumb into her mouth, and withdrew his erection from that gloriously wet haven. “No more.”

The words were so gravelly Penny could barely make them out, but through her hands on his thighs she sensed the tension in him—more than she recalled evoking in him before—and knew enough to heed it. But she’d learned enough for now; the maids she’d overheard whispering hadn’t been wrong.

Rocking back on her heels, she rose, trailing her hand up as she did, closing it around his jutting length. With her other hand, she prodded his chest. “Sit on the bed.”

His eyes met hers; she glimpsed the predator in him, but he complied. Obligingly, he sat back. She followed, clambering up, setting one knee on either side of his hips, straddling him. Then she locked her eyes with his. One hand on his shoulder for balance, the other wrapped about his erection, she slowly, deliberately, entirely at her own discretion, impaled herself on him.

And he let her.

She felt the effort it cost him, saw how clenched his jaw was, saw his lids drift down in surrender as she sank fully down, her softness sheathing his hardness, her body sliding down his to finally come to rest breasts to chest. Draping her arms over his shoulders, she set her lips to his, slid into his mouth, danced her tongue over his, then started to move upon him.

A dance of a different sort.

It wasn’t the same as when he’d lain flat; although she experimented, she couldn’t find quite the right angle…

Desire had already burgeoned within her; she needed more, soon.

Drawing back from the kiss, dragging in a gasping breath, she clung and pressed closer; her head beside his brought their bodies even tighter against each other, but no…

“This”—she had to haul in another breath—“isn’t quite right.” She whispered the words beside his ear. Dragged in another breath. “Is it?”

She felt rather than heard a chuckle that came out more like a groan.

“You saw this in some book, didn’t you?”

She bit his earlobe—hard. “How else?”

“You’re too tall—there’s a better way for us.”

She licked the spot she’d bitten. Purred, “How?”

His hands, until then loose across her back, slid down to grip her bottom. He held her to him as he shifted, swinging his legs up, holding her against him as he came to his knees, then sank back to sit on his ankles.

Resettling her over him, straddling his hips, he resettled himself within her. Brushed back the veil of her hair and met her eyes. “How’s that?”

Her hands on his shoulders, she rose up, then slowly sank down. Her knees and thighs now at a different angle, she had much better purchase on the bed. Their bodies entire seemed much better aligned, at least for their present purpose. Sliding her hands up, she framed his face, smiled her answer—and kissed him.

Let go all restraint and gave herself over to the now driving need to love him, to meet him on the physical plane, match him and experience all that together they might know. That together they could share.

And he went with her, but still at her command, following not leading, letting her set the pace and the direction, letting her ride them both hard, furious, and unswerving toward the sun.

She reached it, and burned.

Charles let the conflagration take her, let it consume her. Watched it claim her. He found a strength he didn’t know he possessed and held back from the beckoning blaze.

And waited. Until release had swept through her and away.

My turn.
He didn’t say the words; she wouldn’t have heard them if he had. Holding her to him, he fought to free enough of his mind from the heat of her slick sheath to direct his hands and rearrange her limbs.

Her limp arms he draped over his shoulders, her legs he straightened one at a time and wrapped them about his waist, then he took her bottom in both hands, supporting her weight, tipping her hips to him.

And smoothly drove into her. Embedded himself to the hilt, then gripped her bottom and moved her on him. Worked her hips over his. In this position, he only had to thrust a little to fill her, to penetrate her forcefully as deeply as he could. She was fully open to him, totally his, totally helpless to resist. Totally and completely in his power.

Penny awoke to that jolting reality on a rush of intense sensation. Surely he was deeper, farther inside her than he’d ever been?

She gasped, eyes closed, clung tight as she assimilated their new position—assimilated the devastating impact it was having on her already heightened senses. And at some deeper level, on her very being.

The rhythm he set was neither fast nor slow, but perfectly gauged and relentless. Her senses spun. She tried to squirm, to press ahead still faster, to gain even more delicious pressure for her suddenly clamorous nerves, but instead his fingers tightened; he held her immobile, suspended half-off him for a heartbeat, until she sobbed and clutched in desperation, then he filled her, deep and hard and shockingly thoroughly, again.

Oh, yes
, her senses sobbed.

Her breasts, riding against his hair-dusted chest, had swollen until they ached, the nipples so tightly ruched and sensitive she longed to feel his mouth soothing them. In desperation, she clutched his shoulders, extended her arms, and leaned back so her breasts were no longer so excruciatingly abraded.

He bent his head and set his lips to one breast, found her nipple, took it into his hot mouth, and suckled.

Lightning streaked through her; she screamed, gasped, and arched in his arms. He held her easily, continued to work her hips, continued to thrust into her body, continued to feast on her breasts…until she shattered.

More completely than she ever had.

For long moments, she was floating, out of touch with any world but the sensate, aware only of him, his touch, his…worship.

There seemed no other word for it. Even now, he didn’t seek his own release, but sought to lengthen and heighten hers. She didn’t know the ways, but felt the results, felt the golden pleasure well and swell and buoy her on.

It seemed eons, but could only have been minutes before she drifted back to earth, and found herself wrapped in his arms, secure and safe against his chest, her head on his shoulder. He was still hard and rigid within her.

She shifted her head, found his ear, caressed it with her lips. Murmured, “Lay me down. Take me now.”

He drew back to look into her eyes. For a moment, their gazes locked, and she wondered what he saw, what he looked for when he searched her eyes…what he wanted from her.

She could sense his heartbeat, feel his tension, yet it wasn’t desire that stared at her from his eyes.

But then he shifted, lifted her from him, laid her on the pillows. His touch was assured as he settled her, flicked her hair out, laid it about her, then drew the covers from beneath her and let them fall where they would. She was suddenly aware of the flaring emptiness within her, the emptiness he’d filled, that when he was within her she was whole, in some way complete. His eyes, his hands, never left her; as he spread her thighs and loomed over her, that emptiness swelled to an ache.